Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[The Hegelian]

Re: Re:

do you have a link to the Lance audio?

https://soundcloud.com/user-411867241/episode-01-stage-1-stages-a-tdf-podcast-with-lance-armstrong

Go to around 12:00 for the conversation about Froome time gaps which debunks the argument about Froomes cornering being responsible for the time gap.

And just in case you don't trust Lance just read Froomes own post race comments where he states that he travelled cautiously into corners.

It's amazing though what lengths some of Froomes fans will go to, to try and claim that his superiority is down to anything other than sheer physical supremacy.

That's actually the main reason to be suss: the top tt faves - Martin, Van Emden - plus some of the quality sprinter/short tt specialists - Kittel, Matthews, Sagan.....they all had a good reason to take some risks. There's yellow at stake now and in the next few days. Worth an all or nothing approach.

The Sky top doms, and probably Kung, would have been under instructions to stay upright no matter what. Thomas himself said that.

So you have the specialists taking risks, beaten by the Sky machine not taking risks......during the only race they always dominate. It does in fact raise some eyebrows - shows right away they're on another level, yet again.

 

[spiritualride]

Re: Re:

Was a shocking dominance, considering the conditions. Sky riders have more incentive than the others to take it easy on a dangerous stage like today. Froome can expect to be either the strongest or nearly the strongest in the race so no need to take risks. The rest are his domestiques so why take any risks?

Lance once lost 6 minutes to Big Mig.

6 whole minutes.

And only one of Indurain's rivals was within 4 minutes of him that day. I'm not sure what your point is but why be so misleading?

 

[Galic Ho]

Re:

I dunno, it's not like the Sky riders at the top of the table haven't had good results in TTs before, and Tony Martin isn't exactly stellar at TT's anymore despite the narrative the TV hosts want. I'm not really shocked by anything anymore (though maybe that moto parked at the side of the road at the Giro).

Yeah I know.

At least in 2009 we had Cancellara win the opening prologue.

Of course Astana had Contador, Kloden, Leipheimer and Armstrong all finish in the top 10.

Completely normal too right?

Sky actually won this one and beat the sitting world time trial champion.

Yeah, but, isn't Tony Martin a bit, you know...bad these days? (this is what people are saying to justify the results).

Yep. That's why he is the standing world champion. Tony must have forgotten how to race against the clock. In a complete straight line too!

I guess, we can expect Tom Dumoulin in similar circumstances, would have gone sub 16 minutes right?

 

[Galic Ho]

Re: Re:

Was a shocking dominance, considering the conditions. Sky riders have more incentive than the others to take it easy on a dangerous stage like today. Froome can expect to be either the strongest or nearly the strongest in the race so no need to take risks. The rest are his domestiques so why take any risks?

Lance once lost 6 minutes to Big Mig.

6 whole minutes.

And only one of Indurain's rivals was within 4 minutes of him that day. I'm not sure what your point is but why be so misleading?

It was simple proof of how massive jumps in form, for riders who showed no capacity in a discipline, to suddenly have, at 27 years of age, amazing capacity, after major illness, was really dodgy.

The poster implied Lance had never finished poorly in an ITT. That's not true. That was the best example to show.

People make statements and fail to qualify them.

Want to suggest Big Mig is clean, in this place?

He was one of the first EPO Tour winners along Bugno. To do what the big boys did with dominating form, is only capable of going to the lengths they do...if not further. Armstrong is proof of that. He went above and beyond. How else does one win 7x Tour de France?

What did Sky do? With one similar rider? Exactly that.

I agree with you. Why go so hard with so many riders?

Why be so arrogantly smug and inflame the situation like Dave Brailsford did in post stage comments?

Gloating is only adding fuel to the fire. People who didn't care, actually think Sky are dirty.

They can still do really well, be consistent and not rub everyone's faces in it. Today did that.

Was Astana under Bruyneel the same? That Tour was a fight within a team...and yeah, who won that battle and kept riding? Contador.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Re:

Slightly be surprised by some of the outrage here. Obviously Sky are ridiculously suspicious and have been for ages for all manner of reasons. But Thomas, Kwiatkowski and Kiryienka all doing very well in a 14km flat TT isn't really news. It's consistent with the form they've all shown for the best part of five years now.

