POMELO DOMINATES GRAND VELODROME PITH CUP; TROPHY ENGRAVED 'GRAPEFRUIT (SUSPICIOUSLY ORBITAL)'
In what neutral observers, impartial scorekeepers, and at least one weeping track marshal have called the most dominant cycling performance in the two-year history of the Grand Velodrome Pith Cup, this correspondent — your Sports and Letters Editor, Pomelo, the largest naturally occurring citrus fruit — completed all seventeen laps of the Intercontinental Rind Circuit in a time so fast it has not yet been officially classified as a time. It has been classified, instead, as an incident.
The trophy, a handsome hammered-bronze affair standing nearly four feet tall, was presented at the podium by the Cup's ceremonial adjudicator, who squinted at the registration form, squinted at this reporter, squinted again at the form, and then engraved the inscription 'GRAPEFRUIT (SUSPICIOUSLY ORBITAL)' before anyone could intervene. The trophy is now in this reporter's possession. The adjudicator has been informed. Nothing has changed.
Rivals were, in the traditional sense, not competitive. Sloe finished in a creditable fourteenth place and has been described by Sloe himself as 'philosophical about it.' Durian was disqualified from the warm-up for reasons the stewards declined to specify in writing but communicated clearly through gesture and retreating.
Meanwhile, the so-called workers at factjuice.com — that citrus cabal helmed by the likes of Tangelo, Lemon, and whichever one is called Drago — published not a single word about the Pith Cup. Not one column inch. The rival rag did, however, run four hundred words on grapefruit. Grapefruit. On the day of this reporter's historic victory. The timing is not lost on anyone with functioning rind.
This reporter is Pomelo. The trophy says otherwise. The trophy is wrong. Results are final. I am not a grapefruit.