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Astana?

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Re:

rick james said:
And again it seems winning races gets people’s backs up more than actually getting busted for EPO....what a sad state of affairs

I cannot speak for others, but my quote back is not up.
In fact, I find the spectacle and subsequent reactions highly amusing. For instance, a couple posts ago, Valve made me chuckle. We all knew Jacob is a good rider who was expected to perform in GT more than half a decade ago; but he didn't. And the sudden ascendency is top notch stuff.

p.s. What is one to do when a pack filler gets busted (qm). Literally getting out pitchforks is not advised. Nor is yelling from your local tree-top. Complaining about it on the internet would be boring. Best just to get some popcorn and sit back and enjoy.
 
Re:

Frankschleck said:
Fuglsang and Astana are suscpious. It's not like Astana have the best reputation, but then again Fuglsang has always been talented. Valverde peaked at 34 aswell :DD. Nah i believe they are cheating, but then again, Geraints transformation to tour winner was more suscpisious.
Fuglsang is suspicious, just as Valverde is and just as Geraint is.
They all are suspicious. Nothing to see here.
This is Vino's team. Enough said!
 
Re: Re:

Escarabajo said:
Frankschleck said:
Fuglsang and Astana are suscpious. It's not like Astana have the best reputation, but then again Fuglsang has always been talented. Valverde peaked at 34 aswell :DD. Nah i believe they are cheating, but then again, Geraints transformation to tour winner was more suscpisious.
Fuglsang is suspicious, just as Valverde is and just as Geraint is.
They all are suspicious. Nothing to see here.
This is Vino's team. Enough said!

I agree and I wonder if the one day classic riders do a blood bag the night before ?
 
Re: Re:

masking_agent said:
Escarabajo said:
Frankschleck said:
Fuglsang and Astana are suscpious. It's not like Astana have the best reputation, but then again Fuglsang has always been talented. Valverde peaked at 34 aswell :DD. Nah i believe they are cheating, but then again, Geraints transformation to tour winner was more suscpisious.
Fuglsang is suspicious, just as Valverde is and just as Geraint is.
They all are suspicious. Nothing to see here.
This is Vino's team. Enough said!

I agree and I wonder if the one day classic riders do a blood bag the night before ?

Fuglsang has long been a very good one week rider, but I never knew of him having great ability in one day races before this season. Looking quickly at some past results we have:

2011 - 4th in Amstel.
2015 - 8th in Fleche Wallonne, 9th in LBL.
2016 - 2nd in ORR.
2018 - 8th in Amstel, 10th in LBL.

So history shows that Jakob hasn't come from nowhere to finish 3, 2, 1 in this years Ardennes week, but nor was he ever close to being a consistently great one day rider previously. It has to be considered a little suspect. However, it would make sense to me if a rider from the age of about 31-35 made improvements with handling the 250 km plus distance of most major one day races (even consider that Nibali has won his monuments when over 30). Perhaps this is an area where Alaphalippe will improve (which is a little scary), and yes, I'm aware that he already won Milan-San Remo.
 
http://www.astanaproteam.kz/modules.php?name=astana&page=news&id=2795
news_idnews2795_photo_1558078441.jpg


Who would have thought that Vino and an "ecologically sanitized environment" could be mentioned in one sentance? :D More marginal gains?
 
Re: Re:

movingtarget said:
86TDFWinner said:
DanielSong39 said:
Astana, like Movistar and BMC, appears to have been left behind by modern methods.

Didnt: Cadel and Nibali both test positive for doping, along with the rest/half of Astana, to the point UCI tried to strip their license?

No neither of them tested positive.
Sastre, as rumor has it, apparently tested positive for Cera at the 2008 Tour de France with half his CSC as well. Which got covered up because ASO couldn't afford a 3rd year in a row without a legitimate winner after the Landis and Rasmussen events beforehand.

At least that's what L'Equipe more or less made up that summer.

With Astana I think it were Maxim & Valentin Iglinsky that got caught for EPO. Which led the UCI to unsuccessfully call for a license removal ahead of Astana's legendary shameless 2015 Giro d'Italia!
 
