Tour De France Stage 15 - Post Race Thread

[houtdffan]

This one was a whopper!

When Remco beats Pantani's record and still gets his ass handed to him by nearly 3 minutes... Think Pog did the final climb in around 40 minutes. Final 10km in less than 25 minutes. This makes the Armstrong years seem like a snail on crutches in comparison. And the 2002 stage was much easier compared to this one.

OK, what sauce are these guys on or how many horsepower under the hood?

 

[ashhutch1997]

Tbf I'd say the 2004 stage to PdB was harder IMO, but today was comical.

 

[Nick2413]

This is like 3rd place getting the world record on the 10k in the Olympics, but the winner has lapped the field twice.

 

[42x16ss]

This one was a whopper!

When Remco beats Pantani's record and still gets his ass handed to him by nearly 3 minutes... Think Pog did the final climb in around 40 minutes. Final 10km in less than 25 minutes. This makes the Armstrong years seem like a snail on crutches in comparison. And the 2002 stage was much easier compared to this one.

OK, what sauce are these guys on or how many horsepower under the hood?

Something else. The sport desperately needs another Puerto. 3:30 faster than Pantani is obscene

 

[fenns]

microdosing and TUEs - the ultimate combinations

 

[Tonton]

I'm >this< close to saying "I'm done with cycling".

 

[Nomad]

microdosing and TUEs - the ultimate combinations

And with the ABP, that's pretty much all this generation of riders can do. In the Armstrong dynasty era, working around the upper 50% Hct safety level was the biggest challenge. After the EPO test was developed in 2000, blood transfusions was the name of the game for most of the top GC contenders (interestinly, Pantani was handed a 2-week no-competition ban for violating the 50% limit during the 1999 Giro)

Maybe microdosing & TUEs is the new frontier and the reason why we're not seeing any doping positives or ABP hematological-anomalies cases with the top guys?

 

[Skalman]

Alittle bit nervous to be honest, dont let him be doped...

 

[Penninepeddler]

Exclusive: Tour riders are inhaling carbon monoxide to optimise altitude training

Top teams Visma and UAE confirm they have access to specialized equipment for testing, but deny using the potentially powerful new method for performance enhancement.

escapecollective.com

Hilarious some of the team comments in this article "well it is technically not illegal but noooo, we are not doing it, we just have the technology to do so at our camps for "testing""

I mean, this alongside other things is what is going on.

 

[Monoxidator]

Exclusive: Tour riders are inhaling carbon monoxide to optimise altitude training

Top teams Visma and UAE confirm they have access to specialized equipment for testing, but deny using the potentially powerful new method for performance enhancement.

escapecollective.com

Hilarious some of the team comments in this article "well it is technically not illegal but noooo, we are not doing it, we just have the technology to do so at our camps for "testing""

I mean, this alongside other things is what is going on.

Exactly. If there was no money in it, why would the company develop the testing equipment to support it?

 

[houtdffan]

Exclusive: Tour riders are inhaling carbon monoxide to optimise altitude training

Top teams Visma and UAE confirm they have access to specialized equipment for testing, but deny using the potentially powerful new method for performance enhancement.

escapecollective.com

Hilarious some of the team comments in this article "well it is technically not illegal but noooo, we are not doing it, we just have the technology to do so at our camps for "testing""

I mean, this alongside other things is what is going on.

As I said elsewhere, when you start using the same very gas that was used at places such as BELZEC, TREBLINKA, and SOBIBOR, then we have a real problem. This is crossing of the Rubicon with a spaceship level of absurdity now

The UCI needs to put a halt to this next year! No waiting for WADA

 

[houtdffan]

“We are not going to give up" - Visma refuse to accept defeat despite hefty time loss for Jonas Vingegaard on stage 15 of 2024 Tour de France

Team Visma | Lease a Bike were at the front of the p

cyclinguptodate.com

And Visma not going to give up!

