Brailsford Should Stand Down

[armchairclimber]

I sincerely hope that Sky hires Greg Lemond in some capacity.
His knowledge and reputation are without equal. It would be a
clever move for Sky.

Maybe when Brailsford takes over from Fat Pat.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

I'm sure they'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Dopology is a labour of love for L'arriviste, not a paid job. Even if it is, it's a catalogue of doping cases for information purposes.

...

I mean, L'arriviste puts in multiple sources for something relatively minor league like Blaž Furdi of Tirol Cycling Team returning an amphetamine positive at an Austrian national calendar race.

That's an incredible level of detail, dopeology. Chapeau! Passionate labour of love I'd say eh?

Liberty: am really enjoying the evolution (?) of your posting style. The hypothesis / conclusion strucutre is very appealing and reinforces the fact that it is a hypothesis. (Someone else did a hypotehtical too - equally useful). Something that I am pondering for my own delivery.

Your posts in general are spot on, just wanted to say I appreciate them immensely.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

You've got to admire the way in which "zero tolerance to doping" can actually be interpreted.

Q: "Have you always had a zero tolerance stance against doping?"

A: "Of course. That is the very cornerstone of our approach to cycling"

Q: "Then why is it, only after years into their contracts with you, are you asking your staff about their doping history?"

A: "Obvious! We are now even more zero tolerant than we were when we hired them".

Simply Kidding You.

Everyone has a ZTP - some are just more zero than others...

 

[JimmyFingers]

So, you agree that he got caught out being a liar.
Do you therefore agree that the obvious course of action for him is to step down?

I have answered this already

 

[Franklin]

Seriously, every team boss has employed personnel with past crimes.

The playground defense holds little sway in my eyes, but perhaps that's just me and the justice department

And yeah, everyone hiring a dodgy doctor should get fired. Note that Geert Chamois Cream Leinders was not just the medic, but part of a fraudulent management team.

Another "Lets go off the deep end over Sky and ignore everybody else" thread.

Nonsense and you know it. Evans got the same treatment last year (and rightly so considering the soigneur drama).

There is a tendency to focus on the most blatant examples, but point out a GT winner who was cheered by the clinic. You can't. And that's the absolute logical and sane position. Faith is completely moronic and hurting cycling. Faith is fun for in church, not in the real world and in discusions. Thats where facts and statistics take precedence.

And the facts show Sky had a dirty structure (set up by DB) and that winners of GT's almost invariably are linked to doping scandals. Again, faith is out of place.

 

[Franklin]

As far as I can see the case being made for Brailsford being fired, or held accountable for and standing down, is hiring staff with suspect histories, either through naivety or through duplicity. Duplicity in that he hired no-one with doping offences, so officially sticking to zero-tolerance, but at the same time hiring the best people for the job while ignoring possible infringements in the past.

Nice handwaving again! Ignoring that pesky judicial ruling against Rabo's management team again

I know, that one that is really showing that DB hired a doctor known to be a fraud and dismisses any notion about "an honest misstake", so you have to do like DB, just make it go away. Sorry Jimmy, no way to spin it

So the main accusation is he lied.

Strawman again, you are really predictable Jimmy! The main accusation is of course the hyprocritical knowingly hiring of dodgy personel why hiding behind empty rethoric. And when caught out firing them all, while he hired them himself (and thus is ultimately responsible).

Snip sad blearye eyed story. Snip deflection. Snip playground defense.

Well, that felt like I was deflating a balloon.

Jimmy, DB is responsible for hiring personel. He consistently hired dodgy staff (one of them a fraudulent doctor sharing responsibility one of the biggest scandals of the last ten years). That you have faith in him to do the right thing is terribly sad. The guy has lied to you, a fan and you still don't see the problems. In fact you yearn for more as you want him to go on.

People like DB simply should be kicked out of the sport, just like Breukink, Riis, Och, Lefevere and the ****load of dodgy doctors.

 

[Mellow Velo]

The playground defense holds little sway in my eyes, but perhaps that's just me and the justice department

And yeah, everyone hiring a dodgy doctor should get fired. Note that Geert Chamois Cream Leinders was not just the medic, but part of a fraudulent management team.

Nonsense and you know it. Evans got the same treatment last year (and rightly so considering the soigneur drama).

There is a tendency to focus on the most blatant examples, but point out a GT winner who was cheered by the clinic. You can't. And that's the absolute logical and sane position. Faith is completely moronic and hurting cycling. Faith is fun for in church, not in the real world and in discusions. Thats where facts and statistics take precedence.

And the facts show Sky had a dirty structure (set up by DB) and that winners of GT's almost invariably are linked to doping scandals. Again, faith is out of place.

Franklin: I'm not sure how your post relates to mine. I'm not entering the Sky into the Sky is dirty debate.
I stay out because I have too.

I'm questioning the rational behind this BD has to stand down.

If the policy is a PR fake, as everyone around here believes, then DB leaving would turn the fake into a genuine policy.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Franklin: I'm not sure how your post relates to mine. I'm not entering the Sky into the Sky is dirty debate.
I stay out because I have too.

I'm questioning the rational behind this BD has to stand down.

If the policy is a PR fake, as everyone around here believes, then DB leaving would turn the fake into a genuine policy.

But that's precisely why people are taking the hardline view that Brailsford should step down if the policy is real.

Personally, I think that it is all PR at this point in time, but if a few notable others go (Rogers is a big acid test) I will be more willing to buy it as genuine. Sky are copping a lot more criticism than others because Sky are the ones that made a big song and dance of zero tolerance, and have shown to have been either shockingly naïve or a bit disingenuous about it. I prefer to believe the latter, as I feel the former is somewhat insulting to the Sky team's intelligence, and given the level of their successes in the last two years it is unlikely that they just lucked into all that.

I don't think they need to do anything as drastic as have Brailsford step down over it, but the ferocity with which they've played the "zero tolerance" and "attention to detail" cards is at odds with the number of times the net has been slipped. Again, like everything else with Sky, each tree can be explained away, but the explanations ring false when there's a vast forest of them. Which means that either the "zero tolerance" or the "attention to detail" card must be false, because if they really showed that fabled attention to detail then the net wouldn't have been escaped so many times.

Others may therefore feel that the scale of the breaches of the code suggest that Brailsford is either
a) party to deceit (if the "zero tolerance" card is false)
b) naïve to the level of being incompetent (if the "attention to detail" card is false).
They may feel that these breaches are serious enough that the only way Sky can regain credibility is for Brailsford to resign. I might not agree, but I can see how the opinion may have arisen.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

They may feel that these breaches are serious enough that the only way Sky can regain credibility is for Brailsford to resign. I might not agree, but I can see how the opinion may have arisen.

If he did resign, or was sacked, I think it would make the situation look even more dire - regardless of how it appears with the complicity or apparent deceit while he remains.

Do you think that it helps to ease the perceived severity of the situation because Brailsford is still at the helm?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

As long as there is nothing directly attached to Brailsford, it will have that effect, I would expect. He's a guy whose track record speaks for itself in British Cycling, so if he himself is not seen as suspicious, then at least much of the media will be able to accept the "mistakes were made, we were lied to" answer, at least for the time being. Brailsford himself stepping down gives people the implicit feeling that he is involved in the deceit, therefore calling everything that was achieved under him into question, so it would be a very dangerous course of action regardless of whether Sky, British cycling, the Olympians and everybody else involved is clean or dirty.

 

[will10]

I sincerely hope that Sky hires Greg Lemond in some capacity.
His knowledge and reputation are without equal. It would be a
clever move for Sky.

It's not going to happen, but it would be a huge PR swoop for Sky if it did.