giro doping thread

[Pantani Attacks]

Diego Ullissi again. Just LOL

 

[Irondan]

Re:

Diego Ullissi again. Just LOL

Yep, he rode another Giro MTF with the best climbers in the race.

I couldn't believe my eye's when I saw him at one point during the finale, he should not have been there...

 

[staubsauger]

“Ulissi might try for the general classification in future.“ Brent Copeland in 2014

 

[More Strides than Rides]

Re: Re:

Diego Ullissi again. Just LOL

Yep, he rode another Giro MTF with the best climbers in the race.

I couldn't believe my eye's when I saw him at one point during the finale, he should not have been there...

I've been thinking all Giro he may as well be an Italian Geraint Thomas. Not quite as good as the track-racer turned GT narrative, but close otherwise.

 

[doperhopper]

Re: Re:

It's a pretty marginal advantage though. And a tired, excellent descender will certainly be able to put a fresher, poor descender to the sword.

The gap has to be big pretty big for that to be true though. I've mentioned this before, but in 2005, Ardila got annoyed with how slow Salvodelli (arguably the best in history) was descending off Finestre, almost crashed them both on a turn, and ended up saving Salvodelli's Giro by pacing him nearly all the way down (and nearly all the way back up). Now Ardila was underrated as a descender, but it's hard to say he's was as good as Il Falco.

This leads to the inevitable question: Why we don't have the descents timed?

Imagine... descending heroes officially praised, record tables, , Dr. Ferrari introducing VDM instead of VAM... maybe something in place of Cima Coppi (Valle Bartali?), or some descender-oriented GT classification.

And, last but not least: Strava Kamikaze Of The Mountain ranking.

 

[Kicker661]

.... when they boosted haematocrit to 60+ but.now they are low-mid 40S so cardiac issues are no longer there.

Proof please.

Shall we review the impressive performance gains over weeks of recovery doping?

FWIW My Hematocrit flew up initially but over time came back down to it's normal level which surprised me as the Docs want you to give blood a few times a year to control it to reduce cardiac risk. I am sitting at low-mid 40s and by that you would never pick i was doing something and i have been 'on' for some time yet now my Hematocrit is back at my natural level regulated by my body alone.

Let me clarify, it may very well be the guys are constantly 'on' and letting the blood regulate itself with perhaps some slight external manipulation which is why the bloodpassport isn't picking anybody up. The top guys seem to be impressive year round which also leans towards this thinking IMO. No more spikes, always awesome. No worry about cycling the program each season, the only mistake would be going off which you would never do until you end your career. Piece of cake

Let me know what blood parameters you guys look at for indications of doping and i'll see what i can get analysed in my next blood test for you if you like?

 

[trevim]

I don't understand the buzz around Ulissi. He was a decent climber from the start of his career, 21st in the Giro way back in 2012, same position he's in right now.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

It's a pretty marginal advantage though. And a tired, excellent descender will certainly be able to put a fresher, poor descender to the sword.

The gap has to be big pretty big for that to be true though. I've mentioned this before, but in 2005, Ardila got annoyed with how slow Salvodelli (arguably the best in history) was descending off Finestre, almost crashed them both on a turn, and ended up saving Salvodelli's Giro by pacing him nearly all the way down (and nearly all the way back up). Now Ardila was underrated as a descender, but it's hard to say he's was as good as Il Falco.

This leads to the inevitable question: Why we don't have the descents timed?

Imagine... descending heroes officially praised, record tables, , Dr. Ferrari introducing VDM instead of VAM... maybe something in place of Cima Coppi (Valle Bartali?), or some descender-oriented GT classification.

And, last but not least: Strava Kamikaze Of The Mountain ranking.

Timed descents would be great - presumably the UCI would site safety reasons, but that's a bit of a cop-out considering the clock is still running anyway during races. And they should definitely introduce a new jersey - King of the Descents - replacing the polka dots with massive cojones.

I would love to see them scrap at least one the rest days in GTs and replace it with a downhill TT. If there were rider protests about safety (which I'm sure there would be from the rubbish descenders) - you could just use a really technical route, so the top speed would only be about 50km/h.

 

[Benotti69]

the real winners

Giro d'Italia doctors’ podium:

1) E. Magni (Mercatone Uno, Fassa Bortolo)
2) M. Rodriguez (Banesto)
3) J. Hoyo (ONCE, Mapei, QuickStep)


New generation

 

[StryderHells]

Re:

the real winners

Giro d'Italia doctors’ podium:

1) E. Magni (Mercatone Uno, Fassa Bortolo)
2) M. Rodriguez (Banesto)
3) J. Hoyo (ONCE, Mapei, QuickStep)


New generation

That's a list with some real class

 

[doperhopper]

Re:

the real winners

Giro d'Italia doctors’ podium:

1) E. Magni (Mercatone Uno, Fassa Bortolo)
2) M. Rodriguez (Banesto)
3) J. Hoyo (ONCE, Mapei, QuickStep)


New generation

we should really have a Clinic edition of "How the race was won"

 

[luckyboy]

Got the teams of 2) and 3) the wrong way round btw

 

[More Strides than Rides]

Re: Re:

the real winners

Giro d'Italia doctors’ podium:

1) E. Magni (Mercatone Uno, Fassa Bortolo)
2) M. Rodriguez (Banesto)
3) J. Hoyo (ONCE, Mapei, QuickStep)


New generation

we should really have a Clinic edition of "How the race was won"

Alternatively, some sort of family tree. I remember reading some thread about here about the dutch, and having to write out and draw lines between names just to understand what other posters were talking about. I traced from Cees Rein VDH all the different labs, sports performance centers, team doctors, and Olympic camps like someone could trace from Henry VII.

