Not doping anymore
Pro Cycling 2020 **Giro d'Italia 2020 **
- Thread starter RedFish
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Don't buy that for a second. Or that "Jumbo Visma is just a better organized and more innovative team than the others right now." This just reminds me of Hincapie leading the US Postal train up the mountains, or 170lb Indurain climbing.
Don't really want an argument because it's clear we both love the sport, but it's hard for me to suspend belief on these perfomances.
You don't buy what for a second? That Van Aert didn't maintain that effort during the full ascent? That's exactly what happened. I've never even said anything about Jumbo being a well organized team, I have absolutely no insight into their operation.
K.
Shame Kwiato is the only Ineos rider on form right now.
Had high hopes for Sivakov and expected more of Carapaz.
Even so, not crying foul, Jumbo-Visma are riding like the old Sky teams, pure domination at the front of the peloton. Kudos to them.
Hope Pogacar can upset the odds thougjh.
Had high hopes for Sivakov and expected more of Carapaz.
Even so, not crying foul, Jumbo-Visma are riding like the old Sky teams, pure domination at the front of the peloton. Kudos to them.
Hope Pogacar can upset the odds thougjh.
Except van Aert, which riders are actually exceeding expectations here?
Yesterday wasn't anything special for me, it just looked bigger than it was because especially Bernal absolutely cracked. 7 minutes is a lot, but Jan Hirt came in only 4 minutes down.
Most of the big favorites followed fine until that attack at the end which left 25 seconds between the first 11. Bernal cracked, Quintana cracked and Martin (he has been struggling for days and had to do a huge effort because of his mechanical). Mas hasn't been very strong, he made it just fine. Yates, few problems. 40 year old man Valverde.
Agreed.JV just look to have cracked it in terms of rider prep. This has been in the making for a year or two....although no one could have predicted Bernal’s relative decline in form... obv he wasn’t right at the Dauphine.....
I think not having Thomas was a mistake, easy in hindsight....
No positive tests yesterday, all continues as planned. Good news, it's a small miracle that we're seemingly gonna be able to finish the Tour imo.
Have to laugh at the Jumbo-Visma accusations though. If you're that negative and cynical about the sport, then I have a hard time believing you actually enjoy the stages.
Have to laugh at the Jumbo-Visma accusations though. If you're that negative and cynical about the sport, then I have a hard time believing you actually enjoy the stages.
Not sure what Jumbo-Visma really did that was weird anyway. Van Aert is having a great season, so you can expect him to be able to power up a mountain in the earlier parts for a bit. Dumoulin was supposed to be a contender, so no surprise he can do a great job in the latter stages of the climb. If Bernal would not have lost this much time, I don't think people would be asking questions of Jumbo-Visma now. And so I think Bernal is more interesting in this context. Obviously not in a doping context (duh), but I'd just be curious why he underperformed by this much on the day - similar to when Dumoulin basically threw in the towel a week earlier. Wrong pre-season, poor form, bad day?
There was talk on the restday yesterday that he's actually overtrained. If I'm not mistaken he wasn't allowed to go out for a ride in Colombia until early May and then regularly did 300+ rides with an insane amount of elevation, might be that those weren't exactly the way to go for him. It's been a strange season for everyone, and not every rider copes with that equally, I guess.
Yeah, everybody has their usual training and pre-season routines, and will have had to improvise. No surprise if that didn't work out for everyone, I guess.
Remco Evenepoel had the same idea on Vive le Vélo on Sunday (which you might have seen). He said of the professional riders who are on Strava, Bernal had by far the most training kilometers and suspected he was simply overtrained. Perhaps in normal seasons all GC contenders are actually slightly overtrained.
That's actually where I had it from - had a day off work yesterday so got the days mixed up
Just read that Bernal won't start today. I guess that was coming.
From what I've read, he's not injured or anything; they just don't see the point in him continuing. They think it's better if he quit and can quietly prepare for the fall.
Slightly weird timing, should have gone home before the rest day in that case. I was certain he was eyeing up the breakaway stage win today after finishing with the sprinters yesterday.
Maybe they were still hoping after the first time it was a one-off, but realized after yesterday's stage that it wasn't?
Wow.
Said he was feeling his back and and suddenly also his knee during that stage.
Honestly, even though the gap isn't big, the battle for the yellow jersey feels like a big bore with Jumbo Visma showing Ineos-like control and very little happening until the very end of the some of the mountain stages. Like a 21-day procession.
Yeah, would have been nice for the competition if Bernal had been good and there would have been a Jumbo-Ineos battle; or if other contenders would attack a bit more often.
He did quit the dauphine for that reason. He'll be back, ahem.
Kwia deserves this.
You think Pogacar can attack Roglic in the time trial? This would be his last chance to grab yellow?
Is it a team trial or individual?
Is it a team trial or individual?
Individual. Pogacar actually beat him by a few seconds in the Slovenia national championship a couple of months ago, but Roglic is one of the best in the world in TT so he should gain more time on Saturday. I certainly don't see Pogacar gaining a minute.
Thanks Amir.
I just saw stage 19 and they mentioned that it’s individual TT tomorrow and the fact that Roglic has beaten Pogacar in the TT before.
Btw, great 2nd stage win for Soren K A.
Isn’t it unusual to have a rider like Pogacar still in with a chance to win 2 more jerseys; polka dot, yellow? He already has white (pretty much) locked up.
Barring a major fcuk up or disaster, Irish eyes look to be smiling again on Sunday in Paris with Bennett wearing green.
