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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [Francois] [ In reply to ]
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Why wouldn't Lance, Alberto, etc do that as well, even for just 6 months? 4 months before the Tour, during the Tour and the following weeks.

That's a very good question and once I would think Lance would be the first to do since he has heard the rumors for years. If it were me, I would insist they test me both in competition and out and I certainly would be as accomodating as I could and without first blaming the French labs, threatening lawsuits, or taking extended showers.

Didn't Lance promise to have his tests posted on the internet or something? What happened with that?
Last edited by: FJB: Jul 24, 09 16:01
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [scottie18] [ In reply to ]
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Why must someone who has never done anything wrong prove he is innocent simply because of his profession?

What do you do for a living? Would you be ok with this standard being used for you?


If people made accusations against me and I knew I was innocent, I certainly would volunteer to be tested.
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [monty] [ In reply to ]
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I don't know about the resarch on this, and Lemond's statements are from a time when power meters were in the dark ages, so I would not trust any of that data as accurate. Hell, there was probably a +/- on those things of 10% to 15 %.
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SRM powermeters have been around for decades. Lemond was an early adopter. They were accurate.
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [Rappstar] [ In reply to ]
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I'm not sure where you get 7.25 w/kg from? Contador is 60kg. So even at 420, that's a max of 7 w/kg. And 420 may not even be correct. It is entirely possible it was "only" 390, which would net out to 6.5 w/kg. But even 7w/kg is plenty reasonable for a world class climber for that duration. And that's assuming he's not 61 or 62kg, which is basically the "same" as 60kg to reporters, but which makes a pretty big difference when you are calculating w/kg.
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Thanks for correcting me. Coggan surmised it would be 450 watts- so 450/60= 7.5 W/Kg. So his numbers are even more impressive. Pre - EPO no one has ever come close to those numbers. Bottom Line- everyone is debating what the power is/wattage was- it was probably one of the best ascents of ALL time. Lance himself- said at his best- he never would have been able to stay with Contador. If you are no longer suspicious- when Lance at his best- had riders 2-5 banned for drug usage, and Lance testing positive for EPO when he was weaker (tour 1999)- than- that's your opinion.
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [Tom A.] [ In reply to ]
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--Quote--
What's your point? Why would it be hard for me to read? Nothing he says in there relates to whether or not what AC did on Verbier was "believable" or not. If you don't think that 420W power output for a 20 minute climb isn't achievable "naturally aspirated" from a world class climber, well then...you probably haven't looked at too many power files, have you?

Dang...you just ran into another tree. If you keep doing it, that's going to leave a mark... ;-)
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Again- Lance at his best said he wouldn't be able to keep up. So- it appears that you have 'many power files' that have better W/Kg for comparable conditions leading up to // including the 22 minute climb. Maybe you should tell those riders to ride in the TdF- as it seems like they aren't. Feel free to share any of these files. Am I still running into trees?
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [Rappstar] [ In reply to ]
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Maybe there's a difference between 'insinuate' and 'imply', but - to me - it reads as though you ARE insinuating that AC is doping. If you weren't saying that, you wouldn't say it is 'troubling that Contador is so much faster than folks who did'; instead, you'd probably hail it as heaven-sent proof that one doesn't have to dope to set records in a discipline that has, historically, given every appearance of being impossible to excel in without the aid of drugs. Your comparison to the swimsuit issue treads the same line: by putting the data in the context that you suggest, you ask a leading question.

For example, if one said that Contador - described by most authorities as the best climber in the world - had beaten a group of riders who have undergone a greater number of better tests than any other group in sporting history by a range of 45 seconds to 1:33 over terrain which precisely suited his talents, ones interlocutor might not be tremendously surprised. If one went on to say that a couple of the riders in the group behind were not going full gas (because they're team-mates with the first man up the hill), and the margin between the leader and these lilly-white supporting riders was still only around 90 seconds, then the performance again doesn't seem quite so supernatural. Of course, saying that Contadors time is faster than riders who have subsequently been exposed as dopers points the reader in a direction that's different to that in which he might look if you phrase your question with refrerence to all those demonstrably clean riders that were comparatively close behind him on the day.

