thehog said:
Tim says ‘we like to think that we know what power output we have to produce to win the race’.
Thanks for linking that, hog. What I find particularly interesting about this set of quotes is the one above.
If we assume other teams are doping, and I think everyone would agree that we must assume that, it is very, very interesting that Sky think they know what other people are capable of. I don't understand enough to know how they would know that and can only guess.
My only guess at this point is that they know what can be gotten away with in terms of doping in the current testing regime, and they know the limits of their top competitors with this in place. At least close enough to guess and have confidence they'll be competitive. This would suggest a very detailed understanding of doping techniques, whether they are employing them or not. It would be hard to imagine them understanding things at this level and simply deciding not to dope, and it would be impossible to imagine they could be confidently beating dopers while fully understanding what other riders are capable of. Of course that's the issue with Sky's dominance in the first place.
The other option is to assume they have a pretty good idea of what's possible from past performance of dopers, and are basing guesses off of that. This of course calls into the discussion all the denials of being able to understand wattage without having power data. If guessing is close enough to base detailed power decisions, why is it not good enough to spot clear dopers by observers of the sport?
The other possibility is that this commentary is laced with some BS and they feel like they have the power they need to win, whatever the other riders are doing. This would be damning.
Watching them race, to be honest it looks more like #3 than the first two. Anyway, wondering what others make of that quote.