lizardman84

hello.any of you have you seen the race today?the clims at tour of doufhine?For you is possible that froome detach contador uphill?for me froome does not ride clean!and i have dubt on all team sky.what you think?bye

Zinger

I haven't seen it but it's possible that Contador is having to ride clean and he is said to be beset with allergies. The EPO tests are better lately. My guess is that it's less a factor.

dstrong 

Froome's out-of-the-saddle sprint in the last kilometer was pretty remarkable...but he's shown all season that he's in fantastic form and has been almost as dominant as Wiggins was last season. He also has a great partner in Porte. It would be quite a feat for SKY to place 1/2 again and the TdF.

Are they clean??? I don't know...I'd like to think that era is gone but based on the positive tests at the Giro, it's obviously still with us.

chasm54

Who knows? One could look at it the other way, of course, and ask whether Contador, unjuiced, is as good as we thought...

dahoss2002

might not be AC but I think one of the spaniards if not several are gonna school Froome in the TDF.

Caretaker

I saw the last few kms. of the stage.

It was obvious from the TT that AC wasn't on form. Doesn't look good for his performance in the TdF.

Froome will be favourite but if he looses Porte for any reason his chances will nosedive.

whitemax

Don't be so sure. Probably just a training race for Contador and he's not showing his true form just yet. Myself, I'm liking Purito. Wouldn't count Valverde out either.

kimconyc

Contador focuses on the TdF. The Dauphine is a warmup race to gauge fitness/form/etc. Also, Contador is suffering from allergies right now--in one month, everything can be different.

Michael Rogers from Saxobank can possibly podium in the Dauphine and he is not the GC, Contador is, so don't read too much into this one race.

This still does not diminish the talent of Chris Froome.

Should be an interesting TdF this year.

Caretaker

I believe AC's performace in this year's Dauphine is a true reflection of his form at the present time.

That's not to say he won't improve between now and the start of the Tour and into the early stages but to be this far behind three weeks before the race isn't a good omen for him.

I'm going to stick my neck out and predict 5th place for AC in this year's Tour.

Keith99

Froome has not yet shown that he can deal with the problems of being the favorite in the TDF.

Not to say he cannot, but it is as yet unproved.

Look at Ullrich. His only win was when he started the Tour as a support rider. And his closest second was when he had a substandard team and had 'no chance'.

chasm54

Agreed. I was unimpressed by his performance when leading the sky team in last year's Vuelta, the tactics seemed naive and played into Rodriguez' hands. Of course, that is the fault of the management as much as the team leader, but it remains to be seen whether he can keep it together for the whole three weeks.

Caretaker

Well Sky got 1st & 2nd last year with a self-confessed non-leader, Wiggins.

Froome is going to rely heavily on his team mates and keeping them fit and on form will be the key. I've no doubt he is capable of winning but whether he does is another matter.

B. Carfree

Wouldn't that be about the lowest AC has ever finished in a grand tour? And this year he's not coming off the Giro.

diphthong

anything's possible but contador (and cuddles) has the most experience of all the realistic gc contenders. that plus his team/support should be
improved. froome's looking über-strong the last year but contador will be super-motivated for the tdf having missed it last year. when push comes to shove,
contador is still a champion-multiple times over whereas froome is not. i'll still take contador over froome during a 3 week tour until froome proves otherwise
seeing as how alberto has consistently excelled in the mtns and tt'ing the last 5-6 years.

diphthong

in regards to purito...he is the only rider-imho-that can currently (and consistently) beat contador in the mtns. if the gt's were 2-2.5 weeks...he'd be the guy.
unfortunately for purito, they are 3 weeks.

sprince

Completely agree, just like last year's Vuelta. The other problem for Purito is the lack of steep mountain top finishes in the Tour. Froome probably peaked too early, I look for him to start running out of gas in week three of the Tour. In fact I don't know why anyone would realistically think that Contador is not the favorite to win.

sprince

I'm not buying any of it. Contador is a serial sandbagger, it's the same game he plays almost every year.

cthenn

Froome made this Dauphine look way too easy. I don't know...hard not to be skeptical. Maybe I'm missing it, but there are many more similarities between Sky and Postal then there are not, but no one seems to be talking about it. They got engines that can drive the peloton all day long, and then a cadre of about 5 climbers who could very well be top 10 as leaders in their own right.

Giacomo 1 

Froome and Sky was so dominant in the Dauphine that it was hard not to think you were watching last years TDF. They didn't miss a beat switching out Wiggins for Froome. They are just clinical. They looked like they were out for a team practice ride, no fuss, no stress, nobody left behind. Incredible. I cannot see anybody beating Froome with that team behind him, and honestly, if the climbers we watched in the Dauphine, who for the most part were AWOL, ride like this in the TDF, it's over...

txags92

What makes me suspicious is seeing guys like Froome and Porte ride so well in a relatively flat time trial, and then just ride away from everybody else, including the climbing specialists at the end of the mountain stages. It is one thing to be able to outclimb the other GC contenders and do well in the TT...it is another thing to do very well in the TT and then outclimb the specialized climbers. I don't have anything solid to base an accusation on; I just have years of watching guys who appear "too good" end up getting popped for doping. Sad that this is what it has come to...

chasm54

I don't know whether Sky are riding clean or not. If they aren't, and they are caught, the repurcussions in the UK will be colossal because Sky and British Cycling have become so intertwined, and both have invested a massive amount in proclaiming their anti-doping credentials.

But the fact that Froome and Porte can both climb and TT isn't much evidence, really. Froome is a specialist climber and an ex-mountainbiker. Top mountainbikers are often decent time-triallists, a lot of pro mtb races are similar to extended TTs. And Porte is a specialist TT man who climbs like a TT man - high-tempo, steady effort, no real explosiveness, very much following the Wiggins example. As for other specialist climbers who can TT, I might mention Contador, but...

So, I try to keep an open mind. Sky have a very big budget, it is easy for them to attract the top talent. And I agree, it's a pity that experience has taught us to be so sceptical.

Keith99

I'd really like to know how bad the allergy issues were for Contador.

The only thing I'm sure of is that the treatment was beyond conservative. No chances taken on using something available to all of us that might give a bad test result.

That is something we tend to forget. The standard treatments for allergies or a minor bug may not be available to these guys.

Zinger

True that. The US Cycling Federation used to let guys with allergies have a pass on positives for certain things with note of permission from the powers that be. I don't think the UCI would probably do that. It is said that some of those things interfere with the test for other substances (as if a masking agent).

vvup

I was too busy to watch the racing this week, but I did see him cross the line on the TT, and the saturday mountain finish. Both times he theatrically wiped his nose, knowing that the last 10 meters would be filmed, photographed and used for edits and new articles across the media. He made sure everyone knew he had a cold, but how much did it affect him?

txags92

I am sure he could have gotten a therapeutic use exemption if there was something that would have made him noticeably better. My wife has bad spring allergies, and even with good prescription meds, they can only do so much. They do significantly affect breathing, so I don't doubt that Contador may have truly been suffering badly from them. If he was suffering, I am not surprised at the time he lost. I was more surprised to see the Sky duo just jump up and ride away from a pack of other climbers at the end. They left the group like the rest were standing still. Very impressive...reminiscent of Contador leaving Lance behind at the top of the climb early in the tour when they were both riding for Astana.