Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

[TeflonDub]

Re: Re:

To be fair to Froome, any traditionalist would look at Froome and say doping or not, that style and position he rides on his road bike will never win a Grand Tour, but somehow it does. On a TT bike I think he's got it pretty dialled in now. He looks good on a TT bike.

Yes. And throughout the sporting world there are examples of athletes who, despite adopting 'anomalous body positioning' ( (by necessity or by choice) produce exemplar athletic performances.

True. Paula Radcliffe springs to mind. <not helping>

 

[brownbobby]

so the new consensus is Froome had a pretty normal day in the mountains...nothing special...and yet...so abnormal was it that he needed a special feeding strategy...hold on...actually, that was just marketing speak for the new SIS product.......so...really, with no feeding strategy required, the attack was set up to highlight the new SIS product...

Froome, that good he can win a GT doing a promo stunt

The new consensus amongst a minority. It looks clear he's doping to aid recovery. After 2 crashes and struggling to limit his time losses he recovered into peak doped condition. A legendary drug fuelled ride. I'm actually starting to find the sky excuses funny.

Minority? Don't make the classic mistake of thinking the clinic, and the type of articles linked in the clinic, are representative of the wider world.

 

[Mamil]

The remarkable thing about Froome, and the conundrum for the fan, is that doped or not he is now one of the most dominant GC riders of all time. Really only Armstrong and Merckx, and maybe one or two others, would be comparable. He's now won all 3 GTs, including the last 3 in a row, and as team leader he's won 6 out of 7 of the ones he's finished, only falling just short in one case to a very strong Quintana. He could easily have won both the 2011 Vuelta and the 2012 Tour as well. Not only does he win, but he usually dominates. Last year's Vuelta and particularly the 2015 Tour he did look vulnerable, but that's it. Even in the Giro you sense if not for the crash he would have won easily, and even so could have taken more time on the penultimate stage if he'd had to. 2013 he outright dominated, and in '16 and '17, even allowing for the fact he was riding with one eye on the Vuelta, and a more conservative strategy, he always looked in complete control. You strongly sensed he could have taken more time almost whenever he needed to. His attentiveness, 'smart' attacks, his descending skills, were all praised in those years as proof of more believable riding, but they were all possible at least in part because he was simply stronger and fresher than anyone else, and therefore able to be more switched on, focused and ready to seize opportunities when they presented themselves. 2017 Froome must be the only rider ever to use Le Tour as preparation and riding into form for another race - the Vuelta - whilst winning both. He climbs better than any other contemporary rider except maybe Quintana or the pre-ban Contador on their absolute best days, and much more consistently than the Columbian or anyone else, as a GC rider he TT's better than any except Dumoulin and Wiggins. He very rarely has an average day, let alone a proper bad one.

It all adds up to incredible dominance, such as the sport has rarely seen. Froome is not just the best of the elite GC riders. There is Froome then daylight - he's in a class all of his own, whereas the likes of Nibali, Quintana, Dumoulin, Aru and one or two others are all pretty close together. All this from a rider who was a distinctly average (at best) pro for 5 years, whose own team regarded him as poor before the transformation, and whose grace on a bike is marked only by its absence. It's utterly extraordinary, and largely still unexplained. The purely physical we know - he's ridiculously skinny yet insanely powerful, has superior endurance and recovery, has developed very solid bike handling skills despite his ungainliness, and can climb as both a diesel and a punchy attacker. He's rarely sick and when he is he usually seems able to battle through it. He's probably the fittest athlete the sport's ever seen, with one or two exceptions at best. The team we know - the strength of Sky has been an important factor. And the 'grey' stuff we know, at least in part - Sky are prepared at the very least to take and use anything strictly legal or capable of exploitation to assist their riders.

But the team in itself doesn't explain all of it, the grey stuff surely is only part of the story, the marginal gains stories are mostly hokum, and the physical largely explains the results but not how he got that way in the first place and maintains it. We just don't know. Maybe it's partly to do with a guy going all-out verses a now relatively cleaner peloton, making him stand out more than any 90s rider did, but if that's the case why has no-one else managed to do the same and come ever close to his all-round level in over 6 years? Nor does it explain how his performance is so close to that of the rampant EPO users of the 90s. We know that doping favours the bigger riders, because it's easier with chemical assistance to lose weight but retain power than it is to develop more power with a small frame, and Froome is definitely fortunate in having a naturally tall, lean physique almost perfectly suited to the dark arts of performance enhancement, and a body that clearly responds exceptionally well to whatever he is using. But his advantage seems more than just that and the actual methods are largely a mystery all the same, all the more so when you consider that the corticosteroids and whatever else Sky have had him on since his emergence only started after his 2011 transformation that he did all on his own. I think that's the real nub of it - no question 2018 Froome is even stronger, and on a more fully-developed program, than the 2011 Vuelta one. But how did he make that jump, and how has he maintained that singular edge for so long?

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Anybody read the Climb? Funny how Froome never mentioned his asthma there but he does mention Bilharzia and all other challenges he faced... Something does not add up

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Re: Re:

http://www.cyclist.co.uk/news/4838/uci-checked-froomes-bike-six-times-for-motor-at-giro-ditalia
Reported by L'Equipe, the UCI confirmed that it had checked Froome's bike for a concealed motor on six occasions during the race and most notably at the end of Stage 19 to Bardonecchia.

but with a tablet not the Xray truck

leggi bene

"The new x-ray box introduced by the UCI earlier this season to increase checks on technological fraud in professional cycling was used six times on Chris Froome's bike as he rode to the pink jersey at the recent Giro d'Italia."

on the day in question.

What day?

Wonder which one Wonder boy

No first of spring, no song to sing
In fact here's just another ordinary day

 

[LaFlorecita]

https://twitter.com/davebrailsfraud/status/1002541098395369472

 

[42x16ss]

Nice!

 

[Singer01]

Re:

What's more likely? Chris Froome being clean or rick james having the focus, mental capacity and vocabulary to write a post containing more than one sentence?

4 of your last 5 posts have 2 lines or fewer. Also, obsessed much? Nearly 30% of your posts are in the Froome clinic thread.

