French back doping again!

[Benotti69]

Bardet and Ag2R, a super strong performance at this years Tour. They had 4/5 riders on Iozard today.

Barguil super fast, super strong and winning stages.

7 French riders in the top 25 is a strong showing considering how international the tour has become.

Is it the motors, ASO given a nod to the French Federation, the new PEDs totally undetectable, testing so bad...?

 

[Armchaircyclist]

It's just that finally they've started catching those dirty foreigners, so now with a clean peloton the French have a chance again !

 

[staubsauger]

French renaissance kicked off at the 2011 Giro when John Gadret finished 4th. 2 years after AICAR effectively became en-vogue. AG2R was always spearheading this development. Now they've got increased sponsorship cash and a big gun with Bardet. Ain't no surprise actually. They've catched up with the refills obviously as well. Compared to Pozzovivo at the 14 Giro! Add to that this the first time AG2R primarily rides as a team for a undisputed leader instead of much single animaters.

 

[Irondan]

Bardet and Ag2R, a super strong performance at this years Tour. They had 4/5 riders on Iozard today.

Barguil super fast, super strong and winning stages.

7 French riders in the top 25 is a strong showing considering how international the tour has become.

Is it the motors, ASO given a nod to the French Federation, the new PEDs totally undetectable, testing so bad...?

C'mon Benotti, you have to have some sort of proof, evidence or rumor to support your claim other than the french riders riding their bikes fast.....

 

[Supimilian]

Suppose a level playing field exists.
Why would the french not be strong at the Tour de France?

 

[Benotti69]

Bardet and Ag2R, a super strong performance at this years Tour. They had 4/5 riders on Iozard today.

Barguil super fast, super strong and winning stages.

7 French riders in the top 25 is a strong showing considering how international the tour has become.

Is it the motors, ASO given a nod to the French Federation, the new PEDs totally undetectable, testing so bad...?

C'mon Benotti, you have to have some sort of proof, evidence or rumor to support your claim other than the french riders riding their bikes fast.....

Barguil setting fastest time up Col D'Iozard. 2 stage wins.

French riders as fast as others is evidence. 7 in the top 25 of what is considered the hardest event in the world.

Bardet about to podium for the 2nd time a TdF.


This i consider evidence.

 

[Benotti69]

Re:

Suppose a level playing field exists.
Why would the french not be strong at the Tour de France?

Huge supposition!!!

No such thing as a level playing field. What would make it level? Everyone has a 1 blood bag every rest day? Even then who responded best to their blood bag is at an advantage. Gilbert and others appeared to have negative responses.

The level playing field is bread and water and that is never going to happen.

 

[Supimilian]

Re: Re:

Suppose a level playing field exists.
Why would the french not be strong at the Tour de France?

Huge supposition!!!

No such thing as a level playing field. What would make it level? Everyone has a 1 blood bag every rest day? Even then who responded best to their blood bag is at an advantage. Gilbert and others appeared to have negative responses.

The level playing field is bread and water and that is never going to happen.

A bit of reverse engineering.
If the playing field was level (and santa was real), the french holding 2nd and 9th on GC would be nothing out of the ordinary.

 

[Irondan]

Bardet and Ag2R, a super strong performance at this years Tour. They had 4/5 riders on Iozard today.

Barguil super fast, super strong and winning stages.

7 French riders in the top 25 is a strong showing considering how international the tour has become.

Is it the motors, ASO given a nod to the French Federation, the new PEDs totally undetectable, testing so bad...?

C'mon Benotti, you have to have some sort of proof, evidence or rumor to support your claim other than the french riders riding their bikes fast.....

Barguil setting fastest time up Col D'Iozard. 2 stage wins.

French riders as fast as others is evidence. 7 in the top 25 of what is considered the hardest event in the world.

Bardet about to podium for the 2nd time a TdF.


This i consider evidence.

And Kittel's 5 stage wins? Is that evidence that Germans are doping?

I'm not trying to troll you, I'm just saying that to start a thread such as this you need to separate this from wild speculation.

 

[Parker]

And Kittel's 5 stage wins? Is that evidence that Germans are doping?

I'm not trying to troll you, I'm just saying that to start a thread such as this you need to separate this from wild speculation.

To be fair to Benotti, if you have pages and pages and pages about Froome with minimal amounts to go on, it is only fair to question a rider only 23 seconds behind him. Especially when his team have have three riders in recent years test positive - two for EPO

 

[simoni]

Bardet and Ag2R, a super strong performance at this years Tour. They had 4/5 riders on Iozard today.

Barguil super fast, super strong and winning stages.

7 French riders in the top 25 is a strong showing considering how international the tour has become.

Is it the motors, ASO given a nod to the French Federation, the new PEDs totally undetectable, testing so bad...?

