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Julian Alaphilippe

Page 11 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

How Alien is Julian Alaphilippe?

  • Contador/Nibali (almost plausible)

    Votes: 45 34.9%
  • Geraint Thomas (pushing it)

    Votes: 35 27.1%
  • Armstrong/Froome (over the top)

    Votes: 18 14.0%
  • Chris Horner (glows in the dark)

    Votes: 24 18.6%
  • Vino

    Votes: 7 5.4%

  • Total voters
    129
Re: Re:

Põhja Konn said:
Hayabusa said:
Salvarani said:
Hayabusa said:
Salvarani said:
Didnt expect anything less than that response to my post. Just wanted to say it. You stay miserable.

Why would I be miserable? As an Ineos fan, I just saw another TDF victory (not that I think Ineos are perfectly clean).

I think that you just need to accept that sometimes people have a different opinion to you, that doesn't mean that they're evil or that they are 'miserable'. That's the point of a forum.

Ineos fan.

Calling Ala cheat.

Okay buddy. You got it.

The last bastion of a man with no argument is to resort to childish comments.

Calling out blatant hypocrisy is hardly a childish thing.

How is it hypocrisy when he admits that he doesn’t think Ineos are clean?

Many Sky/Ineos fans, like many fans of all teams accept their hero’s are probably doping, but that’s just the reality of being a cycling fan.

More than most, Ineos fans listen to constant doping talk centred on the team, so when another rider starts alarm bells ringing why is it hypocrisy to join in the debate?

If the OP was insisting Ineos were clean, then calling out JA for doping that would be hypocrisy....but they’re not.
 
Re: Re:

roundabout said:
Salvarani said:
Ala is human.

So maybe some of yall can backtrack some of yall comments in the last two weeks.

So which is the 'human' level, this or the Tourmalet?

Good question...regardless of what happened today we’ve still seen him morph from a guy who consistently struggled on any climbs of significant length, to one able to hang with the very best climbers in the race, when lots of established climbers and super domestiques were getting shelled out of the back much earlier in proceedings.

That he cracked eventually just shows that even the best doping programs have their limitations on just how far above any individuals baseline they can continue to sustain improvement
 
Re: Re:

Põhja Konn said:
Hayabusa said:
Salvarani said:
Hayabusa said:
Salvarani said:
Didnt expect anything less than that response to my post. Just wanted to say it. You stay miserable.

Why would I be miserable? As an Ineos fan, I just saw another TDF victory (not that I think Ineos are perfectly clean).

I think that you just need to accept that sometimes people have a different opinion to you, that doesn't mean that they're evil or that they are 'miserable'. That's the point of a forum.

Ineos fan.

Calling Ala cheat.

Okay buddy. You got it.

The last bastion of a man with no argument is to resort to childish comments.

Calling out blatant hypocrisy is hardly a childish thing.

Apart from the fact I stated that I didnt think Ineos were clean, nor have ever claimed it. Try reading a post next time okay?

Honestly...
 
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Re: Re:

macbindle said:
I take it back.

He may well still be unclean, but if he is then so are all the top guys. Actually, I dont care, he has ripped the race up and delivered the bulk of the excitement. The guy has balls of plutonium, unlike cry baby Pinot-the false Great French hope.

It will be amazing to see if JA can improve his GC climbing skills and give Ineos a real challenge.

What a rider.

Please, please tell me this is sarcasm. Amazing as JA and Bernal were, Pinot was the rider of the race, on a number of levels, and we were robbed of the grandstand finish this Tour deserved both by his injury and the bad weather. I suspect Bernal would have beaten him, but it would have been a hell of a fight.
 
Re: Re:

red_flanders said:
Cookster15 said:
F_Cance said:
Also why does everyone assume that Voeckler was clean back then?

Because not enough people were screaming back then. All these threads about Contador, Sky and even Cadel, but little Tommy Voeckler was tickled with a feather. The darling of France. The height of lunacy was his ride on the Galibier MTF stage. Even Contador was dropped.

Mind you I have never seen a rider suffer worse than that day. Looked like he was going to have a cardiac arrest hanging onto his soigneur after the finish. I really doubt JA suffered that badly. Doped or not it was really quite impressive.

"Everyone" did not assume Voekler to be clean, and plenty of people were calling him out. This line of discussion is revisionism. Regarding suffering, Voekler hammed it up for the cameras every day. I found his antics loathsome, as did many riders of the time.
Correct. I remember everyone placing question marks behind the entire Europcar team in 2011. Their performance in the last two mountain stages of that Tour was completely ridiculous.
 
