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Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

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How about buses that drive away before riders do interviews next to them, or visiting Emma Pooley in the Alps while she's leading a race in Spain?

A more contentious lie is "we will not hire anybody involved in doping ever and have measures in place to prevent this". Now, if you want to play the naïve card you can let them off with Michael Barry and Mick Rogers, because nothing was in the public domain about them that explicitly fingered them as guilty at the stage at which Sky hired them, although there was an awful lot of smoke, especially about Rogers. But Leinders was named in the Rasmussen court documents. No, I didn't know about that at the time either. But then, I wasn't hiring a doctor while preaching the strength of my anti-doping practices.

"We will be transparent" is an obvious lie, because they have done everything in their power to obstruct transparency once the snowballs of doubt became larger than they anticipated (which seemed odd, the fact that they legitimately seemed caught unawares by people doubting them when they started riding so dominantly). From delaying tactics, to filibustering, to Brailsford's politico answers to straight questions, to promising to host a Q&A session that never happened, to running away from questions about investigations that had been promised.

How about "we will not have riders with TUEs, and we will withdraw riders from races rather than take up TUEs"? Even ignoring the triamcinolone and Fancy Bears, we knew about Froome's prednisolone TUEs when he won Romandie back in 2013. Now, is there anything per se wrong with a TUE for prednisolone? No. Of course not. But it did show up the team's original policy as nothing more than PR bluster.

The "Sand Shoes" myth about Froome is another blatant and obvious lie. How blatant and obvious? So blatant and obvious that Froome's own book includes pictures of him at that very event... wearing cycling shoes.

There are other things that aren't necessarily lies but are shown up in the fullness of time, like them telling of how the roadbook is their bible and how they achieve so much because of their thorough study of the roadbook, yet in País Vasco in 2012 they toasted all their puncheurs trying to lead out Appollonio in a sprint, failing to recognise the Alto de Garagaltza, 1km @ 9%, in the route, which led to the stage eventually being a two-up sprint between Samuel Sánchez and Joaquím Rodríguez.

Does any of this mean that they are guilty of everything they are accused of? Of course not. And reporting can always be more sensationalist than the official words from the team themselves, and the fact that the team has a number of journalists who are thought of as being on-side means that some of the hyperbole of journalists who aren't directly connected to the organisation is conflated erroneously with the official statements that come out of the team.

But really, that in 2019 we're apparently going all the way back to the stage of trying to pretend Sky/Ineos/Brailsford haven't been dishonest is like going back in time. To claim that everything they've done, in the handling of the jiffy bag, the TUEs, and the mental gymnastics that have been done in the name of justifying the unusual career paths under their watch, has been entirely innocent, and they've just made mistakes when they've said things that later turned out to be untrue, is to believe that they've fumbled their way to success, and that's at odds with the outward impression of a very well-run and tightly-managed ship that they've tried to present. Personally, I believe that to have succeeded as they have, for as long as they have, with the range of riders that they have (it's clearly not just lucking into a once-in-a-lifetime talent, as they've had success with several different riders across a range of events), that they are managed well, and run professionally. And that means that I believe they have consciously lied about several if not all of the above things.

That doesn't mean I necessarily believe everything they come out with is untrue, and it certainly doesn't mean I necessarily believe every conspiracy theory about the team, and I don't want it perceiving from this post that I agree with the theorists on the Dauphiné crash (at the same time, I doubt long-standing and reasonable posters like Merckx Index do either). But it does mean that I take the majority of what I hear direct from the internal brass at Ineos with at least a fairly generous helping of salt, and after everything that has happened in the last decade, it will be a long time before they've earnt back enough trust that that won't be the case.
To be fair...an excellent and well balanced post
 
cf_sor_front_670.jpg
 
I keep hearing this. Lied extensively. "Blatant and obvious lies" (Red Flanders above).

So what are these lies? Just pick your favourite few.

I'll start you off with Simon Cope going to see Emma Pooley. A lie or bad memory of a five year old event? I'd lean towards the latter, but I'll grant you that one.

So what are some more? Verifiable lies, not matters of opinion.

(Red Flanders, feel free to join in)
Whats the Emma Pooley story?
 
Sivakov favorite I guess but Vingegaard is not slow.
He’s been called worse, in fact I’d wager that you’ve called him worse...pigs are misunderstood and under appreciated animals ;)

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
Orwell
 
How about "we will not have riders with TUEs, and we will withdraw riders from races rather than take up TUEs"? Even ignoring the triamcinolone and Fancy Bears, we knew about Froome's prednisolone TUEs when he won Romandie back in 2013. Now, is there anything per se wrong with a TUE for prednisolone? No. Of course not. But it did show up the team's original policy as nothing more than PR bluster.

Similarly with MPCC. Despite all their preaching about anti-doping, Sky wouldn't join this organization. Why? They claimed they had a better program. Even assuming that were so, what did they have to lose by joining? Belonging to MPCC isn't going to handicap their own efforts to deal with doping.

