L'Equipe analyses Froome's climbing data, finds it 'normal' and 'consistent'

stumps wrote:

Decster,

1: Leinders was hired by Sky on a freelance basis after the death of Gonzalez during the 2010 Vuelta and the accusations did not come to light until after this.

So you swallowed that! Why would they need a guy who specialises in doping riders as a doctor, especially after saying they would not hire any Doctors from cycling. That they didn't know about Leinders past is pure lies from Sky. Rasmussen and Rabo were off the TdF when Leinders was their doctor. Pro cycling is a very small community, not hard to find out someones past.

stumps wrote:

2: Wiggins does not like Kimmage - simples !

So. Why did Brailsford not put his foot down and say it is for the good of transparency, the good of the team and the good of the sport?

stumps wrote:

3: They gave the data to the L'Equippe to analyse after L'Equippe approached them NOT the other way round. They cant be held responsible for who then discusses it can they ?

Again an unlikely story. That Brailsford, the so called master of attention to detail, although he never bothered to check Leinder's past, wouldn't enquire to who they wished to analyse the data? Again what is with Sky, they are either attention to details freaks or they are liars.

stumps wrote:

4: You obviously assume that EVERYONE is still doping but Sky have a "super dope" which no other team has and which they only give to their team leader. Correct ?

I have not seen anything to make me believe the sport has changed since Armstrong stopped. The same people control the sport then and now.Blood tests are down. UCI control the results of tests. McQuaid tried to hide Contador's positive till a German reporter was leaked the information. When did McQuaid become the the head of a sport that suddenly clean up its act so natural talented riders can beat dopers?

stumps wrote:

5: Your next 2 points contradict themselves with the previous one. Make your mind up ARE the other teams doping or not ??

The sport is full of contradiction, deceit, dopers and cheaters and i wish someone would come and clean it up. I wish Sky were doing this naturally but I just dont see how that is possible with what we know about the people who run the sport, the other teams and their histories.

stumps wrote:

6: Its called training, commitment and natural ability.

And only Sky can do it and only riders on Sky can do it? USPS said the same thing, Lance was on his bike 6 hours a day, what are you on? No doubt Sky are on their bikes for 7.

stumps wrote:

(for instance - i was a decent rugby player who played on a saturday but very rarely trained. Our club got a new coach and i was employed by the Police. Both gave me added confidence and a training regime resulting in me playing rugby at county level.)

Is there where i put in my personal ancedote?

stumps wrote:

Finally where do you get the idea that to train harder you need to dope. FFS this getting bloody repetitive with you without you giving any proof whatsoever about the multitude of allegations your throwing about.

Who needs proof in a sport that has not changed since Hein Verbruggen wa running it like his personal fiefdom. Unless you can prove it has changed.

We know the sport was dirty all the way up to the UCI. Now when did it change? Armstrong came back in 2009, McQuaid welcomed him back with open arms and so did Wiggins. ASO aswell were happy to see Armsrong, they even got rid of Patrice Clerc for Lance. So where did McQuaid clean up the sport? McQuaid has taken over Hein's place at the head of the table.

Here endeth the lesson Monsieur Stumps.

Decster wrote:

Who needs proof in a sport that has not changed since Hein Verbruggen was running it like his personal fiefdom. Unless you can prove it has changed.

So you want proof Sky AREN'T doping. Proof of a negative; sounds a lot like someone asking an atheist to proof God doesn't exist. I would love to tell you exactly why Kimmage would not be welcome but I am not sure you actually care anymore about the debate and just want to propagate you viewpoint. IF there is any proof, people will come down on Sky like a Vogon Constructor Fleet.

Decster wrote:

Here endeth the lesson Monsieur Stumps.

However firmly you believe what you say it isn't fact and pomposity won't make it true. If you are right, one day we may all be sorry, but for now I hope you choke when Froome steps up onto that podium tomorrow.

bikeboy76 wrote:

Decster wrote:

Who needs proof in a sport that has not changed since Hein Verbruggen was running it like his personal fiefdom. Unless you can prove it has changed.

So you want proof Sky AREN'T doping. Proof of a negative; sounds a lot like someone asking an atheist to proof God doesn't exist. I would love to tell you exactly why Kimmage would not be welcome but I am not sure you actually care anymore about the debate and just want to propagate you viewpoint. IF there is any proof, people will come down on Sky like a Vogon Constructor Fleet.

