It’s been one hellish day after another for the past three weeks here in Aigle. Depositions, lawyers, end-of-the-season events, Pan Am Games, holiday in the Caribbean, and back home. I’m exhausted.
This is my throne. This is my sport.
Well, I tell you, this week saw a little relief on my part as the “Kolobnev End Game” began in earnest, with the Russian “anti-doping” group and the Russian Cycling Federation proposing a sanction for our friend wrongly found guilty of a doping offense due to the work of Bhon Mhat and Vittorio Adorni, which many saw unfold in real time on twitter. This was discussed by yours truly in a past Dispatch, Volume 17, I think. You’ll have to look it up on your own fooking time.
Nonetheless, I must come clean with you little people in the cycling world. Like a bad guy who is just bursting to tell the hero of some Farrell/Willis/Downey/Statham action-fest on the gigantic screen exactly how and why he’s going to attempt his version of global domination, I must tell my sordid tale.
You see, this all comes down to a tale of a father’s love. Yes, I may be a tough sonofabitch when it comes to the cycling world, frequently using the phrase “business is business.” But my familia is very, very importante.
I’ve done my best to set up fine young Andrew in a similar respect as I’ve been forced by my lovely mum to set up the annoying prat that is my younger brother, Darach, aka “Lamp Lighter” (*chuckle* ask @Velocast about that one…). Sigh, fooking Shadetree Sports is the millstone that hangs around my neck, like those late night prank phone calls that I damn well know are coming from Floyd Landis. I’m coming for you, you little fooker, yeah, you. Neil Browne showed me how to do it in one of his bloggies.
Fooking bloggers. It was so much easier before this bullshite internet. Just had to deal with three or four annoying press pricks, unless there was some bloody swaggering American jerk-off, and then in that case I had to spend half of my fooking interviews with those seagulls just explaining what the hell GC means. No, now there’s literally thousands of prats who think that they are an expert because one person wrote a comment on their “website.” Put a kooky spin on a bike word, make fun of me or Armstrong, and voila, you’re a fooking genius.
I digress. What was I saying? Right. Andrew. (That’s my SON for all of you still not able to follow the fooking plot. Jaysus, I’m fooking sweary today. Must have been the shots Zorzoli gave me yesterday.)
Hey Enrico, Quit talking to the press BEFORE our debriefings, alright?
So, I set up Andrew. I call in a few favours from some team managers to put a bug in a few of their riders’ ears to let Andrew do some agent work for him. Sure, I massage a few deals behind the scenes, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Stephen and I help him “land” Nico, and now we’ve got our two boys starting their own plans for world domination. Cute, aren’t they?
So imagine, then, getting a phone call that your cute little manchild – after you’ve spent a few years setting up the little bugger – has decided to pursue fooking ALEXANDER KOLOBNEV as a client.
Now, you may all be asking yourself, what’s wrong with Kolobnev? Nothing. Xander’s a great guy. A great rider, and a fun guy to party with. He also has the BEST personal assistant in the world. BEST. BY FAR. A pretty nice smile. Again, I’m just the digression king here.
No, the problem isn’t with Kolobnev, it’s his fooking boss.
Back on a bike at a race near you, just because our cash flow is low. (photo courtesy of Franklin Tello)
Igor Makarov.
Makarov keeps trying to play his end game around me and my bossy boss, Heinie. Makarov is now installed on the Management Committee, because as we all know, it’s good to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Sure, he runs the Russian Cycling Federation, and he’s got Tchmil turning tricks at the EUC. Fine, sure. But, Maka is no fooking dummy. No sir. He plays by the Ukrainian mafia rules. Suck in a few family members, and your target will do anything to keep his family out of danger’s way.
Try explaining that to Andrew, who wants to set the world on fire. Exactly. That went over as well as what Verbruggen told Novitzky to do. So, Andrew keeps his attempt at diversifying his portfolio from folks directly in my control in favour of his new crew. Wants to be his own man, make his own way.
What’s a father to do? There was no way I could allow the young’un the opportunity to fook up the plans for the future just because he wants to go off the reservation and play with the Russkies and, well, nevermind. So, the only thing that I could do was pop Kolobnev for a positive dope.
Andrew, while he understands that Santa Claus isn’t real (he cried for days when I told him on his 13th birthday), still believes that all these “anti-doping initiatives” are actually real. And work. And catch dopers. I still don’t have the heart to tell him. So, if a prospective client is “popped for a positive,” Andrew will run from that rider out of principle. The best part? He gets to uphold his values, I don’t have to tell him the truth, and Makarov doesn’t get his grimy hands on one of my offspring.
Too bad Maka doesn’t see the value in Darach. There’s one relative I’ve been trying to dump for fooking years. I’ve been shopping him to anyone that’ll listen, but that Pinotti thing hangs over him like a pending Armstrong indictment for fraud, racketeering, distribution of illegal substances, and bribery of a foreign official. Not that I have any knowledge of those things, nor testified in Los Angeles about anything that I may or may not know that may or may not have been put into the UCI coffers prior to my ascension to the throne.
I’m going to give that Verbruggen a fooking call and thank him for that two week Caribbean holiday. No strings attached to that one. Never, never, never.
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