UKC

Jesus, fractured pelvis and still finishes only 12 minutes down. What a hard bstd. He will have known his tour was over but battled on so he could help team mates. Says more about him than winning the giro would. Big respect.

must be getting soft in his old age - in 2013 tour he fractured his pelvis on stage 1 and made it to Paris 3 weeks later

Feckin pelvis.

How does one cycle with a fractured pelvis? My fractured wrist was painful as anything when I was a kid, and my heel was too, my broken wrist wasn't too bad, but not pain free. It might have been grinding or sending spasms of pain. That's very hardcore of him.

Cycles to the summit of Mt Etna with a fractured pelvis!

...I nearly didn't go out this morning because it looked like it might rain

It was a non displaced fracture. We don't know how bad it was but my mate did the same racing a couple of years ago and it was 9 days before the pain became so bad that he need to go to hospital. Then he found out it was broken - sort of.

(not taking anything away from G - I'm a fan)

E

I guess that makes sense, him cycling with an 'ouch' rather than 'argh' kind of pain. I cycled home okay with my broken wrist, it was just an 'ouch' rather than an 'argh' - a background pain. I guess he'd have been a 7 compared to my 4 on the 'ouch' scale.

He's got form for being a double hard ba***rd - rode the 2013 Tour with a fracture from an early crash - https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cycling/call-injury-mate-team-sky-s-ger...

Edit: read the full thread

Have Ineos finalised the team for the Vuelta...G is fit and will have recovered by then...

Vuelta starts a week on Sunday. Don't think G will be starting.

E

He is faking it to get a TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption) so he can use performance-enhancing drugs with the OK from the WADA. 

Don't really know how people still believe this bullshit...  Geraint used to be a pistard and suddenly becomes a 3-weeks-Tour winner... Froome needed to hold to a police motorbike to pass Mortirolo when he was in Barloworld... Don't make start with AlcoholicWiggins... But Hey! Sky/Ineos were urinating over everybody else because of marginal gains are everywhere and they put the effort that nobody else put!

God save the Queen!

You can’t beat a nice rational post. Well done.

After ETNA stage and the time loss I was convinced they would pull him from the race and stick him in the Vuelta squad, I think it's about the easiest cycling injury to come back from so if he is pain free and has managed to do some training I think they will stick him in the Vuelta squad, he has proven form at the minute and we don't know what shape froome is in or if Carapraz is in good shape after the tour.

I think I am confusing a fracture pelvis for fractured collarbone which is easy to recover from, pelvis makes Vuelta more unlikely, but you never know.

'Tis but a scratch!

Ive always been impressed and horrified by the story about Tyler Hamilton riding with a fractured collarbone shortly after the start of the 2003 tour. He finished the race 3 weeks later having finished 4th overall  at which point he was found to have ground down several of his teeth to the roots as a way of dealing with the constant pain. 

isn't there a UCI rule to stop riders entering overlapping races?

I'm not sure they can do that under UCI rules

Yes, I think so

There are lots of examples of hard cyclists carrying on and even putting in impressive  performances with what must be painful injuries. Contador and Van Vleuten spring to mind, though there are many more.

'Suddenly'...?

Forgot that he rode his first TdF in 2007? Or the years as a super-domestique?

Really not sure why I'm replying, as your post is beneath contempt.

Wats a pistard?

Oh...just googled it.

Van Vleuten is double hard!

Now I am picturing a TUE for some sort of cast in which they hide little actuators that push his legs down and lift them up again! Thanks for the image.

Maybe Andy Murray's hip replacement has little servo motors in it which wiggle his leg and let him run faster?

Not at all. Not that the other teams were clean, but Sky were really taking the piss, almost to the same extent as US Postal just before them.

For entertainment, follow the coverage of the ongoing medical tribunal against Richard Freeman. If that were made into a film plot you would reject it as too ridiculous:

Destroying a laptop before handing it back, even though the relevant medical data were supposedly only on the previous one "stolen" in Greece, ordering 30 sachets of testogel which he claims were for the erectile dysfunction of a coach and he did not know were banned in atheletes, but still "destroying" them while also pressuring a secretary to testify that they were returned.

Quite obviously the British authorities (both sports and state) deliberately looked the other way for years, as they needed results at the London Olympics.

CB

There's no way he's riding the Vuelta.

E

Richard Freeman looks like the most useless doctor to have ever taken the hippocratic oath. 

Probably he was quite good at what he was paid for, as reflected by the resulting medals and GT victories. Then again, so were Drs. Ferrari and Schmid.

His current legal defence, though, is equivalent to "the dog ate my homework".

CB

You might be better posting on “ the clinic”. It’s were the cycling conspiracy theorists hang out.

You believe that the testogel was for a coach, even though that person is strongly denying ever suffering from erectile dysfunction?

You find it plausible that the medication and treatment protocols for the TeamGB and Sky athletes were all above board, and it is really, really unfortunate that they were exclusively stored on a single laptop that was then, regrettably, stolen?

If so, there is a nice tower in Paris I would like to sell....

CB

I believe that if they had been systematically doping like Lance and crew. It would have started come out in riders who have left the team starting to test positive like Tyler etc.

