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The "Smash-and-Grab" Doper Thread

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25-yo Nozal had a great Vuelta, crushing 2 TTs, holding up well untill the last uphill TT. He was almost named Indurain successor by some. He never reached similar heights again. Fitting here. He got busted but much later.
Nozal had to have been a super-responder to 02-vector doping. Giving Heras a run for his money finishing only 28 seconds behind arguably one of the best Spanish climbers ever - and a career doper himself! The crazy world of exceptional responders to high-octane doping. Lol.

 
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Yeah lmao, I have been rewatching a ton of Vueltas lately. Who's the most blatant out of Santí Perez, Aitor Gonzales, Angel Casero, Oscar Sevilla and Isidro Nozal? Nozal was actually really good in 2004 as well, go look at the climb up to Aitana, lmao. Big ring just smoking Mancebo, Valverde and Sastre of the back at 7% and then attacking later to finish a couple of seconds behind mythical Heras who he had pulled for whole climb, lol. Seriously, go watch the climb, ridicolous scenes from big Nozal. That reminds me of another spanish rider, this time a guy I literally had never heard about before: Jorge Ferrio. Had to look him up, and he doesn't really qualify I think, but he climbed wonderfully in that particular race.

Anyways, I'll nominate both Santí Perez and Isidro Nozal. Especially Santí, Roberto Heras could not believe what he was just witnessing in that 2nd part of the race. Everybody thought it would be Valverde and maybe Mancebo challenging him, and then at some point Santi just began to smash it every time the road went uphill from the midpoint of the race. That ITT up to Sierra Nevada was a thing of beauty, and so was his win over Monachil.
Santí should go in with the Riccòs and Kohls for not being smart enough though, which goes against him. Nozal definitely belongs because it took several years before he was busted and he went back to being mediocre for quite a while too - more than the likes of Alarcón or David Belda who suddenly got good late in their career and went wild for 2-3 years until they were caught.

Danilo Celano was another of the "as soon as he has to be biopass-compliant he starts to be terrible" riders, like Tiernan-Locke or (to a lesser extent) Zoidl, but could count.

Vladimir Karpets' 2007 season is something he coasted on for about half a decade, getting taken seriously as a potential leader for the original Katyusha lineup. It was something to behold, winning Catalunya and Suisse and doing a solid if unspectacular GC at both the Tour and Vuelta. While he got a couple more top 15s on GCs as a team leader. The mitigating factor there is that being on the post-Puerto Caisse d'Épargne team where a few riders had had to be jettisoned or were kept off the road, he got more opportunities than he otherwise would, similar to the 2011 Movistar team where the suspension of Valverde along with the tragic situations around Tondó and Soler meant that guys like Rojas and Ventoso got to ride far more races with full support than they otherwise would have done.
 
Santí should go in with the Riccòs and Kohls for not being smart enough though, which goes against him. Nozal definitely belongs because it took several years before he was busted and he went back to being mediocre for quite a while too - more than the likes of Alarcón or David Belda who suddenly got good late in their career and went wild for 2-3 years until they were caught.

Danilo Celano was another of the "as soon as he has to be biopass-compliant he starts to be terrible" riders, like Tiernan-Locke or (to a lesser extent) Zoidl, but could count.

Vladimir Karpets' 2007 season is something he coasted on for about half a decade, getting taken seriously as a potential leader for the original Katyusha lineup. It was something to behold, winning Catalunya and Suisse and doing a solid if unspectacular GC at both the Tour and Vuelta. While he got a couple more top 15s on GCs as a team leader. The mitigating factor there is that being on the post-Puerto Caisse d'Épargne team where a few riders had had to be jettisoned or were kept off the road, he got more opportunities than he otherwise would, similar to the 2011 Movistar team where the suspension of Valverde along with the tragic situations around Tondó and Soler meant that guys like Rojas and Ventoso got to ride far more races with full support than they otherwise would have done.
Dani Diaz is another guy who was a worldbeater without the bio-passport, but as soon as he had to deal with it he was gone (at least he was smarter than the other Funic guys and didn't get busted).
 
Santí should go in with the Riccòs and Kohls for not being smart enough though, which goes against him. Nozal definitely belongs because it took several years before he was busted and he went back to being mediocre for quite a while too - more than the likes of Alarcón or David Belda who suddenly got good late in their career and went wild for 2-3 years until they were caught.

Danilo Celano was another of the "as soon as he has to be biopass-compliant he starts to be terrible" riders, like Tiernan-Locke or (to a lesser extent) Zoidl, but could count.

