Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

[fmk_RoI]

Not many people are 'lucky' enough to ever be faced with this choice, but i've got to be honest, i think i'd take the less righteous option if i ever was in that position.

Even in the debunked Mirkin and Goldman anecdotes - one shouldn't use the word studies in association with them, they weren't - it's generally only half the people who accept the Mephistophelean deal offered. Yet now you and @dacooley want to suggest we'd all do it, just cause you would? One more time: your standards are not everyone's standards.

 

[brownbobby]

Even in the debunked Mirkin and Goldman anecdotes - one shouldn't use the word studies in association with them, they weren't - it's generally only half the people who accept the Mephistophelean deal offered. Yet now you and @dacooley want to suggest we'd all do it, just cause you would? One more time: your standards are not everyone's standards.

Point me to the part of my post where i said 'we'd all do it'

 

[fmk_RoI]

Point me to the part of my post where i said 'we'd all do it'

That was the comment you replied to.

 

[brownbobby]

That was the comment you replied to.

....and?

Replying to a comment doesn't mean you agree with and echo the entirety of said comment does it

 

[red_flanders]

All of us can read. But the whole tone the thread is developing in is quite hilarious. Froome tends to be delivered like one of the greatest cheats in the history of sports. Let's put it straight, each of us who might've been offered to jump in a high-scale doping programme to become a starry athlete and reach money, popularity and admiration Froome got, would've agreed even without thinking about it. from my point of view, there mustn't be any question on whether froome dopes. yes, he is doped up to eyeballs. but in spite of this he is 100% entitled to stay on top and be regarded one of the great cyclists over the last 10-15 years. All these lamentations on the theme 'how a sport of cycling would've looked like had it been completely clean? I don't know how exactly, but there wouldn't have been the space for froome, etc, etc' and countless searches for justice are completely disconnected from reality. It is as stupid as believing froome might be clean. That's the sport where riders heavily dope just to be signed or extended by a team with a World Tour license LOL. Riding amongst super elite riders and flying uphill clean is completely out of the question.

Maybe some put it that way. Maybe you're confusing that with people thinking he's incredibly undeserving of his current status given how utter crap he was before his transformation. Be honest, had you ever even heard of this guy before the 2011 Vuelta? Some had. Most hadn't. He was nobody. What folks react to is the absurdity of how fast, and how shocking his transformation was, and because of that, probably think he's one of the least deserving champions in the history of the sport.

Did he cheat more than everyone else? Who knows. We have no idea what combination of drugs or other cheating aids he's used. We know there have been large doses of Salbutamol and Prednisone, and I'm sure that's only the tip of the iceberg as they don't explain him turning from no one into a huge champion. His own team had no idea it was coming.

He's ridiculous. Biggest cheat ever? No idea. Least deserving of his status? Probably. Arguable for sure, but he's at least a contender.

 

[dacooley]

Maybe some put it that way. Maybe you're confusing that with people thinking he's incredibly undeserving of his current status given how utter crap he was before his transformation. Be honest, had you ever even heard of this guy before the 2011 Vuelta? Some had. Most hadn't. He was nobody. What folks react to is the absurdity of how fast, and how shocking his transformation was, and because of that, probably think he's one of the least deserving champions in the history of the sport.

Did he cheat more than everyone else? Who knows. We have no idea what combination of drugs or other cheating aids he's used. We know there have been large doses of Salbutamol and Prednisone, and I'm sure that's only the tip of the iceberg as they don't explain him turning from no one into a huge champion. His own team had no idea it was coming.

He's ridiculous. Biggest cheat ever? No idea. Least deserving of his status? Probably. Arguable for sure, but he's at least a contender.

