Sky are dopers - Oh no they're not

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  • vs
    vs Posts: 468
    Pross wrote:
    vs wrote:
    the thing that grates is when did Richie Porte become the second best climber on the planet!

    What, you mean the bloke who came 7th in his first ever Grand Tour? Yeah, how did he suddenly become good?

    that's the one, the one who suddenly came 7th in his first ever GT :shock:
  • morstar
    morstar Posts: 6,190
    Val Verde only lost just over a minute and he has never been one of the great climbers (good but never great). Had Movistar kept Quintana fresh for the last climb we may have had an interesting battle but fair play to them for trying something different. Nibali is in stunning form this year but due to his absence from the Tour that is a further unknown.
    So yes, a dominant performance today against diminished opposition.
    I'll continue to accept it as sport until something slightly more convincing indicates to the contrary.
    Interesting comments in CW about team selections for the TdF gives some insight to disparity between the effectiveness of different teams.
  • Gazzetta67
    Gazzetta67 Posts: 1,890
    mididoctors wrote:
    If they are dirty it will be exposed in a shorter time than larry

    Eh remind me who's still in charge at the UCI ?
  • mididoctors
    mididoctors Posts: 16,860
    Gazzetta67 wrote:
    mididoctors wrote:
    If they are dirty it will be exposed in a shorter time than larry

    Eh remind me who's still in charge at the UCI ?

    nah its just the precedent for grassing it all up has been made..
    "If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,541
    I think we just have to accept that for some people cycling is all about the doping and scandal so if Sky are clean it ruins their enjoyment but in the meantime they will keep their insinuations going without hard evidence.

    Can I ask those of you with 'healthy scepticism' how a race would need to pan out in order for you to be re-assured the riders are possibly clean?
  • Turfle
    Turfle Posts: 3,762
    Gazzetta67 wrote:
    vs wrote:
    the thing that grates is when did Richie Porte become the second best climber on the planet!

    That's easy Aussie swimming/cycling team sky doctor Tim Kerrison told him to train with a pair of spandex speedo's on whilst secretly training on the island far away from it all Tenerife. fills you with a warm glow :roll:

    I don't understand this bee you have in your bonnet about him being a swimming coach. It's not like he was teaching TV repair.

    And really, if their Tenerife training base is supposed to be a secret, then they're not too good at keeping secrets.
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,620
    Pross wrote:

    Can I ask those of you with 'healthy scepticism' how a race would need to pan out in order for you to be re-assured the riders are possibly clean?

    For example, I liked the way that when Cadel Evans won the tour, he climbed Alp d'Huez in a similar time to his performance several years previously, and that this time was comparable to times from the late 80s and many minutes slower than those achieved in the EPO era.

    I will wait to see how quickly the riders climb it this year, but I don't find much comfort in Froome clocking a time close to Armstrong's in 2001. He could have had a tail wind all day or something, but I'd like to hear that.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,541
    vs wrote:
    Pross wrote:
    vs wrote:
    the thing that grates is when did Richie Porte become the second best climber on the planet!

    What, you mean the bloke who came 7th in his first ever Grand Tour? Yeah, how did he suddenly become good?

    that's the one, the one who suddenly came 7th in his first ever GT :shock:

    Um, so one minute you find it hard to believe he's a decent climber but when reminded he's been pretty useful all along you raise an eyebrow at his first performance? Desperate.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,541
    TheBigBean wrote:
    Pross wrote:

    Can I ask those of you with 'healthy scepticism' how a race would need to pan out in order for you to be re-assured the riders are possibly clean?

    For example, I liked the way that when Cadel Evans won the tour, he climbed Alp d'Huez in a similar time to his performance several years previously, and that this time was comparable to times from the late 80s and many minutes slower than those achieved in the EPO era.

    I will wait to see how quickly the riders climb it this year, but I don't find much comfort in Froome clocking a time close to Armstrong's in 2001. He could have had a tail wind all day or something, but I'd like to hear that.

    You haven't read the bit that goes on to point out that Armstrong's ascent was after about an extra week of racing then? I think it was also a stage with more big climbs prior to the finish but could be wrong and none would have been as big as the penultimate one today.
  • Gazzetta67
    Gazzetta67 Posts: 1,890
    Turfle wrote:
    Gazzetta67 wrote:
    vs wrote:
    the thing that grates is when did Richie Porte become the second best climber on the planet!

