Yeah; and he really pi55ed Landis off …which was the beginning of the end.
If you believe anti-doping is failing in any of these sports, you need to believe it’s failing in all, it is the same body doing all the testing, there is no reason why you could dope in one sport but not another.
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I find that more unbelievable.
All time 100m times. Bolt #1… rank 2-10 all been busted at least once…
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Tbh I’m more circumspect about Sutton’s two Kona winning protegees.
KB - like others have said; is he really that far ahead of the likes of Brownlee & Frodeno; not really imho. He was only 3rd in Kona too.
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I said I have no faith in AD, nothing to do with specific sports. Nordic skiing has a long history of doping, like many others. I mentioned it as @jeffb mentioned Norwegian Nordic skiers.
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Isn’t abuse rife in combat sports (Boxing/MMA)?
Talk of it being all over football too; but again big money is burying it.
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i think he did all his “work” when he was young…
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Yep
I don’t doubt it. Back in the 90s-00s there were nandrolone positives for Davids, Stam, Guardiola (x2) and Frank de Boer. Guardiola and de Boer used the same doctor, Dr Seguera who started working at Bracelona the same year Pep took over as manager. They ended up getting their positives cleared on what is IMO a technicality. Dr Fuentes, of Operacion Puerto fame, was bragging how he treated footballers and a precocious young tennis star when he was initially arrested. Then his lawyers shut him up.
as @PhilleusPhogg said…it’s his recovery…
to which i’d add his level of effort (as perceived by me)…
Lance’s undoing was when the Feds got involved because he’d taken government money in the UD Postal years.
His ex-teammates were happy to keep quiet when the press were talking to them but had no appetite to risk lying to Federal investigators and end up in jail.
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My default level is maybe 90% confident that any athlete is not cheating. I have no way to be sure, and existing industry controls are partially effective.
My confidence starts to waiver further with outlandish performances. When someone runs a twenty minute faster marathon at Kona than they did at Hamburg for example…
Blus tri career seems to be a steady progression, and seems to be part of a general improvement across the field. I suspect magic shoes have had a far bigger effect on training volumes than they have on race day pace.
And I think long course fans generally, massively underestimate short course athletes. I wouldn’t have put a finish time on it, but if Ali had been fit for Kona we were expecting him to destroy the field excepting Jan, and to push him to new levels. If that had happened and Covid hadn’t, I think there would’ve been much less surprise at Blu and Idens arrival.
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Yeah, that kind of tinkles the old alarm bell doesn’t it?
If I go full cynic, Blu looked like he let Iden go at Kona. He looked like training-day tired at the finish and at 70.3 worlds. Same at Sub7.
Then the rest of the field come crashing and stumbling across the line.
Didn’t Blu get taken off on a stretcher at the end of Kona?!
Blu collapsed over the line in Kona, they had to delay the podium until he had medical attention. But the rest of your points I would kind of agree. Long course tri is not full of world class athletes, and when one comes along they blow the doors off. Short course athletes are well funded, well trained and have good prehab/rehab backups. Not surprising they can take it to these guys.
And I don’t think current short course is that special. Blu/Luis/Yee would not trouble Brownlee/Gomez in their prime. So if I had to commit, I would say Blu can win or place in all these races because the opposition isn’t that great at the moment. The results in Bermuda had unknowns running through to the podium, suggesting below par from Yee, and he still beat Blu.
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Not sure how I’ve missed that, I’ll take it back then.
i got taken to bed in one…
but i had consumed a bottle and a half of red…
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The thing doping helps the most with… 
As other have said, I don’t think he’s ever put in one unbelievable performance. But there’s nothing to suggest any sport is clean, and can’t see why tri would be fundamentally different. Not pointing fingers at him particularly, I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone was doping.
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Unbelievable to me - the whole science training story behind adds suspicion- think Team Sky. Micro dosing EPO (plus others) would help any endurance athlete to recovery and build to larger training volumes - and build again. All that said- I think its a level playing field - no way Frodo/Brownlee/ Gomez clean either. I accept they are all dirty - that helps me accept the event for the entertainment value.
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I think this is over played TBH. They use lactate to monitor session intensoty and establish thresholds, in particular the second turn point, which gives them their threshold power & paces. In most people this turn point is a little below FTP and 10km pace, which is often used as a threshold value. Their threshold sessions involves a lot of work just below this value. That to me sounds like sweet spot/tempo efforts, and they maximise their work at this level to what each can tolerate. Loads of easy aerobic work to support this.
Doesn’t sound that different to how people have been traiing for decades.
ETA: Just remembered, Bu likes them doing a lot of their aerobic workk just slightly above LT1. That’s why they test their easier sessions.
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Yeah I’ve thought this. We did lactate testing just at club level in the 00s. Granted we used it to guide training zones rather than constantly monitoring sessions, but it’s nothing completely new than other better setups would have done years ago.
They may be applying some things a little bit better, but it’s not fundemantally different #sciencefacts to make huge margins on its own.
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