Vuelta stage 20. Corvera → Alto de El Angliru - 119km

Brian?

gordongekko wrote: »

But sure all team do this as well. But no other team had 6 lads out of the last 11 on the hardest mountain on the second last day of a grand tour. They are some doms to have.

The pay the best. They train the smartest. It's simple but not easy. They invest a huge amount and we're seeing the returns.

It's exceptional, not unbelievable.

Brian?

pelevin wrote: »

Landa rode the Giro in which he was very active. Riders who also rode it like Quintana & Pinot were clearly shattered in the Tour. Landa appeared by total contrast to have no fatigue issues at all, & if on a free rein could perhaps have won the race. Do you find that unbelievable in any way? After the Tour Landa still didn't need to stop and rode on winning another stage race afterwards.

I'm not saying that has to mean doping, but in terms of contrast, I'd say the obvious difference in feeling fatigue between the likes of Quintana and Landa was staggering. I'd struggle to think of anything more noteworthy in terms of being 'unbelievable' that I've seen in the last few years.

Also to add, Poels hasn't finished 10 minutes behind Froome. He's less than 7 minutes behind. And most of the other riders high up on gc didn't ride the Tour either.

The only rider to have exceptional rides in 2 tours this year is Froome.

I'm not going to drag this out too much. What Sky are doing is exceptional. What Riis and Armstrong did was unbelievable.

Unless they sign the next Froome, Sky dominance will be over soon enough. He's 32.

gordongekko

Brian? wrote: »

The pay the best. They train the smartest. It's simple but not easy. They invest a huge amount and we're seeing the returns.

It's exceptional, not unbelievable.

Sure nobody trains smart, nobody looks at what sky do and copies them, nobody leaves sky and passes the knowledge onto the new team

Daroxtar

Brian? wrote: »

The only rider to have exceptional rides in 2 tours this year is Froome.

I'm not going to drag this out too much. What Sky are doing is exceptional. What Riis and Armstrong did was unbelievable.

Unless they sign the next Froome, Sky dominance will be over soon enough. He's 32.

Really looking forward to next year, hopefully Landa has the backing of a good squad and delivers with Movistar. Likewise Dumoulin, I'd love to see him head to head with Froome. Lots of other young riders with potential getting stronger... Like you said, unless they sign up the next Froome they're not going to stay as dominant for much longer, though they might already have a replacement in Poels

pelevin

Brian? wrote: »

The only rider to have exceptional rides in 2 tours this year is Froome.

I'm not going to drag this out too much. What Sky are doing is exceptional. What Riis and Armstrong did was unbelievable.

Unless they sign the next Froome, Sky dominance will be over soon enough. He's 32.

If you just decide not to engage regarding Landa's exceptional performances, well don't pretend there's a serious looking at facts going on. Landa was exceptional without any doubt. And to add, there was a hell of alot more dodgy practices going on than Riis & Armstrong. You seem to only consider the most screamingly outrageous as worth bothering with.

Imo injecting corticosteroids into their star rider before grand tours is genuinely not ok behaviour. It's taking known doping products, and then we have the manager of the team who had gained a huge reputation as a kind of nerdy obsessive genius finding gains from the oddest little things like pillow cases . . . well this obsessive then claims to not have had any idea these substances which were banned without a TUE had a history of use in doping in cycling. Just totally laughable imo. Which is it - was he an obsessive or a little boy lost bizarrely ignorant of such things? His credibility is shot & is the manager of Sky.

Weepsie

Nibali has podiumed in 2. He hasn't got as good a team as Froome, or he has not got a team that is as disciplined as Sky and never seem have more than 2 people with him whereas Sky have nearly everyone with Froome. They're not interested in sprints, they're not interested in stages for the most part. It's GC or nothing

As above, Froome had Landa who looked at times he could have challenged himself in the Tour. He knew this and it's why he's off elsewhere.


I imagine Froome will be seriously consider trying for a Giro so as to have all three. He could be holding all three if the he likes the route next year.

StevieGriff

Brian? wrote: »

The only rider to have exceptional rides in 2 tours this year is Froome.

