Rolland doping?

[Willy_Voet]

Case for Rolland doping:

1. He won
2. He's French and finished ahead of non-French riders
3. He rides on the same team as the infamous Tommy "Dope"ler
4. He's never won anything big before
5. Lance Armstrong called him a "rockstar"
6. His performance was "unbelievable"
7. He pulled in the valley before the climb
8. He dropped Contador
9. Europcar are a new team riding at the front of the TdF
10. He looks like crap when he's climbing (I'll credit that to zigmeister)
11. He reminds us of Ullrich (thanks No_Balls)
12. He has the 26th fastest time up the Alpe, rivaling the best times of the 1980's.
13. His has the face of a doper (thanks blackcat!)
14. You can spell "doper" by rearrange the letters in his name. (thanks torah, I mean hrotha!)

 

[saganftw]

my PCM 2010 wants to have a word with you

 

[No_Balls]

Drugged to the eyeballs. Just as the whole Europcar. Reminds very much of the fairy-tale which was Telekom in 1996.

Bjarne Riis, then 32 (like Voeckler) rides with his young teammate Ullrich (Rolland) to do a one-two.

 

[Willy_Voet]

Drugged to the eyeballs. Just as the whole Europcar. Reminds very much of the fairy-tale which was Telekom in 1996.

Bjarne Riis, then 32 (like Voeckler) rides with his young teammate Ullrich (Rolland) to do a one-two.

****, Voeckler got second today? Or are you saying Voeckler wins the overall and Rolland gets second?

 

[No_Balls]

****, Voeckler got second today? Or are you saying Voeckler wins the overall and Rolland gets second?

Nah. Should have said that, though. I mean it is quite similar with a 32-years old "suddenly" finds something he have never been able to do before, and brings a new pretender to the crown with him.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Nice sarcasm. If Rolland wasn't french, he would've been recognized as a great talent and expected to evolve into a GC contender. But because of his nationality, people act like he's an obnoxious, shameless doper in a clean peloton. Like Europcar are robbing clean teams like BMC, Leopard, Saxo, Liquigas, Lampre and the others.

Oh, and climbing the Alpe d'Huez in 42:20 is clearly impossible for a talented climber unless he's juiced like it's 1996.

 

[El Pistolero]

Innocent until proven guilty. But I can't stand his face already
But honestly, If Contador didn't attack from 90km to go and if he didn't attack so early on Alpe he'd have won. He was the strongest today. He played and lost.

Here's me hoping Contador wins the time trial as Cancellara seems to suck so far...

 

[Willy_Voet]

Oh, and climbing the Alpe d'Huez in 42:20 is clearly impossible for a talented climber unless he's juiced like it's 1996.

That's the 28th fastest time! Should I add that to the list?

 

[spalco]

My sarcasm detector is broken, so I'm assuming OP is serious. If so, then I'll say that this is getting stupid. If it is sarcasm then I say: point made.

 

[hrotha]

It's sarcasm, but it's pretty laughable to mock people who have had to learn the hard way to be skeptical and wary when they see teams do what Europcar is doing.

 

[Cloxxki]

That's the 28th fastest time! Should I add that to the list?

I think you should. that's a very pointy list then, to have such spread over 28 times. Or 28 riders? we know that most of those were full-on dopers of course. If we'd have a confirmed clean time here, it would be the fastest we had perhaps?
This mountain has been ridden up A LOT. Times therefore are sharp. No soft pedaled times in the top 100 certainly not by anyone clean.
And it's the penultimate real stage today. Won by a domestique that unexpectedly had some hard climbing stages in that role, having to at least "be there".

 

[Hairy Wheels]

Drugged to the eyeballs. Just as the whole Europcar. Reminds very much of the fairy-tale which was Telekom in 1996.

Bjarne Riis, then 32 (like Voeckler) rides with his young teammate Ullrich (Rolland) to do a one-two.

And how would Europcar be any different then from any other team in the Tour? It seems you're like many...only care about doping when the French do it.

 

[El Pistolero]

And how would Europcar be any different then from any other team in the Tour? It seems you're like many...only care about doping when the French do it.

They're a pro conti team because their riders are around that level and now they pull this stunt off. It's suspicious to say the least. Especially with Voeckler... Young talents have to break through some day, so perhaps this was Rolland's day.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Nonsense. It's just a proven fact that green is the fastest colour. It's a very light dye, which saves precious weight and makes riders lighter for climbing in the mountains. Just look at historical precedent. Liquigas won 2 of the 3 GTs last year wearing their lime green jerseys; this year they make it mostly white, and have been less successful! Europcar had riders with potential in the blue Bouygues jerseys, but the switch to green has given them a new lease of life in the climbs.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, orange is a very unstable dye. Lightweight Basques are great natural climbers, but the heavy shifts of weight caused by the orange dye in their jerseys make bike handling very difficult when going downhill. See also Rabobank - they also use a richer orange, which sometimes weighs them down on climbs.

