Floyd really didn't get cheated out of the "06 Tour

[131313]

Something just occurred to me. OK, it actually didn't occur to me, I did a quick check through wikipedia to look at the '06 Tour results. Mainly, I did so to see what happened to a certain rider who had a bunch of blood bags stored in his fridge prior to the '06 tour, just to see what happened? His result wasn't exactly memorable, so I had to look.

Anyway, it hit me as soon as I looked at the wiki page: Floyd can really relax about losing the Tour, because by his own standards (a doped racer racing against other doped riders), the best doped riders really weren't there.

And when you get right down to it, based on his own moral relativism regarding doping and cycling, those guys deserved to be there (it would be awfully hard for him to argue otherwise at this point!).

So, with that in mind does anyone think he'd have had a snowball's chance in hell of beating Basso, Ulrich and Contador? I don't.

This is some sorta weird irony to which I really can't affix words.

 

[Colm.Murphy]

Something just occurred to me. OK, it actually didn't occur to me, I did a quick check through wikipedia to look at the '06 Tour results. Mainly, I did so to see what happened to a certain rider who had a bunch of blood bags stored in his fridge prior to the '06 tour, just to see what happened? His result wasn't exactly memorable, so I had to look.

Anyway, it hit me as soon as I looked at the wiki page: Floyd can really relax about losing the Tour, because by his own standards (a doped racer racing against other doped riders), the best doped riders really weren't there.

And when you get right down to it, based on his own moral relativism regarding doping and cycling, those guys deserved to be there (it would be awfully hard for him to argue otherwise at this point!).

So, with that in mind does anyone think he'd have had a snowball's chance in hell of beating Basso, Ulrich and Contador? I don't.

This is some sorta weird irony to which I really can't affix words.

I think I agree with your assertion that had those excluded riders been in the race, Floyd may have come somewhere from 4th to 8th, with the ruined hip and relatively weak team. Top 10 for certain but winning, I think we'd have seen the Ullrich and Basso battle royale.

As to Floyd not getting cheated out of the 06 Tour, I am ambivalent about the Landis case, the evidence against him, the overall handling of his prosecution by the powers that be. He certainly was never going to win but he did prevail on some critical points though they are often overlooked.

Perhaps this is why Landis has claimed he'd do it all the same way save for he'd have come out with the truth right away?

 

[Granville57]

And don't forget Vino! He would've been a serious threat. He didn't even get caught in Puerto, just so many teammates did that he didn't have a team to race with.

But the bettin' man would had to have gone with Jan and T-Mobile. That team was totally dialed in that year. Armstrong had just stepped down so that was going to be Jan's year. After being kicked out he said, "I'm going home in the best shape of my career."

Kloden practically stumbled on to the podium. With a better strategy, Klodi could've won it himself. T-Mobile almost pulled out after Jan's expulsion. It took them some time to get settled in and determine a team leader.

After the Tour Kloden said, "With Jan, we definitely would've won." It's hard to doubt him. Look at their results from that year.
They were a machine!

Final ITT:
1 Serguei Gonchar (Ukr) T-Mobile
2 Andreas Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile
19 Michael Rogers (Aus) T-Mobile

Final GC:
3 Andreas Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile
10 Michael Rogers (Aus) T-Mobile
23 Patrik Sinkewitz (Ger) T-Mobile
26 Giuseppe Guerini (Ita) T-Mobile
27 Eddy Mazzoleni (Ita) T-Mobile
52 Serguei Gonchar (Ukr) T-Mobile
54 Matthias Kessler (Ger) T-Mobile

 

[BroDeal]

This is a mug's game. Heck, maybe if Hamilton would not have been suspended then he would have won. The only constant is that the winner would have doped, regardless of who it was.

On CF I picked FLandis to take 3rd. After the riders connected to OP were excluded, I said he would win. He was flying that year.

 

[Bag_O_Wallet]

Something just occurred to me. OK, it actually didn't occur to me, I did a quick check through wikipedia to look at the '06 Tour results. Mainly, I did so to see what happened to a certain rider who had a bunch of blood bags stored in his fridge prior to the '06 tour, just to see what happened? His result wasn't exactly memorable, so I had to look.

