My short answer is: YOU ARE WRONG. For my reasoning, see below!!




LA's TdF wins, notable riders i.e. not the Andreu's of this world (Ivan Basso never rode on a LA TdF 'winning' team):

LA (99-05)
TH (99-01)
GH (99-05
CVV (99-01)
RH (01-03)
FL (02-03)

So 1999 had 3, 2000 had 3, 2001 had 4, 2002 had 4, 2003 had 3, 2004 had 1, 2005 had 1 (in addition to LA).

1999 and 2002 teams were where LA 'won' with his biggest margins (both 7 min xx sec, 1999 being the largest win):

1999 TdF team:
LA
KL - not many results of note, best I can find is 17th overall at TdF, next best is 36th at TdF. He was 6th OA at Dauphine.
FA - no major wins, 9th overall at P-R.
TH - probably the best rider in all of LAs teams, lots of good 'results' although many stripped, as good as any on Sky today. Only American to win a monument (LBL).
GH - won G-W (only classic win), lots of top 10s in the monuments P-R, Flanders and MSR. Although maybe not as many classic wins as Stannard he has a better overall record with his number of top 10s at the monuments. Similar jobs for their teams in TdF.
CVV - like him as an NBC analyst! 4th and 7th overall at TdF, no major wins though incl. a GT stage win. No world tour (WT) race wins but did win the HC race US Pro Cycling Challenge.
PMN - don't think he has won anything or done anything of note in cycling other than be on LA's first TdF winning team, full name is Peter Meinert Nielsen.
JV - no major wins. Came 2nd overall at Dauphine.
PD (Pascal Derame) - absolutely nothing of note as far as I can tell...84th overall at TdF.

2002 team:
LA
GH
FL - 9th and 'winner' (stripped) overall at TdF, 1st overall at P-N, 2nd overall Dauphine. Won California (HC). No other results of note, even stripped ones.
BJ (Benoit Joachim) - No results of note, best (?) 42nd overall at Vuelta.
RH - probably at least as good as TH on LA's teams. Won Vuelta 3 times, 12 GT stage wins (10 at Vuelta), 5th overall Giro, 5th and 9th TdF overall.
PP (Pavel Padrnos) - nothing of note as far as I can tell.
VHP - 9th overall at Giro.
JLR - 8th and 10th overall at Giro, 6th and 7th at Vuelta. No individual wins of note.
VE - 2 GT (individual) stage wins, 1 Olympic track gold, 1 or 2 Olympic TT golds (1 if you want to count TH as winning one (see above) or 2 if we are going official results after stripping, which will destroy the palmares of a lot of these riders!!!), 2 WC track golds, 3rd at P-R.


So yeah, I do not think these two teams are in the same league as that of Team Sky (and remember, the results above are full career results, a lot of the riders below are likely to add to their palmares):

CF
GT - 2 Olympic golds, 3 WC track titles, P-N winner (WT race), E3 winner (a classic and WT race), 2nd DdV (HC classic), 3rd overall Tour Down Under (WT race), 2nd overall Tour de Suisse (WT race), 3rd G-W (WT classic).
IS - 2 Omloop wins (classic and HC race), 3rd at Paris-Roubaix (monument classic and WT), 3rd E3.
LR - least celebrated rider but top 10s at monuments Paris-Roubaix (8th), Tour of Flanders (5th) and 2 x Omloop.
VK - reigning world TT champion, bronze in world TT, 4 x GT stage winner, track world champion (points race), also done well overall in stage races (6th Dauphine (WT), 10th Basque (WT), 7th Tirreno (WT)).
SH - 3rd and 2nd overall Tour de Pologne (WT stage race), 9th overall Giro, 9th World RR, 2nd La Fleche (WT classic), 3rd, 2nd and 2nd overall Basque (WT), 3rd overall Tour Down Under (WT), 7th LBL (monument).
WP - winner of LBL (monument), top 10 overalls at WT races Tirreno (7th, 8th, 10th), Pologne (4th), Basque (9th, 10th).
MN - 3 x GT stage winner, 2 x 10th overall at Giro, 2 x 10th and 8th overall at Vuelta, plus 12th overall at TdF...he's actually been top 20 overall at every GT (10) he has finished except one where he was 23rd and 25th at this years Giro but won Mountains jersey. Lots of top 10 overalls in other WT stage races.
ML - 3 x GT stage winner, 3rd overall at Giro.

