Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

[Escarabajo]

Joe, two wrongs don't make a right. Just because statistically two missed tests in 5 years is low does not make it OK. In fact the main issue with him is his silly excuse.

I agree with you that if there is a set of circumstances that makes it very difficult for the test to take place then it should be appealed. Not in this case.

 

[joe_papp]

Re:

Just because statistically two missed tests in 5 years is low does not make it OK.

Well, it's certainly not ideal, but it is technically "ok". Of course one can exploit the two-missed-tests-in-twelve-months rule to game the system, but... Who knows. The "issue" w/ whereabouts failures is that they're not ever announced unless there's a third during the previous 12mos, so no idea how many people actually are missing controls (unless that data is being aggregated and published by the ADOs, but I honestly haven't looked).

I agree with you that if there is a set of circumstances that makes it very difficult for the test to take place then it should be appealed. Not in this case.

Yup, agreed. Just to be clear though - I wasn't suggesting Froome's hotel missed-test should've been excused. In fact, iirc, he actually appealed the Whereabouts Failure and it was denied.

Remember when Andrey Kashechkin was controlled OOC while on vacation in Turkey and didn't have a chance to duck the testers (I think b/c they caught him on the beach or by the pool)? Positive for homologus blood transfusion. lol.

 

[Franklin]

Re: Froome's testgate explained by one of the biggest steroi

Our guy, Christopher Froome, just did what this guy said every glowing athlete ought to do should the WADA folks show up unannounced.

In some very disturbing ways Froome is a copy of Armstrong.

A scary disease, Shehanigans with TUEs, missing a control "for perfectly logical reasons", etc. etc.

Then again I don't think many knowledgable cycling followers have any doubt about him. It's just absurd not to see the red markers all over the place.

 

[McLovin]

Wouldn't now be the right moment for a journalist from a big paper to catch Froomey with a lie? I suppose you can make a written request to UCI and ask where and when this happened. Then go to that hotel and offer 50.000 euro to the employee who was working that morning and he'll sing like a bird. Or, maybe Froome was not lying. Easy to find in this situation IMO.
I hope nobody here believe that the poor receptionist is involved in doping at Sky.

 

[djpbaltimore]

Re:

Wouldn't now be the right moment for a journalist from a big paper to catch Froomey with a lie? I suppose you can make a written request to UCI and ask where and when this happened. Then go to that hotel and offer 50.000 euro to the employee who was working that morning and he'll sing like a bird. Or, maybe Froome was not lying. Easy to find in this situation IMO.
I hope nobody here believe that the poor receptionist is involved in doping at Sky.

Would UCI be obligated to divulge this information? It is not exactly in their best interest to do so right before their biggest event of the year.

 

[Benotti69]

Re:

Wouldn't now be the right moment for a journalist from a big paper to catch Froomey with a lie? I suppose you can make a written request to UCI and ask where and when this happened. Then go to that hotel and offer 50.000 euro to the employee who was working that morning and he'll sing like a bird. Or, maybe Froome was not lying. Easy to find in this situation IMO.
I hope nobody here believe that the poor receptionist is involved in doping at Sky.

50.000Euro??really! What paper is going to give a hotel employee 50grand?

Cycling is not a big sport. No paper will ever consider that kind of money for a 'bribe' in this day and age when it will be all over social media and they wont sell any extra papers or hardly and extra hits for it!!!

 

[McLovin]

Maybe a journalist from Rusia? Maybe? Or...from Rusia? It would be a big story!

 

[Franklin]

McLovin, even Froome himself admitted the "error" was him not informing the staff.

Look at it as a first line of defense (note, this is conjecture):

1. Don't inform staff.
2. If call is relayed through, let wife pick up and make up an excuse.

They didn't have to go to line #2.

Doping doctor which should not be there? Check.
Terrible Disease? Check.
Outclassing opponents in an eyepopping way? Check.
Team outclassing opponents in an eyepopping way? Check.
Missed test due to a communication error? Check
Troubles with TUE's? Check.
Ties with the UCI president*? Check.
Dodgy DS? Check.

