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fantasy doping draft

Page 27 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
No probs, burning - only the one more round anyhow. I made sure to PM you straight away knowing you've mentioned being busy before. Just a few of us like me and Tonton have got perhaps a bit too into this draft :p

I figured Sagan might go at some point soon. His stagehunting capabilities and durability compared to many of the sprinters picked so far (except Abdou obviously) makes him a very useful card to have. Him fighting with Bettini in hilly stages and sprinting at the end of tougher rolling stages while Vandenbroucke tries to break away from them 800 times could be very entertaining indeed. As long as Sagan loses, because the other three are just far more classy than Sagan will ever be. I'd root for Cavendish over him. And Hitch does have the 2009 Tour Cav that can get to the end in Aubenas, too.

Oh, and Cipo will party harder than Peter the Obnoxious Fratboy anyway. Even if he's been picked for a Giro so will likely actually try to make it to the end.

Zama time.
 
Libertine Seguros was right (as usual ;)). I looove this thread. It brings back a lot of memories.

With the 9th selection of round 8, and 79th pick overall, team La Vie Pas Claire chooses:


Armand De Las Cuevas ('94 Giro).

De Las Cuevas was unknown to the French public in '91 when he won the national road race. At the '92 TdF, he gained global fame as "best of the rest" in the alien mutant Luxembourg ITT. With Banesto, Armand De Las Cuevas was confined to a role of domestique for BigMig. But the man had talent, ambition, and a good medicine cabinet. So at the end of '93, he joined former Dr. Mabuse patient (and genius DS) Cyrille Guimard and the Castorama team.

At the '94 Giro d'Italia, De Las Cuevas won the short stage 1b ITT by 2" over Berzin, was solid until the stage 8 ITT that he finished second, 1'16" behind Berzin, but 1'18" ahead of BigMig. The top of the GC didn't evolve in the following days. The monster Stage 15 (with the Stelvio, the Mortirolo, and the Valico di Santa Cristina on the menu) began with De Las Cuevas 2nd overall. On the day that Marco Pantani became a legend, Armand De Las Cuevas did quite well (finishing the stage 15th - with Andy Hampsten), but lost time and dropped to 6th in the GC. At the start of the hilly stage 18 ITT, Armand De Las Cuevas was only 1'4" from Bugno, 4th overall, and decided to go all out. Unfortunately he fell and broke several ribs, but still finished the stage in 4th position - 5th in the GC). Refusing to LRP, De Las Cuevas hung on to finish the Giro 9th. Bad luck continued weeks later at the TdF, when 4th overall after 16 stages, he contracted a pneumonia and abandoned. Small consolation: he won the Classica San Sebastian.

One of the very best ITT specialists of the EPO era, very good climber, Armand De Las Cuevas will make team La Vie Pas Claire hard to beat in a TTT and give its train in the mountains another dimension. And he's French ;) .
 

