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Jonas Vingegaard: Something is Rotten

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I'm also pretty sure those will be the only two Slovenian GT winners for quite a while. So I mean sure taken at face value there's obviously going to be some head scratching going on regarding the emergence of Rog & Pog, but their stories & path to the top are so different & unique they're not IMO indicative of a systematic Slovenian approach to mass producing cycling champs with a state backed operation (or something similar). Like Roglič with a DIY (do it yourself) path into pro-cycling where he landed in the former Rabobank team which had totally lost its position among the top teams (& it took them years to get it right), whilst Pog became a protégé of Gianetti.

I'm obviously not saying PED's weren't involved, I'm just saying they were once-in-a-lifetime situations which resulted in their rise to the top, i.e. for example both their teams (UAE & Jumbo) subsequently started looking inwards within the usual cycling powerhouses for future prospects & the 'next gen' after the Slovenians are Danish (Vingegaard) & Spanish (Ayuso).

I don't see how another young Slovenian rider is going to make his way to the 'right place at the right time' type of deal anytime soon because they don't exactly have the structure for it. I also think there was a void after Sky quit the sport (with their ultra British Empire stuff going on) & Jumbo & UAE filled the void. Pog & Rog were there at the right time.

Now UAE & Jumbo are the 'Empires' & Jumbo replaced Rog as number one in their team with Vingegaard whilst UAE has Pog racing everything (i.e. not just a focus on the Tour).
As I corrected a population of just 2, not 4 million. Naturally Slovenia doesn't have the infrastructure or the resources to produce a series of riders of their calibre, but it does have foreign scouts looking on that know who isn't being watched and tested so rigorously in the youth ranks. And someone else finds another freak crating fish at the market. You have to know were to look in the woods to find the truffles.
 
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the field at this race was dogshit though. the actual high level climbers, Landa, Mas, Gaudu, Carapaz, all sucked wind for some reason (minus BB's?). the 3rd best rider was Ben O'Connor. i dont know if Vingegaards form is actually any better than it was this time last year. he didn't put as much time into Yates as I would've thought, for instance. but a one week race is right in Yates' wheelhouse too.
 
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It doesn't need to make sense. It didn't make sense when Marie-George Buffet (sports minister in 1998) torpedoed French yellow jersey dreams with Virenque. Some people just get an idea in their heads & want to create some headlines. It's not like France operates as a singular voice on stuff like this either, i.e. a local Préfecture can basically do whatever they want when it comes to a drug bust. I didn't believe for one minute Vayer was responsible for the Bahrain police raids either, i.e. what happens is usually an authority figure somewhere wants a show of force & the Tour becomes a good pretext to do so. Ergo they smack the most obvious target.

he and Thierry Vildary have contacts in France. they have an axe to grind, they are bitter and chauvinists, tehir "investigation" came to nothing, year after year. Vayer and Vildary have an axe to grind with a Bahrain French staff member. his house was visited by the police too. VAyer played a part in the Bahrain hotel bust. yet nothing banned was found. and he's still foaming from the mouth. there no other person in the cycling environment I wish total failure and being forgotten as much as I wish to Vayer/Festinaboy
 
he and Thierry Vildary have contacts in France. they have an axe to grind, they are bitter and chauvinists, tehir "investigation" came to nothing, year after year. Vayer and Vildary have an axe to grind with a Bahrain French staff member. his house was visited by the police too. VAyer played a part in the Bahrain hotel bust. yet nothing banned was found. and he's still foaming from the mouth. there no other person in the cycling environment I wish total failure and being forgotten as much as I wish to Vayer/Festinaboy

Whether Vayer was involved or not is a bit immaterial tbh because I think it's worth remembering there's a history in cycling in which stories of riders who massively dominate the Tour invariably have... a bad ending. For whatever reasons. And this goes way beyond what happened to Bahrain.

Just looking back at the last 30 years, there's not really a multi Tour winner with dominant performances who emerged unscathed. And that's what we're looking at with Vingegaard in the present & coming years, i.e. domination over multiple Tours (judging by his level, his support team & his age).

To be honest I was not convinced the story would end well for Pogacar either after the 2021 Tour (which he nonchalantly sleepwalked) but the emergence of Vingegaard & Jumbo's "2022 revenge Tour" made him look... more human.

