Riis has to take the price.
Concerning Froome on the other hand I dont think that much. Surely he made a very suspicious performance jump before the 2011 Vuelta, but as said he was always a complete stageracingtalent.
As u23-rider he battled with the likes of Fuglsang, Frank, Mollema and Costa in races like GP Tell and Giro Regioni and was seen back then as a really big stageracingtalent where a later TDF win would not seem completely impossible. The years afterwards where he seemed stagnated with only very small climpses of big talent (but a few) ment a lot of people forgot about this U23-talent or lost confidence in this talent (like I did myself) but to say it was never there before 2011 is just plain wrong.
Concerning Froome on the other hand I dont think that much. Surely he made a very suspicious performance jump before the 2011 Vuelta, but as said he was always a complete stageracingtalent.
As u23-rider he battled with the likes of Fuglsang, Frank, Mollema and Costa in races like GP Tell and Giro Regioni and was seen back then as a really big stageracingtalent where a later TDF win would not seem completely impossible. The years afterwards where he seemed stagnated with only very small climpses of big talent (but a few) ment a lot of people forgot about this U23-talent or lost confidence in this talent (like I did myself) but to say it was never there before 2011 is just plain wrong.