Grumpy French (contains doping talk)...

RichN95.

Pross said:

Not that I buy into the loons looking for doping. The French have been keen to mud sling at Sky for most of the past decade and now JV are the new satan stopping a brave French hero like Pinot winning the Tour.

It's a bit like English football was (maybe still is) with the attitude that foreign players all divers and British players are all honest

DeadCalm

It's not just the French though. British libel laws being what they are, the British press have been more circumspect, but the Telegraph and Guardian have both raised questions.

DeadCalm

ddraver said:

People surprised by WvA (and also MvdP) haven't been watching cyclo-cross....

I'm going to respond to this in the Unpopular Pro Race Opinions thread where my reply truly belongs.

gsk82

RichN95. said:

Pross said:

Not that I buy into the loons looking for doping. The French have been keen to mud sling at Sky for most of the past decade and now JV are the new satan stopping a brave French hero like Pinot winning the Tour.

It's a bit like English football was (maybe still is) with the attitude that foreign players all divers and British players are all honest

I think the general consensus is that footballers of all nationalities are equally cheating wussbags.... Apart from those diving Italians who are far worse

pblakeney

gsk82 said:

RichN95. said:

Pross said:

Not that I buy into the loons looking for doping. The French have been keen to mud sling at Sky for most of the past decade and now JV are the new satan stopping a brave French hero like Pinot winning the Tour.

It's a bit like English football was (maybe still is) with the attitude that foreign players all divers and British players are all honest

I think the general consensus is that footballers of all nationalities are equally cheating wussbags.... Apart from those diving Italians who are far worse

Plus some notable Brazilians. 😉

orraloon

Pross said:

The French have been keen to mud sling at Sky for most of the past decade and now JV are the new satan stopping a brave French hero like Pinot winning the Tour.

This. After the Alaphilippe almost but not good enough last year, with ASO designing a 2020 course that ditched such furrin specialities as TTT and put the ITT in Pinot's back yard, for French cyclists and teams to maintain their somewhat less than stellar form is just too much to take. So them furrins gotta be cheating innit.

pblakeney

While watching the David Millar Time Trial documentary I noticed that there was a stark difference shown by fans to Wiggo in Italy compared to Sky in the 2014 TdF.

RichN95.

DeadCalm said:

It's not just the French though. British libel laws being what they are, the British press have been more circumspect, but the Telegraph and Guardian have both raised questions.

God, I've read Whittle's piece. It's so dishonest. Lots about what his team manger did while Pogacar was a small child and before he was born, but absolutely no mention of Pogacar's stellar u23 career before he even got to that team.

joe2019

RichN95. said:

DeadCalm said:

It's not just the French though. British libel laws being what they are, the British press have been more circumspect, but the Telegraph and Guardian have both raised questions.

God, I've read Whittle's piece. It's so dishonest. Lots about what his team manger did while Pogacar was a small child and before he was born, but absolutely no mention of Pogacar's stellar u23 career before he even got to that team.

Not really 'dishonest' then, just the truth, and a blind eye.

orraloon

Whittle is agenda driven. Heard him spouting over multiple years like a mini Dandy Roan.

m.r.m.

So actually dishonest. Willfully omitting things or even just willfully omitting context is being dishonest in journalism.

blazing_saddles

joe2019 said:

RichN95. said:

DeadCalm said:

It's not just the French though. British libel laws being what they are, the British press have been more circumspect, but the Telegraph and Guardian have both raised questions.

God, I've read Whittle's piece. It's so dishonest. Lots about what his team manger did while Pogacar was a small child and before he was born, but absolutely no mention of Pogacar's stellar u23 career before he even got to that team.

Not really 'dishonest' then, just the truth, and a blind eye.

The only "truth" , as you put it, which actually relates to Pogacar, is that he was 10 in 2008.
The rest is just vacuously infers the possibility of guilt through association.

RichN95.

joe2019 said:

RichN95. said:

God, I've read Whittle's piece. It's so dishonest. Lots about what his team manger did while Pogacar was a small child and before he was born, but absolutely no mention of Pogacar's stellar u23 career before he even got to that team.

Not really 'dishonest' then, just the truth, and a blind eye.

It's the equivalent of a football journalist writing about Phil Foden and focussing entirely on Pep Guardiola's nandrolone issue in 2001 and ignoring Foden was player of the Tournament when England won the junior World Cup

tailwindhome

I'm assuming that the Froome/Swart/Pogacar "dots" are being connected in the Clinic?

bobmcstuff

tailwindhome said:

I'm assuming that the Froome/Swart/Pogacar "dots" are being connected in the Clinic?