Re: Re:

Red Rick said:
Cookster15 said:
Red Rick said:
Still more believable than Froome

Please explain? 2011 is a long time ago.


Froome was bang average at best at like 2 things, garbage at the others, then proceeded to become a world beater overnight at just about everything.

Lol! Kinda like Wonderboy? Finishes 36th(his best finish in the Tour pre doping), then "suddenly" rattles off 7 wins in a row and many here ball washed him, lapped it all up & believed EVERY word out of Saint Lance Of Armstrong's maw & didn't think something was up? Lol.
 
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Re: Re:

Red Rick said:
Cookster15 said:
Red Rick said:
Still more believable than Froome

Please explain? 2011 is a long time ago.
Alaphilippe has actually done decent ITTs before and was already world class in another specialisation.

Froome was bang average at best at like 2 things, garbage at the others, then proceeded to become a world beater overnight at just about everything.

If i remember the original Walsh froome narrative correctly- Froome was always great at climbing and time trialing he always just finished very low on mountain stages because he was awful at descending. Even on stages where there was no descent.

Also he was very stupid and always rode every stage of every race with his head into the wind like a time trial. Sky's cycling geniuses explained to him to conserve his enemies and ride behind teammates
 
Re: Re:

Scarponi said:
DanielSong39 said:
He performed like a clean rider today
Why cant you be doped to the gills and not be good enough?


Not sure if this is sarcasm, or real but, if you were "good enough" or even good w/o it, you wouldn't need to dope.

That just shows people you're not good enough to win w/o cheating/doping in todays current climate, happened to be around Big Miggys time frame and perhaps a few years sooner.

Harsh reality mind you, but true nonetheless.
 
Re: Re:

86TDFWinner said:
Scarponi said:
DanielSong39 said:
He performed like a clean rider today
Why cant you be doped to the gills and not be good enough?


Not sure if this is sarcasm, or real but, if you were "good enough" or even good w/o it, you wouldn't need to dope.

That just shows people you're not good enough to win w/o cheating/doping in todays current climate, happened to be around Big Miggys time frame and perhaps a few years sooner.

Harsh reality mind you, but true nonetheless.
There isn't sarcasm. Of course if you were good enough without it, you wouldn't need to dope. But some people aren't good enough even with dope. Doping isn't a magic button that you press and then win, as the number of convicted dopers like Thomas Frei, Steve Houanard, Luca Benedetti, Alberto Gallego, Manuel Sola and Phil Zajicek can show you. Some people dope, and just don't do it as well, or simply don't have the capacity, or something else just isn't in line. And yes, some people will be doping, and then stop - Bernhard Kohl admitted to flushing his final blood bag after being told to tone it down, for example. Doing badly is not automatically a sign of being clean, just as doing well is not automatically a sign of being dirty, as well-reputed riders like David Moncoutié and Pierrick Fédrigo managed some decent careers for themselves, for example.
 
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Re: Re:

red_flanders said:
F_Cance said:
Unbelievable that he did not crack completely

He lost minutes on a single long climb on a sub-40 mile long stage. Not sure what's unbelievable about that.

Cookster15 said:
F_Cance said:
Also why does everyone assume that Voeckler was clean back then?

Because not enough people were screaming back then. All these threads about Contador, Sky and even Cadel, but little Tommy Voeckler was tickled with a feather. The darling of France. The height of lunacy was his ride on the Galibier MTF stage. Even Contador was dropped.

Mind you I have never seen a rider suffer worse than that day. Looked like he was going to have a cardiac arrest hanging onto his soigneur after the finish. I really doubt JA suffered that badly. Doped or not it was really quite impressive.

"Everyone" did not assume Voekler to be clean, and plenty of people were calling him out. This line of discussion is revisionism. Regarding suffering, Voekler hammed it up for the cameras every day. I found his antics loathsome, as did many riders of the time.

Yes, I found the thread, here it is. Pretty funny reading it today. I still think he was glossed over. Maybe because it was only obvious for one race?

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=14525&p=605002&hilit=Voeckler+doping#p605002

Now that I read this yes I can see Alaphillipe is way more believable than little Tommy was that Tour. Yes, I am also sure he hammed it up for the cameras. But I did see his chest heaving so not sure you can fake that. Back then it wasn't just Voekler but his domestiques that jumped two levels :lol:
 
Re: Re:

Cookster15 said:
red_flanders said:
F_Cance said:
Unbelievable that he did not crack completely

He lost minutes on a single long climb on a sub-40 mile long stage. Not sure what's unbelievable about that.

