Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

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Re: Re:

yaco said:
Pantani_lives said:
Libertine Seguros said:
But the most important impact of Armstrong's return was the removal of AFLD from testing at the Tour, and - allegedly pressured by Nicolas Sarkozy - the removal of Pierre Bordry from his position there. AFLD's work on the anti-doping front was the driving force behind a lot of progress from 2006-2009; they were the ones that kept the CERA test fully secret until suddenly unleashing a flurry of positives, seeing as the drug both had a long half-life and was thought by the péloton to be safe from detection. But throwing a polka dot jersey wearer out of the race during the event, and a GC podium and polka dot jersey winner being disqualified after the event, as well as having to reclassify no fewer than four stages, didn't sit well with the attempts to rejuvenate the event, and so revoking AFLD's licence for the race was of course a small price to pay for the improvement in that lucrative American audience.
Great piece, Libertine Seguros. In the period 2006-2008 there was a genuine fight against doping, the "New Cycling", with a lot of big names caught. AFLD played a crucial role in that. The welcoming back of Armstrong in the 2009 Tour was a return to the Old Cycling, with the UCI back in charge and AFLD out of the equation. Anti-doping should be taken out of the hands of the UCI. They were never bothered about Froome's salbutamol level, only about the truth leaking out. Today another Tour starts with the top favorite perceived as a protected doping user whose team gets a preferential treatment.

Who do you think leaked Froome's test results ? The own goal was kicked by the UCI !

when somebody inside the 'government' leaks something...the 'government' generally aren't very pleased
 
Jan 11, 2018
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Great stuff Libertine, as usual. Not much needs to be added to that, but I would like to briefly touch on one thing - that a team like Sky can be tolerable or even beneficial within sport as long as they a) are seen to be made to abide by the same rules as everyone else, and b) are beatable.

There is a place for the 'villain' in sport, the big corporate entity, the ones with a touch of arrogance, who draw fans based on some particular national or demographic allegiance but are otherwise disliked by the majority due to being too big/forthright/dominating etc. This can be a useful narrative in setting such teams or athletes against the 'little guys' and more humble opposition, the plucky ones looking to knock them off who the majority can cheer on. In the right context that can be entertaining and a good contest. A resource imbalance can be acknowledged and accepted, as long as it's not such as to completely skew the playing field. They can even dope, given pretty much everyone else does, as long as they're not especially protected in doing do.

But the viability of this falls apart if the villain is seen to be above the law, or able to buy their way out of trouble when no-one else can. Any concept of a fair fight, and of a legitimate sport, dies if that occurs. In terms of pure entertainment value, it is almost equally damaging if it seems that the villain simply never loses, essentially can't lose baring some major misfortune. The same person wining all the time becomes boring, all the more so if it appears that a significant reason for this is the athlete/team's resource, political or extra-legal advantage, rather than pure athletic ability.

Sky and Froome now fail on both these points, just as Armstrong and US Postal did before them. There is the perception of certain things being done just for their benefit, now compounded by being able to ride out scandals and even make violations of the rules go away. And on top of that Froome's success rate has only grown, even beyond Armstrong's. Winning the Tour every year was quite enough, when at least at the Vuelta he was vulnerable and while Quintana in particular was very close to him. But now, with 3 straight TdFs and 3 straight GTs, it's gone from impressive to outright dominance, of an almost unprecedented kind. Despite the quality of the GC field at this Tour, despite Froome having already done and won the Giro, you expect he will win again, if he stays upright. That's crazy, it's dull, and it becomes intolerable when you factor in everything else that has gone on, and the nature of and reasons for Sky's position and dominance relative to the rest of the field.

Sky are no longer a 'good' villain for the sport of cycling, if they ever were. They are unequivocally bad, but as Libertine has said, the sport's governance must reap what it has sown. The show will go on, but there is damage being done.
 
