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The "Smash-and-Grab" Doper Thread

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Yeah, fair point. I misremembered Berzin was older and had a long track career before the GT years. But it wasn't that long, after all.
Honestly, Berzin's 1996 season schedule was just insane, if you look at how little rest he got between races him failing in that Tour makes sense.

Does young Popovych fit the category? Never caught and a worldbeater at a young age, while riding for scumbag Olivano Locatelli.
 
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Hirschi kinda fits, no? Went nuts in the TDF at the age of 21 (in the year of no drug testing heh), on the TV every day, looks like the next world beater; earns 4 year deal with mega team (at the time, a long contract, and no doubt big money); retires to become the most prolific UCI points farmer you never see on TV again.
The funny thing is that was probably UAE’s goal with him anyway. Those points ain’t gonna farm themselves.
 
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Bonus points for doing it in one of the dirtiest Tours in recent memory.
Don't know the consensus these days, but previously the 2008 Tour (and that period in cycling in general) had some kind of reputation for being relatively cleaner than the years before and after. CERA test weeding out the CERA users, and perhaps a bit of uncertainty among the teams what they could or couldn't do under the blood passport that was introduced at the beginning of the year. Also it was just two years after Puerto. And the climbing times weren't stellar (Sastre on the Alpe was pretty good though). So if you look past the big number of people actually busted during and shortly after the Tour (which is pretty hard, I know!) it might not have been that dirty.
 
Don't know the consensus these days, but previously the 2008 Tour (and that period in cycling in general) had some kind of reputation for being relatively cleaner than the years before and after. CERA test weeding out the CERA users, and perhaps a bit of uncertainty among the teams what they could or couldn't do under the blood passport that was introduced at the beginning of the year. Also it was just two years after Puerto. And the climbing times weren't stellar (Sastre on the Alpe was pretty good though). So if you look past the big number of people actually busted during and shortly after the Tour (which is pretty hard, I know!) it might not have been that dirty.
For what it's worth this has been my understanding, too.

Probably the powers that be drew the conclusion that no, if cleaner in reality means appearing dirtier, let's not go there. Didn't UCI wrestle testing back into its own hands the next year?
 
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MJR

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Yes, a Roubaix specialist. It's the one race he was perfectly suited for. Other than that Sunday in April every year, he mostly did lead-outs and domestique work on the flat. Being a Roubaix specialist doesn't mean you need to be the best in the world for that race. I would call Bert de Backer and Sebastien Turgot Roubaix specialists, too. My point is that Vansummeren's lucky tactical Roubaix win is not the first thing I think about when the conversation is about riders doping their way to big results and then not doing much before or since.

Heartily agree with all this.

Plus, a rider like him who tended to do pretty well in that race pulling off a lucky but well-earned victory is one of the reasons I love the sport. It would get boring pretty quickly if the same few hammered the competition and won 'em every year.
 
For what it's worth this has been my understanding, too.

Probably the powers that be drew the conclusion that no, if cleaner in reality means appearing dirtier, let's not go there. Didn't UCI wrestle testing back into its own hands the next year?
Yes, but this was also affected by Lance coming back as well. The 2008 is the cleanest tour in living memory. The ones that didn't get the memo stood out like a sore thumb.
 
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what happened with Carlos Betancur? Was there a drugs angle there or did he just become addicted to pie? Maybe Movistar just too toxic? Why do they keep hiring non-Spanish Spanish speakers and then treating them like crap
He was already off the rails before signing for Abarcá. He's more one of their cut price flyers on someone that might rebound, similar to Rujano or Antón, because the talent was there but the motivation wasn't.
 
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His wife initially took the rap for the doping products found in their vehicle on the last day of the Tour telling authorities they were for her mother-in-law.

Rumsas then tested positive for rocket fuel in May, 2003, and a couple years later was charged with illegally importing drugs into France in reference to his wife's incident. Amazing, since those doping products were meant only for his mother. LOL!

 
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The existence of smash-and-grabbers seems like a good counter argument to the "they all are doing it anyway so nothing to see" theories/justifications for long-term-grabbers armstrong/froome/vinge/pogi. If seemingly as a nobody you can decide to crank it up and smash, the big mass of the peloton obviously is not all in at most times.
 
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The obsession with so many posters trying to shoehorn Froome and Team Sky into this conversation just shows what a crap anti-anglo forum this is. Probably same people booing Pidcock's brilliant gold medal at the Olympics mountain biking today.

You've got the mutants back after a ten-year gap, just like the fans deserve and seem to love, seems big money boring tactics isn't good enough for cycling, enjoy the mutants...
 
Jean-Christophe Péraud had other decent results and also got lucky with riders crashing out, but his Tour podium in 2014 and level in that race were still pretty big outliers. Christophe Rinero tops him though. He would obviously not have finished 4th in 1998, if it hadn't been for the Festina Affair, and the fact that Cofidis (allegedly) had a medical advantage over some teams during the rest of the race. If you look at his results after that race, you get the feeling that a massively doped up Jérémy Roy or maybe even a monkey in a Cofidis kit could have achieved the same in 1998.
 
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