Teams & Riders Alberto Contador Discussion Thread

[Andro]

Congratulations on the 7th official GT win and 8th GT win on the road.

 

[TheGreenMonkey]

Re:

It's absolutely wack that you can't even mention Contador's official palmares without all sorts of fans jumping on your jugular. Feel free to keep whatever reckoning you fancy, but don't bring it up every time someone doesn't share your particular, unofficial views.

This, please be mature enough to realize there is a difference of views and that you don't need to try and correct people every time they mention the other point of view. Just enjoy the fact your man won the 2015 Giro, Congratulations Alberto Contador.

 

[Miburo]

Re:

*7. Please stop pretending like doping doesn't exist and shouldn't be punished.
Ehh, it does matter because being outclimbed by a rider who is 3rd rider in his own team doesn't bode well for a Tour. If Landa outclimbs Contador so badly just wait until he faces Nibali and Astana's first team (they will be much stronger, especially if Aru rides the Tour as well).

We will see, but it does look like really sub-par Contador this season (well, pretty much since his ban maybe except the first half of 2014)

First half of 2014? Wasn't breathing in the tour and was the best in the vuelta with very high competition.

We'll see in the tour, this 'form' could have all been planned.

 

[Scarponi]

Re: Re:

NINE GTs won on the road. BRAVO

Reduced to SEVEN because of cheating. BRAVO

You must be burning son that a man you hate has won 9 Grand Tours

 

[Scarponi]

Re:

It's absolutely wack that you can't even mention Contador's official palmares without all sorts of fans jumping on your jugular. Feel free to keep whatever reckoning you fancy, but don't bring it up every time someone doesn't share your particular, unofficial views.

Its also wack that 1300 pages in people purposely come in here to type in 7

Its annoying and deliberate

 

[Red Rick]

Its fine to say he won 7, however, its usually mentioned as '7 because DOPING' which simply doesnt belong here.

 

[hrotha]

Re: Re:

It's absolutely wack that you can't even mention Contador's official palmares without all sorts of fans jumping on your jugular. Feel free to keep whatever reckoning you fancy, but don't bring it up every time someone doesn't share your particular, unofficial views.

Its also wack that 1300 pages in people purposely come in here to type in 7

Its annoying and deliberate

1. I came here to post that after what I saw in the stage thread, so don't pretend that kind of thing only happens here.
2. For the nth time, this thread is not the Contador fan's private playground.

 

[ggusta]

Re: Re:

Final podium excluding TTs:

Landa
Aru 0:01
Contador 0:52

I expect something better from you. Have these loonies become contagious? That is one of the dumbest most misleading stats imaginable.

Merckx Index's signal to noise ratio is probably the best in the entire forum. Wouldn't dismiss him immediately when he posts the uncomfortable truth than Contador's climbing was suspect in this Giro. Not sure what's "misleading" about this stat.

Slams head against desk. idk, perhaps because the itt and the contenders pre-conceived abilities before and the results after shaped the strategy and the dynamics of the entire effin race???

Leaves thread for awhile before the contagion spreads.

lol wtf? No one said Landa should be awarded the trophy. Everyone knows Contador is the rightful winner. What he posted though was the statistics of how he was climbing. I think that's relevant for the Alberto Contador thread.

Though it is a bit misleading since Contador also lost 40 in a mechanical.

You missed my point. Whatever.

 

[arvc40]

Well that's it !, stage one of my flutter complete. Its been sensational watching Contador win his 9 GT's.

Notice him not touching the champagne at the end, thinking of Tour !

 

[SeriousSam]

The markets downgraded Contador's Tour chances yesterday by 5%. Now it's something like.
30% Q
25% F
20% C
15% N
although odds vary across bookmakers quite a bit, a sign of lacking liquidity, which means the odds needn't be accurate reflections of the true underlying probability at this point in time.

Juul said he's gonna do Route du Sud, and so will Contador. I guess he'll treat it like a training ride and we won't get any further signals about his expected strength until the Tour itself. For the other contenders, there's thankfully the Dauphine where we'll learn something about Froome, Quintana, Valverde but not Nibali.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Re:

It's absolutely wack that you can't even mention Contador's official palmares without all sorts of fans jumping on your jugular. Feel free to keep whatever reckoning you fancy, but don't bring it up every time someone doesn't share your particular, unofficial views.

Yeah, just absurd. Things are turning more and more into an echo chamber.

Why does it matter that "Landa was the better climber"?

It's like saying that the losing team had a better shooting percentage in a basketball game. So what?

No one is saying Contador didn't really win the Giro because he wasn't the best climber. As he won pretty much all his previous Grand Tours with superior climbing, as opposed to time trialling (except 2007, which he won thanks to the best climber being removed from the race), the fact that he wasn't the best climber this time around but won with a strong TT is notable and worthy of discussion.

