Wiggins and Froome Power Dodgy?

ratsbeyfus

Suggested by French attorney Thibault de Montbrial:

"Work together with Antoine Vayer [LeMond columnist], the performance specialist, helped show the implausibility of the power generated in watts on the climbs. Moreover, it is interesting to note that the UCI has banned the publication of such real-time statistics in 2012. And we can understand why when you see that the power production by [Bradley] Wiggins and [Chris] Froome (first and second of the Tour) is comparable to the turbulent times of the late 1990s and early 2000s."

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/report-armstrong-warned-before-all-doping-controls

gsk82

Of course wiggins' has a good average wattage on climbs, he rides them at a constant pace. You don't see people winning time trials by taking it easy then "attacking" because a constant pace produces a higher average power than stopping and starting

RichN95.

The only dodgy thing is Vayer's calculations. They get criticized by other scientists and his estimates never tally with actual power meters measurements. He's just someone LeMonde wheel out to provide some figures when they want a doping story. For example, his comparison of this year's figures compared to the bad old days was a comparison of a 15 minute climb to ones lasting 40+ minutes.

luckao

Why release those statements when they won't release data? His statement doesn't explain a lot. For example, Ross Tucker made an attempt to evaluate Wiggins' performance with what little data he did have available. Vayer labels the outputs as implausible, whilst Tucker at least offers some perspective for his findings:

So, in terms of what that means for Wiggins and co at the front of the stage, it predicts about 6.4 to 6.5 W/kg. Over 16 minutes, that's not at all unreasonable. To give you some context, calculations of climbing power output in the Tour de France in the 1990s and 2000s often estimated that top riders maintained power outputs of 6.4 to 6.5W/kg on the Tour's HC climbs, most of which take over 40 minutes to climb. So in other words, there was an era where the best riders were maintaining similar power outputs to what we saw on Saturday, for three times the duration. Put differently, all those riders would probably have been a minute clear of this current generation on this climb...

All I will say, and I'm very confident in saying this, is that what we saw on the slopes of Les Planche des Belles Filles did not have me thinking "That's just not right, there's something not adding up". It adds up. It's exactly what you'd expect, just as I expect that when we do hit the longer HC climbs later this week, we'll see the top men ride at 5.9 to 6 W/kg, just as they have done for the last three years.

I'm not for a second suggesting that this is definitive proof that will dispel all scepticism surrounding Froome and Wiggins. At least it's something. I'd like to see what Vayer has to offer.

ratsbeyfus

Fair enough... I think I recall a thread where dodgy power stat comparisons appeared before. Sounds like a job for Ben Goldacre.

Everybody as you were...

Yellow Peril

ratsbeyfus wrote:

Suggested by French attorney Thibault de Montbrial:

"Work together with Antoine Vayer [LeMond columnist], the performance specialist, helped show the implausibility of the power generated in watts on the climbs. Moreover, it is interesting to note that the UCI has banned the publication of such real-time statistics in 2012. And we can understand why when you see that the power production by [Bradley] Wiggins and [Chris] Froome (first and second of the Tour) is comparable to the turbulent times of the late 1990s and early 2000s."

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/report-armstrong-warned-before-all-doping-controls

This is complete horse. They have not shown the superhuman qualities of Ulrich, Pantani, Armstrong et al. I don't see either of them jumping off the front of the group, single handedly riding down a breakaway with a healthy lead on a cat 1 and then blowing straight by them. You Tube is full of clips of that sort of "classic" action from the 90's early 00's. Not from any recent GT's to my recollection.

No_Ta_Doctor

Just re-reading this thread. Since when has the UCI banned the publication of real time power statistics?
I thought Braykovic and others posted their power readings in various places?

Have I missed something?

ratsbeyfus

No tA Doctor wrote:

Just re-reading this thread. Since when has the UCI banned the publication of real time power statistics?
I thought Braykovic and others posted their power readings in various places?

Have I missed something?

Dunno... you'd think Cycling News would've followed up on some of the comments made even if they are way off the mark.

No_Ta_Doctor

ratsbeyfus wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Just re-reading this thread. Since when has the UCI banned the publication of real time power statistics?
I thought Braykovic and others posted their power readings in various places?

Have I missed something?

Dunno... you'd think Cycling News would've followed up on some of the comments made even if they are way off the mark.

The line just sort of slipped through the net of my consciousness, despite having read the quote numerous times. It's a stunning allegation, utterly incomprehensible as to why the UCI would do that if correct, and utterly incomprehensible why he'd say that if they haven't.

I'm lost.

RichN95.

No tA Doctor wrote:

Just re-reading this thread. Since when has the UCI banned the publication of real time power statistics?
I thought Braykovic and others posted their power readings in various places?

Have I missed something?

It was only live streaming of readings during a race that was banned. I think it was down to some broadcasting rights issue. I also think it was ASO rather than UCI that banned it (not sure about that though).

Publishing stats afterwards is quite OK.

raymondo60

It also represents a very sad attitude throughout the sport of professional cycling. I'm starting to think that we'll never be in a situation where individual cylists are not 'suspected' or 'incriminated' just because they have achieved some success or performed well. When compared to other major sports, cycling seems determined to destroy itself, despite attempts by many to bring it to a point where many of the major players are actually clean. Why aren't the winners of the Champions League being questioned? Or the World Series, or the Heavyweight Boxing Champion? Perhaps there's just too much 'history' - perhaps the sport of cycling will never be able to trust itself. Such a shame.

Gazzetta67

Raymondo60 wrote:

It also represents a very sad attitude throughout the sport of professional cycling. I'm starting to think that we'll never be in a situation where individual cylists are not 'suspected' or 'incriminated' just because they have achieved some success or performed well. When compared to other major sports, cycling seems determined to destroy itself, despite attempts by many to bring it to a point where many of the major players are actually clean. Why aren't the winners of the Champions League being questioned? Or the World Series, or the Heavyweight Boxing Champion? Perhaps there's just too much 'history' - perhaps the sport of cycling will never be able to trust itself. Such a shame.

It does not help when you have guys like McQuaid and Verbruggen in charge accepting cheques of $100k from Armstrong for the testing machine, stories of his team being given 30mins of notice that the vampires were on there way..trips to the UCI in Switzerland etc etc. I dont trust anyone know.....it's the people IN the sport thats constantly letting the fans down. No wonder were all cynical now.

No_Ta_Doctor

RichN95 wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Just re-reading this thread. Since when has the UCI banned the publication of real time power statistics?
I thought Braykovic and others posted their power readings in various places?

Have I missed something?

It was only live streaming of readings during a race that was banned. I think it was down to some broadcasting rights issue. I also think it was ASO rather than UCI that banned it (not sure about that though).

Publishing stats afterwards is quite OK.

Thanks, that sort of makes sense - at least for cycling.

jibberjim

Raymondo60 wrote:

Why aren't the winners of the Champions League being questioned? Or the World Series, or the Heavyweight Boxing Champion? Perhaps there's just too much 'history' - perhaps the sport of cycling will never be able to trust itself. Such a shame.

They are very much being questioned, (although the boxing is not a WADA sport of course so the rules on doping are different) you presumably just dont hang around the same forums nor have as much invested in "your riders" to notice the complaints.

Wondering how Sky have achieved their dominance, and complaining about their hiring of staff heavily involved in doping is perfectly legitimate, Sky need to sort out their defence and proof rather than just getting fan boys to say "it's not fair he must clean".