Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

Page 830 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Re: Re:

rick james said:
Pantani Attacks said:
rick james said:
so you've no proof at all....thats good.

Where's the proof he's clean?

Inb4 no positive tests. Countless cyclists have ridden a supposedly clean career only to have admitted doping after retirement.
its you thats saying he is dirty..it's simple really, prove to me he is on the drugs and i will stop supporting him.

"Prove he doped" is the same argument Armstrong fans were making before he admitted it all.

So far, I see no proof that Froome doped other than the fact that my own eyes are telling me I'm watching a complete joke. And I know it's a joke because I've seen it repeated over and over and over during the last 20+ years at least.
 
May 26, 2010
28,143
5
0
I asked Shane Sutton if Froome was clean.....the answer " that all elbows and legs wobbly gimp is no more clean than my #**# mouth!" :D
 
Re: Re:

Moose McKnuckles said:
rick james said:
Pantani Attacks said:
rick james said:
so you've no proof at all....thats good.

Where's the proof he's clean?

Inb4 no positive tests. Countless cyclists have ridden a supposedly clean career only to have admitted doping after retirement.
its you thats saying he is dirty..it's simple really, prove to me he is on the drugs and i will stop supporting him.

"Prove he doped" is the same argument Armstrong fans were making before he admitted it all.

So far, I see no proof that Froome doped other than the fact that my own eyes are telling me I'm watching a complete joke. And I know it's a joke because I've seen it repeated over and over and over during the last 20+ years at least.

Come on Moose, there is way more proof that Froome doped beyond just his performances or the eye test. You are feeding the trolls here.

I mean just to pick one angle at random, Sky and Froome have been caught red handed fabricating stories about marginal gains. That is pretty heavy proof.

The idiots always like to refer to this fantasy scenario of a "court of law". Well in a "court of law", even an amateur unqualified state lawyer would absolutely be able to destroy the defense with - "if you are not guilty why did you spend 5 years creating a web of complicated lies and responded with blatant untruths everytime the issue of doping came up"?

Every juror would be asking themselves that very same question.

And from what we've seen of Brailsford and Froome, and their chronies on here, there is no answer.
 
Feb 24, 2014
516
0
0
Hugh Januss said:
There are a bunch of explanations for Froome's huge leap in ability, that he is clean is really the only one that is steeped in fantasy.

Perfect, if only there was a like button.

Watching Froome today was way worse than watching Armstrong in his pomp. Hideous!
 
Re: Re:

rick james said:
The Hitch said:
rick james said:
so you've no proof at all....thats good.
I have plenty

Keep living in fantasy land though :eek:
good..lets see the evidence.
Rick James - You have been a member of this forum for almost two years. You have been in this thread and others, defending Froome and Sky the entire time. The evidence that makes many here believe that Froome is at the forefront of current doping has been discussed the entire time in an endless merry-go-round, you have even served a couple of bans for trolling while discussing it.

Yet you (and several others here) still insist on asking for evidence that you have already been presented with and discussed several times. How is this not trolling?
 
Re:

peloton said:
@rick james Of course I don't. But it would be pretty naive to ignore that he was hired, and see how the results improved after that. A transformation never seen in any sports happening while he was the team doctor? Quite a coincidence.
It wasn't only Froome's results either. Wigans, Rogers, Siutsou and Kiriyenka also stepped things up while Leinders was there. But hey, Brailsford only hired clean staff and riders, with no doping connections remember?
 
Oct 6, 2009
5,270
2
0
Re: Re:

El Pistolero said:
It's not a level playing field at all, Team Sky's budget is so much higher than most other teams. Like in every team sport it's the money that decides all. And money goes far beyond doping as well: just look at his team-mates, they could drop all GC contenders in the Tour and still have 5 riders left. Just buy the strongest riders on the market and there's no way you can lose. Froome will never be in trouble in this year's Tour simply because of his ridiculously strong team compared to the other contenders.

There's also the issue of Sky's perceived protections and free pass, their connections with the UCI and ASO, conflicts of interest, bringing in new fans/races/money, the TUE issue, the altitude study, the extra vehicles at the race hotels during the Tour, the motorhome, even Oleg has talked about the need to get Sky Sports to buy the cycling TV-rights package to enrich the sport. There looks like a lot of special treatment possibilities for one team. It makes one question the likelihood that Sky's GT leaders would be held to the same standards as everybody else.
 
