Re: Re:
LaFlorecita said:
There is absolutely no reason to put pressure on him like that. I don't care about the English speaking world and he shouldn't either. The majority of his fanbase lives in traditional cycling countries. If those July fans in English speaking countries prefer to drool over Sky and their cleanliness so be it. They'd not give a **** about Alberto's legacy or "biography" either way. Whether he wins the Tour again ir not, real fans know he is one of the greatest and that he should be appreciated (even fooking Kirby said he should be worshipped).
If you truly cared only about the opinions of 'real' fans, and a necessary condition to be a 'real' fan is to share your opinion of Contador, well yeah, that would make for a pleasant echo chamber. It would however be a bit of a puzzle if happy members of the chamber exhibited combativeness and signs of being infuriated whenever engaging with outsiders on Contador.
DFA123 said:
Yep, for such a great rider, there has been something slightly unsatisfactory about his TdF results, especially post-ban. Even all three* of his Tour wins have been slightly underwhelming in a way. The first one he would most probably have lost had Rasmussen not been pulled. The second one was by far the most legit, but was a pretty low quality field, where his only real competition was from his own team. The third one was obviously chalked off, and had some controversial moments as well in the eyes of many fans. But, at least pre-ban you could undoubtedly say the was the GC king in the peloton.
Since his ban he hasn't come close to winning; he hasn't even come close to challenging Froome yet in the Tour, which, considering that is the majority of his GT career, makes it hard to support the claim that he is the best rider of his generation. Hopefully he can put in a decent performance, but the change in quality of performances pre-ban to post-ban suggests that he has been left behind a bit in the arms race. Or maybe Froome is just much better than Schleck and Evans.
Personally, I find Contador's record underwhelming too. Only 2009 was a dominant performance, and his performances in the others GTs have been directly brought about by not getting to focus on the Tour (2008, 2011, 2012). I wish he hadn't gone for the double last year.
There are quite a few possible factors that could have caused his decrease in relative strength, comparing pre-ban and post-ban periods. Age, wear and tear, lacking preparation, facing better competition, a new doping regime being less favourable for his characteristics, ...
I have no idea what the share of each of those is because many of them changed at the same time, which complicates attribution to any one factor. If we really wanted to, though, I think we could partially isolate the effect of the ban by adjusting for the other factors: Looking at power data over time, historical data for age/wear & tear vs performance, Contador's performances relative to his contemporaries etc.
A careful analysis would be required to get a reasonable estimate and there'd be considerable uncertainty about it regardless. But no one with an audience will be performing such an analysis and if any one did, no one would listen because one of the premises is that cycling remains riddled with dopers.
Instead, the view that is taking hold in public is a fable of a rider who needed a chemical leg-up to compete for the Tour, who regressed back to his real level once he was stripped off that unfair advantage. A very good GT rider, but not the best. With every stinging to defeat to Froome, this view grows stronger.