bah, double post. But it was a good one so I'm gonna leave 'em both
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Tour de France 2007 thread (3 Viewers)
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yeah it was a contender for the most boring Tour i've seen.
Wiggins published his blood values online after finishing 4th at the 2009 Tour which he is talking about doing again but the SKY doctor(s) have advised him not to. the 2009 his blood values seemed to be unremarkable and actually helped him win doubters over. all riders should publish their blood profiles, why doesn't Millar for example want to do this?
the Kimmage article summed up how i feel about Wiggins : he was militantly anti doping and has gone towards defending Lance which is hard to fathom. i reckon Brad won all the track stuff honestly and i always felt he should be able to compete with anybody in TT's but until riding well in a few mountain stages of the 2009 Giro i never saw him as being able for more than that.
the biggest giveaway as to someone is whether someone is honest or not is how they talk about doping. (Lance claimed after the 1999 Tour that he had never encountered doping).
there is no reason for a clean team to employ someone like Dr. Leinders. it's perfectly fair that Kimmage asks why Sky haven't stuck to the original vision for the team.
Kimmage has praised teams for their stance in the past - he was given full access to GARMIN throughout the 2008 Tour and came away convinced the team was clean. Kimmage also published an article on the final day the 2011 Tour lavishing praise on Jean Rene Bernardeau and his team saying Rolland's Alpe D'Huez win was a vindication of his anti-doping stance over the previous ten years.
it's been a development in recent years that a number of strongly anti doping cyclists have become very successful: before last season i completely trusted Bernardeau and his riders but when his team rode brilliantly last year, particularly on the Alpe D'Huez stage of the Tour (the entire team was superb on that stage) i was worried. in the run up to this years Tour L'EQUIPE published serious doping allegations about EUROPCAR. L'Equipe is known for NOT investigatingdoping normally.
often when i think of Wiggins' career i think of a guy i hadn't previously heard of (Mark Scanlon) beating him to win the 1998 Junior Tour of Ireland. Wiggo was already Junior Pursuit World Champ at that point.
there's a great article on www.irishpeleton.com entitled:
'Junior to Pro: A Tough Transition ' (December 8th 2010) .
story deals with what became of the riders who finished in the top ten in the 1998 Junior Worlds won by Scanlon.
most had short careers as journeymen pros (some didn't go pro) of the three that had some success Roy Sentjens was banned, Patrick Sinkewitz was banned twice and Silver medalist Filippo Pozzato is in the process of finally being banned for something namely being a client of Dr. Ferrari.
did anyone see the documentary Ian O'Riordan (Irish Times' best sports writer) about doping ? ( Tuesday two weeks ago)
entitled 'FASTER, HIGHER, STRONGER'. he was a runner but very often writes about cycling and especially doping.
he did columns about riding some of the major Tour Cols for charity about a year ago.
in the doc he planned to take a course of EPO to measure it's affect on performance under the supervision of a doctor from the sports department of UCD but as his haematocrit (sic) was already a whopping 47% naturally in preliminary testing he was told it was far too dangerous to take any amount of EPO.
the other thing i remember most is an anti doping expert saying he didn't believe GENE DOPING existed yet and that it could be tested for when it arrived.
i was looking at the average speed of the Tour De France over the years and noticed that the 1958 tour won by Charly Gaul had a faster average speed than Roche did in 1987. both races began on Wednesday and were 25 stages and well over 4,000 km. the 1958 race was marginally longer . i know the '87 Tour was brutal with lots of mountains and huge amounts of Time Trialing - three individual TT's and a TTT. but looking back the speed of the race changed little in those years and gotten radically faster since.
