Re: Re:
Just one word explanation/factor is enough: FERRARIcarton said:You're talking about Landa and Cataldo emerging as guys who can work really hard at the front and the having the finishing kick to beat everyone but Contador and Porte at the end? Or having 7 guys in the top fifty after working harder than anyone the last two stages?SkyTears said:How many Astana riders are on the Kreuziger/Uran level ? 4? 5? this is ridiculous
What's going to be the media-digestible explanation? I'm going with Astana finding the ultimate marginal gain: exposing guys to the wind on hot stages cools them off so they actually have more energy at the end.
If you want to be a skeptical crank, there may be two factors possibly at play:
One is that this is simply a byproduct of transparency. Since you have a very clear system of epo testing and bio-passport triggers, and the UCI has had to defend it trial after trial, the doctors now have pretty clear lines of up to what points they can micro-epo/micro-transfuse. They were trying to have a firmer grasp of how much they could push, and some riders were caught because of it. Collateral damage. Now they have an even better handle of the parameters at play.
The other is that none of their target audiences really give a darn if they're doping. Most serious cycling fans outside the hopeless romantics believe that they are doping. Their Italian and Kazakhstani fans are either too casual to know or too jingoistic to care. So why bother pretending otherwise?
The real hardcore cynics would argue that everyone is doing it, but that since Astana are not getting benefits from the "clean era" cycling narrative, that's the reason why they aren't going to waste any energy keeping up the charade. That is a little bit too harsh, particularly on everyone else, IMHO. But perhaps more digestible than the kopi luwak espresso being served at the moment.