Dekker to talk with WADA

[sniper]

Garmin's official policy is to give riders a dope-free environment where they aren't pressured to dope, implying most if not all of their veteran riders were in doping teams or doped themselves, and tacitly admitting so. If you accept this premise, signing Dekker makes perfect sense.

If you do professional sports such as cycling, it's either cheat or get cheated.
Either you feed the mouths of your family, or you live under the bridge.

Garmin can only pretend to train clean winners in a filthy playing field.

 

[hrotha]

If you do professional sports such as cycling, it's either cheat or get cheated.
Either you feed the mouths of your family, or you live under the bridge.

Garmin can only pretend to train clean winners in a filthy playing field.

Fine, but all I'm saying is there's no contradiction in signing Dekker.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Well, yes, of course.

Take them at face value for a moment and assume that Garmin management are absolutely sincere about running a dope free team. So they have an internal testing programme, encourage riders to cooperate with the authorities, and provide them with a team situation where they aren't being pressured to dope and indeed are pressured not to do so.

Even with the best will in the world, they don't have mind control powers. If a rider is very careful and reasonably clever and determined to dope, he might well be able to do so while circumventing internal as well as external controls. The team can stop you jacking up on the bus, but they can't keep an eye on you every moment of every day. And while a team can avoid pressuring you to dope themselves, they can't simply abolish personal ambition or greed. All that even an absolutely perfect team could do is provide an anti-doping atmosphere and internal testing. The ultimate decision rests with the rider in such a situation.

Thats pretty much how I view Garmin - they put in place an environment to discourage doping.

In fairness to Garmin, they've been going for quite a few years now without even a hint of a doping scandal. And it's not as if Vaughters is Mr Popularity over in UCI headquarters.

But this is the problem.
They had the whole Lowe/White mess - what that showed was that the controls that Garmin had in place to keep an eye on personnel and who they went to failed.

 

[sniper]

Thats pretty much how I view Garmin - they put in place an environment to discourage doping.

perception is reality, wasn't that Garmin's slogan?

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Shame it didn't work out for Thomas

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dekker-retires-fom-cycling

I feel sorry for Dekker_Tifosi

I could've been a contender

 

[Beech Mtn]

Re:

Shame it didn't work out for Thomas

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dekker-retires-fom-cycling

I feel sorry for Dekker_Tifosi

I could've been a contender

Good grief. Andy can't even pose for a photo without looking pitiful.

 

[IndianCyclist]

Re:

Shame it didn't work out for Thomas

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dekker-retires-fom-cycling

I feel sorry for Dekker_Tifosi

I could've been a contender

He doped his entire career. which is why probably the difference in performance was huge.

 

[Beech Mtn]

Re: Re:

He doped his entire career. which is why probably the difference in performance was huge.

So did a lot of others probably. If he'd have done like some others appear to be doing, kept doping carefully and getting decent results, he'd still have a nice long career.

Mistake was in going to Garmin, where careers (except for a blessed few) go to die.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

A sad day, but his heart wasn't really in it. No dope or doping, if you don't train properly anymore for 1,5 years and then have no confidence left, you'll never return to your old level.

 

[Beech Mtn]

Re:

A sad day, but his heart wasn't really in it. No dope or doping, if you don't train properly anymore for 1,5 years and then have no confidence left, you'll never return to your old level.

I'd like to know how much coaching and help he actually got from Garmin. They don't seem to do much with some of their roster, guys don't get results, maybe don't have so many race days, and then either retire or end up stepping down to Conti level.

I know Garmin has a small budget, but I question how much they are able to do as regards motivation, sports pyschology, and plain old everyday training and coaching. If you're going to (1) ride clean, and (2) pick up riders on the cheap, you ought to be leaning heavily on all the good, legal development aids you can get.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Re:

A sad day, but his heart wasn't really in it. No dope or doping, if you don't train properly anymore for 1,5 years and then have no confidence left, you'll never return to your old level.

I'd like to know how much coaching and help he actually got from Garmin. They don't seem to do much with some of their roster, guys don't get results, maybe don't have so many race days, and then either retire or end up stepping down to Conti level.

I know Garmin has a small budget, but I question how much they are able to do as regards motivation, sports pyschology, and plain old everyday training and coaching. If you're going to (1) ride clean, and (2) pick up riders on the cheap, you ought to be leaning heavily on all the good, legal development aids you can get.

If I distill the various accounts by ex-riders, eg: Trent Lower fiasco, or Rohan Dennis' desire to gtfo asap, the fact that someone like Millar was so lauded, the dodginess of Ryder and Wiggo's rise to wtfery, etc, etc, I would say this:

Some pro riders are just happy to have a spot on a team. You don't have to pay them, and definitely do not have to coach them, feed them, and in some instances, even pay them.

Add to that a doping ban, and the rider, I am guessing, gets diddly squat from JV / Garmin. Other than internal testing. And some weird process whereby if they catch you with dope you're fcked.

JV gives me the impression he does not care. Maybe, if you were a friend, but at a guess those people are already loaded and would not need anything from him in terms of assistance in the first place.

Sky talk about doing a bunch of stuff and for the most part I think it is BS. See Froome's lack of testing values or wind tunnel time. JV doesn't spruik stuff like SKy do and doesn't do it either.

Start of year camps, yes, coz that's where you get sponsor coverage and the media rock up and schmooz, but otherwise, as for the riders's doping programs ... er .. I mean preparation, pretty much left to their own devices.

IMO of course, as always.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

If I distill the various accounts by ex-riders, eg: Trent Lower fiasco, or Rohan Dennis' desire to gtfo asap, the fact that someone like Millar was so lauded, the dodginess of Ryder and Wiggo's rise to wtfery, etc, etc, I would say this:

Some pro riders are just happy to have a spot on a team. You don't have to pay them, and definitely do not have to coach them, feed them, and in some instances, even pay them.

Add to that a doping ban, and the rider, I am guessing, gets diddly squat from JV / Garmin. Other than internal testing. And some weird process whereby if they catch you with dope you're fcked.

JV gives me the impression he does not care. Maybe, if you were a friend, but at a guess those people are already loaded and would not need anything from him in terms of assistance in the first place.

Sky talk about doing a bunch of stuff and for the most part I think it is BS. See Froome's lack of testing values or wind tunnel time. JV doesn't spruik stuff like SKy do and doesn't do it either.

Start of year camps, yes, coz that's where you get sponsor coverage and the media rock up and schmooz, but otherwise, as for the riders's doping programs ... er .. I mean preparation, pretty much left to their own devices.

IMO of course, as always.

I think you are pretty close to it DW, except I think that JV has made it clear that anyone (exceptions being RH< DM and 1 or 2 others) who fails internal testing forfeits pay and possibly contract.

The internal testing, IMO, is to stop them getting busted by UCI, but more than that it assists the riders preparation in how much to take and when.

 

[sniper]

the idea of JV as a passive spectator (allowing for, rather than encouraging, doping) seems plausible.
However, why did he hire a drugs courrier like Weltz, enablers like White and Lim, or phlebotomists like Gonzalez Haro.
Only to monitor?

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Coz they get results. And results count more than breakaways.

If you get my meaning.