He crashed and burned in one stage, and then came out and dominated the next day. Surely that must be absolute proof that he is doping.
I wonder if he’s going to test positive for high T/E ratios?
No it wasn’t
- Vino wasn’t alone 90% of the time
- Vino was no longer a contender
You’re the first I’ve heard (seen) say anything. I thought the same thing. Shocks me, really, that there aren’t more parallels being drawn about it.
Ya, exactly the same kind of ride, except for;
Vino was in a 25 man break all day of non contenders to block his wind, Floyd burned off the entire field and rode solo
Vino was way out of contention, so no reason to chase him, FLoyd obviously was in contention since he got the yellow back
Vino went away with a couple ks of uphill and a long dwonhill finish, Floyd, well we know what Floyd did
Except for all that, they were exactly the same… Boy you really nailed it…
I think they fail to grasp the significance of the pink.
You forgot that Vino didn’t ride anyone off his wheel on the flat parts.
Vino’s done this before.
I get the pink… but reading Vino’s website is interesting as to why he was so bad on the first day of the Pyrenees:
«Yesterday I had no legs, I didn’t feel very well in my head and I had no motivation at all. I understood during the yesterday’s stage that I wouldn’t win the Tour this year. My teammates were wonderful, they encouraged me a lot this morning. That’s what make me attack in the first kilometers. I felt good, as well as my legs. At the first break, I thought there were too many riders and that I had to go on with my effort. As I saw I could make it, I tried to be alone and first at the top of the last climb, in order to be sure to win the stage. Today is a great victory. For sure, I wasn’t lucky the first two weeks and without my fall, things could have been different. But that’s sport…»
well,well…
A spanish newspaper has just published on their web site that accordingly to L’Eauipe Vino tested positive last Saturday for a blood transfusion. Apparently there were two different kind of red cells in the sample.
it was so frickin obvious that Vino was cheating that anyone who gave him the benefit of the doubt is delusional. I hope this shuts Phill Liggett and his “they’ve all signed a contract” nonsense once and for all. The tour is as dirty as ever and will remain dirty until sponsors pull the money out. T-Mobile came close to pulling the chain last year and if they had they would have been doing cycling the biggest favor ever, but they decided to stay in.
The UCI need to grow some and get serious. This is essentially a team sport, if a rider gets caught the whole team gets DQ’d and nobody gets paid…that might get the peloton to start policing itself. If a rider gets caught the team gets fined…management and sponsors. This problem can be fixed very quickly but nobody wants to do it…but they have signed contracts…ummm hummmmm.
How do you fine a sponsor?
It’s big of you to come out with his doping being so obvious only after he tested positive.
There are forum rules prohibiting such conduct. I pointed the finger of suspicion at another rider last week…who had previously served a ban for doping and has since been reinstated…and Dan deleted the post and made me go sit in the corner.
Doping is rife in cycling. There are no miracles in this sport, no amazing performances, comebacks from near death, or heroes. Clean riders do not blow dopers off the road, never have never will.
He’s done and so is Astana…Cycling news is reporting that they have quit the tour and suspended Vino
.
How do you fine a sponsor?
very simple, they post a bond in order to participate in UCI events. If a rider dopes they lose the bond.
It continues to amaze me that anyone with any kind of endurance training/racing experience thinks that drugs have anything to do with a bad day/good day. The human body is not a machine and some days you have it and some days you don’t. I have had mornings in the middle of high volume training that I could barely get out of bed in the morning and my run pace was snail-like. The next day I wake up and run 13-miles in the morning and feel like I could run forever. Who knows why this happens? I can think of quite a few examples even in the Tour.
-
Tour ’87, J-F Bernard crushed the field on the Mt. Ventoux time trial and then flops the next day and losed the yellow jersey. Stephen Roche then gets mauled by Pedro on the way to Alpe D’Huez and he loses the jersey. Then on the way to La Plagne Delgado looks to be on his way to a TDF win and suddenly Roche comes out of nowhere on the final climb and saves his race, and incidentally, goes to the hospital. -
2) Tour ’89, Laurent Fignon drops LeMond in the Pyrenees and then loses time in over the Izoard and into Briancon, and then again the next day on the time trial to Ociere-Merlette. LeMond looks on his way to a solid win. The following day Fignon drops Lemond on Alpe D’Huez and then again the following day to wherever that stage ended. -
Tour ’97, Jan Ulrich loses 9 minutes to Pantani on the way to Les Deux Alpes and then attacks and drops the rest of the field (save Pantani) the next day over the Col de la Madeleine. Of course, both of them were likely taking drugs, so maybe this one is not such a good example. -
Armstrong on several occasions had fairly horrible days only to come back strong right afterwards. In ’01, he was dropped by Virenque and Ulrich on the last mountain stage and then mash them in the final TT. In ’03 he twice had rough stages, once in the first ITT and then again in one of the final mountain stages, only to come back and crush them all going up Luz Ardiden.