Decster wrote:

Here endeth the lesson Monsieur Stumps.

However firmly you believe what you say it isn't fact and pomposity won't make it true. If you are right, one day we may all be sorry, but for now I hope you choke when Froome steps up onto that podium tomorrow.

These arguments were repeated ad nauseum by Armstrong's fans.

I wont choke, as i wont be watching the most boring stage of the race.

The history of the sport will no doubt prove me right, I hope i am wrong. Who did Froome beat, Movistar whose star rider was a client of Fuentes, Contador and Purito if Katusha who were refused a World Tour licence due to allegeded doping issues and who have had 2 riders test positive for EPO never mind those running the team.

So Froome beat the dopers and all on bread and water? Pomposity is to beleive that

The only hope I see is if the blood in Quintana's veins flows true and honest but even then I have doubts.

Ciaran Patrick wrote:

Considering his performance day in and day out - its freakish. There is no way he's clean. Its not believable.

So the whole of the GC challengers are not clean ? They have also been consistent day in day out.

Also what about nearly blowing up on Alpe d'Huez! or being distanced in the earlier flat stage by Saxo. Not the sign of a man high on some super drug.

Veronique wrote:

If Froome is such a supremely naturally gifted athlete as we are led to believe then why didn't he show any signs of this before working with Leinders at Sky?

You'd expect him to be off doing a Quintana long long ago.

Ingenious to get Fred Grappe to analyse the figures - he's the right man for the job and knows which way his bread is buttered.

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/results/2001/feb01/feb09news.shtml

This has been covered time and again. To even get your name put forward for a pro team you have to be a brilliant rider. Its then down to your commitment, training environment, coaches and coaching programme to get the best out of you.

There will probably be a considerable amount of pro riders, who, given the chances Froome has had, would be a far better rider and possibly GT rider.

Age has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

doc wrote:

Earlier someone commented that Heamatocrit level was set at 50 by the UCI "because no-one has a level beyond that". Yes they do, and several riders had to prove by testing tat their natural levels were in the 51-54 range. The 50 "health limit" was there because there was no relaiable EPO test at the time. NOw there is.
By the way, at a recent blood test my own level averaged 47 - quite high, you might think, for someone who won't see 50 again. But entirely natural.
The point being that any single piece of data can be used to "prove" anything you want, which is how some trolls seem to operate. I'll stick with proper contextural analysis by proper scientists, thanks, not the ramblings of those who know little and analyse to their own satisfaction, then spread their rubbish via the internet.

You are indeed correct DOC.
As a 'scientist' I have to analyse trends of semiconductor manufacturing tools on a daily basis. UP/DOWN to production decisions are very important (due to the astronomical cost/repercussions involved)...and that data 'interpretation' can be (subjective).....let's say marginal....however, if one chose to manipulate the data into representing ones desire it is so easily done.
Even those familiar with DOE (design of experiments) analysis can confirm that you can make data show whatever you want. That's why most will often redo the experiment to see if the data/experiment is repeatable.. that is all Sky have to do here... let someone else see the data...and I am in favour of that.

Do I think Froome has/is doping?
Personally - NO, I don't.
He has come into his form...and by all accounts has worked damn hard to do it.
Let the skeptics rant, if in another 5- 10 years it has been proven otherwise, then I can guarantee that he is/was not the only one....from this newer 'dope free' era....it just means that everyone has become more sophisticated at masking the 'added 10%' va va voom...

@paul j

your forgetting one detail, why do working class people make good footballers, middle class rugby players etc.

Opportunity,

I am not commenting on doping in athletics, which i believe is rife, more that if you want to improve your life you look at those around you and follow others. Jamacia has a history of athletics, it is inevitable others will see this and believe they can do it as well.

Look at the boom in road and track cycling in the UK currently, there has been success, people see this, people try and emulate it. The more participants, the more chance of finding the best.

As for doping in this years tour, i look at Movistar and wonder.

@mrmo: Are you saying runners in the US, France, UK, the rest of the Caribbean do not have opportunities to become runners? That's just rubbish. Even if there were a degree of truth to that, and even if, say, only 1/4 of those with West African genes outside of Jamaica got into sprinting, then those non-Jamaican sprinters would still out-number the Jamaicans by several orders of magnitude.

