How dirty is SaxoBank-Tinkoff?

[Benotti69]

I dont think teams turn up to the TdF with riders not 100% unless it is someone like Contador who is hoping to arrive at 100% in the 2nd week and is already 98%.

That Roche became a climbing domestique for this TdF is suspicious, a few years ago he fancied himslef as a sprinter!

 

[Netserk]

I dont think teams turn up to the TdF with riders not 100% unless it is someone like Contador who is hoping to arrive at 100% in the 2nd week and is already 98%.

That Roche became a climbing domestique for this TdF is suspicious, a few years ago he fancied himslef as a sprinter!

A few years ago he was 7th in the Vuelta...

 

[Benotti69]

A few years ago he was 7th in the Vuelta...

The doping at La Vuelta is a pharmacists wet dream.

 

[Netserk]

The doping at La Vuelta is a pharmacists wet dream.

I'm not claiming that he is clean (I do in fact think it is far more likely that he is a doper), but that doesn't change the fact that he already got a GT top-10 three years ago.

 

[pmcg76]

I said I would wait to see how Roche went in the TT and without doubt I think that is the best TT Roche has ever ridden. The fact that most of his direct rivals are also rubbish at the TT only really dawned on me whilst watching today though, Basso, Purito, Moreno, Horner!!! Take Cancellara and Martin out of it and that is probably one of the worst field's TT wise, ever. When Purito and Basso are Top 20, you know the quality is rubbish.

Still was a big performance from Roche and he definitely rises a level on my suspicion index but not quite in the red zone yet like some other guys. Still think he will be Top 5 as opposed to a podium place. Time will tell.

 

[Angliru]

I don't understand this? I do not believe for one second that Roche is clean, but neither do I believe he deserves an entire discussion of his own. He's no Froome, Contador or Pappy Horner.

It's not the individual who decides if a rider is worthy of their very own discussion but the forum members themselves. Of course in the clinic virtually any and every performance that in any way exceeds their previous norm is instantly labeled suspect and thus open for the "he's on the juice" discussion.

 

[Angliru]

a juicer and a narcist. damn.

I think he's clean. I must be naive, huh?

 

[barmaher]

I dislike his Dad so much that it makes me want to think that he is a doper.

But I am not so sure. I think he was clean up until this year, and now I am 50/50 as to whether he is on the sauce or not.

 

[gooner]

I dislike his Dad so much that it makes me want to think that he is a doper.

But I am not so sure. I think he was clean up until this year, and now I am 50/50 as to whether he is on the sauce or not.

Hey, his old man deserves the flak for some of the tosh he has spouted in the past but enough with the sins of him passed down to his son. It's up to yourself to think he's a doper but totally unfair to want him to be a doper due to his father's own past.

 

[Ferminal]

Why do people need "rational" reasons to "want" someone to be a doper? It's taste...

 

[King Boonen]

I said I would wait to see how Roche went in the TT and without doubt I think that is the best TT Roche has ever ridden. The fact that most of his direct rivals are also rubbish at the TT only really dawned on me whilst watching today though, Basso, Purito, Moreno, Horner!!! Take Cancellara and Martin out of it and that is probably one of the worst field's TT wise, ever. When Purito and Basso are Top 20, you know the quality is rubbish.

Still was a big performance from Roche and he definitely rises a level on my suspicion index but not quite in the red zone yet like some other guys. Still think he will be Top 5 as opposed to a podium place. Time will tell.

That's fair enough but it's also likely this is the only TT he has ever ridden that he's actually cared about, so it's not surprising it was his best/one of his best performances.

 

[my username is flish]

That's fair enough but it's also likely this is the only TT he has ever ridden that he's actually cared about, so it's not surprising it was his best/one of his best performances.

I don't agree here. I think he's had some important ones before and fluffed it. I can see him slowly getting climbing legs over the years at the expense of his sprint (he's still not a climber, just manages to hang on for longer) but his TT has always been poor considering his engine. This, as pmcg says, is a bit of a red flag for this year. You can't improve your TT that much in a year just by getting some aero prep done.

 

[vedrafjord]

Is there an accurate timeline anywhere that summarises the events leading to the creation and implementation of the bio passport? I know it's something like: some French teams start longitudinal testing post-Festina scandal - Rasmus Darmsgaard starts Hct/Hgb/Retic testing for CSC, ACE does tests for Garmin - the UCI adopts the passport. I presume I've left out a lot.

What I want to know, I guess, is the order things happened and why - when CSC started passport testing, was it an innovative move to ensure a clean team, or was the UCI adoption of the bio passport inevitable, and the internal programme a way of monitoring their (doped) athletes values to keep them looking normal (i.e. "your retics are too low, microdose some EPO tonight")

 

[vedrafjord]

Obviously the idea was floating around for some time, looking at journal papers from the journal Haematologica from 2002-2003 where a few groups including Ashenden are proposing the form it would take, establishing normal ranges, etc.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

I don't agree here. I think he's had some important ones before and fluffed it. I can see him slowly getting climbing legs over the years at the expense of his sprint (he's still not a climber, just manages to hang on for longer) but his TT has always been poor considering his engine. This, as pmcg says, is a bit of a red flag for this year. You can't improve your TT that much in a year just by getting some aero prep done.

