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.