I don't have a view on whether Contador did or didn't; I also don't believe it's wrong to question whether he did - it seems to be as valid a line of inquiry as wondering whether rider X would have been faster if he'd used a disc on a hilly time-trial, or whether a devotee of one school of training philosophy (long and slow, say) would have been even more successful had s/he been more willing to do a greater proportion of his training above threshold.

Of course, every forum has rules, and Dan's been pretty clear on where he thinks the boundaries of acceptable discourse lie. There might be some narrow technical sense in which your wording could literally be taken to mean something other than 'Contador doped', but when I read your posts on this string I don't see how you can escape the insinuation that el Pistolero has been shooting more than his finger.
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [SuperDave] [ In reply to ]
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Hmmm. I bet Billy Mills 10K in Tokyo doesn't sit well either. Dude goes through the 5K 1 second off his PR, and holds it for another 5K, beating the world champ, winning the gold medal, and PRing by nearly 2 minutes. Sometimes these guys really are this good. Too bad we now never know if they are legit. That's the real damage that dopers do to sport.

can't watch that w/o goose bumps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7A_QUlMbvY
4:56 in.
Thanks Dave! That was awesome!
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [Flanagan] [ In reply to ]
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Hmmm. I bet Billy Mills 10K in Tokyo doesn't sit well either. Dude goes through the 5K 1 second off his PR, and holds it for another 5K, beating the world champ, winning the gold medal, and PRing by nearly 2 minutes. Sometimes these guys really are this good. Too bad we now never know if they are legit. That's the real damage that dopers do to sport.

can't watch that w/o goose bumps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7A_QUlMbvY
4:56 in.
Thanks Dave! That was awesome!

*off-topic*


...indeed, if you haven't seen the movie about his life and what he overcame to even make it to the Olympics, Running Brave is worth a rent.

Better yet, watch it the night before a race.

-SD

*topic ON*
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [FJB] [ In reply to ]
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Why wouldn't Lance, Alberto, etc do that as well, even for just 6 months? 4 months before the Tour, during the Tour and the following weeks.

That's a very good question and once I would think Lance would be the first to do since he has heard the rumors for years. If it were me, I would insist they test me both in competition and out and I certainly would be as accomodating as I could and without first blaming the French labs, threatening lawsuits, or taking extended showers.

Didn't Lance promise to have his tests posted on the internet or something? What happened with that?


All his test results are posted on his Livestrong website.

===============
Proud member of the MSF (Maple Syrup Mafia)
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [mlinenb] [ In reply to ]
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If you are no longer suspicious- when Lance at his best- had riders 2-5 banned for drug usage, and Lance testing positive for EPO when he was weaker (tour 1999)- than- that's your opinion.

Part of my job is working as a medical review officer. This means I am a physician who signs off on drug tests and definitively states whether they are or are not positive for a given substance. I also supervise the staff that does the testing and I have personally observed innumerable drug tests.

People need to stop this nonsense about "Lance tested positive for EPO". This is false on a number of grounds.

1) An independent investigation was commissioned, headed by Vrijman (an attorney and former head of antidoping in the Netherlands). His report can be found on the Internet. Summary: Proper records were not kept by the lab, chain of custody was not maintained, and Armstrong was specifically targeted.

You can have any opinion you like about Lance Armstrong, but an independent investigation disputes your contention. If I signed off on a drug test as "positive" when chain of custody was not maintained, I'd lose my job and would face legal action. In the United States, a lab representing a drug test as positive without proper chain of custody and documentation would be shut down.

2) Read some of the interviews with Dr. Christiane Ayotte, who was director of the WADA-Accredited lab in Montreal at the time all this went down. “EPO…is not stable in urine, even if stored at -20 degrees.” ; “The stability of EPO in urine isn’t as long as 5 years according to our testing here in Montreal. It is more a matter of months.”

If what Dr. Ayotte said was true, we have a major problem on our hands. How do you get a positive test from a sample many times too old to contain what you are testing for?

