Roche seems really suspect

dave_1

during his commentary of this stage...am sure he knew the scale of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xwmkLc4 ... re=related

Bronzie

What surprises most about that clip is how lucid Duffers sounds - a far cry from his recent commentary on Tirenno-Adriatico.

andyp

Of course he knew what was going on. He'd been up close to see Claudio Chiappucci go from being an average domestique to a podium finishing grand tour rider without any significant change to his training (as Roche himself stated once in an interview I'd read).

What's still shocking about that stage is Festina's tactics! Utterly stupid. You've got the yellpw jersey behind with one team mate and you've got two of yours and you let them go up the road for the stage because no-one else will immediately lend a hand. :roll: I'm glad Virenque never won the Tour, he was too stupid too!

ricadus

What I heard was that suddenly nobody wanted to do a deal with Virenque - payback time indeed.

afx237vi

ricadus wrote:

What I heard was that suddenly nobody wanted to do a deal with Virenque - payback time indeed.

That doesn't explain why his two team-mates went on the attack, leaving him in the middle group. And why did one of them sit up once Virenque was caught?!

Bronzie wrote:

What surprises most about that clip is how lucid Duffers sounds - a far cry from his recent commentary on Tirenno-Adriatico.

Ugh, once Paris-Nice finished, I didn't even bother watching the rest of Tirreno. It was actually uncomfortable to listen to it, it was that bad. Surely someone at Eurosport needs to step in and tell him it's time to call it a day. As that clip shows - he was pretty dame good in the past, but those days are way gone.

dave_1

afx237vi wrote:

ricadus wrote:

What I heard was that suddenly nobody wanted to do a deal with Virenque - payback time indeed.

That doesn't explain why his two team-mates went on the attack, leaving him in the middle group. And why did one of them sit up once Virenque was caught?!

Bronzie wrote:

What surprises most about that clip is how lucid Duffers sounds - a far cry from his recent commentary on Tirenno-Adriatico.

Ugh, once Paris-Nice finished, I didn't even bother watching the rest of Tirreno. It was actually uncomfortable to listen to it, it was that bad. Surely someone at Eurosport needs to step in and tell him it's time to call it a day. As that clip shows - he was pretty dame good in the past, but those days are way gone.

My hunch is those Festina guys were probably off their faces on a cocktail of various substances leading to that lack of judgement.

deejay

Dave_1 wrote:

My hunch is those Festina guys were probably off their faces on a cocktail of various substances leading to that lack of judgement.

I read that Wily was pulled up the following year at the Belge/French border while travelling from the German University with a supply of PED. The intention being to level the playing field.

This is just a thought but is it possible that Virenque new there were 2 (only needed 2) Telecom Super Charged PED's coming and the break was therefor doomed.
Virenque had been in the peloton a couple of years and saw the difference to average riders when they joined this new team from Germany. These riders even improved when they transferred from the "Gewiss" team, and you now know what that means, surely.
You keep scratching your heads about the tactics you saw, but my one would explain it.

I think that Roche (and the peloton) could well have been aware of the Italian training assessment , including a needle etc, but even now we are learning about the advances made in the East German University and he might not have known.

dave_1

deejay wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

My hunch is those Festina guys were probably off their faces on a cocktail of various substances leading to that lack of judgement.

I read that Wily was pulled up the following year at the Belge/French border while travelling from the German University with a supply of PED. The intention being to level the playing field.

This is just a thought but is it possible that Virenque new there were 2 (only needed 2) Telecom Super Charged PED's coming and the break was therefor doomed.
Virenque had been in the peloton a couple of years and saw the difference to average riders when they joined this new team from Germany. These riders even improved when they transferred from the "Gewiss" team, and you now know what that means, surely.
You keep scratching your heads about the tactics you saw, but my one would explain it.

I think that Roche (and the peloton) could well have been aware of the Italian training assessment , including a needle etc, but even now we are learning about the advances made in the East German University and he might not have known.

It just struck me the way he was expressing surprise at the riders ability to race on the aforementioned stage after so many hard days and to race from so far out...and Neil Stephen's cradling gesture at the finish when he won the stage...all seems sick now

aurelio_-_banned

Dave_1 wrote:

during his commentary of this stage...am sure he knew the scale of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xwmkLc4 ... re=related

From first hand experience, in all probability. Remember that Italian investigation into the administration of Epo by Francesco Conconi to members of the Carrera team when Roche was riding for them?

http://www.the-kingdom.ie/news/story/?trs=kfcwsnidql

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... 5550/print

nwallace

Dave_1 wrote:

My hunch is those Festina guys were probably off their faces on a cocktail of various substances leading to that lack of judgement.