yes, I might be easily conflating those types of posters as transmitting thoughts in the foreign language is quite challenging for me and I have to do my best to be clear enough to be understood. sorry about that. rather, i disagree with this kind of dominant mindset which claims if one was a crap until 20-22-25, one has nothing left but remain crap, settling for a role of abysmal breakaway specialist or some random guy eating the wind during unending pancake flat stages. that kind of vision leaves no chance for developing. it's like unless you won a genetic lottery at birth or lottery of chance during very young professional years, you've got to suck in your sport all the way through. it is doubly erroneous to think like that given the environment froome had to grow as a bike rider. take a look at the photos thehog and other members of the whistle-blower club love to post. obviously the dawg from 2008-2009 was about 8-12 kg heavier than superlean froome from 2012 to date. it is absolutely clear to me, that before 2011 froome had been treated completely incorrectly in terms of training and keeping weight methods as well as doping program. and that's where all pretty much neutral posters as MI, DFA123 and others would agree with me. other than that, he obviously had some disease hampering his performance before that memorable vuelta. the astma and badzilla stories froome and sky made up hastily are utterly inconsistent and don't stand a water. But overall I'm saying to froome 'yes', as I don't understand why cycling should be fair whereas the whole life is full in injustice with millions of people cheating, tricking and lying to each other in order to succeed. froome is no different. neither any other big rider is. what's the use of not trusting froome at all and at the same time let's say considering quintana completely believable? who knows perhaps prior 2011 froome might've been the laziest rider performing in a team with continental lisense or badzilla made him suffer so much that he could hardly survive in the peloton on uneventful flat stages. who knows possibly quintana is having difficulties with discipline or motivation which causes the performance drop-off at this point. we know very little, but we are acting like we know almost everything. passionate cheering agains froome is what I probably find the most funny-looking. each of us can easily fancy what amount of doping effort beating the thermonuclear froome takes. we got way too obsessed with explaining by doping all the performances we are not satistied with. that's a real issue.

and yet looking back at the way discussion folded, I assume many fans have too romantic view at what being a talented cyclist is, since all the necessary reference points come down to natural ability. meanwhile 'talent' is a very difficult of interweaving abilities covering natural ability, discipline, willpower, determination, luck of turning up where needed and when needed and even ability to respond to using doping properly. the greatest ones were constantly ahead of others on many points, including doping. that's for sure.

 

[brownbobby]

At the risk of almost certain ridicule by some for even mentioning the following guys in relation to Froome pre 2011....but recent talk of talent shining through as a sign of a cleaner sport gets me wondering....would evenepoel, Van Der Poel, Bernal etc have been able to make the same impacts we’ve seen them making this year if they were just entering the World Tour and attempting to do it clean in the days of a still heavily and almost universally doped sport...say around 2008ish?

 

[red_flanders]

yes, I might be easily conflating those types of posters as transmitting thoughts in the foreign language is quite challenging for me and I have to do my best to be clear enough to be understood. sorry about that. rather, i disagree with this kind of dominant mindset which claims if one was a crap until 20-22-25, one has nothing left but remain crap, settling for a role of abysmal breakaway specialist or some random guy eating the wind during unending pancake flat stages. that kind of vision leaves no chance for developing. it's like unless you won a genetic lottery at birth or lottery of chance during very young professional years, you've got to suck in your sport all the way through. it is doubly erroneous to think like that given the environment froome had to grow as a bike rider. take a look at the photos thehog and other members of the whistle-blower club love to post. obviously the dawg from 2008-2009 was about 8-12 kg heavier than superlean froome from 2012 to date. it is absolutely clear to me, that before 2011 froome had been treated completely incorrectly in terms of training and keeping weight methods as well as doping program. and that's where all pretty much neutral posters as MI, DFA123 and others would agree with me. other than that, he obviously had some disease hampering his performance before that memorable vuelta. the astma and badzilla stories froome and sky made up hastily are utterly inconsistent and don't stand a water. But overall I'm saying to froome 'yes', as I don't understand why cycling should be fair whereas the whole life is full in injustice with millions of people cheating, tricking and lying to each other in order to succeed. froome is no different. neither any other big rider is. what's the use of not trusting froome at all and at the same time let's say considering quintana completely believable? who knows perhaps prior 2011 froome might've been the laziest rider performing in a team with continental lisense or badzilla made him suffer so much that he could hardly survive in the peloton on uneventful flat stages. who knows possibly quintana is having difficulties with discipline or motivation which causes the performance drop-off at this point. we know very little, but we are acting like we know almost everything. passionate cheering agains froome is what I probably find the most funny-looking. each of us can easily fancy what amount of doping effort beating the thermonuclear froome takes. we got way too obsessed with explaining by doping all the performances we are not satistied with. that's a real issue.

and yet looking back at the way discussion folded, I assume many fans have too romantic view at what being a talented cyclist is, since all the necessary reference points come down to natural ability. meanwhile 'talent' is a very difficult of interweaving abilities covering natural ability, discipline, willpower, determination, luck of turning up where needed and when needed and even ability to respond to using doping properly. the greatest ones were constantly ahead of others on many points, including doping. that's for sure.