There is an enormous problem with doping in sport. There are plenty of results out there that may make me suspicious. However, suspicion does not equal guilt, and no matter how many sensationalized media reports people may read, most have no firsthand knowledge of the state of doping, or who is or is not using drugs to enhance performance. The best most of us can do is demand the highest standards from the agencies, laboratories, physicians and scientists involved in policing the sports we enjoy. In the case above, even very basic standards of competence were not met. In fact, the entire affair was a circus and the people and agencies involved should be ashamed of themselves. Cases like the one in question set back the cause of antidoping immeasurably.

By saying things like "Lance Armstrong tested positive," we are implicitly stating that we are okay with the way the testing was conducted and are confident of the results. Given what I have written above, are you confident? I don't mean, "Oh yeah, the guy is probably dirty." I mean would you personally be willing to sign on the dotted line and cause someone to lose their job, reputation, and life's work on the basis of the evidence provided?

Phil
--

Dr. Philip Skiba
Scientific Training for Endurance Athletes now available on Amazon!
Last edited by: Philbert: Jul 24, 09 23:05
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [FJB] [ In reply to ]
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   I think it was Ligget, several stages ago that said Lance had been tested 44 times since he announced his comeback, and even many of the French were getting bothered by the agency testing Lance, sometimes twice a day, at the tour.
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [mlinenb] [ In reply to ]
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Coggan surmised it would be 450 watts- so 450/60= 7.5 W/Kg.
To help keep the comparison apples-to-apples, I assumed that Contador weighs the 69 kg he is listed at in various media reports (e.g., the official Tour website) - so about 450/69 = 6.5 W/kg, not 7.5 W/kg.
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [Andrew Coggan] [ In reply to ]
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Contador races at 62 kgs. At vuelta de espana a little less. out of competition he gains 3 kgs usually. he is very aware of his weight.

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Coggan surmised it would be 450 watts- so 450/60= 7.5 W/Kg.
To help keep the comparison apples-to-apples, I assumed that Contador weighs the 69 kg he is listed at in various media reports (e.g., the official Tour website) - so about 450/69 = 6.5 W/kg, not 7.5 W/kg.
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [Andrew Coggan] [ In reply to ]
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Coggan surmised it would be 450 watts- so 450/60= 7.5 W/Kg.
To help keep the comparison apples-to-apples, I assumed that Contador weighs the 69 kg he is listed at in various media reports (e.g., the official Tour website) - so about 450/69 = 6.5 W/kg, not 7.5 W/kg.

You mean that you didn't use Wikipedia (60kg)as your main source?!?
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [Andrew Coggan] [ In reply to ]
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Coggan surmised it would be 450 watts- so 450/60= 7.5 W/Kg.
To help keep the comparison apples-to-apples, I assumed that Contador weighs the 69 kg he is listed at in various media reports (e.g., the official Tour website) - so about 450/69 = 6.5 W/kg, not 7.5 W/kg.

Well I guess 6.5 W/Kg is about to 7.5 W/Kg... ;) (roll eyes) that makes ac's climbing a little more impressive, eh?
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [CaptainCanada] [ In reply to ]
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I freakin' love all the thinly veiled accusations here on ST...

"I know I can't call someone a doper so I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin."
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [mlinenb] [ In reply to ]
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Coggan surmised it would be 450 watts- so 450/60= 7.5 W/Kg.
To help keep the comparison apples-to-apples, I assumed that Contador weighs the 69 kg he is listed at in various media reports (e.g., the official Tour website) - so about 450/69 = 6.5 W/kg, not 7.5 W/kg.

Well I guess 6.5 W/Kg is about to 7.5 W/Kg... ;) (roll eyes)

Rolling your eyes at yourself?

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that makes ac's climbing a little more impressive, eh?

Uh, no: his rate of ascent would be related to his power:mass, with a value of 6-6.5 W/kg being a reasonable estimate. What is less certain is what that translates into in terms of an absolute power output...Vayer adjusted things to a reference body mass of 70 kg, so I chose to use Contador's "official" body mass of 69 kg to avoid further confounding the comparison.
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [Andrew Coggan] [ In reply to ]
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he looks way thinner than 69kgs...
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [CaptainCanada] [ In reply to ]
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All his test results are posted on his Livestrong website.

Does it really prove anything to post your test results?