I'm not going to drag this out too much. What Sky are doing is exceptional. What Riis and Armstrong did was unbelievable.

Unless they sign the next Froome, Sky dominance will be over soon enough. He's 32.

They already have. Egan Bernal.

Brian?

pelevin wrote: »

If you just decide not to engage regarding Landa's exceptional performances, well don't pretend there's a serious looking at facts going on. Landa was exceptional without any doubt. And to add, there was a hell of alot more dodgy practices going on than Riis & Armstrong. You seem to only consider the most screamingly outrageous as worth bothering with.

Landa is was so exceptional he won neither Grand Tour he entered? Landa was equally impressive rising for Astana by the way, that's why I'm not really sure it's worth engaging on, but I will anyway.

Come on. He wasn't exceptional in the Giro. He was good in the Tour, but I don't believe for a minute he was stronger than Froome. That completely subjective though.

Brian?

gordongekko wrote: »

Sure nobody trains smart, nobody looks at what sky do and copies them, nobody leaves sky and passes the knowledge onto the new team

Take one part of my post and ignore the rest. Kudos.

Sky have the biggest budget. They invest more in riders, training and equipment than anyone.

not sane

That was the mantra from US Postal

not sane

And Cookson has gone fierce quiet. Not doing anything to allay the fears of doping.

pelevin

Brian? wrote: »

Landa is was so exceptional he won neither Grand Tour he entered? Landa was equally impressive rising for Astana by the way, that's why I'm not really sure it's worth engaging on, but I will anyway.

Come on. He wasn't exceptional in the Giro. He was good in the Tour, but I don't believe for a minute he was stronger than Froome. That completely subjective though.

He had to ride through the Giro in the aftermath of a nasty accident & gash so obviously he couldn't win from there having lost 30 minutes that day. He was relentlessly in the breaks and there at the end of most mountain stages, 3rd in stage 14, second in stage 16, 2nd in stage 18, won stage 19 - all stages very deep in the race & won the mountains classification by nearly double the total of the second placed rider. Clearly a very active race where you can't argue he took it easy.

It's where you compare how he then did in the Tour with riders like Quintana & Pinot who also rode the Giro that the contrast is huge. Pinot did nothing before eventually abandoning. Quintana had the odd good day but was obviously very fatigued finishing over 15 minutes down. Landa was totally consistent right through the Tour, showing by contrast no fatigue even though riding as a domestique rather than the freedom of being protected and finished 2 minutes down. There is noone remotely close to him in the standards of his performance who rode the Giro and the Tour. This is by definition 'exceptional'. He did not at all seem at a disadvantage in terms of fatigue to the cyclists riding the Tour fresh & at times Landa was clearly hampered by domestique duties where he could have been faster again in his overall time.

pelevin

Brian? wrote: »

Take one part of my post and ignore the rest. Kudos.

Sky have the biggest budget. They invest more in riders, training and equipment than anyone.

David Millar said the corticosteroid injections Sky injected Wiggins with before grand tours were the most powerful drugs he ever took in terms of effect on performance. Where does this fit into simply investing more in riders, training and equipment?

Darkglasses

elchupanebrey wrote: »

Did anyone elses stage replay on the Player seem to end about 1km from the finish. Bit s×××. The new player and app are brutal to be fair!!

Mine did the same. Dreadful service for the best of the Vuelta

Macy0161

MPFGLB wrote: »

I dont understand how SKY doms are all so good all the time

Moscon was one of the top up Angliru and that was after bossing the steep stuff in the 1st week
Puccio ...I mean he not even a climber ...was riding GC riders off the wheel
Nieve was better than Froome on some climbs
Poels was better than Froome on the hardest stuff like Angliru & Sierra Nevada
Rosa rode Angliru better than favourite climbers

It must be soul destroying for the rest
Some really good climbers/riders dropped by SKY Doms

They're not so good all the time - they generally rotate them. Poels has performed well on the Angliru before.

