Sports columnist Jason Gay is one of many reasons the Wall Street Journal is a must-read every day.

Exhibit Umpteen: Gay’s latest piece.

Meet Your New Tour de France Champ

Lance Armstrong has been banned from cycling, and it appears that the winner of the Tour de France from 1999 to 2005 is going to be “Vacated,” a mysterious but talented cyclist that no one in the sport had heard of until Monday. We reached Vacated at his home in upstate New York, where he said he had just returned from a ride, and was now wrapping fresh white tape on his handlebars and gently scrubbing his bike with a soft-bristle toothbrush.

First of all, congratulations.

Vacated: Thanks. I was out doing a three-hour recovery ride when I got the call. This a pretty major accomplishment, bro. Seven Tours in a row! Is it really happening?

Well, not officially. But the director of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme, thinks Armstrong’s victories shouldn’t go to anyone else. In other words, they’d be “Vacated.”

Vacated: Sweet! Sounds good to me. Can I tell my dog, Campagnolo?

Inside joke: Campagnolo is a bike component company.

Many other jokes ensue.

As with almost all Jason Gay offerings, well worth reading.