It's entirely reasonable to say that Froome had better training and fitness at Sky than he did at Barloworld. But this is the old "just lost the weight" and "better training" argument, that entirely fails to explain the absolutely dramatic and unbelievable change in this rider. I think it's reasonable to assume that if Froome had just trained better and lost weight that he'd maybe have won a few small races and someone would have heard of him. For him to transform into the dominant GT rider of his generation is just too much. It's absurd.

Froome's change is explained by doping. You don't need to make that seem like a slippery slope where all great performances are explained by doping. I agree that's overused, but that fact doesn't change a thing about the situation around Froome.

 

[dacooley]

It's entirely reasonable to say that Froome had better training and fitness at Sky than he did at Barloworld. But this is the old "just lost the weight" and "better training" argument, that entirely fails to explain the absolutely dramatic and unbelievable change in this rider. I think it's reasonable to assume that if Froome had just trained better and lost weight that he'd maybe have won a few small races and someone would have heard of him. For him to transform into the dominant GT rider of his generation is just too much. It's absurd.

Froome's change is explained by doping. You don't need to make that seem like a slippery slope where all great performances are explained by doping. I agree that's overused, but that fact doesn't change a thing about the situation around Froome.

for sure his transformation is explained by doping. there is no doubt. the thing is that any big athelete kinda should deserve getting connected to high-scale doping program. naturally, froome has been heavily using doping since 2012, but exactly capacity he showed in the 2011 vuelta became his ticket to the world of high-octane doping. it's not like all the other big guns use some basic stuff while froome is massively stuffed with the most thermonuclear doping cocktail ever. though, that's clearly the way most people think, getting wild from froome succeeding. i can accept the program he sticks to may be the most powerful and efficient, though. i tend to believe he was relatively clean before the 2011 vuelta / 2012 season. of course, there is a certain set of drugs any WT level cyclist injected / injects, but all in all there was anything remotely close to what real grand tour specialists had used. the 2011 vuelta mystery will never be guessed I believe. anyway, i would bet on froome having used some new - for that time - EPO modification. I don't think launching a massive transfusion program was possible for the rider without money, ambitions and doping connections. nonetheless, it's not like a horse dose of EPO makes a grand tour beater from any Sky C team rolleur. it doesn't work like that. besides, back then froome was obviously still overweight. Seems to me, he dropped about 4-5 kg between the Vuelta and the 2012 Tour. What is quite clear to me is he really had some illness that restrained him before 2011. most likely, that's what enabled him to get some important tue's to progress that much.

 

[Merckx index]

Froome is now riding on a bike, not a trainer. He completed two laps at a velodrome.

This is what, about ten weeks after the crash, in which he broke his femur? Is there any precedent for this? Anyone out there have a similar injury? How long before Beloki got back on a bike?

Maybe he wanted to convince himself--and the competition--that he's recovering ahead of schedule, but at what I would assume is still a tender stage, wouldn't it be inadvisable to get on a bike at this point? His leg is surely weakened, and if he fell he could re-aggravate the condition.

 

[70kmph]

Throw all caution into the wind...otherwise you might be replaced by a Colombian

 

[Red Rick]

All of us can read. But the whole tone the thread is developing in is quite hilarious. Froome tends to be delivered like one of the greatest cheats in the history of sports. Let's put it straight, each of us who might've been offered to jump in a high-scale doping programme to become a starry athlete and reach money, popularity and admiration Froome got, would've agreed even without thinking about it. from my point of view, there mustn't be any question on whether froome dopes. yes, he is doped up to eyeballs. but in spite of this he is 100% entitled to stay on top and be regarded one of the great cyclists over the last 10-15 years. All these lamentations on the theme 'how a sport of cycling would've looked like had it been completely clean? I don't know how exactly, but there wouldn't have been the space for froome, etc, etc' and countless searches for justice are completely disconnected from reality. It is as stupid as believing froome might be clean. That's the sport where riders heavily dope just to be signed or extended by a team with a World Tour license LOL. Riding amongst super elite riders and flying uphill clean is completely out of the question.

A lot of people would probably feel really different if Froome wasn't both the most obvious case and stuffed down our throats like a clean champion. Riding for Skineos hasn't done him any favors either.

 

[pastronef]

Froome is now riding on a bike, not a trainer. He completed two laps at a velodrome.

This is what, about ten weeks after the crash, in which he broke his femur? Is there any precedent for this? Anyone out there have a similar injury? How long before Beloki got back on a bike?