C'mon Benotti, you have to have some sort of proof, evidence or rumor to support your claim other than the french riders riding their bikes fast.....

Barguil setting fastest time up Col D'Iozard. 2 stage wins.

French riders as fast as others is evidence. 7 in the top 25 of what is considered the hardest event in the world.

Bardet about to podium for the 2nd time a TdF.


This i consider evidence.

And Kittel's 5 stage wins? Is that evidence that Germans are doping?

I'm not trying to troll you, I'm just saying that to start a thread such as this you need to separate this from wild speculation.

Context is but a minor inconvenience that can be trampled over by means of persistent self-righteousness.

 

[samhocking]

Didn't Bardet have a nice take on this? He said some of his best performances in terms of his numbers have been for 6th or 9th or 20th or wherever and nobody asks questions, yet if he wins, it's considered suspicious even if his numbers show the same performance was given for 1st or 20th place. Think he has a point, in that your own placement in a race, is decided as much by others performance as it is your own. Obviously luck, race craft, confidence and tactics figure enormously in cycling too, with far more weight on your result than in other endurance sports or your own ability can overcome and why 1st place should be no more suspicious than 20th.

 

[poupou]

We just have now as good motors and batteries than others.

 

[sniper]

https://twitter.com/lequipe/status/888074818620411904

 

[Irondan]

And Kittel's 5 stage wins? Is that evidence that Germans are doping?

I'm not trying to troll you, I'm just saying that to start a thread such as this you need to separate this from wild speculation.

To be fair to Benotti, if you have pages and pages and pages about Froome with minimal amounts to go on, it is only fair to question a rider only 23 seconds behind him. Especially when his team have have three riders in recent years test positive - two for EPO

I would argue that the Sky doping program took a major hit last winter with Froome maybe distancing himself from it. As a result, he's still receiving generous amounts of strength from latent doping effects but he's as vulnerable as ever in this Tour, as shown by his lack of a typical stage win (or two) and the same riders that in any of the other Tours he's ridden being considered a tier lower hanging around him in the GC.

Barguil wasn't exactly considered "chopped liver" before this Tour, and neither were the other French riders doing well.

 

[Benotti69]

Bardet and Ag2R, a super strong performance at this years Tour. They had 4/5 riders on Iozard today.

Barguil super fast, super strong and winning stages.

7 French riders in the top 25 is a strong showing considering how international the tour has become.

Is it the motors, ASO given a nod to the French Federation, the new PEDs totally undetectable, testing so bad...?

C'mon Benotti, you have to have some sort of proof, evidence or rumor to support your claim other than the french riders riding their bikes fast.....

Barguil setting fastest time up Col D'Iozard. 2 stage wins.

French riders as fast as others is evidence. 7 in the top 25 of what is considered the hardest event in the world.

Bardet about to podium for the 2nd time a TdF.


This i consider evidence.

And Kittel's 5 stage wins? Is that evidence that Germans are doping?

I'm not trying to troll you, I'm just saying that to start a thread such as this you need to separate this from wild speculation.

Kittel has done the ozone threapy so the idea the Kittel is clean is funny. He also rides for Lefevre, FFS!!!

Wild speculation. It might be if the testing was not a joke, if Cookson was not a 'selfie' taking idiot who has done little but water down the reports into the doping in the sport, if there was a few bad apples in the barrel, but come on the barrel is full of rotten apples.

Just because the silence is there apart from Sky and rightly so about mutant Froome and grupetto fodder Wiggins transformations, but how does that exclude the questioning of French riders strong performances?

Why not more Italians, Belgians, Dutch and Spanish, all strong cycling nations in the top 25, but this year French, hence the thread?

 

[Benotti69]

Bardet and Ag2R, a super strong performance at this years Tour. They had 4/5 riders on Iozard today.

Barguil super fast, super strong and winning stages.

7 French riders in the top 25 is a strong showing considering how international the tour has become.

Is it the motors, ASO given a nod to the French Federation, the new PEDs totally undetectable, testing so bad...?

C'mon Benotti, you have to have some sort of proof, evidence or rumor to support your claim other than the french riders riding their bikes fast.....

Barguil setting fastest time up Col D'Iozard. 2 stage wins.

French riders as fast as others is evidence. 7 in the top 25 of what is considered the hardest event in the world.

Bardet about to podium for the 2nd time a TdF.


This i consider evidence.

And Kittel's 5 stage wins? Is that evidence that Germans are doping?

I'm not trying to troll you, I'm just saying that to start a thread such as this you need to separate this from wild speculation.

Context is but a minor inconvenience that can be trampled over by means of persistent self-righteousness.