Even though Swart had never met Froome before that testing thing...

joe2019

blazing_saddles said:

joe2019 said:

RichN95. said:

DeadCalm said:

It's not just the French though. British libel laws being what they are, the British press have been more circumspect, but the Telegraph and Guardian have both raised questions.

God, I've read Whittle's piece. It's so dishonest. Lots about what his team manger did while Pogacar was a small child and before he was born, but absolutely no mention of Pogacar's stellar u23 career before he even got to that team.

Not really 'dishonest' then, just the truth, and a blind eye.

The only "truth" , as you put it, which actually relates to Pogacar, is that he was 10 in 2008.
The rest is just vacuously infers the possibility of guilt through association.

So, you seriously think he won Le tour clean

joe2019

RichN95. said:

joe2019 said:

RichN95. said:

God, I've read Whittle's piece. It's so dishonest. Lots about what his team manger did while Pogacar was a small child and before he was born, but absolutely no mention of Pogacar's stellar u23 career before he even got to that team.

Not really 'dishonest' then, just the truth, and a blind eye.

It's the equivalent of a football journalist writing about Phil Foden and focussing entirely on Pep Guardiola's nandrolone issue in 2001 and ignoring Foden was player of the Tournament when England won the junior World Cup

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

orraloon

Random correlation ain't causation. HTH.

blazing_saddles

joe2019 said:

RichN95. said:

joe2019 said:

RichN95. said:

God, I've read Whittle's piece. It's so dishonest. Lots about what his team manger did while Pogacar was a small child and before he was born, but absolutely no mention of Pogacar's stellar u23 career before he even got to that team.

Not really 'dishonest' then, just the truth, and a blind eye.

It's the equivalent of a football journalist writing about Phil Foden and focussing entirely on Pep Guardiola's nandrolone issue in 2001 and ignoring Foden was player of the Tournament when England won the junior World Cup

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Seems to me you have no idea what anybody is talking about.

joe2019

blazing_saddles said:

joe2019 said:

RichN95. said:

joe2019 said:

RichN95. said:

God, I've read Whittle's piece. It's so dishonest. Lots about what his team manger did while Pogacar was a small child and before he was born, but absolutely no mention of Pogacar's stellar u23 career before he even got to that team.

Not really 'dishonest' then, just the truth, and a blind eye.

It's the equivalent of a football journalist writing about Phil Foden and focussing entirely on Pep Guardiola's nandrolone issue in 2001 and ignoring Foden was player of the Tournament when England won the junior World Cup

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Seems to me you have no idea what anybody is talking about.

Funny man

RichN95.

joe2019 said:

blazing_saddles said:

joe2019 said:

RichN95. said:

DeadCalm said:

It's not just the French though. British libel laws being what they are, the British press have been more circumspect, but the Telegraph and Guardian have both raised questions.

God, I've read Whittle's piece. It's so dishonest. Lots about what his team manger did while Pogacar was a small child and before he was born, but absolutely no mention of Pogacar's stellar u23 career before he even got to that team.

Not really 'dishonest' then, just the truth, and a blind eye.

The only "truth" , as you put it, which actually relates to Pogacar, is that he was 10 in 2008.
The rest is just vacuously infers the possibility of guilt through association.

So, you seriously think he won Le tour clean

I don't know. But I do know two things.

1. Doping scandals used to have proper drugs. Now people are grasping at saline drips, ventolin and ketones for their scandal fix.

2. In 2018 Tadej Pogacar was not just the best pre-pro talent, but to some observers the best for several years. Last season was the best by a first year pro for many years.

mididoctors

I think the data crunching . Training intelligently Monitoring and dieting is just more effective than just hitting the testosterone and epo and training like a beast .... That's what I think has happened . Everyone really knows what they are doing now.

ddraver

mididoctors said:

I think the data crunching . Training intelligently Monitoring and dieting is just more effective than just hitting the testosterone and epo and training like a beast .... That's what I think has happened . Everyone really knows what they are doing now.

Indeed,

It really wasn't long ago that we joked on here about how few pro-cyclists had coaches. Sky got a bunch of stick for starting to coach riders individually rather than putting the whole team on one plan. These days I can pay £7.99/month for an app that gives me a detailed power analysis and training plan. I'm crap and I still do it.

Further, since the 90s, it was hard for a young person to break out simply because they hadn't had the benefit of several years doping.

This is the state of training for one of the the top-two favourites for The Tour in 2011



Yep! TWO THOUSAND AND ELEVEN!!!

