FoxxyBrown1111 said:
His estimation. But cycling exist longer than him.
Really? I thought cycling began and ended with LA.
So it´s qualified BS.
The pu$$y stage all had to do with the Schlecks unwilling to race. No more, no less, and that´s the reason TV is still in yellow.
I think after all Dr. Maserati found, wrote, linked to documents, we can safely say blood doping wasn´t there in 1987, nor was EPO. But what we saw was a rider with HEART and GUTS who GAVE IT ALL. That´s RACING. His name is S.Roche.
I would accept the above nonsense post if any of the "contenders" were at least close to be as exhausted as S.Roche in 1987. But instead i saw a pu$$y "attacking" for milliseconds, even tough creating a gap but then riding zig zag (almost backwards) to let the gap close again. It had nothing to do with doped/not doped. It was just cowards unwilling to ride in front and/or attack. Or how you explain that inches away from the finish line the biggest coward Schleck still had enough power to launch a real attack?
Yesterday was like the "Shame of Gijon". Worse than any doped performance i ever saw (since 1980). I am still nauseated.
And now you guys try to spoil the name of TV, only because he was the only one going to the limit and trying to race. Disgusting, folks.
This is Voeckler's 9th or 10th Tour. He's been strong in the past, most notably in the 2004 Tour when he held the Maillot Jaune against Lance Armstrong until the race reached the Alps. This Tour, however, is the first time he has ever put himself into contention against the true "heads of state" with the real possibility of winning. So it's only natural that people question this performance and ask how it is achieved (especially given the prevalence of doping in the sport). It was my contention, in the post you were responding to, that Voeckler is racing clean, in a peloton that is much cleaner than in the past.
This forum is known for its general dislike for all things Armstrong, and its advocacy of dope-free racing. Armstrong's claim (implied in many interviews and elsewhere) is that pro cycling is entertainment, and that without medical assistance (i.e. doping) performances will be lackluster and not very entertaining. I was pointing out that on the very forums where people disparage doping and Armstrong, people are complaining that the racing of a cleaner peloton is lackluster and not very entertaining - just as Armstrong said they would.
As to Stephen Roche being the standard for all things glorious and clean in pro cycling - give me a break. While oxygen-vector doping wasn't yet developed in his time, they were doped up on everything else under the sun, and the testing was a joke. Yes, they rode bravely and like maniacs, often giving new meaning to the word exhaustion. That kind of racing - and that kind of doping - was all they knew.
Today's peloton - or at least its main GC contenders - only know racing with today's drugs and protocols - which are definitely more effective than in Roche's time. Over the past three or four years - that is, since the introduction of the biopassport - racing has begun to change. As of this Tour it has changed further. Perhaps the riding will become more entertaining as the riders get used to riding more au naturel. (Also, maybe traditional parcourse will need to be adjusted.)
The graph below shows test samples from the Tour, beginning in 2001. The light and dark green areas indicate EPO use. The pink and purple areas indicate blood doping. The royal blue line indicates the introduction of EPO testing. The red line represents the introduction of the biopassport.
It will be interesting to see the results from 2011 on this graph. Perhaps there will be yet another line, this one indicating the extra scrutiny given to Contador's sample last year. (The one that revealed his love of Spanish beef.)
The graph is from an article in
The Science of Sport, a blog probably familiar to regular readers of the Clinic. In an article called
Tour de France: Post-Pyrenees state of the race they had this to say about the Plateau de Beille stage:
"It's been a long, long time since I've seen such large groups on HC climbs at the end of Tour stages. The group was 24-strong at 4km gone, and there were 13 men battling it out only 4km from the summit of a finishing climb in the Tour de France (has it ever happened?). The days of brutally hard tempo riding from the start of the climb, eliminating all but two or three rivals, seem a distant memory.
"When you think about it logically, you would expect large groups because a) the differences between riders at this level should small at only a few
percent, and b) there is a drafting benefit that is equal to or larger than the natural performance differences between riders at that, even on the
climbs at relatively slower speeds of about 20km/hour. This is what helps the peloton stay together so that 180 men can finish flat stages together,
and I dare suggest it's normal for climbs to have so many men together, especially in the first mountain range because the cumulative fatigue effect is so much smaller."
And in a later article called
Tour de France: The Biological Passport Context they had this to say:
. . . "when the climbing times are down, when the power outputs drop, when the physiological implications of those power outputs are suddenly
'credible' based on what we know about physiological capacity, when the racing is more conservative, when attacks are less frequent, when groups are more bunched, my interpretation is that the sport is moving in a positive direction. [i.e., less doping]"
Lastly, permit me to respectfully suggest that you learn to read and comprehend before posting, or don't bother posting at all.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram