Tour de France 2007

just my 2 pennies wrote:

You wanna know my opinion it is that most of that Astana team is very dirty, with Vino leading the way.

Well, it is the old Liberty Seguros team and they were certainly dirty.

But we can keep going. I pick Discovery Channel as the dirtiest team in the race. They have a long history of very suspicious behavior, not least when they hired Basso after he got fired by CSC.

And who's this Contador guy anyway? He came out of nowhere. He's a climber AND a good TTer. Much more suspicious than Rasmussen.

not this again wrote:

just my 2 pennies wrote:

You wanna know my opinion it is that most of that Astana team is very dirty, with Vino leading the way.

Well, it is the old Liberty Seguros team and they were certainly dirty.

But we can keep going. I pick Discovery Channel as the dirtiest team in the race. They have a long history of very suspicious behavior, not least when they hired Basso after he got fired by CSC.

And who's this Contador guy anyway? He came out of nowhere. He's a climber AND a good TTer. Much more suspicious than Rasmussen.

please! contador did NOT come outta nowhere. I and others already predicted here that he'd be team leader and have levi working for him after this TT. he's well regarded as an all-arounder for the last 2 years. bear in mind, though, as i said earlier this TT was not going to be really selective because of the hilly parcours. rasmussen will lose MUCH more than 3 minutes in stage 19's.

'Not this again', you are right on all points.

I think some people simply hate the guy.

just my 2 pennies wrote:

You wanna know my opinion it is that most of that Astana team is very dirty, with Vino leading the way.

And this is based on...?

Who cares. No one is clean. Only the ones who get caught are dirty. Go Razzy!!!!!!!!!!!

Alan

Futhermore:

Which is more exciting:

a) 73 home runs in a year

b) 40 home runs in a year

a) 2:05 marathon

b) 2:09 marathon

a) 300lb linemen running across the field taking out a running back

b) 300lb linemen jogging across the field missing a running back.

I'm guessing all A's?

Alan

This thread went quiet. Are we all slinking away from our bad predictions? I know I'd like to, but I'll just make more in the future.

Anyway, today's stage narrowed down the field of potential winners to top 5: Ras, Contador, Evans, Levi and Kloeden. Sastre and Kashechkin are too far back to claim the top spot, though they may still podium. Levi and Kloeden need Ras and Contador to crack and lose at least 2-3 minutes tomorrow or Wednesday or they have no chance to recover their losses in the time trial. Evans can still win in the time trial if he cedes no more time in the mtns.

I still think it'll be Evans, Kloeden, Contador for the final podium. The chicken will crack tomorrow. Contador wins again!

Ras looked real strong today, but he put in a huge effort and covered all the moves basically alone without any teammates on the last climb. It will be tough to do that over and over over the next few stages... it will be interesting. Contador is a climbing house, he is so strong and fluid on the pedals. Levi is still hanging in there and really recovered nicely today off of Sastre's hard pace, still a threat for the podium. One more bad day for kloden and evans and it may be lights out for them for the yellow... tomorrow is huge!

background.

Contador before Discovery was with Liberty Seguros which is now the Astana Team which you said is oh so dirty. But now obviously he's with Discovery which one could argue is even dirtier.

Here's the deal people. Watch it, learn from it, enjoy it for what its worth. But make no mistake these teams are dirty...from the first to last. Armstrong, yes the greatest TdF rider ever (notice i didn't say the best ever...that distinction belong to Merckx...Eddie Merckx. Anyway, its a fantastic sport but one that is riddled with corruption and scandal. i hope one day it can be clean but in the meantime i will try and enjoy it...this year has been fun to watch.

OH, and Millar's skin allergy...to the sun....ummm, no. You get a sensitivity to the sun with certain medications; for instance some people on certain antibiotics can become photosensitve...now, i don't pretend to know what Millar is taking but its making him photosensitive...he's not "allergic to the sun"....sorry Mr. Liggett...i hope he just misunderstood what Millar said.

Obviously you've never heard of psoriasis. The only effective ointments against that contain steroids.

One could argue that Discovery is dirtier than Astana/Liberty Seguros/ONCE, but one could be easily proven wrong when presented with a few simple facts. For instance, Discovery/US Postal has NEVER had a doping positive. You can forget about the supposed 6 positives from 1999. That 'testing' has been thorough and comprehensively discredited. Astana/LS/ONCE has had many doping positives (Heras, Ribiero, Nozal) and their team manager was caught red-handed in the initial Puerto sting. People think Discovery is dirty because they hear it over and over and over again from the french press. You would be hard pressed to find any team in the last 20 years that has managed to steer clear of doping scandals. Yet, because they win, they're dirty.

