The Froome Files, test data only thread

[badboygolf16v]

Has anyone brought up the obvious issue with Sky saying that they don't weigh their riders?

 

[gillan1969]

Has anyone brought up the obvious issue with Sky saying that they don't weigh their riders?

everyone but froome that is

still...Docs salary for weighing people?...have SKY got any jobs going???

 

[gillan1969]

2007 tests in picture if you can read French:

So the engine was there afterall, who'd have thunk it ...

420watts - if he'd been 3kg lighter he would have registered about 5.8 w/kg ...

was he not hitting 161 on ventoux?

He hit 174 (data from Sky, PSM stage) so his max must be around 180... The plot (Belge) thickens...

so what does the 161 max refer to on front page?...max reached submaximally and if so at what point?

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re: Re:

Oh, come on.

Mine was a rhetorical question posed to the hog who was the one that suggested it wasn't about doping but solely about physiological testing.

The rest of your post basically just reaffirms what I've said already and why it is in the clinic, i.e. that even though it was a physiological test, the discussion flowing from the test results will be dominated by the doping status question. It still does not change the fact that the physiological testing never would be ever able to answer the doping status question (and it was silly for those reporting on it to ever suggest it might), and so we end up none the wiser and fill up dozens of pages and at the end of it all everyone still believes what they did beforehand, using the very same data to add to their confirmation bias (whichever way they think).

 

[Freddythefrog]

Blast - I am drawn back here - against my better judgement - I had a look at that "Fax" copy.

1) All the data is in bold and the descriptions are in plain text. Why is that nicely highlighted bit of the fax with the VO2 result in plain ? It would have been a template.

2) Then will somebody who knows a cyclist with 16.9% body fat post up a picture of them so the bots can compare with pictures of Froome in 2007. Because that is just Sky over-egging the pudding way too much.

16.9% - I just had not read it. That is just so funny.

I want to see a bot try and justify why 2007 Froome has so different a physique from a real 16.9 % body fat rider.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Valid points but I don't believe the objective was to verify doping or not.

OK, so why is this thread being discussed in the Clinic?

It was more to asses Froome current physiology, which was well established anyway.

So in that sense it tells us not much more that we already knew and doesn't inform on the doping question.

My expectation was Froome would provide his blood data. That would have fleshed out some of the Bilharzia story along with showing the blood profile of a clean GT winner

Wishful thinking.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Good post. Why anyone here even believed for 1 second that Froome/his camp released this as anything more than a PR move, is really surprising. Did anyone honestly think he'd/they'd allow anything to be released that wouldn't have Froome coming off as being cleans?

The naivity of some on this board is head scratching. Froome's not stupid, he's not going to release anything that says he doped and I can't believe some here would believe anything that comes out of his mouth.

Their argument is that the sky doubters have already decided before the data was released that froome is doping.

Therefore the doubters are all bad and stupid people for not accepting new evidence.

I'm not going to lie, I'm not dishonest like some, they do have a point, in so far as me and some others very much did decide before the data was released that froome is doping and that the data would be a sham. I believe we have a very good reason to take this view - because sky have fabricated data in the past, but lets leave that to one side for a second.

The irony is, they themselves have done exactly that. But they are either too narcissistic or too plain stupid to realize it.

They ALL decided before the data was released, that it would prove froome is clean. Doesn't matter one bit what the data shows, or doesn't show, they were going to use it to to argue it proves froome is clean regardless. In fact the very fact that froome would release the data is supposed to show he is clean.

And as a sidepoint, this is the exact position taken by Armstrong fans when Armstrong released his blood data in 2009, also incomplete.

That's why none of them address the arguments Ross or say mi come up with. Instead they get frustrated and attack Ross or mi or say things like "even when froome releases his data, they want more"

Which is exactly what they accuse us of doing, but somehow it's ok for them to have already made up their minds, but not the doubters.

Now, what we have finally, is a 3rd group. The middle ground. People like Ross and Mi who have both attacked and defended froome in the past approached the data with a totally open mind.

And it's their conclusions that one has to pay attention to.

