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Richie Porte - what do we know about him?

Page 40 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
the sceptic said:
Quintana should outclimb Porte easily, however he has no buisness almost beating Tony Martin in a TT.
Remember this?
http://www.cqranking.com/men/asp/gen/race.asp?raceid=22002

This was one hilly ITT with bad weather. There's only so much you can extrapolate from it. If Quintana repeats this performance in other ITTs, then there'll be an alarm going off.

Keep in mind however that Movistar is not exactly seen as a clean team.
 
hrotha said:
Remember this?
http://www.cqranking.com/men/asp/gen/race.asp?raceid=22002

This was one hilly ITT with bad weather. There's only so much you can extrapolate from it. If Quintana repeats this performance in other ITTs, then there'll be an alarm going off.

Keep in mind however that Movistar is not exactly seen as a clean team.
Plus the fact that Nairo excels in MTTs. He also took massive time in the descents.
 
May 12, 2010
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Yeah, this is certainly suspicious, but we'll have to see more to know whether this is a one time thing, or if he'll continue to time-trial like this (with the necessary downward adjustments in expectations for a flatter course).
 
the sceptic said:
Quintana should outclimb Porte easily, however he has no buisness almost beating Tony Martin in a TT.

A País Vasco TT is a bit of a different kettle of fish though. I'm not going to say that Quintana's performance didn't cause me to do a double take, but doing this in a País Vasco TT - where there is usually next to no pure flat terrain because, well, have you ever looked at a relief map of País Vasco? - is not the same as if it was a pan-flat 24k somewhere else and he was 23" off Martin. Apart from the Zalla TTs in 2009 and 2011, I can't find any that are absolutely clearly for the specialist and without some results you wouldn't expect to see in most TTs.

País Vasco TTs:

2012 (Oñati, 19km)
3 Tony Martin (OPQ) +6"
4 Marco Pinotti (BMC) +15"
5 Damiano Cunego (LAM) +16"
6 Joaquím Rodríguez (KAT) +22"

2010 (Orio, 22km)
1 Chris Horner (RSH) 32'33"
2 Alejandro Valverde (GCE) +8"

7 Marco Pinotti (THR) +25"
8 Joaquím Rodríguez (KAT) +33"
9 Jean-Christophe Peraud (OLO) +33"

2008 (Orio, 20km)
1 Alberto Contador (AST) 29'10"
2 Cadel Evans (SIL) +22"
4 Damiano Cunego (LAM) +49"
7 Stefan Schumacher (GST) +1'17"
9 Sandy Casar (FDJ) +1'23"
10 Marco Pinotti (THR) +1'23"

2007 (Oiartzun, 14km)
3 Juan José Cobo (SDV) +4"
4 Damiano Cunego (LAM) +14"
8 Egoi Martínez de Esteban (DSC) +47"
9 Davide Rebellin (GST) +47"
10 Cadel Evans (PRL) +55"

It's a shock result, no doubt about that, but País Vasco ITTs aren't really typically representative of TT capabilities as a whole.
 
Sep 21, 2009
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What are the chances that Porte slowed down on purpose so Sky goes a bit out of the radar in these 1-week races? We'll have to wait see in Giro and Tour, I guess.
 
Jul 10, 2009
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Netserk said:
Is it more suspicious than Mollema's ITT last year?

ITT is where one sees the biggest effect of juice. Let me give examples
- Contardor beat Cancellera in TDF ITT
- Basso blew everyone in ITT in the Giro
- Chicken legs was top 20 in ITT in TDF
- Rogers was world ITT champion in his USADA juice years
- Quintana???? nearly beats martin
- Henao has a top ten in ITT

No doubt now that skyborgs are juiced but the Peleton has also stepped up the game. I have always had my suspicions about Movistar, I wonder if they have any anti-doping policy? I really at this time have nothing to say about juice in the peloton. Sky getting away with it? Then let the juice party continue. I think the peloton has found out the secret sky juice. Maybe Rogers spilled the beans when he left (to get back on them for abandoning him).

