Most Suspicious Performance Of The Last 5 Years

[Escarabajo]

Re: Re:

Contador Giro 15, stage 14 and 16 a beast, whatever he was on had run out by stage 20.

I would throw in Landa's 2015 Giro as well. They was mmmmaaaassssiiiiiiiivvvvve.

Landa is a good example of an obvious one. As the time rolls on it seems more and more obvious!

 

[DFA123]

Re:

Matthews does not seem obvious to me. I thought we were just mentioning obvious. Not just mention every name in the Pro Tour circuit.

Obvious like Froome, Lance, Pantani, Ullrich, Virenque, Contador pre-ban. Contador might as well be doping now but we are talking about obvious.

Yes, that's because the tendency in the Clinic just seems to be to talk about riders, or dedicate a thread to them when they win races. What the last 30 years of cycling has shown is that it's certainly not just the winners that have been doping. Not least because, despite doping being important, other factors like mentality and tactics still often end up deciding races.

And so a rider who regularly finishes top 5 in a wide variety of races - climbs, sprints, TTs - is clearly not beyond suspicion. And, as far as Australian riders go (which was the topic), it's difficult to think of many more eye-raising performances than him. His performances have been more suspicious than Hayman or Gerrans imo.

Regarding the stories of natural talent, I'm sure Matthews is extremely talented. So is Valverde, so is Sagan etc... But he also comes from a country with a long history of doping abuse across nearly all sports, and is getting consistently high results in different kinds of disciplines. So for me he is certainly one of the most suspicious Australian performers of the last five years.

Of course, it's possible he isn't doping - and that extra 1-2% he lacks to win big races is a result of that rather than tactics. But I'm not sure he should escape scrutiny just because he doesn't turn podium places into wins that often - while Gerrans get called out for winning a handful of very conservatively ridden races, but while generally looking a far less rounded rider.

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

Matthews does not seem obvious to me. I thought we were just mentioning obvious. Not just mention every name in the Pro Tour circuit.

Obvious like Froome, Lance, Pantani, Ullrich, Virenque, Contador pre-ban. Contador might as well be doping now but we are talking about obvious.

Yes, that's because the tendency in the Clinic just seems to be to talk about riders, or dedicate a thread to them when they win races. What the last 30 years of cycling has shown is that it's certainly not just the winners that have been doping. Not least because, despite doping being important, other factors like mentality and tactics still often end up deciding races.

And so a rider who regularly finishes top 5 in a wide variety of races - climbs, sprints, TTs - is clearly not beyond suspicion. And, as far as Australian riders go (which was the topic), it's difficult to think of many more eye-raising performances than him. His performances have been more suspicious than Hayman or Gerrans imo.

Regarding the stories of natural talent, I'm sure Matthews is extremely talented. So is Valverde, so is Sagan etc... But he also comes from a country with a long history of doping abuse across nearly all sports, and is getting consistently high results in different kinds of disciplines. So for me he is certainly one of the most suspicious Australian performers of the last five years.

Of course, it's possible he isn't doping - and that extra 1-2% he lacks to win big races is a result of that rather than tactics. But I'm not sure he should escape scrutiny just because he doesn't turn podium places into wins that often - while Gerrans get called out for winning a handful of very conservatively ridden races, but while generally looking a far less rounded rider.

I get that Matthews rightly gets suspicion, as a world class athlete it's justified. But I still find the likes of Gerrans, Porte and Evans less genuine, largely because of his results as a junior and U23. To do what Matthews did at such a ridiculously strong L'Avenir in 2010, as a sprinter, then filling in for his team lead who crashed out, was quite remarkable.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

Matthews does not seem obvious to me. I thought we were just mentioning obvious. Not just mention every name in the Pro Tour circuit.

Obvious like Froome, Lance, Pantani, Ullrich, Virenque, Contador pre-ban. Contador might as well be doping now but we are talking about obvious.

Yes, that's because the tendency in the Clinic just seems to be to talk about riders, or dedicate a thread to them when they win races. What the last 30 years of cycling has shown is that it's certainly not just the winners that have been doping. Not least because, despite doping being important, other factors like mentality and tactics still often end up deciding races.

