Brits don't dope?

[blackcat]

Re:

somewhere underneath all the jawdropping doping performances from the Giro, this seems to have been burried:

https://twitter.com/robinbogg/status/725588538981490688

Sir Robin Bogg
‏@robinbogg

@rogerc32 @manutdinsights You 2 (1) are going to feel pretty stupid when it's revealed Sutton recommended Varnish take an illegal epidural

Anybody know more about this?
Even if it's a parody account, why make up an epidural?
Sounds to me like somebody with intel, but I could be wrong.

who gave birth?

whats the name of the bub?

wish them my congratulations. The stork will deliver a pussie noir gift

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

Well...he is at a book festival promoting his book

Haha. So predictable. It reminds me of when Froome's animal cruelty history was revealed, and we had posters arguing that its perfectly ok to torture animals. And when Fround questioned if Wiggins was the strongest there were plenty of sky fans attacking women's rights. And now, an internationally recognized anti mafia campaigner who's work has helped damage organized crime and who lives every day of his life under the threat of death, well even his honour is open to being questioned.

all in defense of the sainthood of wiggins and brailsford

but this was a made-up story by the Dawg, and Irondan deleted my Glenn Close and Michael Douglas boiling bunnies pic from Fatal Attraction.

thought experiment, if I were to ask Peter Singer, who is the more ethical, Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction or Dawg in kindy in Rhodesia or Kenya?

 

[blackcat]

Remember how the British press declared that Britain was the bestest most honest, least corrupt place on earth.

Apparently not

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/05/29/britain-is-most-corrupt-country-on-earth-says-mafia-expert-rober/

Smooth Skin boy Dave Cameron and Queenie and Corgies alliterationz were waxing lyrical about the Chinese and the Nigerians just a week ago.

#muscularchristianity ftw

 

[kwikki]

Re: Re:

Well...he is at a book festival promoting his book

Haha. So predictable. It reminds me of when Froome's animal cruelty history was revealed, and we had posters arguing that its perfectly ok to torture animals. And when Fround questioned if Wiggins was the strongest there were plenty of sky fans attacking women's rights. And now, an internationally recognized anti mafia campaigner who's work has helped damage organized crime and who lives every day of his life under the threat of death, well even his honour is open to being questioned.

all in defense of the sainthood of wiggins and brailsford

Not at all.

I'm just pointing out that your assertion that

the British press declared that Britain was the bestest most honest, least corrupt place on earth

....is palpably untrue, and I gave you plenty of examples from a range of British media to demonstrate this.

With regards to the "world renowned Mafia expert" who is appearing at the Hay Literary Festival promoting his book, I'm surprised at your naivety. You do know what PR is, don't you? If the author hadn't generated that attention grabbing headline you'd never have heard of him. Now you are elevating him to sainthood (see...I can do overstatement too )

I had to give a wry smile that you try and turn it into some sort of defence of Wiggins and British cycling. As far as I'm aware the author in question made no comment on cycling.

 

[blackcat]

what about new Russia moving into 20millionGBP Belgravia 3 storey Victorians?

do they count as corrupt or non british so corrupt therefore


#muscularchristianity=/=#muscularorthodoxchristianity

 

[kwikki]

Re:

what about new Russia moving into 20millionGBP Belgravia 3 storey Victorians?

do they count as corrupt or non british so corrupt therefore


#muscularchristianity=/=#muscularorthodoxchristianity

Are you asking me? What about it?

If you've understood my post you'll see it isn't a defence against accusations of corruption. The UK has long been a good bet for less than savoury people to hide their stash. The Russians are just the new kids on the block.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

what about new Russia moving into 20millionGBP Belgravia 3 storey Victorians?

do they count as corrupt or non british so corrupt therefore


#muscularchristianity=/=#muscularorthodoxchristianity

Are you asking me? What about it?

If you've understood my post you'll see it isn't a defence against accusations of corruption. The UK has long been a good bet for less than savoury people to hide their stash. The Russians are just the new kids on the block.

if you've understood my post you would appreciate mick wildean drollery, or he coulda been a proddo[sic], regardless, you missed the wildean drollery

 

[sniper]

Some fragments from an article on drug use in British sport from the 1960s onwards.
Reference:
Waddington, Ivan. 2005. "Changing Patterns of Drug Use in British Sport from the 1960s". In: Sport in History Volume 25, Issue 3, 472-496.

