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Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

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Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

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theyoungest said:
Froome is the only real shock development. He went from "lol, look at him crawling up the Santuario di San Luca" to "lol, look at him destroying everyone uphill" literally overnight.

Wiggins had already been 4th at the Tour when they signed him. Thomas had been close on GC before, but collapsed in the third week. Both of them ride uphill like the track cyclists they naturally are, it's not a joy to behold. But it's not a miracle transformation.
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You don't think Brailsford was involved in Wiggins' transformation from a guy who couldn't finish in the top 100 of a mountain stage and caused David Harmon to nearly have a coronary when he lasted longer than Cunego on a diesel climb two months before that 4th place? Or are you contending that it doesn't count as a transformation because it predates Team Sky?

True, Thomas wasn't a complete scrub on the climbs until age 29 like Wiggins was, but he also wasn't somebody who was there on long climbs, let alone dropping people he could eat in one bite on them either.

And then in 2015 at age 29, suddenly he wasn't just grinding over 2-3km climbs like Malhão or riding 5% tempo grinders, but dropping guys like Quintana on HC monoliths. And that's apparently not a transformation because he won a race of four flat stages and an ITT in 2011.

If he'd won the 2018 Tour by building time in time trials and the cobbled stage early on, and then surviving the mountains like larger GT riders tended to, then I'd be more willing to accept it. But that's not what I saw. I saw him become the first person since a guy whose name is now expunged from the record to win back to back mountain top finishes at the Tour, grinding all the climbers to dust on the way. I can't unsee that. And while I don't need to believe to enjoy, I neither believe nor enjoy Thomas, and he completely strains my suspension of disbelief in a Cândido Barbosa kind of way.
 
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zlev11

zlev11

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pastronef said:
THE TALENT. Thomas showed he had that. his rise year after year. the work. the kms spent leading captains up mountains, the career choices, the focus. the two 15th place at the TDF. he wasn't a metheor, he didn't show up and went bang. I don't dislike Alarcon, I actually don't care about him. and I don't know what he has got to do with Thomas
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would you say he's on his bike, busting his ass 6 hours a day (what are you on)?
 
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gillan1969

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roundabout said:
Aside from Froome's positive test what other 'numerous actual facts' are there vs the arguments used against Thomas?
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the weight, the romandy TUE whilst beating Martin in a TT, the (alleged) asthma, badzilla, the excuse and study to get off the positive, the 'he just lost the fat'..and the fax that everyone (including Froome himself) never realised he was the one of the best physical specimen the world had ever seen. Oh...and his team had two doping doctors and a DS who when confronted with a doping case, lied twice then tried to palm off with a counter story.....
 
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gillan1969

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Libertine Seguros said:
Thomas also has the problem of being the third shock development in a row for the same team who now, despite samhocking's endless contortions and playing the semantics game to find the most favourable interpretation of, have had a lot of smoke around them for a long time from a lot of different angles. Thomas is a Brailsford lifer, and his development and performance will forever be attached to Brailsford and his legacy, for all the good and bad that that entails.
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i think also overlooked is the riders themselves,...what they know they can manage physically......if you can win a GT you are a certain type of rider with a certain type of mentality...you don't just chance your way in.....and it's difficult to hide the sort of rider you are in mid-pack mediocrity...which is what the three Sky boys did...some more mediocre than others...lols
 
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samhocking

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Recent history has shown, pretty much every Tour winner was caught doping within their career, but then history also shows 50% of the peloton itself were knowns dopers, but that trend has completely reversed since Sky & Bio Passport entered the sport. The last 15 years have seen no Tour winners sanctioned for doping and I believe it's now <1% of the peloton have any doping past. Something changed and Sky did something different in a very different peloton, Jumbo admit they copied and improved what Sky brought to cycling and now they are moving that concept a step onwards again. This is the nature of pro cycling forever anyway of course, but the doping context is at least statistically now almost no longer countable in World Tour, there's just nobody getting caught doping and nobody racing with any history of doing it either.
 
