Join the dots? How dirty is Lotto?

[El Pistolero]

Keep moving the goalposts, will ya.

Not necessarily better. Riskier, maybe. How could Sella afford a better doping program than Contador?

Sella that lost the Giro to Contador despite the latter having an injury on his elbow and only been told to start a week before the Giro begun?

Again, who says Sella has a better doping program? You're acting like you know what Contador's taking.

 

[hrotha]

Sella that lost the Giro to Contador despite the latter having an injury on his elbow and only been told to start a week before the Giro begun?

Again, who says Sella has a better doping program? You're acting like you know what Contador's taking.

My point is Sella didn't have a better doping program; he was caught, for one. But he did get more of a boost from it than most other guys. That's what made him stand out. That's what made it so ridiculous. You say that as if Sella could be expected to contend the GC of that Giro - and he came close to doing so, thanks to his program, which I doubt was out of reach for the top guns.

 

[El Pistolero]

I'll start worrying when I see Vanendert doing Sella stuff then.

Sella, the guy who wins mountain stages from a breakaway, but still manages to climb the final climb faster than the favorite group.

Ps: At least Vanendert has the build of a climber. Just saying because you compared him to Di Luca. I have more doubts about guys like Valverde and Cunego climbing up mountains with the best. Well, can't call it doubts anymore though. Vanendert actually looks like a typical climber to me: sucks in time trials, skinny and very fragile.

 

[hrotha]

I'll start worrying when I see Vanendert doing Sella stuff then.

Sella, the guy who wins mountain stages from a breakaway, but still manages to climb the final climb faster than the favorite group.

Once again, your reading comprehension is lacking. If you scroll up and read what we've been discussing, you'll see Sella is just an example to illustrate how a "lesser" rider can get a bigger boost from doping (a "better" program, in a reckless, short-term kind of way) than the big names. It doesn't mean Vanendert has to copy Sella's every move for him to be suspicious - although, considering Sella's previous climbing pedigree, some would say what Vanendert has done this Tour is just as outstanding.

 

[El Pistolero]

Look, Vanendert won a mountain stage. But the favorites couldn't even drop Voeckler. That's all you need to know about their form or racing style.

Vanendert's time on Plateau de Beille was more than 2 minutes slower than Contador on Plateau de Beille in 2007. Puts things into perspective. I'm sure that if the race explodes in the Alpes Vanendert won't be able to follow anymore.

Vanendert never got to test him self in the big mountains because of his many injuries until this season. You say he sucked at DL and that he shouldn't have sucked there if he's capable of this. Well well, what about Samu Sanchez then? It's perfectly possible to suck at DL and be good at Tour.

I'm not seeing Sella stuff, I'm seeing idiotic racing from the favorites.

 

[hrotha]

Samu was 17th... There's sucking, and then there's coming in the autobus. Samu also did well in the Tour of the Basque Country, unlike Vanendert. I've also never said Samu is clean. You're repeating yourself in the rest of your post.

 

[El Pistolero]

Samu was 17th... There's sucking, and then there's coming in the autobus. Samu also did well in the Tour of the Basque Country, unlike Vanendert. I've also never said Samu is clean. You're repeating yourself in the rest of your post.

Samu wasn't a domestique in DL like Vanendert

Tour of Basque country hardly had mountains this year, all big bad hills. And according to you Vanendert should be good on hills

I bet Paris-Nice was a good indication for Martin's climbing talents. I just don't see the difference with any other climber here. You're just speculating Vanendert is taking more risks than other climbers in this Tour.

 

[hrotha]

Seriously, stop moving your frickin' goalposts already. You said Samu sucked, comparing his performance to Vandendert's, I countered by saying Samu didn't suck, and now you claim the two can't be compared (!). As for Basque Country, I only brought up Arrate, which is more of a proper MTF:
http://www.altimetrias.net/aspbk/verPuerto.asp?id=302
Vanendert was 128th there.

Note he did reasonably well (23rd) in the more puncheur-friendly 1st stage.

 

[Bala Verde]

Ah, so you're saying he only started doping in the Tour

He got the VDB2 stash that was now just lying around, sitting there, staring at him

For the ones that are interested in his results, here is his palmares on 'de wielersite'

Jelle Vanendert

and here is a description of some of his pretty serious injuries in the past:

Vanendert's career and his dutch dutch wiki entry

2007 First year pro Chocolade Jacques/Topsport Vlaanderen
2008 FDJ / Early on hernia problems diagnosed
2008 FDJ / Dauphine Libere (Early June) - Col de Lucheron; season ending crash --> broken pelvis
2009 Silence Lotto / a number of smaller injuries prevented him from peaking
2010 Omega Pharma / Ruta del Sol (mid Feb) - crash --> knee is missing cartilage on the outside; people feared it would be a career ender; a wrong diagnoses led initially to wrong treatment, but after a long rehab, he could start the Vuelta (20 Aug- 10 Sept). Unfortunately, his knee still caused him problems and he had to drop out. He also didn't do the Worlds (around 19-25 Sept each year)
2011 Omega Pharma / pain free start of the season

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

I'm sure that if the race explodes in the Alpes Vanendert won't be able to follow anymore.

