Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[JMBeaushrimp]

It's always about the numbers. Historical data versus empirical studies and statistical bell curves. You have a natural limit. Where that falls relative to a given population can be measured. A clean rider cannot go beyond their limit. Doping shifts the bell curve. A rider who was near the mean can suddenly move 1 or 2 SD's from the mean. They are no longer near the middle, but shifted. The more riders who dope the more the stats change. Thus the relative measures change.

We've got all of that. It's called history. Now what do you think the statistical odds of one team managing to turn Porte, Wiggins and Froome all into potential GT winners, at a minimum podium placers, given that historically they were nowhere near the narrow end of the bell curve. Froome in particular was to the left of the mean in the pro peloton. At the far left. The statistical odds of all three shifting their position is I dare say 1 in less than several billion. The odds of Sky just randomly happening onto this by chance and clean pursuits? Impossible. Numbers don't lie. Add in the domestiques who are better than they have ever been and better than other teams A squads (note they are split between two races) and that probability goes into the 1 to tens of billions! It just does not happen clean. Ever. Impossible. You'd have to literally buy every big name and stick them on a team and only then would it be slightly achievable clean. Note Sky's best buy was EBH. The rest are just meh riders in a very talented and deep pool of human and genetic excellence. Yeah, beacon of clean cycling is Sky 2013!

If EBH and Lofqvist were winning, yeah I'd buy that. It's within the realm of possible. But dominating? Like this? Not a chance. Lofqvist had to leave the team! Worse, the bell curve for the peloton does not appear to have shifted at all. It's just team Sky relative to the rest. Santambrogio is also a big tell. Crap at BMC, joins a Conti team and is gunning his old team leader Evans. Doping to no restraint. Talansky? Yeah JV, that boy is clean! Look at where David Millar was comparative to his team mate. 4 minutes back in the chrono, his bread and butter!

The tone here is right. Sky can win a lot this year. Tiernan Locke for MSR. EBH for Roubaix. Thomas for one of the Ardennes Classics. Maybe even Froome or Porte for one. The way Porte is going now, he will smash Cadel Evans this year. If he is Sky's boy for the Vuelta GC, put him down as a potential WC winner. Cancellara, Gilbert, Boonen, Cavendish, Rodriguez, Sagan and Martin better pack their dope bags this classics campaign. They are going to need it and then some.

Couldn't agree more. Nice post.

 

[the sceptic]

If your training with the best coaches/sports scientists, working with the best support staff, have cheap access to the most successful Olympic cycling program and facilities in the last decade and on top of that your DS's are fantastic it would take a miracle for a rider not to show at least some improvement. If you leave that regime your going to show some drop off from the level you were at under that regime.

how do you know sky are the best at all those things? Also, i think Dogers have shown a little bit more than "some improvement/drop off"

 

[MatParker117]

how do you know sky are the best at all those things? Also, i think Dogers have shown a little bit more than "some improvement/drop off"

Results speak for themselves.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Results speak for themselves.

The results don't speak, they shout and it isn't 'best coaches'.

 

[The Hitch]

Hypothetically, if you are a suspected drug dealer, a known associate of a major drug dealer who has just gone to prison, lets say his name is Mr Armstrong, and there are financial transactions linking you to a major exporter in Amsterdam who is currently on trial with a dozen witnesses against him, hypotheticaly, let's call him Mr leinders.

And the tax man turns up at your door and asks how someone with no qualifications and no job such as yourself can afford the 6 million pound mansion you are living in, and how your equally unqualified and jobless friends who live on the same street can afford their multi million pound mansions.

And you tell him that he's a bone idle ****er who doesn't know what it's like to commit himself to a goal.

Does the government not have a case against you for tax evasion?

And is the taxman really trolling if he suspects you?

 

[Catwhoorg]

Talansky? Yeah JV, that boy is clean! Look at where David Millar was comparative to his team mate. 4 minutes back in the chrono, his bread and butter!

