Moncoutie

[Benotti69]

<snip>

can you edit your post to attribute the correct quote to me or i will ask the mods to delete it.

 

[patricknd]

can you edit your post to attribute the correct quote to me or i will ask the mods to delete it.

didn't even notice it before. better?

 

[Benotti69]

didn't even notice it before. better?

much, but Bassons book was published in 2001 a whole 5 years before Landis tested positive so to say he was hiding in the corner is complete BS.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Was he really "hiding in a corner"?

 

[patricknd]

Was he really "hiding in a corner"?

i think floyd talking made him a subject again. it's not like bassons was an active, shout it from the roof tops anti-dope crusader, and correct me if i'm wrong but didn't floyd bring him up as a specific example? i think that basically thrust his name back into the collective consciousness. seems to me he's been more of a grass roots level guy, and that's probably a more effective approach. but at the same time, if you feel he should have been calling people out, then yeah, he's not riding a white horse to the rescue. i think in the end it depends on what the individual believes his responsiblity to be, and his feeling on the best way to handle that responsibility.

 

[Benotti69]

i think floyd talking made him a subject again. it's not like bassons was an active, shout it from the roof tops anti-dope crusader, and correct me if i'm wrong but didn't floyd bring him up as a specific example? i think that basically thrust his name back into the collective consciousness. seems to me he's been more of a grass roots level guy, and that's probably a more effective approach. but at the same time, if you feel he should have been calling people out, then yeah, he's not riding a white horse to the rescue. i think in the end it depends on what the individual believes his responsiblity to be, and his feeling on the best way to handle that responsibility.

Bassons was a regular touring schools and universities in his region giving anti doping talks.. If your not a TdF winner that has just been busted who is going to allow you to shout it from the rooftops. The media was in bed with wonderboy hardly anyone else got a look in.

You keep trying to re write the tune to wonderboy but you fail.

there are true cycling fans in here who have followed this sport from a long time ago. you might not believe it but it is true that cycling was not born in 1999. Go research the sport and make some serious debatable posts otherwise go back to the livewrong forum.

 

[patricknd]

Bassons was a regular touring schools and universities in his region giving anti doping talks.. If your not a TdF winner that has just been busted who is going to allow you to shout it from the rooftops. The media was in bed with wonderboy hardly anyone else got a look in.

You keep trying to re write the tune to wonderboy but you fail.

there are true cycling fans in here who have followed this sport from a long time ago. you might not believe it but it is true that cycling was not born in 1999. Go research the sport and make some serious debatable posts otherwise go back to the livewrong forum.

do you have a reading comprehension problem? did you not get that i was disagreeing with glenn?

 

[Granville57]

i think floyd talking made him a subject again. it's not like bassons was an active, shout it from the roof tops anti-dope crusader, and correct me if i'm wrong but didn't floyd bring him up as a specific example? i think that basically thrust his name back into the collective consciousness.

Just for the historical record, it was Kimmage that brought Bassons to Floyd's attention.

Kimmage:
What do you know about Christophe Bassons (The former French rider who was ostracised when he took a stand against doping during Lance Armstrong’s first Tour de France win in 1999)?

Floyd:

It seems to me like he tried to do what I considered as option C as I was thinking this stuff through and figured it was not worth my time, especially in the United States where Lance was now a big superstar and nobody knew who I was. I mean, if I had stood up and said ‘This is what Lance told me, this is what I know about cycling – you need to dope to do it and I don’t want to do it,’ I don’t know if anyone would have listened.


I was more interested in what you knew about Bassons during his time with the Festina team in 1998?

No, I don’t know what he did or didn’t do there.


Bassons was a fantastically gifted rider and raced with Festina at a time when his team-mates were charged to the eyeballs with EPO and the full war chest of drugs. He would sit at the dinner table each night with these guys and they would taunt and mock him because he refused to dope.

Good for him, I like this guy.


What about the strength of character it took to do that?

Oh, I’m impressed because I didn’t do it, and I couldn’t do it.


You couldn’t?

I shouldn’t say couldn’t…I didn’t, good for him, I’m impressed. I don’t know how many guys would do that but there’s not a lot…Again, I hesitate to say anything because it sounds like I’m justifying what I did…so, no, I’m impressed. I don’t know him. I would like to know him though.

 

[function]

Well you are welcome to your opinion, but to me it suggests that you really haven't put very much time and thought into arriving at it.

If it makes you feel better about yourself, sure go ahead and think that.

 

[Sparta]

Sorry if this has been posted before. Its on his wikipedia article from an interview with l'Equipe in 2002 I think.

