British Doctor claims he doped 150 sports stars including Br

[thehog]

Re:

Are you going to read it? If you do, would you mind posting up any interesting bits.

No, I only read David Walsh books. They are awesome.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Re: Re:

Are you going to read it? If you do, would you mind posting up any interesting bits.

No, I only read David Walsh books. They are awesome.

Double like.

 

[kwikki]

My mother in law bought me 'Inside Team Sky' for my birthday, because she knows I like cycling. What she doesn't know is that I managed about five pages before I threw the book in the bin.

I read the Walsh/Ballaster book many years ago, and I can't believe this book was written by the same person.

 

[kwikki]

Well, the Dan Stevens article is on their website now. But it's £12, and although I'm interested, I'm not that interested. Probably go for a sneaky peek in the supermarket tomorrow.

 

[Catwhoorg]

http://www.bbc.com/sport/36005877

The BBCs article covering some of the same areas.

 

[thehog]

Re:

http://www.bbc.com/sport/36005877

The BBCs article covering some of the same areas.

UKAD with its finger on the pulse...

reason to investigate the doctor, they were given prescriptions that the doctor had produced - those prescriptions included the doctor's GMC registration number.

"They were prescribed via British chemists. Ukad have got absolutely no excuse for not investigating this, and that is a massive concern.

"It's horrendous. It's diabolical. And I don't think it's by accident either.

"I think the public tone doesn't want whistleblowers and I think behind closed doors the objective is not to have those whistleblowers.

"I think the worst thing I could have ever done with Ukad was offer my services, to blow the whistle on what had been happening, because I think they genuinely didn't want someone to do that."

When challenged about the need for further corroborating evidence, Stevens maintains that what he provided should have been enough.

"There is absolutely no reason why Ukad couldn't have picked up the phone and said to the GMC: 'Hey, look, there's a guy who's come to see us - the doctor's been prescribing banned substances to athletes. Can you investigate it?"

 

[kwikki]

So we've yet to hear anything from UKAD by way of a coherent explanation as to why they didn't investigate Boner. The reason seems to be that they felt they couldn't, but they aren't putting any meat on the bones on that one.

Without in anyway wishing to denigrate Steven's case, which is legitimate, he does come across as a total creep, doesn't he. Whistle-blower my a55:

" "And that was the intention - there was no intention to cheat, no intention to improve my performance."

". I almost felt like he was trying to push drugs on me."

""I tried EPO out of curiosity and the revolution for me when I was using it was the massive improvement in performance. The gains are just unbelievable."

"After being banned, Stevens tried to assist Ukad with a view to getting a reduced suspension"

"His sentence was cut by three months for co-operating with another doping inquiry, world governing body the UCI's Circ report into cheating in cycling."

"Despite spending tens of thousands of pounds on legal challenges in his attempt to get his ban reduced, Stevens says he has no regrets about being a whistleblower."

"I think I have contributed quite a lot to the present doping situation in the UK and hopefully the information I've given you and other people will allow the public to see what really is going on - how whistleblowers really are dealt with."

Yes, Dan you have contributed quite a lot to the doping situation by being willing to resort to it to cheat. Your whistleblower was not motivated by wanting to do the right thing, it was motivated by trying to get a reduced ban. You got a reduced ban, but it seems the thousands of pounds reported before as being spent trying to get UKAD to act on Boner might have been used trying to get UKAD to further reduce your ban, which they didn't. ..which makes your little expose look like a revenge attack.

Yes Dan, UKAD are part of the problem. And the problem is actually people like you.

 

[wrinklyvet]

Re:

So we've yet to hear anything from UKAD by way of a coherent explanation as to why they didn't investigate Boner. The reason seems to be that they felt they couldn't, but they aren't putting any meat on the bones on that one.

Without in anyway wishing to denigrate Steven's case, which is legitimate, he does come across as a total creep, doesn't he. Whistle-blower my a55:

" "And that was the intention - there was no intention to cheat, no intention to improve my performance."

". I almost felt like he was trying to push drugs on me."

""I tried EPO out of curiosity and the revolution for me when I was using it was the massive improvement in performance. The gains are just unbelievable."

"After being banned, Stevens tried to assist Ukad with a view to getting a reduced suspension"

"His sentence was cut by three months for co-operating with another doping inquiry, world governing body the UCI's Circ report into cheating in cycling."