Re: Re:

gooner said:
deeno1975 said:
Valv.Piti said:
LaFlorecita said:
I'm fed up with this, he's vroom vrooming away from everyone on his moped. It's nonsense.
Meanwhile its obviously perfectly fine for Alberto to dope.

Your double standards makes me sick

So a "clean" Froome thrashes' a doped Contador and you don't see any hypocrisy in that???

That's not the point, if a doped to the gills Contador won yesterday, there wouldn't be word of criticism directed to him by his fans.

It would be celebrated. That has been the case with any of his previous wins.

If you actually read the Contador threads you would realise that the vast majority of his fans don't criticise Froome for doping either.

But I guess that wouldn't fit the narrative you want to sell
 
Re: Re:

Moose McKnuckles said:
rick james said:
Pantani Attacks said:
rick james said:
so you've no proof at all....thats good.

Where's the proof he's clean?

Inb4 no positive tests. Countless cyclists have ridden a supposedly clean career only to have admitted doping after retirement.
its you thats saying he is dirty..it's simple really, prove to me he is on the drugs and i will stop supporting him.

"Prove he doped" is the same argument Armstrong fans were making before he admitted it all.

So far, I see no proof that Froome doped other than the fact that my own eyes are telling me I'm watching a complete joke. And I know it's a joke because I've seen it repeated over and over and over during the last 20+ years at least.
How is that even possible? We all know that cycling as a competitive sport has only existed since 2012 ;) :D
 
Most of Froomey's fans are just like Armstrong ones: deluded. The same blind faith that their "hero" can't be like the others, he's a clean superhuman, for them he's the Messia, the almighty God. I still remember when Lance was caught, in what disbelief his fans were. For me was something surprising, to witness grown people being stunned by something that was so obvious for years and years, it was like someone was astonished that the water is wet. Maybe some day the same epiphany will happen with Froome's fans, but I doubt he will ever be caught, he has an ace up his sleeve, he's not an egotistical c*nt like Armstrong was, as long as he doesn't angers some important people, he'll be fine and his fans will continue to lie to themselves.
 
Let me give it a try, the "Froome dopes" story. Probably forgot plenty of things but it could be a start:

1. As a young rider, Froome showed talent to become a decent pro. He has results that put him among riders such as Cyril Gautier and Andrey Zeits. Early results as a pro confirm this, however he went backwards until suddenly bursting out at the Vuelta 2011 and become the dominant GC rider of his generation. Winning another Tour would put him at 3, something less than 10 riders have accomplished in the history of the Tour. Adding a 2nd place in 2012 and two 2nd places in the Vuelta makes him one of the better GT riders ever in a timespan of just five years. Nothing he ever did prior to the Vuelta 2011 suggested this was even remotely possible. It is hard to find other riders with a similar increase in performance. The most similar appears to be Riis, widely known as an ultra-doper. It is also hard to explain this performance increase.

2a. Bilharzia is most often cited as the cause of Froome underachieving, and curing this disease caused the performance increase. In other words, the disease makes the difference between a multiple Tour winner and someone who may never win a race of any importance. It is thus an important chapter in Froome's life. However, both Froome and Sky have told multiple, conflicting stories about when and how it was discovered that he had the disease, and how long he might have had it. Moreover, it is hard to imagine that it took so long for them to notice that a) something was wrong with Froome and b) find out it was Bilharzia, a very common disease in Kenya that Froome's brother apparently suffered from. If your potential Tour winner gets dropped from the grupetto in the Giro, clearly something is wrong. Took them a year and a half to sort it out?

2b. Froome and Sky's stories about the effects and treatment of Bilharzia are sketchy at best, hard to believe or plain wrong according to people who know about Bilharzia. I am not one of those people so I won't discuss it further.

2c. Bilharzia doesn't explain why Froome did not show multiple Tour winning potential in the years before the disease.