In December 1987, The Times newspaper published a three-part investigation into doping in British sport.
...
The Times characterized the history of drug taking among British
athletes during the previous fifteen years as involving three processes: ‘the
spread from the throwing events to all the track and field disciplines; the
spread from international down towards club level and the involvement of
youngsters; and official connivance to cheat the testing system’.
...
'In the 1980s, with increasingly sophisticated
products, the athlete using drugs is as likely to be a long jumper as a
hammer-thrower and even the once sacrosanct middle- and long-distance
events are not immune’
...
Among the athletes with whom The Times spoke was Dave Abrahams, a former United Kingdom indoor record-holder in the high jump. Abrahams described the journey home following the 1982 Common-
wealth Games in Brisbane, Australia: ‘On the plane back, most of the
English team were talking about drugs. I’d say 80 per cent of them were,
or had been on them.’ John Docherty, a former Scottish international 400-
metre hurdler who at the time lived in the south of England, said that
drug taking was already spreading down from the elite level to Southern
League athletics
...
It is clear that, by this time, there was already developing in at least
some sports within Britain a culture that was shared by some athletes and
coaches and which involved not only an acceptance of doping but also a
significant degree of organization to obtain drugs and avoid detection.
[Peter] Coni described overseas training camps involving British athletes in which
athletes ‘sat down with their coach to work through the coming
competitive season, dividing up between them the events at which testing
might occur so that each would have ‘‘come off ’’ drugs for only the
minimum period to evade the risk of detection if called for testing’.
Clearly there was already a substantial demand for, and use of,
performance-enhancing drugs by British athletes; a particularly striking
revelation by Coni related to a training camp in Portugal in the early
1980s at which the local chemists’ shops ‘ran out of anabolic steroids because of the purchases by British athletes’

And it goes on like that. Very interesting reading. Makes a complete mockery of the idea of clean (British) top sport. I might post up some more later.

 

[kwikki]

And it completely contradicts the meme voiced here, and indeed the premise of this thread, that British people think their athletes don't cheat.

That's an article from a national paper in 1987.....just a tiny bit before Armstrong

 

[sniper]

Re:

Following the The Times report, the Amateur Athletic Association established a committee of enquiry chaired by Peter Coni, a barrister and prominent figure in rowing. The resulting Coni report is where the whitewashing of contemporary British sports begins.

although Coni confirmed that the use of drugs had been widespread in some sports, it
differed from The Times in claiming that the period from 1976 to 1982 was the ‘high point’ of drug use by British athletes and that ‘since perhaps 1983 the level of drug abuse in British athletics has reduced’.
The report stated: ‘we do not think we are being over-optimistic in
concluding that British athletics is at present enjoying a noticeable
recession in the level of drug use’. It claimed that this conclusion was
based on ‘an overwhelming burden of evidence’ which it had received,
though significantly none of this evidence was cited in the report.

 

[Tonton]

I'm watching the exchanges. Just deleted 3 posts. Let's all remain courteous, even if we strongly disagree with one another. Thank you.

 

[kwikki]

You've just deleted Blackcat and me joking with each other! Off topic, but it was good-natured.

 

[Cake]

Re:

Some fragments from an article on drug use in British sport from the 1960s onwards.
Reference:
Waddington, Ivan. 2005. "Changing Patterns of Drug Use in British Sport from the 1960s". In: Sport in History Volume 25, Issue 3, 472-496.

In December 1987, The Times newspaper published a three-part investigation into doping in British sport.
...
The Times characterized the history of drug taking among British
athletes during the previous fifteen years as involving three processes: ‘the
spread from the throwing events to all the track and field disciplines; the
spread from international down towards club level and the involvement of
youngsters; and official connivance to cheat the testing system’.
...
'In the 1980s, with increasingly sophisticated
products, the athlete using drugs is as likely to be a long jumper as a
hammer-thrower and even the once sacrosanct middle- and long-distance
events are not immune’
...
Among the athletes with whom The Times spoke was Dave Abrahams, a former United Kingdom indoor record-holder in the high jump. Abrahams described the journey home following the 1982 Common-
wealth Games in Brisbane, Australia: ‘On the plane back, most of the
English team were talking about drugs. I’d say 80 per cent of them were,
or had been on them.’ John Docherty, a former Scottish international 400-
metre hurdler who at the time lived in the south of England, said that
drug taking was already spreading down from the elite level to Southern
League athletics
...
It is clear that, by this time, there was already developing in at least
some sports within Britain a culture that was shared by some athletes and
coaches and which involved not only an acceptance of doping but also a
significant degree of organization to obtain drugs and avoid detection.
[Peter] Coni described overseas training camps involving British athletes in which
athletes ‘sat down with their coach to work through the coming
competitive season, dividing up between them the events at which testing
might occur so that each would have ‘‘come off ’’ drugs for only the
minimum period to evade the risk of detection if called for testing’.
Clearly there was already a substantial demand for, and use of,
performance-enhancing drugs by British athletes; a particularly striking
revelation by Coni related to a training camp in Portugal in the early
1980s at which the local chemists’ shops ‘ran out of anabolic steroids because of the purchases by British athletes’