"Despite spending tens of thousands of pounds on legal challenges in his attempt to get his ban reduced, Stevens says he has no regrets about being a whistleblower."

"I think I have contributed quite a lot to the present doping situation in the UK and hopefully the information I've given you and other people will allow the public to see what really is going on - how whistleblowers really are dealt with."

Yes, Dan you have contributed quite a lot to the doping situation by being willing to resort to it to cheat. Your whistleblower was not motivated by wanting to do the right thing, it was motivated by trying to get a reduced ban. You got a reduced ban, but it seems the thousands of pounds reported before as being spent trying to get UKAD to act on Boner might have been used trying to get UKAD to further reduce your ban, which they didn't. ..which makes your little expose look like a revenge attack.

Yes Dan, UKAD are part of the problem. And the problem is actually people like you.

You have put it very well indeed - a balanced analysis. Also he has been unsuccessful in trying to make out he had no free will. As an amateur cyclist he had even less excuse. Creep. Perfect description.

 

[kwikki]

I think Stevens is the perfect companion to Bonar, and quite possibly, Sapstead.

It remains to be seen if any good will come out of this. Boner's hearing at the GMC is tomorrow. UKAD has been discredited, but that doesn't mean much on its own.

 

[sniper]

the only creepy thing is the way the two of you go about discrediting the messenger.

 

[kwikki]

You are confused.

You should go back and read my posts. I've very clearly said that everybody in this case has been discredited, Bonar, UKAD, Sapstead, but also Stevens himself. That doesn't mean I disbelieve his story about UKAD, but I do disbelieve his motivation.

Just because he has revealed a major issue with UKAD doesn't make him a hero. He is part of the problem.

 

[sniper]

Re:

... He is part of the problem.

and so are you if you continue to discredit him.

 

[kwikki]

Re: Re:

... He is part of the problem.

and so are you if you continue to discredit him.

Are you deliberately trying to wind me up pal?

Edit: I'll give you the benefit of the doubt as on the Lemond thread you are claiming to speak Dutch which means English might not be your first language....which explains why your comprehension isn't perfect.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

... He is part of the problem.

and so are you if you continue to discredit him.

Sounds to me he good doctor knows what he is doing;

 

[kwikki]

I take it this is from today's ST? I haven't read it yet, but the BBC news report doesn't give out much more than before, certainly no new names.

If we believe Stevens, which I do, then it looks very much like Bonar was pretty well versed in what he was doing. Let's look forward to the 'independent investigation'.

I'm sure that will put all our minds at rest

 

[thehog]

Re: British Doctor claims he doped 150 sports stars includin

UKAD not wanting to spoil the Brits don't dope party... Let the good times roll...

 

[Cake]

If one was of a mind to conspiracies, you might speculate that it helps the sporting establishment enormously if the whistleblower is seen as a "creep".

I'm not disagreeing with Kwikki's post, in fact I agree the guy does not come across well so far in this case. But isn't that part of the establishment playbook nowadays, if a whistleblower comes forward & doesn't look good it enables them to say "do you really believe him" "clearly an unreliable fantasist" etc etc.

 

[kwikki]

Yes, which is why I have been careful to say that I believe the crux of Steven's accusation. I do however, disbelieve his purported motivation that he was trying to put things right. I think he was peeved that he couldn't get his ban reduced even further.

What is interesting is why UKAD sat on their hands. I wonder whether Stevens attempted some sort of blackmail, but of course UKAD could have circumvented this by actually doing something about Boner.

What seems pretty clear is that they didn't do anything about Bonar because they didn't want to do anything about Boner.

 

[sniper]

“The Ukad board has appointed Andy Ward to lead an independent review"
contradictio in terminis much?

