# Quintana - why no "doper" accusations today?



## Mud (Feb 5, 2002)

One heck of a spin up the Alpe yesterday after 3 weeks of racing! Surely that warrants suspicion? (Toung placed firmly in cheek.) What does Nairo need to do to be on the receiving end of unsubstantiated accusations. You can almost guarantee that the first day he ever finds himself in yellow, it will start.


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## tednugent (Apr 26, 2010)

If a Columbian does all of his training in the mountains, his lungs are pretty well conditioned.


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## MoonHowl (Oct 5, 2008)

I think you have a point but I and many others think Quintana is the best climber in the world and great performance in the mountains is expected. I doubt anyone thought Froome and esp. Porte could do what they did to Quintana in the mountains. On the other hand back to back performances like that on the last two mtn stages I am sure is raising a few eyebrows.


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## den bakker (Nov 13, 2004)

tednugent said:


> If a Columbian does all of his training in the mountains, his lungs are pretty well conditioned.


he improved a good 2 minutes on a 40 minute climb compared to Froome over an 11 day period. Not bad. Movistar seems to have had a very tranquil second rest day leaving them super motivated.


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## ibericb (Oct 28, 2014)

Quintana managed to claw back some of his losses in both stage 19 and 20. Without the right data and analysis it is just a complete SWAG, but there is the possibility that it wasn't NQ who surged in stage 20, but Froome and others who sagged. 

Here's a summary of the gains Froome made over Quintana, and Quintana made over Froome by stage, determined by overall time gap differences following each stage:

Stages where Froome gained over Quintana

1. 01’ 01”
2. 01’ 26”
4. 00’ 17”
9. 00’ 03”
10. 01’ 10”
14. 00’ 01”

Total gains Froome vs. Quintana = 03’ 53”

Stages where Quintana gained over Froome:

3. 00’ 36”
7. 00’ 10”
19. 00’ 32”
20. 01’ 26” 

Total gains Quintana over Froome 02’ 39”

To your point, I have no idea why Quintana and Movistar seem to escape the persecution from the public gallery that Froome and Sky have received.


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## aclinjury (Sep 12, 2011)

hell if you take away the TTT and the windy stage 2 where he was caught in the crosswind by himself, I'd say his Tour performance is just as if not more stellar than Froome. But there are 2 main reasons he hasn't received criticism yet,
1. he hasn't won yellow yet
2. he showed climbing ability 2 years ago when he was only 23


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

ibericb said:


> Quintana managed to claw back some of his losses in both stage 19 and 20. Without the right data and analysis it is just a complete SWAG, but there is the possibility that it wasn't NQ who surged in stage 20, but Froome and others who sagged.
> 
> Here's a summary of the gains Froome made over Quintana, and Quintana made over Froome by stage, determined by overall time gap differences following each stage:
> 
> ...


veloclinic (one of the regular posters on climbing/power data) suggests Quintana got better as the Tour progressed. Froome was consistent, but Quintana put in the best climbing performances of the year.

Quintana gets a pass because he's on a European team that isn't Anglo and so incites hatred by comparisons to Armstrong/USPS. Having been at the Tour in years past, one of the most striking things to me was how inebriated the fans generally were. Many had been camping/drinking for days before the Tour arrived - I am amazed Froome made it though OK despite the constant jeering, booing, spitting, and urine tossing among a crazy, drunk mob.

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## ibericb (Oct 28, 2014)

stevesbike said:


> veloclinic (one of the regular posters on climbing/power data) suggests Quintana got better as the Tour progressed.


If that's true, over the ensemble of the first 20 stages, that in itself should draw some attention. Barring prior illness and recovery, or some other plausible malady, one would normally expect fatigue to take its toll over the course of the race, and power to show a decline over that period.

For whatever reason, Team Sky sure attracts a lot of disdain from the public at large.


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## sir duke (Mar 24, 2006)

ibericb said:


> For whatever reason, Team Sky sure attracts a lot of disdain from the public at large.


The mudslinging at Sky is nothing new on these forums. Wiggins and Cavendish were traduced when they were winning stuff. The wailing and gnashing of teeth when Cavendish became world champion had to be seen to be believed. He wasn't on Sky at the time but he came in for a lot of stick. One of the main torch bearers was our friend robdamanii. Several others who contributed to the Froome doping thread have had difficulty coming to terms with Armstrong's cheating and see Lemond as the anti-Christ. This year's Sky/Froome backlash is oh so predictable for regulars in the doping forum.



> Quintana gets a pass because he's on a European team that isn't Anglo and so incites hatred by comparisons to Armstrong/USPS.


That about sums it up. Valverde, Contador, both stand-up guys with nothing to hide. Sad.


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## BacDoc (Aug 1, 2011)

I, for one am really suspicious of Quintana.

No way is he that young! His face looks like he's in his 40's at least!


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## sir duke (Mar 24, 2006)

BacDoc said:


> I, for one am really suspicious of Quintana.
> 
> No way is he that young! His face looks like he's in his 40's at least!


Maybe that Vuelta-winning Peter Pan Chris Horner took him under his wing and gave him some 'elixir' or other.


