Tour de France 2007 thread (4 Viewers)

[rettucs]

this year's drugsfest starts on saturday. Can't wait.

Start list has been announced. Shame theres no Phillip Degnan, Nicholas Roche or Dan Martin.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2008/tour08/?id=startlist

I reckon the Podium will be

1: Andy Schleck
2: Allesandro Valverde
3: Cadel Evans

Cunego, Ricco, Menchov will be hot on their heels.

 

[nuke terrorist]

it will be a disaster if valverde wins the tour -even pat mc
quaid has said they KNOW that specific blood bags from the puerto case belong to him.
i've always wondered why the tour rarely had short steep uphill finishes like stage one, they're a staple type of stage in other races especially the giro (like the ones ricco won) - the ardennes finishes are as good as any mountain for excitement.
gilbert and pineau are two of my favourite five riders so while it was a pity who won it says things are moving in the right direction that they can finish in front of the rest. pineau is dead unlucky he has a load of high finishes in big races this season and still no wins.
roche said on eurosport today that credit agricole will shortly be announcing a new sponsor - great news, they've been showing how to do things properly for a longtime, they haven't had a doping problem in long, long years.
one of the best results this year was simeoni winning the italian champs - yeah! pozzatto who was one of the riders who mocked him after he had to rejoin the peloton after armstrong chased him in the 2004 (was it ?) tour was third. take that you wanker!
the 3 irish lads have done really well, deignan came good in the giro run up after a poor start to the season. roche did good rides in all the ardennes classic, sixth in the henniger thurm and had the win in portugal after finishing second in stage in alcobendas. after that injury stopped him being able to prepare for the tour. pity.
martin was doing solidly from the beginning, better than i had hoped.
he finshed leige, was 22nd in tour of catalunya which was less mountainous than usual, but way above what a new pro should expect. he then finished 8th overall on another portugese race and then the big one: after finishing 6th in a TT, he was after three breakaways the first rider to finish at luchon-superbagnere ( i.e. fourth on stage), to take the lead in the route de sud and victory the next day. (roche won in 1985). moreau was second.
even before that he was he had been really impressive, but a huge moment for irish cycling.
not sure about having a TT before the mountains,
but i think the route is great especially the lack of time trialling. i think the changes they've made are really paying off, the tour routes could be really formula.

 

[Cormcolash]

I love Le Tour, but won't have much chance to watch it this year. Keep us updated on the Irish riders!

Edit: Also, the less time trials the better, I fuckin hate the time trial system. 1 or 2 individual time trials, fair enough, but the team time trials are a fuckin joke, they just guarantee that a great individual riding for a shit team will never get anywhere unless he moves to a strong team.

 

[rettucs]

I love Le Tour, but won't have much chance to watch it this year. Keep us updated on the Irish riders!

no Irish riders in it this year. Roche got ill about a month before it and missed out. Deignan is holding off til the tour of Spain (he also rode the Giro). Martin came good a little too late. Theres plenty of time for him though - hes only 21.

nuke, thats true about Valverde. The only reason why they couldn't pin it on him is because they could never prove he had a dog. Fuentes was careful not to put the rider's names on the blood bags, and instead chose something associated with them (such as 'Son of Rudy' for Jan Ullrich). He used a name believed to be that of Valverde's dog for him. But they could never find the dog, or even prove that he ever owned him, when even the dog on the street knows he did, and what he was called.

There was also a blood bag labelled 'AC', that they believe is Contador's, but again, it was too tenuous to be able to make it stick.

I really hope Valverde doesn't win. He should give up the yellow jersey on thursday so that his team doesn't have to defend it - heres hoping we don't see him back in it again.

 

[nuke terrorist]

PITI was the name of the dog but i think there was some other code on the bag aswell.
contador was offically cleared but there are still rumors. after the tour last year werner franke (who has a case pending against ullrich who tried to stop he make information public about his doping), the german anti doping campaigner doctor claimed he had documents related to puerto that listed products taken by contador on german tv, he handed them over to german police.
i never heard anything about this since but he mentioned insulin, hmg-lepori - supposed to produce testosterone, and TGN, a product for asthma. he refused to say how he got them.
he refused to withdraw claims he made that ullrich paid fuentes 35,000 euro in 2006. he's a dead cool bloke who reminds me of noam chomsky! i dig him.
ullrich legally is off the hook very lightly in germany he only had to pay a 250,000 fine and didn't have to admit anything.

the french are off the mark already - yeah.
schumaker is lucky he's not out of the tour for similar reasons as boonen.
millar has surprised me, i was thinking he was finished.
he did an interview with kimmage in the sunday times and the general tone was the he's increasingly realizing his faults and admitted even after coming back he was feeling sorry for himself rather than facing up to what really happened.
when kimmage revealed in 2004 that millar's lawyers had threatened his with legal action if published a story about the cofidis case (he did anyway), i was so shocked. it was he was going to be caught but why do that. millar says his lawyers told him it was standard procedure.