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Sciatic

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samhocking said:
Recent history has shown, pretty much every Tour winner was caught doping within their career, but then history also shows 50% of the peloton itself were knowns dopers, but that trend has completely reversed since Sky & Bio Passport entered the sport. The last 15 years have seen no Tour winners sanctioned for doping and I believe it's now <1% of the peloton have any doping past. Something changed and Sky did something different in a very different peloton, Jumbo admit they copied and improved what Sky brought to cycling and now they are moving that concept a step onwards again. This is the nature of pro cycling forever anyway of course, but the doping context is at least statistically now almost no longer countable in World Tour, there's just nobody getting caught doping and nobody racing with any history of doing it either.
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To my mind, “something changed” = microdosing EPO (currently undetectable) & more sophisticated use of blood bags (undetectable) and altitude hypoxia to ^ Hematocrit, and smokescreen the biological passport.
 
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Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

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samhocking said:
Recent history has shown, pretty much every Tour winner was caught doping within their career, but then history also shows 50% of the peloton itself were knowns dopers, but that trend has completely reversed since Sky & Bio Passport entered the sport. The last 15 years have seen no Tour winners sanctioned for doping and I believe it's now <1% of the peloton have any doping past. Something changed and Sky did something different in a very different peloton, Jumbo admit they copied and improved what Sky brought to cycling and now they are moving that concept a step onwards again. This is the nature of pro cycling forever anyway of course, but the doping context is at least statistically now almost no longer countable in World Tour, there's just nobody getting caught doping and nobody racing with any history of doing it either.
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Since the UCI took control of testing from AFLD again, the number of riders busted has drastically gone down. Armstrong's return, the attempt to replace the huge audience drop off in places like Germany following successive major doping scandals, and lawyers poking huge holes in the efficacy of the biopassport have been the biggest factors. Nowadays big names only get caught on technicalities like Quintana, when the police get involved like López, or when the UCI kicks an own goal like Contador or Froome.
 
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gillan1969

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samhocking said:
Recent history has shown, pretty much every Tour winner was caught doping within their career, but then history also shows 50% of the peloton itself were knowns dopers, but that trend has completely reversed since Sky & Bio Passport entered the sport. The last 15 years have seen no Tour winners sanctioned for doping and I believe it's now <1% of the peloton have any doping past. Something changed and Sky did something different in a very different peloton, Jumbo admit they copied and improved what Sky brought to cycling and now they are moving that concept a step onwards again. This is the nature of pro cycling forever anyway of course, but the doping context is at least statistically now almost no longer countable in World Tour, there's just nobody getting caught doping and nobody racing with any history of doing it either.
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lols...sky...with the three most ludicrous GT riders ever (well at least two) are now responsible for the sport's clean up :) :) :) I remember Armstrong claiming suchlike (and paying for UCI testing)....Sky riders didn't get caught because the UCI wanted Murdoch and his money and because they did change something...plausible deniability...move the doping protocol onto the docs instead of the riders....once done nobody should get caught (indeed as the testo and Freeman show...no riders did get popped). Talk me through the TUE at Romandy though...
 
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pastronef

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this thread is about g.Thomas. we know Froome's and WIggins' mishaps. Geraint Thomas has never ever been touched by any rumors or anything. it's wishful thinking for many, it's deciding what a rider can or cannot do. comaring him to Alarcon FFS. let's compare him with Dumoulin and we see that's possible.
 
Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

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pastronef said:
this thread is about g.Thomas. we know Froome's and WIggins' mishaps. Geraint Thomas has never ever been touched by any rumors or anything. it's wishful thinking for many, it's deciding what a rider can or cannot do. comaring him to Alarcon FFS. let's compare him with Dumoulin and we see that's possible.
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Well, if you are going to use progression without attention to age like that, then you can take Chris Horner and compare him with Quintana or Nibali because they're good climbers too, you see that Horner had a totally normal career progression because it took him a few years between his breaking out in 2010 or so and winning a GT in 2013 - totally logical progression.
 
Samu Cuenca

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Libertine Seguros said:
Well, if you are going to use progression without attention to age like that, then you can take Chris Horner and compare him with Quintana or Nibali because they're good climbers too, you see that Horner had a totally normal career progression because it took him a few years between his breaking out in 2010 or so and winning a GT in 2013 - totally logical progression.
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Horner had already been top 5 in the Tour de Suisse 8 years before his Vuelta win, while it only took Thomas 7 years from his glorious Bayern Rundfahrt victory to win the Tour. That said, it takes riders different amounts of time to become/be allowed to become the top riders/dopers in the peloton.
 