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## ucfquattroguy (Nov 10, 2012)

IIRC, the difference is that Froome's climb time on Stage 10 was among a grouping of known doped rider's times. Q's time on Saturday was slower than known doped times.

I'm probably over-simplifying, but you get the idea.


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## den bakker (Nov 13, 2004)

ucfquattroguy said:


> IIRC, the difference is that Froome's climb time on Stage 10 was among a grouping of known doped rider's times. Q's time on Saturday was slower than known doped times.
> 
> I'm probably over-simplifying, but you get the idea.


yeah probably oversimplifying given he beat the times of 2006 Rasmussen/Menchov... 23 all times. not too shabby 1 second from Riis and faster than Indurain.


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## Doctor Falsetti (Sep 24, 2010)

den bakker said:


> yeah probably oversimplifying given he beat the times of 2006 Rasmussen/Menchov... 23 all times. not too shabby 1 second from Riis and faster than Indurain.


But he looks like he is 9 years old.......9 year old kids don't dope :thumbsup:


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## love4himies (Jun 12, 2012)

tednugent said:


> If a Columbian does all of his training in the mountains, his lungs are pretty well conditioned.


That is why I believe in him. He's been cycling on dirt roads up the Colombian mountains on a cheap bike and towing his sister along pretty much his whole life. He's proven himself since he's been in the pro peloton and has not had a "miraculous" escalation in performance.


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## Ventruck (Mar 9, 2009)

Because Quintana is one of the good guys. Imagine some poor kid wishing he grew up to ride like bad guy Chris Froome. That God-ugly riding style, smug attitude, and suspicious level of performance. smh.


on another note, I can't say "Colombian" without a Tony Montana voice....not that I have a problem with Colombians. Just one of those things that get stuck in my head.


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## nate (Jun 20, 2004)

I'm much more suspicious of Valverde than Quintana. This Tour was made for Quintana with the amount of climbing and the low number of ITT km. Quintana is listed about 10kg lighter than Froome so it shouldn't be surprising he can compete with Froome on climbs.

Despite his age, Valverde has had a remarkably successful return since his doping suspension. He doesn't seem to have lost a thing to me.

All that said, I wouldn't be surprised if Quintana is doping, it's just that he really only excels in the discipline you would expect for someone his size. It's much easier to pretend Quintana is clean simply because of that. Guys winning huge climbs and also winning long ITT stages makes it a lot harder to suspend disbelief.


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## il sogno (Jul 15, 2002)

If Quintana had been doping he would have dusted everybody on the Plateau de Beille as well as on the Soudet-Pierre Martin, La Toussiure, and Pra Loup.


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## BacDoc (Aug 1, 2011)

You guys are so suspicious, come on give the lil dude a break!

If he was doping he would have gotten stronger over the 20 grueling stages of the tour and would have dropped Froome like a prom dress up Alp D'Huez! LOL!

He's just like those Mayan runners that would run for days up and down the mountains with only a bag full of coca leaves and a gourd of water.

Can't wait to see how the Guatemalan riders do when one eventually goes pro. The guy who takes care of my landscaping has a couple of these guys as workers. They wear tan long sleeve shirts and even in the afternoon summer heat/humidity I never see them sweat. In fact they work so hard you get tired just watching them! Probably able to pedal up steep mountains without even breathing thru the mouth like Nibali did last tour.


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## DrSmile (Jul 22, 2006)

There have been dozens of Colombian/Venezuelan cyclists busted for sophisticated doping substances in the last year, including Cera, Heptaminol, GW1516, betamethasone, and GHRP2. 

There were no out of competition blood tests in Columbia until a couple of years ago. As of February, Rigoberto Urans last out of competition test was January 1, 2014 according to here. As for systematic doping, Alberto Beltrán would have been head of sports medicine for Columbia had he not been busted in 2012 with AICAR and TB-500. Any reasonable person can draw their own conclusions as to Columbia's literal state of doping.


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## den bakker (Nov 13, 2004)

DrSmile said:


> There have been dozens of Colombian/Venezuelan cyclists busted for sophisticated doping substances in the last year, including Cera, Heptaminol, GW1516, betamethasone, and GHRP2.
> 
> There were no out of competition blood tests in Columbia until a couple of years ago. As of February, Rigoberto Urans last out of competition test was January 1, 2014 according to here. As for systematic doping, Alberto Beltrán would have been head of sports medicine for Columbia had he not been busted in 2012 with AICAR and TB-500. Any reasonable person can draw their own conclusions as to Columbia's literal state of doping.


well the cyclingnews article was last : Updated: March 28, 2014 3:48pm. not sure it's an outrage Uran was not tested in 2.5 months. About the frequency Horner was tested I believe up to the vuelta victory.


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## love4himies (Jun 12, 2012)

Interesting article:

Threats and the end of a dream. Juan Pablo Villegas talks about being forced to retire from the sport. ? Alps & Andes



> As the rest of the world comes down from it's Tour de France high, I sit here staring at my computer screen, shaking my head. Not so much in disbelief, but simple sadness. You see, as a result of an interview I did with Juan Pablo Villegas earlier this year, a series of events have come to pass that eventually led him to retire from the sport. A sport that has been his entire life for the last eleven years.