And so a rider who regularly finishes top 5 in a wide variety of races - climbs, sprints, TTs - is clearly not beyond suspicion. And, as far as Australian riders go (which was the topic), it's difficult to think of many more eye-raising performances than him. His performances have been more suspicious than Hayman or Gerrans imo.

Regarding the stories of natural talent, I'm sure Matthews is extremely talented. So is Valverde, so is Sagan etc... But he also comes from a country with a long history of doping abuse across nearly all sports, and is getting consistently high results in different kinds of disciplines. So for me he is certainly one of the most suspicious Australian performers of the last five years.

Of course, it's possible he isn't doping - and that extra 1-2% he lacks to win big races is a result of that rather than tactics. But I'm not sure he should escape scrutiny just because he doesn't turn podium places into wins that often - while Gerrans get called out for winning a handful of very conservatively ridden races, but while generally looking a far less rounded rider.

I get that Matthews rightly gets suspicion, as a world class athlete it's justified. But I still find the likes of Gerrans, Porte and Evans less genuine, largely because of his results as a junior and U23. To do what Matthews did at such a ridiculously strong L'Avenir in 2010, as a sprinter, then filling in for his team lead who crashed out, was quite remarkable.

Good points, and I do agree to a large extent. I think he is very naturally talented and has consistent results since a neo-pro. I just wanted to add some balance, because a guy like Hayman has attracted loads of suspicion for winning one very chaotic race in his career. While Matthews, with a bit more luck and better tactical decisisons, could easily have won a WC, MSR, Amstel Gold a couple of times by now and would have a 50 page thread in this forum.

The list that Escarabajo posted above of - Froome, Lance, Pantani, Ullrich, Virenque, Contador - is another good example. Of course these were the guys who won the most, but in reality they weren't onthe whole doping more or less than the likes of Hamilton, Sevilla or Beloki, or all the other guys filling out the top 20 in GTs. So it shouldn't just be the winners whose performances are being examined as most suspicious. I would wager that the difference between winning and finishing top 5 or top 10 in big races, still isn't primarily because of doping.

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

Matthews does not seem obvious to me. I thought we were just mentioning obvious. Not just mention every name in the Pro Tour circuit.

Obvious like Froome, Lance, Pantani, Ullrich, Virenque, Contador pre-ban. Contador might as well be doping now but we are talking about obvious.

Yes, that's because the tendency in the Clinic just seems to be to talk about riders, or dedicate a thread to them when they win races. What the last 30 years of cycling has shown is that it's certainly not just the winners that have been doping. Not least because, despite doping being important, other factors like mentality and tactics still often end up deciding races.

And so a rider who regularly finishes top 5 in a wide variety of races - climbs, sprints, TTs - is clearly not beyond suspicion. And, as far as Australian riders go (which was the topic), it's difficult to think of many more eye-raising performances than him. His performances have been more suspicious than Hayman or Gerrans imo.

Regarding the stories of natural talent, I'm sure Matthews is extremely talented. So is Valverde, so is Sagan etc... But he also comes from a country with a long history of doping abuse across nearly all sports, and is getting consistently high results in different kinds of disciplines. So for me he is certainly one of the most suspicious Australian performers of the last five years.

Of course, it's possible he isn't doping - and that extra 1-2% he lacks to win big races is a result of that rather than tactics. But I'm not sure he should escape scrutiny just because he doesn't turn podium places into wins that often - while Gerrans get called out for winning a handful of very conservatively ridden races, but while generally looking a far less rounded rider.

I get that Matthews rightly gets suspicion, as a world class athlete it's justified. But I still find the likes of Gerrans, Porte and Evans less genuine, largely because of his results as a junior and U23. To do what Matthews did at such a ridiculously strong L'Avenir in 2010, as a sprinter, then filling in for his team lead who crashed out, was quite remarkable.

Good points, and I do agree to a large extent. I think he is very naturally talented and has consistent results since a neo-pro. I just wanted to add some balance, because a guy like Hayman has attracted loads of suspicion for winning one very chaotic race in his career. While Matthews, with a bit more luck and better tactical decisisons, could easily have won a WC, MSR, Amstel Gold a couple of times by now and would have a 50 page thread in this forum.