While it's more than possible for any country to come up with *the* best sprinter, it's just statistically highly, *highly* improbable that such a small country would produce *so many* top sprinters, and concentrated over the last decade or so (just when anti-doping in the countries with the largest numbers of west african sprinter genes got tough on doping, after their own scandals - funny that).

There's doubt, and there's several standard deviations... (I havn't worked out exactly how many though, wouldn't be surprised if it's between 3 and 5 ).

Why do people still get so beat up about who is or isnt doping. All professional sport has lost credibility for cheating or one sort or another and will continue to do so with so much fame and fortune up for grabs. It is what it is. Treat it as fiction and if you are entertained by what you are watching then job done.

Decster wrote:

Dave, you are on the side of Sky as you make money from their success indirectly.

Would you bite the hand the feeds you?

This a cycling site, not a journalistic one so i dont expect you to be balanced. Also based in UK with its horrendous libel laws you have to be careful.

So we can all accept Grappe is a credible analyst, the guy who got it so wrong on Armstrong?

I am a massive fan of the sport of cycling. I have watched since the early 80's. I reckon i can be a decent judge of what I am seeing on a bike on a mountain. If others dont, grand.

Froome is not clean imo.

I will leave Road.cc to its sky love fest. That people have not learned from the past is a human trait, so i am not surprised in a UK website now refusing to see one of its own doping.

May the road rise with y'all.

i'm not really on the side of anyone, but if there's going to be a debate, which is inevitable, then i'd prefer it was an informed debate rather than just people shouting numbers at each other.

i asked you before what you think sky can do to prove they're clean, and you didn't offer any ideas. the reason for this is fairly clear: there's nothing that they could say that would convince you. it must be great to be so sure of yourself, just like the fanboys are, but most of us occupy some part of the middle ground. personally i'd like them to be clean. i'm not sure that they are, and i'm not sure that they're not.

i've been watching cycling for a long time too. that doesn't make me an expert in physiology, or nutritional science, or team psychology, or anything else. get over yourself.

i've heard plenty of people saying that "it's just like with armstrong" and that "people have not learned from the past"; those people seem to be conveniently forgetting many aspects of what the past was like in order to make it suit their agenda. it's easy to say in restrospect that when Grappe wrote what he did in 2001 that everyone thought that Armstrong was doping, but they didn't. Maybe he's learned from that mistake and is more cautious these days. maybe he's not. again, there is doubt. there will always be doubt.

if the past has told us anything with certainty it's that we can't know in the now what's really going on in the now. so clearly the safest position is the one you take: everyone's doping. you'll be right on some, wrong on others. but it doesn't really help the debate, and it doesn't help us to think of ways to make the sport more transparent. I'd suggest that Sky are at least trying to do that. People asked them to release Froome's data for independent analysis, and they did. but it was the 'wrong' independent analysis.

so, again: what do sky, or any other team for that matter, need to do? what's the thing they should be doing for utmost transparency? what are your ideas? all i see from you is dogmatic toeing of the line, same as the fanboys.

Dave Atkinson wrote:

Decster wrote:

Dave, you are on the side of Sky as you make money from their success indirectly.

Would you bite the hand the feeds you?

This a cycling site, not a journalistic one so i dont expect you to be balanced. Also based in UK with its horrendous libel laws you have to be careful.

So we can all accept Grappe is a credible analyst, the guy who got it so wrong on Armstrong?

I am a massive fan of the sport of cycling. I have watched since the early 80's. I reckon i can be a decent judge of what I am seeing on a bike on a mountain. If others dont, grand.

Froome is not clean imo.

I will leave Road.cc to its sky love fest. That people have not learned from the past is a human trait, so i am not surprised in a UK website now refusing to see one of its own doping.