Roche has always struck me as a serious TT underperformer. He's heavier than a large majority of the guys he climbs with, so he has to be producing a lot of power to be putting out the same w/kg. There may be issues to do with pacing himself as well, but his core problem has to have been his aero position. And of course, he famously didn't even have a TT bike to practice on during most of his Ag2r years.

I'd have him down as one of the riders who actually could be expected to improve his TTing considerably with training and better positioning. It's not clear just how far he has improved, mind you, given that this was a hilly TT and the field was so weak.

 

[del1962]

I think today has shown, that when the multiple mountain stages come he drops off a little, or perhaps the weather did not suite.

 

[Netserk]

I don't think it's possible to conclude anything dope-wise from this stage. It was due to the weather/temperature change and not the 'multiple mountain stages' IMO.

 

[Le Baroudeur]

What I want to know, I guess, is the order things happened and why - when CSC started passport testing, was it an innovative move to ensure a clean team, or was the UCI adoption of the bio passport inevitable, and the internal programme a way of monitoring their (doped) athletes values to keep them looking normal (i.e. "your retics are too low, microdose some EPO tonight")

CSC (and I assume most teams) were testing riders for complience well before the Damsgaard programme. The Damsgaard programme was comenced due to public criticism of cyclings testing methods by Damsgaard (and others) in the press. Riis asked the critics the question 'what are we suposed to do'.

Damsgaard laid out a methodology of testing based on current thinking and theory that would make him and the critics happy that the testing was credible, and that the team was as far as possible to be determined 'clean'. The following year the team approved the testing programme.

The testing wasn't internal as you seem to suggest, it was run independent of the team at the Bispberg Hospital accredited labs, with findings published at will online by the testers. The testers remained completely independant of the team, recieving only their normal salaries, the hospital billing the the team for costs. The programme was terminated when the Biological Passport made it obsolete.

Some have tried to question the independence of Damsgaard in the process because his boss (iirc) spotted that he was in the posession of an obsolete team bike after the programme had been terminated... Iirc Damsgaard had left the Hospital to set up a company to provide the service at this point for among others Astana.

 

[vedrafjord]

Thanks, informative post.

 

[my username is flish]

Roche has always struck me as a serious TT underperformer. He's heavier than a large majority of the guys he climbs with, so he has to be producing a lot of power to be putting out the same w/kg. There may be issues to do with pacing himself as well, but his core problem has to have been his aero position. And of course, he famously didn't even have a TT bike to practice on during most of his Ag2r years.

I'd have him down as one of the riders who actually could be expected to improve his TTing considerably with training and better positioning. It's not clear just how far he has improved, mind you, given that this was a hilly TT and the field was so weak.

Yeah, fair point. I have always thought it was more a mental thing with him, maybe a combination of poor pacing (although with power meters the norm this should be easily recitified) and lack of focus. Some guys need a hill to get the last 2% out, some guys can just hold a number no matter what, be it a time, a heart rate or a wattage; they're the ones who make the best TT riders. Seems strange that he could change his approach to all this at a fairly advanced stage in his professional career. Who knows though.

 

[EnacheV]

I don't think it's possible to conclude anything dope-wise from this stage. It was due to the weather/temperature change and not the 'multiple mountain stages' IMO.

i think posting from your "guts" is enough, like you did in the sky thread

my guts tell me that all Saxo guys are doping, excepting Contador and Rogers

so

My take (based on guts mostly) would be:

(Much) More likely to be dirty than clean:
All except the next 2

More likely to be clean than dirty:
Rogers
Contador

 

[LaFlorecita]

i think posting from your "guts" is enough, like you did in the sky thread

my guts tell me that all Saxo guys are doping, excepting Contador and Rogers

so

My take (based on guts mostly) would be:

(Much) More likely to be dirty than clean:
All except the next 2

More likely to be clean than dirty:
Rogers
Contador

Rogers? Wasn't he working with Ferrari? And AC the guy who tested positive?

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Seems strange that he could change his approach to all this at a fairly advanced stage in his professional career. Who knows though.

I suspect that this is in part down to him spending most of his career with Ag2r, who may be second only to Euskaltel in the who pays the least attention to TTing stakes in the pro peloton. They didn't even issue their GC riders with TT bikes up until recently, which is even more indicative of their attitude to the discipline than their consistent record of getting clubbed like baby seals in TTTs.

I suspect that any GC rider who moves from a long spell at AG2r to Garmin, Movistar, Saxo etc will stand a good chance of improving at least at the TT. Ag2r have had a few decent TT riders on their team, but all of the ones I can think of arrived at the team as noted TT riders to begin with.

(Pozzovivo's freak TT performance in this Vuelta is even odder against that background0.

 

[Kokoso]

Yeh but he already did it in the 2010 Vuelta alongside the uberclean Peter Velits.

Uberclean Peter Velits? Wasn't he then?

 

[Kokoso]

A few years ago he was 7th in the Vuelta...

Good point. Benotti talking BS.