 

[tantocomo]

Re: Re:

Whether or not the protagonists in this are bullsh*tting or whether or not anything comes of this story, shouldn't the bolded bit of the text be the real issue? If the public keep seeing things like this in the media they're going to wake up to the reality of professional sports and only then will we see change.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

Whether or not the protagonists in this are *******tting or whether or not anything comes of this story, shouldn't the bolded bit of the text be the real issue? If the public keep seeing things like this in the media they're going to wake up to the reality of professional sports and only then will we see change.[/quote]

errr, no. cognitive dissonance is how the public likes it.

comfortable idiocy

people dont wish to open their eyes to reality.

this is merckx. strikethru, this is Marx opium of the masses aphorism. sport is C21 religion

 

[kwikki]

Actually 25% is not unreasonable for somebody not at their peak. There have been very few studies, surprisingly, that have tried to measure the benefits of PEDS, but one that I have read suggested boosts of 50%ish with EPO use for the untrained. For seasoned pros the benefits are much less, but still massive when compared with other PEDs. One of the difficulties when comparing some of the other PEDS is that they influence perception, for example you hear people say "I felt like I could still go flat out after 200k" etc. Of course, that doesn't mean they could, it just means they felt like they could.

I don't know if we'll ever get to know Boner's client list. I'd be fascinated to know how many pro athletes he had on his books and if he did have some why he risked taking on amateurs who had less to lose if they talked about it.

Boner may have thought he could act with relative impunity, which wouldn't have been an unreasonable assumption given the response of UKAD.

 

[Ventoux Boar]

Re: Re:

When you consider the money and exertion expended by countries on international sport it becomes apparent that success in sport is regarded by national leaders as significant influence. In modern times this goes all the way back to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, at least. Why do they attach so much importance to it? I really don't know.

Simple. 'Bread and circuses'.

A rather good article on this topic here:

The ‘Team G-B’ chant will make the faces of the world frown in unison - as the hateful ‘U-S-A’ rallying call has for years. You can pump it up as a proud resurgence of national identity or dismiss it as faux militarism or plastic fascism, but it is a real phenomenon and woe betide those involved when the medal count drops. The powers that be much prefer a populace that is wrapped in the flag rather than burning it. If it takes Mo Farah Saturday nights to achieve this, then so be it.

http://sabotagetimes.com/football/team-gb-are-the-new-east-germany

As a US citizen, I'm quite familiar with Panem et Circenses from earlier in my life. (More recently we seem to have given up on the panem part.) What we were discussing, however, is something separate from that. The two phenomena may have sport in common, but that is all. Basically I think we were talking about the projection of power, and how that finds its expression in international sport.

I once read an interesting interview with Mick Jagger, of all people, in Rolling Stone magazine. It was sometime in the 1970s. The interviewer asked him about his experience of the USA. How is it different, she wanted to know, from the UK? The biggest difference, he said, is the overt patriotism in the US - we don't have that in the UK. We have people who are proud of the UK, but they don't show it in the same way. We don't have the flag waving, the Union Jack flying from automobile aerials, the way you see the flag being used in the US. That kind of patriotism, for God, Queen, and country, died in the UK with World War I, because of what happened then, and I doubt, he said, it will ever come back.

When I saw all the flag waving in the UK during the London Olympics, on TV and the internet, I thought about this interview and wondered if Jagger wasn't being proven wrong. I still don't really know.