Maybe he wanted to convince himself--and the competition--that he's recovering ahead of schedule, but at what I would assume is still a tender stage, wouldn't it be inadvisable to get on a bike at this point? His leg is surely weakened, and if he fell he could re-aggravate the condition.

I broke my femur on Sept 1st 2016. I rode rollers end of November and MTB Dec 2nd.
with his fitness before the crash and the rehab team and facilities a WT team can provide, 2 months and a half are fine to have a few laps of a velodrome I think

 

[macbindle]

A lot of people would probably feel really different if Froome wasn't both the most obvious case and stuffed down our throats like a clean champion. Riding for Skineos hasn't done him any favors either.

So which cheat would you prefer?

Unless you think Froome is cheating an entirely clean peloton then you are just playing a massive game of cognitive dissonance.

So, you'd prefer a cheat who cheated right from the start, and so had the palmares of a lifelong cheat rather than a cheat who just took to cheating late in his career, and youd prefer a cheating team who just keep quiet about their cheating, and prefer to keep their heads down.

It all amounts to the same thing, unless it's a question of disliking Sky/Ineos because their cheating is too overt and makes it hard for you to pretend to yourself than the sport is fair.

Valverde is World Champion, at 39. Think about that.

 

[Red Rick]

So which cheat would you prefer?

Unless you think Froome is cheating an entirely clean peloton then you are just playing a massive game of cognitive dissonance.

So, you'd prefer a cheat who cheated right from the start, and so had the palmares of a lifelong cheat rather than a cheat who just took to cheating late in his career, and youd prefer a cheating team who just keep quiet about their cheating, and prefer to keep their heads down.

It all amounts to the same thing, unless it's a question of disliking Sky/Ineos because their cheating is too overt and makes it hard for you to pretend to yourself than the sport is fair.

Valverde is World Champion, at 39. Think about that.

Froome got off on a drug where dozens of others got banned for. And that's just one thing in a looooong line of things.

Froome finishes a GT in 2nd but is later awarded a victory even though the winner did not test positive for a controlled substance. Contador wins a Grand Tour, doesn't test positive, and later loses that victory.

How can I pretend it's fair?

I don't like Valverde, and I don't pretend he's a good guy in this. But at least he did the time and at least the pretense of cleeaanz is gone.

 

[macbindle]

So it is the pretence of clean that bothers you?

Think about that for a while. What do you want Froome to do? Give everyone a little wink when asked if he dopes?

 

[brownbobby]

Froome got off on a drug where dozens of others got banned for. And that's just one thing in a looooong line of things.

Froome finishes a GT in 2nd but is later awarded a victory even though the winner did not test positive for a controlled substance. Contador wins a Grand Tour, doesn't test positive, and later loses that victory.

How can I pretend it's fair?

I don't like Valverde, and I don't pretend he's a good guy in this. But at least he did the time and at least the pretense of cleeaanz is gone.

Froome got off on the Salbutamol because he had the resolve and of course crucially the resources to stand up and challenge the case.

Without being expert enough in this field to fully interpret what limited info we got on the decision, to the layman the conclusion seemed to be that the test itself was inherently flawed.

Sure it sucks for those banned before him, but that’s not Froome fault. If he genuinely knew that he’d done no wrong then of course he’s not just going to roll over and accept a sanction just for the sake of parity with those who went before him.

My guess is we won’t see any salbutamol sanctions in the near future now with this precedent set. So rather than adding to the list of reasons to dislike him, maybe it’s a reason for some to thank him.

Of course if you’re of the opinion that he simply bought himself out of it, some kind of bribe, cover up etc, then there’s no answer to that really

And just out of interest, what part do you think Froome/Sky//Ineos had to play in the whole Cobo chain of events...do you really think this is something they pushed through?

 

[fmk_RoI]

So it is the pretence of clean that bothers you?

I like that someone could claim he's being stuffed down our throats. Personally I find the one place he's most hard to ignore is this forum, where he invades multiple threads, the rotter.

 

[Merckx index]

Contador wins a Grand Tour, doesn't test positive, and later loses that victory.

If you're referring to the Giro, it was a back-dated ban. He wouldn't have been able to ride in the Giro if his national ADA had come to the same conclusion that CAS did. In any case, if the Giro win had been allowed to stand, he would have had a longer ban going forward, and would not have been able to win the 2012 Vuelta. He was going to lose two years one way or another.

Without being expert enough in this field to fully interpret what limited info we got on the decision, to the layman the conclusion seemed to be that the test itself was inherently flawed.

