LugHugger said:it's worth considering that whilst wiggins had spent the last few years with a foot in both camps, he was still in a full competitive track programme over each winter between road seasons. clearly, this would have impacted on his road performances what with the additional muscle mass required for the track. imo, wiggins never attempted to lose this mass during his abbreviated road season in order to maintain his WC/Olympic competitiveness.
actually, not correct. Wiggins did step back, I know he won 2007. But he did not ride 2006 Worlds, think that was Escobars.
Why is everyone ignoring the past examples,
Escobar, Bartko, Lehmann, Mcgee. Mcgee lost a truckload of weight, he went from coming second to Ullrich in a Tour de Suisse chrono, to pack fodder in the Tour chronos when the peloton came "a juiced". Mcgee weighed lighter than Wiggins does now, or about the same, but with potential to get under his weight by the end. Wiggins could really not atrophy further during a GT.
And imo, Mcgee would have been faster than Wiggins in the IP, had he stayed 74/75 kgs, and held that anaerobic power, versus completely crossing to the road circa 2003, looking at the classement. After Cooke had green, he then went to look for a classification result.
Just because Mcgee could not do it, does not mean Wiggins could not. In my estimate, Mcgee was a better track rider, but because he was getting 1 million euro at FDJ, he pursued the road, and never could match Wiggins when he had the specificity and track preparation.
But the road is much more complicated with a greater demand on the energy systems and recovery. Mcgee could not recover. Partly because did not get the recovery hormones, and partly because he never had increased his O2 capacity through illegal means.
If Wiggins wants to prove to us he can do it clean, he needs more than one season. This is just no right. And he started out at Linda Mac fiasco in 2000 I think, and in 2003 was at Francaise des Jeux. He has been on the road along time, and never showed he could win a prologue or timetrial, let alone a GC shot at the Tour.
Now if Wiggins was on the Astana and Contador medical program, he would be threatening Contador. As is, he has to have the transfusion prior to the Tour, and maintain the ruse of plausible deniability for Vaughters.
What does his palmares look like, remembering he was 100% road in 2006, and the other years, he may have shown up for Manchester UCI Cup, and the Worlds. He has won nothing, nada. A l'Avenir prologue, a l'Avenir stage, plus one or two short tt's or prologues in races like Dunkirk. Roubaix Lille Metropole ride those races, there are div3 teams there.
He has shown nothing.
Yet we are to believe, he is such a committed trackie, that when he committed himself 100% to the road, his talent would manifest itself? Well, what about 2006? What about the other years? Were Madiot, Stapleton, and Legeay, plus Boyer, fools for paying him a road wage? Were they fools for not seeing his GC potential?
Wiggins has made alot of us fools, in either way.
He was on the road, with full focus, previously. He did jack $hit. If he was as classy as everyone here suggests, he would have been like Mcgee and able to straddle both disciplines.
Mcgee may have beaten Bartko in 2000 without a broken collarbone, he then won a Tour prologue, he was 8th in the 2004 or 2005 Giro, and he animated Tour de Swiss classement on more than one year.
The Wiggins rationale here bursts at the seams as fraudulant.