I've often used a combat sports analogy here, and that goes in line with my comparison of the dire straits anti-doping finds itself in in terms of credibility to the death of kayfabe in wrestling. You need to have a battle that people will tune in for. The champion needs to be somebody that will either draw an audience who just want to see them, or somebody that the audience will pay to see beaten. If the champion is unpopular, the challengers become more important. If the audience either gets behind the challenger(s), or is simply so full of hatred for the champion that they will cheer anybody against them, that's fine - so long as the audience believes the challenger has a chance. If the challenger wins, then obviously the outgoing champion will be out for revenge and so produces future options for the promoter, especially with a more popular challenger, whose popularity may be supplemented by the goodwill that comes from being the one that ousted the despised champion (see the long-term goodwill received by Alberto Contador for his 2009 standing up to Lance). If the challenger has the chance to win but the champion proves too strong, that's not a problem - it raises new possibilities. "It was so close, I can't wait to see the rematch" is perfect business for the promoter; "well, if that challenger couldn't do it, I wonder who could?" has possibilities, so long as the promoter can find other, credible challengers. But if the challenger doesn't have the chance to win, why would you watch it, if you're not a fan of the champion? Obviously a wrestling promoter can manoeuvre themselves around that by the judicious use of smoke and mirrors, but for legit sports, that is not an option.

Sky's position as the dominant force in cycling is not in and of itself inherently bad, so long as people feel that the opposition is being given a fair chance to compete, and so long as people have some kind of belief in the opposition's ability to overcome that strength and thwart that domination. If Raymond Poulidor was losing the Tour by dropping minutes to Anquetil on every single climb and TT, he would never have become the popular figure he became. The great story with Poulidor was that he was good enough to beat everybody else, and he was good enough to challenge Anquetil (and later, Merckx) but never good enough to triumph on the day - but always close enough that fans would become invested in his struggle. Even in the Lance years, there were years where Ullrich was seen as a legitimate threat. That's why the 2012 Tour was perceived so negatively, because the only rider who could feasibly have threatened Wiggins for two weeks had his wings clipped.

The problem is, the way this decision has played out - and especially in view that it was seemingly going nowhere for months while Froome was riding, then was resolved in less than a day as soon as his right to ride was challenged - means that for many fans, they do not perceive that the opposition is being allowed a fair fight. They've watched Froome run roughshod over the competition brazenly for years now, and there was already the perception among many that he and his team enjoyed preferential treatment. There are many types of villains, and Sky and Froome fall into several categories at once. My wrestling analogy is a good one to use here. There are many types of bad guys in wrestling. There's the monsters, of the classic super tall or super sized kind, whose allure is due to them overpowering the underdog good guys and seeming invincible. They don't need to cheat, since the storyline is thousands of years old, David and Goliath style, but the fans want to see the underdog defeat the giant. There's the cowards, who will seize underhand advantages, poke the opposition in the eye, use their sidekicks and teammates to gain an advantage and find ways to escape even against stronger adversaries, so that the fans want to see them finally get theirs. There's the corporate bad guys, who enjoy explicit favour, being given favourable match-ups and the odds stacked in their favour, so that the fans want to see the good guy overcome those odds. And there's the pontificators, the arrogant and self-entitled preachers who tell the fans and their competitors how to behave whilst simultaneously betraying those morals in plain sight, so the fans want to see them get their comeuppance. Sky fulfil all of these criteria at once; they are the most powerful team in cycling by dint of having a super budget and a super strong team, which they complement by buying out competition with lucrative contract offers as well as, in fairness to them, having some good scouts for talents, albeit who sometimes go around pilfering strong riders from other teams' development cadres. They set up at Grand Tours with a formidably strong lineup that would be difficult to beat at the best of times. They then complement this with some occasionally less than morally pure activity, such as racial abuse or airing other people's personal business in public, whilst simultaneously pontificating about the 'unwritten rules' and attacking those who do not heed the code, such as the shoving game with Fabio Aru on Mont du Chat last year, or criticising Movistar in the press for daring to push the pace on a descent and not stop when a poor descender couldn't handle the pace (even though that rider wasn't on Sky's team anyway and the act only served to strengthen Sky's control of the race). And finally, the favourable routes of 2011-12 and the way in which the UCI - for a large period of their domination led by somebody who was on the original board of the holding company behind Team Sky - and ASO have conducted themselves for large parts of the last few years has led to the belief that they are favoured by those in power also; with WADA now backing Froome over their own rules, admittedly under threat of legal action that they may not have been able to successfully withstand, there is the perception that they tick the box for the corporate champion too.