The fact that they are saying it's a pr stunt, and data seems to have been deliberately left off, gives one a very good idea of what the purpose of the whole exercise was.

 

[thehog]

Re:

Blast - I am drawn back here - against my better judgement - I had a look at that "Fax" copy.

1) All the data is in bold and the descriptions are in plain text. Why is that nicely highlighted bit of the fax with the VO2 result in plain ? It would have been a template.

2) Then will somebody who knows a cyclist with 16.9% body fat post up a picture of them so the bots can compare with pictures of Froome in 2007. Because that is just Sky over-egging the pudding way too much.

16.9% - I just had not read it. That is just so funny.

I want to see a bot try and justify why 2007 Froome has so different a physique from a real 16.9 % body fat rider.

1) Clean fax below with no highlighting. Indeed the fax looks like it was typed up from a standard template. This time the front page is neatly sitting on top of 3 other pages

2) Froome at the UCI in 2006 carrying his 16.9% body fat

Hi-Res version here: https://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/12/CHRIS_FROOME_SWISS_DOC.jpg

 

[Freddythefrog]

Love that picture. Now just waiting for the 16.9% rider to compare and contrast.

One for the bots - why are there two different versions with different font treatments for the text in certain areas ?

 

[86TDFWinner]

Re: Re:

Good post. Why anyone here even believed for 1 second that Froome/his camp released this as anything more than a PR move, is really surprising. Did anyone honestly think he'd/they'd allow anything to be released that wouldn't have Froome coming off as being cleans?

The naivity of some on this board is head scratching. Froome's not stupid, he's not going to release anything that says he doped and I can't believe some here would believe anything that comes out of his mouth.

Their argument is that the sky doubters have already decided before the data was released that froome is doping.

Therefore the doubters are all bad and stupid people for not accepting new evidence.

I'm not going to lie, I'm not dishonest like some, they do have a point, in so far as me and some others very much did decide before the data was released that froome is doping and that the data would be a sham. I believe we have a very good reason to take this view - because sky have fabricated data in the past, but lets leave that to one side for a second.

The irony is, they themselves have done exactly that. But they are either too narcissistic or too plain stupid to realize it.

They ALL decided before the data was released, that it would prove froome is clean. Doesn't matter one bit what the data shows, or doesn't show, they were going to use it to to argue it proves froome is clean regardless. In fact the very fact that froome would release the data is supposed to show he is clean.

And as a sidepoint, this is the exact position taken by Armstrong fans when Armstrong released his blood data in 2009, also incomplete.

That's why none of them address the arguments Ross or say mi come up with. Instead they get frustrated and attack Ross or mi or say things like "even when froome releases his data, they want more"

Which is exactly what they accuse us of doing, but somehow it's ok for them to have already made up their minds, but not the doubters.

Now, what we have finally, is a 3rd group. The middle ground. People like Ross and Mi who have both attacked and defended froome in the past approached the data with a totally open mind.

And it's their conclusions that one has to pay attention to.

The fact that they are saying it's a pr stunt, and data seems to have been deliberately left off, gives one a very good idea of what the purpose of the whole exercise was.

Excellent post! Sums up exactly what I said before, that they will do everything they can to prove he's cleans. Releasing some insignificant data/research, while not Releasing it all or the stuff they only want you or I to believe, makes them come off as scammers.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Re:

Love that picture. Now just waiting for the 16.9% rider to compare and contrast.

One for the bots - why are there two different versions with different font treatments for the text in certain areas ?

If you download the high res jpg thehog posted and look in the image EXIF Info
you see it was created in Adobe Photoshop CS6 (I use IrfanView)

just saying,
photoshopped

 

[thehog]

Re:

Love that picture. Now just waiting for the 16.9% rider to compare and contrast.

One for the bots - why are there two different versions with different font treatments for the text in certain areas ?

Go to the hi-res version. The front page on top of the 3 other pages, look around its edge. The top page sits out larger than the four edges on he pages underneath

Of course they used one larger page rhe those underneath. That's fairly poor Photoshopping.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Love that picture. Now just waiting for the 16.9% rider to compare and contrast.

