Julian Alaphilippe

[meat puppet]

But is JA sick enough to pull this off though? The past seven years we have known an exotic disease and/or horse steroids are a must.

 

[macbindle]

:lol:

 

[Salvarani]

He has been one of the best riders in the world for the past 2 years. Especially this year. He is still young and developing. He has won one-week stage races and been high on GC in a number of them. There is always a first time for winning anything. I find it very plausible. Lets see if he actually makes it to Paris in yellow.

 

[F_Cance]

Re:

He has been one of the best riders in the world for the past 2 years. Especially this year. He is still young and developing. He has won one-week stage races and been high on GC in a number of them. There is always a first time for winning anything. I find it very plausible. Lets see if he actually makes it to Paris in yellow.

Plausible? He never could climb with the GC guys on +25 minutes climbs. Now all of sudden he can and was the best yesterday (can't deny that he let Pinot win). This is far from plausible. Also he wasn't good enough to win one week races apart from 2 races with a weak startlist (Slovenska 2018 and ToC in 2016), because he always cracked on the 6th or 7th day. Now he can go 14 days all out and also help the sprint train, while every other GC rider took a day off on the sprint stages.

"Plausible" :lol:

 

[SafeBet]

I always thought Alaphilippe biggest issue in stage races was recovery, not climbing. Some of his performances in the high mountains were world class even before this year, but he would never be able to sustain that kind of effort for a whole week, let alone a GT. The consistency he's been showing so far is far from plausible. Add his absolutely unbelievable TT ride. Alien is the most accurate word I can think of.

 

[saganftw]

you can talk yourself into believing all these performances as isolated incidents, its when you start to string them together a doped perfomance is only conclusion, this is beyond valverde levels who is legendary for challenging from march to october without huge drop of form plus winning classics plus TT plus second on hors cat climb while a lot of GT specialists and climbers suffer, if he can add a 3week endurance into his portfolio...i mean cmon, connect 2+2

 

[Salvarani]

Re: Re:

He has been one of the best riders in the world for the past 2 years. Especially this year. He is still young and developing. He has won one-week stage races and been high on GC in a number of them. There is always a first time for winning anything. I find it very plausible. Lets see if he actually makes it to Paris in yellow.

Plausible? He never could climb with the GC guys on +25 minutes climbs. Now all of sudden he can and was the best yesterday (can't deny that he let Pinot win). This is far from plausible. Also he wasn't good enough to win one week races apart from 2 races with a weak startlist (Slovenska 2018 and ToC in 2016), because he always cracked on the 6th or 7th day. Now he can go 14 days all out and also help the sprint train, while every other GC rider took a day off on the sprint stages.

"Plausible" :lol:

Maybe he hasnt gone all out to really try to hang with GC guys before. There is a first time for everything. With his abiltiies and palmares. What is so hard to believe that he could be capable? Lesser riders and surprises has happened. And it is still a long way to Paris. So lets see.

At this rate you would have to show you might be able to win a GT when you are 15. This a rider that has won big races. He doesnt come from nowhere.

Where are you finding all these every day going at it? No he hasnt. 4-5 stages, so far, that I count where an effort was put in. Like everybody else had to do on those days too.

And get your smug tone outta here and don’t quote me again.

If he is doped. Then so be it. Hopefully he will get caught if thats the case.

 

[No_Balls]

Re: Re:

He has been one of the best riders in the world for the past 2 years. Especially this year. He is still young and developing. He has won one-week stage races and been high on GC in a number of them. There is always a first time for winning anything. I find it very plausible. Lets see if he actually makes it to Paris in yellow.

Plausible? He never could climb with the GC guys on +25 minutes climbs. Now all of sudden he can and was the best yesterday (can't deny that he let Pinot win). This is far from plausible. Also he wasn't good enough to win one week races apart from 2 races with a weak startlist (Slovenska 2018 and ToC in 2016), because he always cracked on the 6th or 7th day. Now he can go 14 days all out and also help the sprint train, while every other GC rider took a day off on the sprint stages.

"Plausible" :lol:

We’ve already seen the excuse of ”weak field” so the excuses for this sudden transformation to another best GT-climber/sprinter/puncheurs/TT rider of all time is nearly complete.

 

[F_Cance]

Re: Re:

He has been one of the best riders in the world for the past 2 years. Especially this year. He is still young and developing. He has won one-week stage races and been high on GC in a number of them. There is always a first time for winning anything. I find it very plausible. Lets see if he actually makes it to Paris in yellow.

Plausible? He never could climb with the GC guys on +25 minutes climbs. Now all of sudden he can and was the best yesterday (can't deny that he let Pinot win). This is far from plausible. Also he wasn't good enough to win one week races apart from 2 races with a weak startlist (Slovenska 2018 and ToC in 2016), because he always cracked on the 6th or 7th day. Now he can go 14 days all out and also help the sprint train, while every other GC rider took a day off on the sprint stages.

"Plausible" :lol:

Maybe he hasnt gone all out to really try to hang with GC guys before. There is a first time for everything. With his abiltiies and palmares. What is so hard to believe that he could be capable? Lesser riders and surprises has happened. And it is still a long way to Paris. So lets see.

