Cows fighting back against Contador claims !

"This cow invasion is unacceptable," the irate mayor of L'Albere told
French radio, before listing a roll-call of cow crimes: "A little girl
has been attacked, a woman has been trampled, a man has injured his
hand, one cow has dented a car and another has fallen into a swimming
pool."


http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blog/b.../article/1276/



Perhaps the saddest thing about this whole tainted meat affair is the
negative publicity Spain's cattle have attracted.

In blaming his positive test for clenbuterol on a piece of meat bought
from a Spanish butcher in Irun, three (or is that two?)-time Tour de
France champ Alberto Contador never thought about the adverse effect
his explanation would have on the fragile mental state of his nation's
cows.

Knowing that your alpha males are regularly tortured and killed for
pleasure in front of baying Spanish crowds is one thing, but having
the quality of your flesh questioned by the world because a celebrated
cyclist appears to have been caught out is rather rum.

Now the Spanish cows are fighting back. Seeing that they have a brain
the size of a walnut you can forgive the Pyrenean cattle for seeing
France and the French people as the baddies in all this. After all,
it's the Tour de France which seems responsible for creating an
environment where humble livestock can be used as an excuse for a
positive doping test.

Last week, news broke of an aggressive troupe of two-dozen Spanish
cows venturing across the French border to wreak havoc on the small
town of L'Albere (population 72) in Languedoc-Roussillon.

"This cow invasion is unacceptable," the irate mayor of L'Albere told
French radio, before listing a roll-call of cow crimes: "A little girl
has been attacked, a woman has been trampled, a man has injured his
hand, one cow has dented a car and another has fallen into a swimming
pool."

The source and the motivations of these boisterous bovines are very
clear to the mayor: "There's no doubt that they come from over the
Spanish border. The grass is fresher and tastes much better over
here," he said, using the popular adage.

But to us cycling fans it is obvious that this French mayor does not
follow the sport - otherwise he'd clearly understand that this attack
was more than a case of the grass being greener on the other side.

NEWS ROUND-UP: Back in the real world of cycling, things are getting
tougher and tougher for Alberto Contador whose contaminated meat
excuse was this week rejected by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Although a leading British sports lawyer has claimed the Spaniard
would have been "crazy" to risk taking clenbuterol; it appears that
unless Bertie can prove that the steak he ate did in fact contain
traces of the anabolic steroid he's up against it - and that's not
even touching on the claims that his blood contained plasticisers as
well.

Oh well, talking of steak, Sky team manager Dave Brailsford has been
getting a bit of a grilling by the media - and quite rightly,
according to Blazin' Saddles.

What makes this whole situation rather funny is that the source of his
egg-on-the-face antics is HTC-Columbia's Michael Rogers - which is a
bit like an armed bank robber being sent down for stealing a pack of
crisps from a corner store.

To cut a long story short, Brailsford told a UK cycling magazine that
Sky had confirmed, on the record, the signing of Rogers as well as
that famous "Spanish" rider Rigoberto Uran - but once it emerged that
Rogers was contracted to his current team until the end of the season,
Brailsford, instead of putting his hands up and admitting he'd made a
mistake in breaking the news early, denied he had ever said such a
thing.

The cycling magazine in question had already published Brailsford's
quote in an intriguing online article dissecting Sky's debut season in
which the sub-heading used another smashing quote from Brailsford
which read: "We got all the peas just right, but neglected the steak."

Given the tainted reputation steak has in the peloton at the moment,
it wasn't the best choice of words from the Englishman - unless he
genuinely meant that the reason why Bradley Wiggins fared so badly
during the Tour was because he wasn't doped up to his eyeballs. Which
is food for thought.

Anyway, Sky's PR people were clearly working overtime because both the
peas and steak mysteriously disappeared from the Velonews article an
hour or so later - much to the bemusement of Saddles and his chums on
Twitter.

What else happened this week? Well, watching those magnificent images
of Chilean miners all escaping from a black hole one by one and with
huge grins on their faces made BS think of Bjarne Riis's Saxo Bank
squad, who appear to be doing just that.