This is conjecture, not proof. But the similarities to Lance are simply stunning.

* Cookson has deep links with Brittish Cycling, which is logical with his background. It's not unreasonable to expect the UCI president to have held prior national positions, but it's also a venue for shehanigans.

 

[Rob27172]

Why would the UCI do something that proves someone was lying and prove themselves to be the overall arbiters of fair play and governance in cycling

When they are in deep discussions and having problems with the ASO and also with french doping controllers.

Does no-one remember the chicken got busted only once he was in yellow at the tour the last time the tour organisation and the UCI were having issues. Suddenly ADD release his missed test data which was well over two months old

The precedent exists to use cyclists as pawns in the bigger games involved in the control of cycling and the money within it.

 

[42x16ss]

Re:

Why would the UCI do something that proves someone was lying and prove themselves to be the overall arbiters of fair play and governance in cycling

When they are in deep discussions and having problems with the ASO and also with french doping controllers.

Does no-one remember the chicken got busted only once he was in yellow at the tour the last time the tour organisation and the UCI were having issues. Suddenly ADD release his missed test data which was well over two months old

The precedent exists to use cyclists as pawns in the bigger games involved in the control of cycling and the money within it.

The UCI likes to keep things rolling along. They just want a dashing, credible Tour champion who looks good in the public eye (see Indurain, Ullrich, Pantani, Armstrong etc). A good back story helps too.

I've always felt that Rasmussen was thrown out in '07 because the UCI had a promising, ready made replacement in Contador - a young, exciting, humble, photogenic climber with his own comeback story. I can't help but think that if Evans, Leipheimer or Sastre were the main contender things would have been swept straight under the carpet.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Why would the UCI do something that proves someone was lying and prove themselves to be the overall arbiters of fair play and governance in cycling

When they are in deep discussions and having problems with the ASO and also with french doping controllers.

Does no-one remember the chicken got busted only once he was in yellow at the tour the last time the tour organisation and the UCI were having issues. Suddenly ADD release his missed test data which was well over two months old

The precedent exists to use cyclists as pawns in the bigger games involved in the control of cycling and the money within it.

The UCI likes to keep things rolling along. They just want a dashing, credible Tour champion who looks good in the public eye (see Indurain, Ullrich, Pantani, Armstrong etc). A good back story helps too.

I've always felt that Rasmussen was thrown out in '07 because the UCI had a promising, ready made replacement in Contador - a young, exciting, humble, photogenic climber with his own comeback story. I can't help but think that if Evans, Leipheimer or Sastre were the main contender things would have been swept straight under the carpet.

I don't know. I think the UCI's style would have been just to dope Contador more, though looking back at 07 Bertie, don't know if that was even possible

But biggest reason I don't believe that happened is because they messed up the Contador cover up in 2010. If Bertie was their new chosen one that doesn't happen.

Though of course maybe what happened is that under Brunyeel Contador really was the protected one and once wonderboy came back they wanted him down.

With this mob one never knows.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Re:

Why would the UCI do something that proves someone was lying and prove themselves to be the overall arbiters of fair play and governance in cycling

When they are in deep discussions and having problems with the ASO and also with french doping controllers.

Does no-one remember the chicken got busted only once he was in yellow at the tour the last time the tour organisation and the UCI were having issues. Suddenly ADD release his missed test data which was well over two months old

The precedent exists to use cyclists as pawns in the bigger games involved in the control of cycling and the money within it.

The UCI likes to keep things rolling along. They just want a dashing, credible Tour champion who looks good in the public eye (see Indurain, Ullrich, Pantani, Armstrong etc). A good back story helps too.

I've always felt that Rasmussen was thrown out in '07 because the UCI had a promising, ready made replacement in Contador - a young, exciting, humble, photogenic climber with his own comeback story. I can't help but think that if Evans, Leipheimer or Sastre were the main contender things would have been swept straight under the carpet.