For me, who would be skeptical, the sky dominance is budget related. Stacked team, who they then manage well. The two that in the Tour and Vuelta that were there or thereabouts most days (Landa and Poels) would be GC men for other teams. This is now feeding into the race set up where they're using their budget to minimise the risk of anyone getting sick (can't remember the last sky rider to go home sick).

When the domestiques leave, they go to weaker teams where they're expected to either perform everyday (either as a GC leader or main domestique). Nieve to Orica for example - that vuelta team had 3 GC leaders, so down to 6 domestiques before you even get into the strength of those domestiques.

I kinda feel a bit dirty after defending Sky. I don't like Froome and have never really brought his transformation, and I am certainly skeptical of Sky as a team, but really haven't seen anything in the last grand tours that particularly raises my eyebrows any higher than they already were!

pelevin

I think watching pro-cycling involves for me anyway alot of awarding benefit of the doubt, & accepting doping was very much part of the environment of cycling up till lets say 2011ish - without obviously in any way imagining that all became clean then. If a cyclist dopes or continues to do so in that era on, then I want them fully out, & tobh if I learnt for sure big riders were doing wrong I'd prefer to quit watching.

I think Sky should be judged somewhat differently than others seeing as this is what they asked for in the first place. They set themselves up as cleaner than clean, & did not do this quietly but made a huge public issue of it themselves - very much including the popular notion of Brailsford as this obsessive, virtual nerdy genius I mentioned earlier. This was all done very publicly, not quietly, gaining in a sense maximum exposure - one of thei buzz words being Transparency - a transparent team that didn't keep medical records - it's beyond farcical. What the hell is the transparency supposed to mean so? I think Brailsford's reputation in terms of integrity as this mad genius, gains from pillow-cases, etc has been completely blown out of the water since teh Fancy Bears exposures, jiffy-bags, the farcical obviously sham responses Brailsford made to such things, including asking the journalist to bury the jiffy-bag story in exchange for stories about other teams.A transparent team that didn't keep medical records - it's beyond farcical. What the hell is the transparency supposed to mean so?

That's all fairly old-hat by now but one thing to point towards. Back in the day Brailsford explained why Sky wouldn't join the MPCC (Movement for Credible Cycling) that the MPCC's standards were lower than Sky's and would force Sky in effect to sign riders with doping pasts. This was total garbage but suich was Brailsford's reputation of integrity that in general he didn't get much flak about it. The corticosteroid injections Sky are known to have been injecting Wiggins with would not have been allowed under MPCC rules. Brailsford of course would have known this. According to David Millar, those substances he found to be the most powerful of anything he took caused the body to lose weight rapidly but not lose power, or perhaps even gain power. Obviously massive in terms of strong riders facing into going up mountains.

Now after all the sh..storm in the last year over Sky's revelations including the MPCC head saying now we know why Sky wouldn't join the MPCC, given Sky's huge emphasis on being clean, you'd imagine surely they would now eat a little humble pie, join the MPCC & improve their practises and public standing. So have they? No, still haven't. Why not? So now we have strong riders like Moscon seen as hard classics style riders unexpectedly in the lead group going up the Angliru. I don't see why Sky deserve any benefit of the doubt as to what goes on behind the scenes regarding such feats. Who knows but again they deserve no benefit of the doubt imo given what they made themselves out to be.

Brian?

I'm done defending Sky. It feels so wrong.

I'm just not a sceptical as some around here. It all seems believable.

Having said that, I wouldn't be upset if Froome's Tours were all taken off him in 10 years.

Brian?

pelevin wrote: »

David Millar said the corticosteroid injections Sky injected Wiggins with before grand tours were the most powerful drugs he ever took in terms of effect on performance. Where does this fit into simply investing more in riders, training and equipment?

Davis Millar would know better than most.

Macy0161

pelevin wrote: »

So now we have strong riders like Moscon seen as hard classics style riders unexpectedly in the lead group going up the Angliru. I don't see why Sky deserve any benefit of the doubt as to what goes on behind the scenes regarding such feats. Who knows but again they deserve no benefit of the doubt imo given what they made themselves out to be.

Again, getting sucked into defending them (albeit whilst totally accepting all your points about Brailsford, MPCC, transparency).... I'm skeptical of sky, just not seeing it in what people are pointing to at the moment!

