Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

[Chris Gadsden]

Speaking as a doctor, Froome's career is all but over. All that's left is to milk it for PR, like they did with the sand shoes story.

Not sure the PR will work out they way Brailsford would like.

Former Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman to admit he told ‘a lot of lies’

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...ichard-freeman-to-admit-he-told-a-lot-of-lies

 

[Angliru]

Not sure the PR will work out they way Brailsford would like.

Former Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman to admit he told ‘a lot of lies’

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...ichard-freeman-to-admit-he-told-a-lot-of-lies

Sky/Ineos will skate by uneffected by this latest admission. Their fans will back the bus up and run over the poor doctor letting him suffer on the skewer of being the scapegoat for all the wrongs of Sky's past.

 

[bigcog]

Froome might get that 5th TDF whether he can come back or not ..

 

[The Hegelian]

Sky/Ineos will skate by uneffected by this latest admission. Their fans will back the bus up and run over the poor doctor letting him suffer on the skewer of being the scapegoat for all the wrongs of Sky's past.

This constitutes very veridical proof of doping at Sky and Team GB.

It is the reference point for every medal and TDF win.

 

[Parker]

This constitutes very veridical proof of doping at Sky and Team GB.

It is the reference point for every medal and TDF win.

Well good luck with that.

There were three cycling stories today.

1. The Tour of California is taking a year off - probably folding
2. ASO are moving into Saudi Arabia (presumably North Korea disputed the sock length rules)
3. Shane Sutton needed some 'marginal gains' when he got back in the dating game after a divorce.

 

[gillan1969]

going down with the ship I see @Parker Here's a cycling question for today...starter for 10 - what was 'Froomey's' world/CQ ranking when he 'won' the Vuelta in '11. Follow -up for 15...what is the next lowest ranked rider to win a GT?

 

[Parker]

going down with the ship I see @Parker Here's a cycling question for today...starter for 10 - what was 'Froomey's' world/CQ ranking when he 'won' the Vuelta in '11. Follow -up for 15...what is the next lowest ranked rider to win a GT?

Yeah he came apparently out of nowhere. I'd have been as surprised as you if I hadn't been told in 2008 (by people who know) that Froome was a very unpolished diamond. Frankly Wiggins was more of surprise. Froome was more 'so this is what they were talking about'

 

[Chris Gadsden]

Yeah he came apparently out of nowhere. I'd have been as surprised as you if I hadn't been told in 2008 (by people who know) that Froome was a very unpolished diamond. Frankly Wiggins was more of surprise. Froome was more 'so this is what they were talking about'

Wiggins moving from Vaughters b/c Vaughters wasn't going to do marginal gains. I'm in agreement with your assessment of Wiggins.

 

[aphronesis]

Wiggins was more a surprise to hierarchical couch monkeys who thought track couldn’t climb mountains.

 

[42x16ss]

Yeah he came apparently out of nowhere. I'd have been as surprised as you if I hadn't been told in 2008 (by people who know) that Froome was a very unpolished diamond. Frankly Wiggins was more of surprise. Froome was more 'so this is what they were talking about'

The only thing the "unpolished diamond" explanation really has to go off, is Froome at the 2008 TDF briefly holding Menchov's wheel for hairpins 20 and 19 after Menchov had to chase back on after he outdid himself and crashed uphill on AdH. Froome only had the freedom to do that much because half his team popped positives during the race.

Even then, Menchov was only able to chase back on because the main group were all staring at Evans trying to make him realise that Sastre had just taken off with the win. Apart from Sastre's heroics, 2008 was a slow ascent of the Alpe d'Huez and Froome still came in almost 10 minutes behind the Evans group.

 

[The Hegelian]

Agree that not much will happen for Froome / Ineos, having persisted through years of bad press already, and with relevance of Freeman / Sutton fading.
Freeman’s lawyer, Mary O’Rourke QC quoted in article:
“The GMC aren’t going to believe whatever he says, they are bent on saying it was doping,” she said.
Seems unusual (to me) for an attorney to both set out the defense strategy and predict in advance that it won't work. Her point probably is the same as yours, that someone wants blood... and so Freeman is going to come out of it worse off than the more-culpable people.
Freeman and Sutton square off, the former admits the drugs but says it wasn't for athletes, this is found implausible and at best, improper, after testimony by an endocrinologist... so Freeman gets some kind of sanction. Sutton continues to deny knowledge of the package, and in the absence of evidence, nothing happens. There is a hidden human cost and trail of wreckage in the lives of everyone affected, however. Far from unscathed.
The story is being promoted in the press as "stunning", "explosive", and similar superlatives but barring some major new revelations from other characters in the saga, will be anticlimactic
It seems significant in the way that you describe, in that it establishes a top-down supply chain. Maybe there was already 'proof' at Sky by the Tiernan-Locke case and TUE abuse, but those were not structurally the same
From Ineos staff website:
Team doctors: Neil Heron, Richard Usher, Derick MacLeod, Inigo Sarrieguil... these are the same people, so the medical core of Team Sky has not changed, just been rebranded. Meanwhile the Ineos roster is changing, and so an interesting question is: how a point of control for a doping program persists. It seemed like Froome, Wiggins, Thomas were compartmentalized to the point that they really may not have known what teammates were doing with doping methods. But who in management / physicians has knowledge of what, and where do those paths intersect ...
There has to be a balance-of-power that maintains silence as staff and riders leave a team. Dont' think Froome's situation will be changed by Freeman vs. Sutton

Previously one could make very well justified inferences, based especially on past history/knowledge of the sport/watts et al.

But now: "The team doctor got popped for ordering testosterone and covering it up."

The only surprising thing is how old school it is.

