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Teams & Riders Bahrain

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like I don't want to put myself in the position of defending Bahrain, who are on some big time firewater, but it was kind of bizarre seeing Ineos suddenly win classics left and right and yet even in the main forum people were "HMMMM"-ing at Theuns winning LFW, a race that is absolutely in his wheelhouse. Where were the posts about why Kwaito was suddenly good again? Or where all these random British classics riders for Ineos came from?
 
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TGH Giro win definitely doesn't get enough credit for being as ridiculous as it was. INEOS in that race in general were just on something different.
My main thing was always Dennis suddenly destroying everyone on the Stelvio when he was getting dropped on a tempogrinder like Madonna di Campiglio by De Gendt one day earlier. Him being good on a tempogrinder at altitude like Sestriere is one thing, but to be on that level on a Monster climb like the Stelvio after being dropped by his breakaway companions on an easier climb one day earlier makes no sense for a top tter. That was pretty shady.
 
like I don't want to put myself in the position of defending Bahrain, who are on some big time firewater, but it was kind of bizarre seeing Ineos suddenly win classics left and right and yet even in the main forum people were "HMMMM"-ing at Theuns winning LFW, a race that is absolutely in his wheelhouse. Where were the posts about why Kwaito was suddenly good again? Or where all these random British classics riders for Ineos came from?
Maybe they are in the 1600+ page Ineos thread as opposed to the 26 page Bahrain thread. :p
 
like I don't want to put myself in the position of defending Bahrain, who are on some big time firewater, but it was kind of bizarre seeing Ineos suddenly win classics left and right and yet even in the main forum people were "HMMMM"-ing at Theuns winning LFW, a race that is absolutely in his wheelhouse. Where were the posts about why Kwaito was suddenly good again? Or where all these random British classics riders for Ineos came from?
To be fair it’s pretty much a given that Ineos is still heavily on the dark side of the sport so the surprise is more when the emerging teams start to gain ground.
 
I don't know. Even before Caruso became 2nd in the Giro last year, he was only 9th in Romandie, losing time against O'Connor, Masnada, Lucas Hamilton and Ion Izagirre in a MTF. I'm not sure if you can draw a lot of conclusions before seeing their level at the TdF.
We've had the Giro where they were subdued barring a credible stage win by a specialised climber in a breakaway. I'm pretty comfortable with drawing conclusions on Bahrain this year versus last year.
 
Seeing Haig and Caruso being unable to match a Gaudu or Tao today (never mind TJV or O'Connor) just underlines they are not seemingly able to reach the levels they had prior to suspect hair samples being discovered. Long may it last.

"suspect" hair sample with a non banned product. maybe suspect but legal. Mohoric, Teuns, Bilbao disagree about the levels, they are going strong. Buitrago did a super stage and Landa got on the Giro podium. last year they got a GT podium too with Haig.
Haig did very well today, and Williams won the sprint at TdSuisse thanks to their super legal hair doping
I want them to smash it at the TDF cause Bahrain is what twitter and the Clinic needs.
 
We've had the Giro where they were subdued barring a credible stage win by a specialised climber in a breakaway. I'm pretty comfortable with drawing conclusions on Bahrain this year versus last year.

The thing is, there is no statistical evidence behind this.

Let's compare Bahrain 2021 and Bahrain 2022 up to June 13th.

Total Points:
2021: 3851 points
2022: 5523 points
2022 is clearly better, even if we have to consider that Paris-Roubaix was postponed last year.

Total Wins:
2021: 13
2022: 12
2021 is slightly better, but it's close.

Grand Tours:
2021: 2nd in Giro plus 2 stage wins
2022: 3nd and 5th in Giro plus 1 stage win plus Team Classification
2021 was slightly stronger, but it's very close.

Monuments:
MSR: 8th 2021 vs. 1st 2022
Ronde: 20th 2021 vs. 6th 2022
Roubaix: postponed 2021 vs. 5th 2022
Liège: 10th 2021 vs. 6th 2022
2022 was way better.