Cookster15 said:
F_Cance said:
Also why does everyone assume that Voeckler was clean back then?

Because not enough people were screaming back then. All these threads about Contador, Sky and even Cadel, but little Tommy Voeckler was tickled with a feather. The darling of France. The height of lunacy was his ride on the Galibier MTF stage. Even Contador was dropped.

Mind you I have never seen a rider suffer worse than that day. Looked like he was going to have a cardiac arrest hanging onto his soigneur after the finish. I really doubt JA suffered that badly. Doped or not it was really quite impressive.

"Everyone" did not assume Voekler to be clean, and plenty of people were calling him out. This line of discussion is revisionism. Regarding suffering, Voekler hammed it up for the cameras every day. I found his antics loathsome, as did many riders of the time.

Yes, I found the thread, here it is. Pretty funny reading it today. I still think he was glossed over. Maybe because it was only obvious for one race?

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=14525&p=605002&hilit=Voeckler+doping#p605002

Now that I read this yes I can see Alaphillipe is way more believable than little Tommy was that Tour. Yes, I am also sure he hammed it up for the cameras. But I did see his chest heaving so not sure you can fake that. Back then it wasn't just Voekler but his domestiques that jumped two levels :lol:

Yes, the entire team was clearly on another level. Not sure how one could read even the first page of that 27 (by my settings) page thread and claim "...he was glossed over". He's almost unanimously crucified in that thread for his seemingly obvious doping. Except for one self-acknowledged troll, may he RIP.

The point is that the question "Why does everyone assume Voekler was clean back then" suffers from a demonstrably false premise. Was he the darling of France at the time? Yes. Nearly as much as AP was this year, but AP actually has some talent and results, so he was even more the darling. But Voekler wasn't assumed to be clean by most observers, at least no more than any other doper.
 
If they are farther apart than 1st cousins I don't see the age difference is unconventional. Then again there are two brothers (both now retired) who raced in NASCAR with a 16 year age difference. I have a good friend who is 12 years older than her youngest sister, so large age differences between cousins is entirely possible. Now if they were brothers then it would be a lot more unconventional. :)

It does appear from the information currently available that Marion didn't have a close association with them.
 
And all of that is moot anyway, if she got busted for r-EPO, which is likely the case.

Not just "likely"--that's what the EPO test measures, a synthetic version. And in urine, not in plasma, though either could be tested.

I'm astonished that in 2019, nearly two decades after the EPO test was devised, a pro cyclist doesn't know this. It makes me more inclined to believe that she did this on her own, because if someone like the older Ala was helping her dope, he surely would have known this.

Then again, when LA was interviewed by Larry King following the 2005 TDF, after the news broke about the old 1999 samples testing positive for EPO, he professed not to know whether it was blood or urine that was tested. I couldn't believe it. It boggles the mind that someone could be into such heavy, sophisticated doping and not know something like that. Maybe he was pretending to be naive, I don't know.
 
Marion is a smooth operator, because the day of that above video interview (June 27), where she is talking about being satisfied with 10th place in the time-trial... was the very same day of the control sample which later tested positive. So on that day, Marion was totally chill in attitude, on camera, yet apparently 'glowing' on EPO. The results of her 'B' Sample haven't been announced yet tho
Now that she has she'll have to find a chimera twin that is guilty of the EPO use....chemically discernable from natural production.

On a positively painful note: Alaphillipe looked like most anyone would after the World's punishment. Cold enough to cry but too f*cking tired. That looked like a good reason to stay amateur and avoid those events.
 
Re: Re:



Good question...regardless of what happened today we’ve still seen him morph from a guy who consistently struggled on any climbs of significant length, to one able to hang with the very best climbers in the race, when lots of established climbers and super domestiques were getting shelled out of the back much earlier in proceedings.

That he cracked eventually just shows that even the best doping programs have their limitations on just how far above any individuals baseline they can continue to sustain improvement
He's been a good climber below super-high altitude for awhile. He put on a clinic in his first Tour of California in terms of sustained effort. He could improve from that performance years ago whether clean or not.
The real tell-tale is when the riders get uber-skinny, can climb and suddenly can time trial. You can't get power and climbing ability suddenly. No way.
 
He's been a good climber below super-high altitude for awhile. He put on a clinic in his first Tour of California in terms of sustained effort. He could improve from that performance years ago whether clean or not.
The real tell-tale is when the riders get uber-skinny, can climb and suddenly can time trial. You can't get power and climbing ability suddenly. No way.
Well Alaphilippe suddenly can climb with the best in high mountains, and can suddenly beat the whole field in a time trial. So you go figure.
 
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