I could see it meaning something if you posted results of hair/blood/urine tests on a weekly basis to prove nothing has changed but to only post your test results is really meaningless and seems to be little more than a publicity stunt.
Last edited by: FJB: Jul 25, 09 6:25
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [fulla] [ In reply to ]
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he looks way thinner than 69kgs...

<shrug>

It doesn't really matter, since:

1) if you use a lower body mass, you get a lower absolute power (i.e., in W), but the relative power (i.e., in W/kg) remains essentially the same;

2) relative VO2max (i.e., in mL/min/kg) is the issue, and that would be related (obviously) to power in W/kg; and finally

3) as I wrote to Lauro Weislo, there is simply too much "slop" in all such estimates to make it worth trying to pin things down any more exactly that what you can guesstimate in your head.
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [Andrew Coggan] [ In reply to ]
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he looks way thinner than 69kgs...

<shrug>

It doesn't really matter, since:

1) if you use a lower body mass, you get a lower absolute power (i.e., in W), but the relative power (i.e., in W/kg) remains essentially the same;

2) relative VO2max (i.e., in mL/min/kg) is the issue, and that would be related (obviously) to power in W/kg; and finally

3) as I wrote to Lauro Weislo, there is simply too much "slop" in all such estimates to make it worth trying to pin things down any more exactly that what you can guesstimate in your head.
sadly, again...I have to agree...

I did a very quick hand-wave at the climb, using Sorensen's file as a reality check, and assuming Contador @ 62kg I came up with the same numbers, both wattage and vo2.
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [Andrew Coggan] [ In reply to ]
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I don't suppose you've cross referenced numbers against his TT the next day: Is the wattage required to climb like he did sufficient to TT like he did?
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [roady] [ In reply to ]
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I have a question that I don't remember being brought up here, or I just missed it. When you are climbing a mountain like this, and people often site Lemonds performance in the past, doesn't the diffenrence in bike weights from then to now make some difference. What is a 2 kilo diffenrence in the bike going to do to the formula?? I do not know, but is seems like a couple kilos in body weight make a difference, so why not the bike too? Seems to me it would be the same as body weight, even more since a lot of the reduced weight from then is in the wheels and spinning weight. Plus the bikes are more aero too, so another advantage from Lemond's days.

Maybe one of the math formula geeks can do a quick calc using 3 or 4 pounds, and a little reduced Cda, and then see what the power required is from then to now...
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [gord] [ In reply to ]
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Maybe there's a difference between 'insinuate' and 'imply', but - to me - it reads as though you ARE insinuating that AC is doping. If you weren't saying that, you wouldn't say it is 'troubling that Contador is so much faster than folks who did';
Since VAM is not an absolute metric, I said I found it troubling. As others have pointed out, when you distill it w/kg, it becomes much more reasonable. If they'd posted it in w/kg, and he'd posted something like 9 w/kg, then you bet your ass I would have done more than imply or insinuate. But, there was enough doubt within Ross Tucker's own article that I really meant it as "this seems bad, someone please tell me it's not as bad as it seems." And, thankfully, loads of people did. So, yes, I had issues. But I certainly wasn't going to say someone was (or was not) doping based off the information in the article I had. Based on what others have posted here, it seems that there is nothing extraordinary in what happened in Verbier, beyond the fact that these guys are very good bike riders. Of course, given cycling's history, I am gunshy. But I don't assume they are all guilty until proven innocent. Just probably a little more reticent when something, apparently, seems "superhuman," (at least based off one metric). Fortunately, there were other numbers which seem to put things right from an analytical perspective. I'm truly sorry if I came off as implying anything. I am sure I did, but really I was just looking for insight. Any tone is simply the flaw of being biased, subconsciously, after seeing many riders get busted. I hope that is understandable and acceptable.

"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp
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Re: Is Anyone Else Disturbed By This? Re: Contador's Ascent of Verbier [FJB] [ In reply to ]
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Why must someone who has never done anything wrong prove he is innocent simply because of his profession?

What do you do for a living? Would you be ok with this standard being used for you?


If people made accusations against me and I knew I was innocent, I certainly would volunteer to be tested.
And then what would you do when people refuse to believe the test results and still say you are guilty?
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