He was not robbed. He was fully aware the sport is drenched in drugs and they are required to be competitive. A pro cyclist whinging about drugs is like a coal miner whinging about getting dirty. Someone unwilling to put up with a required part of a profession should find another profession.

Singling our Valverde, or anyone else, for the systemic doping problem in cycling is lame.

I'm with Dave on this one.

Nobody is singling Valverde out long term (look at countless names from the past who have been lynched for doping...but he is one and he is now world champion. I would have preferred any of the other 3 in the final selection.

Do you have the same attitude toward Tri given its Pro and AG doping problems...that it is what it is so get on with it and stop bleating?

Yes, Woods ran at Michigan and was very accomplished. He had a rough year personally, and I was really hoping he'd pull it off last night but Valverde has a finishing kick that most of your climber types can't match.

Woods was sub 4 miler to my best recollection, and he loves super steep 20ish percent climb pitches where the tactics and paces become very much like a running race. I would guess that if we got to interview him, he would say that the place he laid the hammer down on the 28 percent to whittle down thee crowd was pre planning for several month. Now we just need him to practice his swim when he comes home. As I mentioned above, when he was running track locally and injured it was one of the local former tri pros who was running with the local track club who hauled Woods out on the bike. Woods was in running shorts and running shoes on a borrowed road bike and dropped all the local studs (as you would expect from a sub 4 guy) on the first climb (a hill that probably tooks him 5 minutes that day)

So do you!

It's weird that Valverde has extroardinary recovery skills at 38. If you look at guys who were all coming off the Tour/Vuelta double, none of them looked quite right. Tom Dumoulin, though he finished well, described himself as a physical wreck after the TT. Dan Martin dropped really early, and this is Martin's kind of racing. Pinot and Quintana missed the final accelerations.

Only the guy peaking at 38 appears totally fine.

He could just have freak physiology. But it's weird. And when combined with Puerto, worth at least some speculation.

I was just waiting for Carl Lewis, Ben Johnson and Denis Mitchell to pop up and contest the finish.

Please, someone to name one by one the pros who are fully clean and the evidence...

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Spaniard. Sorry for my english for the sensitive ones :P

True, but to be fair Valverde is probably the best rider of his generation with finishes like that, considering his Ardennes accomplishments.

Martin left the Vuelta early to welcome a kid, Pinot has never contested that kind of course well, Quintana has looked great one day this year and Nibali is clearly not at his best. I’m don’t know if Valverde is clean, and share your sentiment about age and recovery. But those other riders don’t indite him either, IMO.

Anyhow, I’m signing off from this thread since it’s turning into another ST shouting match. T-minus six months to spring classics.

There is only one: Saint LeMond, who not only never ever took drugs but was so completely unaware that everyone else in the profession did, including all his teammates on multiple teams, that he had to channel the powers of Hercule Poirot to figure out a multiple grand tour winner was doping--at least that is his story and he is sticking to it.

.

I was pulling for him. Good to see an old warhorse get it.

I know you can only do what you can do but Valverde was going to win a sprint from those 3 95% of the time. Even leading out from the front no one made an impression on him.

And he has the highest VO2max ever recorded for any living being that ever graced the face of the Earth.

This article pretty much sums up my feelings.
https://cyclingtips.com/...-valverde-hadnt-won/


It was a good race and was won by the best rider that day, but Valverde's (and by extension, all of cycling's) past gets dragged back into the fore, and here we all are, arguing about dopers and lost careers of clean riders and who was too stupid to think everyone and their dog was doping and on and on. Ugh.

Did Valverde really come back stronger? Any power data to support that claim. Seems like if the sport has really cleaned up and Valverde was still the same rider he was before the ban, let alone better, he should have been cleaning up with ease. Seems to me he was still on about the same level.

That was an awesome race. I was screaming for Woods in the final 500m. My neighbors must have been like..."WTF...Tiger is getting spanked today."

I found it interesting that there were 90+ riders there near the end, and big names were getting dropped left and right. Normally on a tough mountain stage the big names (even if they are having a bad day) don't get dropped until the peloton is down to around 15 guys...but I guess in stage racing some guys are saving it for another day. It just goes to show you that there really isn't that much of a difference between some of the top GC climbers and these other domestiques or stage hunter types when it comes to just one day and put all your cards on the table.

Word.
Maybe some transfer banter.....