But Moscon is only a second year pro, who went well in Roubaix. It's not like he was the next Tommeke for the last few years and then out of nowhere he's a GC contender (or getting thrown out of the Giro for holding on to a team car). It was his first grand tour. Both are breakout performances, and he's going to have to decide where he focuses from now on. He was 15 minutes down on Sierra Nevada, which was the most "Alpine" style stage rather than short and steep.

It's no more outlandish as Kwiatkowski being a classics rider who can also be a domestique, or Cancellara who did the same thing.

pelevin

Brian? wrote: »

Davis Millar would know better than most.

I think that's the point.

Are you actually trying to somehow belittle the whole issue on the basis that dopers who took such products aren't trustworthy, & when they say such drugs are very powerful they are lying.

It used to be when guys who doped denied the fact that they were disbelieved. Now an interesting variation is that when they say how powerful the drugs were, they are not believed either. "You're a liar! Those drugs you say you took didn't do anything!"

Actually just cos it came to mind & far from putting him forward as some beacon of truth but there was an amusing bit frmo a recent Floyd Landis interview:

"They [Sky] tried to claim that in the middle of all this, that just by coincidence some pharmacy mailed a bunch of testosterone to their headquarters, and that was purely an accident.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever just received a bunch of testosterone? Yeah, me neither. Well, not when I wasn't ordering it."

pelevin

Macy0161 wrote: »

Again, getting sucked into defending them (albeit whilst totally accepting all your points about Brailsford, MPCC, transparency).... I'm skeptical of sky, just not seeing it in what people are pointing to at the moment!

But Moscon is only a second year pro, who went well in Roubaix. It's not like he was the next Tommeke for the last few years and then out of nowhere he's a GC contender (or getting thrown out of the Giro for holding on to a team car). It was his first grand tour. Both are breakout performances, and he's going to have to decide where he focuses from now on. He was 15 minutes down on Sierra Nevada, which was the most "Alpine" style stage rather than short and steep.

It's no more outlandish as Kwiatkowski being a classics rider who can also be a domestique, or Cancellara who did the same thing.

But much of the point is that there is no reason to believe Sky. Their manager has shown himself to be not worthy of believing, so when we see a group whittled down to 12 or 14 or so riders ascending Angliru and 6 of them are Sky riders, how are people expected to respond.

Article in the Guardian today about Sky & the Vuelta:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/sep/11/chris-froome-mo-farah-united-success-disputed-legacy

Just to lift a snippet:
"... If the rap sheet was not damaging enough, Brailsford also tried to persuade the Daily Mail to bury the story because he feared it could mark “the end of Team Sky”, while the head of Ukad, Nicole Sapstead, told parliament that her investigators had met with “resistance” in their inquiries.

True, when it comes to Sky there is no smoking gun. But only the most blind-eyed patriot would deny there is a bonfire’s worth of smoke. No wonder their credibility was described as being “in tatters” by Damian Collins MP, the head of the culture, media and sport select committee, barely six months ago."

Lusk_Doyle

pelevin wrote: »

But only the most blind-eyed patriot would deny there is a bonfire’s worth of smoke.

Ah here, leave poor old Carlton out of it!

Macy0161

pelevin wrote: »

But much of the point is that there is no reason to believe Sky. Their manager has shown himself to be not worthy of believing, so when we see a group whittled down to 12 or 14 or so riders ascending Angliru and 6 of them are Sky riders, how are people expected to respond.

I don't "believe" in Sky. I'm just not seeing the dots to be joined in the performances being quoted! I don't think I'd heard Diego Rosa mentioned in commentary once until that stage - I think he was grupetto at least some (most?) of the mountain stages probably saving himself for Angliru.

They have questionable practices, but they've also a massive budget that leads to an exceptionally strong squad, who they know how to manage for the single goal of Grand Tours.

Having that many strong riders isn't even that exceptional - la vie claire had 4 of the top 10 (and jeff in 12) in 85, and that was when there was all out war between two of them, and Hampsten getting told to go for it by his DS!