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- Sep 16, 2010
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Re: Re:
WADA's wording - of the 1,330 and of the 30% - needs to be paid attention to and I'd be careful of reading the two as the same. Especially when 433 (1,330 minus 897) is (noticeably) more than 30% of 897 (48%) and even (marginally, but notably) more than 30% of of 1,330 (33% - note that they said 41% the previous year, didn't round it down). Entered in the system and created do not appear to mean the same thing. The former suggests a net total, the latter the gross increase (leaving the expired figure unknown). This is the problem when WADA cherry-picks what numbers to release and picks different cherries each year.heart_attack_man said:
PremierAndrew said:ahsoe said:
Firstly, welcome to the forum
So, when questioned, do you expect Sky/Froome to say 'yes we're doping'? If they're being questioned about it constantly unlike their rivals, they will deny it constantly unlike their rivals.
Yes, at the start, Sky had a load of anti-doping propaganda. But looking at their results in 2010, it's genuinely possible that they rode a season clean, before turning to doping in 2011 just like all their rivals.
Gerrans, Lovkvist, Nordhaug, Kwiatkowski, Landa, Kennaugh, Swift, Boasson Hagen, Fenn to mention a few of the Sky failures. Not such a low rate of failure after all.
As for Froome and Quintana not fading, well it's all relative. Fwiw, Chaves, a rider known for having very poor recovery and generally being poor in the final week of GTs, was probably better than both Froome and Quintana in the final week of this year's Vuelta.
Thanks for the welcome
The high rate of questions directed at Sky about doping is of course a part of the explanation. I think what gets to me personally is the gap between their very high level of performance and substantial domination of races (mostly the Tour) on one hand and their somewhat arrogant explanations of just training better and acchieving marginal gains on their competitors on the other hand.
That gap, the high performance gain on their rivals, becomes unexplainable and hard to comprehend when, if you as me, believe the explanation cannot account for the full gain and have seen in the past how such gains have been acchieved by US Postal and Banesto.
Sky cannot however, as you also note, answer differently (that would be a surprise
). That is true.Regarding the failures, you are right. They have had many riders who haven't progressed as hoped and expected. But so has most of the other teams. And that will continue. I will claim however, that riders like Landa and Kwiatkowski are still very good riders although they have indeed not lived up to expectations based on previous performances.
My point was that if we take riders like Porte, Thomas, Kennaugh, Bosswell, Landa, Poels, Boason Hagen some of them (Landa, Poels, Porte) are of course very good climbers. Yet we are seeing all of them riding a team time trial in front of the peloton on most mountain stages of the Grand Tours cancelling out attacks. They all have a very high level in the mountains (very strong domestiques) with few off-days and I recall it was Geraint Thomas who was interviewed and said that he now wanted to explore his GC-capabilities and the next season he had improved significantly in the mountains and this year won the Paris-Nice and has become one of the top three helpers of Froome in the mountains. I find their teamwide strength and abilities in the mountains hard to explain. Only explanation to me is that they somehow can maximize the ability for all their riders and I don't think anybody can do that. Last time I saw something like that was again US Postal.
As a fan, I don't know what performance gains exactly are possible by focussing on GC-capabilities and training hard to strengthen these aspects, I just find the levels acchieved by the Tour and Vuelta squads hard to explain by extra focused training alone.
As for Chaves I would argue, that there is a difference between doing the Giro and Vuelta and doing the Tour and Vuelta recovery and performance-wise. Froome even also went to the Olympics inbetween.
Best regards
- Aug 14, 2015
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Interesting that Froome has two TUE's issued by Zorzoli for 40mg of Prednisolone (Same as Serena for French open final) for the Tour of Romandie (Apr. 29 - May 4), one issued on Apr. 29, but the other issued on June 16th. That was a few days after Froome was caught on video using an inhaler on the Daupiné. Odd.
Froome crushed the May 4th ITT on the last day of Romandie, beating Tony Martin by a second. Helluva performance given his newfound Exercise Induced Asthma acting up.
