So, who was the real winner of the Giro?

[luckyboy]

He rode all 3 before in 06. 43rd in the Giro, 3rd in Le Tour, and 4th in the Vuelta.

Feels like he could've/maybe should've won a Vuelta. At least one anyway.

 

[Magnus]

All the fans is a good call
Liquigas, Basso, Nibali dominated the race
when the race gets tough the tough get going and Basso proved himself again
Scarponis reall done awesomely and Arroyo will become part of legend with the performance down the mortirolo
Farrar and Porte and Lloyd deserve real mentions...excellent for them all

The losers form a trio for me Evans Vino and Griepel bad for all of them
First to will now never win a gt

Didn't vino win the vuelta at some point(06 I think)?

 

[MarkGreen0]

Pretty cynical question—I find these endless clinic threads get a little boring and predictable. Has this sport really been reduced to assuming that anyone who wins anything must be doped—and more doped than everyone else? Why do you watch? Because you're a chemist and you want to see which cocktails are the most effective?

Well I generally agree with you about this, though I do have some question marks over team Liquigas. I thought people might like to give their view so I started the thread. I suppose it was a bit tongue and cheek.

I did not expect a lot of noble stuff about the fans. But yes, it was a great Giro to watch.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Sastre (hasn't been himself since last year), Cunego (allegedly has a very high hct naturally) or Gerdemann ("wasted talent" and poor recovery).

 

[Irish2009]

The Australians....Evans,Porte,Lloyd. Points,young rider, & mountains jerseys.

 

[Race Radio]

Er, you may have noticed that this thread was posted in the clinic, so "the fans" wasn't really the answer I was looking for.

Unless you're saying the fans were the only clean people? From the looks of them at the side of the road that wasn't true.

Poor troll, are you sad nobody took your bait?

 

[santacruz]

Basso's trainer, Aldo Sassi, who is currently being treated for a deadly brain tumor, insists that Basso is clean and claims Basso would not betray his trust. That was enough to convince me Basso is clean. I'm certainly not going to disrespect Aldo Sassi and talk trash about Basso with no evidence other than a victory in a dirty era.

He is staring through the camera lens and into your soul, if you say bad things his face will leap through the monitor and bite you.

 

[MarkGreen0]

Poor troll, are you sad nobody took your bait?

So you think the fans were the real winner as well? Well, that is surprising. Though I suppose nobody from RadioShack was racing so you don't really care.

 

[Race Radio]

Basso's trainer, Aldo Sassi, who is currently being treated for a deadly brain tumor, insists that Basso is clean and claims Basso would not betray his trust. That was enough to convince me Basso is clean. I'm certainly not going to disrespect Aldo Sassi and talk trash about Basso with no evidence other than a victory in a dirty era.

He is staring through the camera lens and into your soul, if you say bad things his face will leap through the monitor and bite you.

Sassi is a quality person and I do believe that he thinks Basso is clean, but he has been fooled before. He was a DS at Mapei when they were one of the most top fuel teams out there.

 

[MarkGreen0]

Basso's trainer, Aldo Sassi, who is currently being treated for a deadly brain tumor, insists that Basso is clean and claims Basso would not betray his trust. That was enough to convince me Basso is clean. I'm certainly not going to disrespect Aldo Sassi and talk trash about Basso with no evidence other than a victory in a dirty era.

He is staring through the camera lens and into your soul, if you say bad things his face will leap through the monitor and bite you.

Well Basso does seem to have a lot of clean credentuals these days, but it does raise an eyebrow when someone wins a tour after being banned. Especially if they climb the Mortirolo a minute faster than during the period when they were apparently blood doped.

But I think it's good that so many people in the clinic now think the sport is cleaning up. I bet if someone posted a question like this last year then it would have been filled with allegations, but it really seems the sport has moved on and the fans recognise this. Great news.

 

[luckyboy]

Sassi is a quality person and I do believe that he thinks Basso is clean, but he has been fooled before. He was a DS at Mapei when they were one of the most top fuel teams out there.

Did he say that his team were clean then? Or was he quieter then? I'd find that hard to say with a straight face.

(that question was a question not sarcasm btw)

 

[Mellow Velo]

The Australians....Evans,Porte,Lloyd. Points,young rider, & mountains jerseys.

Porte certainly has been a revelation. Riis can certainly find raw talent.
He may be 25, but he's still a neo-pro. He seems to have a keen sense of peloton positioning, too.
I thought Saxo would do nothing at the Giro, but they win both stages and the white jersey.
I'm now wondering who he will find for next year....
Chapeau Richie!

 

[Race Radio]

Did he say that his team were clean then? Or was he quieter then? I'd find that hard to say with a straight face.

(that question was a question not sarcasm btw)

Sassi has a bit of a mixed reputation on the subject. He has defended his work with Moser by saying back then the perception was different, it was not viewed as doping but as science.

By the time he was running Mapei he realized that this was incorrect. He forbade his riders from working with outside doctors with his primary concern being Dr. Ferrari. They had worked together on Moser and he thought Ferrari worked without a moral compass and was bad for the sport.

 

[brianf7]

Exciting all the way from start to finish. But someone turn off the sprinklers next time

 

[Anonymous]

Well Basso does seem to have a lot of clean credentuals these days, but it does raise an eyebrow when someone wins a tour after being banned. Especially if they climb the Mortirolo a minute faster than during the period when they were apparently blood doped.