And it goes on like that. Very interesting reading. Makes a complete mockery of the idea of clean (British) top sport. I might post up some more later.

This a fantastic spot, the kind of thing that makes this forum the best place to come to for this kind of "forgotten" info. Please post more if you can find it.

It puts the lie to those that say "well even if there is doping now, there wasn't anything in the 60s / 70s / 80s". Anyone that's read about the history of doping in soccer will know it goes back to the 50s (crude-by-modern-standards "pep" pills in those days).

Wouldn't it be interesting if those Portuguese chemists could identify who was buying the stuff back then!

 

[blackcat]

Re:

Oh bloody hell ...He was leader for OGE at Catalunya or was it Paris Nice and performed very poorly as I recall

Hard to imagine the twin is also not up to the same

the Yates boys are clean, they dont ride for Sky and a British team, they ride for the all conquering and clean aussies orica greenEDGE poe's#law

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

Please post more if you can find it.

So the Coni report is where I left off.

Now, the Coni report had claimed modern British sports was becoming increasingly clean and pointed at a mentality shift among British athletes:

The report argued that ‘there is an increasing disapproval amongst the athletes themselves of the way that drug use in athletics has spread and, still more importantly, of the forms that it is now taking’.

But although the Coni report had the pretention of being independent, it wasn't really independent after all.

it is important to emphasize that the Coni Inquiry was not a genuinely independent inquiry in the manner of the Black Inquiry in Australia or the Dubin Commission in Canada; it was an enquiry established by a body the Amateur Athletic Association which was itself centrally involved in administering those sports which were the focus of the allegations made by the Times. Moreover, two of the three members of the inquiry team were also centrally involved in sports administration.

Moving away from the Coni report, the author goes on to point out the insincerity of some of the British antidoping PR:

sports organizations in Britain have frequently claimed that the small number of athletes testing positive is an indication that British sport is relatively drug-free. For example a spokesman for the British Athletic Federation claimed in 1995 that test results showed that ‘over 99 per cent of British athletes are not using performance-enhancing drugs’. [51] Two years later, the then director of the United Kingdom Sports Council’s ethics and anti-doping directorate, in commenting on the fact that only 2 per cent of the 4,000 samples analysed in the previous year were positive, said: ‘It is a great testament to the integrity of our competitors that 98 per cent tested negative’.
...
[However], there is among informed analysts a growing recognition that positive test results are an extremely poor - indeed, almost worthless - indication of the extent of drug use in sport, for it is widely acknowledged that those who provide positive tests simply represent the tip of a large iceberg.

Addressing the elephant in the room:

If the use of drugs by British athletes is as widespread as much of the evidence suggests, then why do so few athletes provide positive test results?

one reason was/is of course the rigged testing:

once the choice of event and position for testing has been made, that information must be kept secret from the athletes competing until the competition is taking place and the athlete will have no opportunity to avoid finishing in the position that will lead to testing. We had evidence, not only from athletes but from a dope control steward, that in the early years, this secrecy from time to time was broken. There are many stories of dope control stewards telling athletes in advance of competition that their event was providing a test that day; and in cases where current form made the probable finishing order obvious, telling a specific athlete that he or she had been chosen for testing.
We have also heard of draws for testing which were far from random, including the practice of omitting a specific event from the draw to protect a leading British athlete from the risk of testing.