A challenger can overcome a monster villain. A challenger can overcome a cowardly villain. A challenger can give a moral pontificator their comeuppance. And a challenger can beat the odds against a corporate hand-picked villain. But a lot of people are not going to be able to believe that a challenger is going to overcome a cowardly, moral pontificating corporate hand-picked monster, and so unless you like rooting for the overdog, it's hard to justify putting the money down to see that fight.
 
May 26, 2010
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samhocking said:
Banning athletes with asthma from sport is essentially medically cleansing a peloton based on a medical condition despite a medication existing that enables them to still compete normally if not abused.
The thing is ANY athlete in that pelton can cheat and take drugs for hidden performance enhancement, not just asthma sufferers!

Besides, denying asthma treatment from genuine asthma athletes is basically a form of medically-based social cleansing in cycling which is simply wrong. I would say bordering on mild human discrimination.

Ah Sam give over.

TdF is the reserve of the best of the best. Not some stick insect with multiple illnesses.

No one is suggesting banning asthmatics. That is natural selection. Asthma medication is a PED so banning that would mean asthmatics could not compete which is the natural order.

If Froome was asthmatic he would be able to prove it like Callum Skinner. ;)
 
Jul 10, 2009
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OJ froome? I had to laugh. That is so funny. yet so appropriate. Different rules for different folks. Yet justice finally had its day with OJ. Perhaps OJ Froome too? who knows...

I have NO doubt that Lance would have gotten off if USADA had transferred the file to UCI. UCI kept asking for that file - "They would handle it" they claimed. I can also appreciate the tremendous pressure USADA and Travis had in following through with this case.

OJ Froome....so funny
 
Re: Re:

Ripper said:
rick james said:
it doesn't give you 75% more capacity in your lungs, all it does it makes an asthmatic lungs work to a normal level, if you'd rather see people die, and people can die with asthma attacks then that's up to you......it just shows how little you know
Strawdog hyperbole man, wow! There's a big stretch between restricted breathing and dying.

The thing is, you have a fixed view on performance enhancing. If a medication brings you to normal from an activity that is 'reducing' you from normal, the medication is performance enhancing. If my breathing is a-ok, ventolin does nothing for me, but if I am having issues due to allergy season and take ventolin, it totally enhances my performance, 'cause otherwise I'd be much worse.

I don't think you are seeing a groundswell of people asking for ventolin to be banned, so chill ricky bobby, chill

Its correct term is performance 'enabling' - big difference.
 
Re: Re:

samhocking said:
Ripper said:
rick james said:
it doesn't give you 75% more capacity in your lungs, all it does it makes an asthmatic lungs work to a normal level, if you'd rather see people die, and people can die with asthma attacks then that's up to you......it just shows how little you know
Strawdog hyperbole man, wow! There's a big stretch between restricted breathing and dying.

The thing is, you have a fixed view on performance enhancing. If a medication brings you to normal from an activity that is 'reducing' you from normal, the medication is performance enhancing. If my breathing is a-ok, ventolin does nothing for me, but if I am having issues due to allergy season and take ventolin, it totally enhances my performance, 'cause otherwise I'd be much worse.

I don't think you are seeing a groundswell of people asking for ventolin to be banned, so chill ricky bobby, chill

Its correct term is performance 'enabling' - big difference.

And ye shall be called Semantic Sam! :p

You can call it enabling if you would like. It is still enhancing. It is permissible in certain situations, while not so in others.
 
