Tour de France Champ Won’t be Able to Defend Title

Alberto Contador, the winner of the 2007 Tour de France, will definitely not be a repeat champion. He and the rest of the cycling team Astana have not been invited to the 2008 race due to the team’s connections to a Spanish doping scandal. Contador himself never tested positive.

Tour organizer Patrice Clerc said Astana can return in 2009 if it stays free of doping scandals this year. Of course, now all of the other teams that are in the Tour are going to be subjected to constant accusations about doping. But at least we don’t have to worry about another back-to-back winner, right?

With how ridiculous the sport has gotten, would they just be better off permitting doping and saving themselves the trouble… Or is it good to have constant controversy about who might or might not be cheating?

Canseco Strikes Again!

Well Jose Canseco has shown all baseball players busted for steroids how to make a living after leaving the game: Write books accusing other players of using performance enhancing drugs!

In his latest book, “Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and The Battle to Save Baseball” (Interesting way to save the sport, isn’t it?), Canseco says that Alex Rodriguez approached him about where someone could get steroids. Canseco says he then introduced A-Rod to a dealer named ‘Max’. Canseco refused to give any evidence or reveal who ‘Max’ was until he could see how Rodriguez would react to the claims. Canseco, according to one website, also states in the book that Rodriguez attempted to sleep with his wife.

A-Rod had no comment.

Magglio Ordonez is also named in the book. For those of you who don’t remember, The New York Times reported in January that Canseco offered to keep Ordonez clear in the new book if the Detroit outfielder invested in a movie project promoted by Canseco. According to the site, Canseco denies these accusation.

Timberlake to Host ESPYs

Justin Timberlake is going to be the host of the ESPY Awards this year. Not that too many people really care…

But I felt that it should be noted that in this article, ESPN.com described what happened during the halftime show of Super Bowl XXVIII (It was actually XXXVIII, but who needs editors?) as the following: “Janet Jackson suffered a wardrobe malfunction.”

Not even a passing reference of his role in it. No “Timberlake exposed Jackson’s breast on national television”. And if you think about it, his little “choreography” move has forced us into a never-ending cycle of old musicians/bands in an effort to make sure that there is absolutely zero chance of any controversy. However, if you click this these links, you’ll see how well the NFL has avoided any issues.

And finally: Why would any male sports fans want him hosting anything? He was a lead singer for N’ Sync! Maybe this is supposed to be like what USC said the enrollment of Lil’ Romeo was; an attempt to get female viewers.

Trufant Gets Contract

Seattle Seahawks cornerback Marcus Trufant got a six year 50.2 million dollar deal. Trufant had been franchised after the season, but was hoping for a long term deal since he was born and raised in Washington state and wanted to stay there. His deal is about $10 million less than other corners on the market have gotten because he offered Seattle a hometown discount. And now Seattle has secured two of its best defensive players, as LB Lofa Tatupu signed a six year deal last week. Now the Seahawks need to figure out who their backfield is going to contain as they have Cowboys castoff Julius Jones and the underachieving Shaun Alexander as the main candidates for starting running back.

No matter who it is, they will probably still win the extremely competitive NFC West again this year.