Shame really. Froome has taken a bit of the enjoyment out of watching the race for the next two weeks but taking such a big lead.
At least weâll be spared @Raymond Crotty claiming that itâs a clean Tour.
I saw the ITV highlights yesterday evening and had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
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As Lockes said it was identical to Lance. Spinning the legs like a hamster on a wheel. The team seem to be very strong and well prepared.
I disagree. Iâm intrigued to see how blatant Sky will be. How Thomas and Porte go especially.
And with the race effectively over it gives chances for the likes of Dani to get in a breakaway and take a stage. If Froome goes again today the gaps could be huge back to anyone in 5th place or so and the rest.
Porte recovering to catch and pass Quintana was especially galling to watch. Will be interesting to see how he goes for another team next year,
Majka 55 seconds ahead of Martin and 5â17" to Peleton. He doesnât look like he has it unfortunately
Thomasâ performance is possibly even more ridiculous than Froomeâs yesterday.
Martin looking good for second on the stage here. The Pole is too far ahead for him to win.
When you see an Astana team leader cracking again, it says more about the men ahead
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Poor David Walsh has lost the plot completely in trying to explain Skyâs ridiculous success. Itâs all about the poor preparation and equipment from the other teams. Heâs completely sold on the notion that Sky came into the sport, gave some thought to diet for the very first time and turned also-ran no-hopers into superstars who could out-perform dopers who were takingt he trouble to do blood transfusions but not taking the trouble to eat properly.
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Astana are in the spotlight this year so Nibali is probably not as well prepared. He was ridiculously well prepared last year.
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If Lance had been nice to David and left him onto the bus or the private jet, things could have been so different.
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Ross Tucker was on Off The Ball tonight. Really good interview:
https://soundcloud.com/offtheball/ross-tucker-on-chris-fromme
And hereâs his latest blog posting today:
Itâs difficult to deconstruct and then rebuild complex topics in that platform, so in addition to the interview, some brief thoughts to go along side it.
1. Pixels and blindness
Nobody can see a whole picture by looking at just one pixel. Performance, stage by stage, is one pixel at a time. In the article I wrote yesterday (link in comments), I tried hard to emphasize that any single performance will not prove doping. Still, much of the blowback and criticism has involved the numbers of a single performance, the 6.1W/kg and its implications. It even made it sentence #1, which says a lot of people donât read beyond, well, the headline.
It wasnât the numbers yesterday that should have been a concern, if youâve followed the Tour since the mid-90s, anyway. But if this was a court case, and the only exhibit on offer was a single ride in the Pyrenees or Alps, the case wouldnât make it past opening arguments.
But that single, isolated piece of evidence is not where the mistrust of the sport, a team and a rider is coming from, by the way. Itâs not about what happens âon the bikeâ only, but also off it. Focusing on the performance alone does make for a convenient straw man to attack for those not wanting to engage (and that works in both directions). There are many more âpixelsâ in the image, theyâve been visible for six years now. But, if you close your eyes really tightly, you can pretend theyâre not there, and then that one from yesterdayâs performance can become irrelevant too.
2. Amateur, hopeless rivals
Itâs a pity David Walsh didnât come on the show â they did ask him. He might have repeated his accusation that Skyâs rivals were hopeless and amateurish. And while there will always be a spectrum of competency, to declare them amateurs is quite extra-ordinary. I hope itâs not based on the fact that Sky have Nutella bans and use dieticians to help riders make smoothies to lose weight. I jest â on a serious note, other teams are not hacking about in hope, and many even have former Sky employees, heads of innovation, scientists, doctors, dieticians. This is the kind of statement that helps build mistrust, because even though it comes from an âindependent sourceâ, (Walsh is not a Sky employee, officially anyway), it all feeds into the same narrative of rationalizations, reasons and deflections.
The other thing I canât help thinking is that this very same accusation was flowing in the opposite direction, from the USA, fifteen year ago. Why was Lance winning? Because his team was professional, advanced, ahead of the curve, while the other teams were amateurs. Close your eyes tightlyâŚ
3. Froomeâs data â nothing new, but validation
The release of the Froome data was an interesting story, but it didnât actually add all that much to the interpretation picture, a point I make in the interview. We already knew the power output based on our estimation (turned out we were exact, but even a small error wouldnât have changed the interpretation). The HR gave people something to talk about, and may still, given how it was either a) too low, or b) too unresponsive, but the real outcome of that leak (it was never a hack â thatâs just too CIA, typical of cyclingâs transparency issues) was to validate what guys like Antoine Vayer, Ammatti Pyoraily and Mike Puchowicz have done so well â analyse performance.
That absolutely has to continue. Ideally, it should happen with the real data, but if not, it still adds value because itâs building a picture, year by year. I remember being panned about all the assumptions when it began, back in 2009, and as more riders provide power files, more validation is being provided. Itâs not just that one file, but many more, and âpseudoscienceâ no longer stings.
4. Long live transparency
Antoine Vayer was quoted in the Guardian earlier today as saying the sport desperately needs transparency and heâs right. For Froome, for Sky, for the entire sport, being maximally transparent is the first step to winning back trust.
Not half transparent either â being half transparent and trying to dictate the terms is worse than having no transparency. I remember when Grappe was allowed to see some power files, but not to disclose specifics back in 2013, and I recall thinking âWhat a wasted opportunityâ. With transparency, itâs all or nothing.
I say this in the light of Froomeâs assertions today that he might be open to independent testing and evaluation if it can be agreed upon.
What needs to happen is regular testing throughout the year so that data is available at different phases of the season (once off testing runs the risk of biased conclusions in either direction), married to performance data, going all the way back to 2010. For all the riders, not just one. And letâs see the TUEs they have â if 140 professional cyclists have asthma, Iâm calling shenanigans, for instance. Iâd want to repeat Froomeâs asthma test, because as Alberto Salazarâs tale has taught us, you can cheat that test to âhave asthmaâ.
But the bottom line â thereâs just too little transparency, too much evasiveness, and no consistent, open message. Promote the use of ketones, then deny the use of ketones, for example. Blame dysentry (Aru, in this case), or asthma meds for low cortisol (Lars Boom â Astana, see itâs not only Sky?)
Why would anyone trust that?
Unless they can close their eyes really tightly, and stick a finger in each ear.
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I like froome, so Iâm closing my eyes and sticking my fingers in my ears and humming loudly.
He has promised complete independent testing, as well as complete release of his blood passport for as long as it has existed, and his power data once the tour is over. He canât do much more than that really. The fact is that the blood passport means no one can dope to the gills any longer, and he is still very strong.
Iâd be just as inclined to put it down to contador and nibs being careful.
Long way to go yet in any case.
Lolzers
Fuck sake
Ah jaysus
Doping in cycling and in sport in general is actually my chosen specialised subject. I know quite a lot about it.
Heâs hardly going to release all his data before the tour. That would be like Kilkenny not claiming the half of the team that is injury free is dead, and the half that are fucked are flying in training before an AIF.