So Vingegaard might need his own little défaillance just to remind people he's also human. Right now it looks like he's going to crush the Tour 2023. This in & of itself has its own drawbacks anchored in the history of the sport.
 
Whether Vayer was involved or not is a bit immaterial tbh because I think it's worth remembering there's a history in cycling in which stories of riders who massively dominate the Tour invariably have... a bad ending. For whatever reasons. And this goes way beyond what happened to Bahrain.

Just looking back at the last 30 years, there's not really a multi Tour winner with dominant performances who emerged unscathed. And that's what we're looking at with Vingegaard in the present & coming years, i.e. domination over multiple Tours (judging by his level, his support team & his age).

To be honest I was not convinced the story would end well for Pogacar either after the 2021 Tour (which he nonchalantly sleepwalked) but the emergence of Vingegaard & Jumbo's "2022 revenge Tour" made him look... more human.

So Vingegaard might need his own little défaillance just to remind people he's also human. Right now it looks like he's going to crush the Tour 2023. This in & of itself has its own drawbacks anchored in the history of the sport.
On the other hand, Cycling can't afford to catch another fish that's too big to fail, just as the great financial banking institutions can't go bust each time the markets blow up lest the entire house of cards collapses.

After the Festina Affair, Operazioni Puerto, Armstrong and so forth, I really don't think we'll see this holy generation of immaculate two-wheeled saints getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Vingegaard is the carefully constructed meek husband, who gets emotional over the horrific tragedy of child stabings. Hell, Pog seems like the good grandson everyone wants! No brat punks these lot, like Riccardo Ricco.
 
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On the other hand, Cycling can't afford to catch another fish that's too big to fail, just as the great financial banking institutions can't go bust each time the markets blow up lest the entire house of cards collapses.

After the Festina Affair, Operazioni Puerto, Armstrong and so forth, I really don't think we'll see this holy generation of immaculate two-wheeled saints getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Vingegaard is the carefully constructed meek husband, who gets emotional over the horrific tragedy of child stabings. Hell, Pog seems like the good grandson everyone wants! No brat punks these lot, like Riccardo Ricco.
At some point they/someone might decide enough is enough and catch a bigger rider to send a signal. It's probably not going to be Vingegaard though, but I didn't expect it to happen to Contador either.
 
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the field at this race was dogshit though. the actual high level climbers, Landa, Mas, Gaudu, Carapaz, all sucked wind for some reason (minus BB's?). the 3rd best rider was Ben O'Connor. i dont know if Vingegaards form is actually any better than it was this time last year. he didn't put as much time into Yates as I would've thought, for instance. but a one week race is right in Yates' wheelhouse too.

The quality of climbers was very good, actually. I don't think we need this particular race tells us anything about Vingegaard we didn't know or see before, but that argument that a race has a weak startlist quality because xy was 2nd or 3rd or 4th is usually rather useless if the rest of the startlist is good.
Then it tells us instead that we likely underrate rider xy (Ben O'Connor in this case).
 
Whether Vayer was involved or not is a bit immaterial tbh because I think it's worth remembering there's a history in cycling in which stories of riders who massively dominate the Tour invariably have... a bad ending. For whatever reasons. And this goes way beyond what happened to Bahrain.

Just looking back at the last 30 years, there's not really a multi Tour winner with dominant performances who emerged unscathed. And that's what we're looking at with Vingegaard in the present & coming years, i.e. domination over multiple Tours (judging by his level, his support team & his age).

To be honest I was not convinced the story would end well for Pogacar either after the 2021 Tour (which he nonchalantly sleepwalked) but the emergence of Vingegaard & Jumbo's "2022 revenge Tour" made him look... more human.

So Vingegaard might need his own little défaillance just to remind people he's also human. Right now it looks like he's going to crush the Tour 2023. This in & of itself has its own drawbacks anchored in the history of the sport.
It was just 2 years ago that we were ready to count Pog’s TDF wins on 2 hands. I wouldn’t anoint JV the new Lance just yet.
 
