We need to talk about Annemiek

[Ilmaestro99]

i know alien encounters are ten a penny on you tube and can be easily dismissed...

but AVV totally bossing the TT in vuelta ceratizet challenge then going ballistic the next day leaving a really strong chasing group trailing.............until they kinda gave up in disarray

i noticed AVV at the stage start loving lovely in much pretty mascara etc as though that would distact from the thermo nuclear performance...

so i was thinking..i have seen the GCN videos...pro v X GCN presenters...aero v X GCN presenters......................how about the alien v X normal pros on a long climb?

Mark L

One of the best things I have read. Thanks Mark.

Annemiek almost 39 and having the best season yet. Guess she is barely an adult in alien years.

 

[nayr497]

Oh my, had no idea she was 39. Phew, quite a bit past the prime age for a female athlete!

 

[veganrob]

Oh my, had no idea she was 39. Phew, quite a bit past the prime age for a female athlete!

Dara Torres says hi. Of course she was doped to her eyeballs as well

 

[Inquitus]

Sick for the first few days, 39, and crushes all comers like Landis after a jour sans.

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

There's already a thread for her, but yeah, she's been ridiculous for a while.

 

[SafeBet]

I know everyone was expecting this but seriously WTF??? Almost 40 years old and frooming her way to the win, the other riders looking like amateurs.

 

[meat puppet]

Well she's half titanium and it's cycling after all.

 

[Red Rick]

I know everyone was expecting this but seriously WTF??? Almost 40 years old and frooming her way to the win, the other riders looking like amateurs.

I honestly feel like cycling is backpatting itself so hard for building up womens cycling that nobody is gonna want to scrutinize this.

One honest question about womens cycling is what would the standard of PEDs be in it with such lower budgets and overall less talent development. Maybe we can look at like % difference in W/kg and maybe multi climb mountain stages are just that rare, and such a result is maybe likely a natural extrapolation of being like a 5-8% better climber than everyone else in the field. And maybe lower climbing speeds and lower overall speeds make drafting less important. But still she put 2 minutes+ into all but like 5 women on the first climb.

And yes, I do find it fairly plausible the Dutch women outdope the competition. The sort of sustained dominance "we" have had has been crazy.

 

[BR2]

And yes, I do find it fairly plausible the Dutch women outdope the competition. The sort of sustained dominance "we" have had has been crazy.

However in niche (women's) sports, and women's cycling has been that for a long time, there are sometimes these dominances because the sport is only popular in a few countries and only there the structures and knowledge are on a really high level. As long as the overall level is not that high it is definitely easier to dominate.

 

[BR2]

In general... I can well imagine van Vleuten is doping, or more, or more sophisticated/expensively than the other ones, but if you look at the overall level / results of the other riders it becomes clear that there isn't even a dozen riders who can really compete on a climber's route. The gaps are so big (yes, in this year's men's Tour it was similar, but I don't consider that normal). Van Vleuten is a woman who is super super competitive - she's doing everything to be the best, and although I don't know enough about women's cycling to tell who is doing what exactly, I think most of the (most talented) women don't do the same.
Someone like van der Breggen just ended her career at 30 because she didn't see a challenge anymore, didn't feel like it. In her last year she worked mostly for Vollering, because obviously winning wasn't that important to her anymore.
Other good riders end their careers because it doesn't really pay off financially for them to take the risk and put everything into it.
So, - the pool of talents is smaller, - many talents quit early for economical reasons, - the route designs don't give motivation to develop into climbers/ gc riders, - the level of professionalism/money/ambition isn't the same as in men's on a broad scale.

I think women's cycling is changing a lot these days, but so far it is still very different from men's, and the dominance of one rider is most likely not comparable to the dominance of one rider in men's.

 

[Rackham]

Doped up to her eyeballs & then some.

But she's the 'pinnacle' of her sport, i.e. she'll have better preparation in all aspects (clinically of course but the rest as well) & also as close to 'immunity' as an athlete can get because they're not about to destroy their Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift with a Landis-style positive dope test for Annemiek... avec Zwift.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Annemiek and Jonas are on the same fishy diet, it seems.