3. Another possible explanation for Froome's rise is that Team Sky is just that good. The famous marginal gains. They are touted proudly as the reason why Sky is able to beat the evil dopers. It is a term they launched without anyone asking them to, they did it as an argument why they are clean. However, until this day, they have not told of anything they do which a) is useful and b) is not done by at least some other teams. Some examples given are easily debunked: pineapple-flavored water has been used for 40 years; and there is an actual image of a Sky vehicle containing a pallet of Nutella "because the riders like it so much".

4. There is also the "Sky has so much money, they just buy the best riders" story. This was definitely not true at first: from their Tour-dominating squad in 2012, only Boasson Hagen was one of the best riders in the world before going to Sky. Froome, Wiggins, Porte and Rogers improved (a lot) at Sky. Knees and Sivtsov were nothing special.

5. Froome improved by losing a lot of weight. This does not explain how both his climbing and time trialling improved dramatically. After losing part of that weight in his Barloworld days, Froome did not exhibit noticeable improvement. Somehow his improvements due to weight loss came suddenly between the Tour of Poland and the Vuelta in 2011.

6. Sky was unaware of what Froome was capable off even during the 2011 Vuelta. He would have won that Tour if the team wouldn't have sacrificed him for Wiggins. They did so because they didn't think he could perform for three weeks. Surely they would have given him a free role if they had known that he was a potential multiple Tour winner. There is also that annoying "estimation of Brailsford's rider analysis" graph which has Froome as the least talented rider on the team in 2010. Turns out he was by far the most talented. Small mistake.

7. Froome has no discernable skills as a cyclist apart from raw power. Not good at handling a bike, not aerodynamic at all, and his only tactic is to ride fast and drop everybody from his wheel.



*** So, Froome improved dramatically without a reason. Why would the reason be doping? ***

1. Geert Leinders worked at Sky and is banned for life for doping practices

2. Sky wanted to be a clean team from the start, not having anything to do with doping. They hired Leinders, de Jongh, Rogers, Julich, Cioni, Barry, people who were pretty much known dopers. Froome worked a lot with Julich, who apparently did not dope at CSC ... Okay, so Sky doesn't actually mind working with dopers. Just PR.

3. Sky hired a bunch of riders scoring high on the UCI's 2010 suspicion list

4. Chris Froome hacked his way into a championship as a young rider. He also hung on to a car, got an energy gel when it wasn't allowed, and got a backdated TUE. And as the saying goes, “If I’m a liar and a cheat and if my ethics and morals are all about cheating, then surely I’ll be doing it in other places in my life. Not just parts. If you’re a cheat, you’re a cheat, you’re not half a cheat. You wouldn’t say, ‘I’ll cheat here but I’m not going to cheat over there. I’ll cheat on a Monday but not on a Tuesday’." Or, as the saying also goes, "If you want something bad enough, you'll find a way to get it". Those are Brailsford and Froome quotes.

5. Performances bordering on the "limits of human physiology" and occasionally up there with the best from the Armstrong era.
 
Re:

Gung Ho Gun said:
Let me give it a try, the "Froome dopes" story. Probably forgot plenty of things but it could be a start:

1. As a young rider, Froome showed talent to become a decent pro. He has results that put him among riders such as Cyril Gautier and Andrey Zeits. Early results as a pro confirm this, however he went backwards until suddenly bursting out at the Vuelta 2011 and become the dominant GC rider of his generation. Winning another Tour would put him at 3, something less than 10 riders have accomplished in the history of the Tour. Adding a 2nd place in 2012 and two 2nd places in the Vuelta makes him one of the better GT riders ever in a timespan of just five years. Nothing he ever did prior to the Vuelta 2011 suggested this was even remotely possible. It is hard to find other riders with a similar increase in performance. The most similar appears to be Riis, widely known as an ultra-doper. It is also hard to explain this performance increase.

2a. Bilharzia is most often cited as the cause of Froome underachieving, and curing this disease caused the performance increase. In other words, the disease makes the difference between a multiple Tour winner and someone who may never win a race of any importance. It is thus an important chapter in Froome's life. However, both Froome and Sky have told multiple, conflicting stories about when and how it was discovered that he had the disease, and how long he might have had it. Moreover, it is hard to imagine that it took so long for them to notice that a) something was wrong with Froome and b) find out it was Bilharzia, a very common disease in Kenya that Froome's brother apparently suffered from. If your potential Tour winner gets dropped from the grupetto in the Giro, clearly something is wrong. Took them a year and a half to sort it out?

