Re: Vuelta 2013 : Tue Sep 03, 2013 4:04 pm  

I'm sorry but Chris Horners performance is just not credible. He has never (ever) shown this kind of ability before. How can this 41 year old who has never shown this kind of ability plus coming back from a knee injury be putting that kind of performance in and taking time out of Nibali etc?

Re: Vuelta 2013 : Wed Sep 04, 2013 11:53 am  

Haggis Fax wrote:

I'm sorry but Chris Horners performance is just not credible. He has never (ever) shown this kind of ability before. How can this 41 year old who has never shown this kind of ability plus coming back from a knee injury be putting that kind of performance in and taking time out of Nibali etc?

Sadly,it's inevitable (and also entirely correct) that his performance will come under scrutiny; for all the reasons you mention and also for the fact that his age means he rode through so many of cycling's EPO years. His results (particularly in the Grand Tours) have actually improved as the sport's moved towards a (hopefully) cleaner era. Is this because he's always been clean & he isn't having to ride against a predominantly charged-up peloton any more, or is he a systematic doper who's somehow never been caught?

Of course he could crack in the next few days & slide back into a 12th/13th place finish which wouldn't be a completely unexpected result pre-race & the questions might disappear. Alternatively, he could end up winning the GC & the questions will just get louder & louder as they did for Froome in France. As the saying goes; if you live by the sword, you die by the sword & cycling must understand that because of it's recent history there can no longer be any "fairy-tale" performances or sudden improvements in form that aren't going to be flagged up by a large number of observers as suspicious.

Call me naive but I feel that I have to push these doubts to the back of my mind because otherwise, I'll fall back out of love with the sport (as I did for many years of the last decade). In 10-20 years I may well be kicking myself for being stupid enough to believe in this current peloton but who knows?

[John_D]

Re: Vuelta 2013 : Wed Sep 04, 2013 6:12 pm  

Finally seen Horner's ride and some of the rest day press conferences. The fact that only that colossal helmet Valverde is actually raising a question about it makes me think sod it, he was fine.

Re: Vuelta 2013 : Thu Sep 05, 2013 8:57 am  

Yorkshire_Red wrote:

Call me naive but I feel that I have to push these doubts to the back of my mind because otherwise, I'll fall back out of love with the sport (as I did for many years of the last decade). In 10-20 years I may well be kicking myself for being stupid enough to believe in this current peloton but who knows?

Unfortunately I think it is our role as fans of the sport to raise the eyebrow of incredulity whenever we see a performance that seems to be too good to be true.

I sometimes wish fans of other sport would do the same.

We all burried our heads in the sand for way too long in the 80's and 90's believing what the stars of that era were telling us. They told us what we wanted to hear and we swallowed it.

I was pleased to see that Chris Horner did not perform in the time trial yesterday. My eyebrow has been lowered but I'll keep an eye on how this story progresses.