The list that Escarabajo posted above of - Froome, Lance, Pantani, Ullrich, Virenque, Contador - is another good example. Of course these were the guys who won the most, but in reality they weren't onthe whole doping more or less than the likes of Hamilton, Sevilla or Beloki, or all the other guys filling out the top 20 in GTs. So it shouldn't just be the winners whose performances are being examined as most suspicious. I would wager that the difference between winning and finishing top 5 or top 10 in big races, still isn't primarily because of doping.

I get your point. When I read Tyler Hamilton's book so much made sense to me. The amount that he needed to take just to be competitive in that day was obscene and I also suspect that it lead to Hamilton's depression.

When you're taking that many PEDs, training like a lunatic, sacrificing everything (including your marriage) to still only get 4th place and a broken collarbone - or second place and a massive dental bill - you would have to question whether or not it's all worth it. Especially when you know that the likes of Armstrong had even better resources.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

I remember racing the Tour of Bright in 2007, on the Mt Hotham stage I got dropped from the lead group just over half way up (LRP won the stage). A few minutes after crossing the line, the large gruppetto rolls in, paced by a skinny kid from B Grade.

B Grade started 10 minutes after A Grade, so this kid not only caught the A Grade gruppetto (which included a decent number of NRS riders), he went straight to the front and paced them up the rest of the climb. A few of us got talking to him after the stage and it turned out this kid had been riding for roughly a year and racing less than 6 months. He actually was worried that he should be in C Grade until then.

It was a 16yo Michael Matthews.

I remember Jacob and I assessing this race from afar, just the results, Jakob is a Danish scout who is now in Bogota Colombia, he used to be on DailyPeloton and is a forum member with about a dozen posts here, we saw Matthews the b-grader, when found out he(like Gerrans) was a moto-cross rider. We also looked at the young kid from Adelaide and the few climbs he did in races, the pursuiter, damn, stupid memory, i was facebook friends with him for a time, he went to the Maillot Johnnies or Mailot Jonnies without the h, the development team Axel Merckx had, then he retired. remember a 15 or 16yo Youth Olympics on a fast track in Sydney about 3- degree day like Del Monte heat pit track, but in Sydney, he rode something like 3'18" as a 15yo 10 months. The name is coming... damn, gimme 5 mins. anyway, 42x16, you know the guy I am talking about, always had stupid highschoold hairuts, not mullets like Oss or the NZ Archbald or whatever, but stupid similar.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

I get your point. When I read Tyler Hamilton's book so much made sense to me. The amount that he needed to take just to be competitive in that day was obscene and I also suspect that it lead to Hamilton's depression.

When you're taking that many PEDs, training like a lunatic, sacrificing everything (including your marriage) to still only get 4th place and a broken collarbone - or second place and a massive dental bill - you would have to question whether or not it's all worth it. Especially when you know that the likes of Armstrong had even better resources.

It was Lance that cuckolded (ok, the inverted definition for licence), Lance cuckolded Tyler with Haven Parchinski, what an awesome San Fernando Valley name that is innit

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

How anyone can fail to mention Froome in a top list is beyond me, all of his egg beating accelerations up mountains spring to mind, Ventoux 2013 being the most memorable. His total dominance on all terrains in last years tour was equally ridiculous but his performances have become more normalised over time since the memory of the ceiling of his ability pre Vuelta 2011 fades from memories.

Other notables include Wiggins, Nibali, Horner, GVA, Valverde, Boonen, Cancellara, Zakarin, Gilbert but none come close to Froome for consistent suspiciousness.

he just uses a motor, so he is excepted innit

Need some Australians in the list to be fair. we are some of the best.

Well obviously there is Hayman, Rogers' GT stage wins in 2014, maybe Dennis' monster TT on stage 1 of the 2015 Tour.

if there is one team, if there was one team with incentive to develop motor technology, it would be a bike manufacturer no?

simple economics R&D innit

 

[Escarabajo]

We don't know exactly what goes on behind the curtains. We can only see their performances and judge on them. We know more or less than most of these guys are doping. Some more some less. That's why I made the comment that this thread was dedicated to memorable performances that were obvious. If you see Mathews as obvious then be it. I don't. Not even Cadel or other riders mentioned in here. Landa and Hayman I can understand why other people have put it in here. I guess is a matter of opinion or making a case for it.

