Tour De France 2013

I would have through that in Britain, we are very strong on anti-doping & would make every effort to investigate & ensure British sport is clean. We don't tend to have the 'win at all costs' mentality of certain other countries.

After Armstrong, surely the sport of cycling is very wary of this issue anyway. Have you considered that taking the drugs away from everyone, he is actually the best athlete?
 
Froome would have to be an absolute spaz and Sky insane to risk their reputation by doping as obviously as is being implied here in the climate cycling is in right now.

Sky's actions are inconsistent with a team that has anything to hide, too.
 
Colin129 said:
I would have through that in Britain, we are very strong on anti-doping & would make every effort to investigate & ensure British sport is clean. We don't tend to have the 'win at all costs' mentality of certain other countries.
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Do Brits really dope less in other sports? Australia had the self-image until it was recently revealed it was flourishing in Australian sports. I used to think the same about Danish sports, given that we are generally the least corrupt country in the world. Yet in cycling, they were and probably are all at it.

The lack of British cycling scandals imo has more to do with being relative newcomers to that scene.

After Armstrong, surely the sport of cycling is very wary of this issue anyway.
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You could have said the same after the Festina scandal. If anything, things got worse after that.

Have you considered that taking the drugs away from everyone, he is actually the best athlete?
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Yes I have and this idea is actually very wrong. Here are some excerpts with Jonathan Vaughters that illustrate quite well why:


Why not let athletes do what they want? At least then we’d have the clarity of knowing it’s a level playing field.

Vaughters visibly bristles when I ask this. Then he lays out what he has for countless journalists and fans (he’s been known to give out his mobile-phone number on Twitter so that he can talk to people about what he sees as misperceptions).

“There are a few arguments on that. I’ll start with physiological and we’ll go to psychological,” he begins.

Take two riders of the same age, height, and weight, says Vaughters. They have identical VO2max at threshold—a measure of oxygen uptake at the limit of sustainable aerobic power. But one of them has a natural hematocrit of 36 and one of 47. Those riders have physiologies that don’t respond equally to doping.

It’s not even a simple math equation that, with the old 50 percent hematocrit limit, one rider could gain 14 percent and another only three. Even if you raise the limit to the edge of physical sustainability, 60 percent or more, to allow both athletes significant gains, it’s not an equal effect, Vaughters says.

He goes on to explain that the largest gains in oxygen transport occur in the lower hematocrit ranges—a 50 percent increase in RBC count is not a linear 50 percent increase in oxygen transport capability. The rider with the lower hematocrit is actually extremely efficient at scavenging oxygen from what little hemoglobin that he has, comparatively. So when you boost his red-cell count, he goes a lot faster. The rider at 47 is less efficient, so a boost has less effect.

“You have guys who train the same and are very disciplined athletes, and are even physiologically the same, but one has a quirk that’s very adaptable to the drug du jour,” Vaughters says. “Then all of a sudden your race winner is determined not by some kind of Darwinian selection of who is the strongest and fittest, but whose physiology happened to be most compatible with the drug, or to having 50 different things in him.”
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Ubiquitous doping doesn't level the playing field. If anything it distorts it even more. And transforms physiologies. Think on this: None of Ulrich, Armstrong or Indurain were talented climbers in their early years. In fact, when you look at when they most likely started programs, it correlates quite well with when their climbing prowess started.

In a clean world, they would be competing with the likes of Boardman and Cancellara as top time triallists, but none of them would have been near the podium in Tour de France.
 
Either the Sky team are saying (privately), yes we're doping, let the cnuts try & catch us at it, if they can. Or, they aren't & they are being as open as they can to try & show to the authorities that they aren't doping.

They have to be doing something different, if they are, because following Armstrong, people are going to be far less likely to either dope or collude in covering up doping. Armstrong used the fact that he was a cnut to frighten people, didn't he? You reckon Froome is doing that, or Wiggins before him last year?

A lot of people think they smell a rat, so the authorities will be going all out to ensure that if there is wrong doing, then they will find it out.

Some of the performances are impressive from Froome, no doubt, but he has exhausted his team mates on occasion (Porte), or taken it easy when he has produced something special on a stage, e.g. before a rest day, or trundling along in the Peloton 12 mins behind the winner.

The tactics have been very well played, which has contributed a lot to his position.
 
Colin129 said:
I would have through that in Britain, we are very strong on anti-doping & would make every effort to investigate & ensure British sport is clean. We don't tend to have the 'win at all costs' mentality of certain other countries.

After Armstrong, surely the sport of cycling is very wary of this issue anyway. Have you considered that taking the drugs away from everyone, he is actually the best athlete?
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No offence, but that's horribly naive. A lot of northern european countries don't have the "win at all cost"-mentality you see from southern european/south American countries, but that doesn't stop certain people/organisations from cheating. Previously caught riders have been from all sort of countries. Denmark in general has a firm stance on doping as well and we've got a few "high-profile" (relatively speaking) scientists/researchers fighting against doping. Didn't stop Michael Rasmussen from doping a few years ago.

As said previously in this thread, the fact that people have been caught in the past and there's a lot of focus on it changes nothing. The focus has been for a long time, but people still get caught cheating. It's the same for sprinters (the runners) and other sports based large on physical ability.
 