Merckx was a great rider, but comparing him to people competing today isn't fair. "Merckx raced a lot more and won a lot more races than Armstrong" they all say in unison. Pity they never continue that thought and recognize that Merckx's competition raced just as much if not more than he did! Also, many of his less successful competitors actually had regular jobs because cycling paid even worse back then. Back then the Tour was not so much more important than all other races. Riders didn't focus their entire season on doing well in that race. If you want to win the Tour today (by far the most important race in the world), you don't disadvantage yourself competing in every race during the season. Merckx was always the team leader and the team always worked for the sole aim of Eddy winning. Armstrong was less imperious preferring to work for his teammates in races he wasn't focussed on. Merckx raced against Belgians, Dutch, Italian, French, WEST German and Spanish cyclinst. Today's peloton comes from a much broader talent pool. To win today, you not only need to beat the old cycling countries, but Russians, the old Soviet block nations, Americans, Canadians, Columbians, Scandanavians, etc. There are a lot more good riders today. The doping drugs of today are also much more effective than in Merckx's era. Cycling is so vastly different today than 35 years ago that deciding who's the best ever is nearly pointless.

I can see Levi getting third, tops. The thing about him that I've just been realizing is that he does not seem to have that extra gear to take it to the next level needed to win the Tour

not this again wrote:

And who's this Contador guy anyway? He came out of nowhere. He's a climber AND a good TTer. Much more suspicious than Rasmussen.

If you knew cycling you'd know that Contador has most certainly not come out of nowhere. He has been one of the brightest youngsters in the sport for the last 2-3 years and his emergence is no surprise to me.

As much as I have wanted to see Rasmussen win, the doping story from 2002 (?) seems very credible, and also casts doubt on Rasmussen's claim that his recent failures to keep the Danish federation informed of his whereabouts and his recent failures to respond to international federation inquiries were mere "administrative" slip-ups.

Contador has been impressive throughout the Tour, and is said to be a great guy. But honestly, it's become increasingly difficult to believe that any of these guys are clean.

Long before exogenous EPO became all the rage, I thought of the Tour de France as a tremendously dirty event, but the Festina bust and subsequent crackdowns gave me some hope that it might get cleaned up.

By the way, does anyone here know why urine (or blood) samples of winners from past years are not routinely retained and tested again when there are significant advances in testing? I remember when Frank Shorter asked that rather obvious question to sports authorities some years ago, and -- as far as I'm aware -- was never given a good answer. The possibility of being disgraced and stripped of championships, prize money, and reputation years after the fact would seem to be a pretty strong deterrent to doping and masking.

Yes, bad predictions. I've made some too. Discovery Channel are certainly proving me wrong.

You have summed up the tour situation perfectly. If the time trial took place now, Evans would be on about a level playing field with Contador and Rasmussen. Today's stage is the key. Being a second straight tough day in the Pyranees, I think it's more likely that Contador and/or Rasmussen could crack as opposed to Wednesday's final mountain stage which comes after a rest day. Evans and Kloden must perform much better today and probably need to take some time off one of the two leaders. I still can't see Levi winning it but he has been consistent. I will go for Valverdje to win today's stage. He will be given some freedom and he is due for a good day.

As far as Ras goes...everyone in cycling is dirty. Accept it and move on. The average sports fan only cares about what he is told. He isn't told about the countless NFL players on roids so he doesn't care.

Ras only has to survive today and tommorrow and not eat shit in the final TT. There are five ranked climbs in today's stage in order: cat 2, cat 2, cat 1, HC, cat 1,the most of any stage this year. Tommorrow's stage then begins with an HC climb, cat 3, cat 1, cat 1 and the final ascent to the finish.

If you're satisfied with the fact that US Postal/Discovery never had a positive sample, then get off Rasmussen's case. He's never had a positive sample either.

Some guy tells a story about trafficking drugs for Rasmussen in 2002. So? How many stories have there been about Armstrong like that?

You can't have it both ways. You can't make excuses for Armstrong and then jump on the dirty-Rasmussen bandwagon.

Eurosport just mentioned in their commentary that the French Customs team searched the Rabobank/Discovery/CSC/Astana team buses.

the ONLY REASON the Discovery team did not get caught, is excatly that...they did not get caught. Everybody cheats in cycling - everybody!

This includes Lance.