It seems weird to me that people are doing interviews with riders about whether they would/will be a “credible” Tour winner, if they happened to win in July. Cyclingnews had an article a couple days ago with Bradley Wiggins where he talks about it would be better to win after Cadel than after some other rider that has turned up positive recently.
I had/have no idea what the guy is talking about. Why would it matter who you follow winning the Tour? Doping in sport is bad news for everyone. And especially in cycling, which has obviously had more than its share of problems. But to imply it is better to win the Tour after Cadel than after Contador or Floyd or whoever is silly. If that is true, then Cadel is probably bummed he won the race after Alberto? I don’t think so.
If you want to be credible, maybe you should try to make your actions mimic what you’re saying. In my opinion, in this case, maybe he should start skipping his every other month visit to Tenerife. Yes, he’s doing a two week training stint at high altitude in Tenerife before the Critérium du Dauphiné, which is a 5 week break from racing. These huge gaps in racing are as screwy as thinking he might get some benefit of sitting at altitude for 2 weeks. I think not.
It is the same as Vinokourov praising his Astana team mate Maxim Iglinskiy after he won Liège-Bastogne-Liège. In his explanation to why Iglinskiy didn’t start winning classics until he was 31 he said that Maxim had gone to altitude training camps here and there and he’s motivated again. A few high altitude training camps before April in Europe? Wonder where that could have been? And I guess he wasn’t motivated for the first 10 years of his career, took him until turning 31 to get some motivation.
Last year Vino himself got grilled after his Liège-Bastogne-Liège win. From Cyclingnews- But his latest streak of form — winning at Lìège only two days after he took the mountainous, four-day Giro del Trentino — came as a result of an intense period of altitude training on the massive Mount Teide on the Spanish island of Tenerife. One French sportswriter asked Vinokourov whether he went to Tenerife to be with the infamous Operación Puerto blood-doping doctor Eufemiano Fuentes (who lives there) or Italian trainer Michele Ferrari. It seems training in Tenerife has more to do with winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège than anything else?
Just type Tenerife into google, along with doping/cycling. You’ll have a never ending supply of reading material. The Spanish authorities busted up another doping ring, on that perfect training island, that was involved in selling clenbuterol. Guess that drug is rampant in Spain.
Anyway, if you’re a professional cyclist, and want to be credible, you need to skip the every other month visit to Tenerife. Especially if your a track rider that goes from a best finish of 109th at a Grand Tour to 4th at the ripe age of 29 years old and credits weight loss and special road training as the reasons. The word to describe that would be incredible.
Tenerife, cycling’s own natural EPO producing training spot.
Wow after that info I don’t know if I’m gonna be cheering for wiggo to win the tour now. I should do a little research on my own before I make a final decision.
I always thought THIS was why guys went to Tenerife:
http://www.bigtravelweb.com/images/teneriffe_l.JPG
The combination of clen and cytomel is a cutting agent, and used by body builders to cut massive weight prior to competition. Some will cut well over 20 pounds with this method in less than a month, and not lose much mass. If you consider a cyclist, already light, but dropping fat, perhaps up to 20 pounds, you have an incredible advantage, not getting tired from training the weight off. I still don’t understand how all these pros can be at such light weights, but not be sick. When I was at 3% body fat at the OTC I got sick so easy it wasn’t even funny.
Spot on, Wiggins is a putz. The game never changed.
But he is kinda fun to watch…One weird lookin dude.
Bradley Wiggins has a badass hairdoo.
Because when you’re super oxygenated you never get sick.
I’m glad you wrote this. I thought the exact same thing after reading the cyclinews.com article.
So brad is doping this year, as evidenced by his tenerife training camps, and that explains his good performance in 2009? You appear to have conveniently ignored the fact that in 2009 he had a heavier race schedule while on a notoriously anti-doping team without these training camps and then performed well at the Tour.
So as i see it you are suggesting that there is no benefit to be had from altitude training and doing plenty of climbing and that the only way to get any form is to race, race, race?
Tom C-I saying that our sport already has a dark cloud hanging over it and if you are making it a priority to be squeaky clean then you don’t get to go to the island of Tenerife anymore.
I’m also stating that I don’t think that 2 weeks at altitude with do any good for an athletic performance weeks later. So his training seems suspect. (And you don’t to do suspect training in cycling if you’re trying to be credible.) Lots of studies agree. Here’s just one.
http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/csa/vol24/wolski.htm
Surely the Tenerife trips are just down to the fact the weather in Britain is just boggin, roads full of cars and lacking in Tarmac and comparable hills?
MarkB- That very well could be the case. The purpose of this post wasn’t to imply that Bradley Wiggins dopes. I have no personal knowledge of that. The purpose was to say that if as a cyclist, you want to be credible, you have to be beyond reproach. He says he wants to be credible. At that point you don’t go and train in a location that has historically been a hotbed of doping in the sport.
There are plenty of places in Europe that have good, barren roads and warm weather. Why not go and preride the Tour climbs like some of the other guys are? So even if Tenerife is the absolute best place on the planet to train, it is off limits to all professional cyclists that are trying to be credible. It’s his word, credible, not mine.
Pingback: 2012 WorldTour chat: Rhys dishes the dirt