I just have to ask ? Marianne Vos

[GPdesAmeriques]

Any pro who doesn't like training in European winter conditions is obviously hiding something.

Riders caught in warm weather training camps should be dealt with severely - four year bans from the Flandrien / Flandrienne competition.

 

[D-Queued]

Any pro who doesn't like training in European winter conditions is obviously hiding something.

Riders caught in warm weather training camps should be dealt with severely - four year bans from the Flandrien / Flandrienne competition.

That's not training. That's winning.

Dave.

 

[dolophonic]

That's not training. That's winning.

Dave.

Actually that's second place... but still winning

Hampsten is great.

 

[Willy_Voet]

I realize this thread became a debate about training locations, but...

To the point about the extent of doping in women's cycling: another female rider tested positive. Of course she was just some nobody who needed to dope her way to a 6th place in marathon MTB and this has no bearing whatsoever on road racing.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

I realize this thread became a debate about training locations, but...

To the point about the extent of doping in women's cycling: another female rider tested positive. Of course she was just some nobody who needed to dope her way to a 6th place in marathon MTB and this has no bearing whatsoever on road racing.

And, I think, this shows:
1. women can and do dope
2. women can and do afford to dope
3. people are prepared to help women dope

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I realize this thread became a debate about training locations, but...

To the point about the extent of doping in women's cycling: another female rider tested positive. Of course she was just some nobody who needed to dope her way to a 6th place in marathon MTB and this has no bearing whatsoever on road racing.

Well, marathon MTB doesn't really have any bearing on road racing.

But next to nobody mentioned Rasa Leleivyte's EPO positive earlier this season. She was a part of the pro péloton on the road and therefore a much more relevant example.

I don't know if anybody stated that women don't dope, but if they did it was an idiotic thing to say. However, the lengths people are willing to go to tends to be affected by the potential benefit, and with less winnings available and less money in the game, I doubt that extensive advanced doping programs of the same sophistication and complexity as those in the men's pro péloton are common. I'm sure there are programs used in women's cycling on a variety of levels, but the Armstrong level is perhaps not feasible.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Well, marathon MTB doesn't really have any bearing on road racing.

But next to nobody mentioned Rasa Leleivyte's EPO positive earlier this season. She was a part of the pro péloton on the road and therefore a much more relevant example.

The relevance for me is the rewards for marathon MTB I would guess are less than road racing. Yet someone is still prepared to dope to do better at women's marathon MTBing.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yea, but Marathon MTB racing is also more likely to be one person on their own doping for personal glory, whereas doping in professional road racing also adds the possibility of organised team behaviour, or at least others being complicit in the deception.

 

[sniper]

There's nothing wrong with appointing Jeroen Blijlevens (TVM 1998) as coach of the Rabobank ladies. As Brailsford and JV know, it's simply impossible to find good staff who have never in anyway been implied in doping scandals.

In the Netherlands, Blijlevens is anecdotally credited with authorship of the answer "I never tested positive" to the question "did you ever dope?"
http://wielerhelden.blogse.nl/log/jeroen-blijlevens.html

 

[Cloxxki]

There's nothing wrong with appointing Jeroen Blijlevens (TVM 1998) as coach of the Rabobank ladies. As Brailsford and JV know, it's simply impossible to find good staff who have never in anyway been implied in doping scandals.

In the Netherlands, Blijlevens is anecdotally credited with authorship of the answer "I never tested positive" to the question "did you ever dope?"
http://wielerhelden.blogse.nl/log/jeroen-blijlevens.html

People within cycling do as if cycling is rocket science. Like no-one knows anything about it, except for the dopers of time past. I cannot accept that. I've peeked into road cycling a few times, did a couple crits and classic. Did some super prestige crosses, MTB marathons, stage races, etc. I feel that if I could be bothered to, I could function in team management. Even if I did get throught the lat nineties and zero's as a clean racer with sub-pro performances.

Vos' enthusiasm for Blijleven's hiring did get me a few uncomfortable chills.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Vos' enthusiasm for Blijleven's hiring did get me a few uncomfortable chills.

If Vos was serious about cleanness in the sport she would demand this clown being removed.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

People within cycling do as if cycling is rocket science. Like no-one knows anything about it, except for the dopers of time past. I cannot accept that. I've peeked into road cycling a few times, did a couple crits and classic. Did some super prestige crosses, MTB marathons, stage races, etc. I feel that if I could be bothered to, I could function in team management. Even if I did get throught the lat nineties and zero's as a clean racer with sub-pro performances.

Vos' enthusiasm for Blijleven's hiring did get me a few uncomfortable chills.