 

[meat puppet]

Btw, are there any w/kg calculations available from yesterday?

Edit:

“It’s not normal what she did” What does Van Vleuten’s performance at the Tour de France Femmes mean for women’s cycling?

At the finish of stage seven of the Tour de France Femmes, there was an anticlimactic feeling in the air. Riders crossed the line in dribs and drabs, exhausted, shattered and, mostly, disappointed. Elisa Longo Borghini sat on the tarmac sobbing, consoled by soigneurs. Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig gave...

www.rouleur.cc

Interesting comments from the pretenders, BTW. "Not normal" has been used in a sentence by Demi. Others just say she's out of their league.

AvV offers the "more volume" explanation, which (riding) age further facilitates. It's her "zone 2" by Pogi & San Millan. Coach Louis Delahaije has also offered it frequently in training pods. Truth be told, 1000-1100hr is a hefty volume by any standard, not denying this. But I guess the age component should cut both ways...

 

[Red Rick]

I'm not entirely sure how to compare womens to mens performances, and I don't think extrapolating from other sports will be viable. Super Planche should be a better data point in that regard.

But it seems to me that in athletics women tend to be in the range of 10-12% slower, while in the W/kg like contests in cycling the gap seems to be more in the range of 20%.

 

[Inquitus]

She trains with the Men's Moviastar team, she's probably on the best stuff from them. She is simply on a different level to the rest of the women, and at 39 too, age seems no impediment! She'll win today, too, just a question of by how many minutes? At least we can compare her time to the men's and work out some solid W/Kg.

Not normal, Alien, whatever you want to call it, she is in a different league to the rest of the poor women, at least she will have to retire at some point.

Off to Super Planche we go!

 

[Inquitus]

Giro Donne and Tour de France Femmes Avec Zwift crushed by AVV a few weeks apart!

 

[BR2]

Watts would be really interesting, maybe we will get some after today. But look at the riders she "destroyed":
Second was Vollering, who is an allrounder with a very strong sprint.
Then Uttrup Ludwig, Labous, Niewiadoma, Persico.
Persico, I don't know anything about her, is in her complete break-out year, never did much before this.
Longo Borghini is a rather compact all-rounder, really not a climber per se. She was seventh.
8th Zigart, who is tinier and probably needs these stages, but overall not a super strong rider.
Markus, 12th, is a time trialer.
Veronica Ewers at 27 has a pro contract since 21.
17th is van Anrooij, who is a cx/allrounder.
Arlenis Sierra is more of a sprinter (20th).
Moolman-Pasio is sick, Cavalli out.
(Mavi Garcia is 38, too.)

I just think we need to at least talk about the fact that the depth of the women's field simply isn't there yet.

 

[Red Rick]

There's definitely an argument that the lack of specialisation causes climbers to weaker on the womens side. Especially as the endurance element is also strongly reduced by the very short stages, and even the lack of longer TTs.

Another big difference between men and women is the average body fat%. But I don't really know if the differences in this regard are bigger in the womens peloton or if fat loss PEDs could be more influential in women.

On the other hand, average height is shorter for women, and therefor the relative population with the right size for specializations should be more geared towards climbing than for flats and sprints.

 

[yaco]

I doubt that AVV is a better climber than Pooley or Abbott, however she is more versatile and a better bike handler - I doubt we have enough data to make a call on whether she is doping.

 

[SafeBet]

Watts would be really interesting, maybe we will get some after today. But look at the riders she "destroyed":
Second was Vollering, who is an allrounder with a very strong sprint.
Then Uttrup Ludwig, Labous, Niewiadoma, Persico.
Persico, I don't know anything about her, is in her complete break-out year, never did much before this.
Longo Borghini is a rather compact all-rounder, really not a climber per se. She was seventh.
8th Zigart, who is tinier and probably needs these stages, but overall not a super strong rider.
Markus, 12th, is a time trialer.
Veronica Ewers at 27 has a pro contract since 21.
17th is van Anrooij, who is a cx/allrounder.
Arlenis Sierra is more of a sprinter (20th).
Moolman-Pasio is sick, Cavalli out.
(Mavi Garcia is 38, too.)

