Originally Posted by
msu2001la
I'm late to this thread, but the suspicions around Lance Armstrong were so strong because they were fueled by very specific accusations from people within the sport. While most accusations weren't publicly made until later in LA's career, they were well known within the sport from the beginning. He was working with Michael Ferrari who openly advocated for the use of EPO in the 1990's while working as a team doctor, and by 1999 had a pretty well earned reputation for facilitating doping through his private practice. There were also soigneurs, former teammates, former friends, trainers, etc that were all talking to the media and others about what they saw going on. Lance also had a positive test in 1999 that his team wiggled their way out of by producing a prescription for a banned substance (that later was revealed to have been forged). Floyd Landis was LA's teammate on USPS, so of course the suspicions were there from the beginning (and they were correct, as history now shows) when he started replicating those superhuman efforts the moment Lance "retired".
For those that don't remember - Floyd Landis had a very bad day on Stage 16 in the 2006 TdF. He got dropped on the final climb and lost 8 minutes (and the yellow jersey). Then miraculously they very next day he rode solo off the front of the peloton - not an attack... just a tempo that no one else could hold - with 120k to go. He single handedly closed a 6 minute gap to a10 person breakway group, then towed those who could hold on to his wheel up to a 9 minute lead before going solo to the line. After starting the day in 11th place, over 8 minutes down, he finished in 3rd place overall just 30 seconds out of yellow. Landis went on to easily beat the yellow jersey by 1:30 in the TT a few days later to seal the deal.
This is a lot different than anything we've seen Jonas Vingegaard do, and to my knowledge there are not a bunch of whispers/rumors or flat out accusations against Vingegaard. I'm not saying Vingegaard is clean, but claiming that his performances alone should result in the same level of suspicions that surrounded Lance Armstrong is silly.
I'm trying to look at the big picture. Remember last week when Vingegaard confidently stated that the Tour wouldn't be won by four seconds - like he knew he had some trick up his sleeve ... and today, Wout saying that he rode faster than the normal people? I was highly suspicious of Froome's emergence from seemingly nowhere - and he's been sanctioned for one incident, and may well have been a part of the Jiffy bag kerfuffle, but they couldn't get anyone to come clean on that. Jonas - like Froome (and Roglic - though I haven't seen superhuman efforts from him) came out of nowhere. Like with Sky, good riders would go there and within a season become supermen. TJV seems to have a similar magical effect. Part of it may be training, but riders are not merely breaking through personal barriers, they are pushing hard up against the outer limits of metabolic performance. With Jonas, I've tried really hard to believe... he showed excellent sportsmanship last year... but today is just too much for me. I'm not accusing him, but I am back to doubting the sport has turned that corner.
and back to Floyd in 2006. He got very far down to Periera because his stupid DS let the breakaway get wayyyy too far ahead on stage 13. Had a sane person not given that breakaway 29 minutes,.. and that race was where Rasmussen first showed his tainted mug. Curious that the people who got busted were folks that weren't liked.