 

[classicomano]

Little throwback to Giro 2016, keep reminding myself of the MTT that Foliforov won. It is such an immense outlier in a career that up till that point and since has been dominated by DNF's and pack fodder results. Im pretty much convinced this was motor assisted.

 

[yaco]

Re:

Little throwback to Giro 2016, keep reminding myself of the MTT that Foliforov won. It is such an immense outlier in a career that up till that point and since has been dominated by DNF's and pack fodder results. Im pretty much convinced this was motor assisted.

And Gazprom was non-competitive at that Giro - Thought at the time it may have been a timing malfunction.

 

[therealthing]

Re:

Little throwback to Giro 2016, keep reminding myself of the MTT that Foliforov won. It is such an immense outlier in a career that up till that point and since has been dominated by DNF's and pack fodder results. Im pretty much convinced this was motor assisted.

I laughed when I saw that 2 random Russian guys from a Russian team had smashed up all the GC guys and came 1st and 4th. They were completely random riders who had achieved pretty much nothing beforehand. I too, believe this was motor assisted.

 

[Cookster15]

Re:

We don't know exactly what go on behind the curtains. We can only see their performances and judge on them. We know more or less than most of these guys are doping. Some more some less. That's why I made the comment that this thread was dedicated to memorable performances that were obvious. If you see Mathews as obvious then be it. I don't. Not even Cadel or other riders mentioned in here. Landa and Hayman I can understand why other people have put it in here. I guess is a matter of opinion or making a case for it.

Nice to get a credible opinion with no nationalistic axe to grind. I don't think Evans or Matthews are more obvious either in fact 2011 TdF seemed more real in the mountains and maybe that is why Cadel was able to shine unlike 2007 when he got one twoed in the Pyrenees by AC and Chicken. Likewise Voekler being able to keep up in 2011.

I suspect some can't explain superior performances to their own unless it was due to doping. Maybe a bit of a jealousy thing they simply didn't have the talent. But it was pretty obvious to anyone who followed Evans career from MTB World Cup to his decimation of the best road riders in the country on Mt Wellington in 1999 that he was out of the ordinary. Did he dope? Maybe. Was it the most suspicious performance of the last 5 years? No, besides 2011 was 6 years ago

 

[shalgo]

Re: Re:

Little throwback to Giro 2016, keep reminding myself of the MTT that Foliforov won. It is such an immense outlier in a career that up till that point and since has been dominated by DNF's and pack fodder results. Im pretty much convinced this was motor assisted.

I laughed when I saw that 2 random Russian guys from a Russian team had smashed up all the GC guys and came 1st and 4th. They were completely random riders who had achieved pretty much nothing beforehand. I too, believe this was motor assisted.

Foliforov was a truly random and bizarre winner of that stage. Firsanov was less of a surprise, however. He had just finished fourth overall in Trentino, finishing in the top six in every stage. He had also won the Giro dell'Appennino and Settimana Coppi e Bartali. Other than that mountain TT, I thought his Giro was a disappointment considering how he had been riding that spring.

 

[Squire]

Re:

Little throwback to Giro 2016, keep reminding myself of the MTT that Foliforov won. It is such an immense outlier in a career that up till that point and since has been dominated by DNF's and pack fodder results. Im pretty much convinced this was motor assisted.

There are actually a few "mitigating" factors in the context of that performance, but yeah, it's quite hard to believe there wasn't a few chemicals involved too. Especially as he has never really followed up on it.

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

I remember racing the Tour of Bright in 2007, on the Mt Hotham stage I got dropped from the lead group just over half way up (LRP won the stage). A few minutes after crossing the line, the large gruppetto rolls in, paced by a skinny kid from B Grade.

B Grade started 10 minutes after A Grade, so this kid not only caught the A Grade gruppetto (which included a decent number of NRS riders), he went straight to the front and paced them up the rest of the climb. A few of us got talking to him after the stage and it turned out this kid had been riding for roughly a year and racing less than 6 months. He actually was worried that he should be in C Grade until then.

It was a 16yo Michael Matthews.