That season, I won a stage of the Tour du Pays Basque, I came 13th in the Tour of Catalonia and sixth in the Dauphiné Libéré, so I said to myself 'Why not?' I was hoping to end up reasonably high in the general classification. But in the Tour, that's madness. From the Vosges, I realised that the best I could hope for was a stage. I've often heard it said that I could finish in the first five of the Tour de France. It's a dream! Me, I've never believed that. I've always fixed myself realisable objectives that matched my way of riding and my convictions

From my understanding after that tour he gave up trying to place high on GCs. If he was clean which the evidence does point to whatever people say, he certainly had the talent to be a grand tour winner - in the 2002 the 12 finishers in front of him are all pretty much certain dopers apart from maybe Sastre. Such a shame.

 

[Le breton]

Before the TdF 2002, Antoine Vayer and Frédéric Portoleau wrote a little book
"Pouvez-vous gagner le Tour?".

They asked David Moncoutié to write the foreword. Guess why?

In 2002 Moncoutié played the General classification in the TdF.
In the prologue he was 20th, 17sec dowm on L.A.
4h stage TTT, Cofidis 5th, 1:28 behind US Postal (2nd)
9th stage TT 64th (50km) 4:37 down on Botero, 4:26 on L.A.
11th stage Aubisque, La mongie/ 14th/ 1:59 down on L.A.
12th stage Mente, Portet d'Aspet La Core, Port Pl Beille /12th/ 2:47 down on L.A.
14th stage Ventoux 14th 3:26 down on L.A.
15th stage Premol, Grimone, Ornon, 2 Alpes/ 18th/ 22s. ahead of L.A. (breakaway)
16th stage Galibier, Madeleine La Plagne /13th/ 3:39 down on L.A.
17th stage Roselend, Saisies, Aravis, Colombière/ 4th/ 1'41 ahead of L.A.(breakaway)
19th TT (50 km) 21st/ 3:56 down on L.A.

One notices that he did not have any off day. He just lost time in the last climb of the day as expected from a clean rider against juiced up ones.

He took advantage of less difficult mountain stages (15th, 17th) to try and win one stage, no luck.

He performed fairly well on TTs.

Altogether a very good performance that didn't win him any acclaim, at least not at the level he deserved.
Just look who finished ahead of him
1 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal Service 82.05.12 (39.88 km/h)
2 Joseba Beloki (Spa) ONCE-Eroski 7.17
3 Raimondas Rumsas (Ltu) Lampre Daikin 8.17
4 Santiago Botero (Col) Kelme-Costa Blanca 13.10
5 Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano (Spa) ONCE-Eroski 13.54
6 José Azevedo (Por) ONCE-Eroski 15.44
7 Francisco Mancebo (Spa) iBanesto.com 16.05
8 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Rabobank 17.11
9 Roberto Heras Hernandez (Spa) US Postal Service 17.12
10 Carlos Sastre (Spa) CSC-Tiscali 19.05
11 Ivan Basso (Ita) Fassa Bortolo 19.18
12 Michael Boogerd (Ned) Rabobank 20.33

Not many racers in that list have a reputation to match his. I am not saying he would have won in a clean field, but maybe he could have placed in the top 5 or even finished on the podium.

From then on, in all the following TdF he concentrated on a few stages because a stage victory is worth much more that a 13th place overall.

 

[maltiv]

I'm pretty sure that everyone who finished ahead of Moncoutie that year were on the juice.

 

[pmcg76]

You guys realise that you are playing into the hands of the "he must be doped" brigade as they will use those results to say he must have been on the sauce to even get close to those other doped guys. Thats not what I am saying but just wait and this will get jumped on like crazy.

 

[Sparta]

You guys realise that you are playing into the hands of the "he must be doped" brigade as they will use those results to say he must have been on the sauce to even get close to those other doped guys. Thats not what I am saying but just wait and this will get jumped on like crazy.

possibly but that is clearly an irrational point of view - as logically unless everyone's on the sauce (a possibility but irrelevant to this argument) the first clean rider has to finish somewhere. Why can't this be 13th. it seems perfectly reasonable place for a clearly talented rider who gives everything to finish around 20 minutes off the lead. The only way you can say this is fishy is if you can quantify the benefits that doping should give you, however in my opinion due to a ridiculous number of variables in a race as long as the Tour de France the error bars in the calculations would make it not worth bothering. I suppose you could look at the riders he beat and yes many of the riders below him are distinctly dodgy, however in races like the tour de france not many of the riders actually race day in day out for a gc position as as Moncutie says its too hard even on drugs (why he hasn't done it since 2002) so once you get below around 20th position you start too get riders who on a few stages probably delibaretly sat up and lost 15 minutes something which Moncutie didn't do. So I think there is little evidence to suggest that the 13th place is illegitimate and enough going on what he and others have said that it makes sense to believe it.