Re: Re:

staubsauger said:
movingtarget said:
86TDFWinner said:
DanielSong39 said:
Astana, like Movistar and BMC, appears to have been left behind by modern methods.

Didnt: Cadel and Nibali both test positive for doping, along with the rest/half of Astana, to the point UCI tried to strip their license?

No neither of them tested positive.
Sastre, as rumor has it, apparently tested positive for Cera at the 2008 Tour de France with half his CSC as well. Which got covered up because ASO couldn't afford a 3rd year in a row without a legitimate winner after the Landis and Rasmussen events beforehand.

At least that's what L'Equipe more or less made up that summer.

With Astana I think it were Maxim & Valentin Iglinsky that got caught for EPO. Which led the UCI to unsuccessfully call for a license removal ahead of Astana's legendary shameless 2015 Giro d'Italia!
Any source on the Sastre rumor?

It's one of these things I could 100% see happening but it could also easily be made up. Basically cherry picking the positives to pretend you're catching people but also trying really hard not to destroy your own race.

What's really confusing to me though is that Ricco wasn't popped for Cera in the 2008 IIRC
 
Re: Re:

staubsauger said:
movingtarget said:
86TDFWinner said:
DanielSong39 said:
Astana, like Movistar and BMC, appears to have been left behind by modern methods.

Didnt: Cadel and Nibali both test positive for doping, along with the rest/half of Astana, to the point UCI tried to strip their license?

No neither of them tested positive.
Sastre, as rumor has it, apparently tested positive for Cera at the 2008 Tour de France with half his CSC as well. Which got covered up because ASO couldn't afford a 3rd year in a row without a legitimate winner after the Landis and Rasmussen events beforehand.

At least that's what L'Equipe more or less made up that summer.

With Astana I think it were Maxim & Valentin Iglinsky that got caught for EPO. Which led the UCI to unsuccessfully call for a license removal ahead of Astana's legendary shameless 2015 Giro d'Italia!

Finally some suspicion at Sastre. I really never understood the claims he was clean his time on the Alpe that day has never been approached since. 39:30 into a (mostly) headwind solo.
 
I don't think many people claimed Sastre was clean per se, just that he was unfairly left out from silly discussions of "clean winners" when there was nothing against him, while those discussions heavily featured the likes of Evans and Wiggins, the implication being that Sastre was snubbed because he isn't Anglo.

That said, I'm skeptical about the L'Equipe thing. I'll second the request for a source.
 
Re: Re:

Red Rick said:
staubsauger said:
movingtarget said:
86TDFWinner said:
DanielSong39 said:
Astana, like Movistar and BMC, appears to have been left behind by modern methods.

Didnt: Cadel and Nibali both test positive for doping, along with the rest/half of Astana, to the point UCI tried to strip their license?

No neither of them tested positive.
Sastre, as rumor has it, apparently tested positive for Cera at the 2008 Tour de France with half his CSC as well. Which got covered up because ASO couldn't afford a 3rd year in a row without a legitimate winner after the Landis and Rasmussen events beforehand.

At least that's what L'Equipe more or less made up that summer.

With Astana I think it were Maxim & Valentin Iglinsky that got caught for EPO. Which led the UCI to unsuccessfully call for a license removal ahead of Astana's legendary shameless 2015 Giro d'Italia!
Any source on the Sastre rumor?

It's one of these things I could 100% see happening but it could also easily be made up. Basically cherry picking the positives to pretend you're catching people but also trying really hard not to destroy your own race.

What's really confusing to me though is that Ricco wasn't popped for Cera in the 2008 IIRC

I have read about the suspicion of Sastre before, but I can't find a single source on English. I can however find a dozen sources on Danish from either the state broadcaster/public service channel DR, TV2 who has broadcast the Tour since forever and some tabloids. They say, that according to a Belgian newspaper (Le Soir), Sastre was tested positive for CERA along with O'Grady, Cancellara and Fränk Schleck. It's all hearsay though, just like when people speculated that Moscon was involved in Operation Aderlass a month ago or so.
 

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