Sky signed two of them when they were already elite TTists, and the other one they signed as the reigning Olympic pursuit champion.

Once again, Froome is the odd one out. The one that transformed from a donkey to the second coming of Indurain while on the team.

This.

I don't spend too much time in the clinic as although it often provides interesting discussion, the atmosphere can be too negative and a little tiresome.

Though it must be said that I wanted to see if there was much reaction to Sky after this ITT

But even the outrage that I've read about in a few short posts seems a little over the top.

It's not like Landa finished in the top ten.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Nobody is denying that Sky are doping, but I'm still not so sure that anything particularly out of the ordinary happened here. Clearly Porte took it very easy, and he is grouped with all of the other GC riders, except for Chaves who is a little further behind (as you would expect). Contador's performance - like Porte - was also rather disappointing, though after Valverde's crash (and his own multiple crashes in recent years), it isn't surprising that he has finished this ITT in the middle of the pack. And ignoring the Dauphne, Contador has always been well behind Froome in flat ITT's in recent years. And why shouldn't Froome have a jump up in form from the Dauphne? And it's not like his form was horrible in that week. Compare to Nibali in 2014; Froome was much closer to the form required to compete for yellow in July then Nibali was then; it is really not that big of a jump in form. Perhaps the non 'normal' performance (at least over the last six years....) was Froome's ITT at the Dauphne. If you take something like the flat ITT at last years Vuelta, then his performance yesterday in relation to ALL of Contador, Aru, Quintana....it is not a surprise at ALL.

As for Thomas; the guy has always been strong against the clock. And for those saying that this is extra suspicious because he is coming back from injury at Giro....maybe it is like Contador in 2014, returning from injury at the Tour to win the Vuelta? He held his form and perhaps even comes in a little fresher because of his enforced layoff. And Thomas has had GREAT form this season. Have people forgotten the Tour Of The Alps? And he looked strong in the Giro before having to abandon.

 

[The Hegelian]

What's out of the ordinary: at the tdf, everyone - from 1 to 9 in every team - is in peak condition. And the Sky peak at the tdf is always the summit. No one can ever get anywhere near them.

If there was no history of unbelievable dominance, no one would bat much of eyelid to see those four crack the top ten.

But there is a history of unbelievable dominance!

So, given that, who could watch that prologue and not think: 'damn, another year of this?' Every year, I let a little bit of excitement build up, and then it is ruthlessly quashed by a ridiculous Sky performance - usually this is at least, not in the first stage. And every year, before half way through, I personally get in the broom wagon and curse myself for even thinking that the tdf might be vaguely plausible and interesting.

I feel quite entitled to *** and moan about this - we love the sport, and the pinnacle has been unwatchable for 5 years.

 

[Sorped]

Re:

Frightening dominance, Thomas beating Tony Martin in what was Martins speciality and seasons goal is freakish in itself but to do it after coming back from a bad injury in the Giro.....that takes some doing. Froome took time out of all his GC rivals so the sky train will be getting oiled in readiness for riding tempo riding 450w up mountains again.

I think you missed a p..!

:geek:

 

[meat puppet]

Just like the lance years, though uk postal is worse and this time there wont be a positive ending to it unfortunately. It will be a useless parade from here on.

Funny how froome has the jumps in his form. This time turning the dauphine itt tables completely, taking more than a minute on porte when you combined the results in three weeks. What a joke.

 

[Robert5091]

Re: Re:

Galic Ho
Thomas and Froome, were stronger than they should have been based on their season form (and Giro injury).

Thomas after the Giro crash was second to Tommy D in the ITT.

 

[ahsoe]

Re:

What's out of the ordinary: at the tdf, everyone - from 1 to 9 in every team - is in peak condition. And the Sky peak at the tdf is always the summit. No one can ever get anywhere near them.

If there was no history of unbelievable dominance, no one would bat much of eyelid to see those four crack the top ten.

But there is a history of unbelievable dominance!

So, given that, who could watch that prologue and not think: 'damn, another year of this?' Every year, I let a little bit of excitement build up, and then it is ruthlessly quashed by a ridiculous Sky performance - usually this is at least, not in the first stage. And every year, before half way through, I personally get in the broom wagon and curse myself for even thinking that the tdf might be vaguely plausible and interesting.

I feel quite entitled to *** and moan about this - we love the sport, and the pinnacle has been unwatchable for 5 years.