This is interesting, too.
Remember Lord Moynihan? Was in the news recently as he advocated for criminalizing drug use in GB following the Boner revelations. In fact he was already looking into drug issues in the late 80s. Where the Coni report tried to trivialize accusations of corruption among GB sports officials, Moynihan was addressing reality:

shortly before the Coni Inquiry was established, the then Minister for Sport, Colin Moynihan, who was conducting his own inquiry into drug taking in sport, told The Times that some British governing bodies had ‘made deals’ to ensure that certain competitors would not be tested for drugs at important events. He said this had happened ‘regularly’. Asked whether he had any concrete evidence of malpractice, Moynihan said: ‘We took a considerable amount of evidence in confidence. There is no doubt at all that the answer is ‘‘yes’’.’

To close: UKAD ignoring Dr. Bonar's malpractices, was that a one-time thing?
Not really. More like common practice.

Several years later, the Sunday Times revealed that Dr Jimmy Ledingham, who was a doctor to the British Olympic men’s team between 1979 and 1987, had provided steroids to British athletes, monitored the effect of the drugs on the athletes and provided advice about how to avoid testing positive. It also claimed that Frank ***, Britain’s national director of coaching from 1979 until 1994, had ‘turned a blind eye’ to athletes who told him they were using steroids; according to the Sunday Times , *** took a pragmatic view that ‘positive drug tests on British athletes had to be avoided’. [69] Despite the seriousness of these allegations, the British Athletic Federation (BAF, which had been formed in 1988 as the new umbrella organization for British track and field) declined to hold an inquiry. The BAF’s spokesman refused to comment on the allegations and said that the BAF was ‘disappointed so much space is given to allegations that are not relevant to what is happening today’ (...)

 

[kwikki]

Good post, sniper

 

[blackcat]

Sniper brings the spidey senses and toby mcguire


well don snipey

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Please post more if you can find it.

So the Coni report is where I left off.

Now, the Coni report had claimed modern British sports was becoming increasingly clean and pointed at a mentality shift among British athletes:

The report argued that ‘there is an increasing disapproval amongst the athletes themselves of the way that drug use in athletics has spread and, still more importantly, of the forms that it is now taking’.

But although the Coni report had the pretention of being independent, it wasn't really independent after all.

it is important to emphasize that the Coni Inquiry was not a genuinely independent inquiry in the manner of the Black Inquiry in Australia or the Dubin Commission in Canada; it was an enquiry established by a body the Amateur Athletic Association which was itself centrally involved in administering those sports which were the focus of the allegations made by the Times. Moreover, two of the three members of the inquiry team were also centrally involved in sports administration.

Moving away from the Coni report, the author goes on to point out the insincerity of some of the British antidoping PR:

sports organizations in Britain have frequently claimed that the small number of athletes testing positive is an indication that British sport is relatively drug-free. For example a spokesman for the British Athletic Federation claimed in 1995 that test results showed that ‘over 99 per cent of British athletes are not using performance-enhancing drugs’. [51] Two years later, the then director of the United Kingdom Sports Council’s ethics and anti-doping directorate, in commenting on the fact that only 2 per cent of the 4,000 samples analysed in the previous year were positive, said: ‘It is a great testament to the integrity of our competitors that 98 per cent tested negative’.
...
[However], there is among informed analysts a growing recognition that positive test results are an extremely poor - indeed, almost worthless - indication of the extent of drug use in sport, for it is widely acknowledged that those who provide positive tests simply represent the tip of a large iceberg.

Addressing the elephant in the room:

If the use of drugs by British athletes is as widespread as much of the evidence suggests, then why do so few athletes provide positive test results?

one reason was/is of course the rigged testing:

once the choice of event and position for testing has been made, that information must be kept secret from the athletes competing until the competition is taking place and the athlete will have no opportunity to avoid finishing in the position that will lead to testing. We had evidence, not only from athletes but from a dope control steward, that in the early years, this secrecy from time to time was broken. There are many stories of dope control stewards telling athletes in advance of competition that their event was providing a test that day; and in cases where current form made the probable finishing order obvious, telling a specific athlete that he or she had been chosen for testing.
We have also heard of draws for testing which were far from random, including the practice of omitting a specific event from the draw to protect a leading British athlete from the risk of testing.

This is interesting, too.
Remember Lord Moynihan? Was in the news recently as he advocated for criminalizing drug use in GB following the Boner revelations. In fact he was already looking into drug issues in the late 80s. Where the Coni report tried to trivialize accusations of corruption among GB sports officials, Moynihan was addressing reality:

shortly before the Coni Inquiry was established, the then Minister for Sport, Colin Moynihan, who was conducting his own inquiry into drug taking in sport, told The Times that some British governing bodies had ‘made deals’ to ensure that certain competitors would not be tested for drugs at important events. He said this had happened ‘regularly’. Asked whether he had any concrete evidence of malpractice, Moynihan said: ‘We took a considerable amount of evidence in confidence. There is no doubt at all that the answer is ‘‘yes’’.’