Maybe, but I assume it would still have been possible to acquit him if he had been seen as too big a fish, like they later did with Froome.
It's absolutely uncanny how, in the wake of Contador's debacle, Froome's improbable transformation began to take place. Armstrong had not yet fallen and the cycling establishment got another way to maintain it's growth interests in the english speaking world, first with Wiggins and then Froome. So that by the time the latter should have been popped, there was no way he could fall. For it would have been (after Armstrong's ruination) one devastating image blow too many and meant the end of cycling's premier team, hence its number one global publicity pig. Although Sky did ultimately save face, unsurprisingly Froomegate led to the Murdock sponsorship abandoning ship, to be replaced with Radcliffe's money at Ineos. The hog is still fed. However, now you have a situation in which I doubt any of the golden boys of the latest generation shall be taken down. Cycling and sport in general has reached a point at which the war against doping, if it was ever truly going to be effective, is no longer convenient to anyone. Sponsorship and hence investments would dry up and nobody benefits from that.
 
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Maybe, but I assume it would still have been possible to acquit him if he had been seen as too big a fish, like they later did with Froome.

they tried to. WADA threw the hissy fit

Though in the back of my mind, I've always wondered if the Contador issue was not doping but a motor. He was accused post suspension of using a motor at times. That would have ruined the sport more so than some obscure drug technical violation of the rules that CAS pinned on Contador
 
they tried to. WADA threw the hissy fit

Though in the back of my mind, I've always wondered if the Contador issue was not doping but a motor. He was accused post suspension of using a motor at times. That would have ruined the sport more so than some obscure drug technical violation of the rules that CAS pinned on Contador
I don't recall Contador ever having been accused of motor doping. Cancellara and Hejdal, yes, with clearly Froome's spinning up the Ventoux raising eyebrows, indeed right in the face of a floundering Alberto.
 
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It's absolutely uncanny how, in the wake of Contador's debacle, Froome's improbable transformation began to take place. Armstrong had not yet fallen and the cycling establishment got another way to maintain it's growth interests in the english speaking world, first with Wiggins and then Froome. So that by the time the latter should have been popped, there was no way he could fall. For it would have been (after Armstrong's ruination) one devastating image blow too many and meant the end of cycling's premier team, hence its number one global publicity pig. Although Sky did ultimately save face, unsurprisingly Froomegate led to the Murdock sponsorship abandoning ship, to be replaced with Radcliffe's money at Ineos. The hog is still fed. However, now you have a situation in which I doubt any of the golden boys of the latest generation shall be taken down. Cycling and sport in general has reached a point at which the war against doping, if it was ever truly going to be effective, is no longer convenient to anyone. Sponsorship and hence investments would dry up and nobody benefits from that.
It wasn't really convenient in 2010 either considering there had been some major doping scandals surronding the Tour in both 2006, 2007 and 2008, and I would have understood it if the UCI and ASO wanted Contador to be seen as a clean winner after the way the 2007 Tour ended.

they tried to. WADA threw the hissy fit

Though in the back of my mind, I've always wondered if the Contador issue was not doping but a motor. He was accused post suspension of using a motor at times. That would have ruined the sport more so than some obscure drug technical violation of the rules that CAS pinned on Contador
I would actually find it better if the riders were using mototrs and not potentially risking their own healths with dodgy doping methods, but that is of course a different discussion.
 
It’s been a while since we’ve had a video clip of clear use of a motor. Who was it that had the motor fetish? That was entertaining but it appears we have nobody to hammer the truth about motors into us now. Vingo’s attack a few days ago looked suspect. It wasn’t exactly Froome freewheeling up the Angliru but it didn’t look quite right.
Expose mechanical doping.
We make a difference and have a beautiful impact on many lives.
 
I was watching RAI live coverage at the time and no such declarations were made, let alone the Italian media going nuts for this reason. If anything they were praising Contador for coming back after the crash.

It was after the stage that questions were raised as he changed bikes. I remember laughing at them, thinking they were deflecting for Astana attacking when Contador had a mechanical
 
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For all of a sudden Slovenia has produced not one, but two world beaters, one after the other, with a population of just 2 million.
Much of the cycling talent in the USA comes out of Durango, population 20,000. Turns out when the "cool" sport in HS is mountain biking rather than football or baseball, you can actually find a lot of diamonds. (Although in the case of Durango I think there's also a fair bit of eugenics going on, as outdoors enthusiasts move there and mate.)