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Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

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sartoris

sartoris

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WELL?

Does anyone apart from me think there's been something fishy about this team for a while now? Today's performance in Dauphiné reminded me of the bygone days of Lance's teammates at the Tour, when all of them (except he, of course) were doped to the gills ....

No offence intended.
 
sartoris

sartoris

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roundabout said:
op is right, only contador is allowed to ride uphill that fast clean, anyone else must have swallowed/injected a whole pharmacy to do so
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What's Contador got to do with this? He's currently suspended, in case you didn't know. We're talking SKY and Wiggo, Froome and the whole bunch here.
 
sartoris

sartoris

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Moose McKnuckles said:
Uh, what? This isn't even about Contador. How many Saxo guys do you see finishing the climbs with Contador anyway?

Maybe Froome, Porte, and Rogers also have swimming coaches.
Click to expand...

Sound_of_Laughter_by_hersley.jpg
 
Polish

Polish

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mercianman said:
Wiggins compared his team to Banesto and USPS in the post race interview, does no one else think that that is a bit odd?
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I do not find it odd one bit.

It is a win win comment by Wiggins. Comparing SKY to 2 of THE Legendary Tour Teams of all time serves two purposes. Not only is Wiggins complimenting his own mates who will be supporting him, Brad also gets to be entertained by all the exploding heads in The Clinic etc.

JV said he enjoyed wadding peoples panties with his courting of Alberto, and Wiggins is one upping JV in the panty wad competition. The bar is raised.

Livestrong bracelets next I hope. Great cause.
 
Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

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Polish said:
I do not find it odd one bit.

It is a win win comment by Wiggins. Comparing SKY to 2 of THE Legendary Tour Teams of all time serves two purposes. Not only is Wiggins complimenting his own mates who will be supporting him, Brad also gets to be entertained by all the exploding heads in The Clinic etc.

JV said he enjoyed wadding peoples panties with his courting of Alberto, and Wiggins is one upping JV in the panty wad competition. The bar is raised.

Livestrong bracelets next I hope. Great cause.
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If Wiggins and Sky started wearing Livestrong bracelets to ride I would probably like them more, for having a sense of humour about it. It would be awesome. Then Chris Froome could mock Andy by suggesting that he needs to take fewer race days seriously, and Cav could accuse Schleck of taking too many pushes from the team car in some minor race where he finishes in the autobus.
 
The Cobra

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I dont think its really that much of a surprise. As has already been pointed out in other threads, this is only the Dauphine and its quite clear many of the favourites either dont have the from yet or are taking it easy. If this type of domination continues for three weeks of the tour, then ok, raises some suspicions.

As for Wiggo having three teammates with him up the climb, Sky has loads of money and went out and signed quality riders who can set hard tempo on the climbs to suit Wiggo's style. Rogers, Porte and Froome aren't some chumps who cant climb, they've shown this type of ability before. Sky have had this group of riders racing and training together all year so its no surprise they are all coming into form at the same time ready for the July.

Yeah its made this race kind of dull, but now everyone knows they have to attack to try and break the UK postal train up otherwise Wiggo will crush all in the TT's and win the Tour without breaking a sweat! :)
 
Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

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The Cobra said:
I dont think its really that much of a surprise. As has already been pointed out in other threads, this is only the Dauphine and its quite clear many of the favourites either dont have the from yet or are taking it easy. If this type of domination continues for three weeks of the tour, then ok, raises some suspicions.

As for Wiggo having three teammates with him up the climb, Sky has loads of money and went out and signed quality riders who can set hard tempo on the climbs to suit Wiggo's style. Rogers, Porte and Froome aren't some chumps who cant climb, they've shown this type of ability before. Sky have had this group of riders racing and training together all year so its no surprise they are all coming into form at the same time ready for the July.

Yeah its made this race kind of dull, but now everyone knows they have to attack to try and break the UK postal train up otherwise Wiggo will crush all in the TT's and win the Tour without breaking a sweat! :)
Click to expand...

However, Froome was a guy who had shown nothing in his career except for some OK performances several years ago on a known dodgy team, until the Vuelta. Now, he's a guy who has shown this type of ability before, if only in a very short window when his contract was due, but his signing for Sky was more to do with the flag next to his name than anything else at the time. Porte had a great breakthrough, but a disappointing 2011, so he was a calculated gamble - plenty of upside. Rogers is now a long time removed from any kind of reasonable performance on all but the most TT-biased of parcours. And apart from the 2009 Giro I don't really see any real results worth pointing to from a GT and difficult stage race perspective since the days he rode for a dope-addled T-Mobile team - so to see him back at that level is going to raise some people's suspicions anyhow.

Sky are a very well-organised team who have lucked into some parcours that are very favourable to their leader's strengths this year. And their leader has been incredible this year; Wiggins wasn't even this consistently awesome in the ITTs when he was an ITT specialist and an ITT specialist only.

