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ranking the big 4 by cleanliness!

most clean first, one liner as to why, why not.
Quintana, natural progression, natural advantages.
Contador, unlikely to do it again, not the rider he was when juiced
Froome, suspicious career development, benefit of the doubt due to lack of actual evidence
Nibali, team is dodgy as f'ck, vino is the devil
 
Aug 31, 2012
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Well, whether a rider has used banned performance enhancing products at least once is clearly binary.

But we could attempt to rank those 4 riders in terms of how how likely it is they have done so at some point in their career (Quintana, Nibali, Froome, Contador but all very close to 100%) , how likely it is they are currently clean (Quintana, Nibali, Contador, Froome, but all very close to 0%), how much added performance they derive from doping (Froome clearly leads this in recent years).
 
Possibility of being clean I would say

Quintana 5% - that is the probability that a clean rider could acheive the insane outputs he has done, while opting to ride for a doped team like Movistar AND that his habbit of disapearing for months at a time prior to gts is totally innocent.

Nibali - 1% - that is the combined probability that
A)he never did visit Ferrari
B) that Astana was doping all their other riders but not him and yet he still was the best,
C) that Liquigas was doping all their other riders but not him and yet he still was the best
D) that a clean rider would become bffs with Basso while Basso was doping
E) That his slightly less unbelievable performances are clean

Froome - 0.00001%. Where to begin. First of all the probability that every single time Sky and Froome lied about something, itwas purely an accident slip of the toungue and they never really meant any of those things. That includes Bilharzia, lies about training 10 hours a day and not feeeling any fatigue, lies about previous performances being ridden on poor equipment when that clearly was not the case, lies about kerrison inventing new time trialing science for Froome that the actual cycling experts never thought of etc.
On top of that, we can add the probability that someone could actually peak for 6 straight months, that they could beat Armstrongs mountain and time trial performances.
The probabilty that someone could lose 10kg naturally, without losing any power without drugs.
Also the probabiluty that someone who did beat all of Armstrongs performances would react by being surprised they were under suspicion, and plain out refuse to share meaningless data like pre 2011 values (but be totally willing to publish post 2011 values)
Also the probabilty that someone would actually think Vino is clean D:
Add all those things together - and to believe Froome you HAVE to believe all those things, and the probabilty is the above.

Contador - 0%. The chances that someone would have plastercizers in their blood but be clean. Im not even going to bother with Puerto or clen or his VAM on Verbier.
 
Jul 21, 2012
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This isn't very interesting since all these riders are very close to 0% probability of being clean.

More fun would be to gauge more controversial riders.

Lemond: 80%
Pinot: 60%
Dan Martin: 40%
Evans: 10%
Sastre: 5%

probability of being cleans, imo.
 
Re:

the sceptic said:
This isn't very interesting since all these riders are very close to 0% probability of being clean.

More fun would be to gauge more controversial riders.

Lemond: 80%
Pinot: 60%
Dan Martin: 40%
Evans: 10%
Sastre: 5%

probability of being cleans, imo.

Why does a "sceptic" have such a high belief in pinot? There may not be much information to doubt him, but iirc the only argument that he is more likely to be clean than anyone else is the racist - French people don't dope.
 
Jul 11, 2013
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Re:

ebandit said:
this quote seems perfect for this thread.............'no-one is innocent.........there is only differing levels of guilt'

Mark L

+1

Also the definition of clean is as clear as mud -depending on one's point of wiev...
 
Jul 21, 2012
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Re: Re:

The Hitch said:
the sceptic said:
This isn't very interesting since all these riders are very close to 0% probability of being clean.

More fun would be to gauge more controversial riders.

Lemond: 80%
Pinot: 60%
Dan Martin: 40%
Evans: 10%
Sastre: 5%

probability of being cleans, imo.

Why does a "sceptic" have such a high belief in pinot? There may not be much information to doubt him, but iirc the only argument that he is more likely to be clean than anyone else is the racist - French people don't dope.

He did release all his training files which to me is very significant. It obviously doesn't rule out doping, but at least it shows that his progression and power numbers are within the range of what can be done cleans. This is why I rate him much higher than people who spew the usual we are clean propaganda without backing it up with any data.
 
Jul 11, 2013
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The data was from Grappe and his (pinot's) brother right?

If i was to prove my cleanliness I'd probably not choose my brother as source for distribution..
There could be many more or lesss valid reasons for this though.. I dunno..

If he was totally (depending on definition) clean -then last years TDF may have been the cleanest (gc-contender) for decades..

Either that or Pinot is unusually (double up) talented...

Or he is doping... More or less...
 
Aug 31, 2012
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I have a feeling that unless someone is heavy duty doping like microdosing EPO or blood doping, clinic regulars are now regarding them as basically clean, see GVA thread.. If we really insist on the standard of never ever having broken the rules regarding banned substances, I cannot think of a notable rider with any victories that I'd give a 60% chance of being clean.

If I know nothing about a rider whatsoever and his name pops up on cycling news because he did well in some race somewhere, I would not want to wager he's clean according to that standard at even odds.
 
Jul 11, 2013
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Basically I agree Sam..

CIRC report confirmed that even riders are confused of what is no and what is go...

It has become murky waters...

So being clean is a relative term...

Conveniently so maybe...
 
Re: Re:

the sceptic said:
The Hitch said:
the sceptic said:
This isn't very interesting since all these riders are very close to 0% probability of being clean.

More fun would be to gauge more controversial riders.

Lemond: 80%
Pinot: 60%
Dan Martin: 40%
Evans: 10%
Sastre: 5%

probability of being cleans, imo.

Why does a "sceptic" have such a high belief in pinot? There may not be much information to doubt him, but iirc the only argument that he is more likely to be clean than anyone else is the racist - French people don't dope.

He did release all his training files which to me is very significant. It obviously doesn't rule out doping, but at least it shows that his progression and power numbers are within the range of what can be done cleans. This is why I rate him much higher than people who spew the usual we are clean propaganda without backing it up with any data.

Lemond - 99% - the Armstrong team would have loved nothing more than exposing/destroying him, and I trust them to have tried to dig up dirt. They would have found something, had there been something to find.

Pinot - deserves credit for publishing data. Considering that even amateurs keep training logs, I'd be curious to look at Dawgs :rolleyes: for example. His '14 TdF power estimates on climbs weren't suspicious, his progress through the years looks steady. And he's French, therefore he doesn't dope :p - 50%

The other two - 5%

I have been burned (many times) before...I wouldn't bet a dollar on anybody being clean...
 
Jun 15, 2009
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1. Hushovd
2. TGAK
3. EBH
4. Ryder Hesjedal

Ok, obviously a slight national bias here, but there's never been an iota of evidence, and bloodpass-figures are through-and through consistent. Actually, 3 of them are probably too dumb to want to delve in dubious substances.
 

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