To close: UKAD ignoring Dr. Bonar's malpractices, was that a one-time thing?
Not really. More like common practice.

Several years later, the Sunday Times revealed that Dr Jimmy Ledingham, who was a doctor to the British Olympic men’s team between 1979 and 1987, had provided steroids to British athletes, monitored the effect of the drugs on the athletes and provided advice about how to avoid testing positive. It also claimed that Frank ****, Britain’s national director of coaching from 1979 until 1994, had ‘turned a blind eye’ to athletes who told him they were using steroids; according to the Sunday Times , **** took a pragmatic view that ‘positive drug tests on British athletes had to be avoided’. [69] Despite the seriousness of these allegations, the British Athletic Federation (BAF, which had been formed in 1988 as the new umbrella organization for British track and field) declined to hold an inquiry. The BAF’s spokesman refused to comment on the allegations and said that the BAF was ‘disappointed so much space is given to allegations that are not relevant to what is happening today’ (...)

And nothing has changed... I'm sure Coe is making sure of that.

 

[ciranda]

Oh yeah that guy who after ten years as mid level support rider is now an improved version of Lulu Sanchez x Vasili Kiriyenka and can win races at will in the hardest ways possible.

 

[Bronstein]

The Froome dog staying classy:

At his victory speech in 2013 Froome dedicated his win to his mother, who died in 2008, and insisted his victory would stand the test of time. He says he could never betray her memory by cheating. ‘Going back to those British values I was brought up with… I wish I could show everyone that this is the person I am and what they are accusing me of is just beyond me.’ Last month Froome was awarded an OBE, presented by the Duke of Cambridge ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/cycling-champion-chris-froome-on-those-cheating-accusations---an/

 

[Benotti69]

UKAD are coming out of the Dr Bonar episode like a Russian ADA...................

 

[Benotti69]

Dan Steven's has been telling what his experience was with UKAD.

Stevens: told UKAD an event where doper would be competing - they tweeted in advance they would be testing there !!

Graham Arthur at UKAD saw prescriptions for EPO, HgH, T, and said info, "of little to no use"

Stevens (@Speedking1103) says Graham Arthur thought a doctor writing out prescriptions for #EPO is of no use to @ukantidoping.

Stevens says he offered to go undercover with Dr Bonar, UKAD weren't interested, says he gave them intel of other amateurs was later given 3mo off for talking to UCI's CIRC panel, UKAD did so 'reluctantly', Stevens wanted 75% reduction like US Postal riders.

quelle surpise? non!

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

Dan Steven's has been telling what his experience was with UKAD.

Stevens: told UKAD an event where doper would be competing - they tweeted in advance they would be testing there !!

Graham Arthur at UKAD saw prescriptions for EPO, HgH, T, and said info, "of little to no use"

Stevens (@Speedking1103) says Graham Arthur thought a doctor writing out prescriptions for #EPO is of no use to @ukantidoping.

Stevens says he offered to go undercover with Dr Bonar, UKAD weren't interested, says he gave them intel of other amateurs was later given 3mo off for talking to UCI's CIRC panel, UKAD did so 'reluctantly', Stevens wanted 75% reduction like US Postal riders.

quelle surpise? non!

There is hardly a difference between UKAD, RUSADA and USADA when it comes to doping. The reason the Russians get so much flack is because they are Russian, and they are always going to be an easier target. I am fairly certain doping sees the UKAD and the British govt being involved in one way or another.

 

[Tienus]

There is hardly a difference between UKAD, RUSADA and USADA when it comes to doping. The reason the Russians get so much flack is because they are Russian, and they are always going to be an easier target. I am fairly certain doping sees the UKAD and the British govt being involved in one way or another.

Graham Arthur is an example of that. This is from the UKAD website:
Graham brings a wealth of experience in anti-doping and has acted as an Advisor to the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) for a number of years. He also has considerable experience working with Government and law enforcement agencies on counterfeiting and piracy matters.

 

[sniper]

^Graham Arthur really looks awful in Dan Stevens' deposition that just went down in the Parliament.
'Compromised' is a kind way of describing him.