It's true, there is at least one example in recent times of a guy with no professional cycling experience becoming a team manager, and a very successful one at that. Teams should remember that and stop recruiting old dopers.

There's only one problem. His name was Manolo Saíz.

Sad but true: even the guys without the taint of cycling's history can't truly be trusted.

 

[GPdesAmeriques]

If Vos was serious about cleanness in the sport she would demand this clown being removed.

Blijlevens was supposed to become a DS at the Rabobank men's team in 2013, although I don't know if that has changed with the new Blanco team.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/blijlevens-to-join-rabobank-worldtour-staff-in-2013

Koos Moerenhout is the new DS at the Rabobank women's team.

 

[GPdesAmeriques]

I think this article is saying that Vos has decided to become more outspoken about anti-doping, although the Google Translate translation from Dutch is so bad it's hard to tell.

http://www.nusport.nl/wielrennen/2982070/vos-de-beerput-moet-open.html

 

[Cycle Chic]

Another World Championship

So VOS wins ANOTHER Title....good article here by Steve Tilford

She has won the Olympic Games, plus the World Championships on the Road, Track and Cross numerous times. I’m surprised she doesn’t do artistic cycling too.

http://stevetilford.com/?p=22928

He questions her going to South Africa to train for a month before winning that World Cyclo-Cross Championship...

The problem with her going to South Africa is that it has a reputation much like Tenerife. It is a place were many pros go to train and procure doping products.....

David George, an ex team mate of Lance’s, was recently popped for EPO in South Africa. I’m not sure why he wasn’t using Hemopure, which seems to flow like water down there

Her Palmares is NOT NORMAL !!

 

[GJB123]

Vos has always been a freak of nature. She won her 1st cyclocross WC at the tender age of 18. So either she was on the juice from let's say 14 onwards (because she won just about everything she could win as a junior on the road, in cyclocross, mountain bike en was quite good at speed skating) or she is just damn good.

Oh en EDIT: Don't give that sniper-sh!te that you can determine if someone dopes by the places they visit for training. That already means you cannot be seen training on Tenerife, Mallorca, Girona, Israel and apparently South-Africa.Noce also for South Africans to know they dope because they train in their home country.

 

[Benotti69]

Vos has always been a freak of nature. She won her 1st cyclocross WC at the tender age of 18. So either she was on the juice from let's say 14 onwards (because she won just about everything she could win as a junior on the road, in cyclocross, mountain bike en was quite good at speed skating) or she is just damn good.

Oh en EDIT: Don't give that sniper-sh!te that you can determine if someone dopes by the places they visit for training. That already means you cannot be seen training on Tenerife, Mallorca, Girona, Israel and apparently South-Africa.Noce also for South Africans to know they dope because they train in their home country.

Wasn't Jeannson doping from an early age?

 

[GJB123]

Wasn't Jeannson doping from an early age?

Greg LeMond also destroyed every field while a junior. Even older guys.

I can tell that you have no idea of who and what Marianne Vos is like. Now, one can never be sure she is clean, but I would rate it as unlikely. But hey keep tossing around the innuendo without any proof whatsoever. She is riding a bike, she is winning, she is making money from it, so hell yeah ... I can see the logic ....she must be doping. Heck, she even goes to South-Africa for winter training camps, what more proof could you possibly need.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Wasn't Jeannson doping from an early age?

She is no Chris Froome...

I do not know too much on women's cycling but I do know Vos won evrything there is to win in any category there is, from young age. That could mean two things:
* doped since childhood by dad
* hugely talented

I do think it is the second option. And, I could be wrong, let's hope not.

 

[Benotti69]

Greg LeMond also destroyed every field while a junior. Even older guys.

I can tell that you have no idea of who and what Marianne Vos is like. Now, one can never be sure she is clean, but I would rate it as unlikely. But hey keep tossing around the innuendo without any proof whatsoever. She is riding a bike, she is winning, she is making money from it, so hell yeah ... I can see the logic ....she must be doping. Heck, she even goes to South-Africa for winter training camps, what more proof could you possibly need.

I am tired of cyclists expecting fans they are clean. Do something to prove it. Make it as transparent as possible as a rider.

When I see someone like a Vos dominate so much i cannot believe. The sport has shown that it is not clean. To dominate like Vos has done is too much to believe it to be clean.

LeMond never won in the same manner as Vos. FFS he beat Fignon by 8 secs, not 8 mins.

 

[Benotti69]

She is no Chris Froome...

I do not know too much on women's cycling but I do know Vos won evrything there is to win in any category there is, from young age. That could mean two things:
* doped since childhood by dad
* hugely talented

I do think it is the second option. And, I could be wrong, let's hope not.

