I have a question to those with a bit more detailed knowledge on the mechanics and the inner dynamics of the cycling business: Do you think that the very peak in terms of technology and strategies etc. is already reached? Because I thought a lot about the whole Sky-coming-from-average-to-beating-the-shit-out-of-the-rest-thing and I came up with two possibilities that would explain that.
1st is the obvious possibility that the team's medical department developed/discovered a new super drug that the rest doesn't know. Is that possible? I guess. You can't really deny the Leinders-argument. How long would it take for the rest of the business to discover that drug as well and catch up?
2nd would be that the Sky team actually developed new (legal) training methods that can bring the cyclists to new heights. That is what my original question was aiming at. Because I was thinking that for instance in football, which is probably at least equally professionalized, just when you think that everything has been done, someone comes up with new strategies and new training methods and lifts his team to another level. I know that the comparison is flawed because in football, you can reach much more with tactics etc. and in cycling it's more about pure power, but what I was thinking is that especially the cooperation with experts from other sport disciplins can actually inspire trainers/managers/whatevers and give them an advantage over the rest.
The thing is that I don't have the detailed knowledge about cycling to see if my thoughts have any realistic base. So if someone more experienced could maybe tell me that, I'd be thankful.
cunego59 wrote:
1st is the obvious possibility that the team's medical department developed/discovered a new super drug that the rest doesn't know. Is that possible? I guess. You can't really deny the Leinders-argument. How long would it take for the rest of the business to discover that drug as well and catch up?
No. A team could have access to a new drug before the others, for whatever reason, but develop one one their own? No way.
cunego59 wrote:
2nd would be that the Sky team actually developed new (legal) training methods that can bring the cyclists to new heights. That is what my original question was aiming at. Because I was thinking that for instance in football, which is probably at least equally professionalized, just when you think that everything has been done, someone comes up with new strategies and new training methods and lifts his team to another level. I know that the comparison is flawed because in football, you can reach much more with tactics etc. and in cycling it's more about pure power, but what I was thinking is that especially the cooperation with experts from other sport disciplins can actually inspire trainers/managers/whatevers and give them an advantage over the rest.
Possible? Yes. But how likely is it that a team found a training technique that gives them such an advantage over the opposition, specially with riders which aren't exactly proven top material? And even more, apparently that technique just* works with the TDF core team. No sudden improvement for Urán. No sudden improvement for Flecha. No sudden improvement for Löfkvist. Just the Tenerife gang. Kinda remembers those American postmen, and their A team.
* There's Nordhaug as a possible exception, and that's possibly the guy who puzzles me up the most. No idea what to think about him.
cunego59 wrote:
1st is the obvious possibility that the team's medical department developed/discovered a new super drug that the rest doesn't know. Is that possible? I guess. You can't really deny the Leinders-argument. How long would it take for the rest of the business to discover that drug as well and catch up?
No. A team could have access to a new drug before the others, for whatever reason, but develop one one their own? No way.
Alright, develop was probably not the right word Discover then.
kumazan wrote:
cunego59 wrote:
2nd would be that the Sky team actually developed new (legal) training methods that can bring the cyclists to new heights. That is what my original question was aiming at. Because I was thinking that for instance in football, which is probably at least equally professionalized, just when you think that everything has been done, someone comes up with new strategies and new training methods and lifts his team to another level. I know that the comparison is flawed because in football, you can reach much more with tactics etc. and in cycling it's more about pure power, but what I was thinking is that especially the cooperation with experts from other sport disciplins can actually inspire trainers/managers/whatevers and give them an advantage over the rest.
Possible? Yes. But how likely is it that a team found a training technique that gives them such an advantage over the opposition, specially with riders which aren't exactly proven top material? And even more, apparently that technique just* works with the TDF core team. No sudden improvement for Urán. No sudden improvement for Flecha. No sudden improvement for Löfkvist. Just the Tenerife gang. Kinda remembers those American postmen, and their A team.
* There's Nordhaug as a possible exception, and that's possibly the guy who puzzles me up the most. No idea what to think about him.
That makes sense. They'd probably apply that genious training method on all of their riders...
So in general, you guys think that the possibilities in terms of training and preparation are more or less exhausted?
What I can say is, that the team spirit and the full domination so far in this season is pretty unique in the near past of cycling. (when we leave out the discovery channel team were other circumstances provocated the full domination....) I think the mental part is much more higher to rate than the training and equipment. And there the team sky is one of the leading teams in sport and most of all in cycling. Wiggins seems to work like a robot and his focus is incredible. Other teams loose their focus and energy with discussions about wrong nominations and faked injuries like RNT. So thats one of the reasons why the sky team dominates this tour in a scary way
Here is my view and it will be like this for a while : The very top of the elite cycling is obviousli doped, no question about that. And like i have previous stated, it is fairly okay by me, as long as everybody has the same circumstances to be doped equally then the strongest contender and with most talent will win.
The thing is, the year Michael Rasmussen was kicked out of TDF, him and AC drove over 2.30 minutes faster over one of the final climbs, than Armstrong EVER DID!