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pastronef

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Libertine Seguros said:
So you also argue Giovanni Visconti should never have been suspended for contacting Dr Ferrari?
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truth? I had to google it. "ferrari Visconti doping". ok, I'd probably have said "yes" if you asked if Visconti was ever suspended. but I wouldn't know the reason at all. I didn't follow many of the doping investigation we had in Italy these last 20 years. I actually don't care much.

talking of Ferrari: maybe there's was something more concrete about a rider contacting a confirmed doping doctor outside his team, than Thomas being "linked" to Brailsford his own team chief. no?
in any case, we have different opinions. I'll keep enjoying Thomas every time he pins a number on his back, you won't. that's it.
 
Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

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pastronef said:
truth? I had to google it. "ferrari Visconti doping". ok, I'd probably have said "yes" if you asked if Visconti was ever suspended. but I wouldn't know the reason at all. I didn't follow many of the doping investigation we had in Italy these last 20 years. I actually don't care much.

talking of Ferrari: maybe there's was something more concrete about a rider contacting a confirmed doping doctor outside his team, than Thomas being "linked" to Brailsford his own team chief. no?
in any case, we have different opinions. I'll keep enjoying Thomas every time he pins a number on his back, you won't. that's it.
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What about Leinders and Freeman then?
 
Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

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pastronef said:
call me when Thomas gets suspended
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You never said anything about a suspension before. You said he had no rumours. Your mileage may vary as to whether being on a team with a manager who's been investigated for misusing public funds for the purpose of doping riders (both in the national and trade teams that Thomas was part of), two doctors who've been outed as doping doctors, one of whom has been struck off and the other banned for life, and who scored an 8/10 on the UCI's own suspicion index, is sufficient to count as rumours, but you weren't dealing in the concretes of suspensions before. Coming out in support of teammate Chris Froome at the same time as arguing against TUEs shows he's capable of blatant hypocrisy, at the very least. I certainly think that within the context of the kind of rider development Thomas has had, these are a good number of dots to join.

Besides, you claim to be above it all and that you really don't care, but you don't half love jumping back in here when you don't like the comparisons that are being made to tell people how wrong they are and how Geraint Thomas' career path has totally got loads of precedents if you pretend he is six years younger than he is. Kinda like how Sky in 2012 loved to compare themselves to US Postal as long as that was in respect to organisation, professionalism and racecraft, but distanced themselves from those comparisons as soon as people started pointing out the negative side of inviting such comparisons.
 
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pastronef

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Libertine Seguros said:
You never said anything about a suspension before. You said he had no rumours. Your mileage may vary as to whether being on a team with a manager who's been investigated for misusing public funds for the purpose of doping riders (both in the national and trade teams that Thomas was part of), two doctors who've been outed as doping doctors, one of whom has been struck off and the other banned for life, and who scored an 8/10 on the UCI's own suspicion index, is sufficient to count as rumours, but you weren't dealing in the concretes of suspensions before. Coming out in support of teammate Chris Froome at the same time as arguing against TUEs shows he's capable of blatant hypocrisy, at the very least. I certainly think that within the context of the kind of rider development Thomas has had, these are a good number of dots to join.

Besides, you claim to be above it all and that you really don't care, but you don't half love jumping back in here when you don't like the comparisons that are being made to tell people how wrong they are and how Geraint Thomas' career path has totally got loads of precedents if you pretend he is six years younger than he is. Kinda like how Sky in 2012 loved to compare themselves to US Postal as long as that was in respect to organisation, professionalism and racecraft, but distanced themselves from those comparisons as soon as people started pointing out the negative side of inviting such comparisons.
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I won't even read it. fine. ok, Sky doped. it's fine
I am a biased fan that will never thank them enough to set up a team and come into a world of Contadors and Nibalis and Quintanas and good boys winning for us all and riders allowed to win cause the fans deem it's doable. there can't be a dialogue between me and you. you think Thomas transformed evening to morning. ok. and I loved it, fcking loved it. I won't post further. cheers
 
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