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Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

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Dec 30, 2011
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Libertine Seguros said:
There is a discrepancy on the diagnosis. Julich advises they tested for it after California, found he had it, then it was treated (which, yes, could have been after Suisse).Froome himself advises he found out he had it in December 2010. Also, with regards to the chest infection line, Bilharzia/Schistosomiasis is not a chest infection. Not even close. Now, he may have been more susceptible to chest infections as a result of the bilharzia, but it's not like having had the disease is some kind of big secret he needed to hide from the rest of the péloton.

In hindsight the chest infection does not seem to be related whatsoever to the Bilharzia. It seems to be just what it says: a mere chest infection. I found this on the Sky website:

Froome proved there are few stronger after an impressive run to 15th overall at the Tour de Romandie at the end of April, yet the Kenyan-born rider has seen his preparations take a knock following a chest infection.

He added: “When I got back from Romandie I had to take about a week off the bike because I got a bit of a chest infection and cough. That held me back a little bit but I can feel since coming over here that I’m feeling better and better each day so hopefully by the time the race starts on Sunday it will be pretty much clear.

This is especially considering that the medication takes 6-7 weeks according to Cound and therefore if he was diagnosed with it in December he would have taken it in December and it certainly would not be effecting him come early May. So it is obvious that this chest infection is entirely unrelated to the Bilharzia.

My thoughts are that he still had the lingering effects of the Bilharzia which may have been coming back as he got further and further away from the date he finished taking the medication, but he was indeed stricken by the chest infection.

Indeed the DS at California admitted as much:

The Swede is hoping the run of success continues for the rest of the week but also highlighted the change of focus for stage four: "For sure it's going to be a different race tomorrow. It's no secret that Chris Froome is the man we'll look to on the GC and even though he got a little bit sick after the Tour de Romandie, there were encouraging signs both today and yesterday as he was a big part in both lead-outs.


It's not like a training technique that works really well, that the team might want to avoid letting others know about lest they copy it and the team lose their competitive advantage. If it had been diagnosed back in December 2010 as Froome says, then surely you would expect there to have been some mention of it between December 2010 and August 2011 - especially as he points out that he "re-did" the treatment after the Tour de Suisse, suggesting he had already had some kind of treatment for it. This would then be the only way that you could square up Froome's December 2010 timeline with Julich's May 2011 timeline (with the initial treatment being after Froome's date of December 2010, but then another recurrence of the disease probably in May 2011 to allow for the better Romandie performance probably being comparatively healthy, resulting in them testing for it again, finding it and treating it in June 2011), but then would make it surprising that this wasn't known about or mentioned at all until the guy turned into Johann Mühlegg on a bike on August 28, 2011.

I don't find your suggestion too hard to swallow. In fact it does make some logical sense. That it is not mentioned was probably because Froome was small fish then, didn't really matter compared to now and we may as well wait and see what transpires and if it gets better. No cycling website/magazine cared to hear his opinion.

He only talks to Velonews in September 2011 because of his success, before that nobody cares.

Also there is no other alternative to what you suggested, he had to be given the treatment after Suisse because it takes 6 weeks or so to work and therefore he could not have done it in between Suisse and California.

And finally this before the Vuelta:

He said: “I feel like I’ve had a good season so far. I’ve learnt a ton about myself and my capabilities. I’ve had one or two problems with illness but we’ve treated them and the team have been really supportive. They are sorted and, touch wood, everything seems to be going in the right direction right now.

The reference to illness it obviously the Bilharzia and probably the chest infection. He does not mention it explicitly which is annoying, but then again as I said above why does he need to when he is small fish?
 
Jun 9, 2012
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I especially enjoyed him sticking his tongue out several times today (to show the camera how much he was suffering) on the final climb. Bizarre because he looked so incredibly comfortable while doing so.

The guy is an utter machine. I have never seen prolonged domination like this before.
 

martinvickers

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Contadoraus Schlecks said:
I especially enjoyed him sticking his tongue out several times today (to show the camera how much he was suffering) on the final climb. Bizarre because he looked so incredibly comfortable while doing so.