The U.K. is, for the most part, profoundly mistrustful of displays of patriotism. Just like the Anglo-Australian rivalry, there's a hefty element of class involved; a senior politician was sacked last year for tweeting a picture of a house with two England flags and a white van, captioned 'welcome to Rochester'. To an American, this presumably seems banal and harmless; a mark of national identity next to a utility vehicle! But in England, that image was freighted with socioeconomic symbolism and importance. The white van and St George's cross are key parts of the iconography of a certain segment of English (word used deliberately) society; white, male, working-class, boorish, misogynistic, stereotypically from Essex, obsessed by football, reader of the Sun. Indeed Kelvin Mackenzie, editor of the Sun in the 1980s and one of the few people I've never met but nonetheless despise, once delivered a very revealing quote: his paper was pitched to 'the bloke you see in the pub, a right old fascist, wants to send the wogs back, buy his poxy council house, he's afraid of the unions, afraid of the Russians, hates the queers and the weirdos and drug dealers'. Another key element of this culture's iconography is the Second World War; it's not for nothing that arguably the most famous England football chant is 'two world wars and one world cup', directed of course at the Germans who remain the target of a ridiculous number of Sun headlines. Mackenzie's phrase 'right old fascist' is interesting; part of the symbolic connotations of the St George's Cross have changed since the 1970s, because it was hijacked by the neo-fascist movement the National Front, who had an astonishing amount of cultural relevance and incited a hell of a lot of violence. It would be stupid to describe UKIP as fascist, but it's worth noting that the photo I mentioned earlier came from the constituency Nigel Farage was trying to win (and only narrowly lost). Since the 1980s, British society has became a lot more polarised. From 1945 to 1979 the UK was built on a corporatist, consensual social settlement that gave a remarkable amount of power to trade unions and to the central government. Margaret Thatcher almost single-handedly ended that, and in the process she destroyed many, many working communities in the North of England that had a strong sense of civic pride. The people who were proud of the U.K. (in the Hugh Grant in Love Actually way) diminished with that quasi-Scandinavian social settlement: the NHS is the closest thing the UK has to a state religion, and with successive Conservative governments dismembering it, what's their left to be proud of? Everyone who doesn't identify with the 'white van man' culture is reluctant to be US-style patriotic (perhaps because the US is an idea before it is a country, whereas the British are, as JS Mill said, a people distrustful of grand ideas). I see two more significant reasons for Britain's distrust for patriotism. Firstly, the U.K. has quite simply not come to terms with the loss of its empire; I still hold that our culture's wilful blindness as to the crimes we committed is a large reason for our present lack of cohesion, as we continue to fool ourselves into thinking we're globally relevant. We are beginning a long process of decay: some deal with that by hiding from it, others by denying it- neither attitude conducive to national pride Secondly, and interlinked, the UK experienced a surge of immigration from its former colonies in the 1950s, immigrants who were never fully integrated. The rhetoric against them became so bitter that simply to be patriotic seemed a moderately racist. (Given the theoretical sporting angle to this whole thing, it's intriguing to note that Lord Tebbit, one of Thatcher's Cabinet, proposed as a key determiner of your identity whether you cheered for England or India in cricket). The period 2003-2012 was an especially bad period for patriotism in the UK; internationally, we were America's lapdog, following them eagerly into an illegal war and facilitating breaches of international law; domestically, when the recession hit, the last vestiges of manufacturing disappeared (and are disappearing).

In this context, London 2012 was unbelievable. Everyone expected it to fail dismally; the logo sucked, the mascots were shite, we were competing with China, and our sportsmen were consistently failures. But it wasn't. The national mood was astonishing from the opening ceremony on; Super Saturday was, incredibly, a day when our polarised, marginalised, alienated society finally came together as one. I attended the Paralympic swimming; it was - and I'm no patriot- an extraordinary day. (Interestingly, the private security firm epically failed to actually provide security, so the army stepped in a week before the Games began, and proceeded to act with a somewhat surprising professionalism and good humour; the army providing security...how much more uniting can you get? Don't worry though; the mood of unity and optimism evaporated by the start of 2013, and as the bad-mannered and bad-tempered fight over the future of the Stadium itself shows you, no hint of it remained in our national culture, as far as I can tell. Equally, it was a powerful force at the time (mostly for the worse). Danny Boyle's opening ceremony presented an inclusive vision of what Britain could be and what its significance is (David Bowie, mostly). But the reality is more like Trainspotting...

Edit: lots of stuff raised since I posted. I can't agree with Buckle (although it is worth noting that London got the Olympic nod ahead of heavy favourite Paris); Robert raised some very interesting points, and the Brecht quote sure fits.

Bravo. An outstanding post. Other than the decay piece - I don't think we think that deeply - I agree entirely. What on earth are you doing posting this gold here

 

[Maxiton]

Re: Re:

The U.K. is, for the most part, profoundly mistrustful of displays of patriotism. Just like the Anglo-Australian rivalry, there's a hefty element of class involved; a senior politician was sacked last year for tweeting a picture of a house with two England flags and a white van, captioned 'welcome to Rochester'. To an American, this presumably seems banal and harmless; a mark of national identity next to a utility vehicle! But in England, that image was freighted with socioeconomic symbolism and importance. The white van and St George's cross are key parts of the iconography of a certain segment of English (word used deliberately) society; white, male, working-class, boorish, misogynistic, stereotypically from Essex, obsessed by football, reader of the Sun. Indeed Kelvin Mackenzie, editor of the Sun in the 1980s and one of the few people I've never met but nonetheless despise, once delivered a very revealing quote: his paper was pitched to 'the bloke you see in the pub, a right old fascist, wants to send the wogs back, buy his poxy council house, he's afraid of the unions, afraid of the Russians, hates the queers and the weirdos and drug dealers'. Another key element of this culture's iconography is the Second World War; it's not for nothing that arguably the most famous England football chant is 'two world wars and one world cup', directed of course at the Germans who remain the target of a ridiculous number of Sun headlines. Mackenzie's phrase 'right old fascist' is interesting; part of the symbolic connotations of the St George's Cross have changed since the 1970s, because it was hijacked by the neo-fascist movement the National Front, who had an astonishing amount of cultural relevance and incited a hell of a lot of violence. It would be stupid to describe UKIP as fascist, but it's worth noting that the photo I mentioned earlier came from the constituency Nigel Farage was trying to win (and only narrowly lost). Since the 1980s, British society has became a lot more polarised. From 1945 to 1979 the UK was built on a corporatist, consensual social settlement that gave a remarkable amount of power to trade unions and to the central government. Margaret Thatcher almost single-handedly ended that, and in the process she destroyed many, many working communities in the North of England that had a strong sense of civic pride. The people who were proud of the U.K. (in the Hugh Grant in Love Actually way) diminished with that quasi-Scandinavian social settlement: the NHS is the closest thing the UK has to a state religion, and with successive Conservative governments dismembering it, what's their left to be proud of? Everyone who doesn't identify with the 'white van man' culture is reluctant to be US-style patriotic (perhaps because the US is an idea before it is a country, whereas the British are, as JS Mill said, a people distrustful of grand ideas). I see two more significant reasons for Britain's distrust for patriotism. Firstly, the U.K. has quite simply not come to terms with the loss of its empire; I still hold that our culture's wilful blindness as to the crimes we committed is a large reason for our present lack of cohesion, as we continue to fool ourselves into thinking we're globally relevant. We are beginning a long process of decay: some deal with that by hiding from it, others by denying it- neither attitude conducive to national pride Secondly, and interlinked, the UK experienced a surge of immigration from its former colonies in the 1950s, immigrants who were never fully integrated. The rhetoric against them became so bitter that simply to be patriotic seemed a moderately racist. (Given the theoretical sporting angle to this whole thing, it's intriguing to note that Lord Tebbit, one of Thatcher's Cabinet, proposed as a key determiner of your identity whether you cheered for England or India in cricket). The period 2003-2012 was an especially bad period for patriotism in the UK; internationally, we were America's lapdog, following them eagerly into an illegal war and facilitating breaches of international law; domestically, when the recession hit, the last vestiges of manufacturing disappeared (and are disappearing).

In this context, London 2012 was unbelievable. Everyone expected it to fail dismally; the logo sucked, the mascots were shite, we were competing with China, and our sportsmen were consistently failures. But it wasn't. The national mood was astonishing from the opening ceremony on; Super Saturday was, incredibly, a day when our polarised, marginalised, alienated society finally came together as one. I attended the Paralympic swimming; it was - and I'm no patriot- an extraordinary day. (Interestingly, the private security firm epically failed to actually provide security, so the army stepped in a week before the Games began, and proceeded to act with a somewhat surprising professionalism and good humour; the army providing security...how much more uniting can you get? Don't worry though; the mood of unity and optimism evaporated by the start of 2013, and as the bad-mannered and bad-tempered fight over the future of the Stadium itself shows you, no hint of it remained in our national culture, as far as I can tell. Equally, it was a powerful force at the time (mostly for the worse). Danny Boyle's opening ceremony presented an inclusive vision of what Britain could be and what its significance is (David Bowie, mostly). But the reality is more like Trainspotting...

Edit: lots of stuff raised since I posted. I can't agree with Buckle (although it is worth noting that London got the Olympic nod ahead of heavy favourite Paris); Robert raised some very interesting points, and the Brecht quote sure fits.

Bravo. An outstanding post. Other than the decay piece - I don't think we think that deeply - I agree entirely. What on earth are you doing posting this gold here

I'll hazard a guess and say it's because a forum is only as good as its members and what they post. Cannibal72 obviously enjoys an exceptional forum, as do I.

 

[Ventoux Boar]

Re: Re:

I'll hazard a guess and say it's because a forum is only as good as its members and what they post. Cannibal72 obviously enjoys an exceptional forum, as do I.

Agreed. It was an exceptional contribution.