In a good-but-at-the-same-time-maddening way, Saxo Bank have publicly stated that they are continuing to support Bjarne's team, and Conti, even though his UCI ban means that, by their own rules, he has been sacked from the team.
Bjarne confirmed in an interview yesterday that although Conti's contract had been ended, he was eligible to return to the team as soon as the suspension finished, which is Aug 5th.
And SaxoBank - the bank, not the team - confirmed that they will continue to support Conti and Bjarne.
Excuse me while I beat my head against the wall - where were you, two years ago, you swines! Remember the second half of 2010? SaxoBank said "Naaah, lost interest, not gonna sponsor you no more" while curling their lips in disdain, which lead directly to the whole half-the-team-have-left problem. Grrr. If they had been a bit more steadfast in those days, we might not have had the whole Leopard fiasco.
It's also interesting to note that SaxoBank will lose all Conti's UCI points, of course, but there is another implication - he won't be able to win any points for a further two years after the ban ends.
Which leads to the obvious question: how can a one-pony team like Saxo (no offence to Chris Anker-Sorensen and the other boys, but come on, be honest) survive as a pro-team with their main points winner unable to claim points for two whole seasons? Unless Bjarne can quickly buy in someone very point-worthy, that team is going to be in whole lot of trouble for the next couple of years.
The team were 9th in the UCI rankings last year - yes, only 9th, even with all those wins, Leopard were 3rd, please note - with 696 points, 471 of which were Conti's, leaving them with just 225 points. That puts them bottom of the league, way below Vacansoleil who sat at the bottom with 369 points. On paper, this should mean that this will lead to Saxo being demoted from the ProTeam league, but I can't quite see how this can be done, administratively, unless they run the ProTeam league with only 17 teams this year? I mean, you can't take a Pro-Continental team and shove them without warning up into the ProTeam league, surely? Yes, of course a team would be delighted to be suddenly promoted, but on the other hand, there must be huge costs associated with the ProTeam which sponsors might struggle to adjust to, at such short notice.
Anyone remember which ProTeam only just didn't make it? I'm thinking Europcar, but I'm not sure.
According to the UCI site ("My soul! My soul!") they have asked their "Licence Commission" to make a ruling on the subject. Don't you just hate the UCI? Instead of just saying "We will make a decision" they pass the buck onto a mythical Licence Commission, which is presumably some kind of sub-committee, so that in a couple of days (during which we assume this committee will graze the internet, check all the forums, read my blog [ha ha] judge what the common reaction is, establish what the overall consensus of public opinion is, then ignore it) they can say that "the Licence Commission" have decided blah blah blah, with the subtext of "don't blame us for this decision, not our choice, we just did what we were told to do." Pffff. *disgusted face*.
This further supports my idea - see next post, which I have already written but has been queue-jumped by this one - that the UCI should look again at the way they allocate the points: cycling is a team effort, and all members of the squad should benefit from the leader's win. If the points were shared amongst the squad, then Saxo would still have at least some of their points, and for the next 2 years they would at least be able to gain some points.
Which leads to another idea, that of Conti being a SuperSonicDomestique for the next two years. Can you imagine him having to drag the rest of the team along, then push them across the start-line ahead of himself, in order to get points assigned to the team, and not just to himself.
This could be the start of a whole new style of racing....
Mind you, poor old Conti might find himself having to wash out the drinks bottles and clean the bikes after the race to get a bit of pocket money, as he's likely to have a huge fine to pay, as well as having to give back all the prize money. Apparently the UCI rules say that they get 70% of the rider's back income as a penalty for doping, although according to a report on Velonation yesterday, they might waive some of that fine, as he didn't deliberately dope. But I'm pretty sure he will have to hand back the prize money, as that will have to be given to the newly-promoted better-placed-than-they-thought people.
What a nightmare.
And to finish, a couple of frivolous items, as I do enjoy a quick frivvle after all this serious stuff: search terms. Ah yes, I love my search terms. These blogs show us how people came here: in effect, what they typed into Google to get a list of sites, one of which lead here.
Now, yesterday my page viewing figures nearly doubled, for no particular reason: nothing to do with the number of comments, by the way, as it only counts each user once, no matter how many pages you look at. And what was the most popular search terms, used by over 30% of visitors? "Andy Schleck Girlfriend". Well, there's a surprise.
But nearly 10% of people got here from "La Senza Maid" which seems ridiculously precise for multiple people to have found the site, doesn't it? (I think it was my comments about some podium girls last season, the ones wearing black frocks with white aprons.)
And of course nearly 30% arrived from combinations of Andy/Jil/Jill/Delvaux. And there was me, just yesterday, beaming proudly at having the most intelligent fangirls on the internet! I do wonder, sometimes. Of course, these are mostly the one-time visitors: they pop in, read a bit (or just look at the pictures, possibly) then disappear. Not like you lovely loyal regular, or irregular, Schleckland Deckmates, who sail the Schleckland Ship with me... ah, yes, perhaps I should mention that there was a bit of frivolity on Twitter yesterday, I was promoted to Captain Coug of the Schleckland Ship, and I regret to confirm that there was indeed a bit of yo-ho-hoing and a few passing references to scurvy dogs and splicing mainbraces.
Now, one word of warning for all of you - my computer has picked up a bug of some kind, and I have had the Blue Screen Of Death twice in the last two days. There is every chance that I might be forced off-line for a while, if it needs to be sorted out. So don't worry if I suddenly "disappear", it's nothing serious, and I will be back! Honest!
And as a final aside, when I write a post, the final job is to run the spell-checker, in case I missed any speeling eroorrrrs... always good for a giggle, as it doesn't recognise any of the cycling terms or names, and of course it hates my slang and abbreviations.
All that is to be expected.
But why does a spell-checker on a Blogging site not recognise the word "internet"? Or "Google"?
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