 

[rettucs]

PITI was the name of the dog but i think there was some other code on the bag aswell.
contador was offically cleared but there are still rumors. after the tour last year werner franke (who has a case pending against ullrich who tried to stop he make information public about his doping), the german anti doping campaigner doctor claimed he had documents related to puerto that listed products taken by contador on german tv, he handed them over to german police.
i never heard anything about this since but he mentioned insulin, hmg-lepori - supposed to produce testosterone, and TGN, a product for asthma. he refused to say how he got them.
he refused to withdraw claims he made that ullrich paid fuentes 35,000 euro in 2006. he's a dead cool bloke who reminds me of noam chomsky! i dig him.
ullrich legally is off the hook very lightly in germany he only had to pay a 250,000 fine and didn't have to admit anything.

the french are off the mark already - yeah.
schumaker is lucky he's not out of the tour for similar reasons as boonen.
millar has surprised me, i was thinking he was finished.
he did an interview with kimmage in the sunday times and the general tone was the he's increasingly realizing his faults and admitted even after coming back he was feeling sorry for himself rather than facing up to what really happened.
when kimmage revealed in 2004 that millar's lawyers had threatened his with legal action if published a story about the cofidis case (he did anyway), i was so shocked. it was he was going to be caught but why do that. millar says his lawyers told him it was standard procedure.

Personally I think Millar is a nob. And I can't believe people bought that shite about him carrying a syringe to remind him of the 'darker days'. What bullshit. And now hes an 'ambassador' for clean cyling. My hole

I think why Puerto seems to fizzle out a bit after the initial furore is because Fuentes himself admitted that only about 30% of his clients were cyclists. He had footballers, tennis players and all kinds of other athletes on that list of his. I reckon there was someone on there who the Spanish authorities didn't want to blow the lid on, for whatever reason, and everyone else got off the hook. Not one single non-cyclist was ever done over it, as far as I'm aware.

Interesting too that Dario Frigo gets a year in jail for his misdemeanours, while LPR go and sign Alesandro Petachi the very same week.

 

[flashback]

It was weird that Millar said that about the syringe.
Riders can, and have every right to, inject stuff. They will all have shots of various meds, some will run drips at night.

I never thought Millar was that bad. He's a fierce sanctimonious prick alright, with a self pitying streak you could drive through.
He is a exceptional rider though.

 

[nuke terrorist]

beltran has tested positive for EPO and the police have taken him off for questioning. surely career finished.
he was one the riders, along with his former boss armstrong who was positive for EPO in the retrospective tests that were done on 1999 tour samples made public after the 2005 tour. as the tests were not officially sanctioned they made no difference legally.
liquigas have a lot to answer fo at this stage they've got a shabby record.
millar said to kimmage that he used the incriminating syringes in manchester before the 2004 worlds and then forgot about them in a wash bag for two months then in biarritz two months later he found them again unpacking and put them in a box on his bedroom book shelf and forgot about them. it was only when his room was searched that he remembered he had put something there but couldn't remember what, until the cops came out with the syringes. so it obviously didn't remind him he had doped as he previously said - he did it without thinking seemingly.
anyone got any opinions on genetic doping, which is on the horizion ?
in the next fifteen years i reckon athletes won't be able to compete without it. genetic engineering will probably become normal in our lifetimes, so sport will only be one of its minor casualties.
anyhow, maybe it's not worth worrying about as our leaders have ensured climate change will probably finish us off before we get that far, ha ha!

 

[rettucs]

beltran has tested positive for EPO and the police have taken him off for questioning. surely career finished.
he was one the riders, along with his former boss armstrong who was positive for EPO in the retrospective tests that were done on 1999 tour samples made public after the 2005 tour. as the tests were not officially sanctioned they made no difference legally.

lots of armstrong's henchmen have tested positive since joining 'other' teams. They probably just started when they left though, cos armstrong wouldn't hear of anything other than having a team full of lads who are clean as a whistle! My hole!

And didn't Frankie Andreu already come out and admit he was doping while with postal?

Liquigas are bent as can be alright. Sure hadn't they Di Luca on their books for long enough! And still would only for the fact that hes a big dirty cheat.

 

[IFF]

poor schleck, one second away from yellow.

good win for piepoli today. glad of it after the crash that forced him out of the giro and retiring from last year's vuelta after his new born child life was in danger after birth

 

[rettucs]

poor schleck, one second away from yellow.

good win for piepoli today. glad of it after the crash that forced him out of the giro and retiring from last year's vuelta after his new born child life was in danger after birth

I wonder how him and Cobo decided on who'd take the stage? I'm guessing Piepoli will end up doing all the work for someone else on the Alpe d'Huez stage on the 23rd, though Ricco has apparently ear-marked that one (though I can't see him getting away like he did on Col d'Aspin on sunday).

I reckon Schleck is happy enough with yesterday. The next few stages are classic breakaway stages, or at least stages where the overall contenders will let others slug it out for a while, til they get to the Alps. Lotto will have to defend the jersey, which will be tough for them seeing as they have a weak enough team. That will suit CSC down to the ground, and they should arrive in the Alps nice and fresh by comparison.

Schleck took back 1'49 on Evans yesterday. Evans seemed like he was suffering those age-old failings of his - lack of any kind of acceleration in the hills. I think Schleck has his number, but will have to put a minute or 2 into him as Evans is the stronger TTer of the pair.

CSC have shown their hand now. Andy Schleck has been sacrificed. Now its between Sastre and Frank Schleck. I can see Sastre acting as super-domestique for Schleck in the Alps. To me thats genius. The other teams don't even know which of the pair to mark. And that tactic of sticking Cancellara in the early break yesterday was amazing thinking on their management's part.

I'd be highly surprised if CSC don't take overall this year. And I reckon it'll be Schleck rather than Sastre. Just a different Schleck to the one I predicted would win.

What a tour Luxembourg are having!

 

[rettucs]

fucken ricco

fucken prick

 

[flashback]

Oh dear.


Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Cycling is looking like its in a baaaaaad fucking way right now.
Cycling is looking like the Amy Whinehouse of pro sports these days.
Jesus.

 

[Franco]

So what's the deal with getting nabbed on stage four and then busting your nuts to win a couple of stages knowing you got stung?

I watch it, but i don't get cycling. Can you chaps make a comprehensive list of dudes that you suspect are dodge and lads that likely to be clean? It's mostly the spannies and the eyeties that seem to be hepped up on goofballs.

 

[flashback]

I was sort of thinking that the "old" guard were more likely to be doping, and the new bushy tailed lads were more likely to be clean.

But... yeah. No idea.
It certainly used to be the case that everyone would know about the clean lads on the Tour.

As far as I could remember, Chris Boardman was the clean lads. Some people had another more forgiving strategy for picking the clean lads, ie those that got annihilated in week three.

 

[rettucs]

So what's the deal with getting nabbed on stage four and then busting your nuts to win a couple of stages knowing you got stung?

I watch it, but i don't get cycling. Can you chaps make a comprehensive list of dudes that you suspect are dodge and lads that likely to be clean? It's mostly the spannies and the eyeties that seem to be hepped up on goofballs.

He didn't know. The samples are taken away to be analysed. It takes a few days for the A samples to be tested. When Beltran tested positive (last thursday), it was a sample from stage 1 of the tour, 5 days before.

In short, everyone contesting the overall is doping. Lads on breakaways for the day are probably on something for that day only. I don't think sprinters necessarily dope (could be naive of me but they only work for the last 1km of any race). TT specialists will dope for a TT.

Other than that lads are clean. Theres not enough money in cycling for teams to pay for drugs for everyone, and the cyclists themselves certainly don't have the money to get it for themselves.

Valverde is struggling badly this year. And I'd say hes well pissed off cos I reckon hes riding clean. There was too much heat on him for him to be able to take a chance.

Piepoli, Cobo - we're coming for you next. Cunts.


Edit: And the French dare not dope. Not with the eyes of the world on their national race. They haven't doped since Virenque in 1998.

Its a criminal offense in Italy to dope in sport. Ricco can share a cell with Dario Frigo when they lock his ass up.


Edit Again: Add to that anyone that was ever on a team with either Lance Armstrong or Johann Bruyneel involved.

 

[Franco]

Sound. Maybe they should reverse the rankings and give the title to the lad who finishes last, like a Slow Bicycle Tour de France or something.

 

[flashback]

Maybe scutter is on the money. I dunno.
Blood doping is cheap, easy, and almost impossible to catch.

I dont necessarily think that if you are in the overall at this point that you are definitely doping.

I do think anyone that rides a consistently strong three weeks has more than a whiff about them though. Realistically, you are going to have one or two bogey days, or you are not human.
But then if you have an amazing team around you... I just dont know.
I'm not sure if anyone does.

I still think cycling now is about as clean as any pro sport.
It does look fucking terrible though.

 

[Franco]

Cavendish wins another stage. Must be the Rubex he's taking.

 

[rettucs]

Cavendish wins another stage. Must be the Rubex he's taking.

hes just the fastest sprinter in the world at the moment. Which is a shame cos hes an awful gobshite.

Read an interesting interview with Dan Martin (Stephen Roche's nephew) where he said he opted for Ireland over Britain because the British cycling federation were track/sprint oriented and they told him that they wouldn't be able to help him out much cos he was a climber.

That means the Brits are never gonna win a grand tour. In yer face Brits!!!