    That's easy Aussie swimming/cycling team sky doctor Tim Kerrison told him to train with a pair of spandex speedo's on whilst secretly training on the island far away from it all Tenerife. fills you with a warm glow :roll:

    I don't understand this bee you have in your bonnet about him being a swimming coach. It's not like he was teaching TV repair.

    And really, if their Tenerife training base is supposed to be a secret, then they're not too good at keeping secrets.

    Yes so we have all to believe DB that this marginal gains and riders who were dropped on climbs in other teams are now up there in the Sky team. I said it last year with Mick Rodgers ...years in the wilderness and last year up their till the death. sorry am not buying it. been watching cycling far too long to see when all the other riders are on a level playing field and some other guy is minutes up the road.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,541
    Why do you watch then?
  • above_the_cows
    above_the_cows Posts: 11,406
    TheBigBean wrote:
    Above The Cows wrote:
    All of this can be summed up by the old chestnut:

    Correlation is not causation.

    True, but there wouldn't be many scientific breakthroughs if all correlations were dismissed without discussion.

    For example, smoking and lung cancer were only considered correlated for many years.

    Yes but those scientific breakthroughs have to come with some 'proof' through a rigorous demonstration of your method and the repeated testing of your results with the addition of various variables. All of which is then subjected to a peer review process. Someone crying 'doping' on Twitter is not the advancement of science through the thorough and rigorous testing of hypotheses.

    It's just the whole Andrew Wakefield MMR of the sporting world. If you say something enough times when the population is susceptible to the message suddenly it becomes 'true' even without a shred of actual evidence.
    Correlation is not causation.
  • Turfle
    Turfle Posts: 3,762
    Gazzetta67 wrote:
    Turfle wrote:
    Gazzetta67 wrote:
    vs wrote:
    the thing that grates is when did Richie Porte become the second best climber on the planet!

    That's easy Aussie swimming/cycling team sky doctor Tim Kerrison told him to train with a pair of spandex speedo's on whilst secretly training on the island far away from it all Tenerife. fills you with a warm glow :roll:

    I don't understand this bee you have in your bonnet about him being a swimming coach. It's not like he was teaching TV repair.

    And really, if their Tenerife training base is supposed to be a secret, then they're not too good at keeping secrets.

    Yes so we have all to believe DB that this marginal gains and riders who were dropped on climbs in other teams are now up there in the Sky team. I said it last year with Mick Rodgers ...years in the wilderness and last year up their till the death. sorry am not buying it. been watching cycling far too long to see when all the other riders are on a level playing field and some other guy is minutes up the road.

    It wasn't years in the wilderness for Rogers. The year prior to joining Sky he won Tour of California, was 3rd in Romandie, won Andalucia beating the likes of VDB, and in the Tour de France was in the lead group up Mende, and on the Avoriaz - Morzine stage. The year before he was 7th overall in the Giro among other results.
  • LutherB
    LutherB Posts: 544
    iainf72 wrote:
    Thanks to the 90's and 00's nobody has a bloody clue what "clean" cycling looks like.

    And there's the rub!
  • Squaggles
    Squaggles Posts: 875
    Surely Mick Rogers knows all the secrets
    The UCI are Clowns and Fools
  • Gazzetta67
    Gazzetta67 Posts: 1,890
    Pross wrote:
    Why do you watch then?

    You dont stop being a fan overnight...and i or we all want cycling as a sport to be credible and not go into work and hear folk say "ah yes that cycling is full of bloody dopers" - Was it the other day i heard Novak Djockovic say he's not been tested in SIX months ??????. Cycling has been damaged enough and i would hate to think what another scandal would do to sponsors etc.
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,620
    Pross wrote:
    TheBigBean wrote:
    Pross wrote:

    Can I ask those of you with 'healthy scepticism' how a race would need to pan out in order for you to be re-assured the riders are possibly clean?

    For example, I liked the way that when Cadel Evans won the tour, he climbed Alp d'Huez in a similar time to his performance several years previously, and that this time was comparable to times from the late 80s and many minutes slower than those achieved in the EPO era.