This race was always going to be dull regardless of the strength of the Sky train, because the amount of TT mileage is so ridiculously long for the amount of relevant climbing, that the TT guys were always going to be able to just ride themselves along however they liked. It's Paris-Nice 2011 level bad. We can't blame Sky for that.
 
sartoris

sartoris

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roundabout said:
Just the irony of a Contador defender/believer starting a thread questioning Sky is too delicious to ignore.
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Being a Contador fan means I can't question SKY's performances? Who is entitled to do so? Unbiased Wiggo fanboys/girls like you?

For most non-British forumites, SKY's performance today was at least a bit suspicious, I daresay.
 
Ripper

Ripper

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sartoris said:
WELL?

Does anyone apart from me think there's been something fishy about this team for a while now? Today's performance in Dauphiné reminded me of the bygone days of Lance's teammates at the Tour, when all of them (except he, of course) were doped to the gills ....

No offence intended.
Click to expand...

Well ...

As has been noted a fair bit in the Tenerife thread, as well as the TdF predictions and today's Dauphine thread - in a word, yes.

UKPS-Ballan has either benifited from themselves peaking and everyone else not yet on form, or July will be a farce. Le Tour will certainly reveal which case it is.

While the competition is not near July intensity, it is more than a bit disconcerting as to how easy it looked for the whole Sky team. When I see Rogers, Porte and Froome riding tempo and riding people off their wheels, it certainly raises my eyebrows.

I will say that on one hand Wiggo says he is peaking for the Tour, on the other hand he says he has been maintaining 95-97% all year. If the latter is the case, the peak would not 'normally' bevery high (unless enhanced ;)).
 
Ripper

Ripper

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To add, if Wiggo and Sky were not so over the top, I might actually be cheering them on. But the team is looking dodgier and dodgier, and Wiggo seems to be able to Sprint, TT, Climb, maintain top form all year, be something like 20-25 lbs below his 'normal' weight and yet never be sick, blah blah blah. If it looks and smells like sh*t, it likely is :eek:
 
palmerq

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well in normal cycling when I see something like these performances I am suspicious although being british I always asume people dont dope here so I dont think sky are... although thinking logically the performances are quite suspicious but I can believe it like I believe every rider who wins :S
 
C

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When they start dropping top quality, in form riders I'll have my suspicions. Weening managed to hang in that group, so it was hardly the most elite of groups. If this continues at the Tour, then there probably is something strange going on. But it's unfair to start saying that now
 
T

Tyler'sTwin

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Ripper said:
To add, if Wiggo and Sky were not so over the top, I might actually be cheering them on. But the team is looking dodgier and dodgier, and Wiggo seems to be able to Sprint, TT, Climb, maintain top form all year, be something like 20-25 lbs below his 'normal' weight and yet never be sick, blah blah blah. If it looks and smells like sh*t, it likely is :eek:
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:

If Wiggans really is strong enough to win the TdF this year, he certainly didn't need to be in top form to win ridiculously TT-biased stage races like Algarve, P-N and TdR 2012. Those stage races put together had 2 somewhat decisive stages, both finishing on hills, on whixh Wiggans was dropped by Richie Porte, Tiago Machado, Rui Costa, Johnny Hoogerland, Wouter Poels, Jurgen Van Den Broeck, Andrew Talansky, José Mendes and Lieuwe Westra, matching the likes of Tony Martin and Simon Spilak. I have no idea why you think he was in top form. He wasn't tested because of the embarrasing parcours.
 
thehog

thehog

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palmerq said:
well in normal cycling when I see something like these performances I am suspicious although being british I always asume people dont dope here so I dont think sky are... although thinking logically the performances are quite suspicious but I can believe it like I believe every rider who wins :S
Click to expand...

Our press doesn't fawn like the American or Australian press. If they start sniffing a rat they'll turn. Although having Murdoch in the back pocket will help.

One sniff of Edgar and its good night.
 
T

Tyler'sTwin

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Those TT's don't exactly suggest top form either. In Romandie (winning time: 0:28:56), he just edged Andrew Talansky, beat Rui Costa by 22s and Szmyd by 41s. At P-N (0:19:12), he overcame Westra by 2s, while in Algarve (0:32:48), he did beat Martin, but was the german in top form in february? Of course not, and that's why Porte, Van Garderen and Sergent finished within 14s of Wiggans' and Tony's time. Just compare that TT to the Dauphine one and it's quite obvious he's stronger now. Besides, if Brad's peak form was only good enough to more or less match Westra in a MTT, we can just write him off as TdF W threat right away, cos that's not good enough.
 
Y

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thehog said:
Our press doesn't fawn like the American or Australian press. If they start sniffing a rat they'll turn. Although having Murdoch in the back pocket will help.
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Yes I'm sure any Murdoch news outlet will know what's good for it. Hail Sky the hero team showing those dodgy continentals what's what.

Here in Australia Murdoch makes up 70% of the press or some ridiculous percentage like that... all relentlessly on message.
 
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