Froome crushed the May 4th ITT on the last day of Romandie, beating Tony Martin by a second. Helluva performance given his newfound Exercise Induced Asthma acting up.
- May 11, 2013
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Re:
First TUe is for Dauphine 2013 which he won, the second was for Romandie, which he won. In 2014 one-man commission Zorzoli approves it by fax the same day (evening) when Dawg was already on the sauce. Just in case it is backdated to 27.
TeflonDub said:
First TUe is for Dauphine 2013 which he won, the second was for Romandie, which he won. In 2014 one-man commission Zorzoli approves it by fax the same day (evening) when Dawg was already on the sauce. Just in case it is backdated to 27.
- May 9, 2014
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Re:
Yawn. An athlete taking a corticosteroid drug is not the “sensational proof” the Ruskies and conspiracy theorists like you seem to think
TeflonDub said:
Yawn. An athlete taking a corticosteroid drug is not the “sensational proof” the Ruskies and conspiracy theorists like you seem to think
Re:
There was no Sky train in the Vuelta. In fact what you had in the Vuelta was the Movistar train, when on the first uphill finish 4 Movistar riders went off the front with only Chaves for company. Very little outrage about that, which is interesting. Not that I thought it was that surprising, after all, like Sky, Movistar has probably the best roster in the peloton for GC climbing support.
I've been on this forum for a few years now and I whilst I'm the first one to acknowledge that Froome's initial jump in performance was highly suspicious, especially considering the sport's history, his consistency since that breakthrough performance actually makes him far less suspicious to me and I think someone we can believe in.
It's also impossible to ignore the fact that a very significant amount of the criticism and scepticism of Sky and Froome comes from fans of Alberto Contador. You can kind of understand why that's the case. After all, Contador, like many of the champions before him, is a convicted drug cheat. Those people have already had to contend with the reality that their favourite cyclist is a cheat, so when a clean team and rider comes along and beats him, it must be very difficult for those people to deal with. The natural reaction for those people is to lash out at Froome and Sky and accuse them of cheating.
Somebody on here made a very good point, which was, ''In the years to come we'll find out if Sky has taken the sport 10 years forward or 10 years backwards''. The idea that Sky and Froome might actually be the good guys and have taken the sport forward into a new era of respectability is one that many people simply can't bare to contemplate.
DanielSong39 said:
There was no Sky train in the Vuelta. In fact what you had in the Vuelta was the Movistar train, when on the first uphill finish 4 Movistar riders went off the front with only Chaves for company. Very little outrage about that, which is interesting. Not that I thought it was that surprising, after all, like Sky, Movistar has probably the best roster in the peloton for GC climbing support.
I've been on this forum for a few years now and I whilst I'm the first one to acknowledge that Froome's initial jump in performance was highly suspicious, especially considering the sport's history, his consistency since that breakthrough performance actually makes him far less suspicious to me and I think someone we can believe in.
It's also impossible to ignore the fact that a very significant amount of the criticism and scepticism of Sky and Froome comes from fans of Alberto Contador. You can kind of understand why that's the case. After all, Contador, like many of the champions before him, is a convicted drug cheat. Those people have already had to contend with the reality that their favourite cyclist is a cheat, so when a clean team and rider comes along and beats him, it must be very difficult for those people to deal with. The natural reaction for those people is to lash out at Froome and Sky and accuse them of cheating.
Somebody on here made a very good point, which was, ''In the years to come we'll find out if Sky has taken the sport 10 years forward or 10 years backwards''. The idea that Sky and Froome might actually be the good guys and have taken the sport forward into a new era of respectability is one that many people simply can't bare to contemplate.
