2017 season thread

[Lowlandbrit]

First topic message reminder :

Big changes for the WorldTour this season, with 10 races added to the calendar (although teams won't be required to enter all of them yet). No Italian teams this year, with Lampre becoming UAE Abu Dhabi.

AG2R La Mondiale (ALM - FRA)	Astana (AST - KAZ)	Bahrain-Merida (TBM - BRN)
BMC (BMC - USA)	BORA-hansgrohe (BOH - GER)	Cannondale Drapac (CDT - USA)
Dimension Data (DDD - RSA)	FDJ (FDJ - FRA)	Katusha-Alpecin (KAT - SUI)
LottoNL-Jumbo (TLJ - NED)	Lotto Soudal (LTS - BEL)	Movistar (MOV - ESP)
Orica-Scott (ORS - AUS)	Quick-Step Floors (QST - BEL)	Sky (SKY - GBR)
Sunweb (SUN - GER)	Trek-Segafredo (TFS - USA)	UAE Abu Dhabi (UAD - UAE)

World Tour races:

[Azabache]

Good point-there's a limit to Superhumanism (if that's a word!).

Hmm...a month's "rest" since the Tour. Can Froome recover his best (he was relatively lightly raced prior to the Tour); Bardet seemed shot (well, he is only 12-looks like!); Barguil-similar (though he looks about 18!); Contador-you never know with the blighter, and he'll be on home turf with all the skullduggery available to Latins; Aru-was broken eventually by Sky, but a tough nut; Yates (x2)-maybe, just maybe..

Whatever, can't wait, and assume and hope that the sublime David Millar is on the ITV4 team, he is turning out to be the finest commentator of all time IMHO.

[Guest]

Former Olympic champion Samuel Sanchez tests positive for growth hormone

Marcel Kittel signs two-year deal with Katusha-Alpecin

[dummy_half]

First reasonably serious day of the Vuelta - two first cat climbs and a 2nd cat then descent to the finish. Not a day to win the race but one that will show how the GC is likely to shape up.

Stage winner probably to come from an early break - a good climber with no real GC aspirations (Thomas de Gendt to become the 100th rider to win stages in all 3 grand tours?) with a group of about 8-10 GC contenders finishing together, and the question being who isn't with them. I wonder if Contador might have an easy day and drop time to give himself more flexibility to hunt a stage win or two later on...

Later:
8 man break, including de Gendt, about 4 minutes up the road over the first climb.

[Guest]

Overall standings after stage nine

1. Chris Froome (GB/Team Sky) 36hrs 33mins 16secs
2. Esteban Chaves (Col/Orica-Scott) +36secs
3. Nicolas Roche (Ire/BMC Racing Team) +1min 05secs
4. Vincenzo Nibali (Ita/Bahrain-Merida) +1min 17secs
5. Tejay van Garderen (US/BMC Racing Team) +1min 27secs

[dummy_half]

A curiously quirky stat is that yesterday's stage was the first race win of Froome's season, despite him winning the TdF and holding a secure GC lead in the Vuelta.

[Azabache]

He looks 'orribly awesome. Bardet fading already. Alberto giving good value and may very well win/be granted a stage win.

The quiz merchants are already drafting a question as to which other sports are there where the winner needn't win an individual event-I can only think of F1 offhand...

[Guest]

Froome pretty much got the double in the bag

[Azabache]

Alberto bowing out with great rides-a fantastic TT-one can forget how good he was/is in this discipline (remember the Annecy TT a few years back).

Nibali a great credit to himself; most of the others gradually slipping away; maybe one or two stars of the future being revealed...

I think Froome is too savvy this year to get duped again by any machinations that Alberto and any co-plotters attempt. Wonderful team to help him of course.

Some nasty stages coming up of course and anything can happen...doesn't look likely though.

[Mad for Chelsea]

Tough day for Froome, never been at his most comfortable on the highest gradients. Good work from his team to just pace him up in the end.

Nibali looking really impressive, and has put brought himself back to just 1:16 down on Froome. Should be a great battle down the stretch. Did it without being towed by a team car too

Contador continues to enjoy himself, attacking just about every day, and got some time back on Zaccharin and Kelderman. Could still nab a podium spot.

[Azabache]

Will catch this tonight on ITV4. Just when I thought Froome was OK!

[Guest]

General classification

1. Chris Froome (GB/Team Sky) 72hrs 03mins 50secs
2. Vincenzo Nibali (Ita/Bahrain-Merida) +1mins 37secs
3. Wilco Kelderman (Ned/Team Sunweb) +2min 17secs
4. Ilnur Zakarin (Rus/Katusha-Alpecin) +2mins 29secs
5. Alberto Contador (Spa/Trek-Segafredo) +3mins 34secs

[LionsV2]

Consolidates his lead with another strong finish, can't say i'm a big fan of the Vuelta, it's the least desirable of the three to win and focuses too much on long, steep finishes.

[Azabache]

Yes-there's a fine dividing line between a good, varied test to suit all specialisms, and putting on a freak show.

And there's no substance to reports that next year will feature a ride through a circus with dozing lions either side of the final stretch....

[Lowlandbrit]

Shoutout to Contador's police escort up the Angliru.

[LionsV2]

Froome puts in one big effort to distance Nibali and all but secure the double, bravo that man.

[Azabache]

And ruthless enough to deny Trentin the Green! Wonderful achievement.

[Lowlandbrit]

Been talked about for a while, but from next season there'll only be 8 per team in the GT (7 in the other races).

[Azabache]

Hmmm-I can see the reasoning (less monopolising of peloton by strong teams) but it could actually strengthen them in that the rich teams would have a big pot of money to spend on fewer players thus enabling them to make an even greater offer to secure the stars they are after. (And retain the stars who might be thinking of moving...)

[Lowlandbrit]

Someone worked out that Peter Sagan has worn a regular team kit for less than a quarter of the race days in his professional career so far.

[Azabache]

A brilliant rider that I've never been able to warm to.....

[dummy_half]

A brilliant rider that I've never been able to warm to.....

It's because winning just seems to be too easy for him. The tour stage where he pulled his foot from the pedal and still had enough in hand to win was perhaps the most ridiculous displays of power in modern cycling. Can win flat out bunch sprints, but as soon as it's a bit uphill and requires sustained power, no-one gets close.

[Azabache]

Let's hope he doesn't suffer the same fate as Cippollini, Pettachi....

And I wonder if Cav is ever going to be the same again...?

[Guest]

Froome failed drug test at the Vuelta, is this morning’s headline. The Team Sky rider had double the allowed level of legal asthma drug Salbutamol in his system. Media will go to town now, and tarnish his reputation, even though he hasn’t actually failed a test.

[dummy_half]

Froome failed drug test at the Vuelta, is this morning’s headline. The Team Sky rider had double the allowed level of legal asthma drug Salbutamol in his system. Media will go to town now, and tarnish his reputation, even though he hasn’t actually failed a test.

This wording (which is used across the media coverage) is somewhat misleading - the case is that Salbutamol is permitted without a TUE at dosage of up to 1000 ng/ml, and Froome's samples returned 2000 ng/ml (A and B samples have been tested and returned similar results). He has, by definition, 'failed' a drugs test (for something fairly trivial).

WADA rules, as well as providing a limit in test samples, proscribes a limit for the permitted dose as follows:
The UCI’s Theraputic Use Exemption (TUE) rules state that “Inhaled Salbutamol (maximum 1600 micrograms over 24 hours in divided doses not to exceed 800 micrograms over 12 hours starting from any dose) are not prohibited and therefore do not require a TUE.”

At the moment Froome's defence is that he took the dose as prescribed and that somehow this has resulted in an unusually high level in his system - difficult to prove, but perhaps not impossible. In two relatively recent similar cases, riders have been suspended for between 9 and 12 months, with results stripped for the race of the adverse finding. As such, Froome would have a back-dated ban to September and lose the Vuelta title. However, there is also precedence for a 'no fault' judgement if Froome can demonstrate the dosage taken complied with the Wada limits above.

[Born Slippy]

Very hard for Froome to prove I would say. Even if the team has records I can’t see how they would be sufficient. I guess he’d need to produce evidence that such a result could be produced despite taking the right dosage?

[Azabache]

I understand that dehydration could be a factor? I can't believe that he/Sky would intentionally try to cheat, and the "drug" is not performance-enhancing (I read). However, having believed in Armstrong right up to around 2011, I've lost some of my innocence!

I see that the slimy BBC, whilst on the face of it writing a factually well-researched article, is joining the bandwaggon in insinuations. Why don't they just stick to their preferred "noble" sports like...football, boxing, athletics, skiing.....

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