The guy is an utter machine. I have never seen prolonged domination like this before.

Never? Jeez, im nearly sure I watched two guys win multiple uninterrupted tours in the recent psst...but hell, maybe just my imagination. ...
 
Contadoraus Schlecks said:
I especially enjoyed him sticking his tongue out several times today (to show the camera how much he was suffering) on the final climb. Bizarre because he looked so incredibly comfortable while doing so.

The guy is an utter machine. I have never seen prolonged domination like this before.

Yeah, others at least made it look like they were trying
 

martinvickers

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ToreBear said:
Interesting, but nothing to make me suspicious. Perhaps if he had ditched Porte he might have gotten to 5.89W/kg?

He did the last ten minutes at 6.3 w/kg. By my limited understanding, such a short effort is feasible, no?
 
Jun 9, 2012
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martinvickers said:
Never? Jeez, im nearly sure I watched two guys win multiple uninterrupted tours in the recent psst...but hell, maybe just my imagination. ...

Did they dominate virtually everything prior to the Tour to the extent that Froome has done? Thats four stage race wins and a close second tbis year.Wiggins 2012 is probably actually the closest parallel.
 
martinvickers said:
He did the last ten minutes at 6.3 w/kg. By my limited understanding, such a short effort is feasible, no?

He wasn't even trying for the last 2km.

He was chatting to Porte.

The Dawg could won by 90s plus today. Yesterday he could have put two minutes into the field.

Have you ever seen te Dauphine won so easily? Ever seen a guy turning around to his teammate, talking to him whilst dropping the entire field?

If that's clean I'd hate to see team Sky doped! :eek:
 
ToreBear said:
Interesting, but nothing to make me suspicious. Perhaps if he had ditched Porte he might have gotten to 5.89W/kg?

Which would have been close to todays winner on Crans Montana in TDS:)

Stage 2, Crans Montana (last 8.80 km, 6.57 %, 577 m). Bauke Mollema: 21 min 47 sec, 24.24 Kph, VAM 1589 m/h, 5.98 W/kg [DrF].

Stage 2, Crans Montana (first 7.63 km, 7.58 %, 578 m). Bauke Mollema: 21 min 18 sec, 21.49 Kph, VAM 1628 m/h, 5.90 W/kg [DrF].
 
Jul 17, 2012
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Contadoraus Schlecks said:
Did they dominate virtually everything prior to the Tour to the extent that Froome has done? Thats four stage race wins and a close second tbis year.Wiggins 2012 is probably actually the closest parallel.

Mig did the Giro Tour double twice. I think that trumps anything Wiggins and Froome have currently done or will have done by the end of the Tour.

Lance only really turned out for the Dauphine and the Tour. This limited racing programme was conclusive proof of doping in his day. Now of cource, regularly racing at a high level is proof of doping.

Riders should just be crap, so they don't attract suspicion. I don't understand why they can't see this, and instead complicate things by trying to win races.
 
ToreBear said:
Interesting, but nothing to make me suspicious. Perhaps if he had ditched Porte he might have gotten to 5.89W/kg?

It's not suspicious if we are talking about capacity. But he was hardly at his limit. Kinda looked like sub-FTP riding to me ... stay in control and help Porte out. Keep in mind Richie had been sick prior to the Dauphine, so we was off his best.
 
Wallace and Gromit said:
Mig did the Giro Tour double twice. I think that trumps anything Wiggins and Froome have currently done or will have done by the end of the Tour.

Lance only really turned out for the Dauphine and the Tour. This limited racing programme was conclusive proof of doping in his day. Now of cource, regularly racing at a high level is proof of doping.

Riders should just be crap, so they don't attract suspicion. I don't understand why they can't see this, and instead complicate things by trying to win races.

This is just another groan-inducing argument that gets used time and again.