 

[brownbobby]

The remarkable thing about Froome, and the conundrum for the fan, is that doped or not he is now one of the most dominant GC riders of all time. Really only Armstrong and Merckx, and maybe one or two others, would be comparable. He's now won all 3 GTs, including the last 3 in a row, and as team leader he's won 6 out of 7 of the ones he's finished, only falling just short in one case to a very strong Quintana. He could easily have won both the 2011 Vuelta and the 2012 Tour as well. Not only does he win, but he usually dominates. Last year's Vuelta and particularly the 2015 Tour he did look vulnerable, but that's it. Even in the Giro you sense if not for the crash he would have won easily, and even so could have taken more time on the penultimate stage if he'd had to. 2013 he outright dominated, and in '16 and '17, even allowing for the fact he was riding with one eye on the Vuelta, and a more conservative strategy, he always looked in complete control. You strongly sensed he could have taken more time almost whenever he needed to. His attentiveness, 'smart' attacks, his descending skills, were all praised in those years as proof of more believable riding, but they were all possible at least in part because he was simply stronger and fresher than anyone else, and therefore able to be more switched on, focused and ready to seize opportunities when they presented themselves. 2017 Froome must be the only rider ever to use Le Tour as preparation and riding into form for another race - the Vuelta - whilst winning both. He climbs better than any other contemporary rider except maybe Quintana or the pre-ban Contador on their absolute best days, and much more consistently than the Columbian or anyone else, as a GC rider he TT's better than any except Dumoulin and Wiggins. He very rarely has an average day, let alone a proper bad one.

It all adds up to incredible dominance, such as the sport has rarely seen. Froome is not just the best of the elite GC riders. There is Froome then daylight - he's in a class all of his own, whereas the likes of Nibali, Quintana, Dumoulin, Aru and one or two others are all pretty close together. All this from a rider who was a distinctly average (at best) pro for 5 years, whose own team regarded him as poor before the transformation, and whose grace on a bike is marked only by its absence. It's utterly extraordinary, and largely still unexplained. The purely physical we know - he's ridiculously skinny yet insanely powerful, has superior endurance and recovery, has developed very solid bike handling skills despite his ungainliness, and can climb as both a diesel and a punchy attacker. He's rarely sick and when he is he usually seems able to battle through it. He's probably the fittest athlete the sport's ever seen, with one or two exceptions at best. The team we know - the strength of Sky has been an important factor. And the 'grey' stuff we know, at least in part - Sky are prepared at the very least to take and use anything strictly legal or capable of exploitation to assist their riders.

But the team in itself doesn't explain all of it, the grey stuff surely is only part of the story, the marginal gains stories are mostly hokum, and the physical largely explains the results but not how he got that way in the first place and maintains it. We just don't know. Maybe it's partly to do with a guy going all-out verses a now relatively cleaner peloton, making him stand out more than any 90s rider did, but if that's the case why has no-one else managed to do the same and come ever close to his all-round level in over 6 years? Nor does it explain how his performance is so close to that of the rampant EPO users of the 90s. We know that doping favours the bigger riders, because it's easier with chemical assistance to lose weight but retain power than it is to develop more power with a small frame, and Froome is definitely fortunate in having a naturally tall, lean physique almost perfectly suited to the dark arts of performance enhancement, and a body that clearly responds exceptionally well to whatever he is using. But his advantage seems more than just that and the actual methods are largely a mystery all the same, all the more so when you consider that the corticosteroids and whatever else Sky have had him on since his emergence only started after his 2011 transformation that he did all on his own. I think that's the real nub of it - no question 2018 Froome is even stronger, and on a more fully-developed program, than the 2011 Vuelta one. But how did he make that jump, and how has he maintained that singular edge for so long?

I know this is a complex question and the search continues for a complex answer, the huge mystery behind it all.....but there is a simple answer to much of what you seek...

We are not all created equal. Mercxx, Messi, Bolt, Ali...All born to be simply better than anyone else in the world at a given discipline. Life's not fair, but that's how it is.

Hard work, unfathomable dedication and yes maybe doping all get thrown into the mix to create great sportsmen/women....but if you're not born to be the best it's never going to count for much.

So there's the biggest part of the answer to the Froome conundrum. Most of the stuff you list, physique, endurance, power, ability to recover, longevity, consistency...all needs to be nurtured but most of it is there from birth. Forget the nonsense about him having no talent, thats just ridiculous. He was simply born to be the best, when it came to cycling, he won the genetic lottery.

Of course, there's still a need to fully switch on all of your genetic potential, and that's what we still question. But that's only the final pieces of the jigsaw, it's not the beginning of the puzzle.

 

[Saint Unix]

Re: Re:

What's more likely? Chris Froome being clean or rick james having the focus, mental capacity and vocabulary to write a post containing more than one sentence?

4 of your last 5 posts have 2 lines or fewer. Also, obsessed much? Nearly 30% of your posts are in the Froome clinic thread.

Nice job cherry picking just the five most recent posts there. If you had gone further back the stats wouldn't have supported your argument.

Second, I only really have an account on this forum because of The Clinic. I discuss the actual cycling elsewhere. I'd guess most Clinic posters have a vast majority of posts in the Froome thread, judging by how much larger this thread is than any other thread, and what's the reason for that? Is it because the people who think Froome is doping are obsessed with saying so, is it because the people who think Froome aren't doping are obsessed with arguing their point or is it because Froome's and Sky's performances are so much more eye-catching from a Clinic perspective than every other rider's that there is just so much more fuel for the fire in this particular thread?

 

[Poursuivant]

What chance do ASO have of barring Froome from TDF? If I am right they tried something similar with Boonen which got chased, will the same happen for Froome?

 

[ahsoe]

The remarkable thing about Froome, and the conundrum for the fan, is that doped or not he is now one of the most dominant GC riders of all time. Really only Armstrong and Merckx, and maybe one or two others, would be comparable. He's now won all 3 GTs, including the last 3 in a row, and as team leader he's won 6 out of 7 of the ones he's finished, only falling just short in one case to a very strong Quintana. He could easily have won both the 2011 Vuelta and the 2012 Tour as well. Not only does he win, but he usually dominates. Last year's Vuelta and particularly the 2015 Tour he did look vulnerable, but that's it. Even in the Giro you sense if not for the crash he would have won easily, and even so could have taken more time on the penultimate stage if he'd had to. 2013 he outright dominated, and in '16 and '17, even allowing for the fact he was riding with one eye on the Vuelta, and a more conservative strategy, he always looked in complete control. You strongly sensed he could have taken more time almost whenever he needed to. His attentiveness, 'smart' attacks, his descending skills, were all praised in those years as proof of more believable riding, but they were all possible at least in part because he was simply stronger and fresher than anyone else, and therefore able to be more switched on, focused and ready to seize opportunities when they presented themselves. 2017 Froome must be the only rider ever to use Le Tour as preparation and riding into form for another race - the Vuelta - whilst winning both. He climbs better than any other contemporary rider except maybe Quintana or the pre-ban Contador on their absolute best days, and much more consistently than the Columbian or anyone else, as a GC rider he TT's better than any except Dumoulin and Wiggins. He very rarely has an average day, let alone a proper bad one.

