Obscure Sports Update

In news you don't care about, but I do; the T-Mobile cycling team has folded.

T-Mobile was the big rival of the US Postal team, so they played the New Jersey Generals to Lance Armstrong's Harlem Globetrotters. Before that, they spent five years playing runner-up to Miguel Indurain. T-Mobile make the Buffalo Bills look like pikers.

Jan Ullrich is the symbol of this team. He won a Tour de France between Armstrong and Indurain's long dynasties, but he spent most of his career doing two things: finishing second to Lance and getting busted for drugs. His list of blood doping sins is pretty impressive: EPO, steroids, he even got busted for using Ecstasy. Just in case the Tour was gonna play techno. And that's just the stuff he got CAUGHT doing. Here's a guy who spent his entire career playing second fiddle to one of the greatest cyclists ever, and he used every means on earth to try and beat him... and he still failed. Ullrich is one of the most tragic figures in all international sports.

But let's remember T-Mobile for the good times: their absolute total team dysfunction which made cycling seem like the Days of Our Lives, the sheer number of great riders that rode for them (Riis, Ullrich, Vinokourov, Kloden), and of course the Greatest sprinter in the history of cycling: Erik Zabel. While Lance was racking up yellow jerseys, Zabel kept racking up sprinting titles. Their twin dominance was pretty awesome.

I already miss those pink jerseys.