How can you be sure?

 

[El Pistolero]

Seriously, stop moving your frickin' goalposts already. You said Samu sucked, comparing his performance to Vandendert's, I countered by saying Samu didn't suck, and now you claim the two can't be compared (!). As for Basque Country, I only brought up Arrate, which is more of a proper MTF:
http://www.altimetrias.net/aspbk/verPuerto.asp?id=302
Vanendert was 128th there.

Note he did reasonably well (23rd) in the more puncheur-friendly 1st stage.

17th in Dauphiné is a bad performance for someone like Samu. Results say nothing, Vanendert was a domestique and not riding for GC. A lot of people suck pre-Tour.

Vanendert was never allowed to go for him self before this. How can you not understand that? A lot of people here didn't know who Vanendert was before his second place at Luz Ardiden, yet he made it to the final in every single Ardennes classics. As that was his main goal of the season, to help Phil there. Not to do good in the Basque Country or to set the Dauphiné on fire. His U23 results seemed to suggest he was more than just a hilly classics specialist. The only reason why he broke through so late was because of his many injuries up until now. Dauphiné or Suisse are not some indication of being a climber or not. Otherwise Andy Schleck got outclimbed by Thomas de Gendt. It's pretty normal these days to suck in those stage races. And unlike guys like Di Luca and Valverde, he has the natural build of a climber.

 

[Bala Verde]

Another argument could be that he hasn't raced properly at the highest level for 3 years straight, but now, in 2011, for the first time uninjured, he climbs with the top 10 of the world. So he was forced to skip last years worlds in Sept 2010, since he was apparently somewhat affected by his knee, and 5-10 months later he has great form and is as good as, or better than, people whose development was not stalled for 3 years.

If the mantra is that racing makes one a better rider (based on the assumption that no one can train as hard as one can race), especially in arguably the formative years (early-mid twenties?) of ones career, than he has not been racing for 3 years, while he is now one of the best climbers in the race.

Is it possible to say that he is as good or better than a very talented Uran, who already has 3 full GTs under the belt? Uran's first time in a GT, the Tdf in 2009, he didn't come close to a good placing (1x15th in the stage to Bourg St Maurice) as a domestique nor as a talent. His second time in a GT (Giro 2010) neither (1x7th in the ITT Plan Corones). In this year's tour, he seems very capable when the gradients go up, but he is hardly out-climbing anyone.

In terms of physiology, Vanendert does look similar to someone like Andy Schleck, in terms of weight and height, and someone else said recently that his ITT is pretty bad too. Does anyone know why he wasn't picked up, being such a talent, by more elite/established team in 2007, when he went to topsport Vlaanderen?

Anyway, it's always difficult to compare riders or analyze career development; some are good early, others late in their careers; some riders look like they have similar qualities, but they don't. I hope he isn't as fragile as the last 3 years have shown to be, because when he is on steam there are few who can stop him.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

This is getting ridiculous. It's like arguing rich people are automatically thiefs.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Just to say; the Basque country is mountainous, but there's little in the way of high mountains like the Pyrenées further east or the Alps (differing definitions of what constitutes the Basque country notwithstanding, of course, so I'll restrict myself to the subdivision of spain called País Vasco, and leave Nafarroa, Zuberoa and Lapurdi for another day). A tempo-climber, for example, may struggle to match accelerations in a race like País Vasco but come into their own on much longer climbs - especially given the steep and often hugely inconsistent gradients of many Basque climbs.

Obviously hrotha will know much more about the subject than me, but I think that Urkiola is about the nearest thing to a Tour climb in País Vasco itself.