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Draft Summary

Libertine Seguros - 1 Miguel Indurain ('95 Tour), 20 Laurent Jalabert ('95 Vuelta), 30 Joseba Beloki ('01 Tour), 31 José María Jiménez ('98 Vuelta), 41 Fernando Escartin ('99 Tour), 60 Melcior Mauri ('91 Vuelta), 70 Haimar Zubeldia ('03 Tour)
The Hitch - 2 Lance Armstrong ('04 Tour), 19 Michael Rasmussen ('07 Tour), 29 Nairo Quintana ('13 Tour), 32 Vincenzo Nibali ('14 Tour), 42 Andy Schleck ('09 Tour), 59 Carlos Sastre ('08 Tour), 69 Mark Cavendish ('09 Tour)
The Sceptic - 3 Jan Ullrich ('97 Tour), 18 Santi Pérez ('04 Vuelta), 28 Chris Horner ('13 Vuelta), 33 Aitor Gonzalez ('02 Vuelta), 43 Mario Cipollini ('02 Giro), 58 Damiano Cunego ('04 Giro), 68 Levi Leipheimer ('07 Tour)
The Green Monkey - 4 Alberto Contador ('09 Tour), 17 Alex Zülle ('95 Tour), 27 Ivan Gotti ('97 Giro), 34 Emanuele Sella ('08 Giro), 44 Cadel Evans ('07 Tour), 57 Paolo Bettini ('98 Giro), 67 Tom Steels ('98 Tour)
zlev11 - 5 Marco Pantani ('99 Giro), 16 Floyd Landis ('06 Tour), 26 Riccardo Ricco ('08 Tour), 35 Iban Mayo ('03 Tour), 45 Laurent Dufaux ('96 Tour), 56 Stefan Schumacher ('08 Tour), 66 Isidro Nozal ('03 Vuelta)
burning - 6 Bjarne Riis ('96 Tour), 15 Richard Virenque ('97 Tour), 25 Gilberto Simoni ('03 Giro), 36 Bradley Wiggins ('12 Tour), 46 Luc Leblanc ('94 Tour), 55 Bobby Julich ('98 Tour), 65 Serhiy Honchar ('06 Tour)
Netserk - 7 Ivan Basso ('06 Giro), 14 Piotr Ugrumov ('94 Tour), 24 Pavel Tonkov ('98 Giro), 37 Andreas Klöden ('06 Tour), 47 Fabian Cancellara ('10 Tour), 54 George Hincapie ('05 Tour), 64 Paolo Savoldelli ('99 Giro)
Zam Olyas - 8 Gianni Bugno ('90 Giro), 13 Tony Rominger ('95 Giro), 23 Denis Menchov ('09 Giro), 38 Claudio Chiappucci ('92 Tour), 48 Djamolidine Abdoujaparov ('93 Tour), 53 Yaroslav Popovych ('05 Tour), 63 Franco Chioccioli ('91 Giro)
Tonton - 9 Evgeni Berzin ('94 Giro), 12 Chris Froome ('13 Tour), 22 Alexander Vinokourov ('03 Tour), 39 Alejandro Valverde ('09 Vuelta), 49 Abraham Olano ('98 Vuelta), 52 Leonardo Piepoli ('07 Giro), 62 Santiago Botero ('02 Tour)
ciranda - 10 Roberto Heras ('04 Vuelta), 11 Tyler Hamilton ('03 Tour ), 21 Frank Vandenbroucke ('99 Vuelta), 40 Joaquím Rodriguez ('12 Vuelta), 50 Raimondas Rumsas ('02 Tour), 51 Dario Frigo ('01 Giro), 61 Oliverio Rincón ('95 Giro)

Round 8
71 - Libertine Seguros - Andrey Kashechkin ('06 Vuelta)
72 - The Hitch - Tony Martin ('14 Tour)
73 - The Sceptic - Igor Gonzalez De Galdeano ('02 Tour)
74 - The Green Monkey - Wilfried Peeters ('98 Tour)
75 - zlev11 - Alessandro Petacchi ('04 Giro)
76 - burning - Danilo Di Luca ('07 Giro)
77 - netserk - Peter Sagan ('12 Tour)
78 - Zam_Olyas - Juan Jose Cobo ('11 Vuelta)
79 - Tonton - Armand De Las Cuevas ('94 Giro)
80 - ciranda -
 
Zam taking Cobo removes one of my potential options for pick 81, but I still have two forefront selections. He's also a smart pick in that he's somebody who is strong, can contribute to the TTT as well as in the climbs, but whose psychological makeup means he will also be perfectly happy to just do a domestique role and not be in the limelight, same reason I picked Zubeldia.

There are actually a few more picks, a couple of which I had down as potential picks for me before the draft started but that I don't now feel fit because of the way the draft has gone.

Edit: Tonton, you finally got your Frenchman :D

There are a couple of other Frenchies that may be round 9 possibilities depending on the roles people are looking for, but de las Cuevas is a good shout, wasn't on my radar.
 
Re:

Libertine Seguros said:
Zam taking Cobo removes one of my potential options for pick 81, but I still have two forefront selections. He's also a smart pick in that he's somebody who is strong, can contribute to the TTT as well as in the climbs, but whose psychological makeup means he will also be perfectly happy to just do a domestique role and not be in the limelight, same reason I picked Zubeldia.

There are actually a few more picks, a couple of which I had down as potential picks for me before the draft started but that I don't now feel fit because of the way the draft has gone.
That is why i hired Steve Peters.....chimpin' ain't easy
 
Re:

Libertine Seguros said:
Edit: Tonton, you finally got your Frenchman :D

There are a couple of other Frenchies that may be round 9 possibilities depending on the roles people are looking for, but de las Cuevas is a good shout, wasn't on my radar.
I thought I may actually have to pick a French woman :D .

Yes, still several Frenchies left, one in particular, but also a vampire from way back almost named Dracula, or maybe an Italian with a Russian name.
 
Re: Re:

Tonton said:
Libertine Seguros said:
Edit: Tonton, you finally got your Frenchman :D

There are a couple of other Frenchies that may be round 9 possibilities depending on the roles people are looking for, but de las Cuevas is a good shout, wasn't on my radar.
I thought I may actually have to pick a French woman :D .
Jeannie or Pauline?

I thought about nominating a Giro-winning Vos before my "real" final pick, like when Hitch "picked" Zakarin after Romandie.
 
At this stage it's hard going because there are like thirty riders that could be fun to choose. As my eighth rider I take Oscar Camenzind from the 1998 Giro d'Italia. He can win stages but as opposed to others I thought about (don't know if there will be a Roubaix stage) also be strong in the mountains. Camenzind was primarily very good mentally and phiysically in the most difficult one day races. The World Championships he won in 1998 was one of the most memorable. Also on his palmares are races like Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Giro di Lombardia and Tour de Suisse. He was also fourth in the GdI 1998 while super strong as support for Pavel Tonkov but chose to focus on one day races after that. Bonus: after Oliverio Rincon he is the second on my team who used to be a mailman.

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:D

I really wasn't expecting anyone to pick Camenzind. His 1998 Giro was a thing of beauty. He was a top 15 guy for 2 weeks and was already very strong going into Schio, then he pulled a fantastic ride to Selva di Val Gardena (one of the most memorable mountain stages in modern history, I'd say) and stayed up there for the remaining mountain stages to finish a fantastic 4th. All of that, with the Swiss champion jersey for bonus style points.

He was also a very good domestique when it came to that (see again the Selva di Val Gardena stage and the 1996 WC).
 
Right, I'm the first to conclude my team. And maybe not how you might have expected since it breaks from the basis of my team so far - this is the first selection on my team not to be on a Spanish team (Mig and Chava are from Banesto; Mauri, Jaja and Beloki are from ONCE, and Kash is from Astana '06 which was racing on the Liberty Seguros licence at the time so shares that lineage; Escartín is from Kelme and Zubeldia is from Euskaltel), and we're going way back in time. My backup pick was more in line with that, but my first choice was made a while ago... and therefore I was mortified when Tonton nearly gave the game up with their "vampire who was almost Dracula" comment yesterday!!!

That's because, the final name to round out the squad for Equipo Libertine Seguros-Banesto presented by ONCE is Zenon Jaskuła, Polska, at the 1993 Tour de France.

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After the fall of Communism, dozens of former amateurs from the Warsaw Pact countries looked to turn pro and finally get to ride the biggest races. Zenon Jaskuła was one of those riders, a talented all-rounder who had finished 5th in the 1987 Friedensfahrt, and climbed up onto the podium in the 1989 race. The 1987 result had been based mainly on one epic stage: the mid-length ITT in Harrachov, which has become one of the great legends of the race - the one where they climbed the ski flying hill to finish. The East Germans elected to change to fatter tyres at the base of the hill to gain more grip, and put four of their six riders in the top 7 on the day as a result; Zenon was 2nd without that benefit. Elsewhere, he showed that he was a force to be reckoned with in the flats by winning three straight national time trial jerseys, and a silver medal both at the Worlds and Olympics in the Team Time Trial.

After the fall of Communism, Jaskuła plied his trade, like so many riders from the former East, in Italy, where in 1993 he wound up on the GB-MG Maglificio squad at the Tour de France. Going into the race, the Pole was not the team leader, nor did he have the benefit, like Indurain or Rominger, of a team built around his success - he had to share the bus with the coming-into-his-stride Mario Cipollini, and Classics specialists like Franco Ballerini and Johan Museeuw. His storming to the GC podium certainly wasn't expected, in fact in week 1 he was doing some pulls to help bring a sprint together. He was a key component in GB-MG's stage-winning TTT effort, before hanging in with the best in the Alps; sure, he lost time to Big Mig in the long ITT, but so did everybody; he was 7th, with 4 of those above him being top 2 round draft picks. The Isola 2000 stage, over Izoard, Vars and Bonnette, was remarkable; the mid-gradient grinding suited him and he lost almost nothing to Rominger, Indurain and Chiappucci. In the Pyrenées, he suffered with the best on the medium gradients of Andorra, then got the best of them on the shorter, steeper Pla d'Adet, when he and Rominger beat the existing record on the climb by a herculean four minutes. And then he topped it off by placing 3rd in the race-ending ITT. Then, having shown he could lead at a Grand Tour, he signed for the Jolly-Componibili team for the following year... and they didn't get invited to the Tour. Already in his 30s by this point, Jaskuła never reached the same heights again. But for a brief, EPO-brimmed moment, he was a potential great. After all, late bloomer though he may have been, he was younger than Rominger!

Zenon Jaskuła is in my team to fulfil a number of functions. He adds another superb engine to the TTT squad; his Ostbloc past means he's helpful in short and steep hills (remember Harrachov); and he can grind out a tempo on the lower gradients and stay with Mig in the mountains most of the time. I envisage him being mostly Big Mig's bodyguard, not that anybody is likely to mess with the Gentle Giant except maybe Lance, but also lending his considerable power on the flats where needed. I feel like, since I have a bonanza leader, I should be working around building them a potential race-winning team, and with the squad I've assembled, I feel pretty happy that I've done that.
 