- Aug 14, 2015
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Re: Re:
And with this statement, you demonstrate that nothing other than a 'mea culpa' appearance on Oprah will ever be enough for you. When you see the conditions for granting a TUE, does it strike you that to be poorly enough to need one to address an acute condition probably means you shouldn't be in any fit state to go out and beat Tony Martin in a time trial?
adamfo said:TeflonDub said:
Yawn. An athlete taking a corticosteroid drug is not the “sensational proof” the Ruskies and conspiracy theorists like you seem to think
And with this statement, you demonstrate that nothing other than a 'mea culpa' appearance on Oprah will ever be enough for you. When you see the conditions for granting a TUE, does it strike you that to be poorly enough to need one to address an acute condition probably means you shouldn't be in any fit state to go out and beat Tony Martin in a time trial?
ahsoe said:
People always exaggerate Sky's dominance in the Tour (not withstanding their obvious excellence in 2012 and 2016). Froome on Alpe d'Huez in 2015 didn't look like dominance to me, instead he was very much hanging on. The 2013 team showed plenty of weakness and the 2014 team looked very average on paper and was unable to achieve anything at all after Froome crashed out.
I've also never understood the idea that the Tour is all the matters to Sky. It's the big priority of course, but then that's the same for every team in the peloton. They have consistently sent strong teams to the Giro including leaders who were among the pre-race favourites (Wiggins, Porte, Landa). They would have sent a much better team to support Froome at the Vuelta this year but circumstance (injury, illness to several of their best riders) got in the way. And even so, a team with of Konig, Kennaugh, Kwiatkowski, Lopez, Boswell, Puccio, Knees and Golas was far from poor on paper and their team time trial win suggests they weren't actually that weak.
Brailsford has stated that he wants Sky to be the most admired Sports team in the world by 2020. You don't do that by just winning the Tour and getting beaten by Movistar in the world rankings every year. They have very much tried to win other races, including the other two grand tours, but have so far come up short every time in 14 combined attempts. It also took until their 34th attempt for them to win a monument. Some dominance.
ahsoe said:PremierAndrew said:ahsoe said:
Firstly, welcome to the forum
So, when questioned, do you expect Sky/Froome to say 'yes we're doping'? If they're being questioned about it constantly unlike their rivals, they will deny it constantly unlike their rivals.
Yes, at the start, Sky had a load of anti-doping propaganda. But looking at their results in 2010, it's genuinely possible that they rode a season clean, before turning to doping in 2011 just like all their rivals.
Gerrans, Lovkvist, Nordhaug, Kwiatkowski, Landa, Kennaugh, Swift, Boasson Hagen, Fenn to mention a few of the Sky failures. Not such a low rate of failure after all.
As for Froome and Quintana not fading, well it's all relative. Fwiw, Chaves, a rider known for having very poor recovery and generally being poor in the final week of GTs, was probably better than both Froome and Quintana in the final week of this year's Vuelta.
Thanks for the welcome
The high rate of questions directed at Sky about doping is of course a part of the explanation. I think what gets to me personally is the gap between their very high level of performance and substantial domination of races (mostly the Tour) on one hand and their somewhat arrogant explanations of just training better and acchieving marginal gains on their competitors on the other hand.
That gap, the high performance gain on their rivals, becomes unexplainable and hard to comprehend when, if you as me, believe the explanation cannot account for the full gain and have seen in the past how such gains have been acchieved by US Postal and Banesto.
Sky cannot however, as you also note, answer differently (that would be a surprise
Regarding the failures, you are right. They have had many riders who haven't progressed as hoped and expected. But so has most of the other teams. And that will continue. I will claim however, that riders like Landa and Kwiatkowski are still very good riders although they have indeed not lived up to expectations based on previous performances.
My point was that if we take riders like Porte, Thomas, Kennaugh, Bosswell, Landa, Poels, Boason Hagen some of them (Landa, Poels, Porte) are of course very good climbers. Yet we are seeing all of them riding a team time trial in front of the peloton on most mountain stages of the Grand Tours cancelling out attacks. They all have a very high level in the mountains (very strong domestiques) with few off-days and I recall it was Geraint Thomas who was interviewed and said that he now wanted to explore his GC-capabilities and the next season he had improved significantly in the mountains and this year won the Paris-Nice and has become one of the top three helpers of Froome in the mountains. I find their teamwide strength and abilities in the mountains hard to explain. Only explanation to me is that they somehow can maximize the ability for all their riders and I don't think anybody can do that. Last time I saw something like that was again US Postal.
