is Cuddles the greatest rider of our generation?

[Christian]

The general consensus on Cunego is that he was doped to the gills in 2004

Every time I remember that Damiano Cunego can call him self a GT winner I cannot help but feel sad for Cadel and Andy.

 

[roundabout]

I see somebody giving themself way too much credit regarding Mosquera. As an active participant in "that" thread i don't remember anyone doubting his Portugese performances. Improving after he returned to Spain on the other hand was precisely the reason why a possibility of Mosquera being clean was not credible.

Also, it's kind of ironic to use the negative tests of a former doper like Valverde who suffered no dropoff in results after his doping was discovered to argue that he's as clean as Evans while at the same time trying to cast doubt about the performances of a rider who's results clearly suffered in the same period.

 

[La Pandera]

Every time I remember that Damiano Cunego can call him self a GT winner I cannot help but feel sad for Cadel and Andy.

Why just Cadel and Andy? Why not Leipheimer, Kloden, S. Sanchez and others? In both cases they've had their opportunities to win GT's and pretty much fumbled them away, especially Andy who could have 2 grand tours under his belt if not for his bonk in 2008 from not eating and his boggled gear change this year. I personally feel no sympathy for either of them.

 

[JPM London]

Why just Cadel and Andy? Why not Leipheimer, Kloden, S. Sanchez and others? In both cases they've had their opportunities to win GT's and pretty much fumbled them away, especially Andy who could have 2 grand tours under his belt if not for his bonk in 2008 from not eating and his boggled gear change this year. I personally feel no sympathy for either of them.

Well because Christian believes Cadel and Andy to be clean obviously. You wouldn't put Leipheimer, Kloden et al in that category, would you? Hence the difference and hence not them...

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I see somebody giving themself way too much credit regarding Mosquera. As an active participant in "that" thread i don't remember anyone doubting his Portugese performances. Improving after he returned to Spain on the other hand was precisely the reason why a possibility of Mosquera being clean was not credible.

And my counterargument was that:
1) of course you're going to get better results when you have the chance to ride better races
2) his best results in Portugal had always been in the mountains; Spain has more races where these are decisive.

Also, it's kind of ironic to use the negative tests of a former doper like Valverde who suffered no dropoff in results after his doping was discovered to argue that he's as clean as Evans while at the same time trying to cast doubt about the performances of a rider who's results clearly suffered in the same period.

I wasn't trying to cast doubt on Cunego. Not at all. In fact, I was using the very fact that there is a general perception of Cunego as a clean rider to debunk the myth that there are two states of being, always doped and always clean. I was actually doing the exact opposite of what you said I was doing - I was using the general perception of Cunego as a clean rider to support the argument that it is plausible that Valverde has been clean in the post-Puerto period, and thus if he and Cuddles are both riding clean Valverde is a better rider. Obviously the fact that we know Valverde doped at some point means that his results will always carry some level of suspicion, but Cunego seemingly proves the "guilt-at-all-times" theory to be overly-simplified (and also, of course, his veiled comments about his past behaviour seemingly prove the "innocent-at-all-times" theory to be similarly overly-simplified.

IF Alejandro Valverde was clean from 2007-10 - and that's a big if, but not the absolute impossibility many of you are claiming it to be - then he is a better rider than Cuddles.

 

[roundabout]

I still don't see how getting better results in racess more suited to his ability (i would have thought that Volta a Portugal is tough enough for GT prospect to get better results than a single 7th place overall) is supposed to be a sign of Mosquera being clean. One could make an argument that the peloton in Portugal was dirtier than the one in Spain however a supposedly clean rider would still struggle in a Fuentes-powered peloton.

On the second point you conviniently ignore the change in Cunego's results since he turned "clean" compared to Valverde's continued success. I repeat, i don't see how a rider who's performance has deteriorated can be used to support the cleanness of a rider who kept on winning.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I still don't see how getting better results in racess more suited to his ability (i would have thought that Volta a Portugal is tough enough for GT prospect to get better results than a single 7th place overall) is supposed to be a sign of Mosquera being clean. One could make an argument that the peloton in Portugal was dirtier than the one in Spain however a supposedly clean rider would still struggle in a Fuentes-powered peloton.

But again, I never said Mosquera was clean. I said that Mosquera didn't come from nowhere in 2007. I pointed to his earlier results as indicative of a possibility of him being clean (after all, his better results all came post-Puerto, though there was a spike in good results in 2005 in his first year in Spain). The Volta a Portugal is a tough race, yes, but Portugal doesn't have many of the long, steep climbs that Mosquera favours. Its' key climb is the Alto da Torre, which is very long but not especially steep. Spanish stage races feature far more climbs suited to Mosquera.

On the second point you conviniently ignore the change in Cunego's results since he turned "clean" compared to Valverde's continued success. I repeat, i don't see how a rider who's performance has deteriorated can be used to support the cleanness of a rider who kept on winning.

It's not necessarily saying that Valverde is clean, it's saying that he is an example of somebody who is clearly dirty at some point and clean at another point. Many people have the either "every single result ever clean" or "every single result ever doped" viewpoint, and that's just not realistic. Maybe Valverde's just a more talented rider than Cunego. Maybe in a péloton scared cleaner post-Puerto a clean Valverde was able to accumulate better results clean than anticipated. Maybe he wasn't clean. But we do know that he was monitored as closely as anybody, and because he won more often, would have been tested more often than Evans. Therefore, "Valverde bad, Evans good" is too simplistic a viewpoint to take on this. We do not know whether Valverde was doping from 2007 onwards, no more than we know whether Evans was clean.

 

[yourwelcome]

Let's say that if we ever have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight on who doped... in that case I would be much less surprised if it turns out that Evans was the best non-doper in today's peloton than if it turns out it was Contador or Schleck or Valverde, for instance.

That admittedly weak backup to the 'greatest rider' argument is about all I can muster without feeling naively optimistic.

I do know that it would have to suck being a clean rider knowing you're losing to dopers and being hammered as 'weak' in places like this. You can see why riders would dope for their ego as much as for the money.