Ha, it's super fun to watch Woods at this level and witness his successes. I've ridden and chatted with him many times over the years. I had the privilege to ride with him in his early days at our local Tuesday Worlds and he was next level almost immediately. There was a very short time that we were at a similar level in the beginning.

I remember one of Tuesday races after he had been riding a couple of year with a Quebec Conti team. I was in the break with Woods and another dude, and Woods dropped us like stones half -way up our 4min. hill. The other dude looked at me and said, should we chase? I just started laughing and waited for the group. Chasing was not an option.

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4 min hill from the gate for mortals, probably 3:30 for Woods. When I said 5 minutes for Woods, it would be measured from the very very bottom on the other side of Meech Lake Road. 6 min is a good local level time if you wind back to that starting spot. I suspect woods (or any protour guy) would be way sub 5.

I was just looking to review the course profile, and it seems like there was an older article from 2017 that suggested that they were going to still do the main climb 7 times, but do the hell climb on the last TWO circuits.

Man...that would have been insane if they did.

https://cycling.today/...rutal-course-leaked/

He will be wearing a Vino4Ever kit BTW

Tim Johnson - Saunier Duval
Carlos Sastre - Cervelo Test Team
the aforementioned Gilles Delion
Danny Pate

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https://www.kickstarter.com/...bike-for-the-new-era

Hello, don´t get me wrong, but just 4 guys out of hundreds and hundreds in the past and in the present...
I have not been enroled in any cycling squad ever, but I know some people that has been and this issue is a taboo and a neverendless tale...
So, we can be arguing all the time because nobody has any proof of doping or no doping...whatever people say over here
Cycling has always had the big shadow, since it almost the sport started...

Cheers

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Spaniard. Sorry for my english for the sensitive ones :P

There are two separate planes. What has happened, and what we know has happened. In terms of racing clean we already know that correlation between both planes is extremely weak.

Valverde started racing at 12. He was second at that race. He then won the next 50 races in a row, earning the nickname "the unbeatable" or "el imbatible" in Spanish (btw there is a book called the legend of the unbeatable about his life). He was second in the road worlds in his second professional season, despite having to work for his team mate that won on the ocassion (Igor Astarloa). He never tested positive, but it seems clear that he was involved in the Puerto scandal. He served a two year ban and is one of the few, or perhaps only rider that kept his previous level after serving the ban.

Where am I getting at? He is one of the most gifted riders of all time. If I have to use my common sense, he is way cleaner that other cyclists that never received a doping ban, not because he is a better person, but because he needs it less.

But if I have to go by the books, he served his ban and is now clean, so nothing to argue from that perspective.

You can choose common sense/intuition or the book records, but you cannot mix the two.

You seem to choose the former, but I don't know why would Carlos Sastre (the only rider you mention that I know) would be more or less suspicious than any other rider in the peloton that never tested positive, such as Armstrong, Froome or Wiggins.

I had planned to just name one. Then you can stop saying "everyone doped". Everyone didn't dope, here's 4 guys who had success without doping. The list of guys who never found success, never made their squad's Grand Tour team, never got out of the Continental ranks, never got a result; how long do you think that list is?

There is evidence to show cheating among many of the best riders during their career. I'll continue to choose to root for those who didn't cheat. You do you.

-SD

Are you sure juniors don't dope?

I started racing in 1988 (late 20s). The bike shop owner for the team I was on (10-15 guys, low cat, minimal sponsorship) was an ex pro from Central America. He brought in a guy from his home country for a club meeting, where he gave a speech in hushed tones. It was in Spanish so I didn't know what he was saying at the time, but I could tell from the responses that something was weird. When someone translated for me they said it he was talking about racing for fun vs getting serious. And if we were serious, then he could get us what we needed to go to a higher level (ie dope). Two of the teens in that meeting turned pro a few years later. I was amazed at how fast they developed. At the time I was a better climber than either of them, and I sucked.



A lot of riders have performed at their previous level... relatively. I think the more likely explanation is that doping is widespread, and when someone is caught it's mostly because they are stupid or unlucky. When they come back they are still doping. Over time as the rules and testing become more strict, the level of doping riders can get away with declines.

Ben King and Joe D are clean. If either of these guys were ever popped, I would resign as McNulty.
There are a lot of clean guys out there....a lot more now than 8-10 years ago.
Ben picking up 2 Vuelta stages is a very good sign.