It all adds up to incredible dominance, such as the sport has rarely seen. Froome is not just the best of the elite GC riders. There is Froome then daylight - he's in a class all of his own, whereas the likes of Nibali, Quintana, Dumoulin, Aru and one or two others are all pretty close together. All this from a rider who was a distinctly average (at best) pro for 5 years, whose own team regarded him as poor before the transformation, and whose grace on a bike is marked only by its absence. It's utterly extraordinary, and largely still unexplained. The purely physical we know - he's ridiculously skinny yet insanely powerful, has superior endurance and recovery, has developed very solid bike handling skills despite his ungainliness, and can climb as both a diesel and a punchy attacker. He's rarely sick and when he is he usually seems able to battle through it. He's probably the fittest athlete the sport's ever seen, with one or two exceptions at best. The team we know - the strength of Sky has been an important factor. And the 'grey' stuff we know, at least in part - Sky are prepared at the very least to take and use anything strictly legal or capable of exploitation to assist their riders.

But the team in itself doesn't explain all of it, the grey stuff surely is only part of the story, the marginal gains stories are mostly hokum, and the physical largely explains the results but not how he got that way in the first place and maintains it. We just don't know. Maybe it's partly to do with a guy going all-out verses a now relatively cleaner peloton, making him stand out more than any 90s rider did, but if that's the case why has no-one else managed to do the same and come ever close to his all-round level in over 6 years? Nor does it explain how his performance is so close to that of the rampant EPO users of the 90s. We know that doping favours the bigger riders, because it's easier with chemical assistance to lose weight but retain power than it is to develop more power with a small frame, and Froome is definitely fortunate in having a naturally tall, lean physique almost perfectly suited to the dark arts of performance enhancement, and a body that clearly responds exceptionally well to whatever he is using. But his advantage seems more than just that and the actual methods are largely a mystery all the same, all the more so when you consider that the corticosteroids and whatever else Sky have had him on since his emergence only started after his 2011 transformation that he did all on his own. I think that's the real nub of it - no question 2018 Froome is even stronger, and on a more fully-developed program, than the 2011 Vuelta one. But how did he make that jump, and how has he maintained that singular edge for so long?

I know this is a complex question and the search continues for a complex answer, the huge mystery behind it all.....but there is a simple answer to much of what you seek...

We are not all created equal. Mercxx, Messi, Bolt, Ali...All born to be simply better than anyone else in the world at a given discipline. Life's not fair, but that's how it is.

Hard work, unfathomable dedication and yes maybe doping all get thrown into the mix to create great sportsmen/women....but if you're not born to be the best it's never going to count for much.

So there's the biggest part of the answer to the Froome conundrum. Most of the stuff you list, physique, endurance, power, ability to recover, longevity, consistency...all needs to be nurtured but most of it is there from birth. Forget the nonsense about him having no talent, thats just ridiculous. He was simply born to be the best, when it came to cycling, he won the genetic lottery.

Of course, there's still a need to fully switch on all of your genetic potential, and that's what we still question. But that's only the final pieces of the jigsaw, it's not the beginning of the puzzle.

So if I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that he suddenly, within a few months, in the summer/fall of 2011 was able to fulfill his immense, natural given potential. Heureka!

Sorry, but I have to disagree. I find that highly unlikely.

 

[miguelindurain111]

“My wish has always been that it be judged before the Giro d’Italia, but it was not to be. Now, I would like it to be settled before the Tour de France. Well, you have to be realistic: I think that will not be the case.

“This is not a laxity of the UCI. It's just that there is a procedure, and this case requires experts. When you have 1,500 pages of scientific report you have to analyse them. It requires answers, and we must respect the procedure, and the rights of Chris Froome. Naturally, it takes longer than expected.”

 

[brownbobby]

The remarkable thing about Froome, and the conundrum for the fan, is that doped or not he is now one of the most dominant GC riders of all time. Really only Armstrong and Merckx, and maybe one or two others, would be comparable. He's now won all 3 GTs, including the last 3 in a row, and as team leader he's won 6 out of 7 of the ones he's finished, only falling just short in one case to a very strong Quintana. He could easily have won both the 2011 Vuelta and the 2012 Tour as well. Not only does he win, but he usually dominates. Last year's Vuelta and particularly the 2015 Tour he did look vulnerable, but that's it. Even in the Giro you sense if not for the crash he would have won easily, and even so could have taken more time on the penultimate stage if he'd had to. 2013 he outright dominated, and in '16 and '17, even allowing for the fact he was riding with one eye on the Vuelta, and a more conservative strategy, he always looked in complete control. You strongly sensed he could have taken more time almost whenever he needed to. His attentiveness, 'smart' attacks, his descending skills, were all praised in those years as proof of more believable riding, but they were all possible at least in part because he was simply stronger and fresher than anyone else, and therefore able to be more switched on, focused and ready to seize opportunities when they presented themselves. 2017 Froome must be the only rider ever to use Le Tour as preparation and riding into form for another race - the Vuelta - whilst winning both. He climbs better than any other contemporary rider except maybe Quintana or the pre-ban Contador on their absolute best days, and much more consistently than the Columbian or anyone else, as a GC rider he TT's better than any except Dumoulin and Wiggins. He very rarely has an average day, let alone a proper bad one.

It all adds up to incredible dominance, such as the sport has rarely seen. Froome is not just the best of the elite GC riders. There is Froome then daylight - he's in a class all of his own, whereas the likes of Nibali, Quintana, Dumoulin, Aru and one or two others are all pretty close together. All this from a rider who was a distinctly average (at best) pro for 5 years, whose own team regarded him as poor before the transformation, and whose grace on a bike is marked only by its absence. It's utterly extraordinary, and largely still unexplained. The purely physical we know - he's ridiculously skinny yet insanely powerful, has superior endurance and recovery, has developed very solid bike handling skills despite his ungainliness, and can climb as both a diesel and a punchy attacker. He's rarely sick and when he is he usually seems able to battle through it. He's probably the fittest athlete the sport's ever seen, with one or two exceptions at best. The team we know - the strength of Sky has been an important factor. And the 'grey' stuff we know, at least in part - Sky are prepared at the very least to take and use anything strictly legal or capable of exploitation to assist their riders.

