Giro D'Italia 2016

Why? He's won one, and finished top five in at least two others.

Igor Anton wasn't going to win that Vuelta, even if he'd remained in the race. I don't think he's ever finished in the top ten of a GT.

If Nibali had won one or two GTs, your argument might hold water, but to win four, and be one of the 6 riders who've won all three, suggests he's won them because he's a great rider rather than a lucky rider.

Isn't the profile of doping a bit different these days though? My "doping for dummies" understanding is that performance drops as fatigue sets in because red blood cells die off (or become less effective?) under sustained stress. Back in the super-dirty years riders could just top up with EPO every day to keep their levels high. I thought these days they were a bit more careful and favored one or two transfusions of refined blood at critical points in the race, leading to a boost in energy literally overnight.

Anyway, I agree that this year's Giro was genuine edge of the seat stuff and there's not a lot of point us spectators letting thoughts of doping spoil the excitement when all or none of the top contenders might later turn out to be dirty.

Transfusions, whilst undetectable if you use your own blood, will affect the values monitored in the bio passport so will likely trigger an investigation by the UCI anti-doping commissions experts.

having off days and good days in GTs is far more an indicator of being clean than consistent high level performances.

ooh, bad news for Kruijswijk, better keep his samples ;)

Ah, it seems my doping knowledge is about a decade out of date.

But they are still doping though, yeah?

Just listening to cycling podcast and they mentioned something I didn't know: Scarponi was linked to Fuentes and Ferrari. So, Chaves loses the race at least partly because his team weren't up to the job, whilst Nibali is ably assisted in his win by a doper...

I don't think he's just lucky, but I don't think he's a great either. I think he's a very good rider, for whom one or two grand tour wins would be about par, but I think he's been a bit lucky to get up to four, and to have won all three tours. That puts him in greatest of all time type company, and I simply don't think he's that good.

So what?

I'm fairly sure it's not possible to dope your way to a form switcharound like Nibbles's this week and get away with it any more. It kind of makes you think that whatever was keeping him just below the level of Chaves and Stephen K (and he wasn't too far off really) was in his head. Another thought occurs - Chaves is pretty young. GT winners are at their peak in their late 20s/early 30s - you just have that bit more endurance as you get older, which is pretty important when it comes to a 3 week tour.

Nibali has won, not by a massive margin, against a relatively weak field. No disrespect to his rivals, but I don't see Nibali's victory as being particularly extraordinary. You might say that superior tactics and greater experience made the difference, no?

He had his couple of good seasons in the past, but in recent years he seems struggling a lot to keep up with the others.

Looks like the right decision to disqualify Nizzolo but the poor bastard, he can't win a stage to save his life.

I've never seen such a sad person on top of the maglia rossa podium.

It kind of makes you think that whatever was keeping him just below
the level of Chaves and Stephen K (and he wasn't too far off really)
was in his head.

Or that what dropped the level of Kruijswijk and Chaves down below Nibali was a broken rib and bronchitis?

Chaves has Matt White and Neil Stephens in his team car, both of whom have proven links to doping. (In fact Stephens was uniquely linked to both the Festina and Puerto affairs).

Should he be disqualified too?

There will always be doping in cycling. But it's nowhere near as endemic as it was ten years ago.

Yeah Kruijswijk obviously was suffering - maybe I should have made that more explicit. Wasn't aware Chaves had bronchitis though - he sounded ok in his post-race interview today?

Not unless they paced him up the mountains.

Edit: but I see your point, I'm just a tad salty.

It's quite obvious that I'm the only one who really knows about cycling here so I'll say with utmost authority that Betancur was robbed.

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

Sigh. The tinfoil hat brigade are over that way in the clinic >>>>>

Vintage edition of the year's best GT.
Nibbles may be a bit of a dick but at least he's not boring.

Highpoints - Bob jungel's breakthrough performance and greasy barnet

• nibbles' attacks
  
• chavez still smiling when he lost the giro
  
• Dan lloyd's commentary
  
  

lowpoints - not much winning from the lower-ranked teams

• the human coathanger crashing and losing the giro
  
• fashion for extremely long shorts getting more popular
  
• the guy commentating with Dan Lloyd was pretty rubbish
  
  

2nd place! And I haven't a clue!

Yeah Nibali might come across a dick, but him hugging and apologising to Chavez's family at the end of the penultimate stage was a nice touch.

yeah this saved him from the douche pile IMO, mega kudos for doing that!