T_S_A_R

is that you lance?

if you want to create time gaps you have to put on pace on multiple climbs, that's why basso put smyzd on the front as well. europcar were only interested in keeping voeckler in yellow. the schleck's wanted a situation at the end where it was the two of them versus cadel, basso and contador all without help and they got it. plus what could any of the leopard trek guys have done on that final climb to help them?

there was no point in andy attacking once frank had gone. andy is the favourite imo

it's starting to shape up now. contador looks very vunerable, i'd expect big attacks from the schlecks on saturday to try and take him completely out the equation then they can pick on evans in the alps. virtual yellow jersey frank evans 17 andy 28 basso 1, 27 cuengo 1, 33 contador 2, 11 sammy sanchez 2, 22 danielson 2, 48 roche 3, 10 an interesting one is rigobert uran who is 6, 06 behind brad but lost 3,10 when brailsford made him wait for wiggins after his crash last friday. uran is climbing very well and would be a decent bet for a top 10 if it wasn't for that, sky are amatuers.

we're in business leopard trek tearing the peloton apart just now at the base of the tourmalet.

the fact kreuziger and gadret are struggling a bit actually makes me happy even though i like them. were it not for berties two crashes he would be up near the schleck's just now. we'll see what kind of climbing form he is in over the weekend. it's also worth noting that the last person to do the double was marco pantani.

sastre beat evans because csc had a stronger team and better tactics, not because he was stronger than him. on the pivotal stage in the 2008 evans marked frank schleck while sastre went up the road at a steady pace. frank and andy then proceeded to double team evans constantly putting in wee bursts that tired him (and them) out. it obviously doesn't mean he's not doping but it was believable. i think gilbert has to be on the shit list. that attack today was ridiculous and the only way any rider would be confident of pulling it off would be if they believed they had an edge.

of course we're going to be suspicous. it's pro cycling! the real point of view is that he was already very suspicious and then he tested positive (the day after the final rest). if you can't put 2 + 2 together then your deluded. the biggest clue that he was doping was that he stood at the top of the podium in paris! since the early 90s (when epo use became widespread) we've seen indurian, riis, ullrich, pantani, armstrong, landis, sastre and contador all on the top step. sastre is the only one who might have been clean and 2008 was clearly the weakest race in decades.

what a final 25k! griepel outsprints cavendish, he'll enjoy that. superb finish with a decent wee climb to soften them up then enough bumps for attacks to go. the hilly finishes this year have been quality.

tommy v is the man!

yip but don't say it in the tennis thread or people start greeting.

as i've said before riders who are pericieved to be damaging the sport have been targetted by the peloton before. it happened to ricco and simoni for different reasons. i'll lay out what i feel is the most likely scenario. some time during the spring contador takes clenbuterol as part of his training. a while after that when he believes the clenbuterol and anything else he has been taking is out of his system he draws blood to transfuse during the tour. unfortunately for him there is an amount remaining which would have previously been undectable but due to new technology and processes at the cologne lab they are able to spot it. (also remember that there were reports of him testing positive for plasticiziers) the fact that after more than a decade of reporting on doping people are still willing to believe the bullshit spouted by riders is staggering. contador was on liberty seguros, he was on astana, he was the only rider who could match micheal rasmussen climbing, he won the tour despite his whole team working against him, he's the best rider since armstrong. he has always been suspicious. now he gets caught with a banned substance in his system and people still want to give him the benefit of the doubt. it's like stockholm syndrome. i love watching football, cycling, tennis and boxing but i'm not going to kid myself on that doping doesn't happen on a huge level.

firstly the riders don't give a f**k about people taking drugs they care about people damaging the sport because it hits them in the pocket. kolobnev is a nobody and has done nothing of interest this tour except a wee attack on the first stage. no one's livelihood is being put at risk by kolobnev getting kicked off the tour. riders don't hate ricardo ricco because he cheats. they hated him because he cheated so openly. in the post festina world you have to cheat with a degree of responsibilty, that's what the bio passport is all about. the difference between this and contador is that the french lab doing the testing leaked the story to le monde before they told the uci. why did they do this? because the uci knew about contador's positive test last year before the tour had even finished and it only came out months later because the lab leaked it to a german journalist. the comments from blatter are no suprise. a sporting administator downplaying doping within his own sport, never! it's not like it has happened in cycling, tennis, boxing, nfl, mlb and athletics. there are huge amounts of money at stake, no one wants to blow the lid off. what did blatter have to say about the juventus epo scandal? very little. clenbuterol contaminated meat is extremely rare in europe. what is more likely, contaminated meat finding it's way onto the plate of the plate of the tour de france champion on the final rest day. or the tour de france champion using the rest day to tranfuse his only blood which he doesn't know contains tiny traces of the clenbuterol he was using during his training cycle earlier in the year.