Form is something transient. It comes and it goes. Most people are able to hold form for a set period of time and then it drops away. You build form, you lose form. Most people fit somewhere along the bar of those who need a lot of racing to build up to peak form (the type who ride themselves into form over the course of a Grand Tour fit into this, for example) and those whose natural level is high enough that they can quite quickly build up to top form, or that they can produce some competitive results even when not on top form.

What becomes suspicious is when somebody deviates too far from the norm on this. Somebody who barely races, yet turns up at a select handful of races in unstoppable form, is suspicious because form shouldn't be as instantaneous as that. But similarly, somebody who races in unstoppable form non-stop for months at a time, is also suspicious because form shouldn't be as eternal as that, and also somebody's natural level being so high that even dopers on peak form can't compete with them at any point over a period lasting several months is also suspicious.

With Froome, we have both extremes; in 2011 he was mediocre until he suddenly hit unbeatable form for a few weeks, then the season ended so we can't really tell where it would have gone. Then in 2012 he was downright awful until the Dauphiné, then he hit a huge peak without much warning. Then he had a bit of a cooling off at the Vuelta, but in 2013 we've had the opposite extreme; the super-peaking is gone, replaced by the permanent peak at a level where he can seemingly take as much time out the field as he wants whenever he wants.

Being good at targeted events, or being consistently good, aren't inherently suspicious. But Froome is from the extreme of both spectrums, demolishing the field either with little build-up (2011-12), or non-stop in every race he enters (2013). That's why he's suspicious.
 
Libertine Seguros said:
in 2013 we've had the opposite extreme; the super-peaking is gone, replaced by the permanent peak.

Being good at targeted events, or being consistently good, aren't inherently suspicious. But Froome is from the extreme of both spectrums, and that is.

Sorta like last year when Wiggo was 95% all year leading to le Tour.
 
Jul 17, 2012
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Libertine Seguros said:
This is just another groan-inducing argument that gets used time and again.

Form is something transient. It comes and it goes. Most people are able to hold form for a set period of time and then it drops away. You build form, you lose form. Most people fit somewhere along the bar of those who need a lot of racing to build up to peak form (the type who ride themselves into form over the course of a Grand Tour fit into this, for example) and those whose natural level is high enough that they can quite quickly build up to top form, or that they can produce some competitive results even when not on top form.

What becomes suspicious is when somebody deviates too far from the norm on this. Somebody who barely races, yet turns up at a select handful of races in unstoppable form, is suspicious because form shouldn't be as instantaneous as that. But similarly, somebody who races in unstoppable form non-stop for months at a time, is also suspicious because form shouldn't be as eternal as that, and also somebody's natural level being so high that even dopers on peak form can't compete with them at any point over a period lasting several months is also suspicious.

With Froome, we have both extremes; in 2011 he was mediocre until he suddenly hit unbeatable form for a few weeks, then the season ended so we can't really tell where it would have gone. Then in 2012 he was downright awful until the Dauphiné, then he hit a huge peak without much warning. Then he had a bit of a cooling off at the Vuelta, but in 2013 we've had the opposite extreme; the super-peaking is gone, replaced by the permanent peak at a level where he can seemingly take as much time out the field as he wants whenever he wants.

Being good at targeted events, or being consistently good, aren't inherently suspicious. But Froome is from the extreme of both spectrums, demolishing the field either with little build-up (2011-12), or non-stop in every race he enters (2013). That's why he's suspicious.

I think you're over complicating things - thie single biggest indicator of being a doper when a pro cyclist is to be successful in GTs, particularly - though not exclusively - when this success arrives suddenly. Analysis of performance patterns round this is interesting, but doesn't really add a huge amount.
 
Wallace and Gromit said:
I think you're over complicating things - thie single biggest indicator of being a doper when a pro cyclist is to be successful in GTs, particularly - though not exclusively - when this success arrives suddenly. Analysis of performance patterns round this is interesting, but doesn't really add a huge amount.

So you believe Froome to be doping?
 

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