The guys that didn't make the final 9 are impressive as well - Kwiatkowski (World RR champion, E3 and Amstel winner); Kennaugh (Olympic and World track gold medalist, 5th overall Pologne), Intxausti (8th overall Giro, 10th overall Vuelta, winner of Tour Beijing (WT), lots of top 10 overalls at WT stage races (Dauphine (4th), Romandie (5th, 6th), Basque (2nd, 4th, 8th), Pologne(3rd)); Konig (6th overall Giro, 7th overall TdF, 9th overall Vuelta); Roche (6th and 5th overall at Vuelta, 12th and 14th overall at TdF, 2 x GT stage winner).

I try to take a positive view of the Team Sky domination, and not just because I am British ;-)

But if we are happy positive people for a minute, let's choose to believe that the sport has cleaned itself right up.

Have Team Sky risen to dominance over all of the other teams? Or has the rest of the peloton been "normalized" and the general level has fallen without doping, allowing Sky to dominate because they are simply the most professional and organized outfit (not to mention the wealthiest) with the strongest GC rider?

What evidence can I cite? Just that Contador and the Shlecks are a bit shit now.

That's my thinking what I done thinking about. But then I'm a turn-that-frown-upside-down kind of a man, and it's a Friday which means it is weekend party time.

Taking cover....

Why People Dislike Froome/Sky by "SoggyChamois" on CyclingNews Forums.

I'm not sure chambers ever got on a bike :)

I think my point was that given the volume of people in both Sky's and British Cyclings respective programs is the number of positive's out of all the total members of the squads higher / lower or exactly as expected?

I suspect its at the lower end. I think if there were systemic doping - this is the year we'd have heard about it given the opportunity to throw Brailsford along with Sutton under the bus

I'm not suggesting that they are purer than the driven snow but they probably are as clean as they come and their dominance came primarily from a peleton set back a decade in advancement through the loss of medications and the fact that they came in at a time when preparation has compensated for that with some very clever strategies such as a singular focus on the tour, stacking the team for it, paying to get a GC contender - or lots of them to act as domestiques

As far as I can tell no other team has taken a similar approach possibly explaining their singular dominance in one event but perhaps underperforming across the rest of the season relative to their peers

I'm in the same boat...everyone else a bit cleaner and guys like Contador and the Schlecks being the barometer guys in terms of the difference between turbo doped and just flying under the blood passport thresholds

Can the Best Bike Split guys do some wattage estimates on Froome's "uphill TT" from yesterday. This might also tell us something (vs say Contador on Verbier 2009 or Pantani on Alpe d'Huez or Iban Mayo's 55 minute time on Ventoux in the Dauphine).

I may of missed it because I skipped all the doping stuff, but does anyone know what the tri-spoke froome road in the uphill TT was?

One of the big signs (for me anyway) of a cleaner peloton is the boring style of riding and the sheer number of riders who did the "boomerang attack" (launch an attack, get caught by the Sky train, and then spat out the back) this tour.

The quickest way up a mountain is to set an even pace, so Sky (usually Wout Pouls) sets exactly that pace. Anyone who dares launch an attack is burning a match that is sure to haunt them later and is taking an uneconomical way to the top and everyone is so evenly matched that there isn't much room to launch attacks.

If we look who made successful attacks this tour, there weren't many of them.

• Bardet's was the biggest, and he rode the climb himself. However, he also attacked on the same climb as Froome had to switch bikes (so they had to slow down)
• Purito had a Zakarin pace him up for most of it
• The Ventoux incident had what looked like a decent attack, but we'll never be able to sort any of that out.

The real success here is that Sky have convinced a legit contender (Pouls) to set pace instead of coming Top 5/10

I'm adding Armitstead to the list!

The situation looks fishy. I could maybe understand 3 missed tests. Mistakes happen. As unlikely as it is from a superstar member of British Cycling and Boels-Dolmans, basically two of the most logistically-sound organizations in cycling who should have processes in place to protect their top athletes from dumb mistakes. Though I really don't understand the 3rd missed test. You know it triggers an automatic suspension. If my whole life goal was the Olympics and I had 2 missed tests in a year I'd be texting USADA my location like every 5 minutes. "In the 3rd port-a-potty from the left. Taking a dump. Out in 5."

But British Cycling hid the fact that their top female cyclist was formally suspended from the Olympics by UKAD as long as they possibly could. Is that standard practice?