Further World Tour Races:
UAE: 7th 2021 vs. 3rd 2022
Omloop: 4th 2021 vs. 2nd 2022
Strade: 10th 2021 vs. 5th 2022
PN: 7th 2021 vs. 6th 2022
Tirreno: 3rd 2021 vs. 3rd 2022
Catalunya: 18th 2021 vs. 12th 2022
Panne: 16th 2021 vs. 10th 2022
E3: 10th 2021 vs. 4th 2022
Gent W: 4th 2021 vs. 9th 2022
Dwars: 18th 2021 vs. 9th 2022
Itzulia: 6th 2021 vs. 5th 2022
Amstel: 9th 2021 vs. 10th 2022
Flèche: 19th 2021 vs. 1st 2022
Romandie: 9th 2021 vs. 2nd 2022
Eschborn: postponed in 2021 vs. 4th in 2022
Dauphiné: 5th in 2021 vs. 4th in 2022
2022 was way better.

While the way they have won the races that they have won last year (especially Padun, Colbrelli, Mohoric and then Caruso in the Giro) was far more ridiculous, results-wise they have clearly improved this year.

In fact, besides the Giro where you can argue that the result was very similar, overall they have only been worse in 2 World Tour races up to this point: Amstel (only 1 place worse) and Gent- Wevelgem.
 
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I actually think Bahrain are tactically astute. But take this comparison.

In the 2021 Giro, Caruso (not their strongest GT rider) finished within 90secs of GT winner Bernal and minutes ahead of GT winner S. Yates as well as Vlasov and Martinez). In a far shorter 2022 Dauphine Caruso finished by the larger margin of roughly 2mins down on both Roglic and Vingegaard.

In the 2022 Giro, Landa (their lead GT rider) couldn't get within 3mins of Jai Hindley or 2mins of a clearly sub par Carapaz.

In 2021 Haig finished ahead of O'Connor at the Dauphine, this year he finished well behind him.

There is no comparison in terms of relative performance compared to top performing riders so far this year. With respect to one day classics and other races, I think it makes sense to massively weight results in the GTs and in preparatory races for GTs like the Dauphine.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion but the difference to me is glaring both in terms of the eye test and the time gaps to top riders in major multi-stage races. I do not anticipate Bahrain dominating rival teams for stage wins at the TdF. If they repeat their three stage wins of last year I'll eat my hat (assuming similar performance to Giro and Dauphine 2022 levels).
 
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But lets just say they kind of provoked that. Random riders flying in 2021, earning some doubt (with an actual investigation already: https://bahraincyclingteam.com/bahrain-victorious-riders-and-staff-investigated/) and then one of your stars pulls a Lance...

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The police cannot randomly search addresses without information. That doesn't mean the information is 100% reliable, but these latest raids likely mean that senior police officers in four countries were sufficiently convinced by the intelligence on Bahrain to conclude there were fair grounds for conducting these searches. Fingers crossed they find a smoking gun.
 
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The police cannot randomly search addresses without information. That doesn't mean the information is 100% reliable, but these latest raids likely mean that senior police officers in four countries were sufficiently convinced by the intelligence on Bahrain to conclude there were fair grounds for conducting these searches. Fingers crossed they find a smoking gun.
Perhaps they should raid Team UAE homes as well ... just saying ...
 
Also to an extent I don't really "credit" Bahrain for Padun because the team dropped him like a hot potato after last year's Dauphine, leaving him off the Tour selection, which struck me as they themselves not really liking whatever they saw out of him.

Apparently Big JV liked it though!
 
And then they should raid Quickstep, Ineos, Jumbo etc. , just saying... :tearsofjoy:
@ppanther92 is right, the reason behind this raid is clear, the police received informations and intervened accordingly.
LOL, it was a joke so please chill. Any while those teams have leaders that might, depending on viewpoints, be a$$hats (well perhaps JV the least), UAE has corrupt dopage at the max at the leader and trainer level. Thus the joke.

Team to team comparison, of course they are not the same :p
 
LOL, it was a joke so please chill. Any while those teams have leaders that might, depending on viewpoints, be a$$hats (well perhaps JV the least), UAE has corrupt dopage at the max at the leader and trainer level. Thus the joke.

Team to team comparison, of course they are not the same :p

I am calm, I understood the joke and your point of view, it's just that I disagree with it, because if we follow your reasoning then some teams shouldn' t ride, and i don't think that UAE (with one rider definitely stronger than his teammates, even though this year there was also a step up in performances from other riders ) would be the only one with problems, since there are atleast 3 to 4 teams that have almost the whole roster flying, so this is the reasoning that I followed writing that post before.
 
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