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## sir duke (Mar 24, 2006)

il sogno said:


> If Quintana had been doping he would have dusted everybody on the Plateau de Beille as well as on the Soudet-Pierre Martin, La Toussiure, and Pra Loup.


Then a lot of people would've turned around and said '..umm, I bet that guy's a doper...' I don't think it works like that. Of course, he's a mountain goat, and mountain goats don't need to dope.


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## AJL (Jul 9, 2009)

BacDoc said:


> I, for one am really suspicious of Quintana.
> 
> No way is he that young! His face looks like he's in his 40's at least!


Hmm, well, at 9,000 FT the UV radiation is pretty punishing. The Tibetans who live at 13,000 feet look even more weather beaten (and have an odd physiology that restricts EPO output to keep their blood from getting too thick - Euro's would have the opposite problem at that attitude).


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## spade2you (May 12, 2009)

Movistar evolved from some teams in the past with doping. Hell, Valverde was once busted. He probably didn't really need to dope during the Armstrong era considering he had his best TdF placing this year.


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## ibericb (Oct 28, 2014)

il sogno said:


> If Quintana had been doping he would have dusted everybody on the Plateau de Beille as well as on the Soudet-Pierre Martin, La Toussiure, and Pra Loup.


Two significant flaws in your logic:

1. Relative performance - doping, if successful, makes a rider better than he was without the PED(s). That doesn't mean that when doped he is able to perform better than any of the other riders.

2. Rider choice of effort applied - a doped rider, who is better than he was without the stuff, doesn't necessarily have to apply his improvement in the course of a stage or a race. Having an ability to outperform doesn't necessarily lead to using that ability at any given time. There is the issue of rider choice and discretion.


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## love4himies (Jun 12, 2012)

ibericb said:


> Two significant flaws in your logic:
> 
> 1. Relative performance - doping, if successful, makes a rider better than he was without the PED(s). That doesn't mean that when doped he is able to perform better than any of the other riders.
> 
> 2. Rider choice of effort applied - a doped rider, who is better than he was without the stuff, doesn't necessarily have to apply his improvement in the course of a stage or a race. Having an ability to outperform doesn't necessarily lead to using that ability at any given time. There is the issue of rider choice and discretion.


I agree.

The only thing is that I don't think he would have waited until the last mountain stage to try to take back 2 minutes, he would have done his best to bite into that 2 minutes stage by stage without being too obvious.

I think I heard that Quintana was sick for part of the Tour??? Did anybody else hear that?


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## ibericb (Oct 28, 2014)

love4himies said:


> I agree.
> 
> The only thing is that I don't think he would have waited until the last mountain stage to try to take back 2 minutes, he would have done his best to bite into that 2 minutes stage by stage without being too obvious.


He did try before stage 19, and it didn't work when he did. See point 1. It's a matter of being better than other riders at that moment in time.



> I think I heard that Quintana was sick for part of the Tour??? Did anybody else hear that?


Hadn't heard that, and as far as I know he didn't point to that as any kind of explanation. What he did point to was being left out alone, in the wind, on stage 2, where he lost 01' 26" to Froome. He ended the race overall 01' 12" back.

edit added - here's what NQ had to say after stage 10:

_"The outcome and my feelings are good but not excellent. We want to raise the tempo at the bottom of the climb to evaluate the level of our rivals. Froome's superiority is implacable. He's stronger than all of us. His rhythm uphill was too high for my abilities of the day. The last climb was hard with a hell of a heat. I'll have to see how my legs and my body will recover from that. I want to keep my position [third overall] and try and build a strategy to make up for the time lost. My chances to take the yellow jersey are reduced a bit but I'll fight till the end. Two years ago we've seen that Froome was less strong at the end. We have to see if one day, he's less inspired. He's human and vulnerable, like everyone. My dream in yellow isn't over yet."_​


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## den bakker (Nov 13, 2004)

ibericb said:


> He did try before stage 19, and it didn't work when he did. See point 1. It's a matter of being better than other riders at that moment in time.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


sounds like he knew motoman was en route?


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## ibericb (Oct 28, 2014)

den bakker said:


> sounds like he knew motoman was en route?


he still around? maybe he got flat in Belgium.


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## den bakker (Nov 13, 2004)

ibericb said:


> he still around? maybe he got flat in Belgium.


maybe he swapped to the new american darling.


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## ibericb (Oct 28, 2014)

den bakker said:


> maybe he swapped to the new american darling.


shhhh ... it's the podium girls (no moto needed)


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## spookyload (Jan 30, 2004)

Out of competition testing, or the lack of it in Columbia should be questioned. It is absolutely abysmal. That being said, Valverde is the one I see as suspicious. He was killing guys in the classics, and drops guys who have been racing extremely lightly to build for the tour. The older he gets, the stronger he gets with more stamina. Who was the last guy to dominate in the classics, then podium in the Tour while supporting another rider?


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