May be breaking our the star and wormhole destroying weapons in the third week. The antimatter weaponry used in the Pyrenees is already obsolete now. Forget about thermonuclear performances

Winder what climbing record the 3 aliens are going to shatter next week. Maybe 8 minutes faster than the 1993 time to Isola (not doing the Izoard on that stage will be the big excuse provided)

 

[Heston]

Im still lost for words. I dont even want to enter the road cycling forum because its impossible to comment on this stage without clinic talk.

I hope the breakaway takes the remaining mountain stages so we get no more alien stage wins.

 

[houtdffan]

Im still lost for words. I dont even want to enter the road cycling forum because its impossible to comment on this stage without clinic talk.

I hope the breakaway takes the remaining mountain stages so we get no more alien stage wins.

oh with what Visma said after the stage, you've seen nothing yet.

We may see 30kmh up Isola at this rate

 

[gregrowlerson]

Just a tailwind boys.

 

[ppanther92]

This is like 3rd place getting the world record on the 10k in the Olympics, but the winner has lapped the field twice.

Tbf, its not a cycling phenomenon that the fiel got considerably faster over the last 2-3 years. Track and field record drequency also increased.

Always bit unsatisfactory that we will only learn i. years to cone what actually happened.

 

[ppanther92]

Exclusive: Tour riders are inhaling carbon monoxide to optimise altitude training

Top teams Visma and UAE confirm they have access to specialized equipment for testing, but deny using the potentially powerful new method for performance enhancement.

escapecollective.com

Hilarious some of the team comments in this article "well it is technically not illegal but noooo, we are not doing it, we just have the technology to do so at our camps for "testing""

I mean, this alongside other things is what is going on.

Very interesting find.

 

[houtdffan]

maybe we shouldn't be surprised at today

after all, the three teams at the forefront were Sanuier-Dopal (Duval), Robberbank (Robobank) and Mapei

The team of RICCO
The team of RASSMUSSEN
and one of the EPO pioneers

 

[houtdffan]

my mistake, UAE Lampre not Saunier-Duval

However, Saunier-Duval management is running the team...

 

[Monoxidator]

my mistake, UAE Lampre not Saunier-Duval

However, Saunier-Duval management is running the team...

How these criminals are allowed to run teams is crazy.

 

[Ripper]

How these criminals are allowed to run teams is crazy.

Gi Gi the Vamp and Roxy Joxy are now darlings of the UCI.

Corruption + loads of $$ is never good. UAE just has even more $$ 😆😆😆

 

[Penninepeddler]

Very interesting find.

Ofc, there is no hard evidence and the article does a lot of "supposing". BUT if we just take a pretty logical pathway:

1. This is technically legal.

2. They have the equipment to do so.
3. In theory it is pretty "safe".

4. The reported "gains" going off the few studies out there (see below) would be something like 4% increase in V02 Max... and that is doing it in a pretty unsophisticated way given how it was achieved in this study... cycling teams have more money and specialist knowledge, and I am sure could maximise results due to this. And these people are not high-end athletes... we generally know from other methods (EPO) that athletes often respond better to such things and have higher gains... the few studies on EPO seemed to show a ~5-7% increase in V02 max for the normal person vs 10-15% for athletes.

5. Xenon and Argon did similar... seemingly to a lesser effect going off the reported gains... and both were widely used in athletics for 10 years, and almost certainly cycling, before both being banned in 2014. And no-one seemingly had an issue doing it before it was banned.

So, we have a circumstance where:

Teams led by people who have been involved in doping their whole careers.
Have a legal avenue, that is quite safe, with the equipment necessary.
To increase their cyclists V02 max by at very least 4% within a few weeks with no extra effort (which is incredible in itself but would probably be more if pro teams were doing this!).

And they would choose not to do it... for what? To protect the integrity of the sport? But they would not be breaking any actual rules? Yeh... I cannot do the mental gymnastics required to believe it is not being done.


(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6562501/)