Anyway, it hit me as soon as I looked at the wiki page: Floyd can really relax about losing the Tour, because by his own standards (a doped racer racing against other doped riders), the best doped riders really weren't there.

And when you get right down to it, based on his own moral relativism regarding doping and cycling, those guys deserved to be there (it would be awfully hard for him to argue otherwise at this point!).

So, with that in mind does anyone think he'd have had a snowball's chance in hell of beating Basso, Ulrich and Contador? I don't.

This is some sorta weird irony to which I really can't affix words.

Intriguing idea... where you checking up on George, eh?

I think Floyd's result would have been similar to previous years.... ~10th. I can only imagine how much time an on-song Basso would have put into FLandis when he blew. I doubt he'd have scratched back as much time as he did on his big attack, as Ullrich and Basso would have had strong teams to keep him a bit closer.

And there ain't no way that Oscar gets 50 minutes either!!

 

[Ferminal]

And don't forget Vino! He would've been a serious threat. He didn't even get caught in Puerto, just so many teammates did that he didn't have a team to race with.

But the bettin' man would had to have gone with Jan and T-Mobile. That team was totally dialed in that year. Armstrong had just stepped down so that was going to be Jan's year. After being kicked out he said, "I'm going home in the best shape of my career."

Kloden practically stumbled on to the podium. With a better strategy, Klodi could've won it himself. T-Mobile almost pulled out after Jan's expulsion. It took them some time to get settled in and determine a team leader.

After the Tour Kloden said, "With Jan, we definitely would've won." It's hard to doubt him. Look at their results from that year.
They were a machine!

Final ITT:
1 Serguei Gonchar (Ukr) T-Mobile
2 Andreas Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile
19 Michael Rogers (Aus) T-Mobile

Final GC:
3 Andreas Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile
10 Michael Rogers (Aus) T-Mobile
23 Patrik Sinkewitz (Ger) T-Mobile
26 Giuseppe Guerini (Ita) T-Mobile
27 Eddy Mazzoleni (Ita) T-Mobile
52 Serguei Gonchar (Ukr) T-Mobile
54 Matthias Kessler (Ger) T-Mobile

That's the first thing I thought of.

Freiburg must have been very good that year.

The first TT is great too -

1. Honchar
4. Rogers
6. Sinkewitz
8. Klöden
14. Kessler
16. Mazzoleni
34. Guerini

If only there was a 70km TTT that year.

 

[131313]

This is a mug's game. Heck, maybe if Hamilton would not have been suspended then he would have won. The only constant is that the winner would have doped, regardless of who it was.

On CF I picked FLandis to take 3rd. After the riders connected to OP were excluded, I said he would win. He was flying that year.

Man, I totally forgot--Vino and Hamilton as well....am I missing anybody??

There are no guarantees he wouldn't have won. He was going great....but not Basso great. Basso destroyed the Giro that year. Ulrich was off of knee injury, so you never know.

Still, my basic point (if I even have one) is that if Landis applies his fairness standard to the '06 Tour, there's a "*" next to his name any way you slice it. It's an ironic twist which I had completely forgotten about as time went by. The best riders weren't even in this race because of doping suspensions.

 

[Polish]

 

[Ferminal]

You're right, beating Ferrari's main man Big George was no easy task.

 

[hrotha]

I still can't believe they tried to sell us Hincapie as a serious contender and Lance's heir. Did Bruyneel think he could do that? Didn't he stop to think it would have looked a bit fishy to have a 33-year-old ex-sprinter classics man contending the Tour? Did he feel that secure on his pedestal? It's pretty depressing if that's the case, he must have felt untouchable.

 

[JPM London]

Man, that poster looks like something from the early nineties - if not the eighties!

Anyway, Floyd doesn't really have a problem any longer with not being the winner of the Tour anymore, does he? I mean, by the sound of it he's more saying that finding a proper winner is definitely not pointing at Pereiro (who we now know believes he has never had a problem with doping)...

