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The twilight zone called Portugal.

Page 12 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Today Jose Neves showed that Porto probably made a mistake in not bringing him to the Volta, even if they still ended up winning the race.

In a short uphill ITT in the GP Jornal de Noticias he smashed the Senhora da Assunção climb (6.53km at 5.9%) in 14:24. According to his Strava he did 412W, so 6.75 w/kg for almost 15min. The numbers match up with what Joao Benta did on a Volta road stage in 2017, also 6.75 w/kg and only 2sec slower.
Thhe funy thing is that Mauricio Moreira was even 1sec faster than him on the climb. The wattages he posts on Strava make little sense, but he did 483W for almost 15min, that's geting close to full WTF Indurain numbers.
 
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Some more crazy watts in the GP Jornal de Noticias:
On the penultimate stage all hell broke loose on the first climb of the day.
Jose Neves climbed the Subida do Carreiro, 2.05km at 6.7%, in 4:09. That's a VAM of 1975 and 61kg Neves did 452W, that's 7.4 W/KG for over 4min with 125km to go on the stage, pretty much right at the start! . Figueiredo, who is 5kg lighter, did the climb only 1sec slower. 76 KG Mauricio Moreira was even a bit faster, he climbed that short climb in 4:07, a VAM of 1991 on a 6.7% climb, right at the start of the stage. https://www.strava.com/activities/5904253364/segments/2869241160002054218

Figueiredo also did an impressive attack on the 2nd half of the Penha climb halfway through the stage. He climbed the 2.92km at 8.1% in 7:49 alongside Ricardo Vilela, who did 402W for 7:50 at 59kg, that's above 6.8 W/KG with over 60kms to go.
https://www.strava.com/activities/5904039052/segments/2869232862271077490

Those are some WTF numbers, even more if you consider that they came at the start and then later on in the middle of the same stage.
 
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Remember the new portuguese team headed by José Azevedo, the one who supposedly was going to be a breath of fresh air in portuguese cycling?

Today it's known that the medical doctor of the team is non other than Benjamin Carvalho, best known as "Dr. Levanta Mortos" (translated to someone like the doctor who ressucitate the dead), a character with a vast known association to dubious practices and athletes.

So, after all, it will be more of the same, I just hope the team fails quickly.
 
Remember the new portuguese team headed by José Azevedo, the one who supposedly was going to be a breath of fresh air in portuguese cycling?

Today it's known that the medical doctor of the team is non other than Benjamin Carvalho, best known as "Dr. Levanta Mortos" (translated to someone like the doctor who ressucitate the dead), a character with a vast known association to dubious practices and athletes.

So, after all, it will be more of the same, I just hope the team fails quickly.
Azevedo is just speaking BS, the team also has young lions such as Joao Benta and Henrique Casimiro as their main gc riders. I guess it makes sense, since Azevedo was the DS when papi Horner won the Vuelta...
 
TBF, the UCI kinda did him dirty, they took away all of his results and gave him a non-backdated ban.
If he gets cleared I expect everyone to throw caution to the wind next year, Imagine a big showdown between Balarcon and Mauri Moreira!
Well, they did to him what they can do to everyone according to the rules. The instances of leniency are probably the absurd ones, not this one.
 
There's some rumors the legend Balárcon is going to be cleared and return to action soon. Just Tugão for you.
Apparently it's actually happening!
https://www.ojogo.pt/modalidades/ci...-em-breve-e-para-a-w52-fc-porto-14332313.html
Screw Pogi vs Rogla at the Tour, Balarcon vs Moreira at the Volta will be the big showdown next year.
With him getting his ban reduced I expect everyone to tune it back up to 11 after they tuned it down juuust a bit in the last 2-3 seasons.
 
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W52 subject to a police raid today and didn't take the start of the 3rd stage of the GP "O Jogo". Rumours say 2 persons were taken in custody and some material aprehended.

Apparently, Nuno Ribeiro, the DS, is one of the persons taken in custody.
 
W52 subject to a police raid today and didn't take the start of the 3rd stage of the GP "O Jogo". Rumours say 2 persons were taken in custody and some material aprehended.

Apparently, Nuno Ribeiro, the DS, is one of the persons taken in custody.
TBF, this doesn't mean much immediately, we've seen dozens of raids with no follow up legal action. But ... gosh, W52? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.
 
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TBF, this doesn't mean much immediately, we've seen dozens of raids with no follow up legal action. But ... gosh, W52? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

Apparently not just W52, but several other locations and teams were raided.

With a big push from Portuguese government to switch to hydrogen power and after closing our coal power stations, guess we are now shutting down our nuclear plants.
 
How surprising indeed. Ribeiro has now two doping positives as a rider, several others as a DS and a prison visit! How unlucky can you be.

Portuguese cycling has always been termonuclear but W52-Porco was really pushing it these last few years. Would be interesting to bust the portuguese cycling authorities that allow this freak show, but as always we will go the "bad apples" rout.
 
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Apparently not just W52, but several other locations and teams were raided.

With a big push from Portuguese government to switch to hydrogen power and after closing our coal power stations, guess we are now shutting down our nuclear plants.
A bit of topic, but Hydrogen is just so ineffective (you end up loosing so much energy). Wouldn't solar energy be a better option for you?
 
I guess he means hydroelectricity? which complements solar and wind.

No, it's really hydrogen. Hydroelectricity we have plenty of it.


It's a big point of the country's energy plan for the near future but as in everything here the usual corps are already getting most of the funding, so let's wait for the results and hope it isn't just another way of providing big rents to some companies.
 
Well, at least or local goverment in South Tyrol isn't the only one stupid enough to invest into Hydrogen, that's something.
It looks like an option for Trucks and Busses (and potentially airplanes in the future) because you can refuel the whole thing pretty fast, but that's about it.
The production of pure Hydrogen needs way to much energy (you loose more than you get ou of it) and to get energy out of Hydrogen you also need a cumbustion engine, once again you loose a ton of energy.

I know, Italy is a lot worse with it's idea of increasing offshore drilling in the Adriatic sea (just look at the size of those oil fields and compare the potential benefits to the potential damage that a desaster/incident could cause to tourism and the whole Italian economy), but Italy is 20-30 years behind the rest of the modern countries when it comes to this kind of stuff...
 
The news from today is that 10 riders of the team were indicted. The 7 who were at GP O Jogo (José Neves, José Gonçalves, Joni, Daniel Mestre, Vilela, Vinhas and João Rodrigues) plus 3 more. It was a denunciation by a judiciary police inspector who has also a position in the portuguese anti doping authorities. The riders at the scene were subjected to anti-doping tests on the day of the raid but the results are not yet known.

The team had 12 riders signed up for the season, although Guilherme Mota rather surprisingly anounced his retirement from professional cycling weeks ago. Maybe it's connected, maybe it's not, because he comes this year after a somewhat severe injury sustained last summer. Although he appeared recovered and had already raced this year (and finished El Camiño). I find it strange to retire at the age of 22 after signing with the "biggest" team of the country, but who knows.
 

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