Sky have no bullies like Lance, so I expect the playing field will level out. I say that by TDF there will be many possibilities of a winner. Quintana, Valverde, Purito.
 
jilbiker said:
ITT is where one sees the biggest effect of juice. Let me give examples
- Contardor beat Cancellera in TDF ITT
- Basso blew everyone in ITT in the Giro
- Chicken legs was top 20 in ITT in TDF
- Rogers was world ITT champion in his USADA juice years
- Quintana???? nearly beats martin
- Henao has a top ten in ITT

No doubt now that skyborgs are juiced but the Peleton has also stepped up the game. I have always had my suspicions about Movistar, I wonder if they have any anti-doping policy? I really at this time have nothing to say about juice in the peloton. Sky getting away with it? Then let the juice party continue. I think the peloton has found out the secret sky juice. Maybe Rogers spilled the beans when he left (to get back on them for abandoning him).

Sky have no bullies like Lance, so I expect the playing field will level out. I say that by TDF there will be many possibilities of a winner. Quintana, Valverde, Purito.

Abarcá have at least traditionally in recent years been a don't ask-don't tell team. As a result there's often a name or two involved in the various incidents in Spain (Plaza, Valverde and Zaballa in Puerto; LL Sánchez and Moreno with Losa) but not the same kind of explosion of team-wide issues that we often see there. Their hiring policy clearly has little qualms with doping issues (in addition to Valverde, they also have Ventoso, who had a short suspension back in 2008, Plaza spent a couple of years down in Portugal when he was persona non grata in the ProTour, and they've had various riders signed from questionable sources in the past, like Francisco Pérez and Joan Horrach from Milaneza-MSS), but it's notable that they have only had one positive in the last five years, and that was Rui Costa's supplements positive that was eventually overturned. The last upheld suspension for an Abarcá rider was Marco Fertonani. That was at the Tour Méditerranéen in 2007.

However, they have made noises about imitating the way Sky go about things over the last few months, and aside from the fact that the very fact I posted that in the Clinic means people will assume it's a snide aside at Sky implying widespread team doping, what that means is inevitably more centralising of processes, better organisation and so on. Which could, in all reality, amount to a stepping up from a conservative "go your own way, we'll tie the strings together" policy to a more organised program.
 
Libertine Seguros said:
However, they have made noises about imitating the way Sky go about things over the last few months, and aside from the fact that the very fact I posted that in the Clinic means people will assume it's a snide aside at Sky implying widespread team doping, what that means is inevitably more centralizing of processes, better organization and so on. Which could, in all reality, amount to a stepping up from a conservative "go your own way, we'll tie the strings together" policy to a more organized program.

Unzue & Valverde took the challenge very personal-so the rest of the Pro- Teams would & will indeed catch up, because of the ridiculous modus operandi that SKY is setting across the calender, which is winning everything. Sorry but this matter is only SKY to blame for dragging cycling back to 99.
 
May 27, 2012
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Unfortunately, I think what we are seeing is an arms race spurred on by Sky's ridiculous achievements in stage races in the past year.

Sooner or later, those guys who said "I really am going to give clean cycling a chance" are going to say "I am sick of coming in 29th on good form."

Quintana just said "Oh yea, well check this out."
 
Dec 27, 2010
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hrotha said:
Remember this?
http://www.cqranking.com/men/asp/gen/race.asp?raceid=22002

This was one hilly ITT with bad weather. There's only so much you can extrapolate from it. If Quintana repeats this performance in other ITTs, then there'll be an alarm going off.

Keep in mind however that Movistar is not exactly seen as a clean team.

Basically this.

Look how much Henao has closed up to Martin here compared to Algarve. Both TTs he started as overall leader so it's fair to say he was just as motivated. It's a pretty anomolous TT.
 

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