Is Walsh on the Sky bandwagon?

[gooner]

Deignan said at the end of the TDU that they team worked totally different to any other he has been on.

Didn't go into detail though.

On Walsh, he said last night that he thought it could take another 10 years to get the sport's reputation back on the right track.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Deignan said at the end of the TDU that they team worked totally different to any other he has been on.

Didn't go into detail though.

On Walsh, he said last night that he thought it could take another 10 years to get the sport's reputation back on the right track.

Gewiss worked like no other team.
US Postal worked like no other team.
CSC worked like no other team.
SKY works likes no other team.


When Sky hired Leinders (a well known doping doctor) at the end of '10, a handful of riders started the transformation and ended up worldclass TT's and climbers about 8 months later

Don't think its particular difficult to explain the likely key ingredient: doping.

 

[ferryman]

Deignan said at the end of the TDU that they team worked totally different to any other he has been on.

Didn't go into detail though.

On Walsh, he said last night that he thought it could take another 10 years to get the sport's reputation back on the right track.

During the race (unlikely) or what on earth could a cycling team do to work totally differently from any other team these days. The marginal gains nonsense has already been laughed out of court, we NEED detail

Wait a second, it can't be such a big secret now that Cav, Rogers and Uran have fled to pastures new with all that information to share how 'differently' Sky worked to transform their guys into uber riders.

 

[hrotha]

Didn't Flecha or Zandio say that all that talk about Sky revolutionizing the sport was just hype and that they just did what you'd expect from a rich WT team? This was in 2010 or 2011 I think, but I've never been able to find the source, so all I have is some vague memory which might well be incorrect.

 

[Race Radio]

Didn't Flecha or Zandio say that all that talk about Sky revolutionizing the sport was just hype and that they just did what you'd expect from a rich WT team? This was in 2010 or 2011 I think, but I've never been able to find the source, so all I have is some vague memory which might well be incorrect.

Flecha will have a lot more to say soon. Will tell all about his life in the sport. Wonder if he will talk about OOC cortisone use, supposedly one of the favorite training aids of the Sky classic's team.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Flecha will have a lot more to say soon. Will tell all about his life in the sport. Wonder if he will talk about OOC cortisone use, supposedly one of the favorite training aids of the Sky classic's team.

Hint: it's not working.

 

[42x16ss]

From what Sean Yates has said about the team it's hardly the riders' fault. When you approach a northern classic the same way as a TdF Alpine stage, you're gonna have a bad time.

 

[gooner]

Is it any surprise that Kimmage ended a 30 year friendship with Walsh over Sky when we see the reason today why he just resigned from ghost-writing Brian O'Driscoll's(rugby) book.

 

[Chaddy]

I bet his ego has cost him many friends over the years

 

[King Boonen]

Sounds like he spat his dummy out.

 

[gooner]

Sounds like he spat his dummy out.

This is the video where he says it. He's rightly getting hammered for it.

http://www.independent.ie/videos/article29964813.ece

I can only imagine what he said to Walsh in his 2 hour argument if this is anything to go by.

After Walsh, a great respected sports man is next to get thrown under the bus. It seems no one is off limits.

I think he needs to get it into his head, just as with Sky and cycling, the story isn't about him.

 

[oldcrank]

http://www.independent.ie/videos/article29964813.ece

Wow. That is possibly even more cringe worthy than Pauly
taking the film crew to the Tour and only filming him and
not any racing. What a wanna-be Reality Show loser.

 

[sniper]

you don't have to like it, and he might be taking it to the extreme, but unlike so many in the game Paul at least seems very determined to stand by certain basic principles of human interaction.
Money/fame vs. friendship/integrity, etc.

 

[the sceptic]

Im sure Walsh can jump in and write some fairytales about how nice and clean rugby is.

 

[gooner]

you don't have to like it, and he might be taking it to the extreme, but unlike so many in the game Paul at least seems very determined to stand by certain basic principles of human interaction.
Money/fame vs. friendship/integrity, etc.

