Re: 2013 Cycling Thread
I think you guys are a bit tough on the Sky boys. Froome is at least an attacking rider. Froome looks rediculously skinny and extremely awkward at times. He won't last long term at this weight.
Just like Lance, I don't believe he is racing with an advantage over his top rivals. However I'm sure since he has the most to gain, he might be able to take the most risks with his program.
However unlike Lance and Wiggins, he doesn't appear to be butthead when interviewed.
If I'm the rest of the guys I fight like hell for second, one never knows when they will be named champion.
I do admit that some of my picking on Froome is simply good-natured fun, and I also admit that he does seem like a pretty good guy. Couple of things, though:
-Lance was not riding with an even playing field. In his 1999 win he was one of the few who was all charged up as the peloton was surprisingly clean relative to 1998 thanks to the Festina affair. The recently released EPO test results from (I think) 2004 testing on back-dated 1998 and 1999 samples verifies this. I know the French authorities will be releasing the names of those positive in 1998 once the Tour concludes. Lance also had access to by far the best doping doctor in Michele Ferrari, and ultimately was paying him significant sums so as to remain the only GC contending client that Ferrari worked with in full capacity. Every one of Lance's potentially serious contenders managed to test positive (Hamilton, Mayo, etc.) while Lance sailed through unscathed despite positive (or "suspicious" depending on one's perspective) tests in 1999 and 2001. His financial donations to the UCI that followed have still not been explained in full but reek of buying protection. This of course doesn't change the fact that most of the others were doping as well, but it was not a level playing field.
As for Froome, among other reasons my real hangup is this: If the guy is legit, he is one of the most talented cyclists to ever exist in this world. His power data backs that up, even accounting for the difference in equipment. This would be despite the fact he has a horribly inefficient riding style and that, unlike every generational talent in the course of history, his talent did not reveal itself until he was 26yo and needed a contract. Despite all this Sky still offered him a pittance after the 2011 Vuelta. How was the most scientific and well-finded team in history not aware of all this talent? It's impossible. It's not hard to test for. I know what the stories are to try to explain why this is all the case, but there's just no way I'm buying it. The odds are so long. Occam's Razor, and all.
Irony is that if he somehow actually is clean, we're now seeing the true damage done by the idiots of the past 20 years. Whether it's him or someone else, someone will eventually come along and be able to be dominant while clean -- and no one will buy it. Thanks a lot Mig, Lance, Ullrich and the rest of the clowns...THAT'S your real legacy.
My legit thoughts on Sky as a whole is that they don't have a team-wide organized program. If they did they wouldn't suck everywhere save for the few things they target. Their classics guys are lousy despite much perceived talent and guys like Boassen Hagen seem to perennially underachieve per supposed potential. If something is up, it's either very isolated to a few guys or Froome and maybe a few others are acting on their own. On top of that, I also suspect that if they are it's plausible they aren't even technically breaking the rules. There's some cutting edge stuff out there that's always ahead of the testers. As it pertains to things that allow weight loss without power loss, could easily be on something banned that WADA isn't yet able to easily test for, or perhaps even more realistically could be on something that no one even knows about yet.
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