EDIT:

And stop picking on George, guys, he's a good person who loves his family - just ask his friends...

 

[palmerq]

And don't forget Vino! He would've been a serious threat. He didn't even get caught in Puerto, just so many teammates did that he didn't have a team to race with.

But the bettin' man would had to have gone with Jan and T-Mobile. That team was totally dialed in that year. Armstrong had just stepped down so that was going to be Jan's year. After being kicked out he said, "I'm going home in the best shape of my career."

I think basso would have won the 2006 tour if they didnt get busted, he was on amazing form that year and just imagine how well he would have performed when he carried out his planned doping :S.. but seriously I thought basso was going to win it..

T-mobile were on good form that year though and jan did seem to be going well too.

 

[Colm.Murphy]

I think basso would have won the 2006 tour if they didnt get busted, he was on amazing form that year and just imagine how well he would have performed when he carried out his planned doping :S.. but seriously I thought basso was going to win it..

T-mobile were on good form that year though and jan did seem to be going well too.

I think Ullrich would have won. We've seen the Giro high not carry-over to a Tour high.

T-Mobile had the team to support Jan. Floyd's team could not have withstood them. Floyd *may* have made the podium but there were so many gambler style riders, (Vino, Valverde, Menchov) that Floyd may have survived the skirmishes to approach top 5. He certainly TT'd well enough.

 

[Mongol_Waaijer]

This is the best post you have ever made.

Keep it up.

 

[Polish]

I think basso would have won the 2006 tour if they didnt get busted, he was on amazing form that year and just imagine how well he would have performed when he carried out his planned doping :S.. but seriously I thought basso was going to win it..

T-mobile were on good form that year though and jan did seem to be going well too.

+1 on Basso winning the Giro/Tour Double that year.

He was focused and peaking to do just that grrrrr.
The Double was his Target.
He was extraterrestial at the Giro - and that was planned as TdF prep yikes.

We can thank the Anti-Doping Crusaders for the fact that last decade was the first decade since the 1930's where a Giro/Tour Double did NOT happen. Hooray.

1940's - Fausto Coppi (ITA): 1949,
1950's - Fausto Coppi (ITA): 1952
1960's - Jacques Anquetil (FRA): 1964
1970's - Eddy Merckx (BEL): 1970, 1972, 1974
1980's - Bernard Hinault (FRA): 1982, 1985 Stephen Roche (IRL): 1987
1990's - Miguel Indurain (ESP): 1992, 1993 Marco Pantani (ITA): 1998
2000's - Nobody
2010's - ???????

 

[BotanyBay]

I still can't believe they tried to sell us Hincapie as a serious contender and Lance's heir. Did Bruyneel think he could do that? Didn't he stop to think it would have looked a bit fishy to have a 33-year-old ex-sprinter classics man contending the Tour? Did he feel that secure on his pedestal? It's pretty depressing if that's the case, he must have felt untouchable.

Maybe he'd tapped-in to the HemAssist supply.

 

[Escarabajo]

Big George? LOL.

What happened to the blood bag? was it drained down the toilet? LOL

 

[palmerq]

I think Ullrich would have won. We've seen the Giro high not carry-over to a Tour high.

T-Mobile had the team to support Jan. Floyd's team could not have withstood them. Floyd *may* have made the podium but there were so many gambler style riders, (Vino, Valverde, Menchov) that Floyd may have survived the skirmishes to approach top 5. He certainly TT'd well enough.

would have been a great battle anyway... but still i would pick basso but it would have been very close I think :S

 

[palmerq]

+1 on Basso winning the Giro/Tour Double that year.

He was focused and peaking to do just that grrrrr.
The Double was his Target.
He was extraterrestial at the Giro - and that was planned as TdF prep yikes.

We can thank the Anti-Doping Crusaders for the fact that last decade was the first decade since the 1930's where a Giro/Tour Double did NOT happen. Hooray.