What principles apply here? This whole affair with O'Driscoll is petty and childish on his part. I have read many autobiographies and I take no interest in who ghost writes them. That's not what the story is about. O'Driscoll's arrangement on the book is away from Kimmage's work at the Sunday Independent and who was offered this during his unemployed period when there would have been a long queue of journalists wanting to do this book. O'Driscoll is free to do interviews with whoever he sees fit as is the case in the Irish Times here.

I have many disagreements with friends on sporting issues, none more so than in football where I take my views on it seriously and which is one of the most tribal of all sports that can drive debate more than most others. It can get heated a bit as a result but did it ever come close to ending lifelong friendships due to them? No chance and it has never entered minds in the slightest and certainly not over some principled BS where it's bizarrely thought by some here as a great thing to do so as a result. There's a clear line to be drawn on the matter and it should be applied to Walsh in his reporting on Sky.

It's embarrassing.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

This is the video where he says it. He's rightly getting hammered for it.

http://www.independent.ie/videos/article29964813.ece

I can only imagine what he said to Walsh in his 2 hour argument if this is anything to go by.

After Walsh, a great respected sports man is next to get thrown under the bus. It seems no one is off limits.

I think he needs to get it into his head, just as with Sky and cycling, the story isn't about him.

Gotta say, this doesn't look good. Hopefully there's more behind the story.

(and no this doesn't change my view of Kimmage in general).

Edit: just to be clear, I couldn't care less about the other issue: The Walsh - Kimmage friendship debacle.

 

[sniper]

What principles apply here? This whole affair with O'Driscoll is petty and childish on his part. I have read many autobiographies and I take no interest in who ghost writes them. That's not what the story is about. O'Driscoll's arrangement on the book is away from Kimmage's work at the Sunday Independent and who was offered this during his unemployed period when there would have been a long queue of journalists wanting to do this book. O'Driscoll is free to do interviews with whoever he sees fit as is the case in the Irish Times here.

I have many disagreements with friends on sporting issues, none more so than in football where I take my views on it seriously and which is one of the most tribal of all sports that can drive debate more than most others. It can get heated a bit as a result but did it ever come close to ending lifelong friendships due to them? No chance and it has never entered minds in the slightest and certainly not over some principled BS where it's bizarrely thought by some here as a great thing to do so as a result. There's a clear line to be drawn on the matter and it should be applied to Walsh in his reporting on Sky.

It's embarrassing.

as i said, one principle that paul might be applying here is friendship/integrity over money/fame.

that said, sure, paul might be taking it to the extreme here.
i won't judge though until i know the details.
for all we know ODriscoll turned on Paul verbally.

In any case, paul doesn't seem to care about the money too much. By declining this job he'll loose some revenues, i imagine. So perhaps he chose integrity over money.

 

[pmcg76]

as i said, one principle that paul might be applying here is friendship/integrity over money/fame.

that said, sure, paul might be taking it to the extreme here.
i won't judge though until i know the details.
for all we know ODriscoll turned on Paul verbally.

In any case, paul doesn't seem to care about the money too much. By declining this job he'll loose some revenues, i imagine. So perhaps he chose integrity over money.

I think Kimmage makes clear why he threw this one up and it doesn't look good for him.

I also thought it was funny the way he eulogised over O'Driscoll as some superstar athlete as if rugby has no doping problem!!!

 

[Col Okey]

Kimmage works for the Irish Independent who it sounds like have been quite accommodating in his writing of O'Driscoll's book, isn't it right then that if O'Driscoll was to give any interviews that the Irish Independent would be the place to do it. Kimmage has been put in a tight spot with his employer and has chosen to stop working on the O'Driscoll book. Why is this embarrassing ?Cringworthy? Evidence of Kimmage having a big ego? To Sky fans anybody who points out the ridiculousness of their teams performances is just a bitter hater.

 

[The Hitch]

Walsh said those who point out when Brailsford and Wiggins lie (ie sane people who react the way any normal intelligent principled person reacts to such unacceptable behaviour) are bitter vile, stupid buthurt Armstrong fanboys etc.

In that context Kimmage was 100% justified in breaking ties with someone who said that.

