cibai

Seemed to be alot of tension btwn Al and Phil this morning. Al basically accused contador of cheating on air. Suddenly Al is a doping expert.

Devil

I think Al was the most honest out of any of them, aside from Phil's comment about how riders go to the mountains alone to "prepare" (he used the quotation marks hand signs) with EPO, altitude training, doctors etc. and then ten days later you can't detect it. I was surprised he said that.

tmqgiant

It's not like he just figured it out. I think they are all acting like politicians jumping on the popular bandwagon without even thinking about it. I for one still think Vino and Rassmussen are great champions regardless. jmo.

maddyfish

Contador is a cheat. He should be thrown out. If the team and the race organizers won't do it, then the peloton should push him out.

Laggard

Paul made the best point about Rass. No one doubted that he was a great climber, but his much much better than typical time-trial was a bit suspicious.

Same thing with Landis. He follows a truly awful day with one of the great rides of that years tour. In fact he rode much much better than anyone had ever seen him do before. I don't want to make it sound like all riders who put in great performances are doping, but one needs to look at their previous performances when trying to judge whether something illegal is occuring.

maddyfish

"but one needs to look at their previous performances when trying to judge whether something illegal is occuring"

So what about Contador's duel with Chicken a couple days ago? Contador sure couldn't back it up yesterday.

Ant

Why is Contador a cheat?

Voodoo76

Hasn't that been the crux of LeMond's argument?, one that he has taken a lot of greif for on this board? That guys who couldn't even carry his water bottles in the past were suddenly laying hurt on the peleton? That something changed in Pro Cycling?

alanbikehouston

I'm glad you have proof of this. I hope you will forward your evidence to the appropriate authorities as soon as possible. Of course, you DO have proof? You wouldn't just be making this up?

JungleCat

Al seemed to be asking tough questions but I didn't notice any direct tension between him and Phil. What was it Al said specifically that labelled Contador a cheat?

oldsprinter

Just adding this as food for thought:

Copied from Wiki...

Alberto Contador Velasco (born 6 December 1982) is a professional road bicycle racer for UCI ProTeam Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team. While he competes for the overall titles, he is considered a climbing specialist.
An early career highlight is his Stage 5 victory in the 2005 Tour Down Under, his first win after overcoming a massive blood clot in his brain, for which he underwent a risky surgery and a long, painful road to recovery to get back on his bike. The blood clot was discovered after he crashed and went into convulsions during the first stage of the 2004 Vuelta a Asturias. He suffered headaches for several days before the first stage. While it is impossible to difinitively say what caused the blood clot, steroid and especially EPO use are known to cause such clots. Such doping agents are common among professional cyclists.
Following the demise of the Manolo Saiz run Liberty Seguros-Würth team, Contador was without a professional contract until mid-January 2007, when he signed with Discovery Channel under a cloud of suspicion over the Operacion Puerto doping scandal.

Ant

Hmmm.

oldsprinter

tmggiant, people like you make cheating seem OK. Rasmussen and Vino cannot be judged. We cannot tell if they are good bike riders or not because we have not seen 'them' ride.

Laggard

Yep. The TDF really changed in the 90s. It got so huge and involved so much potential sponsor money that the pressure to perform well became huge. That combined with the ever increasing average speed of the tour lead to a lot of riders willing to do anything to be part of it. Things got out of hand. Oh yeah, the average speed of the winner in 1975 was 34 kmh. In 2005 it was 41.

GV27

Basically, yeah. LeMond was at the forefront of scientific training methods in the late '80s - I don't mean doping but rather heart rate monitoring, power output monitoring, etc. He says that in '91 he KNEW - scientifically - that he was in the best shape of his life but all of a sudden he was having trouble staying in the peloton's draft. He blames doping simply because he and his doctors were unable to find anything wrong with him.

Now with Contador the suspicions come from several things. He's looked like Superman every day for the past 2.5 weeks, he's set to become one of the youngest TdF champs ever and he's kinda come from nowhere this season. Yeah, he'd shown himself to be a talented young guy in the past but all of a sudden he's dominant.

C

maddyfish

Read Ant and Oldsprinters stuff

adam

Must be really tough for Phil and co. to get excited about stages, stage winners, grand performances, etc. thinking that one of them might get done for doping tomorrow.

SpeedNut

Would you really dope again if the last time (possibly) almosed freakin KILLED YOU, PUT YOU IN A COMA, and now you have a titanium plate in your head, which according to sources on National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, when you use the microwave, make you piss your pants and forget who you are for a half hour or so? I would put Contador and David Millar in the same boat at this point, except I think Contador's lesson learned was probably (and unfortunately) more appropriate.

VanceMac

Obviously due to carbon fiber seat posts.

Blaireau

JungleCat

LOL! I thought it was Clif Bars but I stand corrected.

erader

why would that make a difference?

would you dope after almost losing your life to cancer and having a testicle removed?

man the naivete surrounding atheletes and doping is staggering !

ed rader

Blaireau

+ 1

Understatement of the decade.

Laggard

You're all wrong. It was titanium chain ring bolts.

BigGuyNH

Nope.. It's the Carbon Fiber Water Bottle cages