Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

[The Hegelian]

I think what he means is there are substances permitted you can take up to a limit in small amounts without any risk. Not sure this applies to Froomes, but if you take a much more holistic view of performance enhancement, there's likely multiple ways you can do it and stay within the rules. Asthma drugs are just one of many permitted substances.

Absolutely - 'immoral' but not breaking the (letter of the) rules ...

For instance in the past I'm sure Meldonium was in the mix, wasn't it Brad that said "they tell us - 'you cant take that anymore' ..."

I would imagine Xenon gas was there. OOC cortisone (Kenacort?) used to slim down. TUEs for Kenacort are more dodgy in my view - was it used to mask the OOC just in case?

Salbutamol as well - although oral use is outlawed I believe, so very dodgy if they did this.

I think the obvious question is: if they're so willing to do all of that, on what basis might one assume that they have any kind of fidelity to the letter of the rules?

i.e. it seems to follow very consistently that if they knew they could beat epo tests, they certainly would.

What matters morally is simply: winning without getting caught for anything. That is the surely the axiomatic moral calculus. Because if you have a fidelity to the letter of the laws but not the spirit of them, it means there is no abiding principle of fairness to draw a line somewhere - the 'letter' is merely a reference point for what might invalidate a win.

 

[samhocking]

I think for full perspective of what anti-doping is, you have to separate morals and ethics from rules. After all being found to cheat, is simply a legal matter. You get tested when you win, the result comes back as an AAF or not and from the AAF, rules decide if there has been an ADRV. What substance is actually found in the sample returning an AAF is not immaterial to that ADRV, but 35% of all AAFs result in no sanction so a large proportion is immaterial. That 35% is a huge untapped area to explore, when everyone else is actually simply trying avoid the 65% they will definitely get busted for if they mess up and actually has a much bigger reflect on the bio passport anyway.
Ethics do not exist in wada rules, therefore while morally clean to one person means bread and water, morally clean to an athlete means not doing anything that ends you up in the 65% ADRV group with a sanction. For me this is not even a grey area, it's simply the area everyone has traditionally ignored in cycling and Sky are ahead of the gsme, because they were doing it at BC for the 20 years everyone else was getting busted while attempting to evade the 65% group.

 

[Netserk]

So Riis was 'morally clean' for you?

 

[samhocking]

No, because he operated on the 65% group.

 

[Netserk]

Okay, I read it as given that he hasn't been sanctioned he'd be in the 35% group.

 

[The Hegelian]

I think for full perspective of what anti-doping is, you have to separate morals and ethics from rules. After all being found to cheat, is simply a legal matter. You get tested when you win, the result comes back as an AAF or not and from the AAF, rules decide if there has been an ADRV. What substance is actually found in the sample returning an AAF is not immaterial to that ADRV, but 35% of all AAFs result in no sanction so a large proportion is immaterial. That 35% is a huge untapped area to explore, when everyone else is actually simply trying avoid the 65% they will definitely get busted for if they mess up and actually has a much bigger reflect on the bio passport anyway.
Ethics do not exist in wada rules, therefore while morally clean to one person means bread and water, morally clean to an athlete means not doing anything that ends you up in the 65% ADRV group with a sanction. For me this is not even a grey area, it's simply the area everyone has traditionally ignored in cycling and Sky are ahead of the gsme, because they were doing it at BC for the 20 years everyone else was getting busted while attempting to evade the 65% group.

Ethics clearly exist in the very premise of WADA rules. i.e. the basic moral orientation that athletes should not benefit from performance enhancing drugs. There is a very obviously a moral predicate of 'fair play' or 'physiological equality' which underpins the very basis of each specific rule. To separate the particular rule from the moral principle is to argue something like 'there is no relationship between the moral refrain not to kill and the specific legislation forbidding murder.'

To reduce all of doping/anti-doping to a mere quantitative equation aimed at maximizing performance and minimizing risk is precisely what is unethical about standard professional attitudes to doping regulations. i.e. the basic moral predicate of fair play, or an abstract principle of justice is entirely absent from the outlook.

And it must be noted that if sport itself is to remain sport and not purely business, then it needs those predicates to be operative. And there are people who attempt to restore them - the MPCC is the best example in cycling. Of course we all know they are fighting against a tidal wave; there simply isn't much sport left in sport.

Sky are hoisted on their own petard precisely because they played the ethics card so strongly. But we know that their ethics is a kind of self-interested Benthamite hedonism: that quantitative calculus of maximizing performance and minimizing risk.

