Froome Braces for Doping questions

[Patchelicious]

always amazed at Kittel's hair.. I donno what he uses but they should have those products tested.

The test could be... erm fun...

 

http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/2013104/rs_560x415-131104124556-1024.theres-something-about-mary-hair-gel-diaz.jpg

[Gen]

The test could be... erm fun...

 

http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/2013104/rs_560x415-131104124556-1024.theres-something-about-mary-hair-gel-diaz.jpg

       

[SwissVan]

Here is a silly question....does it matter?

 

It is something we can't do anything about so why stress about it?

 

Me - I'm kinda over it (apart from a silly comment here and there) - if they dope great - if they don't dope great - it doesn't change my enjoyment of the sport.

 

I'm a lot more worried about the guy next to me at the start line of a local race, provincial, national because him doping has a direct impact on me. Even then I'm not too concerned as once again I can't really do anything about it.

 

Watch the sport, partake of the sport and enjoy the sport - leave the dope catching to people designated to doing it (no matter how good or bad they are at it).

 

Wondering if the current riders are doping is about as useful as wondering if aliens exist in Uranus.

 

Yes

BUT let me add in a disclaimer of sorts

 

Is anyone really surprised that there is doping in cycling at this level, think about what it is they do exactly for 4-6 hour a day, day after day sometimes for 3 weeks non stop (like in the big grand tours)

 

Just imagine if Ronaldo, Federer, Pheelps, Hamilton (F1), [insert your favorite professional sports person other than a pro cyclist] had to compete for the same amount of time under the same type of conditions for their entire career.....

 

I'm not saying I support doping, but I can understand why it happens. Years ago when I joined the hub (2005) we were having the same argument and I suggested that doping at this level should be legalized in an attempt to level the playing field. After 10 yrs I still think its a viable option.

[SwissVan]

always amazed at Kittel's hair.. I donno what he uses but they should have those products tested.

 

 

 

 

[SAGecko]

Sorry, but to agree to this, you must be on drugs...

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He still looks like he's riding his bike....

[StevieL]

He still looks like he's riding his bike....

Elbows are in the same position 

[Gen]

Yes

BUT let me add in a disclaimer of sorts

 

Is anyone really surprised that there is doping in cycling at this level, think about what it is they do exactly for 4-6 hour a day, day after day sometimes for 3 weeks non stop (like in the big grand tours)

 

Just imagine if Ronaldo, Federer, Pheelps, Hamilton (F1), [insert your favorite professional sports person other than a pro cyclist] had to compete for the same amount of time under the same type of conditions for their entire career.....

 

I'm not saying I support doping, but I can understand why it happens. Years ago when I joined the hub (2005) we were having the same argument and I suggested that doping at this level should be legalized in an attempt to level the playing field. After 10 yrs I still think its a viable option.

 

 

mmmm it's interesting, but the health risk involved with some of the PED's can't be good not in the long run, or mind you short term.

 

ag they'll never rid sport of PED's, they develop things long before it's on the authorities radar. 

 

 

Competitive sport take a huge toll on the athletes bodies, be it during training or in competition. The physical exertion as well as injuries. Different sports have different injuries.

 

So it's hard to compare cycling to other sport when it comes to what's harder on the body.  Cycling is incredibly hard, of course it is, but at professional level most sports are and have different effects on the body.

[rock]

guys Froome trains super hard, lives an unnaturally dedicated and focused lifestyle and doesn't take drugs.

 

oh, his bike does have a motor in it though.

 

its 2015, EPO is so 1997

[Gen]

 

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check that helmet tan line.

[Johan A Marais]

Once bitten, twice shy.  The cynic in me says they are doping, especially so some of the top teams.  And these guys that suddenly have such an off day that they must withdraw, that after nearly being superman for the 1st week or two, ya right.

 

And I do not like Froome - he looks odd on a racing machine, like a spider trying to ride a bike, and never comfortable.  It is a pain watching him ride.  Really wish someone can just outride (dope) him and win the race overall.

 

But that is just me...

[SwissVan]

Once bitten, twice shy.  The cynic in me says they are doping, especially so some of the top teams.  And these guys that suddenly have such an off day that they must withdraw, that after nearly being superman for the 1st week or two, ya right.

 

And I do not like Froome - he looks odd on a racing machine, like a spider trying to ride a bike, and never comfortable.  It is a pain watching him ride.  Really wish someone can just outride (dope) him and win the race overall.

 

But that is just me...

 

Today I say "Mooove on dude"

From Sunday afternoon onwards it will be "Froome on dude"

[NixM]

From Ross Tuckers twitter page. A comment of cycling news:

 

reubenr wrote:It makes you wonder why a team that is supposed to be sophisticated and on the cutting edge of cycling, like Sky, would release power numbers in an effort to quell the controversy around Froome's performance? Fog and Dodge? It would seem that something more is required than that.

 

It's too late for them now. The snowball of doubts have grown too big. They needed to be doing this back in 2011 after the Vuelta, realistically, if they genuinely wanted to assuage doubts. They needed to publish pre-2011 Vuelta information when they did the Grappe exercise in 2013 (and maybe not pick the same doctor that said Armstrong was clean). They've now reached the point where they've lied, misled and misrepresented so much that no matter what they release, they're going to be accused of fudging it if it doesn't look suspicious, and any fluctuations will be pounced upon like a pack of hyenas. They're trying to calm the storm by releasing what they have to to say that they did their bit for clean cycling, and the British press will lap it up. They may even say it puts Sky laying down the gauntlet of transparency to other teams (few of them, of course, will mention that Nairo Quintana - hardly somebody that there are no suspicions about - published his VO2Max apropos of nothing a few weeks ago, and that Movistar have released Valverde's power data back in the 2013 Tour as well), because they know they can trust a large part of their readership only to be interested where the British riders & team are concerned.