Exactly my thoughts - just better formulated, than I could have Agree with this, and the disappointed feeling we are left with yet again.
I don't mind doping, but there has to be some sort of level playing field, with some excitement and drama with two, three, four riders on almost equal level (and not from the same team! ) going for the win.
Now, I will probably as you stop watching the Tour very soon in the coming days and look forward to the Vuelta, which is in these days much more interesting and exciting.

What I just don't get is how Sky can nail their collective top form spot on for each Tour. And how this top form can be better than anybody elses (of course based on a very small sample of just one stage, but they did look incredibly strong ).
It is suspicious, that not one of the other top contenders are at least up there with the four Sky riders on this time trial. And that the four Sky riders either beat or recorded similar times as the supposed time trial specialists. They took 37 second on the best contender Simon Yates, and 51 on the worst contender Bardet.
And I don't buy the argument, that other contenders peaked too soon, as has been suggested with Porte for instance.

The only references that comes to mind when looking at Sky and Froome since 2011-2012 are Banesto and US Postal.
Also considering, that I have watched Froome on Ventoux in 2013, which still to this day baffles me, my mind is made up. I can find no other logical explanation for the extreme dominance.

I am dreading the first mountain stage, where I expect Froome, Thomas and Landa to top-3 it while crushing the other contenders. This is how disillusioned I am after 5 years of watching the Tour like this. It is really annoying, because I used to love this race.

But, I will look forward to the Vuelta which is these days much more level and dramatic and exciting. Somehow it is only in the Tour, that Sky can nail their top form? If they can do it in the Tour, they should be able to also do this in other races?

 

[Gung Ho Gun]

Not sure if it's been posted here already, but apparently the Skies were nearly half a minute faster than others because of the dots on their shirts:

http://www.fredericgrappe.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/vortex.pdf

 

[bajbar]

Re:

Not sure if it's been posted here already, but apparently the Skies were nearly half a minute faster than others because of the dots on their shirts:

http://www.fredericgrappe.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/vortex.pdf

That could explain why they were all so fast in the last 5 km. Or it could just be another "gimmick" with the purpose of covering the "real" power boost...

 

[sniper]

http://www.straitstimes.com/sport/fresh-doping-claims-cast-cloud-over-team-sky

 

[Jacques (7 ch)]

Re:

http://www.straitstimes.com/sport/fresh-doping-claims-cast-cloud-over-team-sky

This is Dekker's book, about to be published in English and with an extract in The Times magazine. So presumably no 'new' information, but previously known stuff given wider circulation. I read it and I think the average non-cycling reader would take away at least as much of the boozing/ escorts stuff as of the doping.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

I usually wait until the Sky Train gets going and their domestiques drop some of the best climbers in the world, but I had to chime here saying I got my Tour chuckle early this year after yesterday's results. The dots theory is just icing on the cake.

:lol:

 

[Fergoose]

Re: Re:

do you have a link to the Lance audio?

https://soundcloud.com/user-411867241/episode-01-stage-1-stages-a-tdf-podcast-with-lance-armstrong

Go to around 12:00 for the conversation about Froome time gaps which debunks the argument about Froomes cornering being responsible for the time gap.

And just in case you don't trust Lance just read Froomes own post race comments where he states that he travelled cautiously into corners.

It's amazing though what lengths some of Froomes fans will go to, to try and claim that his superiority is down to anything other than sheer physical supremacy.

That's actually the main reason to be suss: the top tt faves - Martin, Van Emden - plus some of the quality sprinter/short tt specialists - Kittel, Matthews, Sagan.....they all had a good reason to take some risks. There's yellow at stake now and in the next few days. Worth an all or nothing approach.

The Sky top doms, and probably Kung, would have been under instructions to stay upright no matter what. Thomas himself said that.

So you have the specialists taking risks, beaten by the Sky machine not taking risks......during the only race they always dominate. It does in fact raise some eyebrows - shows right away they're on another level, yet again.

An entirely valid point. I didnt see if the Sky domestiques cycled in less hazardous conditions, but I found this more suspicious than Sky's historical efforts in the mountains vs GC leaders (where I could rationalise that the domestiques were measuring their effort). It is terrible tactics to have your domestiques hit the prologue hard in poor conditions.

