Is Walsh on the Sky bandwagon?

[blackcat]

had no idea that cookson's son works for sky as a performance assistant.

you're farking kidding me, this is worse than Armstrong and Hein.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

had no idea that cookson's son works for sky as a performance assistant.

gotta love this game!

what tha F? for real?

Been discussed previously - search for "Oliver Cookson". He appears on some of the Team Sky staff listings for various races and / or on their web page.

eg: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?p=963141

 

[LaFlorecita]

Been discussed previously - search for "Oliver Cookson". He appears on some of the Team Sky staff listings for various races and / or on their web page.

eg: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?p=963141

This is great

 

[jens_attacks]

alberto is fucced, florecita
at least for the next 5 years or so lol

 

[LaFlorecita]

alberto is fucced, florecita
at least for the next 5 years or so lol

I will be launching my presidential campaign soon

 

[Zam_Olyas]

one of the best so far,regarding kerrison

He is that rarest of coaches, the man who can make you a better performer in half an hour.

kerrison is like viagra!!!

maybe froomey needs viagra from time to time.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

now sniper did you hear about this one
Tell me, are you locked in the punch
Hey, laflo are you goofing on conta? Hey, baby.
Are you having fun?
If you believed they put a man on the moon, man on the moon
If you believed walsh says froomey is clean and he is real.

 

[jens_attacks]

oh god around 10 ten pages about ventoux tailwind. love it!

there is even the greg henderson legendary quote )))))))))

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The investigative journalist may work out that this was first race since abandoning the Giro with a knee injury. Not something to go full on - must do a job for the team - two in the top twelve I see.
On the flip side, even if a great talent like Froome is building form you would expect him to have a rack at a stage win. A top five on a challenging stage at least. But there's nothing like that (if you ignore the stage he came 4th on, which we must)

If you count "thrown out the race for hanging on to a motorbike" as "abandoning" then yes. I concede he was injured, but there's a difference between abandoning and being ejected.

you're farking kidding me, this is worse than Armstrong and Hein.

Isn't Cookson, or wasn't he previously, on the board of whatever the entity behind Team Sky is (you know, like Riis Cycling for Saxo or Abarcá Sports for Movistar)?

The thing with McQuaid vs. Cookson is sometimes I think, you know what, better the devil you know.

 

[The Hitch]

If you count "thrown out the race for hanging on to a motorbike" as "abandoning" then yes. I concede he was injured, but there's a difference between abandoning and being ejected.

Great spot LS. Nice little sleight of hand attempt there from Parker. Some sky fans refuse to admit it's cheating even when their riders get caught red handed doing it.

But of.course we are to believe that someone like froome who has had no issue with blatantly bending the rules at gts on 2 occasions, has this moral fortitude that no other cyclist in the last 2 and a half decades has possessed (with the exception of "let's bully Landis cos we feel like" Wiggins) of going for a gt victory but refusing to take drugs.

 

[Ferminal]

alberto is fucced, florecita
at least for the next 5 years or so lol

Would have had better protection with the Kazakhs.

 

[jens_attacks]

ok i'm close to the end of the book and i have tears in the eyes...








tears of laughter



alberto contador-barabbas
chris froome- jesus christ


now i can die, i've heard them all

 

[the sceptic]

oh god around 10 ten pages about ventoux tailwind. love it!

there is even the greg henderson legendary quote )))))))))

lol. only 10 pages? I guess its easier when he is only arguing against himself.

any more funny stuff?

 

[thehog]

oh god around 10 ten pages about ventoux tailwind. love it!

there is even the greg henderson legendary quote )))))))))

Now it all starts to make sense.

 

[jens_attacks]

finished it. as a cycling fan, some stories i liked them. things that happened after the race and so on, the backstage stuff.

but unfortunately(for me) this book is not about those stories. walsh is just giving his best to persuade you that sky is 100% legit. and no doubt that if you watch cycling since 2012, he has you in his pocket. he's a good writer.

all those arguments and explanations he uses i see only the comedy value in them though. and oh boy there is plenty of them. and if you don't laugh while reading it now , you will laugh in ten years time that's for sure

 

[thehog]

lol. only 10 pages? I guess its easier when he is only arguing against himself.

any more funny stuff?

He still compares Mayo's ITT time to Froome! and Froome was "sedate".

Walsh sure is sharp.

2009 was a harder because it was a headwind and everyone was racing hard (ummmm no Wiggins??)

and 2013 was "gentle" at 220km!

And tailwinds give 40 watts!

Sedate, gentle, tailwinds giving extra power.