1) Millar was always better at flat technical TT's than uphill ones
2) Millar was no-where and didn't have to push on the TT, Talansky was fighting for a podium place
3) Millar is now 36 (ish anyway). Maybe he has lots a little overall as well. Still a good engine, but his days of winning TT's should be past now.

 

[DarkWarrior]

Yes. They need some ROI.

Start flogging books on training in marginal gains.

Where is the documentation for Kerrison's avant-garde advances in aerobic achievement? I've Googled for results and found next to nothing and all I culled from his interview on Cyclingnews is that their training parallels their race efforts.....revolutionary indeed.

 

[The Hitch]

Results speak for themselves.

Why do greenedge suck so much then? Why isn't gerrans ( who smashed froome on that famous stage in the giro) contending for the win in gts ? Oge claim to have the best sports scientists and techniques just like sky, they claim to have basically invented wind tunnels, and the Ozzie Olympic cycling programme ain't half bad.

Any theories?

 

[thehog]

It's always about the numbers. Historical data versus empirical studies and statistical bell curves. You have a natural limit. Where that falls relative to a given population can be measured. A clean rider cannot go beyond their limit. Doping shifts the bell curve. A rider who was near the mean can suddenly move 1 or 2 SD's from the mean. They are no longer near the middle, but shifted. The more riders who dope the more the stats change. Thus the relative measures change.

We've got all of that. It's called history. Now what do you think the statistical odds of one team managing to turn Porte, Wiggins and Froome all into potential GT winners, at a minimum podium placers, given that historically they were nowhere near the narrow end of the bell curve. Froome in particular was to the left of the mean in the pro peloton. At the far left. The statistical odds of all three shifting their position is I dare say 1 in less than several billion. The odds of Sky just randomly happening onto this by chance and clean pursuits? Impossible. Numbers don't lie. Add in the domestiques who are better than they have ever been and better than other teams A squads (note they are split between two races) and that probability goes into the 1 to tens of billions! It just does not happen clean. Ever. Impossible. You'd have to literally buy every big name and stick them on a team and only then would it be slightly achievable clean. Note Sky's best buy was EBH. The rest are just meh riders in a very talented and deep pool of human and genetic excellence. Yeah, beacon of clean cycling is Sky 2013!

If EBH and Lofqvist were winning, yeah I'd buy that. It's within the realm of possible. But dominating? Like this? Not a chance. Lofqvist had to leave the team! Worse, the bell curve for the peloton does not appear to have shifted at all. It's just team Sky relative to the rest. Santambrogio is also a big tell. Crap at BMC, joins a Conti team and is gunning his old team leader Evans. Doping to no restraint. Talansky? Yeah JV, that boy is clean! Look at where David Millar was comparative to his team mate. 4 minutes back in the chrono, his bread and butter!

The tone here is right. Sky can win a lot this year. Tiernan Locke for MSR. EBH for Roubaix. Thomas for one of the Ardennes Classics. Maybe even Froome or Porte for one. The way Porte is going now, he will smash Cadel Evans this year. If he is Sky's boy for the Vuelta GC, put him down as a potential WC winner. Cancellara, Gilbert, Boonen, Cavendish, Rodriguez, Sagan and Martin better pack their dope bags this classics campaign. They are going to need it and then some.

Excellent post. Been saying this for months. If Sky are clean then it's the greatest transformation of 26 cyclists in the history of the sport. And not one bad day between them. I've not seen anything like it ever. The entire peloton can't even get a look in. Bar Contador and Jrod who now look decidedly weak next to the Sky doms. All the entire field can do is attempt to follow. That's it.

Sky have the top 8 strongest cyclists in both races.

Watching Porte's attack on Friday and his first 5km in the ITT is insane. He can't do that. It's not him. He never had an attack like that, or the power. He was a solid rider but not what we saw.

If I was JRod, Contador or Nibili, I'd be telling my DS to get my team hooked into a team wide program. Fight fire with fire. UCI will have a problem on their hands here like in 2006 with OP. As Sky won't get caught just every other team.