For an extreme example, look at this handsome gentleman, clad in orange in 2007:

He was 11th in the Giro d'Italia, struggling with the heavy weight of his jersey. His teammates Pozzovivo and Baliani were 17th and 24th, and not particularly visible except for Baliani in the break into Bergamo.

Now look at what happened when CSF Group Inox bought out the team:

Notice how their results improved upon switching from orange to green - Sella was especially shrewd, and got himself into the KOM jersey, thus removing the remaining vestiges of orange on the team's jersey, and saving vital milligrams. And what happened? Shorn of the difficult to balance ballast provided by the heavier dyes, they soared in the mountains like angels, Sella winning 3 stages and Pozzovivo, Baliani and Pérez Cuapio dominating mountain stages en route to 6th, 9th and 12th - and this after Sella lost 11 minutes due to a crash!

Rolland's case is similar - just a shrewd, some might say lucky, tactical decision by the kit designers.

 

[benpounder]

That's the 28th fastest time! Should I add that to the list?

Wow! The 28th fastest up L'Alpe D'Huez...

And how many times has L'Alpe been used?

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Wow! The 28th fastest up L'Alpe D'Huez...

And how many times has L'Alpe been used?

Is he the 28th fastest winner or 28th fastest time? In the TdF or in any race (Dauphiné as well)?

PS: this was the 27th time it was in the TdF. That means approx. 170 x 27 riders did the climb. A total of about 4500 uphill chrono's.

As for him being suspect. If there is one thing making me doubt his performance, it's the way his teammates have been riding.

 

[Mambo95]

Wow! The 28th fastest up L'Alpe D'Huez...

And how many times has L'Alpe been used?

It's not even that. It's 28th fastest if you only count the times listed on Wikipedia, which is far from a comprehensive list.

 

[MacRoadie]

As for him being suspect. If there is one thing making me doubt his performance, it's the way his teammates have been riding.

Wow.

So now, you're a doper if SOMEONE ELSE is riding well.

Just amazing.

 

[frenchfry]

Wow.

So now, you're a doper if SOMEONE ELSE is riding well.

Just amazing.

Apparently, logic is your enemy.

 

[hrotha]

Wow.

So now, you're a doper if SOMEONE ELSE is riding well.

Just amazing.

The content of your post is at odds with the content of your sig.

 

[frenchfry]

The content of your post is at odds with the content of your sig.

Maybe Jan meant that the French are clean and everyone else doped to the gills.

Just kidding, of course.

 

[MacRoadie]

The content of your post is at odds with the content of your sig.

Only if your level of critical thinking only allows you to apply a singular logical model to all data sets.

Ullrich's point was that the cumulative data and results, representing over a decade of professional cycling, provided obvious qualitative and quantitative proof of systematic and systemic doping in cycling.

To suggest that Thomas Voeckler, a man who has worn yellow before and is hardly an also-ran, spending 10 days in yellow (several of which he had to do little or nothing in the way of defense) provides the same level of proof that Rolland is doping is laughable.

 

[MacRoadie]

Maybe Jan meant that the French are clean and everyone else doped to the gills.

Just kidding, of course.

Apparently, by this logic, Ricco got clean as soon as he left Saunier-Duval, since neither Ceramica Flaminia nor Vacansoleil have won a GT stage in years...

On second tought, Johnny Hoogerland's a doper, so we'll have to reserve judgement on Vacansoleil

 

[hrotha]

Only if your level of critical thinking only allows you to apply a singular logical model to all data sets.

Ullrich's point was that the cumulative data and results, representing over a decade of professional cycling, provided obvious qualitative and quantitative proof of systematic and systemic doping in cycling.

To suggest that Thomas Voeckler, a man who has worn yellow before and is hardly an also-ran, spending 10 days in yellow (several of which he had to do little or nothing in the way of defense) provides the same level of proof that Rolland is doping is laughable.

That was not what I was getting at. You were dismissing the notion that several riders from the same team performing way above the expectations is suspicious, as if teamwide doping programs didn't exist.

 

[benpounder]

Is he the 28th fastest winner or 28th fastest time? In the TdF or in any race (Dauphiné as well)?

28th fastest, and I'm fairly certain that includes several Dauphinés.

PS: this was the 27th time it was in the TdF. That means approx. 170 x 27 riders did the climb. A total of about 4500 uphill chrono's.

How many people have raced it in the history of the TdF confuses the issue. Only a handful of riders each year have the fitness and motivation to hammer. A top lieutenant would have little interest in waisting energy knowing that there are more (mountain) stages to come.

As for him being suspect. If there is one thing making me doubt his performance, it's the way his teammates have been riding.

Europcar has ridden strong, to be sure, but TV has that ability to take his game to another level when it behooves him, and I've been seeing Rolland's name on high up on result sheets for a couple of years. But opinions vary.