Contador - The future
Comments
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A year ago I would have said the decline for Bertie had started. Now I'm unsure. Some of his riding this year suggested he could have the better of Froome this year. That could still be the case next year.
However, he has been around at the very top for a long time, and nothing lasts forever. He will certainly focus on the Tour next year(s), which reduces his chances of winning the other grand tours if he fails.
Not a bad moment to ask the question, but too early to call I'd say.0 -
S'pose here's as good a place as any
Alberto Contador @albertocontador · 6m
From the distance I want to send strength&support t my whole team,an incredible group.Guys,you're great @tinkoff_saxo“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0 -
Daz555 wrote:
Out of interest, how much clen does it take to invalidate a Tour win? Perhaps we could see your scale of cheating so we can decide in future which drug cheats should keep their titles.frenchfighter wrote:Exactly and whatever these rulebook forum members say a tiny amount of clen doesnt make you win the Tour.
Maybe an amount large enough to be physically administered would be a start? Or that didn't need uber powerful testing equipment to detect (which they happened to have at the one that tested Contador)? Or quite simply a scientifically agreed upon amount that would actually improve performance?Contador is the Greatest0 -
over the next 2 years he'll get 1 more GT win. whether its a Giro, or a Vuelta, i'm unsure, but i think this year was his final tour de france chance. the parcours suited him. may not be the same next year.
Nowadays 33/34 is the time when a proper decline becomes noticaeble in these kind of athletes and also is dependant on injuries. Form is critical as we are seeing with Nibali, for this tour, he's confident, and has peaked at the right time. i think Contador was on the cusp of peaking in a similar manner, and if so would very probably have beaten Nibali in the high mountains, and been beaten in the time trial. the overall would probably have gone to contador.
Whilst i'm not a fan of the clenbutasteaks he eats, or his dirty past, i am a fan of the rider, and his technical prowess.0 -
Not much obvious competition (certainly not Froome), so I suppose he might get another GT, but not, I think, TdF. The regime is so strict that I reckon the days of the mid-30s being "prime" are fading fast. Trained athletes now, rather than naturally "hard men". Likely to be younger, "surprise", short-lived, stars in years to come.d.j.
"Cancel my subscription to the resurrection."0 -
I am not a fan of his because in my opinion he has cheated. I view him the same as I view the likes of Frank Schleck.
Riders who the evidence, and what I have seen through my eyes, leads me to believe are unclean.
Having said that he is dynamite to watch on the bike, and its always entertaining, if not always believable.
Being aware of all that, I would still expect him to have another couple of cracks at the Tour to win it within his powers.
I suppose the extent of the injury he has currently will need to be known in more detail before a real observation could be made.0 -
frenchfighter wrote:Or quite simply a scientifically agreed upon amount that would actually improve performance?
Exactly. Scientifically we don’t know if the level of clenbuterol he had in his body, when it was detected, would have improved his performance or not, or to what extent.Mañana0 -
dsoutar wrote:
Was that really necessary? We can't just agree to disagree?0 -
meagain wrote:The regime is so strict that I reckon the days of the mid-30s being "prime" are fading fast. Trained athletes now, rather than naturally "hard men". Likely to be younger, "surprise", short-lived, stars in years to come.
In sport in general, its my impression that sportsmen and women have greater longevity these days than they've ever had so I'm not sure I agree with this.0 -
frenchfighter wrote:Daz555 wrote:
Out of interest, how much clen does it take to invalidate a Tour win? Perhaps we could see your scale of cheating so we can decide in future which drug cheats should keep their titles.frenchfighter wrote:Exactly and whatever these rulebook forum members say a tiny amount of clen doesnt make you win the Tour.
Maybe an amount large enough to be physically administered would be a start? Or that didn't need uber powerful testing equipment to detect (which they happened to have at the one that tested Contador)? Or quite simply a scientifically agreed upon amount that would actually improve performance?
But it is really easy to physically administer the small amount, all you have to do is receive a blood bag which has a trace of it in it (of course you're not after the trace of clen at all, you just want the red blood cells). So, if early in the season when you gave the blood for the blood bag you had been taking Clen to lean you up (which is both when blood is generally taken, and when the drug Clen is generally used, and very effective at it's purpose it is too) then this bag of blood if you're not uber-careful could have a touch of the Clen you were taking in it.
Anyway, FF knows all this, as noone who reads so much about Contador can be quite that daft. I didn't type it for FF though, just to restore the balance as simply as possible for those reading who might not be aware that Clen is not an in-race drug anyway, its performance benefits are reaped in the weeks pre-race, which just so happens to be the time where blood bags are taken for later in-race use. Of course, you could wish for some kind of evidence of AC using blood bags, and you could have had that too, those indicators were there in the form of results from a test that was in-development, a top expert was stopped from exploring and explaining this during the case as Contador's lot (quite within their rights) put a stop to it as the case was never about "finding out how the clen got there" is was about "getting a yes/no as to whether the steak fairy story was true".0 -
OPQS wrote:dsoutar wrote:
Was that really necessary? We can't just agree to disagree?