One for the bots - why are there two different versions with different font treatments for the text in certain areas ?

If you download the high res jpg thehog posted and look in the image EXIF Info
you see it was created in Adobe Photoshop CS6

just saying,
photoshopped

Froome-fax-gate!

 

[Tonton]

was he not hitting 161 on ventoux?

He hit 174 (data from Sky, PSM stage) so his max must be around 180... The plot (Belge) thickens... [/quote]

so what does the 161 max refer to on front page?...max reached submaximally and if so at what point?[/quote]

That is my beef with the whole Froome story. Two important numbers keep changing: his reported weight, and his reported MHR. Inconsistencies that raise my suspicions. Any athlete at any level knows his/her weight at all times. No need to guess. It often becomes an obsession, as a matter of fact. And Froome's weight story has been a joke: one time we hear that he doesn't track it, once it's 67, very murky indeed.

The MHR story is very similar: it was believed to be m/l 160, as in this piece, and it was used to explain that his 148-151 bpm effort in the '13 Ventoux was the result of a near-max effort. Then we get the PSM data from Sky, and (surprise) we see Froome at 174 on a near-max effort, which I would guess means m/l 180 MHR.

So we're left with, IMO, two conclusions: either Froome/Sky are lying, or they are clueless and incompetent, not the cutting-edge guys they say they are, if they don't test riders on a regular basis as it relates to MHR, VO2Max, intervals/output, et caetera, and religiously log the data. And I don't believe that it's the case.

That 161 value is strange indeed, since it is performed by an independent entity. We can't blame Sky/Froome to have manipulated anything. And since we know thanks to Sky that Froome is capable of much more, I would guess that 161 was the maximum value observed during the VO2Max test, but that no test took place to specifically establish the MHR. It makes the lab look stupid, but this confusion is the most probable idea that comes to my mind. And 161 is about right for a VO2Max test effort when the athlete has a MHR of 180. That's the best I can come up with. Please anyone, chime in.

 

[unclem0nty]

Bold formatting fail. Why would there be two *almost* identical versions of this "fax"? Ropey as fvck.

 

[acoggan]

Re:

Didn't CF refrain from taking food for several hours before the testing began?
Why was that?

Did the test lab take any blood or urine samples?
Has Esquire missed that bit out?

Physiological testing is usually performed in at least the post-absorptive state, if not after an overnight fast. That provides a more stable basis for comparison (as well as avoids having to decontaminate the metabolic cart after the subject pukes into the mouthpiece).

Blood lactate levels were measured, but that appears to be it (which makes sense, at least in the context of the testing/the GSK's lab focus).

 

[bewildered]

just more incomplete data so that when we find all the holes in it they can come back with more info and try in vain to fill them in again. The bilharzia story as the reason for years of mediocrity, which was always ridiculous as the sole reason on its own, has now been supplemented by weight loss, which is also problematic as any weight loss appears to have been gradual over a number of years. Implicitly, all of us who questioned the Bilharzia "it eats his red blood cells" as a nonsense explanation and were vilified for it by Sky fans and the media at the time have been vindicated, by Froome himself and GSK. Don't lose sight of that in all this. Perhaps some Sky fans might like to come out and acknowledge that, but I won't hold my breath.

There is only one thing that can explain the transformation into a completely different rider in August 2011 and ever since that I can see. If there is another reason then they need to come out and explain it. This is the most relevant issue from this latest story change and it is what the likes of Tucker, Vayer and Kimmage should be homing in on. Ask Sky/Froome to explain or comment upon what was done differently after Poland '11, there must have been a major sea-change in preparation/weight loss/illness recovery etc in or around August 2011 for the results and performances to be so different. What was it? He didn't just morph into a different rider by doing the same thing.

This is far more important than eg looking for max HR or for anomalies in the data released imo. And note that it hasn't been mentioned in any of the books or backstories so far (as weight loss wasn't). Why do they keep adding to the story again and again and again? Just give us one complete explanation which won't be changed again in the future. They will never do this though.