2b. Froome and Sky's stories about the effects and treatment of Bilharzia are sketchy at best, hard to believe or plain wrong according to people who know about Bilharzia. I am not one of those people so I won't discuss it further.

2c. Bilharzia doesn't explain why Froome did not show multiple Tour winning potential in the years before the disease.

3. Another possible explanation for Froome's rise is that Team Sky is just that good. The famous marginal gains. They are touted proudly as the reason why Sky is able to beat the evil dopers. It is a term they launched without anyone asking them to, they did it as an argument why they are clean. However, until this day, they have not told of anything they do which a) is useful and b) is not done by at least some other teams. Some examples given are easily debunked: pineapple-flavored water has been used for 40 years; and there is an actual image of a Sky vehicle containing a pallet of Nutella "because the riders like it so much".

4. There is also the "Sky has so much money, they just buy the best riders" story. This was definitely not true at first: from their Tour-dominating squad in 2012, only Boasson Hagen was one of the best riders in the world before going to Sky. Froome, Wiggins, Porte and Rogers improved (a lot) at Sky. Knees and Sivtsov were nothing special.

5. Froome improved by losing a lot of weight. This does not explain how both his climbing and time trialling improved dramatically. After losing part of that weight in his Barloworld days, Froome did not exhibit noticeable improvement. Somehow his improvements due to weight loss came suddenly between the Tour of Poland and the Vuelta in 2011.

6. Sky was unaware of what Froome was capable off even during the 2011 Vuelta. He would have won that Tour if the team wouldn't have sacrificed him for Wiggins. They did so because they didn't think he could perform for three weeks. Surely they would have given him a free role if they had known that he was a potential multiple Tour winner. There is also that annoying "estimation of Brailsford's rider analysis" graph which has Froome as the least talented rider on the team in 2010. Turns out he was by far the most talented. Small mistake.

7. Froome has no discernable skills as a cyclist apart from raw power. Not good at handling a bike, not aerodynamic at all, and his only tactic is to ride fast and drop everybody from his wheel.



*** So, Froome improved dramatically without a reason. Why would the reason be doping? ***

1. Geert Leinders worked at Sky and is banned for life for doping practices

2. Sky wanted to be a clean team from the start, not having anything to do with doping. They hired Leinders, de Jongh, Rogers, Julich, Cioni, Barry, people who were pretty much known dopers. Froome worked a lot with Julich, who apparently did not dope at CSC ... Okay, so Sky doesn't actually mind working with dopers. Just PR.

3. Sky hired a bunch of riders scoring high on the UCI's 2010 suspicion list

4. Chris Froome hacked his way into a championship as a young rider. He also hung on to a car, got an energy gel when it wasn't allowed, and got a backdated TUE. And as the saying goes, “If I’m a liar and a cheat and if my ethics and morals are all about cheating, then surely I’ll be doing it in other places in my life. Not just parts. If you’re a cheat, you’re a cheat, you’re not half a cheat. You wouldn’t say, ‘I’ll cheat here but I’m not going to cheat over there. I’ll cheat on a Monday but not on a Tuesday’." Or, as the saying also goes, "If you want something bad enough, you'll find a way to get it". Those are Brailsford and Froome quotes.

5. Performances bordering on the "limits of human physiology" and occasionally up there with the best from the Armstrong era.
Excellent summary. There's also been a couple of threads regarding the many inconsistencies in Sky's stories, with outright contradictions pointed out, but I suspect that certain posters are aware of those.
 
Good analysis. There is much more especially in his book which made so many mistakes. The beating of "Tour de France champion" Alberto Contador after Contador had 3 punctures being one.

I still find the trip to the UK between 2011 Poland and the Vuelta riding for the British team a huge red flag. Something happened there. Many think Sky were not aware of Froome's doping but something transpired in those 6 days between the end of Poland, The Surrey Classic and the Vuelta.

akiwsj.jpg
 
The question is why would Sky favor Chris Froome so much? Surely if they had a plethora of riders they could magically convert into TdF winners, they would choose a very British rider. Why Chris Froome who is not as loved as maybe G(say). Why make him this good?
Also, he was never part of the A team of Sky Pre-Vuelta. Why not continue the domination with Wiggins? Or G Thomas? Surely he's got to be the best talent they have, Doping or Not Doping.
 
