Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[the sceptic]

What statement did I make? I thought I just asked a question.

In 2008 we had Valverde, Piepoli, Ricco and a host of other dopers at the fore. Leipheimer and Contador not invited IIRC. The next year we had Armstrong, Contador, the Schlecks, Klöden, Nibali and Wiggins in the top places. All know dopers other than Wiggins.

Looks like a DNF for Wiggo in 2007? No participation in 2008 to focus on Beijing. In 2006 he was 124th place, 3 HOURS and 25 minutes down.

So you have a guy who improved his time from 3 years before by about 3.5 hours in a completely doped field. This is because people were doping less?

The field as a whole did not change in this way. Sure a couple riders improved their results and a lot lost time. But from almost coming in last amongst the finishers or a DNF to 4th?

I don't care what happened in the peloton, that's ASTOUNDING. Let me re-iterate for those who seek to diminish what happened. 3.5 HOURS difference in time. How is that remotely possible clean? It's not.

He did ride the giro in 2008 though, an impressive 134th, about 4 hours down. So we are supposed to believe the peloton became 4 hours slower in a little over one year?

Its not even an exaggeration to say that Wiggins was climbing on the same level as Cavendish back then.

From lead out man and gruppetto rider on every MTF, to top 3 in one of the fastest tours of the decade. I dont understand how anyone can rationalize this as a clean performance.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

...

Great post. Hard facts. No murky estimated W/Kg numbers, but cold hard cycling facts and results... Who is the rider you have the graph from?
And whom would you compare to Wiggins? Rijs, Rominger, LA? ...I guess Rijs comes close. Age and results related. From T-100 finisher in MTFs into T-3...
So what did the GAR guys do with him in 2009? Your opinion?

 

[Benotti69]

Possibly all true. I don't know.

But let's accept it as true. So why did Wiggins wait until 2009 to start doping, when the earlier time period was filthy, and doping definitely was de riguer? How did he keep up with the Gruppetto (let alone top ten the worlds TT) in the meantime if he was clean?

Or if he was already doping from 2001 onwards - which is the logic of your argument - how do you explain his 2009 transformation in the light of doping? Did the drugs just become more effective on Wiggins?

Genuinely interested in some plausible scenarios/discussion here.

My thinking is Wiggins saw the sport truly for what it was and decided being clean was not going to make him any money. Also being a multi olympic gold winner was not an earner so he jumped into the cesspit.

 

[Benotti69]

Good post red.

Well apart from Froome and Armstrong who went from grupetto to top step of the podium.

 

[Nathan12]

Well apart from Froome and Armstrong who went from grupetto to top step of the podium.

The irony? Armstrong's transformation was and is a lot less impressive than Froome's. World Road Race champion, winner of Fleche, second in Liege and San Sebastian. It's the equivalent nowadays I guess of Gilbert winning the Tour, which would obviously be shocking- but nowhere near as amazing as Froome's Vuelta 2011 transformation.

 

[Digger]

The irony? Armstrong's transformation was and is a lot less impressive than Froome's. World Road Race champion, winner of Fleche, second in Liege and San Sebastian. It's the equivalent nowadays I guess of Gilbert winning the Tour, which would obviously be shocking- but nowhere near as amazing as Froome's Vuelta 2011 transformation.

Totally agree - the only other person is Riis.

 

[Benotti69]

The irony? Armstrong's transformation was and is a lot less impressive than Froome's. World Road Race champion, winner of Fleche, second in Liege and San Sebastian. It's the equivalent nowadays I guess of Gilbert winning the Tour, which would obviously be shocking- but nowhere near as amazing as Froome's Vuelta 2011 transformation.

For sure Armstrong won stuff, with dope though. Was Froome doping on Barloworld, i guess he was, but not the levels he is now.

Digger is right Riis the donkey is another grupetto unicorn.

 

[Nathan12]

For sure Armstrong won stuff, with dope though. Was Froome doping on Barloworld, i guess he was, but not the levels he is now.

Digger is right Riis the donkey is another grupetto unicorn.

I've always been interested by Froome's comments on the Duenas positive. They shared a room IIRC, yet naive neo-pro Froome was shocked that anyone would abuse EPO. This was Soler's team, the insane climber, the guy from the last 10 years who reminds me the most of Pantani. I find it hard to believe that anyone could have been that naive on Barloworld.