First, it's not a "fact" that he wasn't the best climber. It's an "opinion". I would say it's an opinion that I also share. Landa was a better climber, IMO. But, we don't know how the race would have unfolded had Contador not smashed his rivals in the TT. Perhaps we would have seen a different climbing battle.

But discuss away.

 

[Publicus]

Greatest GT rider of this generation! And I noticed that too arvc40! I can't wait to see his TdF form, which I hope is considerably higher than it was here (which I think was planned)

 

[damian13ster]

Re: Re:

It's absolutely wack that you can't even mention Contador's official palmares without all sorts of fans jumping on your jugular. Feel free to keep whatever reckoning you fancy, but don't bring it up every time someone doesn't share your particular, unofficial views.

Yeah, just absurd. Things are turning more and more into an echo chamber.

Why does it matter that "Landa was the better climber"?

It's like saying that the losing team had a better shooting percentage in a basketball game. So what?

No one is saying Contador didn't really win the Giro because he wasn't the best climber. As he won pretty much all his previous Grand Tours with superior climbing, as opposed to time trialling (except 2007, which he won thanks to the best climber being removed from the race), the fact that he wasn't the best climber this time around but won with a strong TT is notable and worthy of discussion.

First, it's not a "fact" that he wasn't the best climber. It's an "opinion". I would say it's an opinion that I also share. Landa was a better climber, IMO. But, we don't know how the race would have unfolded had Contador not smashed his rivals in the TT. Perhaps we would have seen a different climbing battle.

But discuss away.

I dont know. Getting dropped hard multiple times by the same guy while never dropping that guy, better combined time in climbing stages by Landa (despite losing 2 minutes because of crash while Contador lost 40s because of puncture). I think it can be treated as a fact.

 

[ray j willings]

9 7 here are some other numbers that may or may not upset posters 3 69 5 23 11 1

 

[LaFlorecita]

Oh ghod, Oleg peeking out between Alberto's legs

 

[The Hitch]

On Bein Sport, one half of "clentadopucci" had a question for the other half.

Claudio asked if Berto thinks he could have won a stage.
Contador said, yeah maybe one of the mtfs.
Claudio asked which one.
Berto said he wouldn't say because those stages belong to other riders.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

On Bein Sport, one half of "clentadopucci" had a question for the other half.

Claudio asked if Berto thinks he could have won a stage.
Contador said, yeah maybe one of the mtfs.
Claudio asked which one.
Berto said he wouldn't say because those stages belong to other riders.

All class

 

[TheYouyou7]

Nibali will be smashed at Dauphiné.


Concerning Berto, I hope that he's been "far" from his best level in this Giro otherwise Tour is gonna be complicated.

 

[damian13ster]

Re: Re:

On Bein Sport, one half of "clentadopucci" had a question for the other half.

Claudio asked if Berto thinks he could have won a stage.
Contador said, yeah maybe one of the mtfs.
Claudio asked which one.
Berto said he wouldn't say because those stages belong to other riders.

All class

Where did you see class in there? Looks to me like not admitting his weakness. Was there a single stage this Giro in which he had the same time as winner (not counting sprint stages)? And there wasn't a single gift given. Kind of doubt he got dropped by Landa on purpose and choosing to follow Landa instead of Aru is a tactical choice, not gifting a stage to Aru. Unless he makes an assumption that he could have won one of the stages won by the breakaway.

I think you got some serious case on confirmation bias going on by just looking at the last sentence of the interview instead of putting everything into perspective.

 

[ray j willings]

I just want to say as a unbiased Bertie fan that no way was Landa a better climber in this tour than Bertie.
In my non biased opinion and using stats made up in my own head I have Bertie 33 minutes ahead of Landa and if you add the TT that goes up to over 2 days
This graph will help fill in the details of my mind

 

[LaFlorecita]

Yawn... not going to get dragged into this

 

[Alcanelo]

Just realised there every time he's done the Giro and the Vuelta he's always won. 6 from 6. That is incredible.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

I just want to say as a unbiased Bertie fan that no way was Landa a better climber in this tour than Bertie.
In my non biased opinion and using stats made up in my own head I have Bertie 33 minutes ahead of Landa and if you add the TT that goes up to over 2 days
This graph will help fill in the details of my mind

Damn, it's all clear now

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Just realised there every time he's done the Giro and the Vuelta he's always won. 6 from 6. That is incredible.

Indeed.

And he won his last 3 GTs with bib number 201. Do you think we could bribe ASO to give him #201 in July?

 

[ggusta]

Re: Re:

If it makes you feel better to say that Landa (in particular) is a better climber, then go ahead. I would be foolish to argue the point. What do I care? Contador won the race. He has won 8 others (on the road), don't you think there is something correlative about him in particular other than his climbing that accounts for that? Or is it always just circumstance?

