official Ilnur Zakarin thread

[Lexman]

And a little before that Tonkov, Pascal Richard....

 

[Benotti69]

Wonder is Zakarin trained by his father in law who is a doctor, is that the way it works on Katusha, only pick riders trained by FiLs

 

[rghysens]

Re:

And a little before that Tonkov, Pascal Richard....

...Olano, Rominger,...

 

[jens_attacks]

Valverde won in 2010...oh wait...

 

[nayr497]

That's sure a dirty list of riders for such a scenic race.

 

[GuyIncognito]

Re:

Clentadoppucci

Mate I mean no offence by this, I'm being serious.
You know those nicknames that 5 year olds come up with that we facepalm at how stupid they are even when it's a 5 year old saying it? Yeah....you want to point out he's a doper, go ahead, but don't use that nickname again, it just makes me cringe and feel sorry for you

If you go back to 1999, you should go a little further and include 1998. Dufaux was absolutely hilarious.

Understatement, if anything. That early flat stage was only ever repeated (to my knowledge) by Basso at the Tour of Denmark in 2005.

Certainly doesn't look good and unlike Froome he did get caught cheating, a HUGE difference as anyone who's taken part in competitions, whatever the level, knows what it takes to cheat...a lot, you basically give up on all you've trained for, not easy to "fix" that.

Froome has cheated aswell. 2 seasons ago to be exact. During the Tour de France. Halfway up the second ascent of the Alpe d'Huez. Him and Porte clearly cheated the rules sending Porte to the car to get an energy bar.

....and got thrown out of the Giro for hanging on to motorbikes on a climb....and admitted to committing identity theft just to get on a worlds startlist. Not even to get a result, broke the law just to be there. Yeah, that's totally a guy with morals

 

[GuyIncognito]

One thing bugs me.

The guy did nothing last season. Sure, he came 2nd to Gerdemann in a mountain in Azerbaijan, oh wow what a performance.
Aside from that average at best performance and being dropped by superstar Machado in Slovenia, nothing. And he had to be doping last year.

So why did Katusha take him on and believe in him so much that they laid out a plan pre-season of doing Romandie, Giro, etc? Does he have a sort of Froome body type where he responds massively well to a certain drug? How did they know that a guy who did basically nothing had the potential to become amazing in such a short time?

 

[ciranda]

Idk about your questions but to say he did nothing is wrong: he won all kinds of races in Russia, 12th in Burgos, pretty good in late season Italian races with a third place in one of them, second in Slovenia, a real hard race always with strong competition. He made the most of the opportunities and races that Rusvelo could do.

 

[Big Doopie]

Re: Re:

Clentadoppucci

Mate I mean no offence by this, I'm being serious.
You know those nicknames that 5 year olds come up with that we facepalm at how stupid they are even when it's a 5 year old saying it? Yeah....you want to point out he's a doper, go ahead, but don't use that nickname again, it just makes me cringe and feel sorry for you

Lol. And by using the term "face-palm" you are overwhelming us with your maturity...

Who made you the fckin' chick with you know the scales and the robes... of anything?

"Seriously",

clentadoppucci

 

[IndianCyclist]

Idk about your questions but to say he did nothing is wrong: he won all kinds of races in Russia, 12th in Burgos, pretty good in late season Italian races with a third place in one of them, second in Slovenia, a real hard race always with strong competition. He made the most of the opportunities and races that Rusvelo could do.

Once a doper always a doper. See Merckx, Di Luca, Santa, Ricco

 

[ciranda]

My point was he had a lot of results last year and was clearly good. The questions about Katusha are interesting but at the same time Belkov, Tsatevich, Trofimov, Chernetskyi and so on are some of the cleanest looking cyclists around. Russians have underperformed for years so someone has to come from there and be really good sometime. I would love to read insights and knowledge about Russian cycling.

 

[the sceptic]

predictions for giro?

I'll go with stage win and around top 5 on the GC. Nothing too crazy.

 

[Netserk]

Will do well in the first week, though no stage win nor will he wear any jersey. Will fade in the penultimate weekend and the third week.

 

[Rollthedice]

Stage 5, favorites watching each other, Ilnur goes and wins the stage by 1 minute. Maglia rosa gives him an additional 10% in the ITT and the rest will be history. On a more serious note I have no idea what to expect, nobody takes him as a GT contender so he might pull a Horner.

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

I gambled and have him top 10 in Foxxy gt game. Hopefully he still got a few blood bags left to make me a happy fan

 

[More Strides than Rides]

Even a jet powered rider can run out of fuel.

Doping or not, he is still an athlete. I don't think he can last all the way from Romandie to the end of the Giro. Even if he has the physical tools, the mental attrition can't be helped by drugs.

That being said, I think he'll try through the first set of mountains, bonk, then let the rope out so he can get into a breakaway. When he does go on a break on the last few days, his breakaway companions will be fish in a barrel.

 

[proffate]

Re:

[quote="Doping or not, he is still an athlete. I don't think he can last all the way from Romandie to the end of the Giro. Even if he has the physical tools, the mental attrition can't be helped by drugs.[/quote]

a) PEDs will diminish the affects of attrition on body and mind
b) there are plenty of psycho-active drugs that can provide a mood boost (caffeine, amphetamines, etc.)

 

[Irondan]

Re: Re:

Clentadoppucci

Mate I mean no offence by this, I'm being serious.
You know those nicknames that 5 year olds come up with that we facepalm at how stupid they are even when it's a 5 year old saying it? Yeah....you want to point out he's a doper, go ahead, but don't use that nickname again, it just makes me cringe and feel sorry for you

Clentadoppucci

 

[nayr497]

Just bunk him with a hot Eastern Euro woman, his mental side will sort itself out!

 

[Poursuivant]

I think he will do well in the ITT.

 

[jens_attacks]

She is a keeper

 

[SeriousSam]

Richie was mentioning it as well, having a fulfilling life outside cycling gives like 50 extra watts. Coupled with the effect of the yellow jersey, perhaps his time trial wasn't as suspicious after all.

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

Will do well in the first week, though no stage win nor will he wear any jersey. Will fade in the penultimate weekend and the third week.

Yes, he should fade in the 2nd part of the Giro, but i think we could have found this year's odd Vuelta winner.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

If Zakarin at any time pre-Giro mentions doing some swimming training... look out!

 

[classicomano]

Hahaha, hahahaha.