Comparison with Porte on yesterday's stage isn't valid to me though. He was clearly super conservative after speaking to Nico Roche shortly before heading out. His performance was abject compared to a range of different riders on different teams. With his terrible luck you can understand him taking it extremely cautiously.

 

[Benotti69]

Re:

What's out of the ordinary: at the tdf, everyone - from 1 to 9 in every team - is in peak condition. And the Sky peak at the tdf is always the summit. No one can ever get anywhere near them.

If there was no history of unbelievable dominance, no one would bat much of eyelid to see those four crack the top ten.

But there is a history of unbelievable dominance!

So, given that, who could watch that prologue and not think: 'damn, another year of this?' Every year, I let a little bit of excitement build up, and then it is ruthlessly quashed by a ridiculous Sky performance - usually this is at least, not in the first stage. And every year, before half way through, I personally get in the broom wagon and curse myself for even thinking that the tdf might be vaguely plausible and interesting.

I feel quite entitled to *** and moan about this - we love the sport, and the pinnacle has been unwatchable for 5 years.

It started with Indurain and apart from the odd race it has been a procession most years with a predictable winner. Sastre the last surprise really. Evans was knocking on the door for a long time so his was no huge shock. Wiggins in unbelievable form all year in '12 was so predictable the only thing that was strange that year was Froome was stronger.

 

[alspacka]

Re: Sky

Y'all acting like Kwiat, Thomas, Kiri and Froome have never ridden a TT before.

 

[ahsoe]

Re: Sky

Y'all acting like Kwiat, Thomas, Kiri and Froome have never ridden a TT before.

They certainly have. But all four better than or equal to time trial specialists and other competitors?

Certainly doable, but I just have a strange gut-feeling

 

[SeriousSam]

Re: Re:

Its not really out of the ordinary. Its a wet opening time trial, there are so many variables that aren't directly linked to pure power. Lets wait for the mountains, but they do look incredibly strong.

Absolutely the time gaps from Froome to other GC men were significant for a 14km TT. He took 35 seconds on all his main rivals which is crazy in a short TT. Lance in his live stream after said it was a very strong message and Contador said in interview afterwards it was crazy to lose 40 secs in this stage. I expect ASO also thought there would be 10-20 seconds max between GC contenders.

Wait, Lance is a commentator now?

He knows something about Tour ITTs for sure. I believe he's never been worse than 3rd, an absolutely insane stat

Lance once lost 6 minutes to Big Mig.

6 whole minutes.

That was pre cancer though.

1999 to 2005, you might be right.

Lance dropped 40 seconds to Cancellara in the first stage in Monaco in 2009. Was 10th overall. He had 3 team mates go faster than him. Contador lost 18 seconds and came second and eventually beat Cancellara in the final time trial.

A 28 year old Cancellara.

We've seen stuff like that happen today. Tony Martin getting beaten along with Keung; that's odd.

It would have been nice to have Rohan Dennis here to see how fast he was. He was the on form ITT rider the last 2 months other than Dumoulin and Porte.

I'm talking about 1999-2005 of course. Indurain won more time per km over his closest rivals and his the better time triallist, but Armstrong's consistency in the time trials during the period he dominated was incredible. Better that Armstrong lite, Froome.

 

[alspacka]

Re: Sky

Y'all acting like Kwiat, Thomas, Kiri and Froome have never ridden a TT before.

They certainly have. But all four better than or equal to time trial specialists and other competitors?

Certainly doable, but I just have a strange gut-feeling

They all have multiple world class chrono performances at the highest level, Worlds, Olympics, GTs. Thomas winning was unexpected but not beyond the realms, he was 2nd in the Giro TT. I'm not declaring Sky clean or anything, that would be insane, but this just wasn't the anomalous result that people here are suggesting.

 

[MmeDesgrange]

Froome less of a human X-ray than usual, sporting that cortico-chubster look

 

[rick james]

Re:

Froome less of a human X-ray than usual, sporting that cortico-chubster look

new marginal gain , fatter froome for faster climbs....you heard it here first

 

[pastronef]

Re: Sky

http://inrng.com/2017/07/team-sky-new-skinsuit/

already used by Thomas in May at the Giro and Froome in Dauphiné

what were the "experts" watching then? didnt notice that? they wait for the Tour? are the experts JULY FANS?