Miroir, Miroir on the Wall, who's the...

dave_1

How reliable is Bugno's 1990 season? Dominant Giro winner...struggled to stay in top 10 at previous year's TDF and no Giro podiums or GT podiums previously? A spent force as a GC rider by 92

andyp

Even Roche was moved to comment on Claudio's improvement.

But still Riis for me, he'd hardly won a race before the 1996 season and suddenly he's a Tour winner. :shock:

andyp

Bugno was still young though, so you could explain his lack of results previously due to him not maturing physically as a rider.

I'm certain he was on the 'hot sauce' FWIW though.

dave_1

andyp wrote:

Even Roche was moved to comment on Claudio's improvement.

But still Riis for me, he'd hardly won a race before the 1996 season and suddenly he's a Tour winner. :shock:

What for me was so suspect was the lousy Dauphine Riis rode in 96...Indurain won it and Riis was miles off the pace...records will show...so he pumped himself up in June for TDF. To be fair, i think he was dabbling in 93-he beat Sciandri on a stage at TDF...and 5th at TDF and not so far off the pace, and am sure he won a stage in 1994 with Gewiss but was way off the GC pace and 95 drugged am sure..., accept he was no natural TDF winner though


nr end...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfplDTiIfFA

dave_1

standard tri bar track bike...and 34 mph...Dr ferrari and the pharmaceucticals won the day IMO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rnm8rO1 ... re=related

aurelio_-_banned

andyp wrote:

...still Riis for me, he'd hardly won a race before the 1996 season and suddenly he's a Tour winner. :shock:

It`s not quite as clear-cut as that. In 1993 Riis was 5th overall in the Tour. In 1994 he was 14th overall and in 1995 he was 3rd overall. It is true though that his first rides in the Tour weren`t so impressive. Riis first rode the Tour in 1989, when he finished 95th. In 1990 he abandoned on stage 18. In 1991 he was 107th and he didn`t ride in 1992.

Then again Riis` early Tour record is hardly any worse than a certain American bloke who rode the Tour 3 times before he even managed to finish it, and when he did he was still one and half hours down on the winner.

andrewgturnbull

aurelio wrote:

andrewgturnbull wrote:

Biggest Cheat of them All?

Here's my question:

In the last 20 years, of all the riders convicted of doping offences (either by governing body or a court of law) - who had the best palmares?

Whilst this is in no way an attempt to `railroad the discussion down the same old road`, I am afraid that I still feel that trying to restrict the listing to only `convicted` riders results in a list which is pretty meaningless. Firstly, doing so excludes many of the really big winners `suspected` of doping, from Pantani to Basso to that American Bloke who shall remain nameless. Secondly it excludes all those who were never convicted of a doping offence but later made an admission that they doped, such as Zabel.

Also, is it right to claim that someone was `the biggest cheat of them all` on the grounds that somewhere along the line they were convicted of a doping offence?

In order for a rider`s palmares to qualify them as the `biggest cheat of them all`, surely it is necessary to assume that all of a rider`s wins were achieved with the help of doping. However, many on here would argue that only a positive test result for a given event `proves` that they `cheated` in that race. Also, surely it is more `unfair` on a rider to argue that they doped in events which they never actually tested positive in, when no evidence actually exists to that effect (other than the existence of a doping conviction relating to some other event), than it is to argue that a rider doped on the basis of eye witness testimony, extensive `circumstantial` evidence, the `revelations` of ex team mates and so on?

Finally, is not `the biggest cheat` almost by definition the rider who gets away with it? People like Landis merely attempted to cheat and were caught!

Hi there.

Aurelio - I do agree with what you say here. I guess in the original post I was just thinking out loud.

However what I will say is that if you don't agree with the parameters of the question, you don't have to answer it!

I could have started a thread based on your criteria, but I wouldn't be able to afford the resulting legal fees!

Cheers, Andy

dave_1

andyp wrote:

Bugno was still young though, so you could explain his lack of results previously due to him not maturing physically as a rider.

I'm certain he was on the 'hot sauce' FWIW though.

good point...Romminger, Riis,...also Ugromov was early 30s when he appeared...the Alfa Lum team had been around since 89 but this old geezer only sppeared at 94 TDF...suggests ...

Kléber

It's an interesting game here but a bit like picking who was the best rider using Campagnolo during the 1990s. It's fine to debate who was the biggest swindler who got caught but surely the frustrating factor is that so many did not get caught, they got away with it.

As well as some of the names above, honourable mentions must be Luc Leblanc, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, Francesco Casagrande, Alex Zülle, Stefano Garzelli and Frank Vandenbroucke.

But on the "who got busted" and "who had the fattest palmares" and it has to be Museeuw, although his conviction came almost a decade after he was at his peak and if he was caught, it raises questions about his team mates and contempories who have never had a day in court.

blazing_saddles

Kléber wrote:

It's an interesting game here but a bit like picking who was the best rider using Campagnolo during the 1990s. It's fine to debate who was the biggest swindler who got caught but surely the frustrating factor is that so many did not get caught, they got away with it.

As well as some of the names above, honourable mentions must be Luc Leblanc, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, Francesco Casagrande, Alex Zülle, Stefano Garzelli and Frank Vandenbroucke.

Can I add the Swiss pair of Oscar Camanzind and Laurent Dufaux to your honourable mentions list?

Interesting that people are picking Museeuw, who only got busted in his twilight, over Zabel, who confessed at his dawning.
I'd say 9 classics, 13 Tour stages and 6 green jeresys slightly trump, 1 WC, 11 classics and 2 Tour stages in the fattest palmares stakes.....
.....must mean people are still reluctant to "label" Mr nice guy Eric....

Kléber

But I didn't think Zabel was convicted, he merely confessed. If we're into confessions but without actual UCI bans being imposed, then the list gets a lot longer. You'd want Zabel but also Jalabert and others.

blazing_saddles

OK, but I had assumed confessions were in, given all the talk about Riis. :?

Amazon spammed me with:-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crooked-Path-Vi ... 729&sr=1-3
Anybody read it?

afx237vi

Blazing Saddles wrote:

OK, but I had assumed confessions were in, given all the talk about Riis. :?

Amazon spammed me with:-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crooked-Path-Vi ... 729&sr=1-3
Anybody read it?

No, but this must be a mistake:

Product details

* Paperback: 192 pages
* Publisher: Van Der Plas Publications,U.S. (24 Jul 2003)
* Language English
* ISBN-10: 1892495406
* ISBN-13: 978-1892495402

Surely they mean 1,920 pages? You could spend 192 pages talking about cheating in cycling and not even mention doping!

eh

Since when did Jalabert own up? I missed that one.

Shame Berzin never got caught (well not that I know of) otherwise he'd be up there as one of the biggest cheats ever.

Roche has a cheak saying anything about Claudio Chiapucci since he was on the same team and used similar "training" techniques.

Grimone

got to be Virenque