 

[Alpe73]

I think for full perspective of what anti-doping is, you have to separate morals and ethics from rules. After all being found to cheat, is simply a legal matter. You get tested when you win, the result comes back as an AAF or not and from the AAF, rules decide if there has been an ADRV. What substance is actually found in the sample returning an AAF is not immaterial to that ADRV, but 35% of all AAFs result in no sanction so a large proportion is immaterial. That 35% is a huge untapped area to explore, when everyone else is actually simply trying avoid the 65% they will definitely get busted for if they mess up and actually has a much bigger reflect on the bio passport anyway.
Ethics do not exist in wada rules, therefore while morally clean to one person means bread and water, morally clean to an athlete means not doing anything that ends you up in the 65% ADRV group with a sanction. For me this is not even a grey area, it's simply the area everyone has traditionally ignored in cycling and Sky are ahead of the gsme, because they were doing it at BC for the 20 years everyone else was getting busted while attempting to evade the 65% group.

Ethics clearly exist in the very premise of WADA rules. i.e. the basic moral orientation that athletes should not benefit from performance enhancing drugs. There is a very obviously a moral predicate of 'fair play' or 'physiological equality' which underpins the very basis of each specific rule. To separate the particular rule from the moral principle is to argue something like 'there is no relationship between the moral refrain not to kill and the specific legislation forbidding murder.'

To reduce all of doping/anti-doping to a mere quantitative equation aimed at maximizing performance and minimizing risk is precisely what is unethical about standard professional attitudes to doping regulations. i.e. the basic moral predicate of fair play, or an abstract principle of justice is entirely absent from the outlook.

And it must be noted that if sport itself is to remain sport and not purely business, then it needs those predicates to be operative. And there are people who attempt to restore them - the MPCC is the best example in cycling. Of course we all know they are fighting against a tidal wave; there simply isn't much sport left in sport.

Sky are hoisted on their own petard precisely because they played the ethics card so strongly. But we know that their ethics is a kind of self-interested Benthamite hedonism: that quantitative calculus of maximizing performance and minimizing risk.

Yes ... spot on, Heg!

“MORALITY” has been waiting for this case all of its bloody life.

FFS ....

 

[rhubroma]

It's difficult to talk about morality and professional sports, when the prevailing business model allowing them to exist fosters tweeking the rules toward marginal gains and a winner takes all mentality. In this sense it's ironic that we expect athletes to be saints, when generally speaking the business world behind them has no compunction. Sport being a perfect agonistic reflection of the larger market principles at work and the colluding governance it presupposes.

 

[rhubroma]

Cycling seems poised to get bogged down in the morass of another farce, in which the long drawn-out legal proceedings risk allowing Froome to compete in the Giro and Tour, potentially win them, only to have the results invalidated when he is subsequently given a definitive ban. It will be interesting to see how the cycling establishment handles this predicament, for major sponsorship is getting increasingly difficult to come by and without it the sport risks folding (or getting seriously downscaled). It would be supremely ironic if Sky, the beacon of virtue, transparency and ethical conduct, were to become the fulcrum of the sport's precipitous financial decline. Especially given the Murdoch empire till recently behind the British squadra, for which the sport has potentially enticed big money toward its own extinction.

 

[Wiggo's Package]

So the Skyfans never believed Brailsfraud's guff about winning ethically!

They knew all along Sky were morally bankrupt!

Explains alot

 

[macbindle]

Sky won't bring the sport down.

The sport will f@rt out Sky, just like it periodically f@rted out Festina, Landis etc etc

Then, afterwards, it'll be the new era of clean sport...

 

[rhubroma]

Re:

Sky won't bring the sport down.

The sport will f@rt out Sky, just like it periodically f@rted out Festina, Landis etc etc

Then, afterwards, it'll be the new era of clean sport...

But how many teams can the sport afford to "f@rt" out, without seriously diminishing its sponsorship base?

 

[meat puppet]

So the Skyfans never believed Brailsfraud's guff about winning ethically!

They knew all along Sky were morally bankrupt!

Explains alot

Oh they believed and told the world they did.

Superior morality along with corporate petty nationalism was the whole thing. Anyone can verify this by perusing the Sky threads here, there and everywhere.

The more recent turn to emphasising the absence of moral concerns post festum (ie since froomes positive dope test) is just a convenient lifeboat so as to appear suitably cynical and Rrrreal. But as the Hegelian pointed out this is clearly a false premise.

 

[Wiggo's Package]

Simple solution, the UCI invokes a new rule, only morally bankrupt team owners/sponsors need apply, the sport's half way there already

Once a full set of dodgy owners/sponsors are aligned with the already dodgy team managers, doctors and riders that perfect synchronicity will streamline the business model

Dodgy sponsors target marketing campaigns at morally bankrupt fans who lap up dubious products. Rinse and repeat

 

[Lo squalo di messina]

So the Skyfans never believed Brailsfraud's guff about winning ethically!

They knew all along Sky were morally bankrupt!

Explains alot

Oh they believed and told the world they did.

Superior morality along with corporate petty nationalism was the whole thing. Anyone can verify this by perusing the Sky threads here, there and everywhere.

