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om4ever
Froome will still win easily thought, he won't lose time on the mountains and win the CLM by at least 1 minute on every other favorite
Justicar
One stat not included.
The empirical fact that Tennis is ultimately better than cycling.
King Luis
Lies.
Justicar
He's taken the bait, but for how long!
Why do more people watch Wimbledon on TV then.....?
King Luis
A worldwide television audience of 3.5billion people watch the Tour de France annually
Global cumulative audience estimated at 378.8m people in 198 territories.
NEXT
Ninja
Fuck off.
Fantastic
Eric Portapotty
Ninja
Isn't 3.5bn /21 actually 160m?
Which still seems off, 160m a day might be exposed to the Tour in some way e.g. highlights but it seems high still.
King Luis
If you think Tennis/Football is free of doping then your deluded, tennis players hardly even get tested as well
Ninja
Fantastic
I missed off a zero when using calculator. If the figure is actually 160m then I'll eat a bag of shit.
And I missed off the 'a' when I said calculator because I meant the program on Windows, not the tangible device you find in buildings and stuff.
om4ever
Poor Quintana
King Luis
Numpty, Quintana got it wrong. Shouldn't have attacked so early and he might have won the stage. Did you complain when Movistar were 'doing a sky' last Sunday and again on Friday?
Ninja
King Luis
In what sense, it was something like 12% slower than the previous fastest times on a road that has recently been resurfaced (Mt Ventoux is infamous for having a pretty poor road surface)
Not that climb times are any sort of proof one way or another, seen so much talk on twitter about people saying x is doping because he did x time up x climb and his power output is x. Its frustrating seeing every performance be met with so much suspicion because theres really no way to prove your clean, the only proof that can be shown is proof your doping when you fail a drugs test.
A great point was made today though in a podcast i listen to called Humans Invent about Team Sky and all the doping talk, when Armstrong and Postal were at it there was always smoke so to speak, riders leaving Postal and being popped a year or two later or certain journalists/former friends flat out coming out and accusing LA of doping where as with Sky there is non of that, just people seeing a team having success and people automatically assume its as a result of doping. It seems to have gone from few people suspecting it (at the start of the LA era) to the majority of people just coming out and saying someones doping just so they can come out later down the line and say i told you so, if that makes sense.
Ninja
I think the climb itself was something like the 2nd fastest (behind a doped up Armstrong) and comfortably a minute or two faster than a bunch of doped up athletes previously, combined with the fact he's also put in very good TT times it looks mighty fishy. He's dicking on the field like Armstrong in his prime. Obviously I hope he's clean and its all circumstantial but I find it very hard to believe he can be getting close to the times doped up cyclists posted and not be on something.
Oh and I think I remember hearing he was riding in a head wind today. So a mountain climb within 2 seconds of the biggest drugs cheat of recent times into a head wind and you don't think the questions are valid at all?
King Luis
Added some more to my post above but a few news outlets and journalists have said one reason perhaps for Sky's performances compared to the rest of the peloton are the improvements in coaching, guys like Tim Kerrison who used to be a swimming & rowing coach have now come over to cycling and a few other teams have followed suit. So now the training is a lot different to how it was in the 90's and the Armstrong Era, the rise of EPO may well have led teams to become lazy, why find better clean training methods when you can just use EPO or Blood bags to get a boost. Basically the point is EPO stagnated cycling training and were only now seeing the benefit of better coaching because of guys from other sports coming in.
Sorry not being overly concise, its late!
King Luis
It was actually a tailwind for the majority of the climb
Ninja
We'll see, I guess. Cyclings problem is that the suspicion is always there, and will be for years to come. My personal opinion is that doping of some level is currently going on in 90% of sports (sports where actual sporting prowess isn't required, like Cricket, aside) and there's a constant cat and mouse game going on between testers and athletes with testers always playing catch-up. So I'm not exactly critical of Froome or suspect him just because it's cycling, but rather because I think those of achievements as massively suspect any way and cycling providing such an easy means of comparison through its drugs chequered past just highlights that.
King Luis
No doubt, there will always be suspicion, rightfully so and although it sucks there will always be doping in sport until the majority of countries follow Frances footsteps and make it a criminal offence and even then there will still be some who take the risk, but at the same time there will always be people who suspect a rider or sports person regardless of evidence or perceived evidence which is the case with cycling at the moment.
Its just sad to me that especially in cycling anyone who performs to a high level is put under so much scrutiny, ill admit i am a fan of Froome and Sky and questions should be asked but ive seen so many people see performances and flat out say 'he's doping'. The sad part is said rider cant prove he's not doping it can only be proved he is, so theres something of a no win situation, as long as that riders passing tests there will still always be people saying he's doping weather it is the case or it isn't and people just seem to be doing it with Froome based on largely un-quantifiable 'facts' like climb times, VAM & W/Kg.
Also people seem to pick and choose who to suspect and who not to suspect which seems to be based on which team they ride for which just goes to show their suspicions are misguided.
Fantastic
Where's my boy Nibali?
King Luis
Skipping the Tour to focus on the World Championships and the Vuelta
Telegram Sam
I think he just rode the Giro this year.
Fantastic
om4ever
Are you serious? Friday's coup was all about perfect strategy and perfect execution. There was nothing out of the ordinary performance wise, just an entire team riding. Sky put themselves on perfect conditions today, but in the end it's still Porte and Froome looking like they ware on a different planet
Well, there is an ever increasing number of instances where performances that looked to good to be true turned out to be too good to be true, and I'm conviced today was one of them.
No doubt sport science has gone a long way, that teams like Sky have more ressources than any other before, that technological doping has also helped (GB's OlympicTrack team last year was the prime example), but Wiggins and Froome poping up as the same time as Aicar become known isn't a coincidence.
As for people not talking on Sky it's still a very young structure so it's comprehensible no-one has talked yet.
Telegram Sam
I can't say I'm particularly well versed in the doping discussion, so would you mind explaining to me why you sound like you're certain drugs were involved? What evidence/ proof do you have, other than suspicions and coincidences?
om4ever
Of all my years watching the Tour, I've only seen a few people placing such devastating attacks as this: Ricco (Hilarious), Rasmussen, Contador (both here), Mayo (again).
His results in the time-trials are also improbabe considering his physique.
We'll see in a few years, but for many it will be the least surprising news ever.
Pippadoc
In Armstrongs day his team weren't pacing him up a large part of the climb, so he had to use more effort from further back on the climb.
I think you've also got to consider Sky's aggregation of minimal gains approach to the sport. They put a lot of research into improving training methods and equipment that other teams seem to be playing catch up on. For instance the elliptical chain-sets they've been using on TT bikes.
--------------
Having said that, I'm not trying to say he definitely didn't cheat just that there are factors to the tactics/training/equipment that can explain at least some of his performance
King Luis
Also you compare his climbing times on the day against people like Valverde & Contador who have both previously ridden juiced up and are now riding clean and that seems to be your reason he's cheating, seems abit unfair to suspect a rider whose never tested positive because he's beating guys who have tested positive.