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Yes it's yellow! The fastest colour.
now 34 secs between 3rd and 6th - interesting.......
My bet for Paris: Contador - Andy - Kloden (with a hand from Contador on Mt. Ventoux). Outside call for third - Wiggins. Lancey to finish 6th *not bad for a 38 years old guy after a 4 years gap*
And the question is:
Is Wiggins a new Jalabert? Jalabert won twice the Vuelta overall (as well as the polka dots jersey at the Tour) after being a great sprinter (who had won the green jersey at Tour and Vuelta).
Well it's certainly close for 3rd place. I reckon Armstrong is now the favourite (for 3rd) - if only WIggins had stuck the knife in when he was away in a group the other day - can understand him not wanting to risk pushing that one along but with hindsight it would have been the thing to do. Poor time trial by Armstrong today though - and better than might have been expected from Kloden after blowing yesterday.
it's still all to play for bar the top slot and maybe 2nd
What was all that at the end of the TT about Wiggo's time being wrong?
or am i going mad
saturday's going to be amazing. i think in many ways alot will be luck for 3rd. bit like when a breakaway hits the final 3km. it just depends who gets chased down.
boardman was saying that having one climb at the end (ventoux) will suit wiggo better. he did convincingly drop lance on colombier the other day. it does seem like yesterday was just a bad (or not perfect) day at the office for wiggo. think he's just gotta mark lance. contador was saying he'd work for the team to get more of them on the podium. but why would he bother given he's probably not going to ride with them again? also can you really imagine lance sitting back thinking "cool, kloden is heading up the road and he'll be on the podium. i'll sit here and settle for 4th even though my legs are good".
better get a few french beers in for saturday i think.
oohhh, lance to compete as triathlete again for his new team, team radio shack.
nice to see lemond has weighed in on contador. according to his calculations contador would have needed a vo2 max of 99.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/contador-extends-tour-lead-with-stunning-time-trial-win
"
The performance was one of several remarkable rides by the slim Spaniard, and not the first to raise eyebrows, most notably by three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond.
LeMond, who writes an opinion piece in France's Le Monde newspaper during the Tour, questioned Contador's performance on the final climb to Verbier on stage 15, which the Spaniard won ahead of Andy Schleck by 43 seconds and took over the race lead. The climb came at the end of a 207.5-kilometre stage that also held five other categorised climbs."Alberto Contador established a speed record: he went up the 8.5 km climb in 20:55. How to explain such a performance?" wrote LeMond. "He would have required a VO2 max [maximal oxygen consumption] of 99.5 ml / min / kg to produce the effort. To my knowledge, this is a figure that has never been achieved by any athlete in any sport.
"It is like a Mercedes sedan winning a on a Formula 1 circuit. There is something wrong. It would be interesting to know what's under the hood."
Two journalists, one from Le Monde newspaper, asked Contador his VO2 max. Contador refused to answer the questions.
LeMond based his article on data from former Festina trainer and specialist in performance, Antoine Vayer. He said the burden is on Contador to prove he is capable of his performance without the use of drugs.
"Given the recent history of our sport, doubt is required. It should lead us to ask ourselves about performances."
LeMond believes that cycling can use performance tests such as VO2 max to create rider profiles and detected if a rider has doped. He said it would be similar to how the International Cycling Union's tracks blood values in its biological passport it introduced at the beginning of 2008."
Cool that Lemond writes for his family newspaper eh ?
I reckon that Lance got his livestrong colours from the Pirates. Is this why he is coming back to tri ?
wonder if he'd struggle with the new 15hour imde cutoff?
tbh it seems implausible to me these days that lance wasn't doping for at least some of his wins. so to have someone who seems even better than lance at his juiced up best seems uber implausible to me. pretty sure lance wouldn't be doping now. his performance is of course great this year, but way below his old self in the early wins.
then again. di luca doping, loads of people doping with cera that they know can be detected. it beggars belief. perhaps these people have shed brain cells in order to reduce their weight?
anyway, gooo wiggo!
Bet that's the first time the French revolution has been mentioned in the TOTP.
Nice. Vive le Tour!
I think its a cleaner sport these days....
