Team Borat

Forgive me for not realizing this sooner, but Lance Armstrong, a normally fierce defender of his own brand, is in bed with a pretty shady Kazakh sponsor for the 2009 Tour de France, which just reached the half-way point. "The New Republic's" David Roth has the details:

In place of the relatively wholesome U.S. Postal Service and Discovery Channel jerseys he wore during his previous wins, Armstrong is currently racing in the blue-and-yellow of the Astana Cycling Team. Which means that one of America's last golden boys is a walking (or riding) advertisement for the Kazakh government. 

[SNIP]

Astana rose from the ashes of the risibly corrupt Liberty Seguros Cycling Team, which disbanded in 2006 when manager Manolo Saiz was caught in the anti-doping sting Operacion Puerto. Liberty Seguros' star racer, Kazakh cyclist Alexandre Vinokourov and then-Prime Minister Akhmetov cobbled together some Kazakh sponsors and Astana was born. Vinokourov and Kazakh teammate Andrei Kashechkin promptly tested positive for blood doping, and Astana was kicked out of the 2007 Tour de France and banned in '08. Bruyneel was hired shortly thereafter in an attempt to re-brand the team and largely cleaned house, but Armstrong's current Astana teammate Andreas Kloeden has been dogged by doping rumors for years and Astana hasn't shaken its rep. "There's a high bar for hijinks in this sport," Lindsey says. "But Astana is a different creature than any cycling has seen in 50 years."

As Roth points out, the only reason Armstrong is with Astana is because his longtime manager, Johan Bruynell, is under contract with them, and there's nothing wrong, illegal or untoward about Armstrong's affiliation with the state-owned enterprise. It's just kind of goofy, like Borat himself or, for that matter, grown men in spandex.