Giro d'Italia
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https://twitter.com/LottoJumbo_road/status/1000105610489286662/video/1
George "expresses surprise" at Froome's performance!
A bit surprised Lotto posted this up!!
They've added a disclaimer on their website: Disclaimer to avoid any misinterpretation: this is not an insinuation, but a way to express the admiration for an exceptional achievement. Congratulations to Chris Froome and Team Sky.
They're going into Tui ads.
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They've also put a nice feature video on George up.
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I don't see why you would bother watching cycling if you think Froome doped last night. If Froome is doping, others must be too. If you are cheering on Bennett, what is the point if the leaders are doping? He will either have to dope to beat them or he will never beat them.
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@hydro11 It would be nice to think that it is getting cleaner and that everyone has shown significant weakness somewhere along the line in this race - and most have repeatedly - is a good sign IMO.
Froome - well, who knows for sure, but in my experience of watching cycling, when something seems too good to be true it's usually proven to be.
If Froome or anyone else doesn't like it they can go talk to Armstrong, Landis, Rasmussen (the guy I was trying to think of) and the hundreds of other drug cheats who have gone before.
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I don't think it necessarily implies doping. Pantani was able to ride days like that before he doped.
Froome is a whole class better than the guys he's riding against. Many would have put money on him being way ahead at this point.
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@chester-draws said in Giro d'Italia:
I don't think it necessarily implies doping. Pantani was able to ride days like that before he doped.
Froome is a whole class better than the guys he's riding against. Many would have put money on him being way ahead at this point.
Yeah, this. Dumoulin is not a natural climber. Yates is young. Pozovivo's previous best finish in a GT is 5th. Aru is probably the best competitor but he is off the pace. Nibali, Quintana and Porte all aren't here and one of them will probably beat Froome in the tour.
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@machpants said in Giro d'Italia:
Froome was amazing, I'm not a huge cycling follower, but how often does some one, written off, turn it around on one stage like that?
all the time. this needs to be put into perspective. Froome took one and a half minutes over two climbs today - that's happened frequently in this tour.. and not been questioned.. the other time he took on descents by taking crazy risks.
80kms out - so what? people who have an issue with it are making it sound like he was holding off the entire peloton. He wasn't at all. His team blew everyone out the back, he attacked.. then it was basically man against man as Dumoulin had fuck all help and none of hte other guys had teams to help him.
and at the end of the day he held off guys that he's got a proven track record of being a better cyclist than.
he crashed before the start, he always said he was looking to hit form in week 3. much has been said about him being able to hold of Dumoulin - but it wasn't a TT, and Tom showed during the Giro TT that he wasn't in top TT form - which of course makes sense cause he's trying to win a GT which involves LOTs of climbing.
no one questions Yates - who's just coming back from a an Asthma doping ban himself..
i'm not really a fan of Froome - but the hysteria around this is stoopid. oh and the other thing is that they had his wattage on the screen.. averaging 350 for that 80 clicks - that's nothing 'out there'.. (for comparison kiwi Aaron Gate did a race today and averaged 385 for 2 hrs)..
anyhoo looking forward to seeing how many matches he and Tom burnt yesterday - all the other climbers will need to go nuts - Sky won't really need to do too much..
funny thing is if Froome looks comfy today everyone will say yeh he's doping for sure..
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pinot just blew a gasket under zero pressure. great for Bennett! will move him up another spot based on the way pinot looks at the mo.
good example of what i was saying about what matches did guys burn yesterday -
I hope all those non-helping non-attacking motherfuckas from yesterday blow up today, especially the two who rode off Dumoulin all day.
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If Froome has an unfair advantage it is his team.
Without them he couldn't have blown all the other teams before he attacked yesterday.
Several times on other days they dragged him back when in trouble.
Dumoulin needed a team effort like that today, because he had no uphill sprint. He needed everyone exhausted by the time they reached the base of the climb. But he doesn't have a team of that calibre.
Bennett would be further ahead with a good team too.
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Final "competitive" stage last night and the only really big thing that happened was Thibault Pinot blew up on the second climb and eventually finished 45 minutes behind the winner.