Contador performance that day meant a VO2 max of 99, according to Lemon, what about Andy's VO2 max? or Wiggins or even Lance's? Those have to be pretty good too!!. What about a "pistard" like Wiggins climbing so good this year when last year he couldn't ride for three weeks on top-50 positions?
I like to think that everybody is innocent till proved otherwise.
Contador is not a newcomer. He already won 1 Tour 1 Giro and 1 Vuelta. He was meant to be the next Indurain since junior. In fact he was signed by Discovery and rode his first tour aged 20 or 21. Wiggins? Nothing weird, 7 kilos less on your bodyframe (maybe due to beer) may help quite a lot to push you up I think. And the rest (Andy, Frank, Lance....) are doing as expected. If no positive is found, nobody is on drugs, or they are all on. In any case, a fair sport.
I wonder who will be on his team next year?
yeah, all valid points about contador. at least the sign of him, wiggo etc climbing aren't as bad as that guy who got second to basso (i think) in the giro. guitierez? he was huge and got done for epo the following month.
anyway, the calculations are said to be a bit out.
Quote:Are accusations based on faulty calculations?
Ever since the Festina scandal of 1998, few Tour winners have escaped accusations of doping: not Lance Armstrong, not deposed 2006 winner Floyd Landis (the only Tour winner ever to test positive during the race) and not Alberto Contador.
The Spaniard was forced to defend himself against accusations of involvement in Operación Puerto during his winning ride in 2007, and now his commanding performances in this year's Tour have come under scrutiny.
Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond openly questioned this year's maillot jaune, this week, calling into question the Spaniard's dominant performance on the final climb of stage 15 to Verbier. The American, writing in an opinion column in the French newspaper Le Monde, equated his smashing time on the 8.5km ascent to "a Mercedes sedan winning a on a Formula 1 circuit".
LeMond's criticism arose after former Festina team trainer Antoine Vayer calculated Contador's VO2 max (his aerobic capacity) at 99.5 based on the Spaniard's time of 20:55 to ascend to the summit. Vayer, writing in Liberation.fr, based his calculation on an estimated 490 watt average he said Contador would have needed to accomplish that feat.
Yet second placed Andy Schleck was only 43 seconds behind Contador at the top, and even Lance Armstrong in ninth place 1:35 behind would have set a VO2 mark over 90 for his efforts that day, using the same logic. Nearly all of the GC contenders climbed to the top at record speed.
"For Contador, with an effort of twenty minutes at 90% VO2max, weight of 62 kg, maximum aerobic power is 493 watts, which gives an oxygen consumption of 6.17 liters / min: 99.5 ml / min / kg!" Vayer wrote.
LeMond, in response, called on Contador to prove that he is physically capable of achieving these numbers without the use of performance-enhancing products, "assuming the validity of the calculations".
Cyclingnews spoke with exercise physiologist Andrew Coggan to get a handle on whether or not the estimates were accurate. Coggan speculated that Vayer's calculations were off. He explained that estimating Contador's power based on his time, and then estimating his VO2 from that estimated power could be full of error.
"The problem is that there is enough 'slop' in the calculations that I don't think you can really say one way or another what is or isn't possible without use of drugs."
"What seems different is not one rider, but the climb itself ... In addition to uncertainties regarding the exact length and gradient of the climb [Vayer says it was 8.6km, the Tour guide says 8.8km -ed] and whether or not there might have been any wind, I think he has significantly overestimated Contador's power," said Coggan.
Vayer may have failed to take into account that air is less dense at altitude and also incorrectly estimated Contador's aerodynamic drag, for instance.
"Taking everything into consideration, I'd say that a more reasonable estimate of Contador's power during that ascent is about 450 W, which would require a sustained VO2 of 'only' 80 mL/kg/min. That is still quite high, but not so high that you can definitively state that it can only be achieved via doping."
Contador steadfastly refused to answer reporters' questions about his aerobic capacity in his post-race press conference on Thursday, repeating the phrase "next question" until the media focused on the race.
Coggan, however, doesn't think LeMond's query is "totally off-the-wall".
"He is more than smart enough to understand the issues. I just think that he's being misled by some bad information."
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/contadors-climbing-credibility-questioned