Yep, it was another bad week for Bjarne, who must feel a bit like the
last guy chosen for the school yard football team after his entire
squad, it seems, has chosen to up-ship and join the Schleck brothers
in their new Luxembourgeois outfit.

A resolute Riis, however, says he does have a Plan B should new
signing Contador find himself banned (or go through with his oh-so-
feeble threat to retire) although he's "not going to say here and now
what it is".

In Saddles' humble opinion, Riis has a three options: i) panic, ii)
throw all his eggs into Richie Porte's basket and hope for a nice
Tasmanian omelette to manifest itself in 2011, or iii) implore Jan
Ullrich to come out of retirement.

Saddles would have added iv) give Michael Rasmussen a call - but it
appears that the spindly Dane has got himself into some other
imbroglio according to the Danish press. Quite frankly, if you have to
dope to compete in a TV celebrity dancing competition, you're probably
not quite ready to take on the 3,000 miles of the Tour quite yet.

One rider who is ready to get back on the bike is oily Danilo Di Luca,
who quite ridiculously has seen his doping ban reduced by nine months
and seven days (isn't that a week?), allowing the Italian to return to
racing immediately. BS has no idea where he'll ply his trade, but he's
sure Vacansoleil are interested.

Still on the doping front, the riders competing in this weekend's Tour
of Lombardy have decided to delay the start of the race by 10 whole
minutes in protest to the claims made by Ettore Torri, CONI's anti-
doping head, that they are all at it.

Apparently the protest was the idea of Liquigas's Roman Kreuziger,
displaying a level of influence inversely proportional to his grip on
the peloton once actually in the saddle. Still, it won't be the first
time Kreuziger has lost ten minutes this season.

Enough of the negative stuff - and hearty congratulations must go to
Scotland's David Millar who, this week, followed up a bronze medal in
the Commonwealth Games road race with an emphatic gold in the time
trial. All that was achieved after a gruelling season in which Millar
has performed in all three Grand Tours, while also picking up a silver
ITT medal at the Worlds in Melbourne.

Millar's achievement was all the more impressive considering his
friend Mark Cavendish had scrawled a message in a black marker men
across the Scot's saddle which read: "Mark Cavendish is the greatest.
Even better than Tyler. Thank you."

Talking of Cav, according to gossip on Twitter, the Manxman was "on
the pull" at the Commonwealth Games closing party in Delhi.

Such a notion got Saddles thinking of Cav's chatting-up techniques.
Given that it won't help bragging about being the "fastest" man
around, does he rely on Mark Renshaw to give his victims a head-butt
so that he can carry away the spoils himself?

On Oct 16, 5:55*am, Anton Berlin wrote:
"This cow invasion is unacceptable," the irate mayor of L'Albere told
French radio, before listing a roll-call of cow crimes: "A little girl
has been attacked, a woman has been trampled, a man has injured his
hand, one cow has dented a car and another has fallen into a swimming
pool."

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blog/b.../article/1276/

{snip}

You open by quoting the article, include the link to the article, then
quote the entire article...

How many times were you busted for plagiarism in school? Your
technique sucks.

R

It's called a teaser and it worked on your stupid ass.

Most morons know that links die but RBR stupidity lives forever.

On Oct 16, 2:05*pm, Anton Berlin wrote:
It's called a teaser and it worked on your stupid ass.

Most morons know that links die but RBR stupidity lives forever.

Yep, you got me. You must be doubled over with peals of laughter.
or
You have excess time on your hands and this new cut and paste thing is
just fascinating for you.

But, your impaired sense of humor and easily amused mind aside, you
are absolutely right - that was a totally priceless article and it
should be preserved for the ages. On behalf of all mankind, I thank
you.

R

Ricod,

Just kissing my feet will do next time. All of this public gushing
is embarrassing to me.

Now, kindly remove your tongue from my asshole and go on about your
business.