If I was riding for a strong national level development squad...

[Realist]

...the last thing I would want is the DS involving himself in defending Armstrong for no reason at all.

This could hurt my career if my DS turns out to be mistaken, or worse lying. It could taint every team he was associated with. The young guys in his charge at the moment deserve better. The best case scenario for them is zero gain, the worst case is not so good. This is incredibly poor judgment by Jonker - even if you give him the benefit of the doubt and say he is telling the truth (which I don't believe), he still is putting his riders and his employer in harms way by doing this. Ugh.

 

[BikeCentric]

Actually there is no best case scenario for the riders. As DS Jonkers is speaker for the team and he's therefore lined his kiddies up behind him as fellow Omerta enforcers. Almost as scummy as using cancer patients to shield you from bad PR. On the bright side this means Jonkers will probably get fired over this in the long run. Hopefully he's not already injecting those kids like Carmichael and Wenzel did.

 

[Nearly]

...the last thing I would want is the DS involving himself in defending Armstrong for no reason at all.

This could hurt my career if my DS turns out to be mistaken, or worse lying. It could taint every team he was associated with. The young guys in his charge at the moment deserve better. The best case scenario for them is zero gain, the worst case is not so good. This is incredibly poor judgment by Jonker - even if you give him the benefit of the doubt and say he is telling the truth (which I don't believe), he still is putting his riders and his employer in harms way by doing this. Ugh.

This sounds a tad like the anti-omerta. Rail against those who would stop people talking unless they are challenging the wrong "myth". I happen to have met and travelled with Jonker and would be most surprised if any of the speculative character assasination around at the moment is anything but sadly astray.

 

[Realist]

This sounds a tad like the anti-omerta. Rail against those who would stop people talking unless they are challenging the wrong "myth". I happen to have met and travelled with Jonker and would be most surprised if any of the speculative character assasination around at the moment is anything but sadly astray.

There's no character assassination coming from me. I am one degree of separation from him through several people and have nothing against the guy. This is just a really bad judgment call. How can he know LA never used drugs? What would he say in a lie detector test? He gains nothing, but could potentially harm his charges and his employers. That is all I'm saying. Not that he's a bad bloke. Not that he shouldn't say what he thinks. He can if he wants. But I think it's an error given his current responsibilities - saying that is not character assassination. Unlike some people on this forum I think most human activity admits some moral ambiguity.

 

[Realist]

Actually there is no best case scenario for the riders. As DS Jonkers is speaker for the team and he's therefore lined his kiddies up behind him as fellow Omerta enforcers. Almost as scummy as using cancer patients to shield you from bad PR. On the bright side this means Jonkers will probably get fired over this in the long run. Hopefully he's not already injecting those kids like Carmichael and Wenzel did.

I'm not sure that it would be great for him to get fired. This is not the bright side. He is a good DS. This is what I am saying - he is putting himself and his team in the line of fire and I wish he hadn't. If you are suggesting that there might be systematic drug use on that team you are not correct. Speculation like that isn't helpful. But it does illustrate exactly why I think Jonker should have stayed quiet on this.

 

[Nearly]

There's no character assassination coming from me. I am one degree of separation from him through several people and have nothing against the guy. This is just a really bad judgment call. How can he know LA never used drugs? What would he say in a lie detector test? He gains nothing, but could potentially harm his charges and his employers. That is all I'm saying. Not that he's a bad bloke. Not that he shouldn't say what he thinks. He can if he wants. But I think it's an error given his current responsibilities - saying that is not character assassination. Unlike some people on this forum I think most human activity admits some moral ambiguity.

Granted but there is plenty of it flying around on the Jonker thread (where this probably belongs). I too find it a little hard to understand why he said was he has said as at best it is only of marginal assistance to Armstrong and does nothing to contradict Landis' or anyone else's accusations which have so far seen the light of day. Assuming it was well intentioned then he may, ironically, have been as selfless as the likes of Bassons or Simeoni in speaking out.