 

[thehog]

Results speak for themselves.

Ag2R have set a sports science university within their program.

Why don't they have the same results?

 

[martinvickers]

Hypothetically, if you are a suspected drug dealer, a known associate of a major drug dealer who has just gone to prison, lets say his name is Mr Armstrong, and there are financial transactions linking you to a major exporter in Amsterdam who is currently on trial with a dozen witnesses against him, hypotheticaly, let's call him Mr leinders.

And the tax man turns up at your door and asks how someone with no qualifications and no job such as yourself can afford the 6 million pound mansion you are living in, and how your equally unqualified and jobless friends who live on the same street can afford their multi million pound mansions.

And you tell him that he's a bone idle ****er who doesn't know what it's like to commit himself to a goal.

Does the government not have a case against you for tax evasion?

And is the taxman really trolling if he suspects you?

Honestly? not even close.

The Leinders link just about would give you the evidence for an audit. The rest would be treated as mere innuendo. Well, you might get a breach of the peace case for the swearing, but that's it.

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

Excellent post. Been saying this for months. If Sky are clean then it's the greatest transformation of 26 cyclists in the history of the sport. And not one bad day between them. I've not seen anything like it ever. The entire peloton can't even get a look in. Bar Contador and Jrod who now look decidedly weak next to the Sky doms. All the entire field can do is attempt to follow. That's it.

Sky have the top 8 strongest cyclists in both races.

Watching Porte's attack on Friday and his first 5km in the ITT is insane. He can't do that. It's not him. He never had an attack like that, or the power. He was a solid rider but not what we saw.

If I was JRod, Contador or Nibili, I'd be telling my DS to get my team hooked into a team wide program. Fight fire with fire. UCI will have a problem on their hands here like in 2006 with OP. As Sky won't get caught just every other team.

We all know they won't get away with the bolded.

The only hope is to make a few deals, and try to catch them out. There is no other way.

At this point it's going to be the peloton vs Sky, and although I'd love to Sky get their *ss handed to them, that's not going to happen. No one has the doms strong enough to legitimately draw out Sky, and it's unlikely that any deal the teams come up with would result in legit threats throwing themselves down the road.

This whole thing truly sucks for cycling. Boring...

 

[BroDeal]

Team Sky is about to go plaid.

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

Team Sky is about to go plaid.

Who is the new "Dark Helmet"?

I have to say your analogy is pretty much perfect! Probably confounding the youngsters, though...

 

[Ferminal]

Stupid liquigas. If only they had been paying agnoli and co 600 000 each those same riders would have been able to match sky in the mountains.

Yes, Agnoli and Kiserlovski who were as good or not far behind Porte in 2010.

Poor Robert, goes from systematic doping team to systematic doping team and still can't win anything.

 

[Trudgin]

The odds of Sky just randomly happening onto this by chance and clean pursuits? Impossible. Numbers don't lie. Add in the domestiques who are better than they have ever been and better than other teams A squads (note they are split between two races) and that probability goes into the 1 to tens of billions! It just does not happen clean. Ever. Impossible. You'd have to literally buy every big name and stick them on a team and only then would it be slightly achievable clean. Note Sky's best buy was EBH. The rest are just meh riders in a very talented and deep pool of human and genetic excellence. Yeah, beacon of clean cycling is Sky 2013!

Snipped this piece, says it all to my mind. Don't need to go any further.

I don't pretend to understand the numbers, but I didn't need written proof to know beyond a shadow of a (personal) doubt that Wonderboy was doping.

Yes - "This whole thing truly sucks for cycling, Boring...."

 

[airstream]

You got upset when your earlier post was classed on the edge of trolling.
Yet now you are claiming every team in elite pro cycling is doing what Sky are?

And I don't remember any other team (not even Garmin) saying they were going to have a Zero Tolerance Policy.

