spinyl said:
Two guys with virtually no palmares on the same team get the best results of their lves on the same day on an uphill TT. Someone should do a heat scan on the Gazprom bikes.
Firsanov:
1st, Settimana Coppi e Bartali (this year)
1st, Vuelta a Madrid
2nd, Tre Valli Varesine
3rd, Rund um Frankfurt
4th, Giro del Trentino (this year)
4th, Ronde van België
5th, Tour of Norway
5th, Tour of Croatia
5th, Settimana Lombarda
I've ignored the Russian domestic races, but he's won all of them anyway. He does not have virtually no palmarès. That's a ridiculous accusation. Now, the fact that he's been at his best since turning 30 and that he hadn't made it to the top level until that point, that's a completely different issue that makes him highly suspect for a different reason. But Firsanov has a pretty good palmarès, especially in 2012 and over 2015 and 2016 to date including good results in mountainous races in the north of Italy.
Foliforov, a decade younger than his teammate, has much less of a palmarès. But he does have a good record as a climber as an espoir, including a time almost matching Fabio Aru - two years his senior - in a Giro della Valle d'Aosta MTT in 2012 when he was just 20, and also beating some useful names like Berhane and Formolo. Foliforov has shown good results in other U23 and developmental races, such as being top 5 in the Tour de l'Avenir including 2nd and 4th in the two big mountain stages (beating Pierre-Roger Latour, who impressed so well in the Route du Sud last year when he was climbing with Contador and Quintana) and winning the Ronde de l'Isard ahead of strong climbing youngsters like Jaime Rosón, Latour and Tiesj Benoot (although admittedly Fantastiesj is two years younger than Foliforov). So while he doesn't have that great a palmarès as a pro, he is still young enough to be progressing and put in some very good climbing results - especially in MTTs - as an espoir. That obviously doesn't preclude getting an early start as we know many riders do. After all, Ilnur Zakarin served a two year ban after testing positive as a teenager, so it could be that all of those results were similarly suspicious.
There are plenty of fair reasons to raise eyebrows about the Gazprom-Rusvelo results today. But remember Stefano Garzelli after being nowhere for most of the race won the Kronplatz MTT in 2010 so an unexpected win is not unheard of, it's just that the last few have been won by the leaders. Let's not overstate things though. Quite a few people had tipped Firsanov to do a good ride today. As well as he did? Probably not. But still, calling this result a shock is pretty self-evident; suggesting these two riders are total scrubs with no palmarès is pretty unfair.
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