At this rate you would have to show you might be able to win a GT when you are 15. This a rider that has won big races. He doesnt come from nowhere.

Where are you finding all these every day going at it? No he hasnt. 4-5 stages, so far, that I count where an effort was put in. Like everybody else had to do on those days too.

And get your smug tone outta here and don’t quote me again.

If he is doped. Then so be it. Hopefully he will get caught if thats the case.

This does not happen suddenly. If he progresses his GC abilities over 2-3 years it may have been believable, but not the way it is happening right now. "He just never tried" and now he is one of the best at it. Sure. So plausible. The similarities to a former good one day racer are alarming.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Re: Re:

27. The age where rock stars die, and cyclists are re-born

 

[spalco]

Unless i missed something, the only two guys who ever won msr and the tour in the same year are Merckx and Coppi. Weird combination of races and maybe means nothing, but then maybe does hint at how unlikely it is.

(Others have won both in different years, all of them also legends obviously; last one was Fignon)

 

[proffate]

Re: Re:

(can't deny that he let Pinot win)

watch me...

 

[Pantani Attacks]

The Voeckler 2011 story continues.

 

[Hayabusa]

Signs that his drugs are starting to wear out but he will just load up on the rest day.

 

[Danskebjerge]

Re:

Signs that his drugs are starting to wear out but he will just load up on the rest day.

Yeah, the rest day - why are people no longer talking as much about the rest days as they used to. Many interesting things are known to have happened there.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re:

Unless i missed something, the only two guys who ever won msr and the tour in the same year are Merckx and Coppi. Weird combination of races and maybe means nothing, but then maybe does hint at how unlikely it is.

(Others have won both in different years, all of them also legends obviously; last one was Fignon)

Nibs?

 

[Cookster15]

Regarding rest days, yes this is curious. Especially as the passport relies on blood profile changes over many weeks or even years (as we saw with Cobo). So a sudden spike in a rest day from a blood bag should not be difficult to keep under the radar with good doctors? After today I think the alien has returned to the spaceship but lets wait and see what shows up on Thursday and Friday.

 

[spalco]

Re:

Signs that his drugs are starting to wear out but he will just load up on the rest day.

A bag and a little juice can't hurt tomorrow I suppose, yeah.

Nibs?

Yup, sorry, forgot.

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

Hate Ineous all you like but this isn't how to counter them. Pinot would have been more plausible. This is simply embarrassing for the sport. Glowing in the dark for sure. This guy couldn't even hold Bardet or Pinot's wheel in September, let alone Valverde. Now look.

So lets quit all the (bad) attempts to be funny and ask the question again - what is he on??

Now you're worried about the embarrassment to the sport? FFS. What have the last 7 years been?

 

[macbindle]

Mild, by the look of what Alaphilippe is doing

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

Mild, by the look of what Alaphilippe is doing

I've seen enough of your very good and very reasonable posts on the topic to know you don't really believe that. No comparison to the farce of the last 7 years. Nevertheless, the comedy is now Cookster is worried about embarrassing the sport. The level of nationalistic bias is astounding.

Let's wait 'till the Tour is over to fully assess what Alaphillipe has been doing. No matter what he does, he was not an utter chump before this race started–-at least he was a talent of some kind.

 

[macbindle]

Agreed. But I still like my post

 

[masking_agent]

Re:

Regarding rest days, yes this is curious. Especially as the passport relies on blood profile changes over many weeks or even years (as we saw with Cobo). So a sudden spike in a rest day from a blood bag should not be difficult to keep under the radar with good doctors? After today I think the alien has returned to the spaceship but lets wait and see what shows up on Thursday and Friday.

I agree with the blood bag explanation

 

[Cookster15]

Re: Re:

Hate Ineous all you like but this isn't how to counter them. Pinot would have been more plausible. This is simply embarrassing for the sport. Glowing in the dark for sure. This guy couldn't even hold Bardet or Pinot's wheel in September, let alone Valverde. Now look.

So lets quit all the (bad) attempts to be funny and ask the question again - what is he on??

Now you're worried about the embarrassment to the sport? FFS. What have the last 7 years been?

I hope you don't think I'm British? Check my post history. No need to be coarse but yes you are right. I guess I was getting used to it. Along comes a new anomaly. Its been a much better Tour, but not because of JA. At least Skyneos have been consistent for those 7 years. Alaphilippe definitely an outlier. Looks like he's fading though so maybe he dialled back whatever he was on or else three weeks was simply to long to hold that form.

 

[Fergoose]

Yes he faded on the most recent stage, but he was still finishing way beyond expectations despite cracking a little.

At the very least I'm relieved to see him losing sizeable time, not something he would volunteer. I also prefer to see him with a bit of humility now when speaking to reporters rather than saying he is gaining energy from being in yellow (as he was earlier in the tour, prior to aceing a mountainous stage).

It differs from Froome shedding minimal time on stages when the Tour is in the bag (which I feared Alaphillipe would also do to try and make himself look credible (as he did on the Tourmalet I beleive)).