Yes, I'm sure that any WT team use doping nowadays. Yes, not all riders, but doping is a norm of life in the most crucial races. Possibly, Sky use more effective doping, but others use something too. It is impossible to evaluate. So, we have doping here, and doping there. For me, it doesn't have a principal difference. You all, knowledgeable guys, who read Tyler and others sources and understand what paniagua riding makes even to an elite cyclist.

 

[Galic Ho]

1) Millar was always better at flat technical TT's than uphill ones
2) Millar was no-where and didn't have to push on the TT, Talansky was fighting for a podium place
3) Millar is now 36 (ish anyway). Maybe he has lots a little overall as well. Still a good engine, but his days of winning TT's should be past now.

He shouldn't be pack fodder on a sub 10km chrono. Even if it is uphill. Millar is a wonderful topic in the Clinic, but the guy ain't a scrub rider. I only used him because I looked through the list to see the times and was surprised he was so far back. How about interchanging him with Gilbert? He was 3:11 behind. Solid short chrono on the flat and a well known power puncher on climbs. He can handle a sub 10km one off climb. He was thumped to. Plus he is 30, only a year and a bit older than Porte.

If this were an Alpe d'Huez chrono or something from the Giro, I'd agree. But this is the same ride they go up often. Nicholas Roche can certainly climb. 2:14 down. Same with Ivan Basso. 2:24 behind. Or how about another Giro winner Scarponi. We all know he's so crooked it ain't funny. 1:03 off Porte. We know they were trying, well at least Scarponi was. Menchov 1:32. Well known doper. Plus he rides for Katusha, the team the UCI thought fit to NOT give a Pro Tour licence to. Ekimov's team. The team with lots and lots of guys busted the last few years. All of them Russian.

I will concede that the Garmin team must have been cooked. 4-5 are in the last 10 spots on time. Millar is 4:35 behind with a few more Garmin boys behind him. Historically we could expect Porte to do maybe a minute off his time today at his peak best. I am talking when he rode for Bjarne Riis and his chrono was always stable and solid even though his climbing sucked. Don't get me wrong, I think Talanksy is also pushing the boundaries of credible too far, but he's young. Porte is almost my age. He shouldn't be improving by this much.

With this level of skill, he can win an Ardennes classic. I doubt he'd even need to hop out of the seat to power away from his competition. Just increase tempo and boom! Instantly distanced. Take your pick. Go for Amstel. He'll do it. Let Froome go for Fleche and let someone else non Sky win Liege. That way the rest of the peloton can have something to be thankful for.

 

[step23]

To those who post in Clinic for years. Guys, I think you are doing a great job: some input in LL dossier, many inputs into LA records, notwithstanding the trolls' army, and now Sky. I mean what they are doing is just disgusting, another US Postal times but far more pathetic. They dominate everything and its scary. So keep digging and good luck with your great efforts!

 

[Galic Ho]

Excellent post. Been saying this for months. If Sky are clean then it's the greatest transformation of 26 cyclists in the history of the sport. And not one bad day between them. I've not seen anything like it ever. The entire peloton can't even get a look in. Bar Contador and Jrod who now look decidedly weak next to the Sky doms. All the entire field can do is attempt to follow. That's it.

Sky have the top 8 strongest cyclists in both races.

Watching Porte's attack on Friday and his first 5km in the ITT is insane. He can't do that. It's not him. He never had an attack like that, or the power. He was a solid rider but not what we saw.

If I was JRod, Contador or Nibili, I'd be telling my DS to get my team hooked into a team wide program. Fight fire with fire. UCI will have a problem on their hands here like in 2006 with OP. As Sky won't get caught just every other team.

At the TdU I was watching one of the stages. First stage I'd attempted to watch. Commentator was rambling on about a climb. Said it suited Gilbert. Kept talking it up and going on and on. Climb arrives. About 3km. Geraint Thomas dropped everyone. Like a bad smell. Won the stage. I thought then that he would take the sacred last spot on the Fantastic Four replacing Michael Rogers. Alas, the whole darn team is on the plan. I know the Tour team was strong, but it was the big four. Uran and Henao didn't seem to be up to it in the Vuelta like Rogers and Porte were during the Tour.