 

[VeloCity]

In 2002 Moncoutié played the General classification in the TdF.

Just look who finished ahead of him
1 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal Service 82.05.12 (39.88 km/h)
2 Joseba Beloki (Spa) ONCE-Eroski 7.17
3 Raimondas Rumsas (Ltu) Lampre Daikin 8.17
4 Santiago Botero (Col) Kelme-Costa Blanca 13.10
5 Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano (Spa) ONCE-Eroski 13.54
6 José Azevedo (Por) ONCE-Eroski 15.44
7 Francisco Mancebo (Spa) iBanesto.com 16.05
8 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Rabobank 17.11
9 Roberto Heras Hernandez (Spa) US Postal Service 17.12
10 Carlos Sastre (Spa) CSC-Tiscali 19.05
11 Ivan Basso (Ita) Fassa Bortolo 19.18
12 Michael Boogerd (Ned) Rabobank 20.33

And he finished on GC 7 minutes ahead of a juiced-up Tyler Hamilton and Richard Virenque. And in all of those climbing stages he finished well ahead of climbers who we know now were doped. And on the very last mountain stage, he still had the legs to be in the first breakaway and gain minutes on GC. One would think by then his recovery would be shot, having to keep up with all those dopers through the Alps and Pyrenees.

Go back and look at those climbing stage results again. There's Moncoutie, right in the thick of things, stage after stage, surrounded by dopers - there's not a rider in sight on any of those stages that I can see who didn't turn out to be linked to doping or suspected of doping etc.

In fact, it's kind of ironic that you would highlight the 2002 TdF, cause if that were any other rider with those performances against a field of dopers, we'd most of us be saying nope, no way he was clean, not a chance.

Which is all to say, so what? Surely by now you know that results, good or bad, are no indication of clean or doping. Way too many variables.

 

[Sparta]

In fact, it's kind of ironic that you would highlight the 2002 TdF, cause if that were any other rider with those performances against a field of dopers, we'd most of us be saying nope, no way he was clean, not a chance.

Which is all to say, so what? Surely by now you know that results, good or bad, are no indication of clean or doping. Way too many variables.

I think you missed the point about choosing the 2002 tour. This was when he gave everything and still finished 20 minutes short. His best performance isn't particularly suspicious. Yes he beat Virenque and Hamilton but it was when Virenque was going for KOM and then dropping back and as I've said before riders may not have been riding full on everyday when it was clear they weren't going to finish top 10.

But essentially yes you are right there are way too many variables in this case too show whether he was doping or not. You are not entirely right that this is true in every case but it certainly is in this one and in most to be fair particularly when it comes down to analysing relative performance. Again you miss the main point though, which is that there is not much reason to doubt the results given the context of what he has said and what other have said about him.

If you think that he doped that is a fair enough point of view but it is based solely on the fact that you think that every rider dopes whereas all the evidence albeit certainly not proof points the other way.

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

I think you missed the point about choosing the 2002 tour. This was when he gave everything and still finished 20 minutes short. His best performance isn't particularly suspicious. Yes he beat Virenque and Hamilton but it was when Virenque was going for KOM and then dropping back and as I've said before riders may not have been riding full on everyday when it was clear they weren't going to finish top 10.

But essentially yes you are right there are way too many variables in this case too show whether he was doping or not. You are not entirely right that this is true in every case but it certainly is in this one and in most to be fair particularly when it comes down to analysing relative performance. Again you miss the main point though, which is that there is not much reason to doubt the results given the context of what he has said and what other have said about him.

If you think that he doped that is a fair enough point of view but it is based solely on the fact that you think that every rider dopes whereas all the evidence albeit certainly not proof points the other way.

Excellent post. Thanks.

 

[blackcat]

Sorry if this has been posted before. Its on his wikipedia article from an interview with l'Equipe in 2002 I think.



From my understanding after that tour he gave up trying to place high on GCs. If he was clean which the evidence does point to whatever people say, he certainly had the talent to be a grand tour winner - in the 2002 the 12 finishers in front of him are all pretty much certain dopers apart from maybe Sastre. Such a shame.

yeah, sure... look at the changing phyiognomy of Sastre's visage over time. Way too many exogenous hormones for a face to alter, w/ bone structure. More than years of atrophy of intrafacial white tissue matter and musculature that come from 20 thousand miles on the road a year.

ask some fashion photographer to discern the changes if you cant, male model photographer, as they deal with pronounced bone structure characteristics, and could do better than that IT facial recognition software.

