Cavendish is King

As far as the sprints go, there's really nothing more to say. Nobody was even close today. He won by a couple of bike lengths over McEwen.

Here's the finish in Flemish (Cavendish the Speedball?):



Another big win for English on the Ball. They rack up 325 points on the day to continue their torrid ascent toward the top of the GC. Sitting in 11th just two days ago, they're up to 4th place after today's stage, and only 5 points out of 3rd. Team Runner Up finished 2nd today, with 275 points. They move into first place with a lead of almost 200 points over Zed's Dead, Baby. Team Toulouse finished 3rd on the day while Los Lobos Soundcheck Disaster remains in 3rd overall.

In the race for last place, Viva Italia takes over the lanterne rouge. Poison Ivy Weedwackers are right there as well, sitting only 5 points away from the dubious distinction.

Stage 13 Results:

English on the Ball (Matt) 335
Team Runner Up (Mike) 275
Team Toulouse (Vic) 185
Annie Proffitt's Kids (Rachel) 125
Los Lobos Soundcheck Disaster (Bill) 125
Arms Akimbo (Brad) 125
Powered by Veggies (Jonny B) 115
You Like Samurai Swords, I Like Baseball (Arlene) 115
Zed's Dead, Baby (Chris) 75
Nothing Stops a Party Barge (Donna) 75
Bacon Wrapped Hot Dogs (Jonny M) 65
You Suckers Don't Have a Chance Against the King (Andy) 65
Turn up the good, turn down the suck! (Paddy & Naomi) 55
The A Team (Adam) 50
Farm Team (Tinker James) 25
Dolphin Ankle Tatoos (Ian) 25
Viva Italia (David S) 15
Mylie Sigurdur's Wheels of Fury (Dallas) 10
Frequent Flyers (Tom K) 0
Sturmy-Archer All-Stars (Kevin) 0
Fuck It, Let's Go Bowling (Colin) 0
Don't Stop to Smell the Flowers (LeAnn) 0
Poison Ivy Weedwackers (Hal) 0


Overall Standings:

Team Runner Up (Mike) 1845
Zed's Dead, Baby (Chris) 1665
Los Lobos Soundcheck Disaster (Bill) 1540
English on the Ball (Matt) 1535
Team Toulouse (Vic) 1510
Powered by Veggies (Jonny B) 1435
Mylie Sigurdur's Wheels of Fury (Dallas) 1355
Bacon Wrapped Hot Dogs (Johnny M) 1240
Nothing Stops a Party Barge (Donna) 1215
You Like Samurai Swords, I Like Baseball (Arlene) 1210
Frequent Flyers (Tom K) 1200
Farm Team (Tinker James) 1125
You Suckers Don't Have a Chance Against the King (Andy) 990
Fuck It, Let's Go Bowling (Colin) 860
The A Team (Adam) 845
Annie Proffitt's Kids (Rachel) 820
Sturmy-Archer All-Stars (Kevin) 815
Dolphin Ankle Tatoos (Ian) 740
Arms Akimbo (Brad) 695
Don't Stop to Smell the Flowers (LeAnn) 410
Turn up the good, turn down the suck! (Paddy & Naomi) 410
Poison Ivy Weedwackers (Hal) 380
Viva Italia (David S) 375

Meanwhile, more information is emerging on the Ricco case (courtesy of PdC):

How did the testers catch up with Riccardo Ricco? According to an article in eurosport.fr, suspicions of Ricco's activities date from the Giro. In the course of testing samples taken from Ricco during the race, testers at CONI found a substance they could not identify. They knew that the substance did not belong and recognized its synthetic nature, but did not know exactly what it was.

CONI contacted experts at the LLND in France, and there began an cooperative effort to identify the mystery substance. The knowledge of doping experts around the world contributed to the monthlong seminar, and soon their efforts led to the ability to detect the new variant of EPO, Ricco and perhaps Peipoli, chose to use. In a comment in the Danish press, Damsgard, who heads the anti-doping program at CSC, applauded the effort and predicted more positives before the Tour ended. He also predicted that many of these cases would likely end up decided by TAS, but believed that route represented the only way forward, given the speed with which doping practices, and the tests to prevent them, evolve.

Old man Leonardo Piepoli is gone too. Fired by his team, at least, with an announcement from the race officials likely to follow shortly.

Clearly, they thought they'd found something that was not yet detectable. Just like the first time riders started with EPO. Turns out the time lag between the appearance of new drugs and the tests to detect them is closing much faster than it used to. Which probably means we can expect a whole wack of additional positives to be announced in the coming weeks. Either that or a number of abandonments as riders feel the noose getting tighter. Remember, these tests were taken on stage 4. It takes a while to finish the lab work, so we'll have to wait and see what they found in the Pyrenees stages. I wonder how those tests for genetic manipulation are coming along.

OTT: The Faint, Dropkick the Punks