So for each year the peloton is driving faster and faster, and becoming more and more clean ? That statement and fact is very self-contradicting when it comes to an extreme sport like our beloved cycling.
But yes wiggins contenders have had weak competition in most of his Victories, and in this TDF most of the contenders have crashed etc. And we miss AC + AS.
Its like winning the Ballon d'or when Messi and Ronaldo was injured the whole season. Let him win his once in a life time tour, and then he will hopefully stfu.
When AC and AS is back, Wiggins wont even be on the podium, i doubt he finishes on the podium in TDF 2013.
I do think they are doped, but thats not the vital point. I think its a combination of weak competition + bad luck to a lot of the contenders this year, which is why sky look SO dominant. Next year is a whole other story.
They are doped with the usual stuff. Froome is the most impressing and frigthening ryder. Point is, if these riders today, who claims to be clean, are riding faster than Team US Postal did, then everyone who believes them is naive dumb ignorant and completely foolish. Whole USP team has admitted doping expect for the Patrone himself. So ofc everybody was doped, but todays generation are riding faster, so NO they are not clean at all.
Conclusion; Sky looks so dominant because of different factors and circumstances, but next year it wont be that way.
I do hope wiggins cracks one day in the mountains though. It would be so much more awesome if one of the 5 next contenders won.
One thing that can't be understimated is the difference between World Tour Teams. Not cycling, but I'll draw a parallel with football. For a few years my next door neighbour was a player for an English Premier League team, as well as playing for his country. During his time as my neighbour he switched to another club. He said how it took him 3 months to get up to the level of fitness required at his new club and that until then he was seriously struggling. In other words it is an easy mistake to think that everyone at the top level is as professional. The fact is that they aren't.
swsquires wrote:
One thing that can't be understimated is the difference between World Tour Teams. Not cycling, but I'll draw a parallel with football. For a few years my next door neighbour was a player for an English Premier League team, as well as playing for his country. During his time as my neighbour he switched to another club. He said how it took him 3 months to get up to the level of fitness required at his new club and that until then he was seriously struggling. In other words it is an easy mistake to think that everyone at the top level is as professional. The fact is that they aren't.
Yeah, the fitness in football has a lot to do with the fitness in cycling.
CLURPR wrote:
If I'm not mistaken he won the Paris-Nice, Dauphine and Romandie all in the time trials. In Paris-Nice, he lost time to Westra on Stage 5 and then only beat him in the final time trial by 2 seconds. Also his only real competitor outside Westra who was in good shape was Valverde, who had terrible time trials and didn't attack Wiggins when he should have.
In the Dauphine, he didn't gain much time in the prologue, lost time to Evans in Stage 1, but then raped him in the Stage 4 time trial which Evans admits he wasn't in good shape and also possibly wasn't going full gas as he did manage to pull away from Wiggins at the end of the stage, on Stage 6 Quintana was allowed to pull away and Evans even managed to gain 8 seconds on Wiggins here and on the final stage Wiggins again lost time to Evans and a lead group of 9.
In Romandie, Wiggins didn't have a great prologue, but he managed to win Stage 1 by the weird sprint that occurred, LLS took the jersey from him on Stage 4 after winning the previous 2 stages, but again Wiggins won the Romandie on the final time trial where he put a good amount of time into LLS to take the jersey. But still if you look at the GC there wasn't any real contenders who really did anything in the way of attacking Wiggins, heck even Andrew Talansky came 2nd overall!
So bringing these races into the argument does nothing Isso, Wiggins won these races on the time trials within them and couple that with the factor that his GC rivals never really attacked him that much or there weren't many GC rivals who could challenge him as he was in better shape than most. He never won a mountain stage, apart from Stage 8 on P-N, and lost time on quite a few of them but won it back in the time trials where he is strong.
In other words, he won the time trials and so had no reason to attack in the mountains, so didn't. Even Alberto Contador wasn't this dominant.
And no, he didn't lose time "in quite a few of them". He lost 6 seconds combined in all uphills.
The preceding post is ISSO 9001 certified
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
Cunego: I don't believe training techniques will ever stop improving. We know so little about how the human body works.
On a related note, somebody found a wonderful quote from Wiggins himself back in 2007 in the middle of the scandal with Dr. Leinders and Michael Rasmussen.
The part I think is relevant here is when he says teams with such doctors should not only not be invited for the Tour, but shouldn't even be issued a racing license by the UCI.
Of course, that was before his amazing transformation, back when he was actually outspoken about doping and sang a completely different tune from what he does now.
After that, I noticed Jonathan Vaughters, who has been defending Wiggins, when pressed on Sky having Leinders as a team doctor, had said he didn't know who Leinders is.
So I sent him a few tweets explaining who Leinders is and also that Wiggins quote from 2007.
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
Well, Urán has been a part of 3 very suspicious teams before, Siutsou the same thing, plus was one of the several current Sky riders listed as "overwhelming evidence of doping" in the UCI's list of blood passport riders.
Yes, I know he wasn't part of Sky then, as most of those riders weren't, but to me that's even worse: It shows Sky specifically signed a bunch of suspicious guys.