I think there must have been more to it than just that.

But yes, agreed to a certain extent.

Story is so valuable when selling a product. Look at all the ads on TV - very rarely do they sell on attributes. Usually on feelings and story. Or attributes anthropomorphisised (more powerful ute, etc, managing to get through all the dirt and hard yakka of the working day) so the potential purchaser can project the attributes onto their own sense of self.

 

[blackcat]

there was mail on Rasmussen prior to the Tour in 2007, Andreu told me about the MTB pro who had unwittingly taken some artificial hemoglobin in some cycling shoes in the shoe box for Rass a few years before that. And there was potential investigations with USADA or the Canadian ADA or WADA or the UCI. So the Damoclesian sword was even more precariously dangling tortured metapors

 

[blackcat]

so Rass was willing to get a "m8" arrested for his smuggling contraband thru customs. Wookie and Han Solo and Millennium Savoldelli

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

Chris Froome has a brand new marginal gains watch.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/tour-de-france/11717440/Tour-de-France-2015-Road-to-redemption-ends-in-the-Pyrenees-if-I-get-there-says-Chris-Froome.html

Froome may have been denied the opportunity of staying in a deluxe camper van at this year’s Tour but Team Sky’s bid for marginal gains never rests. Froome now wears a special watch at nights to monitor his sleep, something which is likely to take a bit of a hit when his wife Michelle gives birth to their first child later this year. “Yeah, that’s when I buy my own motorhome,” he laughs.

 

[the sceptic]

Dawg realized he was too fat and decided to get his bodyfat % down to a more healthy 1% this year.

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

Re:

Dawg realized he was too fat and decided to get his bodyfat % down to a more healthy 1% this year.

Bob Geldof might be starting a new appeal to help starving Africans when he sees that pic.

 

[classicomano]

I like the odds for him snapping his arm in half when he hits the first cobblestones.

 

[No_Balls]

Re:

He says things like this and no questions/eyebrows asked. Journalists turned to something like ghostwriters for the pope.

Froome is confident that the performances we see over the next three weeks will stand the test of time. He believes the faster times we are seeing up climbs these days – in many instances faster even than those at the height of the EPO era – are not due to doping but rather to more sophisticated training and recovery techniques.

Does that really account for a 15 per cent gain, the rough figure by which EPO was said to improve performance? “I believe so,” he says.

“If you look at the difference now, those 10-15 per cent performances were back-to-back. I honestly feel that the sport is evolving through equipment.”

Edit: Take notes journos. Dawg admits that they are riding faster and that is due to recovery techniques before doping. Hence no doping. Now you cant scream "doping" when a non-brit beats Dawg because they simple have a superior equipment and better recovery techniques.

 

[mrhender]

Re:

I like the odds for him snapping his arm in half when he hits the first cobblestones.

Nothing a bit of marginal gains bubble wrap can't handle?

 

[the sceptic]

Cycling journalists are such a joke. How the *** did cycling equipment improve that much since the Lance years?

 

[the sceptic]

Re:

Cycling journalists are such a joke. How the **** did cycling equipment improve that much since the Lance years?

but hey, at least Froome admits that he and others are climbing faster that known dopers. I guess that means the clinic was right all along, thanks Martin and Jimmyfingers for your 10000 posts on this issue.

 

[ebandit]

beeb

Cycling journalists are such a joke. How the **** did cycling equipment improve that much since the Lance years?

no doubt you read/heard bbc exposes on avoiding tripping the passport / mo.........

what surprises me is why a beeb journalist does not dig deep on team sky...........

....could be work in progress..............unless?

Mark L

 

[the sceptic]

my guess is that since Froome is backed by a billion dollar media buisness it's a bit harder to go after him.

 

[The_Cheech]

To catch people like Froome glowing they first have to target him, repeatedly. The main problem is that doing so is bad for business if he ends up testing positive. Sky is a powerful company, so WADA folks have to "ninja" their way around to get a single sample out of him.