Nice choice of words.

How about "sold out"?

 

[mattghg]

But of.course we are to believe that someone like froome who has had no issue with blatantly bending the rules at gts on 2 occasions, has this moral fortitude that no other cyclist in the last 2 and a half decades has possessed (with the exception of "let's bully Landis cos we feel like" Wiggins) of going for a gt victory but refusing to take drugs.

Who do you think believes this? That only Froome and Wiggins of all the GT contenders in the last 20 years was clean? Not Walsh, for one. It's a total straw man.

 

[roundabout]

He still compares Mayo's ITT time to Froome! and Froome was "sedate".

Walsh sure is sharp.

2009 was a harder because it was a headwind and everyone was racing hard (ummmm no Wiggins??)

and 2013 was "gentle" at 220km!

And tailwinds give 40 watts!

Sedate, gentle, tailwinds giving extra power.

Nice choice of words.

How about "sold out"?

I am confused as to the point Walsh is trying to make.

Does it mean that a 2009 Wiggins would have been somewhere around 2013 Froome (even considering that he sucked wheels in 2009)?

And what's up with a whole bb level 3rd cat climbs/4th cat climbs comparisons. An embedded journalist should probably have an actual idea what power Froome produced and how the performance compared to 2009.

 

[the sceptic]

Why does Walsh care about the tailwind anyway?

Kerrison already told him after ax3 domains that its possible for clean athletes to climb as fast as Armstrong. Its like a double vortex.

Now he just needs to shave some weight off Froomes rivals for the hattrick.

 

[roundabout]

Wait, wait, wait.

Cooksons performance assistant son was a former landscape architect and urban designer?

What?

Edit: ah, he is gopher lugging mattresses with a fancy job title. Makes slightly more sense.

 

[LaFlorecita]

ok i'm close to the end of the book and i have tears in the eyes...

tears of laughter

alberto contador-barabbas
chris froome- jesus christ

now i can die, i've heard them all

Lol jens_attacks that is funny

 

[thehog]

I am confused as to the point Walsh is trying to make.

Does it mean that a 2009 Wiggins would have been somewhere around 2013 Froome (even considering that he sucked wheels in 2009)?

And what's up with a whole bb level 3rd cat climbs/4th cat climbs comparisons. An embedded journalist should probably have an actual idea what power Froome produced and how the performance compared to 2009.

Most interestingly about the Walsh book is the comedy in-saddle-attack on Contador didn't actually happen.

No reference to it. Just that Sky and Froome rode up to Quintana!

Bizarre. Totally bizarre. The Warren commission it is.

 

[thehog]

Why does Walsh care about the tailwind anyway?

Kerrison already told him after ax3 domains that its possible for clean athletes to climb as fast as Armstrong. Its like a double vortex.

Now he just needs to shave some weight off Froomes rivals for the hattrick.

Interesting that some of the Walsh talking points where appearing here about a month or so ago.

I'm not sure how he suggests that the 2013 stage which is 70km longer was easier

Garate comments about the headwind in the final kms which is exactly what the riders commented on in 2013.

Froome is asked in the book about the tailwind. His response is funny.

 

[gooner]

But of.course we are to believe that someone like froome who has had no issue with blatantly bending the rules at gts on 2 occasions, has this moral fortitude that no other cyclist in the last 2 and a half decades has possessed (with the exception of "let's bully Landis cos we feel like" Wiggins) of going for a gt victory but refusing to take drugs.

Disagree. You could say the same in football terms for the likes of Luis Suarez and what he did in 2010 World Cup. The same for Henry in the World Cup play off match. Because of this, should we be more suspicious of them doping? I don't think so, just like Froome and what he did on the Alpe should be no extra reason to say he doped.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Disagree. You could say the same in football terms for the likes of Luis Suarez and what he did in 2010 World Cup. The same for Henry in the World Cup play off match. Because of this, should we be more suspicious of them doping? I don't think so, just like Froome and what he did on the Alpe should be no extra reason to say he doped.

As an aside, why did Suárez get so vilified for what he did in the 2010 World Cup? It was a professional foul, sure, it's blatant cheating and is a red card offence, but I remember seeing back in the 90s on several different occasions players handling the ball on the line to save a goal and those did not create the same kind of backlash. It's a calculated gamble. The handball goals are somewhat different in that they are more premeditated, they're not professional fouls to save a situation, they're professional fouls to create a situation. The Ghanaians can feel they were unfortunate, but Suárez took one for the team. Teams commit deliberate fouls to prevent opposition attacks all the time, his was just more obvious.