The more recent turn to emphasising the absence of moral concerns post festum (ie since froomes positive dope test) is just a convenient lifeboat so as to appear suitably cynical and Rrrreal. But as the Hegelian pointed out this is clearly a false premise.

Quoted for truth especially the corporate petty nationalism part. Thats all there is to it.

 

[Wiggo's Package]

So the Skyfans never believed Brailsfraud's guff about winning ethically!

They knew all along Sky were morally bankrupt!

Explains alot

Oh they believed and told the world they did.

Superior morality along with corporate petty nationalism was the whole thing. Anyone can verify this by perusing the Sky threads here, there and everywhere.

The more recent turn to emphasising the absence of moral concerns post festum (ie since froomes positive dope test) is just a convenient lifeboat so as to appear suitably cynical and Rrrreal. But as the Hegelian pointed out this is clearly a false premise.

Correct, of course

Only reason the Sky fans are still clinging on is they are overly emotionally invested

They drank the Brailsfraud Kool-Aid no way that man would lie

And they just know in their bones that Brits Don't Dope they just know it

 

[macbindle]

So the Skyfans never believed Brailsfraud's guff about winning ethically!

They knew all along Sky were morally bankrupt!

Explains alot

Oh they believed and told the world they did.

Superior morality along with corporate petty nationalism was the whole thing. Anyone can verify this by perusing the Sky threads here, there and everywhere.

The more recent turn to emphasising the absence of moral concerns post festum (ie since froomes positive dope test) is just a convenient lifeboat so as to appear suitably cynical and Rrrreal. But as the Hegelian pointed out this is clearly a false premise.

Correct, of course

Only reason the Sky fans are still clinging on is they are overly emotionally invested

They drank the Brailsfraud Kool-Aid no way that man would lie

And they just know in their bones that Brits Don't Dope they just know it

I think you've got a bunch of people out there all coming from different positions in terms of exposure to cycling prior to this latest 6 year instalment of make-believe.

You've got the Man U style fans who will support anything as long as it's winning but you've also got people who genuinely want to believe the winners and riders are clean. There's a guy in my club like this. He's an old boy and a very decent ex-racer of 40 years. I had what became a semi-heated discussion with him a couple of years ago when I said that Wiggins and Froome were as fraudulent as those that had come before them. We reprised this conversation recently in the light of Jiffy bag and Puffergate. His attitude was one of huge disappointment that people could be so immoral. He almost coildnt bear to think it possible and nationality doesn't come into it.

Then you've got people who fully know what is going on but accept the sport for what it is, and that may include aligning themselves with a team they know aren't clean. There are lots of Astana fans out there just as there are lots of BMC and Quickstep fans

Sky?? Pfft. Here today, gone tomorrow. If they'd been less smug and not pushed the hypocrisy to the max they may have got an easier ride from everybody.

 

[Alpe73]

Re:

Cycling seems poised to get bogged down in the morass of another farce, in which the long drawn-out legal proceedings risk allowing Froome to compete in the Giro and Tour, potentially win them, only to have the results invalidated when he is subsequently given a definitive ban. It will be interesting to see how the cycling establishment handles this predicament, for major sponsorship is getting increasingly difficult to come by and without it the sport risks folding (or getting seriously downscaled). It would be supremely ironic if Sky, the beacon of virtue, transparency and ethical conduct, were to become the fulcrum of the sport's precipitous financial decline. Especially given the Murdoch empire till recently behind the British squadra, for which the sport has potentially enticed big money toward its own extinction.

Great stuff, Rhub.

Now you can’t tell me you haven’t done the odd ... “The whole world’s a stage ...” round at the community playhouse.

Am I right? Ha ha! Sure I am, lad.

I don’t suppose you have a fecking clue about pro sport ... but who gives a feck, anyway?
Drama’s your strong point, lad.

 

[TheSpud]

I think what he means is there are substances permitted you can take up to a limit in small amounts without any risk. Not sure this applies to Froomes, but if you take a much more holistic view of performance enhancement, there's likely multiple ways you can do it and stay within the rules. Asthma drugs are just one of many permitted substances.

Absolutely - 'immoral' but not breaking the (letter of the) rules ...

For instance in the past I'm sure Meldonium was in the mix, wasn't it Brad that said "they tell us - 'you cant take that anymore' ..."

I would imagine Xenon gas was there. OOC cortisone (Kenacort?) used to slim down. TUEs for Kenacort are more dodgy in my view - was it used to mask the OOC just in case?

Salbutamol as well - although oral use is outlawed I believe, so very dodgy if they did this.

Leaving morals aside the only problem with taking a marginal gains approach to pushing the envelope on the full range of grey area meds/supplements is you significantly increase the chance of tripping the wire...

And if that is a heavy cocktail it's also possible that there could be odd interactions between things that are unknown / unplanned.

