Didn’t Quintana lose time on the flats because he and his team got caught in the wrong group and couldn’t bridge?

So Froom then was not actually the best rider on the tour..?

I’m not a fan of Froome but the frothing is unreal, treat them all the same and ask for power data/transparency from all the riders or stop throwing wild accusations around, or at least start questioning Quintana’s performance or Nibali’s amazing return to form.

I agree with the sentiment MF but Power data and “transparency” doesn’t really help anything- cheats will always cheat one way or another. If you change the parameters of what is “normal” then they’ll just work around the updated definition. Also as others have already said, you can have all the info in the world and it is still nigh on impossible to accurately and reliably pick out something suspicious.

@monkeyfudger: wrong I don’t hate him. Read what I wrote ‘dislike’. It’s you who is getting in a froth.

I’d counterclaim that these are not wild accusations, they are reasoned suspicions from having followed pro-cycling from the mid eighties (and reading just how easily US Postal managed to avoid getting popped).

You want a wild conspiracy one? okay, the miraculous transformation of Froome just happens to coincide with sky hiring Geert Lienders (who has subsequently been banned from cycling for his part in facilitating doping at Rabobank)… Somebody might want to question exactly what he was hired for. That is one major sky **** up.

And what makes you think I don’t question other riders? And why don’t you question how Froome manages to beat Quintana and Nibs (clean) if they’re doping? Let me guess, you think they are clean to? And contador?

Fwiw my own personal opinion is that nothing has really changed that much, dopers still find ways to beat the testing and the UCI don’t try too hard to find them. (hell even Froome has complained about the lack of testing).

So Froome then was not actually the best rider on the tour..?

This has been done to death so I won’t rehash it but the biggest factor for me this year was the part the rest of the SKY team played. The had the perfect strategy (and fortune) throughout and did well to use the team to full effect in the pursuit of plan A.

If Movistar were half as switched on and Valverde was capable of riding in Support of Quintana at the key moments then it *could* have been different. Likewise if Vino wasn’t being a d1ck to Nibali half the time and gave him some decent morale and support then it could have been different. If BMC didn’t give TvG a dodgy blood bag…. I digress 😆 Lots of “ifs” but SKY’s performance as a team won Le Tour for Froome as much as Froome won IMO.

Ritchie did try and take Froome out right at the end though so all the good work could have come undone at the final moments 😀

the biggest factor for me this year was the part the rest of the SKY team played.

I agree.

And why don’t you question how Froome manages to beat Quintana

He didn’t, really.

On the subject of speculation, the rise of Griepel to Tour sprint domination in the twilight of his career doesn’t seem to be getting much comment.

Nah, he did a Froomey, he just stopped ****-ing about and got his shit together. Hey, it happens all the time…. 😆

Dear France,

Your last Tour winner was a doper.

Yours etc,

Everyone else.

M. Flash heart,

Va te faire enculer.

Merci,

La France.

😛

On the subject of speculation, the rise of Griepel to Tour sprint domination in the twilight of his career doesn’t seem to be getting much comment.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread it has been years since a sprinter got popped. They are either better at cheating, cheat less, or no-one gives a wotsit about them to check properly 😀

Dear France,

Your last Tour winner was a doper.

Yours etc,

Everyone else.

Copy/ paste every year pre 2005*

*It is different now honest, we got the bad man

@metalheart – that’s uncanny, you presumably work for the French press

@aracer 😆

🙂

@ the above. I’m not 100% convinced they’re all clean but I’m not prepared to throw around wild accusations based on nothing but “ZOMG teh dopinz are strong ‘cos he attacked once and beat the people he needs to beat!!1!”

I reckon they’re cleaner than Lance, no way is it the same racing, you’d watch Lance (a dude with as much muscle as Greipel) stood up for an age attacking like a mentalist.

What I hate is the inconsistency in the attacks on Sky calling for power data/transparency yet nothing from Movistar when he thrashes Froome two days in a row. Most of the time I’m fairly convinced the most vocal haven’t even watched the racing.

just said during the San Sebastian highlights that Valverde was ill with a “fever” after the final Paris stage last week, didn’t attend the after party…….

Meanwhile the IAAF appears to be having a Verbruggen/McQuaid moment according to Auntie.
BBC Athletics

Pretty depressing stuff if you are a clean athlete. It is “as bad in Athletics as cycling was during the Armstrong era”.

That BBC story is no news to many in athletics. Doping has been going on for years in many countries including the UK. There have been well know UK coaches involved in doping, though that does not put the cheating at the same level as the state sponsored levels we have witnessed.

As I recall there were 200 blood samples found in Operation Puerto, 49 cyclists, who were all the rest? Tennis, Football, Athletics were all well represented in those samples. We’ll never really know because the Spanish state suppressed the evidence for what reason I’m not sure. I do note with interest though that some of there better know athletes and teams are not doing as well as they were.

Is it really that surprising? The reference to Armstrong like levels of cheating is quite funny- systematic doping has been done way before LA (probably even *better* in other sports!) and will continue long after. Why do we give that nobber the credit of benchmark cheating 😆

DanW very true that.

When you consider what they got up to in East Germany and a number of other countries not so long ago, LA was playing around. Better drugs though.

I was once shown round a lab in the former East Germany which was a very very sophisticated setup for making radioactively labelled molecules “in former times”. I didn’t understand at the time why they had been making those types of compounds there because it was nothing to do with the other activities on the site and then, a few days later, the penny dropped- that was where they had been developing the PEDs for the state sponsored doping programme.

Not sure if this is relevant to this TdF doping thread or should maybe go into that long-running Lance thread but his story is taking yet another twist:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/33798247