The problem with Lemond's plan
andy_welch
Posts: 1,101
I had a listen to the interview that was posted on here a few weeks back with Greg Lemond discussing using power output to detect cheats.
If I understood him correctly he's basically saying that you can't change your VO2 Max by much. So, if you know a rider's VO2 max and their weight you can calculate their TT time or their time up a long climb pretty accurately. Any rider who performs significantly better than the predicted time is therefore cheating.
I suspect that he's right, but surely the logical conclusion is that you don't bother dragging the riders, TV crews and all the other supporting cast all the way round France. You just do a quick test in a lab and declare a winner. Or, to be a little less absurd, does a race not just become a test of wether the best rider can avoid crashes and getting sick?
Cheers,
Andy
If I understood him correctly he's basically saying that you can't change your VO2 Max by much. So, if you know a rider's VO2 max and their weight you can calculate their TT time or their time up a long climb pretty accurately. Any rider who performs significantly better than the predicted time is therefore cheating.
I suspect that he's right, but surely the logical conclusion is that you don't bother dragging the riders, TV crews and all the other supporting cast all the way round France. You just do a quick test in a lab and declare a winner. Or, to be a little less absurd, does a race not just become a test of wether the best rider can avoid crashes and getting sick?
Cheers,
Andy
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Comments
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andy_welch wrote:I suspect that he's right, but surely the logical conclusion is that you don't bother dragging the riders, TV crews and all the other supporting cast all the way round France. You just do a quick test in a lab and declare a winner. Or, to be a little less absurd, does a race not just become a test of wether the best rider can avoid crashes and getting sick?
Cheers,
Andy
Sounds like track cycling if you ask me.0 -
I would imagine that tactics, team play and an element of luck would come into it as well.0
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Philip S wrote:I would imagine that tactics, team play and an element of luck would come into it as well.
Weather conditions, road conditions, fatigue, can't be ar$sed on the day........'How can an opinion be bullsh1t?' High Fidelity0 -
You can measure a riders results in a lab test and yes, for a well trained elite rider, they won't change significantly, assuming one test doesn't seem them clean and the other is with EPO.
But that's the beauty of bike racing. Forget to eat, like Andy Schleck did, and you can lose the Tour de France. Even in a short, flat stage you could run the race again and again and get a different result, although Cavendish might interfere with this. There is still so much that's random. Besides, no one would watch a lab test but set in front of all those images of France in the summer, the Tour is three weeks of magic.0 -
AFAIK, V02 max isn't the physiological be-all and end-all either. I recall reading some time back how runners such as Frank Shorter and Derek Clayton had V02s of under 71ml/kg/min yet were two of the dominant distance runners of the day. Apaprently their success was linked to other factors such as running efficiency, lactate threshold etc.'This week I 'ave been mostly been climbing like Basso - Shirley Basso.'0
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True, it's the changes. You are unlikely to go from 70ml/kg/min to 85, you won't go from 5.5W/kg to 6.6W/kg0
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I agree that a single day race has an element of unpredictability, which makes it exciting. But when it comes to grand tours it seems that the guy with the best power to weight ratio will almost always win, hence the various "eras" that we've seen where one dominant rider wins year after year.
Obviously I'm not being totally serious here but it does seem to me that part of the fun comes from not knowing who is the best until the race is run. The level of testing and monitoring (including publishing of results) that Greg is calling for would take some of that fun away.
Cheers,
Andy0 -
The Tour is always won in the mountains and the TTs so on that basis, the guys with the best strength to weight ratio will win, yes. But it's not the same every day. You might be the best one day because you're feeling good and then struggle to stay with the pace the next.That's the magic of the Tour. We see it wih Valverde pretty much every year - he's up there fighting for mountain stages and then he has a bad one and goes pop. So, the lab tests can show a rider whether he will be there or there abouts but just because you have all the best results doesn't mean you will necessarily win in this very weird world of bike racing.0
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No physical lab tests can monitor mental toughness or confidence and both can play a huge part in performance.0