I just think we need to at least talk about the fact that the depth of the women's field simply isn't there yet.

I'm not sure if what you are implying is that she's basically the only climber in the women pro peloton or that there's not enough talent all around to assess how impressive this performance was.

BTW, estimated 5,3 w/kg on both Petit Ballon and Platzerwasel.

 

[BR2]

I'm not sure if what you are implying is that she's basically the only climber in the women pro peloton or that there's not enough talent all around to assess how impressive this performance was.

BTW, estimated 5,3 w/kg on both Petit Ballon and Platzerwasel.

More like the second. But maybe also a bit of the first. Not the only climber of course. But maybe some women could be stronger climbers (or even: still ride) if there were more races for climbers.
Overall: how can we really rate the level of top climbing in the women's peloton?

 

[SafeBet]

More like the second. But maybe also a bit of the first. Not the only climber of course. But maybe some women could be stronger climbers (or even: still ride) if there were more races for climbers.
Overall: how can we really rate the level of top climbing in the women's peloton?

How can we rate the level of anything in women cycling then?
I'd say comparing the top 10 riders in arguably the most important race of the calendar can give you a pretty good idea, because contrary to what I've read all of them have super training programs, coaches, attention to nutrition, etc (save for those riding for smaller teams like Persico). ELB is trained by Slongo, just to name one.
They are not as specialized as in men cycling but they are still good climbers. Truth be told, most of the riders you mention showed climbing ability earlier than AVV did in her career (ok I know she focused on different races but still...)
This was perhaps the top climbing performance ever recorded by a female rider. AvdB's performance on Prato Nevoso might be close but it was a relatively short effort. AVV went on for almost 3 hours.

Again, she's almost 40. I don't think her age has been discussed as thoroughly as it should. Do we have many examples of female athletes still dominating their sport at that age?

 

[Red Rick]

How can we rate the level of anything in women cycling then?
I'd say comparing the top 10 riders in arguably the most important race of the calendar can give you a pretty good idea, because contrary to what I've read all of them have super training programs, coaches, attention to nutrition, etc (save for those riding for smaller teams like Persico). ELB is trained by Slongo, just to name one.
They are not as specialized as in men cycling but they are still good climbers. Truth be told, most of the riders you mention showed climbing ability earlier than AVV did in her career (ok I know she focused on different races but still...)
This was perhaps the top climbing performance ever recorded by a female rider. AvdB's performance on Prato Nevoso might be close but it was a relatively short effort. AVV went on for almost 3 hours.

Again, she's almost 40. I don't think her age has been discussed as thoroughly as it should. Do we have many examples of female athletes still dominating their sport at that age?

I remember when about 2/3rds of the peloton was OTL on Izoard when it was unipuerto for La Course. Maybe that should be somewhat of an indicator.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I doubt that AVV is a better climber than Pooley or Abbott, however she is more versatile and a better bike handler - I doubt we have enough data to make a call on whether she is doping.

Would be good for them to climb something that we've got climb times for Pooley and/or Abbott on, like Monte Serra, San Domenico, Mortirolo, La Crosetta or bring back the Elgeta uphill TT in the Itzulia/Bira so we could compare directly. Abbott doing an extremely limited European calendar doesn't help either.

 

[LesMcLuffAlot]

How can we rate the level of anything in women cycling then?
I'd say comparing the top 10 riders in arguably the most important race of the calendar can give you a pretty good idea, because contrary to what I've read all of them have super training programs, coaches, attention to nutrition, etc (save for those riding for smaller teams like Persico). ELB is trained by Slongo, just to name one.
They are not as specialized as in men cycling but they are still good climbers. Truth be told, most of the riders you mention showed climbing ability earlier than AVV did in her career (ok I know she focused on different races but still...)
This was perhaps the top climbing performance ever recorded by a female rider. AvdB's performance on Prato Nevoso might be close but it was a relatively short effort. AVV went on for almost 3 hours.

Again, she's almost 40. I don't think her age has been discussed as thoroughly as it should. Do we have many examples of female athletes still dominating their sport at that age?

Jeannie Longo?