Maybe Big Boat is into something, but he does not know how to say it or prove it. I always thought that Sastre's performance in that last time trial was "Fishy". And remember that this is coming from a guy that is a Sastre fan. Let's evaluate what we have in hand (which is not blood profiles).
Last year the Science of the Sport made an interesting comment about Sastre on his last TT. This is what I found:
Looking at the performance, it turns out that Evans was 1.26% slower than Schumacher in the first, 29km time-trial, and fell to 3.26% slower in the final time-trial. Sastre, on the other hand, was 4.8% slower than Schumacher in TT1 and improved to 4.02% slower in TT2. Sastre was therefore better in TT2 (relative to Schumacher), but not by a huge amount, whereas Evans was considerably worse. Bernard Kohl, who surprised all with his final time-trial (including us), improved from 5% slower to 3.7% slower.
When I saw that data I read between the lines that Sastre not only had a better recovery than Cadel's but improved his performance. But that was just based on times, which are a function of many variables like wind, air density, stage profile, TT distance. So I guess that's why they decided not to make further comments about it.
I took the time (Which I have some today) to evaluate the performance of the first and second time trial. But remember that in this exercise the most important thing is the change in values not the absolute values. So here we go:
First Time Trial: Cholet-Cholet
Distance: 29.5 km
Elevation Change: from 83 m to 97 m
Temperature: 68 F
Wind: average of 18.5 km/hr from the SW. I checked on the weather historical data. Cyclingnews like coverage has25 km/hr, but that seems to be the peaks.
Distribution: 35% side to head wind, 15% head wind and 50% slight tail wind.
Sastre:
CdA: 0.213
Speed: 29.37 mph
Power: 367 W (6.02 W/kg)
Cadel:
CdA: 0.213 (Similar weight and height)
Speed: 30.4 mph
Power: 405 W (6.33 W/kg)
Second TT: Cérilly > Saint-Amand-Montrond
Distance: 53 km
Elevation Change: from 310 m to 159 m
Temperature: 70 F
Wind: average of 6-8 km/hr from the NW. I checked on the weather historical data. Cyclingnews like coverage don't have the information.
Distribution: 10% side wind, 90% head wind.
Sastre:
CdA: 0.213
Speed: 29.76 mph
Power: 391 W (6.41 W/kg)
Cadel:
CdA: 0.213 (Similar weight and height)
Speed: 29.98 mph
Power: 400 W (6.25 W/kg):
Based on power data, Sastre improved 6.14% and Evans decreased 1.25%. Sastre's numbers are impressive not only because of the improvement but because it was a longer time trial (Almost double) on the third week of the tour. On the other side Evans numbers are very close to his initial one. One can claim that he is on recovery therapy but there is no way in this world that somebody is going to know that based on power numbers. But Sastre's numbers looks suspicious to me (
IMHO!)
Some people might question my numbers, which is OK, because calculating this for a time trial, I have learned, is very difficult. But if I have an error on a variable at least I am trying to be consistent with it. So the change in performance is ultimately what matter the most.