Universal's Gogulski Questioning Quintana's Basque Country Performance

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The Hitch said:
So no answer to his actual point. He tore to pieces your idea that we should hold Millar on some sort of pedestal over the others.

I've got a pretty good idea why you chose to respond to the joke at the end rather than the actual argument.
To be fair, by couching it in the language that pointed out Basso has said sorry so should be put on the pedestal with Millar that bigdoopie was talking about, they probably didn't even think it was a joke and thought that I genuinely don't believe Basso doped, as if a guy who wins the Giro by ten minutes clean suddenly thinks "you know what, I need to get to the next level. I need dope".
 
Libertine Seguros said:
Saxo's last doping issue was Rasmussen's whereabouts thing which isn't really a doping issue, but they have a few known dopers and are run by Riis.

He was with HTC at that time. :p

Actually I think Frank's payment to Fuentes was the last case in the team.
 
will10 said:
Quintana may or may not be clean. But the hypocrisy of giving Sky a free ride and laying into Quintana for climbing well is bizarre.

This says most of it for me. NQ obviously did not come out of nowhere ... the US Commentators just did not do any homework there - could just be lazy or something else.

Casting shadows on the Q-man and Moviestar without peeping a word about ... Froome, Porte, Micky-Rog, Wiggo's climbing transforgmatation, etc. (all Sky related of course). That makes me cringe a bit more.

I wonder if le Tour this year will just go full ***. Everyone throwing caution to the win and just going ballistic ...
 
Feb 8, 2013
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Brilliant post.
Libertine Seguros said:
The problem is not that they said that we should sometimes question whether substances might be at play.

The problem is that they sat idly picking their noses and scratching their butts while we watch several preposterous, ridiculous transformations from people in the mid or even late 20s, and they didn't say a word, but when we get a mildly surprising performance from a 22-year-old who has shown all the pedigree from an early age that you could ever want from somebody to say that they have what it takes (Avenir win, winning small stage races, Dauphiné stage, Vuelta superdomestiquing) and is in excellent form (top 5 of Catalunya a week earlier), that's when they call BS.

That's why Chris Fontecchio, in his article, put the comparison to Phinney there. If Taylor Phinney were to win a semi-Classic, or even a secondary Classic like, say, Paris-Tours, later this season, would Schlanger and Gogulski call BS? Assuredly not. Because Phinney has shown all the capabilities to be a performer at that level. But so has Quintana.

Or, on another level, a while ago when discussing the Volta a Portugal I was discussing various young talents with ACF. It boiled down to something quite simple: ACF knew more about the young talents on BMC than he did about some of the others that I was talking about, like Kump, and didn't know Kump's results, so figured he was a nobody. Now, some of the guys ACF was talking about have turned into much better cyclists (Kristoff, for example), but then Kump had the issues of the Geox collapse and returning to Slovenia, so I've not abandoned ship on him yet. But I do think we have something kind of similar here. You pay more attention to your home talents, and also performances in the races most familiar to you are always going to stick in your memory more. One wonders what the posters who defended Jonathan Tiernan-Locke's breakout performances last season as understandable after his impressive showing in the previous year's Tour of Britain would have thought had that been, say, Sérgio Sousa, a Portuguese breakaway specialist who was 3rd in the 2011 Vuelta a Asturias, a race they probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to see.

I don't mind them admitting that questions sometimes need to be asked. And I'm not saying that we can't ask those questions about Nairo Quintana either. But them happily ignoring the likes of Porte this season but pointing fingers at Quintana on performance alone stinks of bias, and them saying that Nairo Quintana has come out of nowhere stinks of them not being well-informed enough on the subject for them to pass judgment.
 
Aug 30, 2012
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I generally like Schlanger and Gogo, but it's rather disappointing to hear them cheerlead for Horner after openly questioning Quintana's performance on a TT that included a climb. If the latter was fair game (and even if we assume it was), there is absolutely no legitimate reason not to be questioning Horner.
 
Dec 7, 2010
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With the 2014 Giro now behind us, this thread deserves a bump (how many people expressed surprised that there were no previous Quintana threads? :confused:).

If for no other reason, Libertine Seguros' always-informative posts in this thread need to be a part of any Quintana discussion. If it's background info you want, you will find it here from Libertine.


For anyone unfamiliar with the background of this particular topic, the following excellent post (a one-and-done forum member?) will fill in the blanks.

nicolassus said:

Short version:
Todd Gogulski and Steve Schlanger, from Universal Sports, openly expressed skepticism towards Quintana's victory (primarily his TT performance) at the 2013 Tour of the Basque Country.

Much heated debate ensued.



[My own take on Gogulski and Schlanger's reaction is still one of bewilderment. Having watched those two many, many times, this was definitely out of character for them, and is still quite puzzling to me. Gogulski is no slouch, and for the most part is an extremely well informed and astute cycling analyst. He was an experienced pro himself throughout the 80s, and early 90s. Again, I am at a loss to explain their commentating on this particular issue.] -Granville57
 
Ryo Hazuki said:
it's by far the worst from the anglophones and espeically the americans. they are complete tools. we all know usa is by far the worst in doping and they've always been. check docu's like bigger faster stronger and not to mention what team and country did lance perform? :rolleyes:

it's some completely undeserved attitude of superiority they have not only in sports but in anything.

Americans are very guilty of exceptionalism but then almost all individuals/groups exhibit superiority bias to some degree. Another common occurrence is outgroup bias and more specifically outgroup homogeneity of which you're very guilty in the above post. I'm of the opinion 2 wrongs do not make a right :cool:
 
Oct 16, 2010
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Benotti69 said:
I think the rise of Colombians in the peloton shows the blood vector doping has receded but other doping forms have taken its place, which Colombians can also benefit from.
Imteresting point.
perhaps gogulski was thinking along these lines when he commented on quintana.
 
Ryo Hazuki said:
it's by far the worst from the anglophones and espeically the americans. they are complete tools. we all know usa is by far the worst in doping and they've always been. check docu's like bigger faster stronger and not to mention what team and country did lance perform? :rolleyes:

We now know that every other podium finisher during Armstrong's TdF wins also doped. I see a lot of hypocrisy in the condemnation of Armstrong, even though he deserves it. It seems like many people that love to hate the American still like Ullrich, who obviously doped his way through many a TdF. I saw raves about how Aru is the best Italian climber since Pantani. You mean Pantani the doper? Why compare Aru to him? That's an insult to Aru. Pantani should be considered a disgrace and nothing more.

While we lack the tests because blood wasn't saved and retroactively tested from those years, we know very well that Indurain and other top riders of his day were doping too, yet he's still considered an all time great. Huh.

By all means, question the riders' performances on today's races. Whoever wins, Froome, Horner, Quintana, etc., is going to face those questions. Sadly with its history of doping, cycling has that coming to it. But spare me the double standard. It's not just a certain Texan and some other "anglophones" who deserve condemnation.