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Teams & Riders Bahrain

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Amusing to read in the PRR sub-forum that Caruso's performance is "one for the good guys"
Well, I don't think that this was a reference to Caruso being clean.

I am big Landismo fan, but its obvious Bahrain guys are juiced to the gills right now.
Certainly seemed well prepared, yes. But why leave all the fun to Ineos and Lotto? Funnily enough, the thread initially started because of Ellingworth taking over and now that he is gone since December, the team had already a GT where they got it more "right" than probably ever before.
 
One obviously does not expect the (English-language) cycling media - print, TV or spodcast - to note that two thirds of this year's Giro podium has served time on the naughty step because of doping (the non-English media aren't so wilfully blind, deaf and dumb to this fact), so I wondered what had been said of Caruso's need for penance in the past. This is from CN and dates to December 2019:
In the winter of 2011, Caruso had cause to fear that he would be back in Sicily more permanently, when the Italian Olympic Committee [CONI] requested a four-year ban for what it described as "complicity in the attempted acquisition of banned substances". The infraction dated back to Caruso's time as an amateur, when, at a 2007 training camp on the Stelvio, a fellow rider asked to be put in contact with a soigneur known for his doping links.

"My error was that I should have just said no. Instead, because I didn't want to say no, I said, 'Maybe – we'll see,' in a throwaway way," Caruso says.

That conversation came to the attention of CONI during their investigation of former Liquigas rider Gianni Da Ros, who was handed a 20-year ban (later reduced to four) for trafficking doping substances, and Caruso was summoned to Rome to give evidence.

"I went to Rome without a lawyer or anything because I was certain I hadn't done anything wrong. Instead, 10 months later, they told me I had incriminated myself with the statement I gave them," he says. "They said, 'You should have told us at the time that they were looking to get in contact with this guy.' In the end, [CONI argued that] it was as though I had collaborated with them."

In February 2012, CONI announced that Caruso had been handed a backdated, one-year suspension, as well as a €500 fine. It meant that he could continue his career uninterrupted, although he considered appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to have the blemish excised from his record altogether.

"I didn't earn enough to pay for that," he says now. "Only people who have the money can get justice for themselves. It shouldn't be like that, but it is."
I do like how Caruso's offence is described as an "infraction" and a "blemish".
 
Are we supposed to believe this?
First Caruso, now Padun wins a really tough mountain stage against Kuss, Lopez, Thomas, Porte, Gaudu...
and Haig comes 4th...
Which strong performances are we ever going to believe?

For sure Bahrain got their program right this season. Landa, Caruso, Bilbao, Haig, Padun, Mohoric, Colbrelli, Haussler and Haller in the classics, Tratnik, Bauhaus and Mader on their top form.

It is only Poels and Teuns that don't seem to benefit.

You can see from u23 results that Padun is very talented. Maybe the best level of his career so far but he is not yet 25 so that can be expected.
 
It's stuff like this which makes me wonder whether the Tour will spring a few surprises (i.e. I'm thinking even the ubiquitous Slovenians themselves could be on the limit of getting dropped on a few occasions judging by how hard the peloton is now juicing it).

This is 1997 levels with a 50 megaton nuke on top. Not normal.
 
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Don 't believe it

Just enjoy the circus.

You have to admit, that climb today was pretty exciting (no train snuffing the life out of the race & everyone wheel sucking, no, we got attacks, counter-attacks etc.). But the 1990's were also exciting (at least as far as I remember they were when I was a kid).

The Tour this year could be legendary at this rate "if" the trains blow up & everyone starts attacking each other from further out. Just try not to laugh at the delirious climbing times.
 
casual 3 minutes faster than Pantani-Gotti :D

absurd, no wonder froome strugles, he might actually be on a decent form - for 2015...in 2021 he cant even stay in peloton
As Mihai also writes in an earlier tweet, somehow the rest day must have hampered them. The level of Pantani the very next day is a stark contrast to his performance on La Plagne. Maybe he just eased on the climb to be fresher for the next, as the stage win was gone?
 
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You have to admit, that climb today was pretty exciting (no train snuffing the life out of the race & everyone wheel sucking, no, we got attacks, counter-attacks etc.). But the 1990's were also exciting (at least as far as I remember they were when I was a kid).

The Tour this year could be legendary at this rate "if" the trains blow up & everyone starts attacking each other from further out. Just try not to laugh at the delirious climbing times.
It was good, but that was more due to the lack of one train crushing it all than to the dope.
 
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Are we supposed to believe this?
First Caruso, now Padun wins a really tough mountain stage against Kuss, Lopez, Thomas, Porte, Gaudu...
and Haig comes 4th...

It's too much. Don't forget Jan Tratnik lighting up the Zoncolan in the Giro either, i.e. which at the time a couple of weeks ago seemed "cute" but now within the context of the team performance over the past month or so it's clearly evidence of a program at Bahrain.

But whatever, apparently no one tests positive anymore so all is "okay" in world cycling.
 
It's too much. Don't forget Jan Tratnik lighting up the Zoncolan in the Giro either, i.e. which at the time a couple of weeks ago seemed "cute" but now within the context of the team performance over the past month or so it's clearly evidence of a program at Bahrain.

But whatever, apparently no one tests positive anymore so all is "okay" in world cycling.
And Domen Novak becoming a top class climbing domestique who is able to drop Nibali in the 2020 Giro...
 
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