Vladimir Karpets' 2007 season is something he coasted on for about half a decade, getting taken seriously as a potential leader for the original Katyusha lineup. It was something to behold, winning Catalunya and Suisse and doing a solid if unspectacular GC at both the Tour and Vuelta. While he got a couple more top 15s on GCs as a team leader. The mitigating factor there is that being on the post-Puerto Caisse d'Épargne team where a few riders had had to be jettisoned or were kept off the road, he got more opportunities than he otherwise would, similar to the 2011 Movistar team where the suspension of Valverde along with the tragic situations around Tondó and Soler meant that guys like Rojas and Ventoso got to ride far more races with full support than they otherwise would have done.
On Karpets, wasn't that much to do with the thinned out field post Puerto as much as anything? Catalunya had a somewhat weird calender spot back in the day also, and just looking at the fields, they were not that impressive - especially in a period were much of the spanish scene got wiped.
 
Ill never forget having to google Rafa valls after finding out he was the winner of Tour of Oman and learning he was a 28 year old who had been a pro for 6 years.

Beat Valverde, Majka, Pinot, Nibali etc on green mountain that day
You clearly didn't watch him (in his glorious Footon-Servetto outfit) grab a random minute on the peloton behind Chavanel's breakaway win in the 2010 Tour then! Before continuing to do nothing for the rest of the race.

Rafa Valls, the most unlucky (or least illness-resistant and most crash-prone) professional cyclist in history. I wonder what his career would have looked like if he would have avoided the constant injuries and illnesses.
 
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Anyways, I'll nominate both Santí Perez and Isidro Nozal. Especially Santí, Roberto Heras could not believe what he was just witnessing in that 2nd part of the race. Everybody thought it would be Valverde and maybe Mancebo challenging him, and then at some point Santi just began to smash it every time the road went uphill from the midpoint of the race. That ITT up to Sierra Nevada was a thing of beauty, and so was his win over Monachil.

Santi's advantage in Sierra Nevada TT:
-over a minute ahead of the 2nd
-almost 2 minutes ahead of the 3rd
-over 3 minutes ahead of the 4th
-4 minutes+ ahead of 7th, 8th etc
Let's talk about marginal gains!
 
Ill never forget having to google Rafa valls after finding out he was the winner of Tour of Oman and learning he was a 28 year old who had been a pro for 6 years.

Beat Valverde, Majka, Pinot, Nibali etc on green mountain that day
Also beat Froome's climbing record that say...

Does Ruben Plaza's 2005 year fit the bill, or was that more down to the Operacion Puerto scare/just getting away and being banished for Portugal for some time?
 
Also beat Froome's climbing record that say...

Does Ruben Plaza's 2005 year fit the bill, or was that more down to the Operacion Puerto scare/just getting away and being banished for Portugal for some time?

I've been thinking about Plaza, too, but he did come back to win GT stages at age 300.

I often started careers with Communidad Valenciana in PCM 2006. Not yet knowing how the game fully worked, I had Plaza going on mountain/altitude training camps from the start of the season until the Vuelta. He became the best climber in the race on paper, but he got tired and his shape was horrible. The developers at Cyanide clearly didn't know anything about proper training.
 
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Rides domestically in Norway for four years to little fanfare. Signs a pro contract with Team Sky aged 25 due to impressive results being mates with Edvald Boasson Hagen; until this point his best result in four seasons being a podium in the 2.1 Tour of Ireland when torrential rain on the last day and a short final lap makes half the field climb off. Proceeds to do absolutely nothing of note for two years with Team Sky, with an 11th in the Critérium International his most notable result.

Then, at 28, he becomes a top puncheur as well as beating the likes of reigning Tour champion Cadel Evans on Col de l'Ospedale and winning the GP Montréal, top 6 in País Vasco. Signs a sizable contract with Belkin and apart from 2nd place in the Tour des Fjords and the Arctic Race of Norway, is invisible for two years. Returns to Sky, wins the Tour de Yorkshire but apart from that is invisible for two years. Goes to Aqua Blue Sport, the only multi-day race he finishes all season is the Tour de Suisse, in 107th place. Retires aged 33 after the team collapses due to a sulking plutocrat taking his ball and going home - and nobody even notices.
 
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Rides domestically in Norway for four years to little fanfare. Signs a pro contract with Team Sky aged 25 due to impressive results being mates with Edvald Boasson Hagen; until this point his best result in four seasons being a podium in the 2.1 Tour of Ireland when torrential rain on the last day and a short final lap makes half the field climb off. Proceeds to do absolutely nothing of note for two years with Team Sky, with an 11th in the Critérium International his most notable result.

Then, at 28, he becomes a top puncheur as well as beating the likes of reigning Tour champion Cadel Evans on Col de l'Ospedale and winning the GP Montréal, top 6 in País Vasco. Signs a sizable contract with Belkin and apart from 2nd place in the Tour des Fjords and the Arctic Race of Norway, is invisible for two years. Returns to Sky, wins the Tour de Yorkshire but apart from that is invisible for two years. Goes to Aqua Blue Sport, the only multi-day race he finishes all season is the Tour de Suisse, in 107th place. Retires aged 33 after the team collapses due to a sulking plutocrat taking his ball and going home - and nobody even notices.

oooh that's a good one. reminds me of Fredrik Kessiakoff.
 