It's only performance enhancing if you believe asthmatics don't belong in sport as part of some sort of aerian-style, disease-free medically sterile peloton. That is your opinion. WADA believe asthmatics do belong and therefore 'enable' those athletes performance using Salbutomol. Write to WADA as many times as you complain here anonymously and you might change WADA's thinking if its such a good idea perhaps?
 
TheSpud said:
thehog said:
bigcog said:
thehog said:
So Froome will have to attack his own teammate to win this race? :cool:

Can't see G either not crashing or losing time in mountains, so Froome will just have to bide his time, assuming he is still in the race and hasn't crashed again or been punched.


..or test postive (again) :cool:

There is no 'again' - he hasnt actually tested positive so far.

No, he did test postive. That’s why he had an AAF. But he was able to explain the postive as legitimate.
 
Re:

samhocking said:
It's only performance enhancing if you believe asthmatics don't belong in sport as part of some sort of aerian-style, disease-free medically sterile peloton. That is your opinion. WADA believe asthmatics do belong and therefore 'enable' those athletes performance using Salbutomol. Write to WADA as many times as you complain here anonymously and you might change WADA's thinking if its such a good idea perhaps?

Nice try at a bait and switch and a bit of straw dogging. :p

No, I don't believe is such silly comments about asthmatics or aerian-style anything, but thanks for trying to also put completely nonsensical words in my mouth.

Look, when I have had breathing issues and used ventolin, I have no problem saying the ventolin was performance enhancing. Did it make me super human? Of course not! Did it enhance my performance? Of course it did?

Guess what? The coffee I drink also enhances my performance.

Again ... quit playing semantic games. You can keep on spouting the BS, but it just makes you not only incorrect, but also pedantic and silly. Now loosen up and go for a ride :p
 
Performance enhancing and performance enabling isn’t semantics. It’s the reason things like NSAIDS aren’t banned. You can disagree with it of course, it’s a discussion that is certainly worth having, although I reckon at the moment it wouldn’t be much of a discussion.
 
Re:

samhocking said:
It's only performance enhancing if you believe asthmatics don't belong in sport as part of some sort of aerian-style, disease-free medically sterile peloton. That is your opinion. WADA believe asthmatics do belong and therefore 'enable' those athletes performance using Salbutomol. Write to WADA as many times as you complain here anonymously and you might change WADA's thinking if its such a good idea perhaps?
WTH?! Everyone is welcome, but you gotta race what you were born with. Just answer my question from above: if someone with asthma can use meds to "get back to normal", why can't another use CERA or T or HGH to "get back to normal"?
 
Re: Re:

jmdirt said:
samhocking said:
It's only performance enhancing if you believe asthmatics don't belong in sport as part of some sort of aerian-style, disease-free medically sterile peloton. That is your opinion. WADA believe asthmatics do belong and therefore 'enable' those athletes performance using Salbutomol. Write to WADA as many times as you complain here anonymously and you might change WADA's thinking if its such a good idea perhaps?
WTH?! Everyone is welcome, but you gotta race what you were born with. Just answer my question from above: if someone with asthma can use meds to "get back to normal", why can't another use CERA or T or HGH to "get back to normal"?
Could you give an example of a case where these drugs would be relevant?
 
Re: Re:

King Boonen said:
jmdirt said:
samhocking said:
It's only performance enhancing if you believe asthmatics don't belong in sport as part of some sort of aerian-style, disease-free medically sterile peloton. That is your opinion. WADA believe asthmatics do belong and therefore 'enable' those athletes performance using Salbutomol. Write to WADA as many times as you complain here anonymously and you might change WADA's thinking if its such a good idea perhaps?
WTH?! Everyone is welcome, but you gotta race what you were born with. Just answer my question from above: if someone with asthma can use meds to "get back to normal", why can't another use CERA or T or HGH to "get back to normal"?
Could you give an example of a case where these drugs would be relevant?
CERA/EPO: kidney disease (hi Chris!)
Testosterone: erectile dysfunction
HGH: muscle-wasting disease

Note that I don't think asthmatics shouldn't be allowed to use their inhalers during competition, but I think we need some truly independent doctors to establish that all these athletes are asthmatic.