The self-righteous UCI would have us believe they are doing their utmost to tackle doping.

:lol:

:lol:

:lol:

 

[Irondan]

Bardet and Ag2R, a super strong performance at this years Tour. They had 4/5 riders on Iozard today.

Barguil super fast, super strong and winning stages.

7 French riders in the top 25 is a strong showing considering how international the tour has become.

Is it the motors, ASO given a nod to the French Federation, the new PEDs totally undetectable, testing so bad...?

C'mon Benotti, you have to have some sort of proof, evidence or rumor to support your claim other than the french riders riding their bikes fast.....

Barguil setting fastest time up Col D'Iozard. 2 stage wins.

French riders as fast as others is evidence. 7 in the top 25 of what is considered the hardest event in the world.

Bardet about to podium for the 2nd time a TdF.


This i consider evidence.

And Kittel's 5 stage wins? Is that evidence that Germans are doping?

I'm not trying to troll you, I'm just saying that to start a thread such as this you need to separate this from wild speculation.

Kittel has done the ozone threapy so the idea the Kittel is clean is funny. He also rides for Lefevre, FFS!!!

I didn't say he was clean....

I asked that if his 5 stage victories was evidence that "Germans" are doping because you used that argument for the French.

 

[Benotti69]

I didn't say he was clean....

I asked that if his 5 stage victories was evidence that "Germans" are doping because you used that argument for the French.

One rider is one rider.

I did point to 7 French in the top 25. There are no other nation with more than 3 in the top 25.

Hence the thread.

Edit: Maybe edit the thread title to "French high octane again" or similar as i dont believe the French stopped, the just toned it down.

But if you want to start a Germans are doping thread, be my guest, i will contribute as there were and are plenty of examples

 

[in vino veritas]

https://twitter.com/lequipe/status/888074818620411904

If you look at the comments, a lot of people complain about the comparison, but I didn't see one call out on Barguil's (apprently) suspicious perf ; at most they're hoping that his story doesn't end in the same way.

That said, France is not a 3rd world country, there's no reason why its racers shouldn't also get first grade technology and medecine :lol: . Thirty-some years without winning the TdF

So my very serious question is : why did/does it take so long to catch up, if catching up it is (post-Festina trauma, more serious antidoping policy, less resources, "lose with panache" culture/morale high ground, ....) ?
In other words : why didn't they come back earlier ?

 

[hrotha]

I don't see any change here. It's been 3 years since Péraud and Pinot podiumed this race.

 

[Benotti69]

Re:

I don't see any change here. It's been 3 years since Péraud and Pinot podiumed this race.

the thread has been 3 years coming

 

[Benotti69]

Re:

https://twitter.com/lequipe/status/888074818620411904

If you look at the comments, a lot of people complain about the comparison, but I didn't see one call out on Barguil's (apprently) suspicious perf ; at most they're hoping that his story doesn't end in the same way.

That said, France is not a 3rd world country, there's no reason why its racers shouldn't also get first grade technology and medecine :lol: . Thirty-some years without winning the TdF

So my very serious question is : why did/does it take so long to catch up, if catching up it is (post-Festina trauma, more serious antidoping policy, less resources, "lose with panache" culture/morale high ground, ....) ?
In other words : why didn't they come back earlier ?

UCI trying to expand the sport into new and untapped markets, USA, AUS and UK.

 

[in vino veritas]

Re: Re:

https://twitter.com/lequipe/status/888074818620411904

If you look at the comments, a lot of people complain about the comparison, but I didn't see one call out on Barguil's (apprently) suspicious perf ; at most they're hoping that his story doesn't end in the same way.

That said, France is not a 3rd world country, there's no reason why its racers shouldn't also get first grade technology and medecine :lol: . Thirty-some years without winning the TdF

So my very serious question is : why did/does it take so long to catch up, if catching up it is (post-Festina trauma, more serious antidoping policy, less resources, "lose with panache" culture/morale high ground, ....) ?
In other words : why didn't they come back earlier ?

UCI trying to expand the sport into new and untapped markets, USA, AUS and UK.

That could make sense given the leadership of the UCI, but more french riders would have gotten busted and handed out to the public as scapegoats, right ?

 

[in vino veritas]

Re:

I don't see any change here. It's been 3 years since Péraud and Pinot podiumed this race.

Fair enough my judgement might be biased.
In the longer term it still seems kinda odd, from a statistical POV, that there has not been a french winner - or "serious" contender - in a GT (except Jalabert in the Vuelta ?) for ages. I'm specifically thinking about a complete rider who can TT well or at least not catastrophically : Contador, Niballi, Froome, Wiggins, LA, Indurain, Ulrich, ... Which probably means another level of doping.
Hope i'm making sense.