Draft Summary

Libertine Seguros - 1 Miguel Indurain ('95 Tour), 20 Laurent Jalabert ('95 Vuelta), 30 Joseba Beloki ('01 Tour), 31 José María Jiménez ('98 Vuelta), 41 Fernando Escartin ('99 Tour), 60 Melcior Mauri ('91 Vuelta), 70 Haimar Zubeldia ('03 Tour), 71 Andrey Kashechkin ('06 Vuelta)
The Hitch - 2 Lance Armstrong ('04 Tour), 19 Michael Rasmussen ('07 Tour), 29 Nairo Quintana ('13 Tour), 32 Vincenzo Nibali ('14 Tour), 42 Andy Schleck ('09 Tour), 59 Carlos Sastre ('08 Tour), 69 Mark Cavendish ('09 Tour), 72 Tony Martin ('14 Tour)
The Sceptic - 3 Jan Ullrich ('97 Tour), 18 Santi Pérez ('04 Vuelta), 28 Chris Horner ('13 Vuelta), 33 Aitor Gonzalez ('02 Vuelta), 43 Mario Cipollini ('02 Giro), 58 Damiano Cunego ('04 Giro), 68 Levi Leipheimer ('07 Tour), 73 Igor González de Galdeano ('02 Tour)
The Green Monkey - 4 Alberto Contador ('09 Tour), 17 Alex Zülle ('95 Tour), 27 Ivan Gotti ('97 Giro), 34 Emanuele Sella ('08 Giro), 44 Cadel Evans ('07 Tour), 57 Paolo Bettini ('98 Giro), 67 Tom Steels ('98 Tour), 74 Wilfried Peeters ('98 Tour)
zlev11 - 5 Marco Pantani ('99 Giro), 16 Floyd Landis ('06 Tour), 26 Riccardo Ricco ('08 Tour), 35 Iban Mayo ('03 Tour), 45 Laurent Dufaux ('96 Tour), 56 Stefan Schumacher ('08 Tour), 66 Isidro Nozal ('03 Vuelta), 75 Alessandro Petacchi ('04 Giro)
burning - 6 Bjarne Riis ('96 Tour), 15 Richard Virenque ('97 Tour), 25 Gilberto Simoni ('03 Giro), 36 Bradley Wiggins ('12 Tour), 46 Luc Leblanc ('94 Tour), 55 Bobby Julich ('98 Tour), 65 Serhiy Honchar ('06 Tour), 76 Danilo di Luca ('07 Giro)
Netserk - 7 Ivan Basso ('06 Giro), 14 Piotr Ugrumov ('94 Tour), 24 Pavel Tonkov ('98 Giro), 37 Andreas Klöden ('06 Tour), 47 Fabian Cancellara ('10 Tour), 54 George Hincapie ('05 Tour), 64 Paolo Savoldelli ('99 Giro), 77 Peter Sagan ('12 Tour)
Zam Olyas - 8 Gianni Bugno ('90 Giro), 13 Tony Rominger ('95 Giro), 23 Denis Menchov ('09 Giro), 38 Claudio Chiappucci ('92 Tour), 48 Djamolidine Abdoujaparov ('93 Tour), 53 Yaroslav Popovych ('05 Tour), 63 Franco Chioccioli ('91 Giro), 78 Juan José Cobo ('11 Vuelta)
Tonton - 9 Evgeni Berzin ('94 Giro), 12 Chris Froome ('13 Tour), 22 Alexander Vinokourov ('03 Tour), 39 Alejandro Valverde ('09 Vuelta), 49 Abraham Olano ('98 Vuelta), 52 Leonardo Piepoli ('07 Giro), 62 Santiago Botero ('02 Tour), 79 Armand de las Cuevas ('94 Giro)
ciranda - 10 Roberto Heras ('04 Vuelta), 11 Tyler Hamilton ('03 Tour ), 21 Frank Vandenbroucke ('99 Vuelta), 40 Joaquím Rodriguez ('12 Vuelta), 50 Raimondas Rumsas ('02 Tour), 51 Dario Frigo ('01 Giro), 61 Oliverio Rincón ('95 Giro), 80 Oscar Camenzind ('98 Giro)

Round 9
81 - Libertine Seguros - Zenon Jaskuła ('93 Tour)
82 - The Hitch -
83 - The Sceptic -
84 - The Green Monkey -
85 - zlev11 -
86 - burning -
87 - netserk -
88 - Zam_Olyas -
89 - Tonton -
90 - ciranda -
 
Team Summary: Equipo Libertine Seguros-Banesto p/b ONCE (LIB)

Dorsales:
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1 Miguel INDURAIN LARRAYA
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2 Joseba BELOKI DORRONSORO
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3 Fernando ESCARTÍN COTÍ
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4 Laurent JALABERT
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5 Zenon JASKUŁA
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6 José María JIMÉNEZ SASTRE
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7 Andrey KASHECHKIN
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8 Melcior MAURI PRAT
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9 Haimar ZUBELDIA AGIRRE

Team leader: Indurain
TTT unit: Indurain, Jalabert, Beloki, Mauri, Jaskuła, with Zubeldia & Kashechkin to back up
Mountain train: Jiménez, Beloki, Escartín, Zubeldia with Kashechkin & Jaskuła to back up
Designated sprinter & free role for hunting stages: Jalabert, with Jiménez added in the mountains
Bodyguard: Jaskuła, with Beloki to back up in the mountains
Hill control: Jalabert, Jaskuła, with Kashechkin as back up
Flat engine: Mauri, with Zubeldia, Kashechkin & Jaskuła to back up and Jalabert in times of extreme need.

The team spans fifteen years, from 1991 (Mauri) to 2006 (Kashechkin). The youngest rider on the team is Mauri (25) and the eldest is Fernando Escartín (31 - Jaskuła is also 31 but not as far into the year as The Crab).

I will edit the jersey in later :p