 

[acoggan]

[quote="Tonton[/urlHe hit 174 (data from Sky, PSM stage) so his max must be around 180... The plot (Belge) thickens... [/quote]

Not really. Maximum heart rate is really peak heart rate, i.e., it can vary depending upon the loading conditions of the heart at the time of measurement. I doubt Froome can get to 180, though - in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he has a hard time getting to 174 during a standard incremental exercise test (vs. racing up a col at the end of a stage).

 

[acoggan]

Re: Re:

Well we know from the 2011 Vuelta files he weighed between 69.4 and 70.2kg. I don't know why Tucker doesn't make more of the comparison to that one hour Vuelta ITT and this latest test. The weight is almost the same yet it appears the FTP now is lower. Something not right in the test.

??

His FTP wasn't measured by the GSK lab. For many cyclists, however, maximal lactate steady state (for which FTP serves as a surrogate marker) lies above OBLA, which was, what, 419 W?

Toss in the effects of stage race fatigue and the fact that Froome is clearly a slow-twitcher (meaning his MLSS will occur at a lower lactate level) and it seems to me that the results of the Vuelta TT (average power was, what, 410-415 W?) are quite consistent with these 2015 data.

 

[thehog]

Re:

Bold formatting fail. Why would there be two *almost* identical versions of this "fax"? Ropey as fvck.

Binder ring holes in two different positions

Two faxes, one bold, one not, odd shaped top page, binder holes misaligned.

 

[acoggan]

It is flat-out impossible they never tested their riders.

Nonsense. Even the AIS, which has probably invested more time and energy into physiological testing than any other entity in this history of sport, has largely given up on such measurements, instead simply relying upon power data, which provides a more direct, integrative, and accurate indication of someone's performance ability.

 

[Tonton]

Re:

just more incomplete data so that when we find all the holes in it they can come back with more info and try in vain to fill them in again. The bilharzia story as the reason for years of mediocrity, which was always ridiculous as the sole reason on its own, has now been supplemented by weight loss, which is also problematic as any weight loss appears to have been gradual over a number of years. Implicitly, all of us who questioned the Bilharzia "it eats his red blood cells" as a nonsense explanation and were vilified for it by Sky fans and the media at the time have been vindicated, by Froome himself and GSK. Don't lose sight of that in all this. Perhaps some Sky fans might like to come out and acknowledge that, but I won't hold my breath.

There is only one thing that can explain the transformation into a completely different rider in August 2011 and ever since that I can see. If there is another reason then they need to come out and explain it. This is the most relevant issue from this latest story change and it is what the likes of Tucker, Vayer and Kimmage should be homing in on. Ask Sky/Froome to explain or comment upon what was done differently after Poland '11, there must have been a major sea-change in preparation/weight loss/illness recovery etc in or around August 2011 for the results and performances to be so different. What was it? He didn't just morph into a different rider by doing the same thing.

This is far more important than eg looking for max HR or for anomalies in the data released imo. And note that it hasn't been mentioned in any of the books or backstories so far (as weight loss wasn't). Why do they keep adding to the story again and again and again? Just give us one complete explanation which won't be changed again in the future. They will never do this though.

All good points, however the topic being "test data only thread", data anomalies take center stage, as well as their presentation. And what we see is the same pattern: the story keeps changing. It was true with Bilharzia, it is true with data. Why not a "complete explanation"? I'm afraid that the answer is: because there's no explanation, or at least no clean explanation.

So what we witness is a lie today to explain the lie from yesterday. The MHR and weight are two crying examples of the manipulation. The 20-40 minute stew, I can't digest. And the VO2Max magic isn't bad either: it's like me or you getting 120 on an IQ test, then adjusting it to 140 because we had a bad night before the test. Or hitting a 120 mph serve and cite a shoulder injury, therefore making it a 135 mph serve. Froome's VO2Max was tested at 84, not 88. No ifs, no buts. It's 84.