Wiggins published his blood values online after finishing 4th at the 2009 Tour which he is talking about doing again but the SKY doctor(s) have advised him not to. the 2009 his blood values seemed to be unremarkable and actually helped him win doubters over. all riders should publish their blood profiles, why doesn't Millar for example want to do this?
the Kimmage article summed up how i feel about Wiggins : he was militantly anti doping and has gone towards defending Lance which is hard to fathom. i reckon Brad won all the track stuff honestly and i always felt he should be able to compete with anybody in TT's but until riding well in a few mountain stages of the 2009 Giro i never saw him as being able for more than that.
the biggest giveaway as to someone is whether someone is honest or not is how they talk about doping. (Lance claimed after the 1999 Tour that he had never encountered doping).
there is no reason for a clean team to employ someone like Dr. Leinders. it's perfectly fair that Kimmage asks why Sky haven't stuck to the original vision for the team.
Kimmage has praised teams for their stance in the past - he was given full access to GARMIN throughout the 2008 Tour and came away convinced the team was clean. Kimmage also published an article on the final day the 2011 Tour lavishing praise on Jean Rene Bernardeau and his team saying Rolland's Alpe D'Huez win was a vindication of his anti-doping stance over the previous ten years.
it's been a development in recent years that a number of strongly anti doping cyclists have become very successful: before last season i completely trusted Bernardeau and his riders but when his team rode brilliantly last year, particularly on the Alpe D'Huez stage of the Tour (the entire team was superb on that stage) i was worried. in the run up to this years Tour L'EQUIPE published serious doping allegations about EUROPCAR. L'Equipe is known for NOT investigatingdoping normally.
often when i think of Wiggins' career i think of a guy i hadn't previously heard of (Mark Scanlon) beating him to win the 1998 Junior Tour of Ireland. Wiggo was already Junior Pursuit World Champ at that point.
there's a great article on www.irishpeleton.com entitled:
'Junior to Pro: A Tough Transition ' (December 8th 2010) .
story deals with what became of the riders who finished in the top ten in the 1998 Junior Worlds won by Scanlon.
most had short careers as journeymen pros (some didn't go pro) of the three that had some success Roy Sentjens was banned, Patrick Sinkewitz was banned twice and Silver medalist Filippo Pozzato is in the process of finally being banned for something namely being a client of Dr. Ferrari.
did anyone see the documentary Ian O'Riordan (Irish Times' best sports writer) about doping ? ( Tuesday two weeks ago)
entitled 'FASTER, HIGHER, STRONGER'. he was a runner but very often writes about cycling and especially doping.
he did columns about riding some of the major Tour Cols for charity about a year ago.
in the doc he planned to take a course of EPO to measure it's affect on performance under the supervision of a doctor from the sports department of UCD but as his haematocrit (sic) was already a whopping 47% naturally in preliminary testing he was told it was far too dangerous to take any amount of EPO.
the other thing i remember most is an anti doping expert saying he didn't believe GENE DOPING existed yet and that it could be tested for when it arrived.
i was looking at the average speed of the Tour De France over the years and noticed that the 1958 tour won by Charly Gaul had a faster average speed than Roche did in 1987. both races began on Wednesday and were 25 stages and well over 4,000 km. the 1958 race was marginally longer . i know the '87 Tour was brutal with lots of mountains and huge amounts of Time Trialing - three individual TT's and a TTT. but looking back the speed of the race changed little in those years and gotten radically faster since.
It was rubbish. I don't know how far out they decide on the following year's route, but I'd be surprised if the previous year's race didn't influence it greatly. Thus I'd expect them to be planning less TTing and more high mountains next time out. Also, looking at the reports from the tour of Burgos this week it seems a good idea to have a hilltop (not necessarily mountaintop) finish in one of the first couple of stages. That way they can stretch the GC out a bit and have less crashes in the first week. I don't know why they always make the first week to be a combination of classics/sprint type stages - they're only asking for trouble.
I recall the tour where he came 4th (2009?) very clearly. And I had huge admiration for him, especially when he cracked on the Ventoux. He looked human, he looked honest, and looked talented. I love watching gutsy riders who cycle with their heart on their sleeve (such as Cadel Evans, Phil Gilbert, etc). That year Wiggins fit that bill nicely. This year he was such a robot. He never looked tired once. Never looked like having one single bad day and when others tried to turn the heat up on him, he was able, not only to counter, but to up the tempo even more. The biggest joke of a stage was when him and Froome tried to take Valverde back. That was a ridiculous move. Whatever about the scepticism that may have been out there up to that, was not going to be helped by that move. I couldn't work out whether it was a case of them hating Valverde that much they wanted to deprive him of the win, or whether Wiggins really wanted Froome to have another stage win, to shut his WAG burd up.