Or,

Vireque is loaded up on detectable drugs and guaranteed to be tested if he wins the stage and the 2 guys that go off aren't

deejay

nwallace wrote:

Or,

Vireque is loaded up on detectable drugs and guaranteed to be tested if he wins the stage and the 2 guys that go off aren't

I did bring the Italian's in here but the stuff from the East German University is not yet so well documented (I don't think) and In the meantime we now know that this Low Life Telecom team were spearheading a new breed of drugs beyond the Italians.

I think you will find the Festina team were followers, rather than leaders in this field and in 98 they brought in Zulle to be able to compete with the "New mighty" Drugged Up (undetected) German Telecom Team.

The Belgian Willy Voet was stopped because of a Tip Off to the French.
I ask you that a Motorway border crossing that is seldom manned and with all the rush hour traffic going to work across the border and they stop just one Festina car that stood out. The best part was the rain on the Galibier and Ullrich couldn't perform in the Cold but the little man did. The next year the postal took over the tour and somehow beat the Soperdrug Team.

aurelio_-_banned

deejay wrote:

I ask you that a Motorway border crossing that is seldom manned and with all the rush hour traffic going to work across the border and they stop just one Festina car that stood out.

Voet was actually in an unmarked car and using a back road. When Voet said to the police that he should have gone via the motorway he was told that it wouldn't have made any difference as they were waiting for him there as well!

Word is that the Festina bust came about largely because of the work of the then French Sports minister, Marie-George Buffet, who is now head of the French Communist Party. Buffet had no interest in protecting the interests of big business and was determined to tackle the issue of doping in big-money sport. She brought in a raft of anti-doping legislation, then with the help of 'inside information' targeted Festina and Voet.

By the way, it's not really that significant that Buffet heads the French Communist Party. In France, unlike the US and UK where the only 'choice' is between slightly different flavours of right-wing neo-liberalism ('Tina' -'There is no alternative' as they used to chant at Tory party conferences in the days of Thatcher) in France they still have real politics with a definite right-left split. Almost half of the population voted for Royal in the presidential election, whose party is probably to the left of what was 'old' Labour. The Communists themselves are not the force they once were in France (even Raymond Poulidor was not adverse to giving a Communist salute to workers holding protests alongside the route of the Tour) but are still significant.

From a cycling point a view one of the most significant aspects of the decline in the fortunes of the French Communist party is the loss of the legendary 'Miroir du Cyclisme', which was actually published by the PCF. Not a lot of people know that!

deejay

aurelo
I understood it was the motorway at the time and I said then that there are a multitude of unmanned tracks between those countries (between Lille-Menen to De Panne) but he still had to get a ferry.
I still maintain it was a Tip off, because how did Telecom get through and I do remember the Football Scandal by the Sports Ministry.

Oh I see they pre-doped before they went. Well that must mean the Willy trip was a first time for Festina (just kidding) and the Germans had been doing the stuff for 2 1/2 years since Deutsche Telekom was formed.

We now have the statements (RISS and others) that the low life were drugged in 96 and 2 years before the Festina bust and I hate a reference to Virenque without the Telecom "Scum."

All this Commie stuff means very little to me until you mentioned the "Miroir du Cyclisme".
Maybe it was "Miroir Sport" I used to by.

I am familiar with the "French Marquis" and met several when on business there and so just a little in tune with their culture.

DaveyL

Postal "somehow" beat the Soperdrug [sic] team in 99 - Ullrich wasn't riding that year. And neither was "the little man".

Deejay seems to really have it in specifically for the boys in magenta. I wonder if he's Dutch!

aurelio_-_banned

DaveyL wrote:

Postal "somehow" beat the Soperdrug [sic] team in 99 - Ullrich wasn't riding that year. And neither was "the little man".

But it's not as though history has shown us that all the other contenders in the 1999 Tour were running on mineral water, is it? Just look who was second in 1999! It also remains the case that Armstrong consistently beat the like of Ullrich et al, despite the liberal use of Epo, blood transfusions and god-knows what else by most, if not all, of the top contenders. Given that the physical differences at that level tend to be vanishingly small, and Epo, blood doping and all the rest give a 5% and perhaps even greater increase in a rider's sustainable power, we are effectively being asked to believe that Armstrong was 'naturally' 6% or more stronger than any other rider in the race for straight 7 years. (Doubtless he has the ability to levitate as well...). More plausibly, and as ample evidence indicates, we might conclude that he simply juiced up to the max along with everyone else and simply had a physiology which responded to 'state of the art' doping methods better than his rivals.

girofan

DaveyL wrote:

we are effectively being asked to believe that Armstrong was 'naturally' 6% or more stronger than any other rider in the race for straight 7 years. (Doubtless he has the ability to levitate as well...). More plausibly, and as ample evidence indicates, we might conclude that he simply juiced up to the max along with everyone else.