But the team in itself doesn't explain all of it, the grey stuff surely is only part of the story, the marginal gains stories are mostly hokum, and the physical largely explains the results but not how he got that way in the first place and maintains it. We just don't know. Maybe it's partly to do with a guy going all-out verses a now relatively cleaner peloton, making him stand out more than any 90s rider did, but if that's the case why has no-one else managed to do the same and come ever close to his all-round level in over 6 years? Nor does it explain how his performance is so close to that of the rampant EPO users of the 90s. We know that doping favours the bigger riders, because it's easier with chemical assistance to lose weight but retain power than it is to develop more power with a small frame, and Froome is definitely fortunate in having a naturally tall, lean physique almost perfectly suited to the dark arts of performance enhancement, and a body that clearly responds exceptionally well to whatever he is using. But his advantage seems more than just that and the actual methods are largely a mystery all the same, all the more so when you consider that the corticosteroids and whatever else Sky have had him on since his emergence only started after his 2011 transformation that he did all on his own. I think that's the real nub of it - no question 2018 Froome is even stronger, and on a more fully-developed program, than the 2011 Vuelta one. But how did he make that jump, and how has he maintained that singular edge for so long?

I know this is a complex question and the search continues for a complex answer, the huge mystery behind it all.....but there is a simple answer to much of what you seek...

We are not all created equal. Mercxx, Messi, Bolt, Ali...All born to be simply better than anyone else in the world at a given discipline. Life's not fair, but that's how it is.

Hard work, unfathomable dedication and yes maybe doping all get thrown into the mix to create great sportsmen/women....but if you're not born to be the best it's never going to count for much.

So there's the biggest part of the answer to the Froome conundrum. Most of the stuff you list, physique, endurance, power, ability to recover, longevity, consistency...all needs to be nurtured but most of it is there from birth. Forget the nonsense about him having no talent, thats just ridiculous. He was simply born to be the best, when it came to cycling, he won the genetic lottery.

Of course, there's still a need to fully switch on all of your genetic potential, and that's what we still question. But that's only the final pieces of the jigsaw, it's not the beginning of the puzzle.

So if I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that he suddenly, within a few months, in the summer/fall of 2011 was able to fulfill his immense, natural given potential. Heureka!

Sorry, but I have to disagree. I find that highly unlikely.

Well yeah, I guess that is what I'm saying...i dont know how, but I'm not saying it happened naturally, if that's what you thought.

Please let's not revisit the 'Froome has zero natural talent debate again, that's been done to death

 

[Saint Unix]

So there's the biggest part of the answer to the Froome conundrum. Most of the stuff you list, physique, endurance, power, ability to recover, longevity, consistency...all needs to be nurtured but most of it is there from birth. Forget the nonsense about him having no talent, thats just ridiculous. He was simply born to be the best, when it came to cycling, he won the genetic lottery.

If he's clean and that's the case, he's the only clean athlete I can think of that showed absolutely nothing that indicated legendary athletic capabilities until the age of 26. Every other top endurance or power athlete was dominating from a young age.

Merckx was competitive in the Belgian cycling scene at 16, and started winning as soon as he got into the pro ranks. Bolt ran a sub-20 second 200m as a teenager, Messi was in the Barcelona first team at 16 and a regular at 17. Ali won an Olympic gold medal at 18 and was the heavyweight champion at 22.

Other football superstars like Pelé (won the World Cup for Brazil at 17), Cristiano Ronaldo (was a regular for both Sporting and Manchester United as a teenager), Brazilian Ronaldo (was scoring goals for fun for Cruzeiro, PSV and Barcelona as a teenager) all showed immense promise early on. Gretzky was skating rings around kids three or four years older than him from the day he started playing organized hockey and won the NHL MVP award in his first season, at the age of 18. LeMond won l'Avenir by 10 minutes when he was 21 and finished third in his first ever Tour de France two years later, riding as a domestique for Fignon. The list goes on, by the way. Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Roger Federer, Babe Ruth, Michael Phelps... all incredible from the very beginning of their careers.

Yet Froome, who was described as average even by his fellow riders on the African cycling scene and is now perhaps even more dominant compared to his contemporaries than all the athletes mentioned in this post with the possible exception of Gretzky, is somehow clean and gifted with the ability to be the best from birth.

 

[Singer01]

Re: Re:

What's more likely? Chris Froome being clean or rick james having the focus, mental capacity and vocabulary to write a post containing more than one sentence?

4 of your last 5 posts have 2 lines or fewer. Also, obsessed much? Nearly 30% of your posts are in the Froome clinic thread.

Nice job cherry picking just the five most recent posts there. If you had gone further back the stats wouldn't have supported your argument.

quote]
Cherry picking is the clinic way.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

The remarkable thing about Froome, and the conundrum for the fan, is that doped or not he is now one of the most dominant GC riders of all time. Really only Armstrong and Merckx, and maybe one or two others, would be comparable. He's now won all 3 GTs, including the last 3 in a row, and as team leader he's won 6 out of 7 of the ones he's finished, only falling just short in one case to a very strong Quintana. He could easily have won both the 2011 Vuelta and the 2012 Tour as well. Not only does he win, but he usually dominates. Last year's Vuelta and particularly the 2015 Tour he did look vulnerable, but that's it. Even in the Giro you sense if not for the crash he would have won easily, and even so could have taken more time on the penultimate stage if he'd had to. 2013 he outright dominated, and in '16 and '17, even allowing for the fact he was riding with one eye on the Vuelta, and a more conservative strategy, he always looked in complete control. You strongly sensed he could have taken more time almost whenever he needed to. His attentiveness, 'smart' attacks, his descending skills, were all praised in those years as proof of more believable riding, but they were all possible at least in part because he was simply stronger and fresher than anyone else, and therefore able to be more switched on, focused and ready to seize opportunities when they presented themselves. 2017 Froome must be the only rider ever to use Le Tour as preparation and riding into form for another race - the Vuelta - whilst winning both. He climbs better than any other contemporary rider except maybe Quintana or the pre-ban Contador on their absolute best days, and much more consistently than the Columbian or anyone else, as a GC rider he TT's better than any except Dumoulin and Wiggins. He very rarely has an average day, let alone a proper bad one.

It all adds up to incredible dominance, such as the sport has rarely seen. Froome is not just the best of the elite GC riders. There is Froome then daylight - he's in a class all of his own, whereas the likes of Nibali, Quintana, Dumoulin, Aru and one or two others are all pretty close together. All this from a rider who was a distinctly average (at best) pro for 5 years, whose own team regarded him as poor before the transformation, and whose grace on a bike is marked only by its absence. It's utterly extraordinary, and largely still unexplained. The purely physical we know - he's ridiculously skinny yet insanely powerful, has superior endurance and recovery, has developed very solid bike handling skills despite his ungainliness, and can climb as both a diesel and a punchy attacker. He's rarely sick and when he is he usually seems able to battle through it. He's probably the fittest athlete the sport's ever seen, with one or two exceptions at best. The team we know - the strength of Sky has been an important factor. And the 'grey' stuff we know, at least in part - Sky are prepared at the very least to take and use anything strictly legal or capable of exploitation to assist their riders.