I remember Jacob and I assessing this race from afar, just the results, Jakob is a Danish scout who is now in Bogota Colombia, he used to be on DailyPeloton and is a forum member with about a dozen posts here, we saw Matthews the b-grader, when found out he(like Gerrans) was a moto-cross rider. We also looked at the young kid from Adelaide and the few climbs he did in races, the pursuiter, damn, stupid memory, i was facebook friends with him for a time, he went to the Maillot Johnnies or Mailot Jonnies without the h, the development team Axel Merckx had, then he retired. remember a 15 or 16yo Youth Olympics on a fast track in Sydney about 3- degree day like Del Monte heat pit track, but in Sydney, he rode something like 3'18" as a 15yo 10 months. The name is coming... damn, gimme 5 mins. anyway, 42x16, you know the guy I am talking about, always had stupid highschoold hairuts, not mullets like Oss or the NZ Archbald or whatever, but stupid similar.

Dale Parker? Kid was a beast, can't believe that he didn't push on.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

Little throwback to Giro 2016, keep reminding myself of the MTT that Foliforov won. It is such an immense outlier in a career that up till that point and since has been dominated by DNF's and pack fodder results. Im pretty much convinced this was motor assisted.

I laughed when I saw that 2 random Russian guys from a Russian team had smashed up all the GC guys and came 1st and 4th. They were completely random riders who had achieved pretty much nothing beforehand. I too, believe this was motor assisted.

Foliforov was a truly random and bizarre winner of that stage. Firsanov was less of a surprise, however. He had just finished fourth overall in Trentino, finishing in the top six in every stage. He had also won the Giro dell'Appennino and Settimana Coppi e Bartali. Other than that mountain TT, I thought his Giro was a disappointment considering how he had been riding that spring.

Foliforov was a pretty good espoir though. He was 4th in L'Avenir, and has always gone well in mountain TTs, such as in Aosta in 2012 when he was 4" off Aru, who's 2 years older than him. He has spanked Firsanov both times they've had mountain head to heads.

Him going well in the Siusi time trial isn't that surprising given the team clearly targeted the stage, as both he and Firsanov had a fairly easy-going rid in the previous day's stage to Corvara. The misleading placing of the timecheck also helped it look crazy. Him winning the stage was a big surprise, for sure, though, as if a relative no-name is going to target a mountain stage to win, a cronoescalada, one of the purest tests of climbing ability, is usually the last stage you'd expect them to go for.

The lack of follow-up is alarming and obviously doesn't help, however I will point out that pretty much literally all of his good results career-long have been in the mountains, and apart from the Tour de Slovénie which he entered right off the back of the Giro, the only chance he had to show after that in the races he did would have been Burgos but he crashed out before the Lagunas de Neila stage. While the stage win is a huge shock, I don't think his performance is as out there relative to his performance ability as you think.

 

[Squire]

Also worth mentioning is that Foliforov and his team had an entire training camp on that exact climb, so he would obviously know a thing or two about how to pace it.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

I remember racing the Tour of Bright in 2007, on the Mt Hotham stage I got dropped from the lead group just over half way up (LRP won the stage). A few minutes after crossing the line, the large gruppetto rolls in, paced by a skinny kid from B Grade.

B Grade started 10 minutes after A Grade, so this kid not only caught the A Grade gruppetto (which included a decent number of NRS riders), he went straight to the front and paced them up the rest of the climb. A few of us got talking to him after the stage and it turned out this kid had been riding for roughly a year and racing less than 6 months. He actually was worried that he should be in C Grade until then.

It was a 16yo Michael Matthews.

I remember Jacob and I assessing this race from afar, just the results, Jakob is a Danish scout who is now in Bogota Colombia, he used to be on DailyPeloton and is a forum member with about a dozen posts here, we saw Matthews the b-grader, when found out he(like Gerrans) was a moto-cross rider. We also looked at the young kid from Adelaide and the few climbs he did in races, the pursuiter, damn, stupid memory, i was facebook friends with him for a time, he went to the Maillot Johnnies or Mailot Jonnies without the h, the development team Axel Merckx had, then he retired. remember a 15 or 16yo Youth Olympics on a fast track in Sydney about 3- degree day like Del Monte heat pit track, but in Sydney, he rode something like 3'18" as a 15yo 10 months. The name is coming... damn, gimme 5 mins. anyway, 42x16, you know the guy I am talking about, always had stupid highschoold hairuts, not mullets like Oss or the NZ Archbald or whatever, but stupid similar.

