DirtyWorks said:
Well, but with Froome and Contador out of the TdF last year, Nibali was the only one putting up controversial power estimates.
BTW, 2nd in the 2014 TdF is not some random guy. He was a consistently competitive mountain bike elite. Third was also consistently competitive elsewhere. Will we see the same in 2015? I have no idea, none!
How it is that practically the entire grand tour peloton suddenly deliver realistic power numbers, all at once as if a switch flipped, at the TdF is an interesting question. The 2014 Giro was similarly human scale-ish performance.
The thing I keep looking at is LAPPARTIENT's promotion at the UCI in 2013 to President of the Professional Cycling Council. He's also the President of his country's federation, and holds a couple of other seats as well. Does he have enough authority to "never test positive" athletes? No clue.
1. Quintana wasn't at 100% at the Giro (esp. first 2 weeks) and didn't go full out (for example attacking 10 km from the finish or more like in the TdF 2013 when his numbers were above 6 W/kg)
2. Nibali was in the "yellow" zone at Hautacam with his 6.1 W/kg, the only time he went early. Possible that he could have achieved 6+ W/kg on 1 or 2 more occasions
3. Contador and Froome crashed out and IMO especially Berto was about to go consistently and clearly above 6 W/kg (6.2 - 6.5 W/kg on the longer climbs, 6.5 + on La Planche) ...he needed to gain back time and would have done the climbs at full power. Nibali on his limit so we would've seen also Nibali doing more than 6 W/kg on more than 1 occasion.
4. Contador, Froome, Nibali would have gone into the suspicious or mutant zone. In normal years those are the first 3.
Look at the Armstrong years...starting from 4th position. Guys like Moreau, Igor Gonzales de Galdeano, Santiago Botero, Haimar Zubeldia etc etc. They probably never went above 6 W/kg. Just like Peraud, Bardet, Pinot.
Were those riders clean in ~ 2001 ? Were those Tours anything close to clean? Armstrong himself was climbing slow (even on Sestrieres) in 99 compared to every other year from ~ '93 onwards.
In reality we don't know what the limit is for a certain rider. We can only hope. If the UCI really wanted to reduce doping, they could and then we could have more faith.