I've been thinking about Plaza, too, but he did come back to win GT stages at age 300.

I often started careers with Communidad Valenciana in PCM 2006. Not yet knowing how the game fully worked, I had Plaza going on mountain/altitude training camps from the start of the season until the Vuelta. He became the best climber in the race on paper, but he got tired and his shape was horrible. The developers at Cyanide clearly didn't know anything about proper training.
Comunidad Valenciana 2006 PCM is OG. You also had Garcia Quesada, David Blanco and some other good riders. As a matter of fact, I actually played a couple of seasons with CV this year (as sad as that sounds).
 
Comunidad Valenciana 2006 PCM is OG. You also had Garcia Quesada, David Blanco and some other good riders. As a matter of fact, I actually played a couple of seasons with CV this year (as sad as that sounds).

García Quesada had moved to Unibet that year (maybe he was actually a free transfer at the start of the game, or perhaps that was just his brother), but they had the aforementioned Pecharromán, David Bernabéu, Eladio Jiménez, and a still fairly unknown Ezequiel Mosquera, who was just waiting around for his big breakthrough.
 
García Quesada had moved to Unibet that year (maybe he was actually a free transfer at the start of the game, or perhaps that was just his brother), but they had the aforementioned Pecharromán, David Bernabéu, Eladio Jiménez, and a still fairly unknown Ezequiel Mosquera, who was just waiting around for his big breakthrough.
You are completely correct. I just signed Quesada after the first season, thats why. Pecha was worthless, and Mosquera was not the Mosquera we all came to love yet, but it was still incredibly easy to qualify for the PT with that squad. Plaza was an animal in all of these spanish stage races in that time.
 
Sort of on the fence about whether Wout Poels' 2016 LBL win and season in general qualifies. He was a big talent when he came onto the scene with Vacansoleil (and being a member of that team is a giant, bright red flag in its own right), but suffered a horrific injury after crashing in the 2012 Tour and almost lost a kidney. Understandibly he sort of slowed down a bit after that and had pretty mediocre results in both GTs and classics before randomly but not at all unsurprisingly improving significantly almost immediately after joining Sky in 2015. Just as quickly as he became arguably the strongest member of their vast roster of robotic super doms, the entirety of the Clinic (a few ardent Sky apologists aside) collectively called bull on what was going on. 2016 rolls around and he pops up at the final sprint at Liege and beats Albasini and Costa to the line, sending the Clinic further into a frenzy, and then he completely took the p*ss by almost singlehandedly dragging the Sky train through the whole 2016 Tour as the most important domestique by far in a team that included the likes of Henao, Thomas, Nieve and Landa.

He deservedly gets rewarded with a massive three year contract extension with Sky at the end of the 2016 season, securing that retirement nest egg pay day based on an incredible season in true smash and grab fashion, and people start making noises about him being given the chance to win either the Giro or the Vuelta as a team leader. That admittedly didn't actually happen until the 2019 Vuelta and it was a disaster as Poels finished 34th. In terms of other noteworthy wins on his palmares, there's only a couple of GT stage wins and a slew of stages in a bunch of one week tours at World Tour level and a couple of GCs in .Pro and .1 stage races. Nothing anywhere near winning a monument in terms of prestige.

As far as arguments against his inclusion in the thread go, he obviously didn't just drop down into the void of complete uselessness after getting his big contract. His role as a well-compensated super dom will have limited his opportunities to win big races for the entirety of his prime years, although his performances on the road never reached those thermonuclear 2016 heights. He did get a very strong 6th place overall at the 2017 Vuelta while again working as a domestique for overall winner Froome. In 2017 and 2019 he also rode consistenty well in a lot of races and secured more UCI points than in his annus mirabilis of 2016 despite his only wins in those years being stages at Pologne (in 2017) and Dauphine (in 2019). At the end of 2019 his big Sky contract was up and he took that sweet, sweet Middle-Eastern oil money by signing with Bahrain as a team leader. As their main man he managed another 6th place overall at the 2020 Vuelta, although slightly further down on the winner than when he'd been a dom for Sky in 2017 and against a much weaker field overall. He then reverted back to domestique duty with the occasional free role in GTs. He first made an unsuccessful attempt at the KOM jersey at the Tour in 2021 and then switches to stage hunting from breakaways, which gives him two admittedly strong stage wins on hard stages in both the Tour and the Vuelta, both in 2023. Breakaways aside, though, ever since 2016, and in particularly after leaving Sky, he's just sort of... there. Mostly out of sight and out of mind, gradually fading into being pure pack filler. Out of the limelight again, expertly avoiding scrutiny. Nothing like he charging locomotive that sat at the front of the peloton for hours on end, setting a pace murderous enough to essentially neutralise the race. Far from the guy who was at the business end of a monument, outsprinting a former world champion for the win.
 