1940's - Fausto Coppi (ITA): 1949,
1950's - Fausto Coppi (ITA): 1952
1960's - Jacques Anquetil (FRA): 1964
1970's - Eddy Merckx (BEL): 1970, 1972, 1974
1980's - Bernard Hinault (FRA): 1982, 1985 Stephen Roche (IRL): 1987
1990's - Miguel Indurain (ESP): 1992, 1993 Marco Pantani (ITA): 1998
2000's - Nobody
2010's - ???????

r u polish like pudzianowski or polish like mr sheen m8?

 

[blackcat]

13, forgetting Paco Mancebo.

now, I think FL would have won, or come second. Only Basso coulda beaten him.

Ullrich was done, stick a fork in him, turn him over. He was done post 2003. No way Ullrich was winning.

Kloden had the potential, if he knew he was da man, and the leader, and a massive incentive with a big pay day on the horizon. So only in the circumstance he was aware he was numero uno 9 months out from july.

 

[The Hitch]

r u polish like pudzianowski or polish like mr sheen m8?

Nice to see that the first name some people associate with the motherland is Pudzian. What a character. Hes not someone whose out of place in the clinic of course, but id argue, neither are most succesful athletes.

One of the few athletes i really like.

Something just occurred to me. OK, it actually didn't occur to me, I did a quick check through wikipedia to look at the '06 Tour results. Mainly, I did so to see what happened to a certain rider who had a bunch of blood bags stored in his fridge prior to the '06 tour, just to see what happened? His result wasn't exactly memorable, so I had to look.

Anyway, it hit me as soon as I looked at the wiki page: Floyd can really relax about losing the Tour, because by his own standards (a doped racer racing against other doped riders), the best doped riders really weren't there.

And when you get right down to it, based on his own moral relativism regarding doping and cycling, those guys deserved to be there (it would be awfully hard for him to argue otherwise at this point!).

So, with that in mind does anyone think he'd have had a snowball's chance in hell of beating Basso, Ulrich and Contador? I don't.

This is some sorta weird irony to which I really can't affix words.

very interesting. Nice line of thought. I never thought of it this way but i think you are right. Well done.

 

[Polish]

r u polish like pudzianowski or polish like mr sheen m8?

Polish like Zygmont Czarobski grrrr.
(Ziggy & me are relatives)
So it goes

 

[Galic Ho]

13, forgetting Paco Mancebo.

now, I think FL would have won, or come second. Only Basso coulda beaten him.

Ullrich was done, stick a fork in him, turn him over. He was done post 2003. No way Ullrich was winning.

Kloden had the potential, if he knew he was da man, and the leader, and a massive incentive with a big pay day on the horizon. So only in the circumstance he was aware he was numero uno 9 months out from july.

I kind of have to agree. Floyd was a monster in 2006. His win in the ToC debut was good and I think he won Suisse as well. Might be wrong on that. I still think Vino would have been a threat and Valverde might have shown some form if he didn't break his collarbone with that fall on day 6 or 7.

T-Mobile was very strong that year but had a leadership crisis. Kessler was on some other kind of juice...that man was a monster. Nothing stopped him, not even a brutal fall. Nobody knew who the man was in terms of leadership though. Oscar and Jan gone a day before the Tour...Kloden steps up or does he? Andreas lacks the mentality to win which has shown at Astana and the Shack the last 3 years despite him being stronger than other prospective GC team mates. I still think Jan would have been stronger and in front of Kloden, but don't know if he had it anymore to come into Paris in yellow. One of the other guys would have had his number. 2003 was the last year Jan had his head and game all together for July.

 

[skidmark]

I kind of have to agree. Floyd was a monster in 2006. His win in the ToC debut was good and I think he won Suisse as well. Might be wrong on that. I still think Vino would have been a threat and Valverde might have shown some form if he didn't break his collarbone with that fall on day 6 or 7.

Jan won Suisse. And I think Valverde crashed on like stage 3?

 

[Hugh Januss]

It might have been the most awesome TdF in at least the past 10 years. Worth giving up if Puerto and the FL thing had produced any change. Maybe we will see that now?