Seeing how Landa also did a lot of domestique duties and was kept on a rather tight leash, it's indeed quite logical to state that he was the best climber in this race (although I have a hard time believing he did it clean). You may not care about this, but several others here and elsewhere seemed to take offense to that, going as far as accusing people of trolling - trolling, just because someone doesn't agree with their position. I'm finding that all quite obnoxious and arrogant, and it spoils any serious discussion. If this was contained to this thread, that'd be OK, but it's also in the race threads and people are quite aggressive.

To be clear, I don't have any real race favourites, and I actually dislike Astana because I find them dodgy and I don't think people like Vinokourov should be involved in cycling. I look at races to enjoy the racing, and I don't particularly care who wins as long as he displays some kind of panache and I can more or less trust the result. So I don't really understand why people can be so 'into' one rider in particular - but I'm OK with it. What I'm not OK with is attacking other people for having a different view, or constantly shifting explanations post-date just so the story continuous to confirm the riders superiority. For example, the view 2 days ago (after the Cervinia stage) that Contador was such a boss for destroying Landa mentally, and that he could've attacked whenever he wanted. It's annoying to read such things in different forms every day also in the race thread AND at the same time see people being called trolls for stating another opinion (like Taxus, when he said yesterday that Contador in the current form would not be up to Froome and Quintana, and possibly Nibali and Pinot). "Don't feed the trolls" etc. Yeah.

I"ll answer too since it concerns me also.

Here's the deal:

1. The reason (some) AC-fans got furious by this was of course the early established narrative that Landa was in the race the better climber, and that climbing was all-important, before we actually knew this with certainty. Of course, given that they were all skybots it was necessary to quickly adopt Landa and conviently "forget" the embarrasing time trial from both Landa and Porte, and in systematic order of reducing the importance in Albertos victory, establish this point about climbing. Thats why we've seen the likes of Sam shifting stances from both pointing out the overriding importance of winning the Tour to the points about climbing rubbed in our face with clinical precision after each stage. When AC attacked in Cervinia the adopt attitude was faking that he'd cared and was "worried" it could jeopardise the Tour, at Mortirolo it was necessary to slam in AC-fans faces that Landa as the better climber could have done more, with the sole purpose of winding up fans. Now, the ring-leader tells its "a joke" and cries about "AC-fans". Of course, it gets heated sometimes, we are fans after all. What is definitively pathetic is houlier than thou-figures or self proclaimed voices of reason who takes a pleasure in winding up fans and then cries about the result.


2. As i was very active with that whole "destroy-Landa-mentally" thing. Whats strange with that? Its not like stating to the press saying "Alberto creates chaos in Astana" and "starts a war between me and Fabio" because of his shifted focus from Fabio to Mikel, directed who gets on the second step or who dont, is a normal thing to say to the press. Besides, we wouldnt even have this discussion if it was not for yesterday. Of course this statement could be wrong but again instead of confront me/us with that people take offense and goes crybabies "ohh, look how disrespectful THEY are". I see a lot of sneaky comments from the ton of sockpuppets which i dont care about but i suppose they are not a problem.

1. So in summary what you are saying is that even though other posters were correct with Landa being a better climber and they had the sense to actually notice it before AC fans admitted it? And thats why you got furious? And all of that while demeaning another rider who got injured during the race and had to withdraw?
2. Well, you were clearly wrong about destroying Landa mentally and others who pointed that out before got called trolls. So basically again, for pointing out the facts that do not play with your little 'Contador is god' narrative other users get ignored and called trolls even though they are correct. All while naming those users who clearly know more about cycling then you or are more open-minded to actually notice the dynamics of the race and call you out when writing such nonsense (Contador resting, he let them go, didn't want to win a stage anyway, could have followed if he wanted, etc.) as crybabies and sockpuppets.

How do you expect anyone to take you seriously?

I don't get this obsession with whether or not landa's the better climber and how we go about arguing it if we're so inclined. AC is continually isolated on the major climbs so it's a rather difficult thing to assess, but I don't get the point and mathematically already stipulated that Landa's time was better. To quote Bill Parcells, you are what your record says you are. OK. Fine, but he's there to win a three week GT, not the KOM. What the heck is the point? Bragging rights? Well brag on with yo' bad seff.

Contador is God? Well, nine GT's (ON THE ROAD!! not in the record books) out of how many that he entered? God? I don't know if there is one. But he is one of the greats of cycling (ever), and it is remarkable how many people will line up to tear him down. I don't know when another like him will come along, but a lot of people are missing out on something rare and instead wasting their energy picking on nits while he picks up another trophy.

And yes, some people and their numerous user names come here to troll, along with others who come here to be reasonable and argue reasonably and sensibly. And trolls get ignored or treated like trolls because that is what they are. And people who make sense hopefully don't get lumped in with the trolls. But if someone posts a meaningless and misleading stat, I am not going to apologize for pointing it out.