Of course nothing will change, but if one could be bothered to read all 1000+ pages of this thread, and collate all the defences put forth by the Froome-believers, that sentence sounds rather refreshing: "The team doctor got popped for ordering testosterone and covering it up."

 

[F_Cance]

Yeah he came apparently out of nowhere. I'd have been as surprised as you if I hadn't been told in 2008 (by people who know) that Froome was a very unpolished diamond. Frankly Wiggins was more of surprise. Froome was more 'so this is what they were talking about'

You don't seem to know the famous Brailsford chart, where he ranked Froome at PCT level in 2010.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The only thing the "unpolished diamond" explanation really has to go off, is Froome at the 2008 TDF briefly holding Menchov's wheel for hairpins 20 and 19 after Menchov had to chase back on after he outdid himself and crashed uphill on AdH. Froome only had the freedom to do that much because half his team popped positives during the race.

Even then, Menchov was only able to chase back on because the main group were all staring at Evans trying to make him realise that Sastre had just taken off with the win. Apart from Sastre's heroics, 2008 was a slow ascent of the Alpe d'Huez and Froome still came in almost 10 minutes behind the Evans group.

Actually Menchov crashing uphill was on Prato Nevoso. Froome stayed with him on merit for those hairpins. However, for all the hype that performance was given in retrospect about justifying his subsequent meteoric rise three years later, he finished the stage at +11'41, some 9'26" behind the Russian. He was also detached from the group just after Johan van Summeren. The stage 20 time trial is more fertile ground for those trying to prove 2008 shows that the rest of his career was not unexpected. That performance has been done to death, though, for both its positives and negatives in hinting at Froome's future. Largely because he has so few noteworthy race days before that Vuelta that those few there were have been overanalysed retrospectively and far more meaning has been attributed to them than they realistically show.

 

[myrideissteelerthanyours]

Actually Menchov crashing uphill was on Prato Nevoso. Froome stayed with him on merit for those hairpins. However, for all the hype that performance was given in retrospect about justifying his subsequent meteoric rise three years later, he finished the stage at +11'41, some 9'26" behind the Russian. He was also detached from the group just after Johan van Summeren. The stage 20 time trial is more fertile ground for those trying to prove 2008 shows that the rest of his career was not unexpected. That performance has been done to death, though, for both its positives and negatives in hinting at Froome's future. Largely because he has so few noteworthy race days before that Vuelta that those few there were have been overanalysed retrospectively and far more meaning has been attributed to them than they realistically show.

Whats the criteria for meteoric rise?

 

[Chris Gadsden]

Wiggins was more a surprise to hierarchical couch monkeys who thought track couldn’t climb mountains.

More like a classics rider morphing in to a Pantani thumper. Kind of a "Yeah, right" moment.

 

[42x16ss]

More like a classics rider morphing in to a Pantani thumper. Kind of a "Yeah, right" moment.

It was bad enough when Wigans was climbing ok at the 2009 Giro, where he notched up his first ever top 110 finish at a GT when he came in the 70's. The 2009 TDF was absolutely hysterical.

 

[42x16ss]

Whats the criteria for meteoric rise?

Pretty sure going from being discarded to a minimum wage contract at Lampre, to 2nd on the road at a GT in the space of a few weeks fits the bill.

 

[myrideissteelerthanyours]

Pretty sure going from being discarded to a minimum wage contract at Lampre, to 2nd on the road at a GT in the space of a few weeks fits the bill.

You've convinced me hes clean since its just an emotional/personality thing clearly.

 

[gillan1969]

You've convinced me hes clean since its just an emotional/personality thing clearly.

he was ranked circa 500th in the world when he won the Vuelta (after 5 years as elite)...not 500th a la greg lemond who had been out of commission after being shot or armstrong having cancer...he was 500th because he was....er....500th.....

nothing to see here...move along

 

[42x16ss]

You've convinced me hes clean since its just an emotional/personality thing clearly.

I forgot to add, after only being picked because John Lee Augustyn was sick and he rode the same size bike as Wigans...

 

[GVFTA]

Couldn't figure out how to post a pic from a different thread, but what part of his body did that hardware get removed from. It's huge.

 

[MartinGT]

His mouth


I am assuming his hip. That limp he's got for the camera will be gone in a few weeks.

 

[fmk_RoI]

This is even worser than Trump interfering with the UK election by saying "Vote Boris!"

Greg LeMond: ‘Egan Bernal, do not work for Chris Froome!’

Froome coming back to win the Tour would, of course, be the equal of - if not better - than LeMond getting off his sick-bed in 1989 to trash the Froggie fiend Fignon so perhaps one might say "Well he would say that, wouldn't he?"

 

[red_flanders]

This is even worser than Trump interfering with the UK election by saying "Vote Boris!"

Greg LeMond: ‘Egan Bernal, do not work for Chris Froome!’

Froome coming back to win the Tour would, of course, be the equal of - if not better - than LeMond getting off his sick-bed in 1989 to trash the Froggie fiend Fignon so perhaps one might say "Well he would say that, wouldn't he?"

Certainly you can have whatever opinion you like, but getting shot is to my view, an order of magnitude beyond crashing your bike and breaking some bones.

 

[Chris Gadsden]

Certainly you can have whatever opinion you like, but getting shot is to my view, an order of magnitude beyond crashing your bike and breaking some bones.

Perhaps. From reports Froome actually lost more blood than did LeMond. I think care was available to Froome far sooner than LeMond. Both suffered major injuries.

I'm hoping Froome makes a full recovery. I just do not believe he will ever be as dominating mostly because of two reasons. 1. He was hurt in a bike crash. Don't expect caution to be thrown to the wind while descending ever again. 2. His age. Froome's injuries happened when he was 34, not 26 (as with LeMond).