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Most Farcical Tour Ever?

Thehog made a good point that even in the Postal years, the leaders of other teams were able to stick with Armstrong until near the end. Postal's domestiques were used to isolate the leaders of other teams. Armstrong would then put in the killing blow at the end of the stage. This year's Tour is even more ludicrous. It would be like watching Popovych destroy Ullrich, Basso, and Beloki. Heck, it is worse than that because at one time Popo was a legitimate contender for a Giro win.

Has any Tour been a bigger farce than this one?
 
Really?!

Are we all really that worn down that we can't enjoy a guy like Bradley having worked his @ss off for something and made it happen? It may not be exciting but it's still an incredible feat. Who would have thought that the Brits would have a winner of the Tour!

I think he says it best himself as reported in the following article...
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/wiggins-the-tour-is-a-lot-more-human-now

Come on Bro D don’t be so grumpy :)

T
 
mikkemus23 said:
It`s the Froome factor that kills it for me. That he comes from nowhere and just sticks it to everyone, in ITT or climbing.

He was on the podium in the Vuelta last year! That's not from nowhere.

AND I don't know whether he dopes or not but he has not come from nowhere.
 
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BroDeal said:
Thehog made a good point that even in the Postal years, the leaders of other teams were able to stick with Armstrong until near the end. Postal's domestiques were used to isolate the leaders of other teams. Armstrong would then put in the killing blow at the end of the stage. This year's Tour is even more ludicrous. It would be like watching Popovych destroy Ullrich, Basso, and Beloki. Heck, it is worse than that because at one time Popo was a legitimate contender for a Giro win.

Has any Tour been a bigger farce than this one?

I didnt see Wiggins put in any 'killing blows'. He just hung in there
 
180mmCrank said:
He was on the podium in the Vuelta last year! That's not from nowhere.

AND I don't know whether he dopes or not but he has not come from nowhere.

His appearance on the Vuelta podium WAS from nowhere, and we can count the amount of good results he's had between that Vuelta and the Dauphiné this year on no hands.

If the péloton had just done a better job of controlling the breakaway on stage 5 (that was too close for comfort) and brought Fedrigo back to turn that stage into a bunch sprint, this Tour would have been pretty much Bob Stapleton's wet dream. His vision to its logical conclusion.
 
180mmCrank said:
He was on the podium in the Vuelta last year! That's not from nowhere.

AND I don't know whether he dopes or not but he has not come from nowhere.

He was a nobody ready to be offloaded by his team before the Vuelta. He suddenly became a World Class rider at the Vuelta, then disappeared with a recurrence of a water borne disease, reappears at the Romandie and sucks, disappears again for a month before teaming up with Wiggins at the Dauphine finishing 4th and then obliterates the rest of the field apart from his team leader at the Tour.
He was a nobody before the Vuelta, has appeared from nowhere and can reach top form quickly after a lengthy illness.
Nothing suspicious indead:D
 
Jun 15, 2009
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Agree and disagree.

First of all, the most farcial GT ever was the Giro 2012. Even this TdF was light years better. At the Giro we had the same kind of train (Szmyd & his guys), only that there was no separation. Thus leading to a non racing event. People seem to have a short memory.

This TdF was also way better than last years Schlecklets cowardly backward riding, where then guys like Vanendert (out of nowhere) won stages.

And we shall not forget, this TdF was designed to be boring (less MTF, too much TT, the best riders not showing up).

Agree: Froome and Wiggins (at 2009) came out of nowhere. Obviously there seems something wrong. It can be doping or deep resources other than doping that gave them the small edge.

Finally if Sky hadn´t decided to hand the win to Froome, we would have seen some fireworks from Froome for sure.

I am ok with this TdF, b/c i expected the worst when i saw the design. I am positively surprised.
 
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as some guy in a comment section on some article said, it's a miracle that this sport still gets the amount of media coverage it gets.


Interestingly, in the same comment section, a former employer of the German pharmaceutical company Roche chimed in and said this:

Ich als ehemaliger Roche Mitarbeiter kann bestätigen dass Roche um die 70 Mitarbeiter beschäftigt die sich um die besten Verträge und Logistik mit den "Sportlern" kümmert. Interessanterweise handelt es sich bei den Kunden nur um Radsportler.
Transl: "as a former Roche employer, I can confirm that Roche has around 70 employers tasked with arranging the best contracts and logistics with and for "athletes". Interestingly, all the athletes are cyclists".
http://www.spiegel.de/sport/sonst/b...ohl-die-tour-de-france-gewinnen-a-845637.html
 
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180mmCrank said:
He was on the podium in the Vuelta last year! That's not from nowhere.

AND I don't know whether he dopes or not but he has not come from nowhere.

You are correct that he has not come from nowhere, he came from the 2008 Barloworld disaster, and did nothing again until he was introduced to marginal gains by Team Sky.:rolleyes:
 
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BroDeal said:
That is the point. He didn't have to. His team killed off all the other contenders. Not even US Postal could do that.

when you look at the other teams on paper are you not really underwhelmed? No other team even put up a fight.
 
Libertine Seguros said:
His appearance on the Vuelta podium WAS from nowhere, and we can count the amount of good results he's had between that Vuelta and the Dauphiné this year on no hands.

If the péloton had just done a better job of controlling the breakaway on stage 5 (that was too close for comfort) and brought Fedrigo back to turn that stage into a bunch sprint, this Tour would have been pretty much Bob Stapleton's wet dream. His vision to its logical conclusion.

