Roger Clemens, Voldemort, & Punctuation - Stage 5 Tour de France

Clearly Jonathan Vaughters watched Roger Clemens testify to congress during their investigation of the use of performance enhancing drugs (PED). Vaughters swift statement in response to the 'leaked' names of the riders that have allegedly testified in the USADA investigation of Lance Armstrong, sounded a lot like Clemens' "I'm not here to talk about the past." The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that several of Armstrong's former teammates have received a 'minor' suspension of 6 months in exchange for their confession for using PED and testimony to the USADA in their hunt for Armstrong. Vaughters said that at "this moment" his team and organization was focused on winning the Tour. Adding that the reports, that extremely light 6 month suspensions had been given to current Garmin riders, including Christian Vandevelde, David Zabriske, and himself, were false.

In a case of are you lying now, or were you lying then? USA cycling   recently announced that the same riders named in the Dutch story would not be participating in the London games in a few weeks. That announcement seemed curious then, but now fits in well with the timeline given in the story. In exchange for their admission and testimony, the riders would be allowed to continue to compete in the Tour and the big races in the spring and would serve the inconsequential suspensions, in what is essentially the off-season. Something's not right and it's not just the bows in the Carrefour podium girls hair. Those aren't right either. Atroce'.

Armstrong, who of course is not wasting anymore time defending himself, spent the entire day tweeting and defending himself both through Twitter and the punctuation of his substantial legal team. The Washington Post published the 18 page Armstrong camp's response to the USADA. The letter was not only astounding in its demands to drop the case, but its significant use of the semi-colon. These guys know how to construct a sentence. Not to be outdone by the experts, Lance (or Voldemort as he is often referred to online in effforts to avoid the threat of legal action) ruled that the USADA's actions were #unconstitutional. Prompting Romney to add that it was a penalty not a tax. And that this whole thing is Obama's fault

Oh yeah there was a race today. Andre Greipel won the bunch sprint in what he characterized as the hardest sprint he'd ever done to win his second of this year's Tour. We'll see if he can go for three tomorrow as the sprinters last big chance for glory before the battle for GC starts the following day. The gallop into Vosges will certainly be a sprint finish. Maybe Cav will heal enough by then to give it a go and maybe American Tyler Farrar can manage to stay upright for one day in a row.

Adieu