Well it was a fairly ridiculous response unless you were implying humour. Lots of people have appeared on podiums where we know subsequently how they got there.
Being on a podium does not equate to winning without cheating as has been made abundantly clear over the last few years (and even this week with Menchov) so let's not starting trying to airbrush history
Anyway, back on topic. As someone said above a lot will depend how Contador recovers from this injury. I don't see him competing in the Vuelta. An interesting comment regarding Froome, who some would consider could have won the previous edition, so the "one-off" seems a little disingenuous. I think the real conundrum will be if Quintana can remain or improve even on the levels of performance he has now. If he can at least equal it then I think Contador will struggle to win if he's in the same GT as Quintana. I think the jury's out on Froome who clearly has had a very poor season judging by what he would have expected at the start of the year. There's a whole crop of youngsters coming up too who I don't think will necessarily be threatening podiums in 2015 but certainly by 2016 there could be a real rash of GT contenders. I think if Contador picks the right GT he might have one or maybe two good chances to win in the next year or two.0 -
Coriander wrote:
That. You tried, you got what you deserved and now you don't like it. That's the internetz.Trail fun - Transition Bandit
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Allround - Cotic Solaris0 -
Now he's back on more juice again, he has a really good chance of winning another GT.
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If there are any rocket scientists on this fourm, could they please work their magic and close off the worm-hole to the parallel universe where Contador "won" the 2010 Tour and 2011 Giro.
He didn't win those races. Maybe he was clean when he rode around Italy in May 2011 but he shouldn't have been on the start line in the first place, he should have been suspended. He can hold up seven fingers all he likes but he is only making a fool of himself and the sport.
DD.0 -
Dolan Driver wrote:If there are any rocket scientists on this fourm, could they please work their magic and close off the worm-hole to the parallel universe where Contador "won" the 2010 Tour and 2011 Giro.
He didn't win those races. Maybe he was clean when he rode around Italy in May 2011 but he shouldn't have been on the start line in the first place, he should have been suspended. He can hold up seven fingers all he likes but he is only making a fool of himself and the sport.
DD.
You can look at it in several ways...was Schleck any cleaner?0 -
Joelsim wrote:Dolan Driver wrote:If there are any rocket scientists on this fourm, could they please work their magic and close off the worm-hole to the parallel universe where Contador "won" the 2010 Tour and 2011 Giro.
He didn't win those races. Maybe he was clean when he rode around Italy in May 2011 but he shouldn't have been on the start line in the first place, he should have been suspended. He can hold up seven fingers all he likes but he is only making a fool of himself and the sport.
DD.
You can look at it in several ways...was Schleck any cleaner?
Schleck (Andy) has not provided a sample containing a banned/controlled substance and consequently served a suspension for doping. Therefore yes, on current evidence, he was cleaner.0 -
In the context of this thread, it's also worth noting Andy provides a good example of the effect a serious crash/injury can have on a rider and their subsequent career. It'd be a bit silly to carry the example too far (fair to say Contador is a very different personality than Andy) but it's worth remembering that there have been lots of athletes who've had to take a break due to injury and never quite hit the same heights again afterwards.r0bh wrote:Joelsim wrote:Dolan Driver wrote:If there are any rocket scientists on this fourm, could they please work their magic and close off the worm-hole to the parallel universe where Contador "won" the 2010 Tour and 2011 Giro.
He didn't win those races. Maybe he was clean when he rode around Italy in May 2011 but he shouldn't have been on the start line in the first place, he should have been suspended. He can hold up seven fingers all he likes but he is only making a fool of himself and the sport.
DD.
You can look at it in several ways...was Schleck any cleaner?
Schleck (Andy) has not provided a sample containing a banned/controlled substance and consequently served a suspension for doping. Therefore yes, on current evidence, he was cleaner.0 -
frenchfighter wrote:Daz555 wrote:
Out of interest, how much clen does it take to invalidate a Tour win? Perhaps we could see your scale of cheating so we can decide in future which drug cheats should keep their titles.frenchfighter wrote:Exactly and whatever these rulebook forum members say a tiny amount of clen doesnt make you win the Tour.
Maybe an amount large enough to be physically administered would be a start? Or that didn't need uber powerful testing equipment to detect (which they happened to have at the one that tested Contador)? Or quite simply a scientifically agreed upon amount that would actually improve performance?