Lastly, Siutsou was one of the guys re-tested after the 2008 test when a new, more advanced, test for CERA was introduced. Him (and a 2nd Columbia rider, Kirchen) along with a few riders from other teams was re-tested due to the results of their original testing showing very strong indications of CERA use that was just barely short of positive.
In the re-testing the results were again inconclusive so he wasn't charged, as most weren't. The only ones positive in the re-testing were Piepoli, Kohl and Schumacher
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"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
issoisso wrote:
Well, Urán has been a part of 3 very suspicious teams before, Siutsou the same thing, plus was one of the several current Sky riders listed as "overwhelming evidence of doping" in the UCI's list of blood passport riders.
Yes, I know he wasn't part of Sky then, as most of those riders weren't, but to me that's even worse: It shows Sky specifically signed a bunch of suspicious guys.
Lastly, Siutsou was one of the guys re-tested after the 2008 test when a new, more advanced, test for CERA was introduced. Him (and a 2nd Columbia rider, Kirchen) along with a few riders from other teams was re-tested due to the results of their original testing showing very strong indications of CERA use that was just barely short of positive.
In the re-testing the results were again inconclusive so he wasn't charged, as most weren't. The only ones positive in the re-testing were Piepoli, Kohl and Schumacher
Going from memory, the guys were in neat little pairs, two from each team. There were also 2 AG2R guys (Valjavec and V.Efimkin) and two others I can't remember, sorry. I do remember that whoever they were, they were teammates.
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"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
issoisso wrote:
Going from memory, the guys were in neat little pairs, two from each team. There were also 2 AG2R guys (Valjavec and V.Efimkin) and two others I can't remember, sorry. I do remember that whoever they were, they were teammates.
Oh, right, CSC. We never got the names of the CSC guys. Their team was
Arvesen
Cancellara
Gustov
O'Grady
Sastre
A. Schleck
F. Schleck
Sörensen
Voigt
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"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
issoisso wrote:
Well, Urán has been a part of 3 very suspicious teams before.
Yes, I know he wasn't part of Sky then, as most of those riders weren't, but to me that's even worse: It shows Sky specifically signed a bunch of suspicious guys.
So are you saying signing someone from Caisse d'Epargne mean doping ?
Hell, half of Movistar is on juice then...
Edited by Alakagom on 10-07-2012 18:09
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
CLURPR wrote:
If I'm not mistaken he won the Paris-Nice, Dauphine and Romandie all in the time trials. In Paris-Nice, he lost time to Westra on Stage 5 and then only beat him in the final time trial by 2 seconds. Also his only real competitor outside Westra who was in good shape was Valverde, who had terrible time trials and didn't attack Wiggins when he should have.
In the Dauphine, he didn't gain much time in the prologue, lost time to Evans in Stage 1, but then raped him in the Stage 4 time trial which Evans admits he wasn't in good shape and also possibly wasn't going full gas as he did manage to pull away from Wiggins at the end of the stage, on Stage 6 Quintana was allowed to pull away and Evans even managed to gain 8 seconds on Wiggins here and on the final stage Wiggins again lost time to Evans and a lead group of 9.
In Romandie, Wiggins didn't have a great prologue, but he managed to win Stage 1 by the weird sprint that occurred, LLS took the jersey from him on Stage 4 after winning the previous 2 stages, but again Wiggins won the Romandie on the final time trial where he put a good amount of time into LLS to take the jersey. But still if you look at the GC there wasn't any real contenders who really did anything in the way of attacking Wiggins, heck even Andrew Talansky came 2nd overall!
So bringing these races into the argument does nothing Isso, Wiggins won these races on the time trials within them and couple that with the factor that his GC rivals never really attacked him that much or there weren't many GC rivals who could challenge him as he was in better shape than most. He never won a mountain stage, apart from Stage 8 on P-N, and lost time on quite a few of them but won it back in the time trials where he is strong.
In other words, he won the time trials and so had no reason to attack in the mountains, so didn't. Even Alberto Contador wasn't this dominant.
And no, he didn't lose time "in quite a few of them". He lost 6 seconds combined in all uphills.
Paris-Nice Stage 5: Lost 6 seconds on nearest competitors
Dauphine Stage 1: Lost 4 seconds on Evans
Dauphine Stage 6: Lost 8 seconds on Evans
Dauphine Stage 7: Lost 10 seconds on Evans and elite group of 9
He didn't lose any time in Romandie apart from bonus seconds.
Overall that's not 6 seconds combined 28 seconds combined
My mistake, it's 6 seconds uphill, not 10.
The rest of my point stands.
But even if he had lost 28 seconds combined, are you seriously arguing that he wasn't in dominant form because he lost 28 seconds over the season?? Especially a guy is a climber least of anything!
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"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
The 8 seconds at the 6th stage of Dauphine were downhill, as well as the 10 seconds of the 7th stage were lost due to celebration and being ahead by 1'30 or so. He could easily follow that group from my oint of view.
Edited by Riis123 on 10-07-2012 19:05
Discover then.