RichN95.

ddraver said:

Indeed,

It really wasn't long ago that we joked on here about how few pro-cyclists had coaches. Sky got a bunch of stick for starting to coach riders individually rather than putting the whole team on one plan. These days I can pay £7.99/month for an app that gives me a detailed power analysis and training plan. I'm censored and I still do it.

Further, since the 90s, it was hard for a young person to break out simply because they hadn't had the benefit of several years doping.

This is the state of training for one of the the top-two favourites for The Tour in 2011

Yep! TWO THOUSAND AND ELEVEN!!!

I remember reading an interview with Romain Bardet about how much had things had changed in his years at AG2R (about 4 or 5 years at the time). He said when he joined the team didn't have a coach. He joined in 2012.

jimmythecuckoo

I think another factor worthy of consideration is that the riders all arrived at the Tour having had various stages of lockdown training.

Some indoors, some out a bit, some out a lot.

I think next year we might see if differently.

WvA has to back up what he has done this year which as Alaphillippe showed isn't easy.

I do however think the race needs a French winner soon and it's nice to see CN following my blogs lead in picking Sivakov as the man who will do it !

webboo

WvA wasn’t doing that bad last year till he crashed out in the Tour.

phreak

RichN95. said:

joe2019 said:

blazing_saddles said:

joe2019 said:

RichN95. said:

DeadCalm said:

It's not just the French though. British libel laws being what they are, the British press have been more circumspect, but the Telegraph and Guardian have both raised questions.

God, I've read Whittle's piece. It's so dishonest. Lots about what his team manger did while Pogacar was a small child and before he was born, but absolutely no mention of Pogacar's stellar u23 career before he even got to that team.

Not really 'dishonest' then, just the truth, and a blind eye.

The only "truth" , as you put it, which actually relates to Pogacar, is that he was 10 in 2008.
The rest is just vacuously infers the possibility of guilt through association.

So, you seriously think he won Le tour clean

I don't know. But I do know two things.

1. Doping scandals used to have proper drugs. Now people are grasping at saline drips, ventolin and ketones for their scandal fix.

2. In 2018 Tadej Pogacar was not just the best pre-pro talent, but to some observers the best for several years. Last season was the best by a first year pro for many years.

WvA was the most incredible performance of the Tour for me. Pogacar not only was outstanding as a junior but was outstanding in the Vuelta last year, so I fully expected him to be up there.

I can't think of a time when we've had a rider driving on the flat, winning sprint finishes, doing huge pulls on mountains, and then hanging in there sufficiently to be fairly high up in GC (top 20 wasn't he?). Perhaps the nearest comparison we have is Kwia, who can do all of those things, but he had to sit up on various stages in order to recover sufficiently to do them, hence he was nearly an hour behind Wout on GC, despite having gained a chunk back by being given the freedom to hunt stages).

As others have mentioned, probably the last time there has been such a rider is Sean Kelly, and Kelly was able to do well on GC as the protected rider, not as the 4th or 5th carriage in his team's mountain train. You could also argue that the 80s were an era in which riders did successfully complete across all disciplines, whereas now is far more selective, and therefore much rarer to get someone that can be as good in something like Paris-Roubaix as they can up an Alpine climb.

That's not to say WvA is cheating of course, just that his performance was the likes of which I haven't seen for a very long time.

david37

over the years ive seen the same people consistently raising eyebrows but even more consistently a different few people poo pooing doping. Is it time to accept we just have differences of opinion and levels of emotional investment?

webboo

WvA was clearly seen as something special for JV to sign him 2 years before his contract was due to end with his cyclocross team. He only got to ride for them last year due him breaking his contract because the team owner tried to sell him and the team without WvA’s knowledge.

salsiccia1

david37 said:

over the years ive seen the same people consistently raising eyebrows but even more consistently a different few people poo pooing doping. Is it time to accept we just have differences of opinion and levels of emotional investment?

I don't think anybody is poo-pooing doping. It's a fact of life and there's bound to be some riders doping. It's just that the same old faces come out of the woodwork 'consistently raising eyebrows' and to tell us that any superlative ride must be down to doping; and so the same old other faces (myself included) point to other less sinister reasons why a rider is doing something superlative.

I get why people are suspicious of great performances but I genuinely think that cycling has moved on from the dark days and is probably at the same level of doping as other sports. We don't have evidence of anything else at this point. I think that some others cannot move on from the dark days and I wonder why they bother with the sport if they can't accept that great performances can be legitimate.