 

[Beech Mtn]

Totally agree - the only other person is Riis.

For sure Armstrong won stuff, with dope though. Was Froome doping on Barloworld, i guess he was, but not the levels he is now.

Digger is right Riis the donkey is another grupetto unicorn.

I gotta disagree. Riis had better palmares than Froome pre-transformation. Even so, he still didn't look like a future TdF winner. For me, Froome is the outlier of all outliers.

 

[red_flanders]

The irony? Armstrong's transformation was and is a lot less impressive than Froome's. World Road Race champion, winner of Fleche, second in Liege and San Sebastian. It's the equivalent nowadays I guess of Gilbert winning the Tour, which would obviously be shocking- but nowhere near as amazing as Froome's Vuelta 2011 transformation.

Could not agree more.

 

[RownhamHill]

That doesn't work for wiggins. His speeds up verbier, ventoux, Angliru eze, peyresoudes were plenty good enough to challenge for gts In the mid 2000's and with his tt skills, win.

If I were looking for a rider who became good after the sport cleansed itself up I would offer voeckler. 2011 was the slowest tdf of the last 2 decades and it was the only one he challenged in moreover he got a few mins head start from the breakaway, had yellow jersey motivation and proceeded to bleed away his advantage over the gc stages and cracked in the end.

Since then he has won a few mountain stages from a break, pulled a few faces, outsprinted a horse and regressed to where he was before.

Of course many believe europcar 2011-12 was the second coming of saunier duval so even tv's comparitively weak transformation has it's doubters.

Is that really true about Wiggins competing for the win in mid noughties tours? I would love to see the data for that laid out methodically.

 

[RownhamHill]

I don't know about not winning grand tours. He podiumed and that's excellent results.

Also implicit in your post is the assumption the UCI/ASO was some kind of anti-doping adversary when the exact opposite it true. The UCI/ASO bent over backwards to protect Armstrong from the anti-doping rules. They do the same for Contador. Other athletes for reasons unknown are not so lucky.

Podiuming is excellent, but when your benchmark is seven straight wins, then comparatively you're performing worse.

As for UCI corruption, sure but why do they give Wiggins/garmin/Vaughters a pass in 2009? That doesn't add up to me.

 

[Benotti69]

Podiuming is excellent, but when your benchmark is seven straight wins, then comparatively you're performing worse.

As for UCI corruption, sure but why do they give Wiggins/garmin/Vaughters a pass in 2009? That doesn't add up to me.

Because as much as Hein/Pat probably didn't like Vaughters his PR was good for cycling. Heck people still believe Vaughters when he claims the new generation are too cool to dope

 

[the sceptic]

Is that really true about Wiggins competing for the win in mid noughties tours? I would love to see the data for that laid out methodically.

1. Lance Armstrong | 2003 | 6,18 W/kg
2. Alberto Contador | 2009 | 6,17 W/kg
3. Lance Armstrong | 2004 | 6,09 W/kg
4. Lance Armstrong | 2005 | 6,09 W/kg
5. Lance Armstrong | 2001 | 6,07 W/kg
6. Bradley Wiggins | 2012 | 5,98 W/kg
7. Lance Armstrong | 2000 | 5,97 W/kg
8. Lance Armstrong | 2002 | 5,97 W/kg
9. Alberto Contador | 2007 | 5,92 W/kg
10. Carlos Sastre | 2008 | 5,85 W/kg
11. Alberto Contador | 2010 | 5,78 W/kg
12. Cadel Evans | 2011 | 5,68 W/kg
13. Floyd Landis | 2006 | 5,67 W/kg

According to Vetoos numbers, the answer is yes.

Now I guess the next step is to question the methodology and call it inaccurate.

 

[Ripper]

http://www.independent.ie/sport/tour-de-france-glory-for-chris-froome-29436919.html

The humour part of my reply was the hunting versus playing in the rice paddies. I'm sure he just keeps on returning to those paddies to go hunting, or playing, or whatever it is he does there!

 

[RownhamHill]

What statement did I make? I thought I just asked a question.

In 2008 we had Valverde, Piepoli, Ricco and a host of other dopers at the fore. Leipheimer and Contador not invited IIRC. The next year we had Armstrong, Contador, the Schlecks, Klöden, Nibali and Wiggins in the top places. All know dopers other than Wiggins.