 

A lot of what has happened at this Tour is not specifically about Sky. Some of it isn't even about Chris Froome. It's a lot of built up resentment and anger that we've seen the sport have a big opportunity to rebuild itself in the wake of the downfall of Armstrong and the replacement of McQuaid. A whole tainted generation could be kicked away and we could start again, but what we're seeing is the same speeds, the same ineffectual regulators, the same worrying connections between top teams and the top brass at the UCI, and the same type of racing. Whoever started putting out the performances like this next was bound to face backlash, because as speeds continue to increase back to the EPO era speeds, fans were bound to baulk at some point.

 

But that's not to say that it being Sky has been nothing to do with it. Sky is a team that inspired such ridicule at first with their revolutionary "bringing science to the sport" (which a lot of teams who were doing all their budget would allow in the sports science area rather resented) and pompous approach (quoth Marc Madiot: "I put riders in wind tunnels too, but I don't have to put out a press release about it"), and now they are doing what they're doing while shoving their egregious wealth in other teams' faces (look at our Jags! Look at our Range Rovers! Get out of the way of our oversized motorhome fleet!) and not endearing themselves to fans (put up the screens so they can't see! You're all jealous, lazy and idle wankers who can't stand that we achieve stuff and you don't! What do you mean, you want to see interesting, attacking racing? Look at our train!). They're like the Chelsea FC, the Real Madrid, the New England Patriots. So you take the latent anger in the fans at being told to lap up the same story that tasted like a slap in the face before, and add that in.

 

Then add in that it's Chris Froome, a transformation story that has seldom been told without a bitter aftertaste in the recent history of the sport. A guy who has veered between being a decent but dull, bland guy at times, and (perhaps most when his voice is being piloted by his wife, given her behaviour at other times) vindictive, grudgeful and nasty at others. A guy whose success is hard to buy because of its sudden, suspicious timing, the catalogue of lies that have surrounded it, and the sheer difficulty of looking at his unique, awkward technique with elbows and knees akimbo and say "that is the best cyclist in the world". Even if the numbers fit fine with what's humanly achievable clean, people will always look at his paucity of results before September 2011 and his technique and say, "is it achievable clean coming from him?" Some of that is purely subjective, some of it is pattern recognition.

 

So what you have is a latent sense of frustration, despondency and disillusionment among the fans that the jettisoning of the big bad bogeyman of the past and the changing of the guard at the UCI has not led to any change whatsoever. Then you add a team it's difficult to feel any sympathy for (at least until somebody splashes urine in their faces). Then on top of that you add a rider it's difficult to feel any sympathy for, and a backstory that requires a lot of leaps of faith. And then you take those leaps of faith and make them harder to take by drowning them in a river of half-truths, misrepresentations, misdirections and so on. And you have the perfect recipe for the fans turning on the race, turning on the riders, and refusing to believe the story they're being told. The nature of social media and modern mass media is such that the story is harder to control than it was 15 years ago, so the fans turning on the race and the riders (and Sky are naturally at the forefront of that) has become a story before the talking points against them could be put into place.

 

So now, all that Brailsford is able to do is throw what he can to try to placate them, and while he may be able to convince the complicit, the casual fans and those who want to believe, he's never going to gain back all of the trust that he, along with Froome, Porte and the sport as a whole, have lost. It's like putting a really nice layer of icing on a cake that's been burnt to a crisp. The veneer is there, and it looks lovely, but it doesn't change the fact that it was already ruined before they got to it

[Rocket-Boy]

Seems his doping didnt help today.

Lets hope Quintana and Nibali get the same accusations flying at them seeing as how they rode away from him.

[Patchelicious]

Nibali's performance today must be more suspect than that one win of Froomes.

 

You don't come back so strong 18 days I nto a tour, and let's not say he "saved" himself and therefore he is stronger now. He went there to win from the beginning.

 

Funny that his performance improved after a blood test, if that doesn't sound suspect then I don't know what does.

 

Edit: and let's not forget who he rides for and the fact that they have several riders caught in the last few months!

 

I am just saying, I think there are more suspect people who get less attention, simply because they do not ride for Sky.

[Gen]

Nibali's performance today is more suspect than that one win of Froomes.

 

You don't come back so strong 18 into a tour, and let's not say he "saved" himself and therefore he is stronger now. He went there to win from the beginning.

 

Funny that his performance improved after a blood test, if that doesn't sound suspect then I don't know what does.

 

Edit: and let's not forget who he rides for and the fact that they have several riders caught in the last few months!

 

I am just saying, I think there are more suspect people who get less attention, simply because they do not ride for Sky.

Vino must still have his contacts[emoji6]

[HappyMartin]

How come Froome is accused of doping but not the people who are literally a handful of minutes behind him in a race that has gone on for weeks. Surely doping would give a bigger advantage than that.

 

Two runners in the men's top ten at this years Comrades tested positive. That's a remarkably high strike rate. Imagine if cycling had a strike rate like that. Yet it's always about cycling

 

Then we are expected to believe it's the massive amount of money in cycling. Please. That's not money. The entire field at the Tour earns less than a single French football team. It cost billions to develope a drug. If they are using a drug it's one developed for conventional medicine as EPO was. There is no billions in cycling for that stuff. Europecar can't even find a sponsor. MTN is run on a shoe string