    I will wait to see how quickly the riders climb it this year, but I don't find much comfort in Froome clocking a time close to Armstrong's in 2001. He could have had a tail wind all day or something, but I'd like to hear that.

    You haven't read the bit that goes on to point out that Armstrong's ascent was after about an extra week of racing then? I think it was also a stage with more big climbs prior to the finish but could be wrong and none would have been as big as the penultimate one today.

    I think this is the stage (stage 12 of the 2001 tour). It was four stages later in the race and came one mountain stage and one time trial later. A rider would clearly be more tired by this point, but then I don't think stages 6 and 7 this year were easy on the riders. This is proof of nothing, but equally doesn't provide the reassurance that you asked about in your post.

    stage_12.gif
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,692
    Who cares??

    It's just entertainment.
    _
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,620
    Above The Cows wrote:
    TheBigBean wrote:
    Above The Cows wrote:
    All of this can be summed up by the old chestnut:

    Correlation is not causation.

    True, but there wouldn't be many scientific breakthroughs if all correlations were dismissed without discussion.

    For example, smoking and lung cancer were only considered correlated for many years.

    Yes but those scientific breakthroughs have to come with some 'proof' through a rigorous demonstration of your method and the repeated testing of your results with the addition of various variables. All of which is then subjected to a peer review process. Someone crying 'doping' on Twitter is not the advancement of science through the thorough and rigorous testing of hypotheses.

    It's just the whole Andrew Wakefield MMR of the sporting world. If you say something enough times when the population is susceptible to the message suddenly it becomes 'true' even without a shred of actual evidence.

    I said "without discussion". As you say there is a long way between correlation and proof, I was simply saying that in science correlation warrants investigation. That investigation may yield nothing or may, after all the steps you detail, become the starting point for proof. Or put in the context of the current discussion "Froome might be doping" but we can't say "Froome is doping".

    Someone crying anything on Twitter is unlikely to be an advancement of science.
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,620
    Rick Chasey wrote:
    Who cares??

    It's just entertainment.

    Even if Boonen lost Flanders to Pozzovivo? Actually, that would be entertaining.
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 13,326
    TheBigBean wrote:
    Pross wrote:
    TheBigBean wrote:
    Pross wrote:

    Can I ask those of you with 'healthy scepticism' how a race would need to pan out in order for you to be re-assured the riders are possibly clean?

    For example, I liked the way that when Cadel Evans won the tour, he climbed Alp d'Huez in a similar time to his performance several years previously, and that this time was comparable to times from the late 80s and many minutes slower than those achieved in the EPO era.

    I will wait to see how quickly the riders climb it this year, but I don't find much comfort in Froome clocking a time close to Armstrong's in 2001. He could have had a tail wind all day or something, but I'd like to hear that.

    You haven't read the bit that goes on to point out that Armstrong's ascent was after about an extra week of racing then? I think it was also a stage with more big climbs prior to the finish but could be wrong and none would have been as big as the penultimate one today.

    I think this is the stage (stage 12 of the 2001 tour). It was four stages later in the race and came one mountain stage and one time trial later. A rider would clearly be more tired by this point, but then I don't think stages 6 and 7 this year were easy on the riders. This is proof of nothing, but equally doesn't provide the reassurance that you asked about in your post.

    stage_12.gif

    Few things I gleaned today..
    Nicked off Twitter, and no I don't have other sources:
    2001 it was stage 12. Climbs before: cat 1,2,3,3 = 5,023m elevation...
    2013 stage 8 (first in mountains). Climbs before: cat 4, Hors = 1,350m elevation.

    2001 they did Alpe d'Huez, then a 32km Mountain TT (not just a TT, won in a little over an hour), then a rest day with a long transfer, then finished on that climb.

    Oh, and:


    Richard Blayney ‏@TheCycleSeen wrote:
    @SSbike @millarmind I also noticed the climb then was 1,375m elevation, today it was 1,350m. Was the climb slightly shorter this year?

    I don't know if that's right, but if so that would put around 26 seconds on Froome's time today, at the rate he climbed.