 

[function]

and here is a description of some of his pretty serious injuries in the past:

2007 First year pro Chocolade Jacques/Topsport Vlaanderen
2008 FDJ / Early on hernia problems diagnosed
2008 FDJ / Dauphine Libere (Early June) - Col de Lucheron; season ending crash --> broken pelvis
2009 Silence Lotto / a number of smaller injuries prevented him from peaking
2010 Omega Pharma / Ruta del Sol (mid Feb) - crash --> knee is missing cartilage on the outside; people feared it would be a career ender; a wrong diagnoses led initially to wrong treatment, but after a long rehab, he could start the Vuelta (20 Aug- 10 Sept). Unfortunately, his knee still caused him problems and he had to drop out. He also didn't do the Worlds (around 19-25 Sept each year)
2011 Omega Pharma / pain free start of the season

Wow, only on the internet are you expected to perform at your best year to year with those kinds of injuries.

 

[craig1985]

Surely if all the favourites didn't lol about the other day when Vanendert attacked, he wouldn't have had much chance of being able to attack and get away. It reminds me of De Clerq's stage win at the Giro where the GC-favourites decided to lol about and when they bothered to race Scarponi almost won (if the finish line had been an extra 10 or 20m further).

Did Vandendert have a dubious reputation (ie being a big time charger) before he turned pro, in the same way that JVDB, Terpstra, and Hoogerland were before they turned pro? It wouldn't surprise me if vanden Broeck was busted, there are rumours/allegations of him being a charger as an amateur and he turned professional for The Hog. If Vandendert is still climbing with the best come the end of the Tour, then I think some questions will need to be asked.

 

[blackcat]

Samu wasn't a domestique in DL like Vanendert

Tour of Basque country hardly had mountains this year, all big bad hills. And according to you Vanendert should be good on hills

I bet Paris-Nice was a good indication for Martin's climbing talents. I just don't see the difference with any other climber here. You're just speculating Vanendert is taking more risks than other climbers in this Tour.

I remember Jelle Vanendert on Chocolade Jacques did well in the Spring classics about 5 years back.

I thought it was a doyenne like Liege, but seems my memory aint that good. http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/la-fleche-wallonne-2007/results

13th in Fleche, in 07. I thought it was on autobus.cyclingnews not the new forum, or did the techies integrate it?

I followed him on FDJ the following years but he went nowhere there.

So how old was he then? 22? Give or take a year. He had talent then. Dont think Gerrans nor Lloyd were ahead of him, or Hesjedal, or the other Algophones who have won GT stages in the following years.

 

[luckyboy]

Josè Ibarguren was team doctor for Lampre when Raimondas Rumšas came 3rd in the Tour.

Josè Ibarguren was a team doctor for Saunier Duval when Riccò and Piepoli finished 1-2 on Tre Cime Lavaredo, when Simoni and Piepoli finished 1-2 on Zoncolan, when men in yellow charged up mountains in the 2008 Tour like they weren't there, when Cobo and Piepoli TTT'd away from Fränk Schleck on Hautacam to finish 1-2.

Josè Ibarguren is a team doctor when Gilbert is dominating every hilly race he enters and Jelle Vanendert is putting in the most impressive climbing performance of the Tour. When the perennial Lotto lanterne rouge Vansevenant has suddenly started doping after his retirement.

Pity Van Den Broeck crashed out or we could've seen a few more 1-2s already.

 

[blackcat]

Josè Ibarguren was team doctor for Lampre when Raimondas Rumšas came 3rd in the Tour.

Josè Ibarguren was a team doctor for Saunier Duval when Riccò and Piepoli finished 1-2 on Tre Cime Lavaredo, when Simoni and Piepoli finished 1-2 on Zoncolan, when men in yellow charged up mountains in the 2008 Tour like they weren't there, when Cobo and Piepoli TTT'd away from Fränk Schleck on Hautacam to finish 1-2.

Josè Ibarguren is a team doctor when Gilbert is dominating every hilly race he enters and Jelle Vanendert is putting in the most impressive climbing performance of the Tour. When the perennial Lotto lanterne rouge Vansevenant has suddenly started doping after his retirement.

Pity Van Den Broeck crashed out or we could've seen a few more 1-2s already.

FALSE

D!CK

LOBOTOMY


this premise of "are <hint hint, cough cough> they doping?" is a false dichtomy, because they achieve results, ergo, doping.

hint, who is "they"?

are you they?
are they they?
who is they?
They are ALL

 

[L'arriviste]

Josè Ibarguren was team doctor for Lampre when Raimondas Rumšas came 3rd in the Tour.

Josè Ibarguren was a team doctor for Saunier Duval when Riccò and Piepoli finished 1-2 on Tre Cime Lavaredo, when Simoni and Piepoli finished 1-2 on Zoncolan, when men in yellow charged up mountains in the 2008 Tour like they weren't there, when Cobo and Piepoli TTT'd away from Fränk Schleck on Hautacam to finish 1-2.