As a fan, I don't know what performance gains exactly are possible by focussing on GC-capabilities and training hard to strengthen these aspects, I just find the levels acchieved by the Tour and Vuelta squads hard to explain by extra focused training alone.
As for Chaves I would argue, that there is a difference between doing the Giro and Vuelta and doing the Tour and Vuelta recovery and performance-wise. Froome even also went to the Olympics inbetween.
Best regards
Sorry, but this post doesn't make much sense. Firstly you concede that many Sky riders haven't reached their full potential at the team or have had poor seasons (I would add Intxausti and Konig). Then you say some of their other riders have had very good seasons. That's kind of normal isn't it and what would be expected from a team with as much depth as Sky had in 2016? If anything there were too many of their best riders who didn't live up to expectations this year (namely Landa and Kwiatkowski).
Sky and Movistar both have very strong and expensive, unless Unzue is a miracle worker, GC focussed rosters. It should come as no surprise to anyone that when they have their team leader (Froome or Quintana) in the leader's jersey, and when that team leader also happens to be the strongest rider in the race, they are able to defend it pretty comfortably!
We almost got to the point in the Tour where the discussion moved to team sizes and salary caps and away from doping. It was almost as if it wasn't particularly surprising that a team with the defending two-time Tour champion supported by the reigning LBL winner (Poels), reigning Paris-Nice winner (Thomas), reigning world time trial champion (Kiryienka), a Grand Tour podium finisher and best climber in the previous year's Giro (Landa), one of the world's best climber's (Henao), a Giro 2016 KOM and stage winner (Nieve), a 2016 Paris Roubaix podium finisher (Stannard) and another rider who top 5'd at 2016 Tour of Flanders (Rowe) was able to win the race very comfortably, especially when their only real competitor (Quintana) was well below par and the one most likely to cause a nuisance (Contador) quit the race before it really started!
- May 23, 2009
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Not all of those riders failed - Gerrans had a few nice results on Sky, including WT wins, just no GT stages or monuments. Nordhaug and Henao worked together nicely in a few races to create chaos during his firat stint, Nordhaug was never meant to be a team lead. EBH had an excellent 2011, and was a very good domestique in 2012, Kennaugh has been a very solid domestique, Swift has had some good results too, just not that really big win, while Landa and Kwiatkowski have only had one year on the team.PremierAndrew said:ahsoe said:Hi there
First post from a danish cycling fan. Great and interesting forum I must say.
I know much of what I am writing here has been covered in length already.
I don't mind doping as such, as long as it is a more or less level playing field. (The Tour of 07 with Rasmussen and Contador battling up each mountain was for me the most exciting race I can remember in recent years. Even though they most likely both were doped. Rasmussen was for sure anyway. The Schleck-Contador duels were also very good.)
In the best of all worlds, there weren't any doping, but this is unfortunately not realistic.
I dislike Froome as an athlete and will never accept or believe him and Team Sky in general in cycling. And all this newfound goodguy, applauding your opponents will not win me over, sorry.
I mean it is a good thing. Sportsmanship is always good to see. But it will not convince me.
-His major transformation pre/post Vuelta 2011. I haven't seen anything like that before. For me annoyingly suspicious.
-Looking like a skeleton or kz-prisoner Froome is able to outclimb the best climbers with relative ease while at the same time crushing the specialists in timetrials
-In this years Vuelta he can stay on pretty much the same level throughout the three weeks after having done the Tour and Olympics. And battle for the win. I find that very unlikely.
-The Mount Ventoux 2013 is to date the single most jaw-dropping ridiculous performance I have seen in cycling. Breaking in the corners... Please!
-Illness, Bilhazaria as an explanation to the sudden transformation
-I do not recall who said it or if it was even Sky. But it has been suggested, that the lack of multiple attacks/accelerations on mountain stages is a sign that cycling is cleaner yet Froome makes 5-6-7 savage accelerations when attacking up a mountain.
-He comes accross as tactically not very good. I would like to see him and Sky without the radios and Power-meters.