But the team in itself doesn't explain all of it, the grey stuff surely is only part of the story, the marginal gains stories are mostly hokum, and the physical largely explains the results but not how he got that way in the first place and maintains it. We just don't know. Maybe it's partly to do with a guy going all-out verses a now relatively cleaner peloton, making him stand out more than any 90s rider did, but if that's the case why has no-one else managed to do the same and come ever close to his all-round level in over 6 years? Nor does it explain how his performance is so close to that of the rampant EPO users of the 90s. We know that doping favours the bigger riders, because it's easier with chemical assistance to lose weight but retain power than it is to develop more power with a small frame, and Froome is definitely fortunate in having a naturally tall, lean physique almost perfectly suited to the dark arts of performance enhancement, and a body that clearly responds exceptionally well to whatever he is using. But his advantage seems more than just that and the actual methods are largely a mystery all the same, all the more so when you consider that the corticosteroids and whatever else Sky have had him on since his emergence only started after his 2011 transformation that he did all on his own. I think that's the real nub of it - no question 2018 Froome is even stronger, and on a more fully-developed program, than the 2011 Vuelta one. But how did he make that jump, and how has he maintained that singular edge for so long?

I know this is a complex question and the search continues for a complex answer, the huge mystery behind it all.....but there is a simple answer to much of what you seek...

We are not all created equal. Mercxx, Messi, Bolt, Ali...All born to be simply better than anyone else in the world at a given discipline. Life's not fair, but that's how it is.

Hard work, unfathomable dedication and yes maybe doping all get thrown into the mix to create great sportsmen/women....but if you're not born to be the best it's never going to count for much.

So there's the biggest part of the answer to the Froome conundrum. Most of the stuff you list, physique, endurance, power, ability to recover, longevity, consistency...all needs to be nurtured but most of it is there from birth. Forget the nonsense about him having no talent, thats just ridiculous. He was simply born to be the best, when it came to cycling, he won the genetic lottery.

Of course, there's still a need to fully switch on all of your genetic potential, and that's what we still question. But that's only the final pieces of the jigsaw, it's not the beginning of the puzzle.

So if I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that he suddenly, within a few months, in the summer/fall of 2011 was able to fulfill his immense, natural given potential. Heureka!

Sorry, but I have to disagree. I find that highly unlikely.

Well yeah, I guess that is what I'm saying...i dont know how, but I'm not saying it happened naturally, if that's what you thought.

Please let's not revisit the 'Froome has zero natural talent debate again, that's been done to death

The bold bit +1

 

[Alpe73]

The remarkable thing about Froome, and the conundrum for the fan, is that doped or not he is now one of the most dominant GC riders of all time. Really only Armstrong and Merckx, and maybe one or two others, would be comparable. He's now won all 3 GTs, including the last 3 in a row, and as team leader he's won 6 out of 7 of the ones he's finished, only falling just short in one case to a very strong Quintana. He could easily have won both the 2011 Vuelta and the 2012 Tour as well. Not only does he win, but he usually dominates. Last year's Vuelta and particularly the 2015 Tour he did look vulnerable, but that's it. Even in the Giro you sense if not for the crash he would have won easily, and even so could have taken more time on the penultimate stage if he'd had to. 2013 he outright dominated, and in '16 and '17, even allowing for the fact he was riding with one eye on the Vuelta, and a more conservative strategy, he always looked in complete control. You strongly sensed he could have taken more time almost whenever he needed to. His attentiveness, 'smart' attacks, his descending skills, were all praised in those years as proof of more believable riding, but they were all possible at least in part because he was simply stronger and fresher than anyone else, and therefore able to be more switched on, focused and ready to seize opportunities when they presented themselves. 2017 Froome must be the only rider ever to use Le Tour as preparation and riding into form for another race - the Vuelta - whilst winning both. He climbs better than any other contemporary rider except maybe Quintana or the pre-ban Contador on their absolute best days, and much more consistently than the Columbian or anyone else, as a GC rider he TT's better than any except Dumoulin and Wiggins. He very rarely has an average day, let alone a proper bad one.

It all adds up to incredible dominance, such as the sport has rarely seen. Froome is not just the best of the elite GC riders. There is Froome then daylight - he's in a class all of his own, whereas the likes of Nibali, Quintana, Dumoulin, Aru and one or two others are all pretty close together. All this from a rider who was a distinctly average (at best) pro for 5 years, whose own team regarded him as poor before the transformation, and whose grace on a bike is marked only by its absence. It's utterly extraordinary, and largely still unexplained. The purely physical we know - he's ridiculously skinny yet insanely powerful, has superior endurance and recovery, has developed very solid bike handling skills despite his ungainliness, and can climb as both a diesel and a punchy attacker. He's rarely sick and when he is he usually seems able to battle through it. He's probably the fittest athlete the sport's ever seen, with one or two exceptions at best. The team we know - the strength of Sky has been an important factor. And the 'grey' stuff we know, at least in part - Sky are prepared at the very least to take and use anything strictly legal or capable of exploitation to assist their riders.

But the team in itself doesn't explain all of it, the grey stuff surely is only part of the story, the marginal gains stories are mostly hokum, and the physical largely explains the results but not how he got that way in the first place and maintains it. We just don't know. Maybe it's partly to do with a guy going all-out verses a now relatively cleaner peloton, making him stand out more than any 90s rider did, but if that's the case why has no-one else managed to do the same and come ever close to his all-round level in over 6 years? Nor does it explain how his performance is so close to that of the rampant EPO users of the 90s. We know that doping favours the bigger riders, because it's easier with chemical assistance to lose weight but retain power than it is to develop more power with a small frame, and Froome is definitely fortunate in having a naturally tall, lean physique almost perfectly suited to the dark arts of performance enhancement, and a body that clearly responds exceptionally well to whatever he is using. But his advantage seems more than just that and the actual methods are largely a mystery all the same, all the more so when you consider that the corticosteroids and whatever else Sky have had him on since his emergence only started after his 2011 transformation that he did all on his own. I think that's the real nub of it - no question 2018 Froome is even stronger, and on a more fully-developed program, than the 2011 Vuelta one. But how did he make that jump, and how has he maintained that singular edge for so long?

