Is UAE Over the Top?

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Feb 20, 2012
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I do really miss those 2015-16 seasons. the vitriol, the hate on here (the Sky years) are unmatched. today UAE is smashing it again, and it's quiet, and I miss those forum members and twitter users who would shout like mujaheedins in their holy war against that unbearable dominance
I'm trying my best (or worst) okay.
 
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Apr 3, 2009
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I do really miss those 2015-16 seasons. the vitriol, the hate on here (the Sky years) are unmatched. today UAE is smashing it again, and it's quiet, and I miss those forum members and twitter users who would shout like mujaheedins in their holy war against that unbearable dominance
I'm surprised you don't appreciate the difference. One team was doing ridiculous things and insulting our collective intelligence with the lies, posturing, hypocrisy and sanctimony while cheating their faces off. The other one just cheats it's face off.

The former will invariably generate more ink than the latter.
 
Jul 4, 2010
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Sep 9, 2012
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Oh Jesus Christ, are we back to this again
 
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Sep 25, 2022
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Until the UCI take away one of Pogacar/Del Toros/Wellens bike immediately after they cross the finish line, saw the frame and wheels in half on live tv to prove innocence. Can you then begin to convince me they aren't motor doping.
 
Aug 13, 2011
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Until the UCI take away one of Pogacar/Del Toros/Wellens bike immediately after they cross the finish line, saw the frame and wheels in half on live tv to prove innocence. Can you then begin to convince me they aren't motor doping.
People would still say that isn’t the real bike.
 
Sep 1, 2023
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Until the UCI take away one of Pogacar/Del Toros/Wellens bike immediately after they cross the finish line, saw the frame and wheels in half on live tv to prove innocence. Can you then begin to convince me they aren't motor doping.
You mean in P-R when Pogi has lost to Mathieu?
 
Apr 8, 2023
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After the guys missed nabbing Soler in the back of a van in 2023, pro-cyclists have not been shy of "altitude training" almost all year long in Spain. My guess is that every dodgy doctor in Spain is making some extra income from "consulting" teams. Pidders trip to southern climes might well start a trend if CELAD start following guys around. Patagonian doping controls might not be so strict.
https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling...alleged-links-with-disgraced-us-postal-doctor““
Basically, it’s almost certain that Marc Soler worked with Martí — the question is whether it can also be proven.
 
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Sep 5, 2016
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Until the UCI take away one of Pogacar/Del Toros/Wellens bike immediately after they cross the finish line, saw the frame and wheels in half on live tv to prove innocence. Can you then begin to convince me they aren't motor doping.
They don't switch bikes before the race and very rarely during the race.
The bikes are tested and tagged before the race and there are multiple race officials walking the start looking for race numbers and bikes without inspection marks. It's also sort of arbitrary that you point out 3 riders, 2 of which have lost races this week.
Why no speculation, criminal accusations against the riders who beat Wellens and Del Toro?
Why the emphasis on losing riders instead of fair play by smearing winning riders other than UAE trio.
Calling people criminals ....just because ...is bad form.
Sawing Colnagos into pieces while ignoring others seems sort of biased.
** they do inspect winning bicycles**
and the winning riders are immediately ushered into control for a biological sample to be tested for doping. It's appears that race officials may be up against the impossible job of satisfying the modern racing fan who demand witnessing destruction of bicycles and getting a first hand observation of riders discharging into sample cups after the race.
What's next? Seeing the riders pulling down shorts and touching their.... actually seeing the sample is the only satisfaction..
More and more and more posts are based on deflection, UCI is not doing the job, many dissatisfied or disturbed that UCI is not testing blood, urine, bicycles to a degree that gives confidence.
Instead of blaming the testers, blame the people being tested, in your example, accuse riders of cheating because UCI is not testing their equipment in your opinion. Much of this is victim blaming, and riders who have done nothing wrong being trashed for no reason, with no evidence is horrible
If you were invited to follow riders via social media, they post from inside the pits, team cars, buses, hotels, places they live, coffee shops, restaurants they patronize and discuss things like in and out of competition tests.
I personally have never seen or heard any riders I follow talk about motor doping, or some other mechanical, electromechanical cheating because it's not a thing.