it's pretty obvious that carbon is fucking up the atmosphere. it's like smoking fags, it's seems pretty obvious it's bad for you but it took people ages to accept that. unfortunately just like smoking fags having electricty and going places is amazing so we're gubbed. your logic also doesn't work. it's like saying lung cancer wouldn't be an issue if everyone started smoking 60 fags a day because there had always been people with lung cancer. we can't predict what will happen in the future with ever increasing pollution by looking at the past when there wasn't any.

he's not going to win his case! his excuse is the equivalent of the dog ate my homework. valverde got a two year ban from cas even although there was some serious doubts about the process followed to convict him. pelliozoti got a two year ban just for having fucked up blood values. contador was caught red handed with a banned steroid in his system. he is fucked.

it's harsh but to be expected. he's a multi millionaire with 6 grand tours in the bag, i would imagine that a lot of the peloton think he should have took his medicine rather than try to win the giro and tour again before he likely gets banned. teams find it extremely difficult to get sponsors these days and more bad publicity and 3 of the last 4 GTs being tainted won't help that. it's the rank and file guys in the peloton who will suffer because of it so it's no wonder they are pissed.

just saw this http://www.steephill.tv/players/youtube3/?title=Vladimir+Karpets+bumps+Contador+causing+crash&dashboard=tour-de-france&id=GwviTmZZSlk&yr=2011 the peloton dishing out a bit of justice to bertie?

did cancellara pull a gun out and threaten to shoot anyone that tried to put some pace on? and it was oil on the road, not the weather. the reason they did what he said was because you need friends in the peloton, piss the wrong people off and you'll never get in a breakaway.

commenters on that blog actually predict the injury break he is taking just now. the mysterious "fractured foot" that he was able to beat murray with

bmc soignuer caught with 195 doses of epo a couple of weeks ago both OPL and BMC have noticably stepped it up this season. i have a sneaky feeling cadel will climb better than we have ever seen before over the next few weeks. joaquin rodriguez attacked and won the big mountain stages easily in the dauphine but his TT is pathetic. he was the only big rider at the dauphine who is not at the tour so he must have been a bit more, em, focused on it. an astana rider and an ex astana rider. quelle suprise.

cavendish wins the stage. tony martin went on a solo attempt rather than setting up the htc train and cavendish ended up following geriant thomas in. interesting. cav now on tv moaning that the finishes don't suit him.

poor tom, the quick step domestiques aren't even dropping back to get him

steroids didn't improve the swing of barry bonds and mark mcgwire in mlb but the extra power, stamina, durability and recovery remarkably improved their overall performance. as i said earlier andy murray's improvement post WO 2008 wasn't due to any technical changes in his ball striking it was due to increased physical fitness. indeed his whole career arc has followed the pattern of his physical maturity rather than technique. i don't buy the diet excuse, we seen these reasons given before in other sports. i'm sure you read articles last year slamming djokovic for his poor fitness, i linked to one above. to go from miles behind nadal in fitness to clearly superior to him in 12 months when nadal has had no noticeable drop seems extremely dodgy to me. nadal is the key to the full thing. there is plenty of evidence that spanish government covers up and even encourages PED use amongst their athletes. have you noticed that spanish sportsman don't seem to tire? nadal was implicated in the operation puerto scandal in 2006, on paper he is extremely dodgy. the pattern exposed in other sports is of one athlete from a dodgy background having success due to PEDs and other deciding they have no option but to follow suit. i don't know about henman but rusedski was a drugs cheat. i don't doubt brad gilbert was training him hard. but brad gilbert also trained aggassi who has admitted to having a positive test covered up and refused to take a drugs test on a least one occasion. aggassi's career arc is, to say the least, suspicious. the pictures were a response to a poster who challenged my assertion that tennis players are starting to ressemble wwe wrestlers. the same thing happened when steroid culture took over in baseball. answer me this. do you believe that mary pierce and/or jennifer capriati were doping?

in 2008 at the AO federer, who he beat in the semi, had mono and he played tsonga in the final. it's a bit different to winning 50 out of 51 matches and beating nadal 5 times in a row. federer has nine figure career earnings, i'd say the potential benefits of gaining an edge over your rivals in tennis are great. i understand what you are saying about technique but you only need to look at the improvement of murray when he got into shape to see the benefits of increased fitness to an elite tennis player. again i ask, what is responsible for the remarkable improvement in novak? you only need to look at the examples of marion jones and lance armstrong to see what is possible due to science being ahead of the testers and the complacency of governing bodies and the media who are happy to let the good times roll. what is happening in men's tennis right now is exceptional and what we should know from other sports - baseball and cycling in particular - is that when something seems to good to be true it usually isn't.

between hgh, steroids, testosterone, epo and blood transfusions they can do just about anything. the only people who truly know 'what' they do are the victor conte, michele ferrari types who are developing them. when dwain chambers got busted the testers didn't have a clue about the majority of things he was up to.