Its telling alright. I can kind of understand riders getting fed up of it all. For example when Nico Roche was being quizzed about what he thought of the Lance shit that was going on, he responded that he was more concerned with riders still currently riding and would prefer to concentrate on those. Fair enough and good answer. But, to do what Wiggins did and basically label the naysayers as 'wankers' - very telling indeed.
The Sky thing really stinks and Kimmage hit the nail on the head. One thing that really disappointed me was how the British mainstream media failed to pick up on the story at all. I was buying the sunday times in the hope that Walsh might take it up, but nothing, just a whole heap of fawning bullshit. That Kimmage's article appeared in a rag like the Daily Mail gave it a whole lot less credence. Its a crying shame.
My own thoughts on Europcar is that they do whatever they need to do depending on the race situation at any given time. So, last year when TV was in contention for the GC they needed him performing well every day. I'd say he was charging up for every stage until he finally capitulated. This year he lost a heap of time in the first week through no real fault of his own. He looked at different times like he was about to collapse off the bike he was in such a bad way. Then almost the next day he'd be off up the road on a hard mountain stage and wipe the floor with the field. What was fairly telling for me about TV's stage wins, one in particular, was how easily he managed to drop a noted climber like Dan Martin (who I truly believe is clean as a whistle). The TV one is conundrum. On the one hand, if hes doping I hope he gets caught. On the other, hes essentially carrying the whole sport on his shoulders in France. Thibaut Pinot will do a lot for it in the coming years, but its amazing how quickly the Remi deGregorio (from the absolute rotten-to-the-core Cofidis team) story got swept aside, mostly because of TV's 2 stage wins. The French won a few stages this year, but it seems none were celebrated the same way TVs were.
Scanlon's story is one of the most depressing cycling-related things I've ever heard. Its a shame he backed completely away from the limelight. I'd love for him to write a book on his experience, because his experience says it all really.
Yep, I saw it. And I must try and dig out an article I read a couple of years back where a journalist did likewise - took EPO before the Paris-Brest cycle. Its an incredible read. I posted it in this thread somewhere but not a hope of finding it, so I'll go search again.
CinnamonBoy
Well-Known Member
Great posting chaps.
I've always hoped Scanlon would write something on his experiences. Could make a phenomenal documentary on it too, I would imagine. Never seemed interested in doing so, though, but maybe when time moves on a bit more he might be.
I've always hoped Scanlon would write something on his experiences. Could make a phenomenal documentary on it too, I would imagine. Never seemed interested in doing so, though, but maybe when time moves on a bit more he might be.
Scanlon is big into surfing now I think. I thought I heard that hes only recently started riding his bike again but only in a leisurely way (Paul Kimmage was the same - hes only been back on his bike in the last couple of years).
Heres that article that I mentioned above. If you can put 10 minutes aside to have a read, do, its a real eye-opener
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/anabolic-steroids/aas-epo-article-outside-magazine-552736.html
Heres that article that I mentioned above. If you can put 10 minutes aside to have a read, do, its a real eye-opener
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/anabolic-steroids/aas-epo-article-outside-magazine-552736.html
IFF
Well-Known Member
CinnamonBoy
Well-Known Member
Amazing article. Thanks, Scuts.
can someone explain to me how a team who are trying to support their star rider don't have to worry about a breakaway group, because they have a team member in the breakaway group?
am reading nicolas roche's book, and he mentions this at least once.
also, is his name pronounced the english or french way?
am reading nicolas roche's book, and he mentions this at least once.
also, is his name pronounced the english or french way?