Josè Ibarguren is a team doctor when Gilbert is dominating every hilly race he enters and Jelle Vanendert is putting in the most impressive climbing performance of the Tour. When the perennial Lotto lanterne rouge Vansevenant has suddenly started doping after his retirement.

Pity Van Den Broeck crashed out or we could've seen a few more 1-2s already.

A few observations on the medical team at Lotto:

1. If Ibarguren is indeed getting busy with the fizzy, it must have taken Lotto a while to get a return on its investment. He joined Lotto in April 2010 when the team was doing appallingly - it seemed to have taken Gilbert's Amstel win to wake them up from their stupor - and we didn't see better results until later in the season, starting with Lloyd at the Giro. Even so, 2010 was a lean year.

2. Team doctors don't tend to find enough work at a team to constitute a full-time job so they usually act in a consultative capacity. Jan Mathieu is still usually the only one of the three Lotto doctors who talks to the media. Both Mathieu and the other doc Els Lemmens still maintain a private practice in Belgium, whilst Ibarguren's "other" activities are of course completely unknown.

3. Just in case anyone missed it, Ibarguren was called in by CONI along with Ballan a few weeks ago to answer questions about his time at Lampre (the Mantova-Nigrelli investigation).

4. Daniel De Neve (he of the AltiTrainer) retired from Lotto at the end of 2009 and negotiations with Ibarguren began. If Ibarguren didn't join Lotto until April 2010, then the team's winter preparation could have suffered. As we know, outside of Gilbert, Lotto did zilch in early 2010.

 

[roundabout]

Thinking about it more the Dauphine performance is quite curious. Let's break it down into digestable parts.

Vanendert was a domestique. Seems reasonable enough. The interesting part is that he performed better in the early part of the race than in the final two stages. He finished top 30 on both 2nd category climb finishes and finished quite high in the uphill sprint in Lyon.

The question now becomes whether he had more freedom to ride for himself at least in the early part of the Dauphine to ensure a selection.

On the subject of Tour selection. OLO isn't exactly loaded with climbers and Bakelants and de Greef both did the Giro and the Tour de Suisse. As Dauphine and the Tour de Suisse overlap it's quite reasonable to believe that OLO management had already known who are shortlisted for the Tour before deciding on the Dauphine squad.

Knowing the outline of the team before the Tour doesn't necessarily mean that they thought that Vanendert was expected to be this strong. I believe it's been mentioned that the Dauphine performance was the reason why Vanendert was selected. But going back to my point about the relative lack of climbers it's quite possible that he simply had to outperform someone like Pujol who has been awful this year.

Ok, assuming that Vanendert impressed the managment sufficiently with good rides in the first 6 days what could be the reason for him being basically terrible in the last 2. Domestique work has been mentioned but what exactly? VDB wasn't the leader and he didn't need to set the pace at any point and I don't believe that he did. I also of the opinion that Sky riders who actually had to work finished higher.

With lack of better information I'm going to take a guess that even in his role as a helper he couldn't really go much faster at that point.

 

[roundabout]

A few observations on the medical team at Lotto:

1. If Ibarguren is indeed getting busy with the fizzy, it must have taken Lotto a while to get a return on its investment. He joined Lotto in April 2010 when the team was doing appallingly - it seemed to have taken Gilbert's Amstel win to wake them up from their stupor - and we didn't see better results until later in the season, starting with Lloyd at the Giro. Even so, 2010 was a lean year.

Effect of Gilbert's personal soigneur slash dope supplier moving to BMC?

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

It wouldn't surprise me if vanden Broeck was busted, there are rumours/allegations of him being a charger as an amateur and he turned professional for The Hog.

Oh noes! There are unsubstantiated rumors about a random cyclist doping from way back when! lol

So it wouldn't surprise you if 99% of the peleton was busted then?

 

[craig1985]

Well no because I take note of those who have a reputation for being a charger in the past or they don't. I think there has to be some truth behind the allegations, you know where this smoke there's usually fire. I have a hard time believing somebody just made up the rumours of what Johnny Hoogerland was meant to have got up to before he turned professional just for the hell of out.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Well no because I take note of those who have a reputation for being a charger in the past or they don't. I think there has to be some truth behind the allegations, you know where this smoke there's usually fire. I have a hard time believing somebody just made up the rumours of what Johnny Hoogerland was meant to have got up to before he turned professional just for the hell of out.

Again: reputation based on what? Hearsay? His long streak of victories? His lightning attacks?

His most unsuspected achievement was his 7th = 6th place in the Giro 3 years ago. The same Giro Sella was busted and Ricco slipped through the maze to be busted later on.

But do enlighten me with this insider info you are apparently sitting on.