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  • It's very peculiar all round really. Double standards and all the rest.
    Often brought up is Froome's supposed 'transformation' aged 26 into a world class rider, ignoring the fact that until incredibly recently it's been nigh on impossible for a rider to come out of Africa aged 18 and join a euro/world pro team. Often this is accompanied by a mocking picture of a young Froome looking chunky, as if this backs up their statement rather than giving a huge reason for why he went from a rider getting dropped on climbs to one leading up them. The Bilharzia thing is dismissed out of hand as a lie.
    I can understand the scepticism - there's been past cases where athletes have transformed with doping. Lance, Michelle Smith, even Landlord Christie (i'm leaving that autocorrect in) becoming the best sprinter in the world when he was 32 - but all of those were either exposed as cheats fairly soon after, or had huge simmering evidence to suggest they were cheating.
    The only thing used to beat Sky with are power numbers, the limits of which seem to be set either by doctors who doped athletes heavily (Ferrari) or 'Coaches,' using that term incredibly loosely, like Antoine Vayer who last worked with top riders in, what, the 90s, at Festina? Who would also have been doped. Some of it seems to come from ego - "I never made an athlete that good, so whoever else can is obviously cheating". What else? Attention? Tucker always comes back on the 'i'm a really good scientist' argument, but one could push back on that - if he's so good, why is he shouting and blogging instead of coaching the world's best? Since he's so great, obviously the world's best are using doping doctors.
    Ad infinitum.

  • I've seen him accused of that before, but he just backs himself up with the 'i'm a scientist argument, I'm not biased and how dare you accuse me of such a thing' argument. I've pulled him up on how you can prove a negative, and also on the question of why Froome blossomed at age 26, but he's not very interested in answering those.
    He's far more engaging on subjects he's not entirely made his mind up on, but I fear once he's decided he's right, he's decided it for good.

    Side note - Tucker has bemoaned Sky's PR so much in the past couple of seasons. Apparently having fluff pieces about their riders is a doping indicator, as if fluff pieces about any high profile athlete have never existed before Sky came along. the ST's David Walsh, who helped expose Armstrong as a doper, has come in for repeated and vicious criticism for a while, and not just from Tucker, but from all the trolls. It's again a case of if x=y, then y=dope for them all. Again, I may be wrong, but I'd put money on Walsh, who risked his job to expose Armstrong, on being honest and having integrity enough not to promote a Sky lie. Anonymous tweeters adamant there's a lie to uncover, not so much.

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