Its simple enough really. At the start of every stage there will be a period where racing will be very aggressive, where people try and get into a break that sticks. Before one eventually sticks several will have gone and been chased back. During this period the team of the race leader (possibly helped by teams of other highly placed GC riders) will control the peloton, decide whether to chase, etc. They won't let a break go until they are happy with the composition of that break - in other words, until it is comprised of riders that are no threat.
If it happens that a break goes with a GC contender in it, the peloton will chase harder and the break will have less of a chance of staying away. In the tour de france we saw where (I think it was) Valverde went in a break and eventually just sat up. The others in the break will give you hell, refuse to work with you, etc, and basically try and force you to sit up and wait for the main pack. Remember Lance chasing a break with Simeoni in it, even though he had the yellow jersey on - Simeoni had just blown the whistle on some doping story or other - Lance said he wouldn't sit up until Simeoni also sat up. That turned the whole break on Simeoni and he had no choice but to sit up.
I should add at this point that Lance Armstrong is the biggest CUNT that ever walked this earth.
Back to the original point: The break is not random. It is somewhat controlled. The guys in that break are considered the most likely to win the stage while the break is away and the break is more likely to stay away if those in it are a good ways down the GC. Thus, the teammates of those guys will not help to bring the break back as it would hamper their teammates chances of victory. This can be used strategically by team - place a rider in the break and the team have an easy day - don't place a rider up there and help bring it back for one of your stronger riders.
I hope thats clear cos I kind of confused myself typing it.
French in Europe - the 'S' in Nicolas is also silent. In English speaking countries its the English version of both.
IFF
Well-Known Member
i'm thinking the example it comes up in roche's autobiography (not having read it myself) is in 2009 when nocentini was leading overall and on one of the saturday's, was allowed to go in the break and as being from the team of overall leader, didn't have to work on the front of the break as it would damage nocentini in the yellow jersey.
the other lasting memory of the stage was team highroad trying to lead out the sprint for the remaining points jersey points without trying to go too fast as Hincapie was seconds away from gaining the yellow jersey from the break but Cavendish was trying to get points for the points jersey against hushovd and Cavendish ended up being disqualified for blocking hushovd in the sprint.
yep, thats another scenario alright. In this year's TdeF I don't think Sky put a man in one single break for the whole race.
That stage though. Benatti was acting like a petulant child. Roche tried to attack a couple of times inside 10km and Bennatti kept tracking him. Benatti was clearly the best sprinter in that group and just needed to bide his time but he became more hellbent on Roche not winning than winning himself. Then some Russian from Katusha (can't recall his name) went away and they all missed the move. Cost Benatti the stage.
There was a war of sorts going on between HTC and Slipstream and Cavendish started whinging that Slipstream had brought back enough time on the break, meaning Hincapie couldn't get yellow, and why would they do that to a legend like him. Thing was, it was HTC brought the time gap down themselves, on their own team mate. Gobshites.
Cormcolash
Well-Known Member
Lance is fucked, wooooooo! WINNERS DON'T USE DRUGS!!!
my twitter was hopping today.
good sport
good sport
тхеодоре кацзынски
Well-Known Member
So is he guilty or not?
he was always guilty.
today it became official.
the man is one of the biggest crooks ever to walk the planet.
i'm seeing lots of 'armstrong stripped of TDF wins' titles.
but what jurisdiction do the USADA have over these?
but what jurisdiction do the USADA have over these?
apparently jurisdiction is with whoever catches the rider. That was the last challenge Armstrong brought to the courts
but I'm still dubious on the stripping on a couple of fronts;
- theres a statute of limitations of 10 years so how can they strip all 7 titles
- the USADA's right to strip anyone of anything outside of America
I've a feeling there'll be more on the title stripping. I suspect it might be a case of USADA having the right to do whatever the hell they want with their riders, and them taking precedence over the UCI. I suspect the UCI may challenge this.
IFF
Well-Known Member
I think this is covered here
http://inrng.com/2012/08/lance-armstrong-quits/#more-10570
of course, the uci have i think a month in which they can appeal the decision of usada.
тхеодоре кацзынски
Well-Known Member
So given all that-is there anyone in cycling who's not guilty?
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