I know this is a complex question and the search continues for a complex answer, the huge mystery behind it all.....but there is a simple answer to much of what you seek...

We are not all created equal. Mercxx, Messi, Bolt, Ali...All born to be simply better than anyone else in the world at a given discipline. Life's not fair, but that's how it is.

Hard work, unfathomable dedication and yes maybe doping all get thrown into the mix to create great sportsmen/women....but if you're not born to be the best it's never going to count for much.

So there's the biggest part of the answer to the Froome conundrum. Most of the stuff you list, physique, endurance, power, ability to recover, longevity, consistency...all needs to be nurtured but most of it is there from birth. Forget the nonsense about him having no talent, thats just ridiculous. He was simply born to be the best, when it came to cycling, he won the genetic lottery.

Of course, there's still a need to fully switch on all of your genetic potential, and that's what we still question. But that's only the final pieces of the jigsaw, it's not the beginning of the puzzle.

1. Froome uses a motor
2. Froome had/has no talent
3. Froome should not be 'suspected' of doping

A few starter items re: "nonsense" ... that would improve the integrity of the discussion, I reckon.

 

[ahsoe]

The remarkable thing about Froome, and the conundrum for the fan, is that doped or not he is now one of the most dominant GC riders of all time. Really only Armstrong and Merckx, and maybe one or two others, would be comparable. He's now won all 3 GTs, including the last 3 in a row, and as team leader he's won 6 out of 7 of the ones he's finished, only falling just short in one case to a very strong Quintana. He could easily have won both the 2011 Vuelta and the 2012 Tour as well. Not only does he win, but he usually dominates. Last year's Vuelta and particularly the 2015 Tour he did look vulnerable, but that's it. Even in the Giro you sense if not for the crash he would have won easily, and even so could have taken more time on the penultimate stage if he'd had to. 2013 he outright dominated, and in '16 and '17, even allowing for the fact he was riding with one eye on the Vuelta, and a more conservative strategy, he always looked in complete control. You strongly sensed he could have taken more time almost whenever he needed to. His attentiveness, 'smart' attacks, his descending skills, were all praised in those years as proof of more believable riding, but they were all possible at least in part because he was simply stronger and fresher than anyone else, and therefore able to be more switched on, focused and ready to seize opportunities when they presented themselves. 2017 Froome must be the only rider ever to use Le Tour as preparation and riding into form for another race - the Vuelta - whilst winning both. He climbs better than any other contemporary rider except maybe Quintana or the pre-ban Contador on their absolute best days, and much more consistently than the Columbian or anyone else, as a GC rider he TT's better than any except Dumoulin and Wiggins. He very rarely has an average day, let alone a proper bad one.

It all adds up to incredible dominance, such as the sport has rarely seen. Froome is not just the best of the elite GC riders. There is Froome then daylight - he's in a class all of his own, whereas the likes of Nibali, Quintana, Dumoulin, Aru and one or two others are all pretty close together. All this from a rider who was a distinctly average (at best) pro for 5 years, whose own team regarded him as poor before the transformation, and whose grace on a bike is marked only by its absence. It's utterly extraordinary, and largely still unexplained. The purely physical we know - he's ridiculously skinny yet insanely powerful, has superior endurance and recovery, has developed very solid bike handling skills despite his ungainliness, and can climb as both a diesel and a punchy attacker. He's rarely sick and when he is he usually seems able to battle through it. He's probably the fittest athlete the sport's ever seen, with one or two exceptions at best. The team we know - the strength of Sky has been an important factor. And the 'grey' stuff we know, at least in part - Sky are prepared at the very least to take and use anything strictly legal or capable of exploitation to assist their riders.

But the team in itself doesn't explain all of it, the grey stuff surely is only part of the story, the marginal gains stories are mostly hokum, and the physical largely explains the results but not how he got that way in the first place and maintains it. We just don't know. Maybe it's partly to do with a guy going all-out verses a now relatively cleaner peloton, making him stand out more than any 90s rider did, but if that's the case why has no-one else managed to do the same and come ever close to his all-round level in over 6 years? Nor does it explain how his performance is so close to that of the rampant EPO users of the 90s. We know that doping favours the bigger riders, because it's easier with chemical assistance to lose weight but retain power than it is to develop more power with a small frame, and Froome is definitely fortunate in having a naturally tall, lean physique almost perfectly suited to the dark arts of performance enhancement, and a body that clearly responds exceptionally well to whatever he is using. But his advantage seems more than just that and the actual methods are largely a mystery all the same, all the more so when you consider that the corticosteroids and whatever else Sky have had him on since his emergence only started after his 2011 transformation that he did all on his own. I think that's the real nub of it - no question 2018 Froome is even stronger, and on a more fully-developed program, than the 2011 Vuelta one. But how did he make that jump, and how has he maintained that singular edge for so long?

I know this is a complex question and the search continues for a complex answer, the huge mystery behind it all.....but there is a simple answer to much of what you seek...

We are not all created equal. Mercxx, Messi, Bolt, Ali...All born to be simply better than anyone else in the world at a given discipline. Life's not fair, but that's how it is.

Hard work, unfathomable dedication and yes maybe doping all get thrown into the mix to create great sportsmen/women....but if you're not born to be the best it's never going to count for much.

So there's the biggest part of the answer to the Froome conundrum. Most of the stuff you list, physique, endurance, power, ability to recover, longevity, consistency...all needs to be nurtured but most of it is there from birth. Forget the nonsense about him having no talent, thats just ridiculous. He was simply born to be the best, when it came to cycling, he won the genetic lottery.

Of course, there's still a need to fully switch on all of your genetic potential, and that's what we still question. But that's only the final pieces of the jigsaw, it's not the beginning of the puzzle.

So if I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that he suddenly, within a few months, in the summer/fall of 2011 was able to fulfill his immense, natural given potential. Heureka!

Sorry, but I have to disagree. I find that highly unlikely.

Well yeah, I guess that is what I'm saying...i dont know how, but I'm not saying it happened naturally, if that's what you thought.

Please let's not revisit the 'Froome has zero natural talent debate again, that's been done to death

OK. I thought you meant that it happened naturally

I believe all professional cyclists are talented and must be some of the best athletes in their youth groups. Otherwise, you simply do not make it to the professional teams. The same goes for Froome.

But we are talking about realising your potential to the fullest, maximizing your ability, in a very short time span, and maintaining that ability ever since. Which has enabled him, with the help of a very strong team, to dominate cycling consistently.