 

[luckyboy]

Would be interesting because I can't pick up any real changes in his face.
He doesn't even look that much older, though he looked quite old to begin with.

1999-2011

 

[VeloCity]

This was when he gave everything and still finished 20 minutes short. His best performance isn't particularly suspicious. Yes he beat Virenque and Hamilton but it was when Virenque was going for KOM and then dropping back and as I've said before riders may not have been riding full on everyday when it was clear they weren't going to finish top 10.

Some pretty convenient assumptions there.

But again, all the speculation in the world re: the results of one race mean squat - if you were to just look at the 2002 TdF, Moncoutie "looks" like he's up there with the rest of the dopers while Hamilton "looks" like he was having trouble keeping pace - who "looks" like the clean one between those two?

If you think that he doped that is a fair enough point of view

How many times have I said that I don't think he doped? But what you or I "think" also means squat. I just find it a bit odd that Moncoutie is generally held up as the poster boy of probably-clean riding when really there's no more substantial evidence that he's clean than there is for any other rider who has never been linked to doping.

Maybe it's more that I find it odd that so many cycling fans seem to have so much invested in this guy or that guy being clean, and Moncoutie's just the primary example. Moncoutie seems like a nice, quiet, likable guy, so maybe fans find it easier to give him the benefit of the doubt than they would a more polarizing or less likeable figure? But 10 years ago, there was zero dirt on Tyler Hamilton and he also was considered a nice, quiet, likeable guy, and if you were to have asked the question "who's most likely to be clean?" back then, I bet a lot of folks would've picked Hamilton.

but it is based solely on the fact that you think that every rider dopes whereas all the evidence albeit certainly not proof points the other

Also quite an assumption. On the contrary, I don't think I'm nearly as cynical as a lot of posters around here - I tend to think that a lot, possibly even a majority, of riders aren't doping.

 

[blackcat]

Would be interesting because I can't pick up any real changes in his face.
He doesn't even look that much older, though he looked quite old to begin with.


chin and forehead starting to give Hincapie a run for his money. But Carlos no have no lantern jaw

 

[Hugh Januss]

chin and forehead starting to give Hincapie a run for his money. But Carlos no have no lantern jaw

The only thing I really notice is that his nose seems to have gotten smaller.

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

Maybe it's more that I find it odd that so many cycling fans seem to have so much invested in this guy or that guy being clean, and Moncoutie's just the primary example. Moncoutie seems like a nice, quiet, likable guy, so maybe fans find it easier to give him the benefit of the doubt than they would a more polarizing or less likeable figure?

Odd? It's just cycling fans grasping at straws to keep the idea of clean cycling alive. The majority of fans are anti-doping to some degree, and to have to swallow the cynical pill of 'all riders dope' would be too much for them - it would be too much for the sport.

Anyone with more than two neurons to rub together understands the current state of pro cycling, and understands the likelihood of a top tier rider being clean.

It's just trying to keep the dream alive, baby!

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

I think you missed the point about choosing the 2002 tour. This was when he gave everything and still finished 20 minutes short...
...But essentially yes you are right there are way too many variables in this case too show whether he was doping or not.

Yes, exactly.

If we look back to 1992 we can play the same game of guesses and assumptions. By all accounts EPO had pretty much overtaken the peloton by then, though Walsh says by 1994 it was truly everywhere. By all accounts Andy Hampsten was a clean rider. Andy managed to finish 4th, some 13 minutes back in 1992. But he also picked up several minutes winning one stage, Alpe d'Huez, and was in another break on another stage. So what does this mean?

It means we don't know how much assistance from PEDs those above him were getting. Who was on what. We don't know the leaders reasons for letting him go on the Alpe. We also don't know who decided to attack on what day and when, who made what deals with others, who helped Andy on other days, who didn't, who felt tired, sick, had mechanicals, hunger knocks, dehydration, etc. etc.

And if we really wanted to, we could speculate forever that despite everyone saying he was whistle clean because he wasn't tested every day and the tests weren't effective, we'll never know with absolute certainty that Andy was 100.00% clean, will we?

You could apply this same line of reasoning to Moncoutier, Bassons, Mottet, Giles Delion, even LeMond and many other clean riders.

 

[blackcat]

The only thing I really notice is that his nose seems to have gotten smaller.

the changing morphology is quite obvious on tv media.

Hugh, you get the visual illusion, the distance between his eyes and lips are larger as the bones have grown with the exogenous hormones, especially hgh