May the road rise with y'all.

i'm not really on the side of anyone, but if there's going to be a debate, which is inevitable, then i'd prefer it was an informed debate rather than just people shouting numbers at each other.

i asked you before what you think sky can do to prove they're clean, and you didn't offer any ideas. the reason for this is fairly clear: there's nothing that they could say that would convince you. it must be great to be so sure of yourself, just like the fanboys are, but most of us occupy some part of the middle ground. personally i'd like them to be clean. i'm not sure that they are, and i'm not sure that they're not.

i've been watching cycling for a long time too. that doesn't make me an expert in physiology, or nutritional science, or team psychology, or anything else. get over yourself.

i've heard plenty of people saying that "it's just like with armstrong" and that "people have not learned from the past"; those people seem to be conveniently forgetting many aspects of what the past was like in order to make it suit their agenda. it's easy to say in restrospect that when Grappe wrote what he did in 2001 that everyone thought that Armstrong was doping, but they didn't. Maybe he's learned from that mistake and is more cautious these days. maybe he's not. again, there is doubt. there will always be doubt.

if the past has told us anything with certainty it's that we can't know in the now what's really going on in the now. so clearly the safest position is the one you take: everyone's doping. you'll be right on some, wrong on others. but it doesn't really help the debate, and it doesn't help us to think of ways to make the sport more transparent. I'd suggest that Sky are at least trying to do that. People asked them to release Froome's data for independent analysis, and they did. but it was the 'wrong' independent analysis.

so, again: what do sky, or any other team for that matter, need to do? what's the thing they should be doing for utmost transparency? what are your ideas? all i see from you is dogmatic toeing of the line, same as the fanboys.

How about the fully explain how they came to hire a doping doctor?

Why dont they explain fully why Wiggins didn't want Kimmage on the bus during the 2010 TdF?

Why did they only release Froome's data since La Vuelta'11, what is the difference before the meteoric rise?

Why did they draw up a 'tome' of anti dopoing and transparency for their team and then ignore it?

Why did they ask Grappe to view Froome's data? Why not someone who didn't make a huge faux pas in calling Armstrong clean?

What did they present to the ASO before last years TdF?

How come they can beat the dopers and doping teams when blood testing is down, UCI is unchanged and UCI is still in charge of anti doping?

Where and when did the dopers give up the doping so that Sky can beat them?

Where and when did the doping teams get rid of their doping doctors so Sky can beat them?

What did they do to Froome to make him climb better than anyone and be the best TT at the TdF?

So many questions, that if Sky started answering honestly and not with weak excuses, like hiring Leinders was an oversight yet this team tells everyone they pay more attention to the small details than anyoe else, I might start not questioning the amazing performances of ex Grupetto riders like Wiggins and Froome.

If they were so intent on studying the details they would've known Grappee would be the wrong guy to analyse as he made the mistake in 2001, so why not get someone who was above questioning, why not all the data since Froome joined Sky. Too many questions are left unanswered by Sky and when they say they are answering these questions they go and do something that creates more questions and therein the doubts.

Too many answers coming out of Sky are too similar to USPS. Sky train harder than anyone else! How do they know? In order to train harder requires doping!

So I take the history of the sport, which is black with a few white spots and look at what is happening now with what has changed, very little, and I think what Ullrich said "if you can't add 1 + 1 then I can't help you", sadly still applies.

Dave Atkinson wrote:

Alpe d'Huez isn't a laboratory and the tour de france isn't a controlled experiment, so comparing two performances five years apart doesn't tell us much. variables include training regime and racing schedule leading up to the stage, miles ridden in the season, position of the climb in the race, length and difficulty of the stage, position of the rider in the race, role of the rider in the race, team orders during the stage, weather, whether the rider was having a good day or a bad one, etc, etc, etc.

Grappe certainly doesn't say Froome is clean. but at least he's being useful in the debate, decster. you should try it. just saying 'difference between two numbers equals doping' doesn't really help anyone.

I agree that you can't compare a performance from one year to the next where the position of the rider has changed (i.e. domestique to GC rider). The way you ride the mountain changes massively. But the change from anonymous domestique in a team with no discernable GC rider to GC rider is quite a leap.

In the wake of the Armstrong scandal we are seeing that there is no political will to catch dopers to save the sport from further issues. It also appears that the anti-doping groups are still lagging behind the dopers (if we think that Frank Schleck's positive was a one off, and that it is full story, it is not. He just got hit for a masking agent, so the full depth of how he was doping and what he was doping on remains a mystery). As a result I do not foresee any scandals coming out if this tour as a result. So I guess we can all just get on and enjoy the competition.

Of course the dead bodies may rise up from the lake sometime in the future.