Doping

He cracked the day before, lost time, dosed up and ride over 8 cols solo against the combined incompetence of a doped Telekom team

ftfy

Froome’s performance was all over the place in this Giro.

He didn't lose eight minutes on a single stage, then wipe the floor with the rest of the field the next day though, did he?

He crashed on the morning of the opening stage, and clearly suffered from the effects of that crash for the opening few stages. But at Etna, he showed his underlying form was good, only to fall on the same side again a couple of days later and lose another minute the day after. He then recovered in the second week, enough to be able to win the stage on the Zoncolan, but probably went too deep as he suffered a bit the next day, losing another minute or so. But then, in the final week, when you have to be on top of your game, he was, whereas others either stumbled, i.e. Yates and Pinot, or were knackered, Pozzovivo and Dumoulin.

It was an incredible comeback, but the nature of the Giro lends itself to the strongest rider in the final week winning the race, as Nibali demonstrated two years ago.

Understood. The process in this case is taking very long and facts and proof are still not clearly given. The longer it takes to reach a level of transparency about what happened, the more room is given to speculation. That is what is happening, and Sky/Froome are the only ones that can change this situation, so we’ll have to wait for that and accept what happens in the meantime.

Chavez, yes, somewhat. Yates, no, just dug too deep in the first two weeks I think

With a banned substance, that element of doubt isn't there, a ban is issued, irrespective of the athlete's explanation.

Except that riders have been cleared in clenbuterol cases where they gave acceptable explanations, e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/apr/23/michael-rogers-uci-contaminated-meat

I know, but you pretty much have to show you've spent time in a country with a known issue of administering clenbuterol to cattle, i.e. China or Mexico, to be cleared. Spain doesn't count.

It's taken no longer than Ulissi and the other guys who's name I can't remember.

Petacchi?

And both he and Ulissi had the benefit of due process.

That's the one! And exactly.

Possibly. I hope it worked like that. I’d love to hear some more from inside the peloton (not the secret pro mind) Froome is still, as I understood, regarded as the freak that keeps on freaking.

strongest rider in the final week winning the race, as Nibali demonstrated two years ago.

Ah yes. Nibali’s win was purely his own forte, had nothing to do with Kruijswijk crashing of course

A TL:DR would be appreciated

If you make more power in a race than you did in testing, you must be doping.

Except a lot of performances were all over in the Giro, Doumoulin proving the only other consistent GC rider over three weeks. Hindsight is a great thing, and with it Yates burning matches day by day and riders like Pinot and Pozzo trying to follow and doing the same paved the way for a softly softly catchy monkey approach by Froome.

And Sky executed it well, Froome took his chance and Doumoulin was isolated and dithered.

I didn't see the press attack Contador when he won on the Angliru last year. In fact it was quite the opposite.

Nibali’s come back was pretty significant though, smashed it the third week.

And Sky executed it well, Froome took his chance and Doumoulin was isolated and dithered.

Yep. Dumoulin even knew the day before exactly when and where they would, and still couldn’t do a thing about it

Not as hard as Stevie smashed the wall of snow ;-)

In a way this gets to a certain heart of the matter. The reception of cycling fans to Contador opposed to Froome echoes that of Pantani to Armstrong.

I think he had a lot of good will as it was his swansong before retirement and wasn't riding for GC, but also people were still looking and measuring his performances: http://www.georgeron.com/2017/09/contador-VAM-powertoweightratio-angliru.html

I think that's the thing-it's the one who is winning that gets held up to the light most. If Froome had rode like that but only went from 9th to 6th in GC people would not be making so much of it. If Contador had won on the Angliru and taken GC in the Vuelta people would be baying also.

Ah yes. Nibali’s win was purely his own forte, had nothing to do with Kruijswijk crashing of course

It had a lot to do with it. But Kruijswijk was in difficulty before he crashed, and you could argue he crashed because he was pushing too hard to stay with Nibali.

Doumoulin needed a lieutenant, no-one from Sunweb so he had to lean on Pinot and Reichenbach, since Lopez and Caparaz where fighting each other. He admitted his mistake too: had he pushed on Solo he might have limited losses, stayed in pink.

He did not admit his mistake, where did you read/see that? Interviewed afterwards, he stood by his decision, and explained he knew he wouldn’t have a chance going mano a mano uphill with Froome so he chose to bring the other guys along.

I don’t know if I would call it ‘difficulty’, maybe nerves got the better of him when Nibali started to make up time. I think without the crash Nibali wouldn’t have succeeded in beating him. But we’ll never know.

We won't, that's true. But Kruijswijk's subsequent results suggest that was the best shot he'll get at winning a GT in his career. Which is a shame.

I think it got inside his head, where the most important muscle resides...

Distance running putting in a credible challenge against cycling for the "dirtiest image" title: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/44312755