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Most memorable doped perfomances?

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Rackham

Rackham

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ppanther92 said:
Can I nominate Nairo for the most forgettable doped performance? I mean come on, if they found something compromising that would actually say a lot about the current state of the sport. Doped Nairo, a shadow of his former self. What would be the conclusion for the others then? Especially for the two Slovenians or WvA?
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This stuff used to happen all the time during Armstrong's era (+ immediately after) & the mid-late 90's. There would always be some "loser" former star/wannabe who'd get pinched for some imbecilic doping attempt. Who can forget Vinokourov's "homologous blood transfusion" when he was way, way past his best in 2007? The list was endless. Meanwhile, the guys at the top went unpunished (until Landis & his lack of IQ blew everything up).

My own nomination for most memorable doping performance in recent times France's Julian Alaphilippe last year in the 2019 Tour de France, especially his comical "I'm fuelled by my magical yellow jersey" time trial victory over Geraint Thomas in stage 13. Top nuclear radioactive stuff that was. Funny anecdote: after Alaphilippe's recent dismal tour, Laurent Jalabert (aka France Television's EPO addict & commentator) claimed Alaphilippe's Tour 2020 performances had "zero relevance" because he was merely using the race as a warm-up the the upcoming classics & world championships (in order to handwave the fact he is way, way slower this year than last).

I mention Alaphilippe because the French have a funny habit of pretending their riders are super-duper clean (hello Voeckler 2011!) when we've seen a couple of the most hilarious "pas normal" performances from French riders without references in Grand Tours over the past 10 years.
 
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shalgo

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ppanther92 said:
Can I nominate Nairo for the most forgettable doped performance? I mean come on, if they found something compromising that would actually say a lot about the current state of the sport. Doped Nairo, a shadow of his former self. What would be the conclusion for the others then? Especially for the two Slovenians or WvA?
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I know I made fun of this raid earlier in the thread, but are we all forgetting Nairo's performances earlier in the season? He was crushing everyone on the climbs. Go back and look at the posts in his thread from February. We hadn't seen him perform like that in years. Then he gets hit by a car during training over the summer and, just when he seems to be recovering, crashes twice during the Tour and has an allergic reaction. His Tour result doesn't mean anything under those circumstances.

Something was certainly working well for Nairo at the start of his time with Arkea.

EDIT: read-->raid
 
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ppanther92

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shalgo said:
I know I made fun of this read earlier in the thread, but are we all forgetting Nairo's performances earlier in the season? He was crushing everyone on the climbs. Go back and look at the posts in his thread from February. We hadn't seen him perform like that in years. Then he gets hit by a car during training over the summer and, just when he seems to be recovering, crashes twice during the Tour and has an allergic reaction. His Tour result doesn't mean anything under those circumstances.

Something was certainly working well for Nairo at the start of his time with Arkea.
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Hm, I argued this way (that Quintana had a superb spring that was above what we have seen the past 2-3 years from him) myself in the road racing forum. There the common opinion seems to be that it was in fact not extraordinary and that Quintana was always good in the early season. Even in bad seasons. And to some degree thats true. But I agree, I had also the impression that he stepped up again. Makes one wonder though why he even declined sharply 2,5 years ago. Was it really only the environment at Movistar?
 
Koronin

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ppanther92 said:
Hm, I argued this way (that Quintana had a superb spring that was above what we have seen the past 2-3 years from him) myself in the road racing forum. There the common opinion seems to be that it was in fact not extraordinary and that Quintana was always good in the early season. Even in bad seasons. And to some degree thats true. But I agree, I had also the impression that he stepped up again. Makes one wonder though why he even declined sharply 2,5 years ago. Was it really only the environment at Movistar?
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Now that is an interesting question. Like did they start to clamp down on certain things they may have seen they didn't like? They do have a reputation for not having any rider fail an anti doping test while with their team. It could be they saw something they thought could be concerning?
 
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fbjim

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Underrated one that I saw on my CovidWatches: Claudio Chiappucci inexplicably showing up at the pointy end of the Tour of Flanders (?!?!?!?!) a few months before he got tossed from the Giro and his career ended. Absolute legend.


I mean in fairness he was always an underrated classics rider, but that one still stuck out to me, probably because it was post-Carrera and also it's Claudio Chiappucci in 1997.
 
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Mayomaniac

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fbjim said:
Underrated one that I saw on my CovidWatches: Claudio Chiappucci inexplicably showing up at the pointy end of the Tour of Flanders (?!?!?!?!) a few months before he got tossed from the Giro and his career ended. Absolute legend.


I mean in fairness he was always an underrated classics rider, but that one still stuck out to me, probably because it was post-Carrera and also it's Claudio Chiappucci in 1997.
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Tbf, El Diablo was more of a classics rider before his sudden transformation and had already finished 4th in 1995.
Don't get me wrong, the guy probably had jelly in his veins and seems to be really full of himself, but he was always a good one day racer.
 
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SigurdJ

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For me, most memorable is Contador in 09. I really enjoyed watching Armstrong get outclassed.

After that, it's hard to tell if the "over the top performances" are doping or motor.
I'm thinking motor on Froome Tour 2013, Contador on Mortiloro and the TT Giro 2015 and Pocacar TT this year. I'm sure you guys can give more examples, but those smells more like motor than doping to me.
 
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Mex_17

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I was laughing when the announcers were saying how Pogacar had been "isolated" from his teammates, as if his teammates could possibly keep up with him at any point of this Tour.

The guy singlehandedly beat the world's best time trialists by a minute, then a couple days later, he singlehandedly beat the world's best climbers by 5 minutes. Both times when he finished, he looked like he didn't even need to take a shower, while all the the other riders looked like they needed hospitalization.

My question is, how long does this farce continue? He's one of the youngest riders. If he continues his current doping regimen, he could/should win the Tour every year for the next 5/10 years, by 30-60 minutes. No one can compete with him in TT, or mountains. Why would other GC contenders even bother entering any race that Pogacar is in?
 
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Bronstein

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valentius borealis said:
Better than the Chicken run? It's a pity that they're not doing the partial Petit Saint Bernard climb from that stage today.
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At the time, Rasmussen wasn't a GT winner like Pogacar, let alone the clear favourite. Rasmussen was probably underestimated to some extent, which gave him a bit more freedom. Pogacar shredded the entire field, even though they knew what was coming once Formolo started to ramp up the pace (with some help from LRP :tearsofjoy:).
 
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42x16ss

42x16ss

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Ripper said:
I think today knocks it out of the park. Look how much time he gained over the distance he had. He was also working pretty much by himself against a group, and he definitely took it easier on the descent.
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Yeah, have to agree. That was crazy to watch, it had shades of the 1998 Tour stage to Les Deux Alpes.

Fun to watch, and great to see a true GC rider attack from so far but equal parts hilarious and concerning.
 
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Notarobot

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Erik Dekker's 3 stage wins in the Tour of 2000. Smoking Botero uphill.
All the Bettini wins.
Evgeni Berzin's 1994 Giro win. I'm pretty sure he was so fast that on every mountain top he was airborn .
All Museeuw wins, all Tschmill wins, all Boonen wins. Can add Cancellara to that list.
 
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