 

[sniper]

Kimmage works for the Irish Independent who it sounds like have been quite accommodating in his writing of O'Driscoll's book, isn't it right then that if O'Driscoll was to give any interviews that the Irish Independent would be the place to do it. Kimmage has been put in a tight spot with his employer and has chosen to stop working on the O'Driscoll book. Why is this embarrassing

with the data available to me, it isn't embarrassing.
as it is, it looks to me like he's staying loyal to his employer, at the expense of some easy money and honorable ghostwritership, and in favor of his integrity and daytime job.
we simply have to assume paul has his reasons to be stubborn here.
he may or may not be sharing more of those reasons with the public later on.

 

[gooner]

Walsh said those who point out when Brailsford and Wiggins lie (ie sane people who react the way any normal intelligent principled person reacts to such unacceptable behaviour) are bitter vile, stupid buthurt Armstrong fanboys etc.

In that context Kimmage was 100% justified in breaking ties with someone who said that.

You make it sound like it was some run of the mill friendship where they were speaking to each other once in a blue moon. In a recent interview with Kimmage it was stated that on a quiet week they would still speak up to 5 times a week. This isn't about the bitter Armstrong reference(btw I don't agree with it) as the 2 hour argument in Dublin airport was before that and they patched things up. The bitter Armstrong fan reference wasn't to Kimmage and he knows this full well since Walsh knows that Kimmage wasn't a fan of Lance down the years. This was on the cards either way as we can see from the earlier argument before the article.

 

[gooner]

Kimmage works for the Irish Independent who it sounds like have been quite accommodating in his writing of O'Driscoll's book, isn't it right then that if O'Driscoll was to give any interviews that the Irish Independent would be the place to do it. Kimmage has been put in a tight spot with his employer and has chosen to stop working on the O'Driscoll book. Why is this embarrassing ?Cringworthy? Evidence of Kimmage having a big ego? To Sky fans anybody who points out the ridiculousness of their teams performances is just a bitter hater.

This is wrong. Kimmage has been back at work at the Sunday Independent for the past 2/3 months and still produced articles on a regular basis during this period while working on the book. The collaboration with O'Driscoll was for over 2 years and he was out of work for 2 years up until this recent return to employment. O'Driscoll had no responsibility to the paper and it paints Kimmage in poor light. Ghost-writing books are away from a journalist's day to day work and the sports person is under no contract to give interviews to a certain newspaper as a result of that journalist working there.

Another OTT reaction on his part.

 

[Col Okey]

I don't think its money with Walsh. It's belonging. He's now part of the cool gang. No longer the outsider. He's not a savy guy. Fairly beige. Now he's riding shotgun in the Jag and dinning with the Dawgs.

But when you read book. Like this excerpt. Read it and let it sink in. Then you realise the guy might very well be stupid.

If he really does believe this as the "one" single statistic is actually real and all that matters then he is stupid. Or mad.

5 minute maximum power? Whilst climbing. Five minute bursts?
I pick stupid.

Did Walsh really write that? It sounds scarily like this: Cecco swiftly diagnosed my main short coming: I lacked top end speed. Under Postal, my engine had been trained over the years to be a diesel, capable of producing long, steady power. What won big races, however was not diesels but turbos, riders capable of producing five minutes of top end power on the steepest of climbs, creating a gap, then riding steadily to the line. That's where I was lacking.
Tyler Hamilton, The Secret Race p209

 

[sniper]

This is wrong. Kimmage has been back at work at the Sunday Independent for the past 2/3 months and still produced articles on a regular basis during this period while working on the book. The collaboration with O'Driscoll was for over 2 years and he was out of work for 2 years up until this recent return to employment. O'Driscoll had no responsibility to the paper and it paints Kimmage in poor light.

the boldface seems correct, but the underscored doesn't follow from that.
at least not until we know the details.
perhaps this was just a clash of personalities. perhaps there had been a build up. we don't know and paul has chosen not to share too many details.
it does seem that paul has chosen to refrain from the ghostwriting and the money that would have come with it, in order to stay true to his own principles. For now, we can only respect that, imo. Whether one agrees with those principles or not is another question.