AGW wrote:Wow, so since Sky's tactics are boring to watch, I'm an idiot without any appreciation for or knowledge about the science of sport and the work it takes to for them to bring the heat. Mea culpa KWalker (et al)...
Well either its boring and riders try to maximize what's legal, or its dope riddled and everyone is a cheater. Define an optimal performance that is outside of these parameters that isn't the result of a lack of form/presence from favorites in a GT.
I'm not saying Sky are 100% clean. I am saying that they spend their money right. We now know that during the US Postal era there was Lance, then 3-4 of his close lieutenants, and then everyone else and many people couldn't even get basic equipment. At Sky even neo-pros have multiple training, race, and TT bikes, are taken to 3-4 team camps per year, slotted right into key races to develop, and have every single aspect of their lives looked after. I don't think the structure of US Postal was close to that good for all but Lance and his chosen cronies that year. I'm simply unaware of another team that has all the details handled that well. Most teams don't have a coach for every 5 riders, don't really spend the entire year building a team for a race, and don't (to my knowledge of who is listed as coaching/training staff), have the training expertise that Sky has from other disciplines.
If anyone can find a single team that has had all of these things controlled to such a fine degree then please go ahead and correct me. I know Orica is trying a similar approach, but I can't think of a single one that comes close. Shit, BMC pays their riders an assload and they can't even figure out how to protect their leader. This doesn't explain the abnormally high w/kg from Froome and Porte, but can contribute to how they manage to figure out how to dissect and dismantle every single stage race they target. FWIW, Froome's numbers, even by Science of Sport's standards, border on "clean".
Does anyone have details of how long the other stages to AX-3 were? Where they came in their respective Tour's? I'll be more convinced if Froome is tossing these number's out in week 2 and 3 especially on the Huez stage than fresh with almost no crashes on the first summit stage.
I will say this though- if Sky is enhancing, whatever it is they are using is definitely something that there is no test for, no one else is using, and probably isn't widely out on the open market yet. Probably is still somehow legal through a loophole, like when prohormones weren't band and were rampant in amateur and professional sports in the US.