Hugely talented and thrashing dopers?????

 

[Unkown]

Everytime I think of Vos i say to myself "....not normal......"

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Hugely talented and thrashing dopers?????

Point taken.

Again, I know dudly close to nothing on women cycling, I know Longo/Vos/the other Dutch woman who had the eating disorder and the nice looking French girl....

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Hugely talented and thrashing dopers?????

It's possible that Vos is doping. I don't think it's possible, however, that she isn't hugely talented regardless.

There have been a few doping cases in women's cycling - Jeanson, Bastianelli, Bubnenkova, Leleivyte to name four - but with the depth of field being what it is, if you're one of the few that can make enough money to get by and do things professionally in the sport you have a performance advantage without needing to dope. Nicole Cooke, for example, was a very outspoken anti-doper, and though her last two or three seasons may have been disappointing, she certainly put together a very good palmarès before that. Does this mean Cooke is certainly clean? Perhaps not. But she talks a much better talk than most.

Vos hasn't transformed or suddenly discovered hitherto unrecognised skills. Her transition from being mostly for flat races or puncheur events to somebody who could win the Giro Donne took place over 3 or 4 years, rather than waking up one day thinking "I reckon I can be a climber" and suddenly dropping Claudia Häusler, Mara Abbott and Emma Pooley. She still gets dropped on longer, tougher climbs by the likes of these, and Evelyn Stevens, who has really come on over the last 2 years, it's just that she quashes them on intermediate and hilly stages and due to the lack of funding in the sport there are precious few races with real long, difficult climbs for people to drop her on, and the 4-5km climbs of races like the Emakumeen Bira are well within her remit, while on stages like the Stelvio one in 2010 she loses minutes.

Of course, while Vos earning much more than most women's cyclists (at least in part due to bogarting the prize money) does mean that she can afford better training, better planning and can be more dedicated than most of her competition, it could also be argued that it does also mean that she can afford a more sophisticated doping program than those the likes of Leleivyte (first-generation EPO) and Bastianelli (dodgy dieting supplement) used. But because of the lack of depth in the women's péloton and how dominant she has been ever since childhood so no particular performances are really abnormal for her, it's not as easy to draw an obvious conclusion as it would be for somebody who replicated her preposterous level of achievement in the men's field with its far larger field and much greater extent of specialization.

 

[Benotti69]

It's possible that Vos is doping. I don't think it's possible, however, that she isn't hugely talented regardless.

There have been a few doping cases in women's cycling - Jeanson, Bastianelli, Bubnenkova, Leleivyte to name four - but with the depth of field being what it is, if you're one of the few that can make enough money to get by and do things professionally in the sport you have a performance advantage without needing to dope. Nicole Cooke, for example, was a very outspoken anti-doper, and though her last two or three seasons may have been disappointing, she certainly put together a very good palmarès before that. Does this mean Cooke is certainly clean? Perhaps not. But she talks a much better talk than most.

Vos hasn't transformed or suddenly discovered hitherto unrecognised skills. Her transition from being mostly for flat races or puncheur events to somebody who could win the Giro Donne took place over 3 or 4 years, rather than waking up one day thinking "I reckon I can be a climber" and suddenly dropping Claudia Häusler, Mara Abbott and Emma Pooley. She still gets dropped on longer, tougher climbs by the likes of these, and Evelyn Stevens, who has really come on over the last 2 years, it's just that she quashes them on intermediate and hilly stages and due to the lack of funding in the sport there are precious few races with real long, difficult climbs for people to drop her on, and the 4-5km climbs of races like the Emakumeen Bira are well within her remit, while on stages like the Stelvio one in 2010 she loses minutes.

Of course, while Vos earning much more than most women's cyclists (at least in part due to bogarting the prize money) does mean that she can afford better training, better planning and can be more dedicated than most of her competition, it could also be argued that it does also mean that she can afford a more sophisticated doping program than those the likes of Leleivyte (first-generation EPO) and Bastianelli (dodgy dieting supplement) used. But because of the lack of depth in the women's péloton and how dominant she has been ever since childhood so no particular performances are really abnormal for her, it's not as easy to draw an obvious conclusion as it would be for somebody who replicated her preposterous level of achievement in the men's field with its far larger field and much greater extent of specialization.

Cheers LS, but there will always be riders who want to win more than anything and will do anything to achieve it. So for Vos to beat this type by so much and make it look so easy raises my suspicions.

Cooke rode very well during a dark era for cycling and I have an opinion on that.

As I said, I dont understand why the riders are not doing as much possible to eliminate as much of the suspicions that they can.