And that was just one dude.

The whole process of trading doctors and DSs and riders incest. New generation? No, just the new, incestial offspring of the old generation.

 

[vedrafjord]

Re: Re:

I would love to see them scrap at least one the rest days in GTs and replace it with a downhill TT. If there were rider protests about safety (which I'm sure there would be from the rubbish descenders) - you could just use a really technical route, so the top speed would only be about 50km/h.

1987 Giro stage 1b was basically a downhill time trial - the first half was the descent of the Poggio and the second half was flat.

Here's a remarkable highlights video with commentary from Jimmy Magee and some guy called Pat McQuaid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nScZ7EjVGHI

 

[tantocomo]

No helmets!!
Love the format of an uphill tt in the morning and a downhill in the afternoon too.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

I would love to see them scrap at least one the rest days in GTs and replace it with a downhill TT. If there were rider protests about safety (which I'm sure there would be from the rubbish descenders) - you could just use a really technical route, so the top speed would only be about 50km/h.

1987 Giro stage 1b was basically a downhill time trial - the first half was the descent of the Poggio and the second half was flat.

Here's a remarkable highlights video with commentary from Jimmy Magee and some guy called Pat McQuaid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nScZ7EjVGHI

Very nice; shame about the flat second half though

 

[vedrafjord]

The real shock watching that clip for those of us in Ireland was our national broadcaster RTE actually covering the Giro, vs its current absolute contempt for cycling (the Tour and Vuelta are currently broadcast by the raven-haired Irish language hipsters of TG4, which is a separate organisation). Also Jimmy Magee was a fixture of Irish sports commentary for over 40 years. He's as omerta as they come, insisting up to 2012 that Lance was clean, and sticking by Michelle Smith after her, ahem, difficulties.

Anyway, back to Nibali: will he or Aru ever get caught? Will there ever be enough evidence to take the team down? I presume Vino runs a tight ship. The Iglinskys etc took their bans on the chin. Really you'd need someone to get caught who had a big falling out with Vino *and* was in either the Squalo/Aru super dom inner circles *and* was ready to walk away from the sport. Astana have been a remarkably teflon-coated team considering the steady drip-drip of positives and allegations from day one.

 

[carton]

Re: Re:

It's a pretty marginal advantage though. And a tired, excellent descender will certainly be able to put a fresher, poor descender to the sword.

The gap has to be big pretty big for that to be true though. I've mentioned this before, but in 2005, Ardila got annoyed with how slow Salvodelli (arguably the best in history) was descending off Finestre, almost crashed them both on a turn, and ended up saving Salvodelli's Giro by pacing him nearly all the way down (and nearly all the way back up). Now Ardila was underrated as a descender, but it's hard to say he's was as good as Il Falco.

This leads to the inevitable question: Why we don't have the descents timed?

Imagine... descending heroes officially praised, record tables, , Dr. Ferrari introducing VDM instead of VAM... maybe something in place of Cima Coppi (Valle Bartali?), or some descender-oriented GT classification.

And, last but not least: Strava Kamikaze Of The Mountain ranking.

Timed descents would be great - presumably the UCI would site safety reasons, but that's a bit of a cop-out considering the clock is still running anyway during races. And they should definitely introduce a new jersey - King of the Descents - replacing the polka dots with massive cojones.

I would love to see them scrap at least one the rest days in GTs and replace it with a downhill TT. If there were rider protests about safety (which I'm sure there would be from the rubbish descenders) - you could just use a really technical route, so the top speed would only be about 50km/h.

When McQuaid is back as UCI president and this idea gets traction, let the record show that it was dopperhopper and DFA and not me who got it rolling
Seriously, though, pro cycling is dangerous enough as is. Take this Giro. The descending was both anticlimactic and decisive. I though there were going to be far more attacks downhill given all the last-10k technical descents, but the only one that really stuck broke the race (and almost broke Ilnur Zakarin). A downhill TT would likewise probably mean everyone goes down a pretty much the same speed, and a few of the guys crash out of contention (if not out of the race).

 

[vedrafjord]

I think it very much depends on the parcours. The Poggio descent was a good one because it's technical with a lot of hairpins so it's not that fast, and there are no huge drops off the side with massive ravines etc (or olive trees for Jan Raas). I looked it up on Strava and the record holder has an average speed of only 58.8 km/h https://www.strava.com/segments/1638354

But yeah I'd be very wary of doing a downhill TT of one of the famous Alpine descents. It would be fun though to know the times for the whole field, for say the Morzine descent in stage 20 of this year's Tour. I'd like to know if the old legend is really true - that the fastest descenders are sprinters in the grupetto chasing the time cut.