Giro D'Italia 2016

Love it.

Two of the dirtiest on the podium tonight then

Care to expand?

Simple:
Valverde = doper
Nibali = cheat

Both served or paid money for undisclosed services . Valverde even served a ban so should not even be on the road .

What evidence do you have to back up your claim on Nibali? Because I'm unaware of him being credibly linked to anyone remotely dodgy.

works for vino innit

some couple of days from nibali. great riding. some sweaty palms stuff on the descent today. was feeling p.sorry for chaves tho, esp. when they kept cutting to his olds in the paddock

Chaves is done. Nibs hits his second blood bag.

Astana with their history always looked suspicious but seems like nobody had any doubts on Landa once he landed at Sky.

Real pity for Kruijswijk, one poor decision cost him the race.

Great for Nibali, and shows what can be achieved with consistency and quite a lot of good luck. Amazing that a rider who couldn't even stay with Wiggins on the climbs most of the time has somehow won four grand tours.

Isn't it more amazing that Wiggins won a GT?

Because I would suggest that if you'd won four, you were a pretty fucking decent rider.

Sorry I don't follow your logic?

Er, well Wiggins managed to win one, and Nibali's won four (almost), so Wiggin's single success is more 'amazing' no?

But Nibali never showed any sign that he could trouble Wiggins when he was on form and riding for GC...?

Don't get me wrong, I think Nibali is a very good rider. He's shown he has the ability or luck to nearly always be in the right place at the right time. Every single one of his grand tour wins has involved rivals suffering illness or crashes (which is fine, surviving is all part of grand tour racing). It's just unusual to get four wins that way.

Gold

Surely the point is Nibali was suffering so badly 17 hours previously that he was getting all sorts of medical tests to find out what was wrong with him. So bad in fact his coach wanted to pull him out of the race. Then suddenly he has the ride of his life completely eliminating his rivals on the toughest part of the stage.

Rob Hatch and Sean Kelly using words such as miraculous and unbelievable would suggest I'm not only one doubting his performance.

However if it is legit I want to see this 'acupuncturist' because the man's a geniune miracle worker.

Who dropped out when he won the Vuelta? When he won the Giro in 2013 do you seriously think Wiggins would've beat him? He (Wiggins) was struggling to cope with the monastic existence required of a GT winner and his form was nowhere near his 2012 form.

Igor Anton was in the red jersey ahead of Nibali, but crashed out of the race.

Hard to know how either Wiggins or Hesjedal would have challenged in 2013 had they both not got ill, but they had both won a GT the previous year, and were both among the favourites. The GC just ended up a complete no contest, like the 2014 Tour.

Their are people in life who still believe in lance ! And the earth is flat .

'acupuncturist'

Euph?

For my money Nibali had the form to beat all comers at the 2014 tour.

Agreed, in 2014 Nibbles looked pretty imperious.
I mean, fuck knows really. He could be doped up to the eyeballs - but that rather begs the question of if he's prepared to dope to salvage his Giro, why wasn't he doped in the first place to ensure a win from the off? It's not like there wasn't huge pressure and expectation on him.
If you want to get your tin foil hat on, then know that most commentators seem to believe that having off days and good days in GTs is far more an indicator of being clean than consistent high level performances. Floyd Landis is the exception that proves the rule, I guess - only he was doing it in one of the dirtiest years during the dirtiest era, so there you go.
There's no way of knowing for sure. What we do know is that this race has been fucking exciting, the lead changing hands 6(?) times. No wait, did Dumoulin win the opening TT? Maybe it's 7. Actually that's just 7 different jersey wearers. Think it changed hands more than that.
It's been amazing, anyway. Sport should be a spectacle, and this Giro has been smashing.

He finished the Dauphiné over two minutes down on Contador in 2014.

Funny when Hejsedal is added to the discussion as a GT contender