There was a bit of fun up the final climb as Dumoulin attacked Froome (and vice-versa) and Carapaz attacked Lopez, but neither were successful and they eventually finished in a group sprint.
George finished half a minute behind these fireworks, closely marked by Konrad and Bilbao who were the two guys he had a realistic chance of overtaking in the standings. So he gained a place to get the eighth I thought he deserved - though I think he's had a better tour than Bilbao and Konrad, who've sort of snuck their way into their positions as others have faltered.
George's lieutenant Gesink finished second on the stage - he might well have won it if Yates hadn't blown up yesterday, because the Stage winner was Yates' key lieutenant, Nieve.
On Froome, Willie makes some reasonable points, but I think some counterpoints are that:
(i) This time last week, several times, Froome was struggling to hang onto the coat-tails of not just Dumoulin and Yates but the lead group. But yesterday he was able to blow everyone away, ride 80kms facing the breeze on the most brutal stage of the Tour and put substantial time into Dumoulin, who at least was getting some respite and help from Pinot and Reichenbach. Here's what George has to say about riding the 30kms across the flat - and he was getting plenty of help from Pozzovivo.
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(ii) Froome's already under a doping cloud.
As I said earlier, who really knows. They'll doubtless bottle Froome's piss and stick it in a freezer somewhere and, if he was doping, maybe in ten years they'll have a test to find it.
If he wasn't doping, he can put some dogshit in an envelope and post it to Lance Armstrong!
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@chris-b But part of that is because Froome knows that you win a three week tour in the third week.
Also you are wrong about a week ago. A week ago Froome won the major mountain stage handsomely.
You are thinking of the first week. Having had a couple of falls Froome was off the pace on the road stages then. Still did well in the time trial though. (He was likely overweight too, so he still had some energy left for week three).
Meanwhile Dumoulin is known to struggle with the final stages of a Grand Tour. This is not the first one he has lost in the last two days.
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They're the same excuses we saw when Armstrong was winning. The difference was he had a pedigree before becoming a world beater.
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@chester-draws Actually, I was thinking of Stages 11 and 15 both of which he struggled on.
I don't think Dumoulin has really faltered at all - last couple of days he's still been probably the second strongest rider or at least very close to it. Froome has ridden one extraordinary stage to snatch the title off him. Given that Froome is the subject of a yet to be resolved failed drugs, I don't think it's at all strange that many people's eyebrows are raised.
I guess the real question is - would you be absolutely stunned to find out a year or two from now that Froome had been doping?
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No, I wouldn't be stunned to find Froome was doping. Thing is, he already is. Just sort-of legally.
Then again, there are very few sports people I would be surprised by now.
I understand the Armstrong reference, but someone has to be the best. Froome currently is that person. He's only just winning, mind you -- not the way Armstrong won at all.
Before doping Eddie Merckx blitzed cycling in a way that Froome doesn't come close to achieving. The best cyclist is the best cyclist, and that is particularly apparent in the long tours, where bad patches can be fixed.
For the record, I was convinced Armstrong was a drugs cheat long, long before it became official. I was in France when the drugs thing blew up big time. I followed his evasions and tricks quite closely. I'm not at all one of those people that don't want to believe something bad.
I also watched Froome in the same way. His behaviour is very different. He cheats legally. He rides a lot of races where he is tested, for a start.
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@chester-draws We are probably not too far away in our views then - there's many people I'd be disappointed in, but few that I'd be surprised about and - unfortunately - especially in cycling.
Since Froome is the best cyclist, he has a target pinned on his back and at least he seems realistic enough that it's something that comes with the territory.
On Eddy Merckx - have a listen to this interview of his NZ contemporary Tino Tabak. He starts talking about rampant drug taking (amphetamines) in pro-cycling the early 1970s around 8.30 - unfortunately Kim Hill somewhat derails the discussion by interrupting - but eventually he gets the story out. Again at 24.40 he's talking about "injecting himself"...or not!
There's a recent biography of Tino (the basis for this interview) I've been meaning to get for a while.