Did you mean by levitate DaveyL, litigate as both words suggest an element of deception!

dave_1

Does anyone think Roche's commentary of surprise was genuine??...like maybe even he did not know every team car boot was packed to the brim with EPO and stuff? Maybe his disbelief was genuine...he sounds so surprised. Listen to it again and see. At first I thought he is acting it as a commentator , but just maybe, perhaps, he did not know the scale of the problem either????

DaveyL

girofan wrote:

DaveyL wrote:

we are effectively being asked to believe that Armstrong was 'naturally' 6% or more stronger than any other rider in the race for straight 7 years. (Doubtless he has the ability to levitate as well...). More plausibly, and as ample evidence indicates, we might conclude that he simply juiced up to the max along with everyone else.

Did you mean by levitate DaveyL, litigate as both words suggest an element of deception!

I didn't write any of that, some other poster of speculative rubbish did.

Langenberg

deejay wrote:

...even now we are learning about the advances made in the East German University...

By the way, Freiburg University is in West Germany and is the most prominent sports university there. I am sure athletes from other sports use it as well.

Seems to me to be an example that organised doping exists in the West as well.

deejay

aurelio wrote:

deejay wrote:

I ask you that a Motorway border crossing that is seldom manned and with all the rush hour traffic going to work across the border and they stop just one Festina car that stood out.

Voet was actually in an unmarked car and using a back road. When Voet said to the police that he should have gone via the motorway he was told that it wouldn't have made any difference as they were waiting for him there as well!

Word is that the Festina bust came about largely because of the work of the then French Sports minister, Marie-George Buffet, who is now head of the French Communist Party. Buffet had no interest in protecting the interests of big business and was determined to tackle the issue of doping in big-money sport. She brought in a raft of anti-doping legislation, then with the help of 'inside information' targeted Festina and Voet.
!

There you see it was a tip off that Willy had been to East Germany and was carrying PED's but how did the "Shizenhousen" Deustche Telecom not get pulled over.
Was she in their pay or just still frightened of them.???

I have it in for that German team because I was triggered here by the Virenque comments and never see the real culprits in the frame. you all seem to despise him but not a word about the goody goody Deutschelanders. The cretin Dane "Riss" threatened legal action against the media for slander and then when someone finally, "split" he calmly reveals what we all knew.
I am not here to defend Virenque and agree with his stance to finally have to go to court and only then plead "Guilty" when he knew that the Germans were getting away with it, and still are.

Have they been before the courts, and why not as they are worse than Virenque but you never say this.
I have never got over how revolted I felt when that the second rate rider of, ex Ariosta ex Gewiss could suddenly climb mountains better than anyone in the World.

T-Mobile have made millions from that team and now that some "sh....it has hit fan" they calmly step aside and disown them and now we get from their TV that we clean up but other countries sweep it under the carpet.
My favorite saying to them including police is "what a silly little country this is) and yes I've worked there and I'm still alive.

Indurain saw it and said no thanks thats ridiculous and retired
Virenque (or better still Festina team) saw it again the next year and if you can't beat them then join them or get out like Indurain did.

It's west Germany is it !!!!!
OK then somewhere in East Germany they developed the drugs to turn their youth into Hideous and Grotesque athletes, swimmers etc.and most now regret their Olympics and World Championship medals because their bodies are so twisted now. I thought that was what was being investigated

I agree that Roche would have had an assessment by Conconi but in July 97 a year before the Festina scandal, he may not have been aware of this potent East German product. I doubt that team cars had much in their boots when Roche was speaking.

The peloton could not gauge the Ullrich form because he came straight from the East German factory of drugs and won the Amateur World Championship, while some others (including Riss) were in the peloton before a company called Deutsche Telecom was formed.

I have not found the way yet to alter my profile but it says UN-United Kingdom..

I am in fact a Proud Englishman (Well where would the world be now if we hadn't sorted it out for them.)

DaveyL

Is this the Swiss copper from Safespeed?