That the levels were tiny means no more than that the drug was almost cleared from his system at the time of the test. Of more interest is the evidence that Michael Ashenden was prevented from presenting to the court by Contador's clever lawyers: detailed evidence to the effect that taking into account Contador's very dodgy reticulocyte count at the tour, the clenbuterol result was consistent with a contaminated plasma bag transfused to reduce his haematocrit prior to testing. Exerpts:First, a sharp peak in plasticiser residues had been found in his urine sample on the Tuesday evening that was not present on Monday. Second, clenbuterol had been detected in his urine on the evening of Wednesday's rest day. Third, his reticulocyte results during that Tour were unusually elevated [...] those facts are consistent with the reinfusion of blood at some time between Monday and Tuesday evening, the infusion of clenbuterol-contaminated plasma on Wednesday in an effort to mask the excess of red cells from the Passport blood test which was administered that morning, together with a microdose masking strategy to mask the suppression of reticulocytes that would otherwise betray the use of blood transfusions.Ultimate responsibility for me not being able to testify on those points rests with Contador, whose lawyers raised the objection. You can understand his lawyers would be willing to do anything and everything to help get their guy off, even if it meant fighting against the submission of important evidence merely on a technicality. However, it was surprising to me that the Spanish cycling federation agreed that I should not be allowed to answer a question that would help clarify whether Contador could have used a transfusion.
More here: http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2012/behind-scenes-contador-cas-hearing-michael-ashendenI have a policy of only posting comment on the internet under my real name. This is to moderate my natural instinct to flame your fatuous, ill-informed, irrational, credulous, bigoted, semi-literate opinions to carbon, you knuckle-dragging f***wits.0 -
Thanks I read the entire judgement years ago and came to my own conclusions. It was mentioned but the UCI were not bringing a blood doping case against him so it was of not much relevance. Plasticizers can also be found in drinks bottles. Had they brought that case against him they would have lost. There was nothing against them opening a bio passport case against him later - they didnt did they. Whatever the press dr M A says, had there been sufficient evidence of blood doping (they had a lot of data) they would have brought a case. It is after all their duty. They didnt, thus it follows there is insufficient evidence to prove what you assume. Ergo Contador is clean.
A miniscule, non physically adminstrable dose and totally non performance enhancing dose resulted in a total mess of a case which the authorities shouldnt have won and which deprived the public of the greatest stage race rider of his generation for a time.Contador is the Greatest0 -
I would have thought it was pretty obvious why he isn't as fast as before he was suspended...I'm left handed, if that matters.0
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Does anyone think it was accidental that this sample went to the one (German) lab that was going to find something? The presence of clen is like being done for speeding; strict liability. The UCI simply acted on intelligence to make sure they got their man. Unrepentant, but (probably) reformed (or a least far more careful).
Pretty sure he can make a successful comeback.0 -
Daz555 wrote:
Out of interest, how much clen does it take to invalidate a Tour win? Perhaps we could see your scale of cheating so we can decide in future which drug cheats should keep their titles.frenchfighter wrote:Exactly and whatever these rulebook forum members say a tiny amount of clen doesnt make you win the Tour.
If they meet the true champion(tm) expectations then they could be caught with a needle in their arm and it would still be a winner.0 -
frenchfighter wrote:Thanks I read the entire judgement years ago and came to my own conclusions.
Clearly.0 -
underlayunderlay wrote:frenchfighter wrote:Thanks I read the entire judgement years ago and came to my own conclusions.
Clearly.
lol @ FF. Blissfully.0 -
“There has been little progress. We are mostly concerned about the ignition caused by the fracture. Due to that injury I cannot move my leg properly,” Alberto Contador said, according to NOS.nl.
“That’s even worse than the tibia injury itself. I’m hoping that rehabilitation process comes to an end soon so I can start moving. But every day which passes by without moving my leg slows down the recovery.”Contador is the Greatest0 -
frenchfighter wrote:“There has been little progress. We are mostly concerned about the ignition caused by the fracture. Due to that injury I cannot move my leg properly,” Alberto Contador said, according to NOS.nl.
“That’s even worse than the tibia injury itself. I’m hoping that rehabilitation process comes to an end soon so I can start moving. But every day which passes by without moving my leg slows down the recovery.”
In hindsight I wonder was getting back on the bike and riding up a mountain a good idea.“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0 -
TailWindHome wrote:frenchfighter wrote:“There has been little progress. We are mostly concerned about the ignition caused by the fracture. Due to that injury I cannot move my leg properly,” Alberto Contador said, according to NOS.nl.
“That’s even worse than the tibia injury itself. I’m hoping that rehabilitation process comes to an end soon so I can start moving. But every day which passes by without moving my leg slows down the recovery.”
In hindsight I wonder was getting back on the bike and riding up a mountain a good idea.
The adrenalin would have kicked in after a big crash and it can be very difficult to judge how serious your injury is.
Play it safe and quit the tour or get back on your bike and see how it goes and try and save your main goal for the season. It was the right decision at the time in my view.0