Wowi said:
No offence, but that's horribly naive. A lot of northern european countries don't have the "win at all cost"-mentality you see from southern european/south American countries, but that doesn't stop certain people/organisations from cheating. Previously caught riders have been from all sort of countries. Denmark in general has a firm stance on doping as well and we've got a few "high-profile" (relatively speaking) scientists/researchers fighting against doping. Didn't stop Michael Rasmussen from doping a few years ago.

As said previously in this thread, the fact that people have been caught in the past and there's a lot of focus on it changes nothing. The focus has been for a long time, but people still get caught cheating. It's the same for sprinters (the runners) and other sports based large on physical ability.
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I always try to look for the good in people :angel:
 
Colin129 said:
Either the Sky team are saying (privately), yes we're doping, let the cnuts try & catch us at it, if they can. Or, they aren't & they are being as open as they can to try & show to the authorities that they aren't doping.

They have to be doing something different, if they are, because following Armstrong, people are going to be far less likely to either dope or collude in covering up doping.
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Armstrong used the fact that he was a cnut to frighten people, didn't he? You reckon Froome is doing that, or Wiggins before him last year?
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No. If Wiggins and Froome are both doping though, I bet Wiggins is shitting bricks at Froome Armstronging it. He played a safe human tour win that should not arouse enough suspicion and then Froome goes full retard.

But it is rarely as clearcut as that. In most teams, even at the height, not everyone was doping. And certainly not everyone was doping equally much. It is quite possible one of Froome/Wiggins is doped and the other clean, more plausible too that a fair number of riders at Sky are in fact clean even if some aren't.

US Postal was actually slightly anomalous in how pervasive their team program was.


A lot of people think they smell a rat, so the authorities will be going all out to ensure that if there is wrong doing, then they will find it out.
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Like I keep saying - UCI won't. They are more corrupt than FIFA. As long as McQuaid sits in the chair, you 'just' have to be smart about your doping. At least for a fair while.

The field is cleaner and doped has been stalled to the extent that micro-dosing is increasingly becoming the order of the day. I do think someone like Wiggins or Evans could have won it cleanly.

But of course, that presumes no teams are ahead of the curve on as yet undetectable drugs.

Some of the performances are impressive from Froome, no doubt, but he has exhausted his team mates on occasion (Porte), or taken it easy when he has produced something special on a stage, e.g. before a rest day, or trundling along in the Peloton 12 mins behind the winner.

The tactics have been very well played, which has contributed a lot to his position.
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I was really hoping for some Vo2Max stats on Froome. If it is as phenomenal as his performances suggests it should be (near LeMond or so), we could be laying the discussions more or less to rest and say that even if he is doping, it is at least only for marginal increases.[/quote]
 
Anyway, enough doping talk for now - today's stage should be epic.

Evans already dropped on the first ascent.
 
I've had a little dabble on Dan Martin and Jakob Fuglsang in today's stage for interest. Both dark horses but I think that they could be involved at the business end of the race.

Hard to see past Quintana today, though, especially with Froome announcing he has no interest in any more stage wins.
 
Apparently if it rains, we'll only have one ascent of the Alp D'Huez
 
Last bit of dopegate for today

CYCLING
Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford has written to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to offer them details of Chris Froome's performances in a bid to end the climate of suspicion surrounding the Tour de France leader.
Froome's string of stunning performances on this year's Tour, from his mountaintop wins at Ax-Trois-Domaines and on Mont Ventoux to his victory in Wednesday's individual time-trial in Chorges, have aroused suspicion from fans and journalists who remain sceptical in the wake of the Lance Armstrong scandal.
And Brailsford revealed that he is trying be proactive in order to change the minds of those who refuse to believe that the current yellow jersey wearer has not doped.
"We have been in contact with WADA and UKAD (The UK Anti-Doping agency) and things are progressing," he said before the start of Thursday's 18th stage in Gap.
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Not sure what else you want them to do, remember they also made everyone sign contracts to say they aren't and have never doped. Don't see any other teams doing that
 
Looking like a planned Contador attack with Paulinho speeding away. Be interesting to see when he does attack and what his intentions are. Cement 2nd place or have a real go at Froome?
 
Bestie07 said:
Around what time will the first ascent on Alpe d'Huez start? Thinking of leaving the work early to catch this.
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Further changes, man! The first ascent started around 2.05pm and the leaders are a little more than halfway up the Alp now.

The 3 o'clock update I posted came from Twitter and it must have been the time when the second ascent is expected to begin.
 
Hope TJ does well. He and Evans have had a shocker of a tour so far
 
good stuff. Contador is a great descender.
 
fecks sake. Contador having to catch up to the peloton after a puncture now. Back to square one unless its Kreuziger who has what it takes.
 
That's it for Contador. Now just a matter of seeing what Quintana does

And Voigt!
 
Contador falling behind might have been tactical - changing his bike apparently.

Not like he could have kept the peloton away with the pace movistar is setting for a stage victory.
 
This is great television it has to be said. Alpe D'huez has hit everyone but the favourite group like a brick wall. That gap is diminishing with every minute. Riders being chewed out left right and centre.
 
and now everyone else dropped. go dawg.
 
Contador can't keep up with the rest.

Quintana riding for the podium.
 
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