If Chris Horner had ridden for Sky at the time, he could have and would have entered the Vuelta in 2014.

In his book, Froome never once mentions that he has asthma and uses salbutamol. When asked about this, he replied that he didn't regard it as that important. Yet telling the reader that he stole rabbits to feed his pet snake is important? By what possible logic is it more important for a multiple TDF champion to inform the reader that he stole rabbits, than that he had asthma, and used a drug that at various times has been subject to strict regulation? The latter has everything to do with how people might evaluate his wins--doping if you're cynical, remarkable what he has been able to overcome if you're not. The rabbit story has no relevance at all, except, perhaps, to imply that Froome from an early age was extremely hard-ass, and would do almost anything to get what he wanted or needed.
 
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Similarly with MPCC. Despite all their preaching about anti-doping, Sky wouldn't join this organization. Why? They claimed they had a better program. Even assuming that were so, what did they have to lose by joining? Belonging to MPCC isn't going to handicap their own efforts to deal with doping.

If Chris Horner had ridden for Sky at the time, he could have and would have entered the Vuelta in 2014.

The only official statement they made on it, was Brailsford would only join MPCC if their rules prevented anyone with proven evidence of doping being on the board. Given that the entire board is pretty much formed of people with evidence of doping or having doped as riders, he said they wouldn't join. 9 years later Lavenu's team have had 4 doping violations for EPO, Blood Passport and Masking Agents and suspended themselves with their own rules he is on the board of fighiting for credibility in cycling which is about as hypocritical as one could possibly act. I think Brailsford had a point and has been proven right year after year by MPCCs members myself. i.e. what's the point claiming credibility over Coticosteroids when your members continually return doping violations for EPO, Testosterone and Blood Passport violations?
In those 9 years UCI have aligned with MPCC anyway over Corticosteroids with the 8 days anyway. MPCC is largely redundant.
 
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9 years later Lavenu's team have had 4 doping violations for EPO, Blood Passport and Masking Agents and suspended themselves with their own rules he is on the board of fighiting for credibility in cycling which is about as hypocritical as one could possibly act.

The purpose of the MPCC is to provide rules about how to respond to dopers on one's team. It does not, and can't, develop new ways of catching dopers that non-member teams don't have.

In those 9 years UCI have aligned with MPCC anyway over Corticosteroids with the 8 days anyway. MPCC is largely redundant.

Their policy didn't stop Wiggins.
 
How about buses that drive away before riders do interviews next to them, or visiting Emma Pooley in the Alps while she's leading a race in Spain?

A more contentious lie is "we will not hire anybody involved in doping ever and have measures in place to prevent this". Now, if you want to play the naïve card you can let them off with Michael Barry and Mick Rogers, because nothing was in the public domain about them that explicitly fingered them as guilty at the stage at which Sky hired them, although there was an awful lot of smoke, especially about Rogers. But Leinders was named in the Rasmussen court documents. No, I didn't know about that at the time either. But then, I wasn't hiring a doctor while preaching the strength of my anti-doping practices.

"We will be transparent" is an obvious lie, because they have done everything in their power to obstruct transparency once the snowballs of doubt became larger than they anticipated (which seemed odd, the fact that they legitimately seemed caught unawares by people doubting them when they started riding so dominantly). From delaying tactics, to filibustering, to Brailsford's politico answers to straight questions, to promising to host a Q&A session that never happened, to running away from questions about investigations that had been promised.

How about "we will not have riders with TUEs, and we will withdraw riders from races rather than take up TUEs"? Even ignoring the triamcinolone and Fancy Bears, we knew about Froome's prednisolone TUEs when he won Romandie back in 2013. Now, is there anything per se wrong with a TUE for prednisolone? No. Of course not. But it did show up the team's original policy as nothing more than PR bluster.

The "Sand Shoes" myth about Froome is another blatant and obvious lie. How blatant and obvious? So blatant and obvious that Froome's own book includes pictures of him at that very event... wearing cycling shoes.

There are other things that aren't necessarily lies but are shown up in the fullness of time, like them telling of how the roadbook is their bible and how they achieve so much because of their thorough study of the roadbook, yet in País Vasco in 2012 they toasted all their puncheurs trying to lead out Appollonio in a sprint, failing to recognise the Alto de Garagaltza, 1km @ 9%, in the route, which led to the stage eventually being a two-up sprint between Samuel Sánchez and Joaquím Rodríguez.

Does any of this mean that they are guilty of everything they are accused of? Of course not. And reporting can always be more sensationalist than the official words from the team themselves, and the fact that the team has a number of journalists who are thought of as being on-side means that some of the hyperbole of journalists who aren't directly connected to the organisation is conflated erroneously with the official statements that come out of the team.