Looks like a DNF for Wiggo in 2007? No participation in 2008 to focus on Beijing. In 2006 he was 124th place, 3 HOURS and 25 minutes down.

So you have a guy who improved his time from 3 years before by about 3.5 hours in a completely doped field. This is because people were doping less?

The field as a whole did not change in this way. Sure a couple riders improved their results and a lot lost time. But from almost coming in last amongst the finishers or a DNF to 4th?

I don't care what happened in the peloton, that's ASTOUNDING. Let me re-iterate for those who seek to diminish what happened. 3.5 HOURS difference in time. How is that remotely possible clean? It's not.

You do know that asking rhetorical questions in reply to other people's questions just appears like a passive aggressive way of making statements? (Did you see what I did there?)

Is Nibali really a known doper?

And if someone is a known doper does that mean they couldn't be doping less in any given year? And back to the substantive point - if 95% of riders were doping less, wouldn't you expect the small number of clean riders to get a seemingly astounding rise in performance? If not why not? And why did Wiggins wait until 2009 to dope?

 

[RownhamHill]

According to Vetoos numbers, the answer is yes.

Now I guess the next step is to question the methodology and call it inaccurate.

Not really. The next step is to ask just what that list represents - table headings are your friend.

 

[red_flanders]

You do know that asking rhetorical questions in reply to other people's questions just appears like a passive aggressive way of making statements? (Did you see what I did there?)

Is Nibali really a known doper?

And if someone is a known doper does that mean they couldn't be doping less in any given year? And back to the substantive point - if 95% of riders were doping less, wouldn't you expect the small number of clean riders to get a seemingly astounding rise in performance? If not why not? And why did Wiggins wait until 2009 to dope?

Never been called passive aggressive before. I'll watch out for that.

Do we not think with all of Nibali's connections to dirty teams and doctors that he's clean? I guess we have no "proof". Seems obvious to me that he's not clean.

I would expect all clean riders to experience a mild rise in performance versus their (formerly) doping counterparts.

No one would reasonably expect a guy literally at the tail end of the grupetto to podium. No one. Not reasonably anyway.

I can't speculate on Wiggins' reasons for doping or not doping, nor do I know or care how or why he did/does it. All I can do it watch his performances and observe that it's fairly obvious that he started doping in 2009.

I have never heard a reasonable alternate explanation.

 

[The Hitch]

Do you know, I was with you every single step of the way with that post until the last three words. . .

But briefly in response. I don't actually know how much effect the BP had (or has) in reducing doping. My understanding is that it has moderated doping within parameters, and reduced the risk/reward scenario - Armstong beat the BP (well maybe, for a while) but he didn't win the tours - could have been age, could have been a reduced opportunity to dope to the same degree, no?

And in that context (of continued, but moderated doping) the transformation of Wiggins due to doping alone doesn't make much sense. And I come back to this point about him previously being clean - if he transformed because of dope in 09, it implies he was clean before. But if he was clean before he's a pretty legendary athlete to get anywhere near the pointy end of time trials on the road in 06-07 - no? But if he was dirty before, then how did doping help his transformation? And if it wasn't the contingent factor, what was?

Your point about the story only being as good as it's weakest link is fair enough - which is why it's worth discussing the working hypothesis (Wiggins started doping in 2009) in more detail. No? But now you're saying you don't have a story and you don't need one - I wonder what the scientists who reject religion that you mention would make of that?

Neither of the narratives - Wiggins was clean/clean, Wiggins was clean/dirty, or Wiggins was dirty/dirty respectively to time period - really adds up to me.

I didn't say I don't have a story, or theory I guess is the better word. I have theories. But none of them is do or die.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Great post. Hard facts. No murky estimated W/Kg numbers, but cold hard cycling facts and results... Who is the rider you have the graph from?

David García da Pena, #1 domestique to your good friend Ezequiel Mosquera. If you add his points from the 2010 Vuelta that he was DQed from, his 2010 score is 207, so slightly above his 2007 total.

And whom would you compare to Wiggins? Rijs, Rominger, LA? ...I guess Rijs comes close. Age and results related. From T-100 finisher in MTFs into T-3...
So what did the GAR guys do with him in 2009? Your opinion?

