What can you say about this guy that hasn't been said already. He was 3rd in todays Tour of California amongst some of the best. Only Tom Boonen and and Heinrich Haussler got the better of a guy contesting his first sprint finish in 3 years. If I could take 3 years off from racing and come back to racing with results like this, I'd be doing it about every 4 years :-) With all the crap happening in the sport, this is like taking a nice deep breath after hyperventilating for a while. I have always been a fan of Mario's. I'm not a big fan of Rock Racing's Mike Ball personally, but he does bring something new to racing, and he did get Mario racing in the U.S. for our viewing pleasure. I don't really agree with his 3 riders that are STILL in the dog house on this Operation Puerto deal. The UCI/ASO/WADA (and any other organizations that seem to have something to do with this) need to either shit or get off the pot with this thing for heaven sakes. If they can't prove these guys doped, then just drop it and let them get back to racing. Remember when Lance got accused of just about everything? Nothing was proved, therefore nothing was done, and he was never NOT allowed to race. Those days are long gone! The pic is from Pezcycling.com.