Given that we know how cycling has worked in the past, I can think of only one logical explanation. And given Sky's much heralded, self-proclaimed purpose since foundation, I find that hard to swallow

 

[MatParker117]

Re:

What chance do ASO have of barring Froome from TDF? If I am right they tried something similar with Boonen which got chased, will the same happen for Froome?

Zero, that rule is impossible to defend in court.

 

[dacooley]

the remark about froome having zero talent is all about nothing but huge hate. it's more of "he shouldn't win any race from my point of view".

Tour of Sardinia, big riders often make us like kids, happy kids with AC's case, and angry kids when it relates to froome, don't they?

on a serious note, froome clearly has talent and i don't think anyone can provide any rational argument on why others are entitled to win to the bigger extent than him. also it's difficult to imagine froome working less rather that other main protagonists. but the most important thing is that he is obviously using some weight loss and training methods which are suited to him in a unique way. these methods are hardly incredibly concealed or something, nonetheless somehow we don't see a 62 kg nibali or 65 kg dimoulin. what suits froome perfectly clearly doesn't suit them whatsoever. that's where a notorious hog's super responder theory should be thrown in the mix.

 

[Alpe73]

Re:

What chance do ASO have of barring Froome from TDF? If I am right they tried something similar with Boonen which got chased, will the same happen for Froome?

A lot of people around here waited, with bated breath, waiting for Vegni to play the disrepute card. Of course, didn't happen ... Froome was not manhandled, mauled or maimed by the Italian Tifosi ... I'm sure he came away with a net aggregate gain in Italian fans. Vegni is smiling ... SMILING.

Imagine ... IMAGINE ... ASO trying to ban Froome via their own disrepute clause ... defending Tour Champion, defending Vuelta Champion, Defending Giro Champion ... when the UCI concedes it has no power to ban him and that under the rules ... he is free to ride.

Like I've said before .... there's a sports journalist at the Guradian just waiting to publish an article ... just waiting to hit the button ... in retaliation.

"ASO Bans Froome to Pave The Way for a French Champion"

The Tour will get more disrepute than it can handle if it tries to ban Froome.

 

[brownbobby]

The remarkable thing about Froome, and the conundrum for the fan, is that doped or not he is now one of the most dominant GC riders of all time. Really only Armstrong and Merckx, and maybe one or two others, would be comparable. He's now won all 3 GTs, including the last 3 in a row, and as team leader he's won 6 out of 7 of the ones he's finished, only falling just short in one case to a very strong Quintana. He could easily have won both the 2011 Vuelta and the 2012 Tour as well. Not only does he win, but he usually dominates. Last year's Vuelta and particularly the 2015 Tour he did look vulnerable, but that's it. Even in the Giro you sense if not for the crash he would have won easily, and even so could have taken more time on the penultimate stage if he'd had to. 2013 he outright dominated, and in '16 and '17, even allowing for the fact he was riding with one eye on the Vuelta, and a more conservative strategy, he always looked in complete control. You strongly sensed he could have taken more time almost whenever he needed to. His attentiveness, 'smart' attacks, his descending skills, were all praised in those years as proof of more believable riding, but they were all possible at least in part because he was simply stronger and fresher than anyone else, and therefore able to be more switched on, focused and ready to seize opportunities when they presented themselves. 2017 Froome must be the only rider ever to use Le Tour as preparation and riding into form for another race - the Vuelta - whilst winning both. He climbs better than any other contemporary rider except maybe Quintana or the pre-ban Contador on their absolute best days, and much more consistently than the Columbian or anyone else, as a GC rider he TT's better than any except Dumoulin and Wiggins. He very rarely has an average day, let alone a proper bad one.

It all adds up to incredible dominance, such as the sport has rarely seen. Froome is not just the best of the elite GC riders. There is Froome then daylight - he's in a class all of his own, whereas the likes of Nibali, Quintana, Dumoulin, Aru and one or two others are all pretty close together. All this from a rider who was a distinctly average (at best) pro for 5 years, whose own team regarded him as poor before the transformation, and whose grace on a bike is marked only by its absence. It's utterly extraordinary, and largely still unexplained. The purely physical we know - he's ridiculously skinny yet insanely powerful, has superior endurance and recovery, has developed very solid bike handling skills despite his ungainliness, and can climb as both a diesel and a punchy attacker. He's rarely sick and when he is he usually seems able to battle through it. He's probably the fittest athlete the sport's ever seen, with one or two exceptions at best. The team we know - the strength of Sky has been an important factor. And the 'grey' stuff we know, at least in part - Sky are prepared at the very least to take and use anything strictly legal or capable of exploitation to assist their riders.

But the team in itself doesn't explain all of it, the grey stuff surely is only part of the story, the marginal gains stories are mostly hokum, and the physical largely explains the results but not how he got that way in the first place and maintains it. We just don't know. Maybe it's partly to do with a guy going all-out verses a now relatively cleaner peloton, making him stand out more than any 90s rider did, but if that's the case why has no-one else managed to do the same and come ever close to his all-round level in over 6 years? Nor does it explain how his performance is so close to that of the rampant EPO users of the 90s. We know that doping favours the bigger riders, because it's easier with chemical assistance to lose weight but retain power than it is to develop more power with a small frame, and Froome is definitely fortunate in having a naturally tall, lean physique almost perfectly suited to the dark arts of performance enhancement, and a body that clearly responds exceptionally well to whatever he is using. But his advantage seems more than just that and the actual methods are largely a mystery all the same, all the more so when you consider that the corticosteroids and whatever else Sky have had him on since his emergence only started after his 2011 transformation that he did all on his own. I think that's the real nub of it - no question 2018 Froome is even stronger, and on a more fully-developed program, than the 2011 Vuelta one. But how did he make that jump, and how has he maintained that singular edge for so long?

I know this is a complex question and the search continues for a complex answer, the huge mystery behind it all.....but there is a simple answer to much of what you seek...

We are not all created equal. Mercxx, Messi, Bolt, Ali...All born to be simply better than anyone else in the world at a given discipline. Life's not fair, but that's how it is.

Hard work, unfathomable dedication and yes maybe doping all get thrown into the mix to create great sportsmen/women....but if you're not born to be the best it's never going to count for much.

So there's the biggest part of the answer to the Froome conundrum. Most of the stuff you list, physique, endurance, power, ability to recover, longevity, consistency...all needs to be nurtured but most of it is there from birth. Forget the nonsense about him having no talent, thats just ridiculous. He was simply born to be the best, when it came to cycling, he won the genetic lottery.

Of course, there's still a need to fully switch on all of your genetic potential, and that's what we still question. But that's only the final pieces of the jigsaw, it's not the beginning of the puzzle.