The 1st time since the great Sean Kelly, who was the one in recent memory that got a lot of Irish folk interested in cycling.
Nico Roche’s dad, Stephen Roche, won the TDF once but it was Sean Kelly’s geeen jersey dominance that was the mainstay that excited modern Irish fans. And Bennett came from Sean Kelly’s cycling club, Carrick Wheelers. Hope I’m not jinxing it
I just saw stage 19 and they mentioned that it’s individual TT tomorrow and the fact that Roglic has beaten Pogacar in the TT before.
Btw, great 2nd stage win for Soren K A.
Isn’t it unusual to have a rider like Pogacar still in with a chance to win 2 more jerseys; polka dot, yellow? He already has white (pretty much) locked up.
Barring a major fcuk up or disaster, Irish eyes look to be smiling again on Sunday in Paris with Bennett wearing green.
The 1st time since the great Sean Kelly, who was the one in recent memory that got a lot of Irish folk interested in cycling.
Nico Roche’s dad, Stephen Roche, won the TDF once but it was Sean Kelly’s geeen jersey dominance that was the mainstay that excited modern Irish fans. And Bennett came from Sean Kelly’s cycling club, Carrick Wheelers. Hope I’m not jinxing it
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It is a remarkable achievement for the cycling community in Carrick-on-Suir to have (potentially) two Maillot Vert winners to come through their ranks. (Has that ever happened before, incidentally? For a small town with a population of ~7,000 have two jersey winners in any of the Grand Tours?)Barring a major fcuk up or disaster, Irish eyes look to be smiling again on Sunday in Paris with Bennett wearing green.
The 1st time since the great Sean Kelly, who was the one in recent memory that got a lot of Irish folk interested in cycling.
Nico Roche’s dad, Stephen Roche, won the TDF once but it was Sean Kelly’s geeen jersey dominance that was the mainstay that excited modern Irish fans. And Bennett came from Sean Kelly’s cycling club, Carrick Wheelers. Hope I’m not jinxing it
I recall Bennett as a pre-teen tearing up the local forestry mountain-biking league before progressing to road-racing over the next few years. He was always spoken of as having terrific potential but many would still be surprised at his achievements on the world stage. Grand Tour contenders (albeit in Sam’s case, a specific discipline) always seem to be other-worldly athletes and you never think there’s potentially one in your midst when you see them developing as youngsters.
It’ll be a monumental achievement for him and his family on a personal level (his dad played professional football in Belgium so sporting prowess is in his genes) and please God he gets through the next two days unscathed. I just hope what we are witnessing is credible and we are not being duped like we were with previous riders. The sport needs its credibility back and the riders and teams have huge responsibility in that regard.
As a 30 + year fan I love the sport but find it hard to believe anything. Not one era in my years as a fan has been clean, and they’re even faster now. WPKG is higher than even the Lance era. Even giving the benefit of the doubt and taking it all in you have to think there’s something. Also there's so little testing this year with COVID.
Van Aert is the most glaring example. People get offended when it's pointed out that a guy weighing 80 kilos shouldn't climb the mountain passes faster than Pantani! People who know about biking know that this is not normal. Someone like Wout Van Aert who is a puncher, a sprinter shouldn't be able to also ride like that over cols and blow all the climbers out of the way. Not even Chris Froome was as extraordinary!
With hindsight, I know that when a team dominates a race so much, there's something behind it. I no longer care too much about PEDs but really want to know the motor dopers, how often they do it, the technology etc.
I definitely agree with general suspicion, both in cycling and basically everywhere else. There is no athlete in the world I'd be surprised by if they tested positive. I just don't see something very suspicious about TJV as a team to suspect them more than other teams. No other teams are really trying to do what they're doing this year, they're going all in for yellow in a way no one except Sky is but they're just weak, so it's not surprising to me that they're in control. They don't have competition. I guess you could make a case for Movistar, but they'll never control anything because they're Movistar.
What van Aert is doing is quite incredible, and absolutely not normal, and that of course often literally means that it's not credible.
Roglic is cracking today
Insanity. Will it hold?
This is a spectacular blow up!
Porte gets up to third. Looking really close for the first place right now
This is done. Kinell.
Can't help but wonder what the hell Pogacar is on.
Pogacar my goodness.
31 years after LeMond and Fignon. Unvelievable.
This will go down as one of the biggest moments in cycling history. Just absolutely crazy what unfolded today. Gotta feel for Roglic but he’s beaten fair and square today. Heartbreaking to see though.
Pogacar though, fecking hell. Battles between him and Evenepoel will be awesome the next decade.
This will go down as one of the biggest moments in cycling history. Just absolutely crazy what unfolded today. Gotta feel for Roglic but he’s beaten fair and square today. Heartbreaking to see though.
Pogacar though, fecking hell. Battles between him and Evenepoel will be awesome the next decade.
Pogacar’s glow will be seen from the International Space Station tonight, I bet! His performance today makes Froome and Wiggins seem somewhat believable.
First guy since Merckx to win Yellow, Polka and White jerseys in the same Tour.
(The White jersey wasn’t a thing in Merckx’s first win, apparently, even though he’d have qualified for it, but he took Green as well to make up for it. Talk about complete dominance.)
First guy since Merckx to win Yellow, Polka and White jerseys in the same Tour.
(The White jersey wasn’t a thing in Merckx’s first win, apparently, even though he’d have qualified for it, but he took Green as well to make up for it. Talk about complete dominance.)
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