peasy23 Posted July 16, 2016 Share Posted July 16, 2016 Cav looking good for the Champs? I'm not convinced he will last the full week, could knacker him for the Olympics if he goes the distance. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiddy Posted July 17, 2016 Share Posted July 17, 2016 9 hours ago, peasy23 said: I'm not convinced he will last the full week, could knacker him for the Olympics if he goes the distance. Considering his record there, & Kittel having the better of him, easily, over the last two years. Given his form, at present, I'd suggest Rio isn't at the forefront of his thoughts just now. Track preparations are obviously benefiting his top line speed. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milhouse Posted July 17, 2016 Share Posted July 17, 2016 On 12 July 2016 at 13:03, Sarto Mutiny said: Froome went up Ventoux in 2013 just as quickly as Armstrong did in 2002, and only 15 seconds slower than a doped up Contador did in 2009. Lies, damned lies etc, but it's interesting nonetheless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Ventoux#The_fastest_ascents_of_Mont_Ventoux ETA: also interesting that almost everyone else on that list of fastest times has been implicated in doping at some stage in their career. The broader point of why anyone would dope is down to human nature. We're dealing with very competitive people in an environment where the rewards are high and the risk of being caught is still relatively low (this is not exclusive to cycling). If the risk for Sky of being caught is too high, what with the potential of negative publicity and all, why did Festina, US Postal, Rabobank etc not feel that way back in the day? The stakes are no higher now. I think the only convincing argument against doping is the adverse health complications on athletes - can't remember the exact cases off the top of my head, but several professional cyclists have died from strokes/PEs from the polycythaemia/hypercoagulability created by EPO use. When you watch the Tour though, it's risky, batshit stuff anyway - for example Fabio Casartelli in 1995. The moralising about doping being "just not fair" and unsporting is out of date. Just stop testing on the Tour and I'm sure we'd all enjoy it just as much. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiddy Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 Top descent, & win, for Pantano. The way he flew past the Moto & latched onto Maijka was just bonkers. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DiegoDiego Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 8 hours ago, milhouse said: I think the only convincing argument against doping is the adverse health complications on athletes - can't remember the exact cases off the top of my head, but several professional cyclists have died from strokes/PEs from the polycythaemia/hypercoagulability created by EPO use. When you watch the Tour though, it's risky, batshit stuff anyway - for example Fabio Casartelli in 1995. The worst for me is the string of Algerians who fathered children with birth defects after playing in the '82 World Cup. Who knows what shit they were given. I can't imagine what horrors would unfold if people were allowed to administer whatever they liked in the chase for sporting greatness. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarto Mutiny Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 1 hour ago, DiegoDiego said: The worst for me is the string of Algerians who fathered children with birth defects after playing in the '82 World Cup. Who knows what shit they were given. I can't imagine what horrors would unfold if people were allowed to administer whatever they liked in the chase for sporting greatness. Aye, that's the thing. If an athlete wants to destroy their own body, that's one thing. Morally, it's a grey area but I can see the argument of letting it be a free for all, even allowing for the fact that athletes are putting their own health at risk. People arguably should be free to make that choice (we're getting into major medical ethics territory here). However, as you have said, who knows what effect any pharmaceutical "help" could have on an athlete's children? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Nomad Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 The always questionable Valverde basically conceding the Tour is over saying that the Sky domestiques are climbing with such power that it's impossible to attack Froome. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DiegoDiego Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 17 minutes ago, Sarto Mutiny said: Aye, that's the thing. If an athlete wants to destroy their own body, that's one thing. Morally, it's a grey area but I can see the argument of letting it be a free for all, even allowing for the fact that athletes are putting their own health at risk. People arguably should be free to make that choice (we're getting into major medical ethics territory here). However, as you have said, who knows what effect any pharmaceutical "help" could have on an athlete's children? There's also the issue that the athletes very rarely know the full extent of what they're being given. They put their trust in the doctors and to an extent they have to, they're professional sportspeople, not professional scientists. There are plenty of unscrupulous doctors out there. At the moment, with doping banned you can gain big advantages by using fairly well known compounds like nandrolone, HGH, and so on. If it was a free for all, people would be reaching for untested medicines to try and out dope the competition. I'm not sure anyone really wants a world where sporting heroes end up in ICU on a regular basis. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peasy23 Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 I think most normal people would think that when you reach the point that you have to sleep with a heart monitor and a supply of Warfarin ready to inject then maybe you have gone a wee bit too far. As Armstrong said though in relation to what he took, he didn't even consider that he was cheating because everyone else was doing it too, that attitude still prevails with a lot of folk. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarto Mutiny Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 45 minutes ago, peasy23 said: I think most normal people would think that when you reach the point that you have to sleep with a heart monitor and a supply of Warfarin ready to inject then maybe you have gone a wee bit too far. As Armstrong said though in relation to what he took, he didn't even consider that he was cheating because everyone else was doing it too, that attitude still prevails with a lot of folk. The thing that bugs me about Armstrong is that he has been ostracised from the sport but many other known dopers have not been. I know he was the biggest fish, and behaved appallingly in general towards the peloton, but I do find it very hard to reconcile. Some known dopers are involved with teams in the here and now (Riis, Vinokourov) and others are now broadcasters (Millar, Jalabert, Kelly), so why should Armstrong be treated any differently? Because he was better at it? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peasy23 Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 The thing that bugs me about Armstrong is that he has been ostracised from the sport but many other known dopers have not been. I know he was the biggest fish, and behaved appallingly in general towards the peloton, but I do find it very hard to reconcile. Some known dopers are involved with teams in the here and now (Riis, Vinokourov) and others are now broadcasters (Millar, Jalabert, Kelly), so why should Armstrong be treated any differently? Because he was better at it? Definitely some double standards have been applied. E.g. Armstrong was stripped of all his Tour wins but Ullrich and others placings still stand, Ulrich was stripped of his results from 2005 when he was almost certainly doping for as long as Armstrong did. How they can expect people to believe that the sport has been cleaned up when the guys you named are still running teams defies all logic to me. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Compliment Sandwich Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 2 hours ago, Desert Nomad said: The always questionable Valverde basically conceding the Tour is over saying that the Sky domestiques are climbing with such power that it's impossible to attack Froome. You wonder where the other riders get the motivation to get out of bed once Froome goes into the yellow jersey. As soon as he's in it, the race is basically over for the other GC contenders for the reason Valverde has given. It just makes the overall race completely boring from about day 7 and, barring any injuries, Froome and Sky will just continue to dominate the race for years to come. If I was a rider I wouldn't bother attacking him out of protest to signify how boring they've made the mountain stages (that one freak day aside). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionel hutz Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 As much as I dislike Lance Armstrong, I still think his results in 2009 and 2010 should be reinstated. As he did not dope in either of those years and it would have been more than two years after his last doping offence. However, it does seem fair enough for the UCI and USADA to want to purge any trace of him from the history books. -2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peasy23 Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 As much as I dislike Lance Armstrong, I still think his results in 2009 and 2010 should be reinstated. As he did not dope in either of those years and it would have been more than two years after his last doping offence. However, it does seem fair enough for the UCI and USADA to want to purge any trace of him from the history books. I agree with the last part, but as mentioned why only him? Why does Armstrong have "no place in cycling" when other cheats are welcome? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionel hutz Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 Just now, peasy23 said: I agree with the last part, but as mentioned why only him? Why does Armstrong have "no place in cycling" when other cheats are welcome? As he was the face of cycling for over a decade. Cycling has always and will always be discriminatory. For example Froome and Porte were given Mollema's time up the Ventoux, if that happened to a Geriant Thomas or a Reichenbach then there wouldn't have been the controversy and the revised results wouldn't have been published. Also it was more the way Armstrong handled the accusations by destroying the careers of several cyclists, soigners and journalists; such as Greg LeMond and Christian Bassons. Ullrich, Millar, or Mayo never went about handling these accusations in a similar matter. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DiegoDiego Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 22 minutes ago, Marr1 said: his results in 2009 and 2010 should be reinstated. As he did not dope in either of those years Are you sure about that? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionel hutz Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 1 minute ago, DiegoDiego said: Are you sure about that? He claims he didn't and no one has challenged that AFAIK. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peasy23 Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 As he was the face of cycling for over a decade. Cycling has always and will always be discriminatory. For example Froome and Porte were given Mollema's time up the Ventoux, if that happened to a Geriant Thomas or a Reichenbach then there wouldn't have been the controversy and the revised results wouldn't have been published. Also it was more the way Armstrong handled the accusations by destroying the careers of several cyclists, soigners and journalists; such as Greg LeMond and Christian Bassons. Ullrich, Millar, or Mayo never went about handling these accusations in a similar matter. But it's worth remembering that he didn't bestow that status upon himself, the UCI and others were guilty of that. Yes, he absolutely treated others like shite, especially the likes of Emma O'Reilly and Betsy Andreu, but that doesn't make him any more of a cheat than Riis or Vinokourov, it just makes him an utter c**t. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Connolly Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 21 minutes ago, Marr1 said: He claims he didn't and no one has challenged that AFAIK. He's well known for his honesty when it comes to doping. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peasy23 Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 Brilliant finish today, belter of a climb just before the finish with Sagan edging out Kristoff by a bawhair on the line. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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