OK so he came from nowhere before the Vuelta - agreed :) (I don't think that's what was meant by the original post but OK)

AND to be clear I am far less confident of Froome's pedegree than that of Wiggins ... I don't think believing that BW is racing clean is the same as believing in Father Christmas or Unicorns or whatever. Just listen to the bloke ... not just his words ... this guy is being authentic and honest. He's one of the good guys. IMHO and I get why people are skeptics (of course they have every right to be) BUT the problem is that there ain't much insentive for others to ride clean if they are going to get slammed anyway!

T
 
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sniper said:
as some guy in a comment section on some article said, it's a miracle that this sport still gets the amount of media coverage it gets.


Interestingly, in the same comment section, a former employer of the German pharmaceutical company Roche chimed in and said this:


http://www.spiegel.de/sport/sonst/b...ohl-die-tour-de-france-gewinnen-a-845637.html
Good post. How does a cycling team pay for 70 employees though? Wonder if Amgen has a similar arrangement. Always find it funny that the manufacturer of Epogen is a major stage race sponsor. Need to have another look at the Armstrong business connections map.
 
180mmCrank said:
He was on the podium in the Vuelta last year! That's not from nowhere.

AND I don't know whether he dopes or not but he has not come from nowhere.
Just like Riis didn't come from nowhere in 1996. He had been 3rd in 1995, 14th in 1994 and 5th in 1993. Nevermind that before that, at 29, he had never shown any talent for the GTs.

I think he did climb better than 2008 Wiggins though.

Wiggins came from nowhere (as far as road racing and GTs are concerned) in 2009. Froome came from nowhere in 2011.

Strictly speaking, it would be more believable if Navarro somehow won the Vuelta.
 
hrotha said:
Just like Riis didn't come from nowhere in 1996. He had been 3rd in 1995, 14th in 1994 and 5th in 1993. Nevermind that before that, at 29, he had never shown any talent for the GTs.

I think he did climb better than 2008 Wiggins though.

Wiggins came from nowhere (as far as road racing and GTs are concerned) in 2009. Froome came from nowhere in 2011.

Strictly speaking, it would be more believable if Navarro somehow won the Vuelta.


2009 is 3 years ago. The guy was multi Olympic medallist and a World Champion ... we are not really suggesting that he doesn't have a substantial pedegree as an athlete - are we? :) Wiggins was and is a World Class athlete by any measure.

I have no clue about Froome and others but Wiggins is clean.
 
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sniper said:
as some guy in a comment section on some article said, it's a miracle that this sport still gets the amount of media coverage it gets.


Interestingly, in the same comment section, a former employer of the German pharmaceutical company Roche chimed in and said this:

"as a former Roche employer, I can confirm that Roche has around 70 employers tasked with arranging the best contracts and logistics with and for "athletes". Interestingly, all the athletes are cyclists"

http://www.spiegel.de/sport/sonst/b...ohl-die-tour-de-france-gewinnen-a-845637.html

OK, i doubt cycling very much, but to quote DER SPIEGEL on cycling matters isn´t a good idea. Their only focus on cycling is to report doping cases from every 3rd class rider. Weinreich.de once reported that german "journalists" created a boycott of cycling or only to write bad about it. Those guys even break the grounding law of germany. Those same hypocrites hail soccer (game fixing, corruption, cheating), the worst sport of them all.

But it gets worse: The guy from Roche you quote isn´t even a official writer there, only a guy who repeats his hate nonsense every time. He never backed his sayings up.

Conclusion: Just forget about that. Those "sources" are not reliable.
 
180mmCrank said:
OK so he came from nowhere before the Vuelta - agreed :) (I don't think that's what was meant by the original post but OK)

AND to be clear I am far less confident of Froome's pedegree than that of Wiggins ... I don't think believing that BW is racing clean is the same as believing in Father Christmas or Unicorns or whatever. Just listen to the bloke ... not just his words ... this guy is being authentic and honest. He's one of the good guys. IMHO and I get why people are skeptics (of course they have every right to be) BUT the problem is that there ain't much insentive for others to ride clean if they are going to get slammed anyway!

T

Oh no! Tyler Hamilton syndrome has spread! :rolleyes:
 
180mmCrank said:
2009 is 3 years ago. The guy was multi Olympic medallist and a World Champion ... we are not really suggesting that he doesn't have a substantial pedegree as an athlete - are we? :) Wiggins was and is a World Class athlete by any measure.

I have no clue about Froome and others but Wiggins is clean.

Lol you're really clueless
 
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180mmCrank said:
2009 is 3 years ago. The guy was multi Olympic medallist and a World Champion ... we are not really suggesting that he doesn't have a substantial pedegree as an athlete - are we? :) Wiggins was and is a World Class athlete by any measure.

I have no clue about Froome and others but Wiggins is clean.

Insert the name Lance Armstrong, put the post in another thread, repeat four times and what do you get?

Suspended by Susan for trolling.:D
 
diorgen said:
Lol you're really clueless

No I am not! :) I am pretty confident that i know at least as much as the average poster on here and probably more than most.

Just because I have a different POV does not make me clueless. I am not even going to try and persuade folk that are convinced that the guy is not clean. I get why people are skeptical.

State your perspective and let the dialogue continue. :)
 

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