red_flanders said:
vedrafjord said:
That's got nothing to do with the point I replied to. Bassons was a clean rider hired by a dirty team. And he wasn't used as an example that the sport was clean - the first time most people heard of him, it was because he was the only clean rider on a team of nine. And he said in 1999 things were still dirty.
Dekker said during the week that he'd had no evidence from within the team that Rasmussen was doping, and that was in 2007. So already by that stage, riders on the same team weren't talking to each other about what they were doing. The days of Festina going "ok Christophe we're going to talk about doping so please leave the room" were long gone.
The info from Dekker suggests that this rider on this particular team didn't know about one, specific rider who trained alone was doing. To extrapolate that to say that the entire peloton had rejected any notion of team or collaborative doping is a reach I can't see supported by the facts or by logic.
In an environment where the only doping relationship is between a rider and their doctor, if you had to pick a clean domestique vs a domestique who could only reach the same level via a cocktail of drugs, you'd pick the clean guy every time. There'd be no chance he could torpedo the team with a positive test, and if he decides to start doping, you know he'd have room to improve.
There's no reason for a domestique to know any details of any kind about a GT leader's doping. It'll just be between the leader and their doctor, with the team leader taking an "I don't want to know about it" attitude (as in Rabobank and others). So in that environment, what reasons do you have for not hiring clean rider if they can do the business.
There are plenty of reasons, including all the same ones which existed before 2007. Rasmussen's performance was a shock to his own team. This clearly was not the usual pattern. While you make several good points in this post, any which rely on the assumption that there was (or is) not team-wide or collaborative doping amongst pockets or riders are standing on very shaky factual or logical ground.
I think there is a very good case for riders not knowing what others are doing.
On top of Dekker, we also have DiLuca who said that doping had become a private affair. Then there was Thomas Frei who said he didnt know what was happening at Astana in 2007 even though they lost Kessler/Kascheckin/Vino to violations. Cofidis were very pissed when Moreni tested positive and likewise Barloworld were shocked when Duenas was found to be carrying stuff. Whether those were genuine responses or not is another question.
Frei said the bosses never encouraged or pressurised them to dope at Astana or BMC, rather they ignored things just as Dekker described at Rabobank. Didn't the Gerolsteiner riders say that Holczer was aware of the doping rather than actually encourage it. Dekker also didn't know if riders at Lotto were doing EPO and praised Marc Sergeant as a good force for clean-er cycling. Yet, one of the common myths thrown around here is Managers/DS are hired because of their doping knowledge and the implication that they have a hand in doping decisions. That seems to fly in the face of the evidence being presented whereby team bosses bury their hand in the rather rather than get involved in the actual doping. Their primary role now seems to be strictly as Manager/DS leaving the doping between the individual riders and doctors.
The evidence coming out of teams seems to suggest a real change from the days of team-wide doping when riders knew exactly what each person was doing and were quite open about it. That is not to deny doping is happening or still widespread, just that the culture of openess has changed quite a bit.
It also makes things different for riders mentally, before it was happening in front of them so was hard to ignore and there was more pressure from team-mates to dope. Now it would appear that there is less external pressure and it has become a very personal decision to dope. I can easily see how a clean rider could survive nowadays if they dont feel overwhelmed by the performances of others.
Dekker said Ten Dam was clean but the Cyclingnews article also seemed to suggest Bram Tankink was clean and he rode for Quick Step for several years.
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