AJS914 wrote:I hold nothing against Froome. He's the best of the current generation. If he's doping or skirting the edge of what is legal then all the top riders are doing it. They are almost all turning in the same performances.
On the NBC coverage Greg Lemond accused Froome of motor doping on the 2014 Ventoux.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB_f1L86vIM&t=181sThe attack does look like an EPO era attack.
They PROBABLY do all microdose. The instant Froome transformation from nobody to top grand tour contender in 2011 and those alien attacks in 2013-2014 is pretty questionable to me but he's innocent until proven guilty as far as I'm concerned.
They MOST CERTAINLY do other "legal" things like nebulizers before a race and salbutamol in the team car. As if Contador, Wiggins, Froome, Cav, the Yates brothers, et all. ALL have asthma? Yeah, right. They do it to clear their lungs/have bigger lung capacity. The same reason Froome took Prednisolone orally. Much more effective than Triamcinolone when you can take daily doses on race days as opposed to a one shot days before the event.
What's most annoying is that Froome has completely escaped criticism for his own TUEs and no one holds him accountable, even when they ask him about TUEs it's always in reference to Wiggins when all the research papers I've seen that conclude corticosteroid can be used as PED cite specifically Prednisolone, which is what Froome used. The cycling media made such a hoopla about the Wiggins jiffy bag when it was taken after the 2011 Dauphine ENDED (after he secured GC with the TT) and he went on to crash out of the Tour that year anyway so it didn't exactly amount to anything did it--there is also a spin which suggests Triamcinolone was in the bag but of course they never mention that he was tested a week later at the Nationals where he won the road race so if there were any irregularities it would have been flagged there. Complete non-story to stir up hysteria when they should have been objectively researching if TUE use at Sky is systematic and the legitimacy of how they were approved by the required third party doctors.