Gianluca Brambilla in the entire 2016 season was certainly at a remarkable level compared to the rest of his career. Got himself a nice 3 years at trek from what I remember. Beating prime quontana in MTFs and going toe to toe with cancellara in the strade bianche, beating Sagan and gva etc.
 
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Sort of on the fence about whether Wout Poels' 2016 LBL win and season in general qualifies. He was a big talent when he came onto the scene with Vacansoleil (and being a member of that team is a giant, bright red flag in its own right), but suffered a horrific injury after crashing in the 2012 Tour and almost lost a kidney. Understandibly he sort of slowed down a bit after that and had pretty mediocre results in both GTs and classics before randomly but not at all unsurprisingly improving significantly almost immediately after joining Sky in 2015. Just as quickly as he became arguably the strongest member of their vast roster of robotic super doms, the entirety of the Clinic (a few ardent Sky apologists aside) collectively called bull on what was going on. 2016 rolls around and he pops up at the final sprint at Liege and beats Albasini and Costa to the line, sending the Clinic further into a frenzy, and then he completely took the p*ss by almost singlehandedly dragging the Sky train through the whole 2016 Tour as the most important domestique by far in a team that included the likes of Henao, Thomas, Nieve and Landa.

He deservedly gets rewarded with a massive three year contract extension with Sky at the end of the 2016 season, securing that retirement nest egg pay day based on an incredible season in true smash and grab fashion, and people start making noises about him being given the chance to win either the Giro or the Vuelta as a team leader. That admittedly didn't actually happen until the 2019 Vuelta and it was a disaster as Poels finished 34th. In terms of other noteworthy wins on his palmares, there's only a couple of GT stage wins and a slew of stages in a bunch of one week tours at World Tour level and a couple of GCs in .Pro and .1 stage races. Nothing anywhere near winning a monument in terms of prestige.

As far as arguments against his inclusion in the thread go, he obviously didn't just drop down into the void of complete uselessness after getting his big contract. His role as a well-compensated super dom will have limited his opportunities to win big races for the entirety of his prime years, although his performances on the road never reached those thermonuclear 2016 heights. He did get a very strong 6th place overall at the 2017 Vuelta while again working as a domestique for overall winner Froome. In 2017 and 2019 he also rode consistenty well in a lot of races and secured more UCI points than in his annus mirabilis of 2016 despite his only wins in those years being stages at Pologne (in 2017) and Dauphine (in 2019). At the end of 2019 his big Sky contract was up and he took that sweet, sweet Middle-Eastern oil money by signing with Bahrain as a team leader. As their main man he managed another 6th place overall at the 2020 Vuelta, although slightly further down on the winner than when he'd been a dom for Sky in 2017 and against a much weaker field overall. He then reverted back to domestique duty with the occasional free role in GTs. He first made an unsuccessful attempt at the KOM jersey at the Tour in 2021 and then switches to stage hunting from breakaways, which gives him two admittedly strong stage wins on hard stages in both the Tour and the Vuelta, both in 2023. Breakaways aside, though, ever since 2016, and in particularly after leaving Sky, he's just sort of... there. Mostly out of sight and out of mind, gradually fading into being pure pack filler. Out of the limelight again, expertly avoiding scrutiny. Nothing like he charging locomotive that sat at the front of the peloton for hours on end, setting a pace murderous enough to essentially neutralise the race. Far from the guy who was at the business end of a monument, outsprinting a former world champion for the win.
I think you might be putting a bit too much stock in his LBL win. Of course a monument is a fantastic achievement in any case, but I just don't feel like it's such a massive outlier in terms of what enhancement Poels would need to pull it off. That era wasn't exactly overflowing with mutant Ardennes riders. Especially not ones who would excel on such a cold and miserable day as that was.

Now, admittedly Poels seemed like the strongest on the day, so it was by no means unimpressive, but with Valverde not firing in the cold and having no teammates after wasting a strong Betancur, he didn't exactly have to deal with generational talents. Mostly an Albasini who did way too much work. Also, the Poels edition was the one with the weird cobbled climb at the end, which might have favoured the slightly heavier riders who actually made the final selection over the likes of Valverde and Purito, even if conditions were better.

And I have to admit that most of my memories of the Sky train in the TdF is a bit of a blur, but was he really that much better in 2016 than in other years around that time? I seem to remember him often showing up as Froome's Sepp Kuss on select mountain stages, especially late in GTs. But I might have to give in to your superior Poels knowledge on this one.