    When it comes down to it though, individual performances are seriously difficult to make judgements on. When people say that the climbing has slowed down it's in reference to a statistically significant difference over a far larger data set.
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  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,620
    No tA Doctor, some good points there. I think your Twitter numbers are a bit off though..there's 1625m of difference in altitude between the summits of the cat 4 and the hors cat today, so it must be at least that unless they never went up or came down the cat 4.
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,154
    edited July 2013
    Here's some of my thoughts. Firstly, if people want to have suspicions then that is their right. In fact, given the history of the sport it would be wrong not to at least wonder. I wonder myself sometimes - and I'm a big Sky fan. Today was dominant and superficially was reminiscent of Armstrong. It was also reminiscent of Fignon or Hinault or LeMond too. Even in a completely clean sport, someone is going win.

    Now let's look at it in a little more detail.

    Opposition
    These were the pre-race favourites with the bookies:

    Froome 1.46
    Contador 3.60
    Rodriguez 17.00
    Porte 18.00
    Quintana 20.00
    Evans 26.00
    Van Garderen 33.00

    If Contador can't keep up with his own domestique, it is not because Sky are doping
    If Rodriquez finishes even further back than that, it is not because Sky are doping
    If Quintana decides to do a Hail Mary attack on the Tour's first mountain, it is not because Sky are doping
    If Evans comes in alongside Roche and Gadret and over a minute behind Bardet, it is not because Sky are doping
    If TJVG loses twelve minute, well you know it by now.

    If prior to the stage I has said that Mollema, Ten Dam and Nieve would finish between 1 & 1.5 minutes down on Froome, no-one would have thought that unusual. Sky can't be blamed for others' failings.

    There is a chance that some of the favourites saw this stage with a short 8km climb and discounted it aiming to peak for the end of week three. A mistake. Sky have learnt one of the non-doping things Armstrong did well - hitting the first MTF hard.

    Personnel
    Often you will here the call on social media that the system can't be changed when there are people from the past still involved. Well Sky should be their favourite team. The staff are almost all outsiders. It's really only the DSs who have previously been involved in road cycling (and they are all journeymen pros in their first DS job).
    What Sky have is a group of people who are not still believing the received wisdom and training routines of the last twenty years which were mostly laid out by drug dealers.

    Laiseka's record
    Or more likely Armstrong's time alongside him. Froome was nearly as fast as them, but the fact that the Basque equivalent of Voeckler finished alongside him shows that LA wasn't at full throttle. (He was already 3 minutes ahead of Beloki & Ullrich by then). Different race circumstances dictate different performances. The first MTF should always produce the best numbers.

    I won't totally rule out the possibility of doping, and similarly those he claim to be campaigning for a clean sport shouldn't discount the notion that it has arrived.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 13,326
    TheBigBean wrote:
    No tA Doctor, some good points there. I think your Twitter numbers are a bit off though..there's 1625m of difference in altitude between the summits of the cat 4 and the hors cat today, so it must be at least that unless they never went up or came down the cat 4.

    Cheers, that's what you get for outsourcing the research ;-)
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  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,692
    Anyone got the last time there was a gap as big on the first MTF?

    Not to do with doping, just curious.
    _
  • tailwindhome
    tailwindhome Posts: 18,938
    RichN95 wrote:
    Stuff.


    Absolutely brilliant post.
    “New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!
  • ddraver
    ddraver Posts: 26,391
    RichN95 wrote:
    Awesome post, and strangely for the internet actually based somewhere in reality.

    applause-harry-potter-gif.44998
    :wink:

    Curse your lightning fingers TWH
    We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
    - @ddraver
  • afx237vi
    afx237vi Posts: 12,630
    Rick Chasey wrote:
    Who cares??

    It's just entertainment.

    This a million times.
  • ddraver
    ddraver Posts: 26,391
    Ah but I think the doping soap opera is a major part of that entertainment for many UK/US cycling fans - Sky are their Dirty Den
    We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
    - @ddraver
  • Vino'sGhost
    Vino'sGhost Posts: 4,129
    ddraver wrote:
    Ah but I think the doping soap opera is a major part of that entertainment for many UK/US cycling fans - Sky are their Dirty Den
    oh get back to the clinic
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