LeMonde accuses Wiggins, Froome... of doping in 2012 Tour

inkyfingers

ddraver wrote:

Yes Inky - but the question is, if he then went back to Darjeeling, would he be any better off than someone who lived in Holland all their lives for example...

Forty years (and about 30Kgs) later, no. If he'd gone back within a few months later then yes, he'd have had a huge advantage over a dutchman, even if the dutchman was from Limburg.

ddraver

I think that's the difference...

dave_1

I sat next to a French chap in a sports pub in Phnom Penh last Thursday, and he was asking about the rider off the front, who I told him was Valverde, back from a doping ban ..the French chap acted completely unsurprised and was like "well of course, it's the cycling, it's the TDF". He was not surprised and continued to enjoy the stage. I don't think the French are that outraged by doping..wasn't doping justified as part of le metier

jimmythecuckoo

I suppose I was naive enough to think that the whole world wouldn't accuse Bradley of doping if he won.

Suppose it goes with the job.

iainf72

Don't remember anyone accusing Cuddles last year .....

hstiles

andrewjoseph wrote:

malcolmfrost wrote:

...

Don't know either way, but one factor may be that Froome was born in Nairobi (5500 feet altitude) and then moved to Johannesburg (5500 feet altitude) until 2006, so an extended time of high altitude acclimatisation. Even at my level, after only lived in Nairobi for 3 years when I was 9, I have a low resting heart rate and climb well (for my age!) at altitude.

I thought gains from high altitude (more red cells), were lost pretty quickly when back to normal altitudes, in the manner of weeks.

Dunno about being born at altitude, this may help develop a more efficient heart/lung system, but i think it would need many many generations for a genetic effect to build up.

Well, Obelix fell into a cauldron of Magic Potion when he was a baby and the effects were permanent, so perhaps there is merit to that argument.

RichN95.

iainf72 wrote:

Don't remember anyone accusing Cuddles last year .....

Oh they did. An ex teammate had been arrested, so had an ex BMC soigneur, Phonak 2, 'worked with Ferrari', T-Mobile, Mapei, etc, etc.
It was just people were more focused on the Contador saga.

dave_1

if wiggins is using the kit, then how come his climbing is still a bit crap. Nibali wasn't great in Dauphine and not such a good comparison. If wiggo were juiced, surely he'd have sorted out his cimbing a bit.

milton50

Seems like a pretty shoddy piece of analysis to me (the article in Le Monde not the discussion on altitude training). It's a classic example of journalists starting at the conclusion they want to make and then bending the facts to get to it.

I have to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if Froome was doping. I'm not saying that I think he definitely is but I think there is a fairly high probability based on what we know about past riders' miraculous rise to being one of the best climbers in the world.

The problem is that if he were to test positive then it would immediately tarnish Wiggins' achievement and undermine the British public's new found interest in cycling (possibly irreparably)

TMR

Dave_1 wrote:

if wiggins is using the kit, then how come his climbing is still a bit crap. Nibali wasn't great in Dauphine and not such a good comparison. If wiggo were juiced, surely he'd have sorted out his cimbing a bit.

LOL

You must be trolling.

andrewjoseph

hstiles wrote:

andrewjoseph wrote:

...

Dunno about being born at altitude, this may help develop a more efficient heart/lung system, but i think it would need many many generations for a genetic effect to build up.

Well, Obelix fell into a cauldron of Magic Potion when he was a baby and the effects were permanent, so perhaps there is merit to that argument.

This is not a veiled reference to my hero Tommy V is it?

dave_1

The Mad Rapper wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

if wiggins is using the kit, then how come his climbing is still a bit crap. Nibali wasn't great in Dauphine and not such a good comparison. If wiggo were juiced, surely he'd have sorted out his cimbing a bit.

LOL

You must be trolling.

No LOL, forget lol and read what I said before you insult me! Would it be trolling to pose the question of why Wiggins DID NOT improve one particular skill i.e. climbing performance, relative to Froome (when we recall the two of them at Vuelta 2011 summit finishes) and yet Wiggins DID improve his time trialling a lot relative to Froome (compared to Vuelta 2011 TTs).

Surely if Wiggo were juicing up IT WOULD BRING HIM ALL ROUND IMPROVEMENTS and NOT improvment in one specific skill-TTing! I will pick Froome to compare Wiggins to. You can pick Nibali. Nibali had a poor Dauphine. I don't think he had great form at the TDF. WIggins is clean and his lack of improvement as a climber is indirect proof of it

inkyfingers

Dave_1 wrote:

The Mad Rapper wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

if wiggins is using the kit, then how come his climbing is still a bit crap. Nibali wasn't great in Dauphine and not such a good comparison. If wiggo were juiced, surely he'd have sorted out his cimbing a bit.

LOL

You must be trolling.

No LOL, forget lol and read what I said before you insult me! Would it be trolling to pose the question of why Wiggins DID NOT improve one particular skill i.e. climbing performance, relative to Froome (when we recall the two of them at Vuelta 2011 summit finishes) and yet Wiggins DID improve his time trialling a lot relative to Froome (compared to Vuelta 2011 TTs).

Surely if Wiggo were juicing up IT WOULD BRING HIM ALL ROUND IMPROVEMENTS and NOT improvment in one specific skill-TTing! I will pick Froome to compare Wiggins to. You can pick Nibali. Nibali had a poor Dauphine. I don't think he had great form at the TDF. WIggins is clean and his lack of improvement as a climber is indirect proof of it

Has Wiggins really improved his TTing relative to Froome though? I'd say that if anything Froome has just come up closer to Wiggins level.

Until the 2012 TdF Froome had only ever ridden one really good TT that I can remember (i.e. top 10) and that was in the 2011 Vuelta, whereas Wiggins had been consistlently riding good TTs for several years (though he has improved in the last couple of years). I got the feeling that the 2011 Vuelta TT was the result of Froome having a great day, and Wiggins perhaps not being 100% after his injury and possibly starting out a bit too fast and fading in the heat.

ddraver

Milton50 wrote:

I have to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if Froome was doping. I'm not saying that I think he definitely is but I think there is a fairly high probability based on what we know about past riders' miraculous rise to being one of the best climbers in the world.

Is he the best climber in th eworld? Or was he the best of a particularly bad bunch this year? I still think that an awful lot of potential competitors did nt turn up either physically or metaphysically. No De Gendt, VDV and VDAe were just dull, Nibs i don't think was ever a genuine contender, One Absent Schleck, one Schleck Absent, No Beefed up Contador, A knackered Scarponi, Some missing Italians defending their choice of GP, Half of Garmin Sharp on the deck...etc etc. They were all "out done" by climbing gods such as EBH and Cav FFS!!

Hell, I'm ecstatic that Wiggo won, but my Inner Chimp keeps pointing out that this was one of the easiest TdF's to win in a long while!