News is slow in coming these days, but I noticed a few items of note.
- BiciRace is first out of the gate with its Dauphine Libere preview. Nicely done, at that. Speaking of the Criterium du Dauphine Libere (as it's known, since DL is a newspaper), their official website is both in French and looking awfully short on info. But, hey, knock yourself out.
- Great quote in the BiciRace notes today: "Every time that he loses Simoni will invent something." The speaker? Renato DiRocco, the president of the FCI, the organization which will be investigating Simoni's claim. Translation? Hey Gibo, go to Naples!
- From the CN wire, it appears Communidad Valenciana has lopped off the boil to save its place at the Tour. Jose Labarta, the ADS who got bagged in last week's sting, resigned today, presumably on the heels of a story that the Tour was going to kick out the former Kelme squad for suspicion of drug problems. Labarta maintains his innocence; the team's support is unclear. How the Tour reacts remains to be seen.
- Speaking of drugs... "bring the Buffalo pasta!" There's a story at Eurosport concerning the Buffalo, a/k/a Jose Gutierrez, fresh off a very surprising 2nd place overall at the Giro. Disgraced doc Eufemiano Fuentes is on tape uttering this phrase, and the tabloids (and probably the investigators) are now wondering what "pasta" refers to. Ugh...
- Pez reports that iShares is officially on board to take over sponsorship at Phonak next year.
- From T-Mobile's Daily Kaiser Update, we learn that Ullrich is racing the Tour de Suisse, at least as of this writing.