 

[TheSpud]

I think what he means is there are substances permitted you can take up to a limit in small amounts without any risk. Not sure this applies to Froomes, but if you take a much more holistic view of performance enhancement, there's likely multiple ways you can do it and stay within the rules. Asthma drugs are just one of many permitted substances.

Absolutely - 'immoral' but not breaking the (letter of the) rules ...

For instance in the past I'm sure Meldonium was in the mix, wasn't it Brad that said "they tell us - 'you cant take that anymore' ..."

I would imagine Xenon gas was there. OOC cortisone (Kenacort?) used to slim down. TUEs for Kenacort are more dodgy in my view - was it used to mask the OOC just in case?

Salbutamol as well - although oral use is outlawed I believe, so very dodgy if they did this.

I think the obvious question is: if they're so willing to do all of that, on what basis might one assume that they have any kind of fidelity to the letter of the rules?

i.e. it seems to follow very consistently that if they knew they could beat epo tests, they certainly would.

What matters morally is simply: winning without getting caught for anything. That is the surely the axiomatic moral calculus. Because if you have a fidelity to the letter of the laws but not the spirit of them, it means there is no abiding principle of fairness to draw a line somewhere - the 'letter' is merely a reference point for what might invalidate a win.

In my view I think it's how they would still claim to be clean - and consistent with them saying they'd push the rules to the limit.

 

[TheSpud]

I think for full perspective of what anti-doping is, you have to separate morals and ethics from rules. After all being found to cheat, is simply a legal matter. You get tested when you win, the result comes back as an AAF or not and from the AAF, rules decide if there has been an ADRV. What substance is actually found in the sample returning an AAF is not immaterial to that ADRV, but 35% of all AAFs result in no sanction so a large proportion is immaterial. That 35% is a huge untapped area to explore, when everyone else is actually simply trying avoid the 65% they will definitely get busted for if they mess up and actually has a much bigger reflect on the bio passport anyway.
Ethics do not exist in wada rules, therefore while morally clean to one person means bread and water, morally clean to an athlete means not doing anything that ends you up in the 65% ADRV group with a sanction. For me this is not even a grey area, it's simply the area everyone has traditionally ignored in cycling and Sky are ahead of the gsme, because they were doing it at BC for the 20 years everyone else was getting busted while attempting to evade the 65% group

Great point well made that outlined it better than I have ever managed to.

 

[rhubroma]

Re: Re:

Cycling seems poised to get bogged down in the morass of another farce, in which the long drawn-out legal proceedings risk allowing Froome to compete in the Giro and Tour, potentially win them, only to have the results invalidated when he is subsequently given a definitive ban. It will be interesting to see how the cycling establishment handles this predicament, for major sponsorship is getting increasingly difficult to come by and without it the sport risks folding (or getting seriously downscaled). It would be supremely ironic if Sky, the beacon of virtue, transparency and ethical conduct, were to become the fulcrum of the sport's precipitous financial decline. Especially given the Murdoch empire till recently behind the British squadra, for which the sport has potentially enticed big money toward its own extinction.

Great stuff, Rhub.

Now you can’t tell me you haven’t done the odd ... “The whole world’s a stage ...” round at the community playhouse.

Am I right? Ha ha! Sure I am, lad.

I don’t suppose you have a fecking clue about pro sport ... but who gives a feck, anyway?
Drama’s your strong point, lad.

Est modus in rebus, beyond which there can be no justice. Everything else is for the suckers.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

What matters morally is simply: winning without getting caught for anything. That is the surely the axiomatic moral calculus. Because if you have a fidelity to the letter of the laws but not the spirit of them, it means there is no abiding principle of fairness to draw a line somewhere - the 'letter' is merely a reference point for what might invalidate a win.

In my view I think it's how they would still claim to be clean - and consistent with them saying they'd push the rules to the limit.

Precisely. This goes back to Festina, and beyond.

If you don't test positive, you're clean.

 

[TheSpud]

What matters morally is simply: winning without getting caught for anything. That is the surely the axiomatic moral calculus. Because if you have a fidelity to the letter of the laws but not the spirit of them, it means there is no abiding principle of fairness to draw a line somewhere - the 'letter' is merely a reference point for what might invalidate a win.

In my view I think it's how they would still claim to be clean - and consistent with them saying they'd push the rules to the limit.

Precisely. This goes back to Festina, and beyond.

If you don't test positive, you're clean.

Not quite the same. Using, EPO for example is specifically called out as against the rules whereas breathing Xenon gas to achieve the same effect wasn't (it is now I believe). EPO = cheating, Xenon = pushing the boundaries.

OOC cortisone isn't against the rules, using it systematically to lean out is certainly at a minimum pushing the boundaries.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

So Froome should then be able to walk away comfortably knowing in all honesty that he's clean?