So if I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that he suddenly, within a few months, in the summer/fall of 2011 was able to fulfill his immense, natural given potential. Heureka!

Sorry, but I have to disagree. I find that highly unlikely.

Well yeah, I guess that is what I'm saying...i dont know how, but I'm not saying it happened naturally, if that's what you thought.

Please let's not revisit the 'Froome has zero natural talent debate again, that's been done to death

The bold bit +1

I'm trying not to bite....but to completely turn the well known quote on its head...."you don't ride the TDF (let alone win it) on doping alone"

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Well, the problem is hyperbole. Even the most cynical people in this forum who describe Froome as having "zero talent" are meaning "relative to competition", in this case meaning the elite pro péloton. I'm not about to argue that he doesn't, or didn't, know how to ride a bike, even if his style of doing so may be among the ungainliest ever, along with the likes of Fernando Escartín, Juan Mauricio Soler and Francisco Mancebo, all of whom were great climbers. Soler was even the team leader at Froome's own team back in 2008-9.

Similarly, when we've looked at the performances and the power outputs, there has always been this debate over what's plausible, but it neglects the most important question, which is "is it plausible coming from that particular rider?" We can look at the climbing records on Mont Ventoux for an example. Nobody is going to argue away somebody matching Iban Mayo or Marco Pantani unassisted without serious cognitive dissonance, but at 58'31 you have David Moncoutié's best time, a rider who has been generally perceived as clean. Even if we add a bit to that, and say that there's a race with a summit finish on Mont Ventoux and the winning time is 1'00'00" on the money, if you have somebody like Marcel Kittel trail in at +1'00" it's going to raise eyebrows - a 61 minute ascent of Mont Ventoux is not in and of itself suspicious, it's a good 5 minutes slower than Iban Mayo's time from the Dauphiné, but if somebody like Marcel Kittel pulls it off, people are going to call BS, because that's quite simply not what Marcel Kittel is born to do (with apologies to Marcel, I just picked him as a pre-eminent sprinter who is known as a pure power guy, just for an extreme example).

Saint Unix has their list of the immediate success stories (there are many others you can add, take for example Darya Domracheva in the biathlon, competing as a youth she had to race against the boys, because she was regularly pasting the girls not only in her age group but in ALL age groups; Alejandro Valverde is always a good example to point to here because he's a rider nobody is going to call clean, but his indomitable record as a cadet which led to his "El Imbatido" nickname speaks for itself as to there being a special natural talent level from an early age also). Froome is something of an exception to that in that he didn't come to the sport via a traditional route, but nonetheless, it is worth noting that other late converts have been successful far more quickly - at the elite level there's Michael Woods, Primož Roglič and Richie Porte in recent years, for example (Porte came from triathlon so at least had some cycling background, but Woods came from distance running, and Roglič even came from a sport where explosivity is more important than endurance). But Froome didn't come to cycling with an established sporting background already there, nor did he come to the sport at a fully physically grown stage like them, so they're not fair direct comparisons either. Somebody like Bauke Mollema is a better comparison point, having taken up cycling at 19, and won the Tour de l'Avenir at 21. That stands in stark contrast to Froome's records from South African domestic events that was once publicised, which showed him not to have been especially out of the ordinary there either.

Nevertheless there must have been something there, including that vaunted "rough diamond" style that, once the inefficiencies were coached out of him, could reap dividends (strangely, there has not been any physical change in that style, other than the descending which he has markedly improved, but that's been only once he was already an established star, and not to do with his emergence), otherwise he wouldn't have found his way to the UCI World Cycling Centre or onto Barloworld - nevertheless Barloworld was, at the time, the only logical team for him to get onto that would have been able to ride at the top levels, and for all the attention paid to his performances in the final week of the 2008 Tour, he wasn't even the most promising young African climber at Barloworld, because while Froome did well to survive the break over the Croix de Fer and stay with Menchov for a bit after the Russian was dropped on Alpe d'Huez, he did get detached from the group just after Johan van Summeren (not exactly a vaunted climber) and he did finish 9 minutes behind the reigning Vuelta winner. Augustyn survived a strong break over the Col de la Lombarde and then was the strongest climber in it on the Col de la Bonette, cresting the highest peak in the race alone and he would have been in the position to win the stage had he not wiped out on the descent and lost his bike, which descended the Bonette to a fate unknown, much like Millar's legendary Contursi Terme bike throw that sent the bike rolling down the hillside over the barriers. But still, there were some performances there that suggested Froome had at least some talent to make it as a pro, if not a multiple Grand Tour winning one.

This is the problem - there's not linear progress with Froome that means we can answer the question "is it plausible coming from him?" with any degree of certainty at all. There's little by way of signs of early promise that tell us that he was a genetic freak, born to succeed in endurance sports. There's definitely no aesthetically-pleasing style on the bike that tells us he had a natural affinity for riding. And there's no bank of results obtained that told us he was anything other than a moderately talented climber who could feasibly do a decent job for a team leader if he developed. I've traditionally said that I thought he could have become a rider like Egoí Martínez or Chris Anker Sørensen, and I don't feel that's an unreasonable level for what was possible from what he showed in his first years at Barloworld. But Barloworld themselves are a difficult one to judge, as they had a number of unreliable riders and riders with awkward, shuffling techniques, and they also had a number of dopers and positive tests - so actually ascertaining what development opportunities they provided is fairly difficult. But if it was simply that Sky provided better development opportunities, teaching him how to ride within himself and not be wasteful of energy as they described him as being, and improving his pack skills and tactical awareness even while he was struggling with the bilharzia, you would expect him to be at least stagnating, compensating for his less competitive physical shape with improved nous and energy preservation. But he wasn't - his results were going backwards until that hail mary was thrown in the Vuelta.

Then you have to add all of the other factors that have come to light over the last five and a half years - the TUEs, the jiffy bags, the asthma not mentioned in his book but coming to light shortly after its release when he was shown puffing on his inhaler in the middle of a race he won easily, the dubious team doctors, the laughably bad concocted story about the lost laptop, and so on - that make the team less trustworthy. Some of these factors Froome can help, some of them he can't. Then throw in the case history of cycling that makes his a) level and extent of success, and b) speed of emergence at such a late stage in his career look extremely unusual without broaching the subject of doping, and things mount up.

The thing is, "is it plausible?" is one thing. But "is it plausible coming from Chris Froome, given all that we already know and all that we already have seen?" Well, that's a much more subjective question.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

ASO blocks Froome ... video. https://twitter.com/chronoswatts/status/857178547407990784?s=19

in force this May 25 , the new law of General Data Protection Regulation perharps

Looks more like plain copyright to me.