The irresponsible published stories about hidden motors or wheels that are some stealth secret weapon are all likely true, but to what degree? Why create hysteria about something that is very, very rare at best.
None of my bike shops or Amazon offer secret hidden devices for your bike. I don't know anyone who has bought or used them, don't see any obvious signs of widespread ( any) motor doping. And I didn't see any signs of cheating devices on the 2 UAE bikes that I physically touched. Accusing riders of cheating and criminal actions should be taken seriously, Besmirching riders constantly, without evidence is wrong.
 
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Sep 5, 2016
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If people are cheating.. Cool.. Offer up some data, a little proof, anything,
smearing bike racing because of your mood, again it's cool but recognize that it's complete BS with no anything.
Just a mood. Nobody is served by accusing people of cheating and criminal offenses.
If someone is making money by using an illegal motor and you have evidence,... police,... not internet post is the proper place.
If you have evidence of riders being cheated out of money and results, tell authorities not the ether
Anonymous accusations of serious crimes... are not serious.. the opposite.
 
Sep 12, 2022
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Maybe I am missing the point. But what did they find in Solar's father's car? Basic stuff that is necessary for everyday training, like a lactate meter?
Why in the world would Marc Soler work with Marti knowing he is a banned doctor? Why take such a silly risk if it's for nothing illegal?
 
Apr 8, 2023
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Maybe I am missing the point. But what did they find in Solar's father's car? Basic stuff that is necessary for everyday training, like a lactate meter?
For those not up to speed, a google translate version of a snippet from -https://www.ciclo21.com/marc-y-jaume-soler-y-pepe-marti-hechos-y-dudas-20feb/#google_vignette
...around 10 a.m., Martí arrives with his white car at a hotel parking lot in Ponts and there he meets Jaume Soler – without sports clothes – who is waiting for him with a red van. The former Valencian coach puts a box with various elements in the van and both set off north, towards La Seu d'Urgell.

A few kilometres away, in Adrall, the Civil Guard has already set up a special control waiting for the couple. They are stopped and identified as Jaume Soler and José Martí. The box that was in the back of the van had latex gloves, alcohol, a lactate meter, an oxygen saturation device and test strips, all necessary to perform a lactic acidosis blood test that all athletes apply to know their aerobic and anaerobic thresholds for subsequent training sections. Martí – always collaborative at that time – also carried a folder with field data and graphs and tables to evaluate performances. Curiously, there was no sports garment to wear allegedly by Jaume Soler - who expressed his "surprise" at the registration - if the test was going to be for the master athlete that day and foreseeably in Port del Cantó, in the same direction as the former Movistar rider.

At that moment of the control, the presence of Marc Soler on a bicycle, with the full UAE attire, is detected in the opposite direction, thus crossing the control and identifying his family's van. Soler turns around and since the control was still installed he turns again and so on up to three times. A clear gesture that he had met his father who, in turn, had met with Martí.

The agents let Soler Sr. and Martí continue on their way, but the surveillance persists. The van overtakes Marc Soler and a little further on it stops off the road waiting for the Catalan professional, finally producing the physical meeting between the three as the UCO has accredited with images of the entire journey of that day.
After several minutes of conversation between everyone, they separate their paths and Marc Soler is stopped by the Civil Guard at around 12:10 p.m., but not before detecting a threat from the cyclist to avoid his control. The cyclist is identified with his ID and declares at that time that he had met his father to give him a meter - and not a backpack. Later he undertook his return to his tax residence in Andorra.

Jaume Soler declares to the Civil Guard that Martí trains him

Almost three months later, on November 7, 2023, Jaume and Marc Soler go together to the Civil Guard barracks in La Seu d'Urgell with a supposedly agreed joint account although testifying separately as witnesses to a possible crime against public health.

Jaume Soler then acknowledges that he was coached by Pepe Martí, which would already imply a sanction for both for prohibited association - officially they have not received it - and that he never used doping substances. But he adds that after the Civil Guard control in August he decided to leave his sporting relationship. He also denied, obviously, that Martí was his son Marc's coach and that he did not "get together" with him.

Another of the inconsistencies is that the reason for meeting his son Marc at that peculiar point was because he was going to give him a "backpack and a gas cap", elements that never appeared at the road controls in father and son.
 
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