Wiggins is hard to compare to anybody because anybody who has had similar transformations has typically not had the track focus to explain it, so it's a hard call. Riis for example had more climbing results prior to his turning into a GC contender, but I would argue that Bradley Wiggins was a better cyclist pre-transformation than Riis was - it's just that his area of cycling was so far away from what was required for a GT winner that his becoming one stands out in the annals of GT winners.

 

[DirtyWorks]

The irony? Armstrong's transformation was and is a lot less impressive than Froome's. World Road Race champion, winner of Fleche, second in Liege and San Sebastian. It's the equivalent nowadays I guess of Gilbert winning the Tour, which would obviously be shocking- but nowhere near as amazing as Froome's Vuelta 2011 transformation.

Repeating for emphasis, all those results were done doping. And we know for sure other results were bought.

The only question remaining is how early was the UCI helping Armstrong win.

 

[RownhamHill]

Never been called passive aggressive before. I'll watch out for that.

Do we not think with all of Nibali's connections to dirty teams and doctors that he's clean? I guess we have no "proof". Seems obvious to me that he's not clean.

I would expect all clean riders to experience a mild rise in performance versus their (formerly) doping counterparts.

No one would reasonably expect a guy literally at the tail end of the grupetto to podium. No one. Not reasonably anyway.

I can't speculate on Wiggins' reasons for doping or not doping, nor do I know or care how or why he did/does it. All I can do it watch his performances and observe that it's fairly obvious that he started doping in 2009.

I have never heard a reasonable alternate explanation.

I don't know about Nibali, just as I don't know about Wiggins.

But if your sole argument explanation is I've seen it therefore it is, then I hope you understand the structural weakness of it.

 

[RownhamHill]

I didn't say I don't have a story, or theory I guess is the better word. I have theories. But none of them is do or die.

Apologies to misrepresent you.

But what are your different theories? And why are'nt you certain about one over the other, given how convinced you are on the ultimate answer? Is it really just because you can't, metaphorically, believe it's not butter?

 

[RownhamHill]

David García da Pena, #1 domestique to your good friend Ezequiel Mosquera. If you add his points from the 2010 Vuelta that he was DQed from, his 2010 score is 207, so slightly above his 2007 total.

Wiggins is hard to compare to anybody because anybody who has had similar transformations has typically not had the track focus to explain it, so it's a hard call. Riis for example had more climbing results prior to his turning into a GC contender, but I would argue that Bradley Wiggins was a better cyclist pre-transformation than Riis was - it's just that his area of cycling was so far away from what was required for a GT winner that his becoming one stands out in the annals of GT winners.

Was going to reply to your earlier post but its late now! Suffice to say that I don't think pinotti is a direct comparison to Wiggins, just that something interesting is going on with his results.

And no doubt Wiggins transformation was astounding. Just given the stuff you lay out above, it's really hard how a binary non doper/ doper transformation in 2009 is a slam dunk argument.

It's been a blast guys, but I'm off to bed.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

David García da Pena, #1 domestique to your good friend Ezequiel Mosquera. If you add his points from the 2010 Vuelta that he was DQed from, his 2010 score is 207, so slightly above his 2007 total.

Wiggins is hard to compare to anybody because anybody who has had similar transformations has typically not had the track focus to explain it, so it's a hard call. Riis for example had more climbing results prior to his turning into a GC contender, but I would argue that Bradley Wiggins was a better cyclist pre-transformation than Riis was - it's just that his area of cycling was so far away from what was required for a GT winner that his becoming one stands out in the annals of GT winners.

It´s safe to say that such funny spikes at unusal points in a career (speak age) are the clearest indicators of massive doping there is* (unless you have a positive, of course). So Wiggings being up there from 2009 on, with a "down" year in between, is highly suspicious (but not as high as CH, he is in a different league) since there was nothing before his 29th birthday. Zilch that indicated he could climb with the best. Even unable to follow clean climbers like Casar and Moncoutie...
Personally I wouldn´t even call a 2010 24th GT-finish, where he basically gave up in the 3rd week, a down year, if before 2009 the best GT finish was a Rijs pre-transformation like 121st (actually it was worse than Rijs ever was. Even if giving Wiggins track record the benefit of doubt or not)...

* as we have seen with Mosq , Garcia, Santa, DiLucas last resurgence, etc.