Seems the Tour didn’t quite settle all those little rivalries in the Astana camp. ‘Berto Contador spouted off about Radio Shackstrong today, and while he described him (in my own poor translation) as “a great champion (who) has made a great Tour,” he also said their relationship was “zero,” adding, “On a personal level, I have never had a great admiration, nor will I, but as a racer he is a champion.”
Which sounds about right to me. Great Tour racer? Hard to argue with that, based on the stats. Cuddly as a bunny? Nuh-uh. Dude takes a giant shit on Super Spaniard’s ITT victory on stage 18 by announcing his new team for 2010; skips ‘Berto’s Saturday-night victory party to yuk it up with his new posse; and finally, during the big shindig on the Champs-Élysées, treats the newly crowned champ like a smelly in-law who owes him money.
Now Texus Maximus is barking back via Twitter. I’ll spare you the link, but will say that this back and forth makes me glad that Herself and I never had kids. With the right doctor, they could’ve become Tour champs, and then we’d have to take this bullshit personally.
I guess we can look forward to more of this sort of bad noise as we start the countdown to the 2010 Tour de France. But it kind of reminds me of the 1980 Ali-Holmes fight. Nobody really wins and everyone looks bad.
Mad Blog Media 
Well, if you can’t beat him in the mountains then mess with his head — let the games begin.
AC ought to keep all the prize money for himself rather than share it out to the team as is the usual custom. Who on Astana actually helped him when there was any possible conflict with BigTex’s yellow jersey ambitions? No word on whether AC’s bag o’ blood was poured down the crapper as BigTex/The Belgian supposedly did to Landis and as far as we know they didn’t saw his bike in half…but did they actually HELP him in any way? I’m NOT an AC fan but BigTex is showing himself to be an obnoxious, spoiled brat. How does THAT benefit the cancer community?
Larry,
The LoveFest for the rider who shant be named or capitalized is so bad here in Texas that I’ve quit sharing with anyone that I care about bike racing. However, I am glad for the bike shop community. I hope business gets a bump up.
Larry,
Ol’ what’s his name, obnoxious? Spoiled? Brat? Nah, can’t be. Not America’s greatest racer!?! Never? What’s next, Larry Bird Caucasian?
Good ol’ racer who shan’t be named has the largest above the shoulders head the bike racing world has ever seen! The only reason he returned is because he is good at only two things in this world: bike racing and telling everyone that he is the best. And without one you can’t have the other. So now we get this WWF/WWE fiasco.
Man, I really wish that ol’ what’s-his-name would take up hockey. That would be great to see. I’m sure that Vs. (the all ‘racer who shall not be named’ channel) would have a field day with that one. Milan Lucic where are you??
Yeah, I saw that too. If someone could have handed up some knives during the post-tour celebration, the podium would have been running with blood. I’m used to dealing with ego-enhanced scientists shitting on each other, so while this was no surprise, it is as shitty in the cycling world as it is in the sciences. Yech…