But I think it's good that so many people in the clinic now think the sport is cleaning up. I bet if someone posted a question like this last year then it would have been filled with allegations, but it really seems the sport has moved on and the fans recognise this. Great news.

maybe people just cant be arsed to answer your question...

who do you think was the real winner of the giro?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Well Basso does seem to have a lot of clean credentuals these days, but it does raise an eyebrow when someone wins a tour after being banned. Especially if they climb the Mortirolo a minute faster than during the period when they were apparently blood doped.

He didn't. It was actually eight seconds faster. Somehow that got misreported as a minute, and the misreport got to LA, and he put that on his twitter, and now the misreporting has become accepted by repetition.

Also, in 2006, there wasn't so much of a group going up there, and Basso already had the maglia rosa and a comfortable lead, so there was no need to go into the red, he could mark other peoples' attacks. On Friday, however, he was two and a half minutes shy of Arroyo and needed to pull that time back so he had to go harder than he did in 2006.

I'm not going to rule out the possibility that Basso was doping on Friday, but I do think that just comparing the times without recompense to the tactics and state of the race is an injustice; the climb is the same, but it never finishes the stage and the way a rider behaves on a climb will always be affected by the state of the race.

If he had been wearing the yellow jersey, Sastre would never have climbed Alpe d'Huez as quickly in 2008, and had he been two minutes closer to Menchov he would never have climbed Monte Petrano as quickly in 2009, because Menchov wouldn't have let him go.

 

[Hillavoider]

they were all doping for sure, to be at the top end of a GT you have to dope. we all know that.
now that Porte will have enough money to get onto a decent doping regime he will be a contender in the future.
so porte is the real winner,

 

[Anonymous]

they were all doping for sure, to be at the top end of a GT you have to dope. we all know that.
now that Porte will have enough money to get onto a decent doping regime he will be a contender in the future.
so porte is the real winner,

It has a sickening logic to it, but unfortunately, it rings true.

 

[luckyboy]

Aren't Saxo regarded as having a team-wide program though?

 

[MarkGreen0]

He didn't. It was actually eight seconds faster. Somehow that got misreported as a minute, and the misreport got to LA, and he put that on his twitter, and now the misreporting has become accepted by repetition.

Also, in 2006, there wasn't so much of a group going up there, and Basso already had the maglia rosa and a comfortable lead, so there was no need to go into the red, he could mark other peoples' attacks. On Friday, however, he was two and a half minutes shy of Arroyo and needed to pull that time back so he had to go harder than he did in 2006.

I'm not going to rule out the possibility that Basso was doping on Friday, but I do think that just comparing the times without recompense to the tactics and state of the race is an injustice; the climb is the same, but it never finishes the stage and the way a rider behaves on a climb will always be affected by the state of the race.

If he had been wearing the yellow jersey, Sastre would never have climbed Alpe d'Huez as quickly in 2008, and had he been two minutes closer to Menchov he would never have climbed Monte Petrano as quickly in 2009, because Menchov wouldn't have let him go.

Good post, you make some good points here about the nature of races and people's positions effecting the time. You can never really compare like with like.

I would add that it was a particularly difficult Giro this year so one would expect that to play into times as well.

 

[BroDeal]

......

BPC returns. Get ready for another troll attack. Looks like he is using he usual "pretend to be reasonable for a while" ploy before he really gets started.

 

[Ferminal]

Stupid question - of course it's Gerdemann

 

[Big Doopie]

i find the final results of the giro hugely disappointing. basso (doper), nibali (ferrari doper -- hardly opened his mouth while climbing the motirolo), scarponi (admitted doper), vino (doper)...all at the top.

my question for those who think they are suddenly riding clean...why the heck did they ever dope?

 

[rikdewy]

here goes my cherry!

maybe people just cant be arsed to answer your question...

who do you think was the real winner of the giro?

I'll be arsed. It's a reasonable question as we are in "The Clinic' after all. I don't get why some who believe its a clean sport, or legweak is pure torment themselves by reading this forum. Admittedly, most of this is speculation anyway.

I love the sport and am an avid fan and I'm not trying to "drag it through the mud". The sport (and media) does a fine job all by itself!

I also thoroughly enjoyed the race, but think it's a bit naive not to believe the guys in the know aren't doing the autologous transfusion/ intavenous EPO microdose shuffle. I'm sure these culprits have themselves convinced that they are playing within the rules because they are not being caught.

The UCI has inadvertently created that attitude. Pre Op Puerto, they were basically saying "well we know you're taking stuff, but we can't seem to catch you, so we'll set the bar at 50% HCT. So don't go over that and you're sweet."

The biological passport has just changed that bar. Basso and his protege Nibali just have to keep their blood values within the range and they're not actually cheating. Right!

The times and gaps aren't as big because the bio passport and drug tests have at least limited how dosed they can be.

So my anwer to the OP's question is easy.... Cadel Evans.

Personally, I think he's a bit of a whiny sook, but I do think he's been shafted by doping more than any other. He would have won three TDF's by now.

The day he decided not to go on the gear with the rest of the telekom team was the day he kissed those GT's good bye.

Righto... How's that for a first post? I've got my flame suit on! (and I'm a firefighter too in the real world. )

 

[karlboss]

The winner is the first across the line for me, unless they are subsequently busted like landis.

As for Basso, few athletes do what he does in terms of showing he is clean, also he never broke the 6 watts per kilo barrier for a sustained effort. For now all i have to go on is VAM, but soon he'll post his SRM data and then we'll know. Nothing surprises me, but I hope this giro was contested by cleaner athletes if Basso was doping I'd expect him to be 2006 Basso and he was well short of that, hence at least cleaner.