That may well be. But the problem remains the total lack of transparency. UCI/WADA want everyone to accept the decision, but they won't offer any details supporting the decision.

 

[dacooley]

A lot of people would probably feel really different if Froome wasn't both the most obvious case and stuffed down our throats like a clean champion. Riding for Skineos hasn't done him any favors either.

well, then let's make an effort and wait for some multi grand tour winner coming up with self-revealing doping confessions.

 

[brownbobby]

If you're referring to the Giro, it was a back-dated ban. He wouldn't have been able to ride in the Giro if his national ADA had come to the same conclusion that CAS did. In any case, if the Giro win had been allowed to stand, he would have had a longer ban going forward, and would not have been able to win the 2012 Vuelta. He was going to lose two years one way or another.



That may well be. But the problem remains the total lack of transparency. UCI/WADA want everyone to accept the decision, but they won't offer any details supporting the decision.

Don’t disagree with that, especially after Froome himself had said the details would be released...but not sure who to blame here; UCI/WADA or Froome/Sky. Or both?

Not sure of the reasons to withhold either..could the details be seen as a blueprint for future doping, or were they (UCI/Wada) concerned about possible action from those unfairly sanctioned in the past?

 

[Merckx index]

Don’t disagree with that, especially after Froome himself had said the details would be released...but not sure who to blame here; UCI/WADA or Froome/Sky. Or both?

Some of both, I'd say. WADA did not want the details released (see below), but I don't think they could have stopped Froome from releasing them, or if they could, he should have pointed that out as a reason for not doing so.

Not sure of the reasons to withhold either..could the details be seen as a blueprint for future doping, or were they (UCI/Wada) concerned about possible action from those unfairly sanctioned in the past?

Mostly the former, I'm pretty sure. WADA mentioned this at the time. One problem with this is that athletes who are really taking salbutamol for a genuine need, and not to dope, would benefit from these details. They have a right to know what kind of risk they might have, what exactly the relationship is between the doses they're taking and the likelihood of triggering an AAF.

Froome's case actually makes this worse. His salbutamol levels might have been judged possible just from inhaling at the allowed dose, but at the very least we can say that most of the time that level would be indicative of going well beyond the allowed dose. How are you going to change the rules so that another Froome case would get off? You would either have to raise the maximum allowed urinary level, in which case far more abusers would slip through, or require athletes to show how much they inhaled and when (as Froome allegedly did). The latter is cumbersome--you're asking a lot of athletes to keep detailed records of their use--and athletes at the least would have to know a lot more about salbutamol than has been published to understand the situation.

Another point is that these details will come out eventually, anyway. There's talk about changing the salbutamol maximum dose allowed, or the dose per time, whatever. To do this, there has to be data showing that a new maximum is fairer, and will result in fewer false positives, while still catching abusers. But that data will have to get published. All the salbutamol studies by anti-doping researchers in the past have been published, and I don't see how that would change. I don't think WADA could announce a new maximum without any public data to back it up.

in fact, being secretive could increase the risk they're trying to avoid. An athlete who wants to take salbutamol for PE could challenge even the new rules, whatever they are, arguing that without public data to back it up, it could be unfair to genuine asthmatics. When you're dealing with a drug that can be taken under reasonable circumstances, for a medical need, but also as PE, you have to be transparent about where and how you draw the line.

Edit: I started out intending to write a brief answer, but the more I think about this, the more I realize how changing the salbutamol standards is going to be very difficult. I don't remember if it was you or someone else who said upthread that the outcome might just be there won't be any prosecution of salbutamol cases for a while, but I tend to agree. Even without knowing all the details of Froome's case, athletes do now have a basis on which to challenge any levels over the maximum.

 

[MartinGT]

I didn't know where to put this, but as it was the Dawg that prompted my brain to work, I shall put it here.

During the Dawg's treatment, if he is given medication that is banned by WADA. Does a TUE cover it?

 

[rick james]

I didn't know where to put this, but as it was the Dawg that prompted my brain to work, I shall put it here.

During the Dawg's treatment, if he is given medication that is banned by WADA. Does a TUE cover it?

Lol, stupid question...the guy nearly died and you’re worried what drugs he’d test positive for if he needed it to save his life....f#ck me...this place

 

[macbindle]

I dont think it is that. I think it is the generation of a new conspiracy theory that Froome's crash was staged in order that he could get a TUE to use controlled medications