contador tested positive?!?

time: yesterday aft
place: JM lot
dramatis personae: LAF y moi

LAF: did you hear the latest on the tour??
oh fuck me. another painful exegesis. three times at work today i got thrown on the ropes and had to come to the rescue of my sport. poor cycling, withering like tinkerbell. :sigh:

F: yes...

LAF: so, you heard what happened today?

F: well, i heard what happened late last night, about rasmussen getting booted from Rabobank.

LAF: you didn't hear about Discovery?

F: nooo. what about Discovery?

LAF: contador tested positive.

F: shut up.

LAF: no, i'm serious. he tested positive for testosterone after Stage 15 and got kicked out of the Tour.

F: not contador.

LAF: so evans is in yellow now, and if levi can make up time in the TT it'll be the 9th straight american Tour victory.

F: you're serious about contador.

LAF: dead serious.

F: motherfucker. i really liked that little dude. he was scrappy. but vino was scrappy too. fucking contador.

LAF: haha. just kidding. contador's still in yellow.

i'm not sure whether the question is "why are my friends such pricks" or "why am i so gullible" but the take-away lesson is that busloads of our heroes could ejected from the Tour because of drug use, and i wouldn't be surprised. disappointed, betrayed, but not surprised.

earlier this week rudy told me of EPO allegations swirling around one of my triathlon competitors. i'd never heard such a rumor, and i find it ridiculous. EPO isn't cheap, and it's not readily available AFAICS. and why would normal people with jobs and families and lives outside their sport take such a risk?

i can understand how a Tour contender riding for a team paying him $600,000 USD a year might submit to pressure that i'm sure is ubiquitous in that rarefied environment. it's stupid, sure, but within the realm of reason. but taking EPO to win a no-name race in new jersey? get real.