2013 Vuelta a Espana **Spoilers likely**

Grimley said:
I'll agree with that, the bloke reeks of arrogance, I sense doping. A bloke his age winning a grand tour? too good to be true. Kudos to him if he is clean though. :)
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I was thinking about this on the cycle into work, as my knees were aching any my thigh was hurting and i was somewhat bemoaning my over-the-hill-ness now I've turned 30.

If cycling has cleaned up its act, then surely we would start to see older winners of the grand tours? They are largely about endurance, albeit with having a good team around you, and endurance improves with age. So, ignoring the w/kg figures which do indeed seem suspicious, if everyone was clean then we would surely see a shift towards the older winner?
 
platypus said:
They are largely about endurance, albeit with having a good team around you, and endurance improves with age. So, ignoring the w/kg figures which do indeed seem suspicious, if everyone was clean then we would surely see a shift towards the older winner?
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I think its not enough to just say its about endurance. Pro Cycling in the grand tours is about the ability to recover well every day for 3 weeks with little rest. the intensity these guys are riding at is high even if they are sitting in the bunch. Given the amount of climbing in this Vuelta and relative lack of flat days where you can coast and recover I find it even more incredible that a 41 yo can manage his recovery better than riders 8-20 years his junior.

It is a medical fact that muscle and tissue repair diminish with age and athletes beyond 30 experience the biggest fall off. That's why we don't even have premiership footballers playing beyond 36 very often and they have a relatively cossetted life, complaining about 3 games a week.

It just doesn't add up for me. To race that intensity for three weeks means you have to train really hard for months and months. there is no drug free precedent for such a performance.

One encouraging factor is that you could see Nibali et al all straining every sinew and looking human trying to beat this guy. Hopefully he will get caught and we can move on.
 
platypus said:
I was thinking about this on the cycle into work, as my knees were aching any my thigh was hurting and i was somewhat bemoaning my over-the-hill-ness now I've turned 30.
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But you're not an elite athlete so your ability, stamina, endurance & fatigue isn't exactly comparable.
 
I fail to see the correlation of you being 30 riding to work with an aching knee and that enforcing that a 41yo could win a grand tour.
 
There is obviously no correlation.

It just happened that I was thinking about age of cyclists on the cycle into work, and I added the age related comment for humourous effect, as I was picturing the ageing peleton puffing it's way up an alpine climb - much akin to the mighty <5% gradient, <1km hill I stomped up this morning on my way to work.

In regards to the "clean up of cycling", I'd see no reason why we won't see older winners of the GC if drugs are no longer a factor.
 
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You just don't see people at the age of 40 dominating their sports though. You have your Paolo Maldini, Ryan Giggs, Haile Gebrselassie and Jens Voigt types that continued into their late 30s and 40s but they don't compete at the business end any more and have to manage their workloads because their bodies aren't up to it.

On a level playing field I just don't see 40 year olds routinely beating 30 year olds.
 
I agree. But it's not impossible. Cyclists seem to peak later than than a lot of other sports around mid thirties?
 
I think cyclists generally peak around 30 but it seems after that point things drop off quite quickly. Google says the oldest GT winner prior to Horner was 36.

I guess in his defence he was a relative latecomer to cycling and perhaps only training for domestique duties places less demands on your body.
 
Calpol said:
It just doesn't add up for me. To race that intensity for three weeks means you have to train really hard for months and months.
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So isnt Horner the logical winner then?
He is he only one in the top10 who has trained for months and months for this race.
 
uniQ said:
I don't understand this either. What difference does the doping make on age?
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Nothing. My point, which I thought was fairly obvious, was that if there is no doping, then other factors will come to the fore because people are not faking/enhancing them artificially. Endurance being one of the key factors, and something that improves with age.
 
touch said:
So isnt Horner the logical winner then?
He is he only one in the top10 who has trained for months and months for this race.
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But don't some riders treat racing as extra tough training. Hence doing a week or so of a tour, then dropping out in preparation for another event?

So training and racing is in effect the best training?
 
platypus said:
Nothing.
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It might do. I don't know enough about PEDs though to say w/ any credibility.


My point, which I thought was fairly obvious, was that if there is no doping, then other factors will come to the fore because people are not faking/enhancing them artificially. Endurance being one of the key factors, and something that improves with age.
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I can't tell if you're being defensive? But I wasn't challenging your view point I just didn't quite understand it. And for what it's worth were of a similar age.
 
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uniQ said:
I can't tell if you're being defensive? But I wasn't challenging your view point I just didn't quite understand it. And for what it's worth were of a similar age.
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Nope, just chatting :).

Kind of related and OT but I read an article a while ago that made an interesting point about team radios responsible for removing a large element of strategy. They gave an example of a paris-roubaix event when boonen was at the back grabbing some food and they radio'd cancellera to attack who then won.
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That's why they were banned for a time I think?
 
I'm withholding judgement for the time being. The problem as I see it is that any person who does well will be under scrutiny, so to an extent the whole thing becomes meaningless. Froome was under suspicion for winning the Tour, Horner for winning the Vuelta. I didn't follow the coverage at the time, but I'll bet someone accused Nibali of cheating when he won the Giro. Anyone who cycles well is under suspicion, so you can't really single any one person out as being more suspicious than anyone else.

As for his age... Hey, maybe he's just some freak outlier, and all the stars aligned for him. Most cyclists don't win anything much at his age, but every once in a while, it could happen. It's not impossible. To an extent sport depends on chance factors. Maybe he's genetically pre-disposed to peak at this age. Maybe his injury and the pattern of his season allowed him to peak at that point in the season compared to everyone else. Who were his main competitors? Nibali? Rode the Giro. Rodriguez and Valverde? Both rode the Tour. Maybe he just got lucky that he was fresh when his competitors were tired.

I'm not saying it isn't amazing for someone his age to win, but it is not outside the bounds of possibility, and until we see more evidence we can't really say for sure. It's not like he's 75 or riding with one leg or whatever.
 
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