Then what is your explanation? They must know they look decidely silly in a tribunal that decides Dr. Freeman's professional future and will ruin him financially. The only explanation I can come up with is that the truth is even more embarassing.

The method is tried and tested, though. More of the "marginal gains" bullshit, but repeat a lie long enough and enough gullible people will buy it.

CB

edit> and of course they doped like crazy, same as Lance but better. All teams do to some extent, but how brazen they can be depends on whether they think they can get away with it, e.g. because their national regulatory body is colluding. US Postal got away with it precisely until state fraud prosecutors became interested.

I just had some drinks with guys who have participated in recent paralympics (athletics not cycling), and according to them out of competition doping is rife even there.

How does the testogel help performance wise?

Does it make you more aero? 

Clearly Dr Freeman is an unreliable witness. However if he is covering up a systematic doping scheme and in doing that Sky/ British cycling must have bought his silence. That is one big risk given his said unreliability plus throwing in his mental health issues( Bi polar disorder) which adds to his instability. I am more of the belief that it was bought for Sutton given his history and personality.

Worked for Floyd Landis.

I think it aids recovery so you can train/race harder.

Most convenient way to microdose testosterone, as it releases more slowly than when injected.

CB

edit> In addition to its role as a sex hormone, testosterone is the natural anabolic steroid.

THAT amount? No way that this was a one person prescription. Also, what about the dodgy record keeping and the "stolen" laptop and its destroyed replacement?

CB

I'm getting some.

I’m sorry I’m not convinced, that’s why I suggested to post on the clinic. You will lots of people to agree with you.

I also have that bridge in London...

Seriously, what would it take for you to accept that Sky/BC were playing dirty*?

Please don't say a positive doping test: Waiting for a positive in-competition test is futile. Even old Lance, that rolling pharmacy, was only shown to have cheated in retrospective tests, never during his active career. Indurain's victories also still stand, but we are supposed to take his resting pulse as natural?

That kind of testing is just the fig leaf that makes selling the product professional sport more palatable to sponsors (and, admittedly, it does seem to prevent the perverse excesses of the GDR female swimmers / Carl Lewis / Olga Kratochvilova / Bjarne Riis era).

Nevertheless, the only people caught by the current system are the poor** and stupid.

CB

* not the only ones, not the first, but apparently with a big, protecting hand over them that allowed them to get away with more than their competitors, at least in the runup to 2012

** as in, unable to afford state of the art monitoring and preemptive testing, and/or lacking the financial and political clout to make accidental positive tests disappear

Is that why Wiggo's now looking like a nightclub doorman?

Evidence.

To all the cynics, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry you can't believe in miracles. This is a great sporting event and hard work wins it.

L Armstrong, 2005.

It's not just cycling. It's every pro sport with big money on offer. If you're winning in elite pro sport, you're on the gas. 

I accept that fact and sport is still something I enjoy immensely. It's not like you can take a magic pill and suddenly be world class. Drug use is simply one component of being the best of the best. It certainly doesn't negate all of the hard work an athlete and team puts in. 

When I see evidence not speculation I will change my opinion as I did with Lance until then I just think it’s the foil hat brigade.

Fair enough!  

There was never any 'evidence' with Lance - whom I revered as a fabulous rider, and trusted as a man of his word; what we eventually did get was the final and pathetic 'confession.'

Are you sure as I’m fairly sure that when he came back they were comparing samples from when he won the tour to his the current samples and profiles indicated major discrepancies. Which led to further investigations and a confession

That seems like evidence to me.

This, saves me the effort to type a reply.

CB

A confession, with details. 

If they are playing grey, I really don't care. (other than the details for interests sake)

If they are playing black, then I'll take that as crooked.

If they are playing white. Well, they're not playing white.

What do you call big money?

There is absolutely no way that all of the british rowing olympic gold medalists in 2012 and 2016 are doping. 

There are simply too many of them, and too many other people who go to Caversham (the national training centre) and get spat out, for it not to have got out. 

I keep it neutral, my resting hr is in the 40s and my hct is 48.  They needed two xrays to get my lungs in and even injured I can now puff the thing they gave me to the volume limit.  It’s all a massive, massive advantage going up hill yet I’ve ridden with people who leave me for dust (not many) so I am happy that some athletes are out of this world.

With Lance there was a lot of first hand statements about his doping and when his old samples were tested I skipped the pr and opinion and read the lab report.  No wonder he smashed that time trial!

Sky have no doubt walked the line but the big thing has been the lack of organisation and focus from other teams rather than stand out performances.  People say it’s boring!

Benefit of the doubt for the moment but i’d Not bet my house on any pro sport :-0

Cheers

Toby

I agree with much of what you say, doping alone is not enough, you also need the physical attributes, talent and mind set.

The one thing I disagree with is that Sky were just doing normal stuff (like nutrition) so much better than the other teams. That is just pure Sky propaganda.

As someone from Quickstep said (now there is another team with dodgy history), supposedly the other teams were eating big roasts of pork every evening, yeah sure....

Sky is of course the local team in the UK, but the main reason why their propaganda about "marginal gains" seemed to have been lapped up in the UK more then elsewhere is English football: With respect to topics like nutrition (and drinking!) or sports psychology top flight football was in the dark ages well into the 1990s, very much unlike amateur Olympic sports.

CB