Which comes down to ambition. Too many Roosters in the hen house. Froome wanted a GT. He'd sacrificed two for Wiggins. So gotta give him one and send Wiggins to the other. Need two teams of helpers now. Thus expand the program. The Fantastic Four of 2012 is no more. Now it's Super Team Sky all round. Might not have happened like that but the NEED factored into this. The need for supporters similar in calibre to what Rogers and Porte did last Tour. Someone had to fill the role. Porte can't do it for multiple GT's. He might be needed to lead if something happens to either Wiggins or Froome.

What Sky are doing now is testing their guys. Choosing who gells well with whom as their leader. The little things help. Ask Contador about 2009. Isolated. Alone. Had to do everything extra on his own. I am guessing most of the Anglo guys will be helping Wiggins and the South Americans and Spaniards will be helping Froome.

We are definitely going to see a temper tantrum this year. The one thing we should all hope happens is someone crashes or looses time. Say Wiggins Giro gets derailed by accidents or error. Suddenly he says to Davey boy, hey I'm no.1, I get first GT in 2013, so the Tour is mine. We want to see conflict in this. Greater than 2009 Astana. I want the press to rub it into one of the big boys when his rival wins. Ask him if he feels pressure to match his team mate. Anything and everything to get them pushing full *** harder and harder. The more *** the better.

Why? Sets off all the alarm bells. Raises suspicion. People will notice.

Oh and when Sky go full *** at the Tour. I hope the Spanish forces rise to match them. Isn't Valverde and Rodriguez aiming for the Tour this year? Or don't Katusha have an invite? Throw in Samu and I can see them all helping Contador. It'd also be nice to have Andy Schleck fire like he's never done before in the Tour.

Wiggins and Froome are different creatures. Froome is the insane mentally challenged one who doesn't notice how absurd he is. Wiggins in the petty jealous kind who cannot stand rivalry. I hope they clash and bring this whole circus down around them. Will make for some entertaining viewing. Also having their respective missus at the others throat might do well.

 

[Galic Ho]

Yes, Agnoli and Kiserlovski who were as good or not far behind Porte in 2010.

Poor Robert, goes from systematic doping team to systematic doping team and still can't win anything.

Kiserlovski is a really good rider. Equal to Porte. I thought back after 2010 I'd hear his name a lot more. Sadly that isn't the case.

 

[bianchigirl]

Funny, just had a DM on twitter from an avid sky fan/defender - said he didn't like what he'd seen with Porte, at all. Said it was not normal.

But what do sky care? They'll soon have a league backed by bskyb and the odious Price that will complete their coronation as the 'greatest' team ever. Those of us with long memories will argue where that title actually belongs but sky could give a **** about knowledgeable fans - their version of cycling - F1 on wheels - is not meant for us.

I would live to know their recruitment policy - is there a pattern of working with certain teams/doctors? Or is it all those detailed tests they run that establish who are the super responders?

 

[sittingbison]

...Also having their respective missus at the others throat might do well.

It all comes down to this. Clarity in brevity

 

[Basecase]

Sky's messaging

If you were in charge of team Sky and you knew the team was 100% clean wouldn't you be shouting it from the rooftops? .... Continually???

 

[Galic Ho]

It all comes down to this. Clarity in brevity

Wiggins whench doesn't let anyone mess with her man! After all, I bank 50% of his decision to dope on her harping about his Track salary not making enough to keep up with the Jones's. Bradley was owed his dues! The new car, clothes and flamboyant lifestyle doesn't come from money grown on trees! We also know a loyal dog is a 'Froomedawg.' Or so his missus preaches on twitter.

Argggh yes, twitter. The domain of the Twits. I wonder if this is what Roald Dahl imagined in his famous book. Clueless idiots vying for attention on some super futuristic electronic medium. Where petty squabbles between chavs can be viewed by a global audience!

I say let the ladies sharpen their claws. A good ol fashioned cat fight always lets people know where their true loyalties lie.