That's what makes the data discussion, the discrepancies, worth exposing. There's not one complete explanation: just a web of lies and misrepresentations.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

just more incomplete data so that when we find all the holes in it they can come back with more info and try in vain to fill them in again. The bilharzia story as the reason for years of mediocrity, which was always ridiculous as the sole reason on its own, has now been supplemented by weight loss, which is also problematic as any weight loss appears to have been gradual over a number of years. Implicitly, all of us who questioned the Bilharzia "it eats his red blood cells" as a nonsense explanation and were vilified for it by Sky fans and the media at the time have been vindicated, by Froome himself and GSK. Don't lose sight of that in all this. Perhaps some Sky fans might like to come out and acknowledge that, but I won't hold my breath.

There is only one thing that can explain the transformation into a completely different rider in August 2011 and ever since that I can see. If there is another reason then they need to come out and explain it. This is the most relevant issue from this latest story change and it is what the likes of Tucker, Vayer and Kimmage should be homing in on. Ask Sky/Froome to explain or comment upon what was done differently after Poland '11, there must have been a major sea-change in preparation/weight loss/illness recovery etc in or around August 2011 for the results and performances to be so different. What was it? He didn't just morph into a different rider by doing the same thing.

This is far more important than eg looking for max HR or for anomalies in the data released imo. And note that it hasn't been mentioned in any of the books or backstories so far (as weight loss wasn't). Why do they keep adding to the story again and again and again? Just give us one complete explanation which won't be changed again in the future. They will never do this though.

All good points, however the topic being "test data only thread", data anomalies take center stage, as well as their presentation. And what we see is the same pattern: the story keeps changing. It was true with Bilharzia, it is true with data. Why not a "complete explanation"? I'm afraid that the answer is: because there's no explanation, or at least no clean explanation.

So what we witness is a lie today to explain the lie from yesterday. The MHR and weight are two crying examples of the manipulation. The 20-40 minute stew, I can't digest. And the VO2Max magic isn't bad either: it's like me or you getting 120 on an IQ test, then adjusting it to 140 because we had a bad night before the test. Or hitting a 120 mph serve and cite a shoulder injury, therefore making it a 135 mph serve. Froome's VO2Max was tested at 84, not 88. No ifs, no buts. It's 84.

That's what makes the data discussion, the discrepancies, worth exposing. There's not one complete explanation: just a web of lies and misrepresentations.

.....a web of lies and misrepresentations.


It was ever thus and will always be.

 

[Tonton]

[quote="Tonton[/urlHe hit 174 (data from Sky, PSM stage) so his max must be around 180... The plot (Belge) thickens...

Not really. Maximum heart rate is really peak heart rate, i.e., it can vary depending upon the loading conditions of the heart at the time of measurement. I doubt Froome can get to 180, though - in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he has a hard time getting to 174 during a standard incremental exercise test (vs. racing up a col at the end of a stage).[/quote]

Thanks for the reply: you arguably are the most qualified on this forum wrt sports science. But here we go again, and I made a big fuss about it back in July: what is the mystery? Why are we made to believe that Sky/Froome don't know the exact numbers? One would think that at this level, athletes would be constantly monitored. And they are. So why the darkness.

I can still recite my numbers from two tests in Chatenay-Malabry back in the late '80s. And my MHR was measured with short burst back-to-back-to-back efforts, which gave me my RHR - 50 and MHR - 192. Are these no longer measured? You'd think that more info is always better...

 

[acoggan]

Re: Re:

Froome's VO2Max was tested at 84, not 88. No ifs, no buts. It's 84.

That's an overly-simplistic point-of-view. Froome's VO2max was measured in August as being 5.91 L/min. What it was when he won the Tour in July will obviously depend upon not only any changes in his cardiovascular fitness between the two months, but also any changes in his body mass. It is therefore quite reasonable to ask the question, "what would his VO2max have been in July at his reported body mass of 67 kg, assuming no changes in the absolute value?", with the answer to that question being "88 mL/min/kg."

(Note that another quite reasonable question to ask - and one that I'm a bit surprised wasn't addressed in the GSK report - is "how does his VO2max in mL/min/kg lean body mass compare between 2015 and 2007?" But, as emphasized in the data release it's hard to directly compare the two datasets due to possible differences in how the data were collected, and they may be saving that calculation for the final paper, either due to time or just to keep things simpler for non-scientists to understand.)