Dale Parker? Kid was a beast, can't believe that he didn't push on.

yeah, I remembered his name this morning without bothering on google on mellow jonny's teamlists, but could not be bothered coming in and editing it.

The current worlds, an Aus rider who won bronze in the IP, is 18, rides a 3'16'high for bronze, wonder how fast the track was, and what he would do on a fast Jacky Bobby del Monte track at 30degrees in Summer. smoking fast for a young kid.

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

I remember racing the Tour of Bright in 2007, on the Mt Hotham stage I got dropped from the lead group just over half way up (LRP won the stage). A few minutes after crossing the line, the large gruppetto rolls in, paced by a skinny kid from B Grade.

B Grade started 10 minutes after A Grade, so this kid not only caught the A Grade gruppetto (which included a decent number of NRS riders), he went straight to the front and paced them up the rest of the climb. A few of us got talking to him after the stage and it turned out this kid had been riding for roughly a year and racing less than 6 months. He actually was worried that he should be in C Grade until then.

It was a 16yo Michael Matthews.

I remember Jacob and I assessing this race from afar, just the results, Jakob is a Danish scout who is now in Bogota Colombia, he used to be on DailyPeloton and is a forum member with about a dozen posts here, we saw Matthews the b-grader, when found out he(like Gerrans) was a moto-cross rider. We also looked at the young kid from Adelaide and the few climbs he did in races, the pursuiter, damn, stupid memory, i was facebook friends with him for a time, he went to the Maillot Johnnies or Mailot Jonnies without the h, the development team Axel Merckx had, then he retired. remember a 15 or 16yo Youth Olympics on a fast track in Sydney about 3- degree day like Del Monte heat pit track, but in Sydney, he rode something like 3'18" as a 15yo 10 months. The name is coming... damn, gimme 5 mins. anyway, 42x16, you know the guy I am talking about, always had stupid highschoold hairuts, not mullets like Oss or the NZ Archbald or whatever, but stupid similar.

Dale Parker? Kid was a beast, can't believe that he didn't push on.

yeah, I remembered his name this morning without bothering on google on mellow jonny's teamlists, but could not be bothered coming in and editing it.

The current worlds, an Aus rider who won bronze in the IP, is 18, rides a 3'16'high for bronze, wonder how fast the track was, and what he would do on a fast Jacky Bobby del Monte track at 30degrees in Summer. smoking fast for a young kid.

Jordan Kerby rode the third fastest pursuit in history. He's a young, talented rider but don't forget that he couldn't get a contract after Drapac merged.

He's undoubtedly talented but I suspect that the conditions were excellent as well.

 

[ciranda]

To add to the above Foliforov (a) did in fact follow the Giro stage win with a fifth place on the last mountain stage and a fourth place in a Tour of Slovenia time trial (b) he was already wildly inconsistent as a u23 (c) could possibly have had injuries or illness since last year (d) from his physical build it's clear that he is very naturally compatible with riding moutains.

 

[DFA123]

To add to the above Foliforov (a) did in fact follow the Giro stage win with a fifth place on the last mountain stage and a fourth place in a Tour of Slovenia time trial (b) he was already wildly inconsistent as a u23 (c) could possibly have had injuries or illness since last year (d) from his physical build it's clear that he is very naturally compatible with riding moutains.

I think his performance was mostly highlighted as very suspicious, because it was around the time when all the stories were coming out about Russian state sponsored doping. So numerous media outlets, reporters and fans were relatively emboldened in casting doubt on his performance. While not uttering a word of doubt, for example, when Nibali did one of the most ridiculous mid-race transformations ever seen in a GT a few days later.

 

[therealthing]

Surely now the winner of this category has to be Valverde with his nuclear start to 2017.

 

[42x16ss]

Re:

Surely now the winner of this category has to be Valverde with his nuclear start to 2017.

It's still runner up to the Froome transformation (unmatchable IMO) but otherwise yes.

 

[Escarabajo]

Not that I think that Valverde is in any way clean but I present no contest for a guy that was transformed from a mediocre performer. The margin is that much bigger. Besides all these races are playing to Valverde's strengths IMHO.