Feb 6, 2016
1,213
0
0
There's also the (purely circumstantial) fact that Froome is an Armstrong fan who views 7 victories as the Tour de France record.

However, I don't think the specific evidence is necessarily that important. Elements of it can and have been disputed heavily, and even I'm not convinced by every thing adduced against Froome in that list. What is essential is this:

Climbing speeds are not notably down from the EPO era. They are down, but not by much. W/Kg remains at a superhuman level. Infuriatingly, I can't find the statistics right now, but it has been shown that 2012 was the fastest peloton on average since the Armstrong era. Contador is a convicted doper. Nibali and Aru are managed by walking hospital Vinokourov. Quintana disappears back to Colombia for months each season.

The evidence against Sky which convinced me is not anything specific to Sky. It is the fact that, on the face of it, there is no plausible way a Tour winner in this era can have done so clean.

EDIT TO AVOID DOUBLE POST:

The question is why would Sky favor Chris Froome so much? Surely if they had a plethora of riders they could magically convert into TdF winners, they would choose a very British rider. Why Chris Froome who is not as loved as maybe G(say). Why make him this good?
Also, he was never part of the A team of Sky Pre-Vuelta. Why not continue the domination with Wiggins? Or G Thomas? Surely he's got to be the best talent they have, Doping or Not Doping.

Firstly, natural talent DOES come into it, to some extent, now that doping programmes are more restricted.
Secondly, Froome was (as part of that natural talent) most likely an exceptionally good responder to doping - which Thomas hasn't shown yet.
Thirdly, don't forget that many people contend Sky didn't magically transform Froome: as thehog alludes to, most think Froome procured the PEDs all by himseld.
 
Missed tests
Cortisone and said he got no benefit from it
Asthma and not telling walsh
Saying he took the inhaler before a big effort
Bilharzia yet asthma and bilhazia can't co-exist
Weight loss but increased power
Aero position - they said seated attacks on mountains were best due to aero...but after ventoux when has he ever remained seated?
Heart rate stays the same power goes through the roof denoting either a motor or ridiculous levels of red blood cells
Brailsford said he never did a vo2 max test - michelle tweeting a link to one
The sand shoes story - photo shows this is lies
Bilharzia - yet they told kimmage it wasn't far gone
Vino - chris didn't know, I knew, you didn't. Not fully.
Taking a tow from a car
Taking an illegal feed
Regardless of my views on wiggins froome still attacked his own leader, the race leader, in 2012. No way that would be allowed in other teams. Riis would freak out and rightly so.
Saying he beat Contador in 2010 or was it 2011 so it showed talent - left out the part where Contador had punctured twice and free wheeled over the line laughinh.
Say he never heard of ketones - yet the manufacturers and numerous other sources have said they supply sky.
Won't release his blood values pre 2011.
Beating the times of known oxygen vector doped riders

What have the romans ever done for us?
 
Re:

silvergrenade said:
The question is why would Sky favor Chris Froome so much? Surely if they had a plethora of riders they could magically convert into TdF winners, they would choose a very British rider. Why Chris Froome who is not as loved as maybe G(say). Why make him this good?
Also, he was never part of the A team of Sky Pre-Vuelta. Why not continue the domination with Wiggins? Or G Thomas? Surely he's got to be the best talent they have, Doping or Not Doping.
Why would that question matter?
 
Feb 24, 2014
516
0
0
Just to add a few more that come to mind.

Brailsford said that he did not know Froomes weight during the tour as they did not weight their riders every morning. Then other Sky riders later talking about getting weighed every day.

Also Froome said he was producing less Watts than some riders who finished behind him.
 
Mar 14, 2016
3,092
7
0
Re:

LaFlorecita said:
It's still funny how he feels the need to explain who Contador is, shows what the audience is :)
And he doesn't write who were 1st and 2nd in the TT he top-10'ed: Alberto and Little Richie :)
I don't think he's explaining who Contador is, just underlining the fact that he is a Tour de France winner to put his performance into perspective (from his point of view).
 

TRENDING THREADS