But really, that in 2019 we're apparently going all the way back to the stage of trying to pretend Sky/Ineos/Brailsford haven't been dishonest is like going back in time. To claim that everything they've done, in the handling of the jiffy bag, the TUEs, and the mental gymnastics that have been done in the name of justifying the unusual career paths under their watch, has been entirely innocent, and they've just made mistakes when they've said things that later turned out to be untrue, is to believe that they've fumbled their way to success, and that's at odds with the outward impression of a very well-run and tightly-managed ship that they've tried to present. Personally, I believe that to have succeeded as they have, for as long as they have, with the range of riders that they have (it's clearly not just lucking into a once-in-a-lifetime talent, as they've had success with several different riders across a range of events), that they are managed well, and run professionally. And that means that I believe they have consciously lied about several if not all of the above things.

That doesn't mean I necessarily believe everything they come out with is untrue, and it certainly doesn't mean I necessarily believe every conspiracy theory about the team, and I don't want it perceiving from this post that I agree with the theorists on the Dauphiné crash (at the same time, I doubt long-standing and reasonable posters like Merckx Index do either). But it does mean that I take the majority of what I hear direct from the internal brass at Ineos with at least a fairly generous helping of salt, and after everything that has happened in the last decade, it will be a long time before they've earnt back enough trust that that won't be the case.
The usual Libery Segureos replty. Lots and lot of words.

Break it down into a post of key points of 200 words or less and I'll respond. As one of the bosses in my company says, if you can't make your case in a few sentences, you don't have a point.
 
If you can't or don't want to take the time to read it, she shouldn't have to simplify it for you. Some people use lots of words explaining things and her posts are almost always on point, knowledgeable, objective, and unbiased. If you don't want to read that because it is long, your own loss.

On Froome, something I thought of earlier when I was with one of my patients is hopefully people don't accuse him of "doping" with whatever medications he was prescribed by the doctors.
 
If you can't or don't want to take the time to read it, she shouldn't have to simplify it for you. Some people use lots of words explaining things and her posts are almost always on point, knowledgeable, objective, and unbiased. If you don't want to read that because it is long, your own loss.

On Froome, something I thought of earlier when I was with one of my patients is hopefully people don't accuse him of "doping" with whatever medications he was prescribed by the doctors.

To the last bit...that’s exactly what’s happening isn’t it? Any asthma meds would have to be doctor prescribed and he (and others) are constantly accused of ‘doping’ by using them.
 
To the last bit...that’s exactly what’s happening isn’t it? Any asthma meds would have to be doctor prescribed and he (and others) are constantly accused of ‘doping’ by using them.
Where is that sky doc (testo-Freeman) and is he speaking yet? Maybe we should ask that other doc they had...Lienders was it??? there's so much smoke around team sky that not only can't some see the fire...they have been convinced that the smoke isn't even smoke.....
 
The usual Libery Segureos replty. Lots and lot of words.

Break it down into a post of key points of 200 words or less and I'll respond. As one of the bosses in my company says, if you can't make your case in a few sentences, you don't have a point.

Your comment proves you do not want a real DISCUSSION. This is a DISCUSSION board. In terms of broadcasting you want the simple KISS television version instead of the longer print media version. Libertine does a wonder job of print media.
 
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The usual Libery Segureos replty. Lots and lot of words.

Break it down into a post of key points of 200 words or less and I'll respond. As one of the bosses in my company says, if you can't make your case in a few sentences, you don't have a point.

Politicians love people like your boss:

Make America Great Again.
Mexicans are criminals.
Muslims are terrorists.
Socialism will turn us into Venezuela
Kim and I love each other
Crooked. Hillary
Little Marco
Lyin' Ted

Let the British take back control of their economy.

Simple answers to complex questions always win a lot of votes.

But how's this?

Emma Pooley: LIE
Leinders: LIE
We will be transparent: LIE
No TUEs: LIE
Sandshoes: LIE
Marginal gains: LIE

To be fair, these are all on Sky; not all of them are on Froome.
 
But how's this?

Emma Pooley: LIE
Leinders: LIE
We will be transparent: LIE
No TUEs: LIE
Sandshoes: LIE
Marginal gains: LIE

To be fair, these are all on Sky; not all of them are on Froome.

Well to be fair, I don't think any of the alleged lies are his responsibility, whether they are lies or not.

This was reported by the Guardian, "Something similar struck his current manager Dave Brailsford at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006. Froome was a one-man Kenyan team, doing it all for himself in the same way that he had made himself a Kenyan national champion's jersey. "He looked after himself, came to the team managers' meeting, turned up in his sandshoes and he performed really well," recalled Brailsford. "

Even if Brailsford said it, which I am sure sounds like him, it doesn't say anywhere that Froome actually rode in the "sandshoes." It just sounds like that. He turned up in them, allegedly. I often turn up for events in a pair of sandals. I don't ride in them.

Which ones in your list are "on Froome?"
 

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