doubt
Dr. Maserati said:
Firstly - I welcome 131313's input to this forum.
I agree with the his observations on all the 'circumstantial' evidence mentioned in his post.
However my opinion is this puts Contador on the wrong side of the invisible line - I could be right, I could be wrong.
Also - I do now believe it is possible to attain a high result in the Tour and certainly win other races clean.
As for Mancebo and Sevilla - they were directly implicated in Puerto, Sevilla was even photographed coming out of Fuentes clinic!
The whole problem is that everyone that does well in cycling is doubted. I love the sport and aggressively defend it to all the non cyclist who claim everyone is doping because they know nothing about it but media spin.
All arguments based on Contadors specific performance factors indicating doping like the Verbier climb and the last TT can be explained with published science and other riders found to have superior numbers who get less flack. Like Evans and Leipheimers time trial performances. There are some clearly knowledgable posters on this forum that present scientific studies that show a great deal of doubt around his doping.
The Puerto case is all circumstantial and information has not be obtained ethically so wouldn't believe anything that didn't make it into court. So on that basis is no reason to doubt him.
Yes he rode in a team that appeared to have a doping program and may have been doping pre Puerto. It seems unlikely that this has occurred since then
Wiggins is the same he made big improvements in his riding with very advanced training program where journalists that engage in doping smear campaigns like Kimmage are invited to witness. Why doubt that.
He lost weight and no power I have seen that a lot in weight training including my own. Loss of weight does normally mean losing power but working on improving power while restricting intake of calories allows muscles to regrow smaller and more powerful
The scientific analysis of LA performances post cancer seem impossible to explain. There doesn't mean doping on its own as science is often proven wrong but the behaviour that goes with his record looks very suspicious.
Not much doping in cycling publicity appeared pre 98 Festina Scandal. The sport needed someone clean and popular to enhance its reputation. LA emerged and created a huge amount of publicity made the tour de france boring to watch and entrenched everyones views riders and the sport is either clean or dirty. He did nothing to make the sport look credible at all. That stigma has stayed.
Since Puerto performances look very likely to be clean and lots of people are getting caught. When they are caught there performances look superhuman eg Landis, Schumacher, Sella so would suggest the difference they were achieving doping was way more than the rest of the field.
Since 2006 the racing in the tour has been close unpredictable and usually exciting (Astana superteam didn't help this year). There are still dopers of course but smearing everyone that is good is bad for the sport. If someone does well and looks credible like Wiggins better to believe in him and hope for a change in views instead of helping journalists try and discredit the sport