-'Sky and Froome have been tested more than most athletes' as a sign that they are clean. Lance was also tested much and Bjarne Riis never tested positive
-His style on a bicycle, sitting accelerations with legs going like drumsticks and elbows everywhere (not really relevant for the discussion, I know
-They are riding just as fast as previously doped riders
-Wiggins' fantastic 2012 season followed by more or less nothing compared to that year.
-Team Sky's brutal dominance coinciding with the emergence of weight-loss drugs like AICAR and GW-1516 (and probably others). In that vein (haha) emaciated Horner wining the 2013 Vuelta at 41 of age.
-Their stated mission, to show, that you can compete with a clean team and their zero-tolerance politic compared to the staff they have had employed
-Their statement: 'We train better and pay more attention to detail than our competitors. And therefore receive marginal gains.' That is just arrogant and condescending towards the competitors in my opinion. As well as unlikely.
-Their continued insistance that 'we are oh so clean'
-First it was Wiggins, then Froome. Third Ritchie Porte, fourth Geraint Thomas. Next up Peter Kennaugh and Ian Boswell. Sky has an amazing ability to optimize performance of riders and turn classic riders into GC-competitors. With a very small rate of failure. They seem to follow a two-year scedule starting with a statement: 'I want to explore my GC-potential'.
-Their lieutenants and this year a large part of their Tour squad are stronger or just as strong as the other teams captains in the mountains. Completely kills any exciting racing.
-The complete lack of positive doping tests in recent years are for me very very suspicious.
I am looking forward to knowing what they are doing, that are making them so succesful. But it will probably be a while before we know.
Until then I will cheer for the likes of Contador, Quintana, Chaves, Nibali etc. who are probably also doping, but are not talking much about it, just riding their bike.
They are, at least for me, much more likable.
Best regards
Firstly, welcome to the forum
So, when questioned, do you expect Sky/Froome to say 'yes we're doping'? If they're being questioned about it constantly unlike their rivals, they will deny it constantly unlike their rivals.
Yes, at the start, Sky had a load of anti-doping propaganda. But looking at their results in 2010, it's genuinely possible that they rode a season clean, before turning to doping in 2011 just like all their rivals.
Gerrans, Lovkvist, Nordhaug, Kwiatkowski, Landa, Kennaugh, Swift, Boasson Hagen, Fenn to mention a few of the Sky failures. Not such a low rate of failure after all.
As for Froome and Quintana not fading, well it's all relative. Fwiw, Chaves, a rider known for having very poor recovery and generally being poor in the final week of GTs, was probably better than both Froome and Quintana in the final week of this year's Vuelta.
Fenn, Lovkvist, Deignan, Earle and Roche on the other hand...
42x16ss said:Not all of those riders failed - Gerrans had a few nice results on Sky, including WT wins, just no GT stages or monuments. Nordhaug and Henao worked together nicely in a few races to create chaos during his firat stint, Nordhaug was never meant to be a team lead. EBH had an excellent 2011, and was a very good domestique in 2012, Kennaugh has been a very solid domestique, Swift has had some good results too, just not that really big win, while Landa and Kwiatkowski have only had one year on the team.PremierAndrew said:ahsoe said:Hi there
First post from a danish cycling fan. Great and interesting forum I must say.
I know much of what I am writing here has been covered in length already.
I don't mind doping as such, as long as it is a more or less level playing field. (The Tour of 07 with Rasmussen and Contador battling up each mountain was for me the most exciting race I can remember in recent years. Even though they most likely both were doped. Rasmussen was for sure anyway. The Schleck-Contador duels were also very good.)
In the best of all worlds, there weren't any doping, but this is unfortunately not realistic.
I dislike Froome as an athlete and will never accept or believe him and Team Sky in general in cycling. And all this newfound goodguy, applauding your opponents will not win me over, sorry.
I mean it is a good thing. Sportsmanship is always good to see. But it will not convince me.
-His major transformation pre/post Vuelta 2011. I haven't seen anything like that before. For me annoyingly suspicious.