Some days you have it and some days you don’t. Now if they actually did take drugs then that makes it easier to explain, but part of it is physical and part mental.
Chad
Here is a link to the report Flaco just provided.
http://www.velonews.com/tour2007/details/articles/12910.0.html
I have to admit I was halfway joking in the original post, and had not read the news. This morning when I was taking a shower I started thinking about Landis’ stage last year and Vino’s this year. It made me wonder if anyone else saw similarities and I thought I’d ask. I had intended to put a question mark in the title but once a couple of people had replied I didn’t want to change the subject.
It continues to amaze me that anyone with any kind of endurance training/racing experience thinks that drugs have anything to do with a bad day/good day. The human body is not a machine and some days you have it and some days you don’t. I have had mornings in the middle of high volume training that I could barely get out of bed in the morning and my run pace was snail-like. The next day I wake up and run 13-miles in the morning and feel like I could run forever. Who knows why this happens? I can think of quite a few examples even in the Tour.
- Tour ’87, J-F Bernard crushed the field on the Mt. Ventoux time trial and then flops the next day and losed the yellow jersey. Stephen Roche then gets mauled by Pedro on the way to Alpe D’Huez and he loses the jersey. Then on the way to La Plagne Delgado looks to be on his way to a TDF win and suddenly Roche comes out of nowhere on the final climb and saves his race, and incidentally, goes to the hospital.
-
- Tour ’89, Laurent Fignon drops LeMond in the Pyrenees and then loses time in over the Izoard and into Briancon, and then again the next day on the time trial to Ociere-Merlette. LeMond looks on his way to a solid win. The following day Fignon drops Lemond on Alpe D’Huez and then again the following day to wherever that stage ended.
- Tour ’97, Jan Ulrich loses 9 minutes to Pantani on the way to Les Deux Alpes and then attacks and drops the rest of the field (save Pantani) the next day over the Col de la Madeleine. Of course, both of them were likely taking drugs, so maybe this one is not such a good example.
- Armstrong on several occasions had fairly horrible days only to come back strong right afterwards. In ’01, he was dropped by Virenque and Ulrich on the last mountain stage and then mash them in the final TT. In ’03 he twice had rough stages, once in the first ITT and then again in one of the final mountain stages, only to come back and crush them all going up Luz Ardiden.
Some days you have it and some days you don’t. Now if they actually did take drugs then that makes it easier to explain, but part of it is physical and part mental.
Chad
Chad was that supposed to be in pink? I only ask because you mentioned some of the most questionable performances in the tour at a time when drug use was perhaps even more rampant than it is today.
And you can’t compare running with cycling. In my high volume weeks I’d alternate hard easy days and double 5 days a week. Some mornings I could hardly run 8 minute miles and that evening I’d go to the track and hammer mile repeats at 5:20 pace. Muscle fatigue, brought on by a lot of pounding is what kills your legs the day after a hard workout. Cyclists don;t have this problem. The limiting factor for riders in the tour is the “engine” not the “chassis”, its the heart lungs and blood not the legs. I’m no expert and I’m sure I’ll be corrected but your engine can’t be a Ferrari one day and a Yugo the next unless you’re sick or something. You can’t be a world beater on Monday and a back of the packer on Tuesday and a world beater again on Wednesday.
The more I see of this tour the more I think that Levi Leipheimer might actually be the only clean rider in contention. No heroics, no huge days, no eye popping time trials or climbs, just a steady conservative ride every day.
Chad was that supposed to be in pink? I only ask because you mentioned some of the most questionable performances in the tour at a time when drug use was perhaps even more rampant than it is today.
And you can’t compare running with cycling.
Since I don’t know anything, I gave examples that I remember from the past. While I agree with you that the on-again, off-again days are more pronounced for running, I have had similar situations in cycling as well when I was racing USCF. I suspect it is a glycogen/fueling issue which is a day to day thing for tour riders. At times during really high-volume weeks (averaging 4-5,000 calorie consumption per day) I get really sick of eating all the time. Throw in really high temperatures to this and you just don’t want to spend every waking moment filling your belly.
Also, if the positive test came after the time trial, you can’t really explain the bad day Sunday, good day Monday. This is one of those positive tests, similar to when Roberto Heras tested postive at the Tour of Spain, that just defy explanation. In Heras’ case he had already won the race and just needed a mediocre time trial to finish everyone off. As for Vino, I find it inconcievable that he thought he would get away with it. The message I take from this is: either these guys are just plain stupid–one possibility–or the testing really isn’t that reliable and they have escaped detection in the past. If the second is true then clearly the entire testing procedure is hit and miss and not accurate to the level required to ruin careers and make definative statements about whether a ride absolutely cheated or not.
I don’t really think there is a solution, frankly. As long as there is big money available to the riders, some people are going to try and cheat. Until the amount of money spent to prevent cheating reaches an adequate level then the cheaters will always prosper. Unfortunate, but I believe it to be true. I find the racing to be entertaining, but I certainly don’t idolize these guys like I did as a teenager.
Chad
Good call.