-Looking like a skeleton or kz-prisoner Froome is able to outclimb the best climbers with relative ease while at the same time crushing the specialists in timetrials
-In this years Vuelta he can stay on pretty much the same level throughout the three weeks after having done the Tour and Olympics. And battle for the win. I find that very unlikely.
-The Mount Ventoux 2013 is to date the single most jaw-dropping ridiculous performance I have seen in cycling. Breaking in the corners... Please!
-Illness, Bilhazaria as an explanation to the sudden transformation
-I do not recall who said it or if it was even Sky. But it has been suggested, that the lack of multiple attacks/accelerations on mountain stages is a sign that cycling is cleaner yet Froome makes 5-6-7 savage accelerations when attacking up a mountain.
-He comes accross as tactically not very good. I would like to see him and Sky without the radios and Power-meters.
-'Sky and Froome have been tested more than most athletes' as a sign that they are clean. Lance was also tested much and Bjarne Riis never tested positive
-His style on a bicycle, sitting accelerations with legs going like drumsticks and elbows everywhere (not really relevant for the discussion, I know
-They are riding just as fast as previously doped riders
-Wiggins' fantastic 2012 season followed by more or less nothing compared to that year.
-Team Sky's brutal dominance coinciding with the emergence of weight-loss drugs like AICAR and GW-1516 (and probably others). In that vein (haha) emaciated Horner wining the 2013 Vuelta at 41 of age.
-Their stated mission, to show, that you can compete with a clean team and their zero-tolerance politic compared to the staff they have had employed
-Their statement: 'We train better and pay more attention to detail than our competitors. And therefore receive marginal gains.' That is just arrogant and condescending towards the competitors in my opinion. As well as unlikely.
-Their continued insistance that 'we are oh so clean'
-First it was Wiggins, then Froome. Third Ritchie Porte, fourth Geraint Thomas. Next up Peter Kennaugh and Ian Boswell. Sky has an amazing ability to optimize performance of riders and turn classic riders into GC-competitors. With a very small rate of failure. They seem to follow a two-year scedule starting with a statement: 'I want to explore my GC-potential'.
-Their lieutenants and this year a large part of their Tour squad are stronger or just as strong as the other teams captains in the mountains. Completely kills any exciting racing.
-The complete lack of positive doping tests in recent years are for me very very suspicious.
I am looking forward to knowing what they are doing, that are making them so succesful. But it will probably be a while before we know.
Until then I will cheer for the likes of Contador, Quintana, Chaves, Nibali etc. who are probably also doping, but are not talking much about it, just riding their bike.
They are, at least for me, much more likable.
Best regards
Firstly, welcome to the forum
So, when questioned, do you expect Sky/Froome to say 'yes we're doping'? If they're being questioned about it constantly unlike their rivals, they will deny it constantly unlike their rivals.
Yes, at the start, Sky had a load of anti-doping propaganda. But looking at their results in 2010, it's genuinely possible that they rode a season clean, before turning to doping in 2011 just like all their rivals.
Gerrans, Lovkvist, Nordhaug, Kwiatkowski, Landa, Kennaugh, Swift, Boasson Hagen, Fenn to mention a few of the Sky failures. Not such a low rate of failure after all.
As for Froome and Quintana not fading, well it's all relative. Fwiw, Chaves, a rider known for having very poor recovery and generally being poor in the final week of GTs, was probably better than both Froome and Quintana in the final week of this year's Vuelta.
Fenn, Lovkvist, Deignan, Earle and Roche on the other hand...
Agree on Lovkvist, although some have the opinion that he was always likely to burn out quickly in his career after being raced far too much by Madiot at FDJ in his early years.
Fenn - Was already struggling at EQS which is never a good sign because they're probably the best team in the peloton for developing riders.
Earle - There was little to suggest in his results before joining Sky that he was going to achieve anything at WT level.
Deignan - Was never meant to be anything more than a domestique which when he's not injured or ill he does performs pretty well.
Roche - He's performed pretty much as expected I think. What were you expecting from him at Sky?
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