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Is Walsh on the Sky bandwagon?

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Mar 25, 2013
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heart_attack_man said:
While Bronstein has done a fine job explaining why your first point is fallacious, I would request you point out to me where I have been inconsistent.

I'm not interested in your games. As MV said suggested your were nothing but facetious in your last response as you had no argument when something what Walsh said corresponded with what he said in SDS at a previous time when he wasn't embedded at Sky.

Bronstein just pointed out the results in 99 compared to 2013. Big woof, I did watch those two Tours you know. Nothing ground breaking in that. He wouldn't acknowledge the two quotes from Walsh either and wouldn't respond in kind to what was posted.

Point being that you chosed to ignore this consistency and still do while at the same time only quotes from SDS should be accepted from the likes of you but not others.

Avoriaz's post a couple of pages back hits the nail on the head on this topic.
 
gooner said:
I'm not interested in your games. As MV said suggested your were nothing but facetious in your last response as you had no argument when something what Walsh said corresponded with what he said in SDS at a previous time when he wasn't embedded at Sky.

Bronstein just pointed out the results in 99 compared to 2013. Big woof, I did watch those two Tours you know. Nothing ground breaking in that. He wouldn't acknowledge the two quotes from Walsh either and wouldn't respond in kind to what was posted.

Point being that you chosed to ignore this consistency and still do while at the same time only quotes from SDS should be accepted from the likes of you but not others.

Avoriaz's post a couple of pages back hits the nail on the head on this topic.


I thought of Christophe Bassons and his persecution on the 1999 Tour de France was the defining moment in my reaction to Lance Armstrong. Back then, it was obvious you could not be anti-doping and anti-Bassons. Impossible.

This is talking about reaction, not what CONVINCED him.

Also, games... Good one.
 
Mar 25, 2013
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sittingbison said:
Sir Wiggos weight fluctuations from 2008 82kg track to 2012 69kg road, with an apparent increase in total power and huge increase in W/kg? Dawgs weight reduction from Barloworld? Dodger and Richie Porte pumping out 450W day after day in the mountains? Are these not physical transformations similar to Smiths shoulders?

Smith was like a Rugby League player and it was directly known her doping husband and her training methods were responsible for this. I remember her in the Barcelona Olympics and it was a physical transformation off the scales by the time she won her medals in the European Championships a few years later. A blind man could see this. Look at Janet Evans's reaction to it at the time of the Olympics in Atlanta.

In the case of Porte he doesn't compare with this. While with Wiggins and Froome it's valid what you say(I'm interested to know how they get having riders as this skinny) it is still not the physical transformation that Smith achieved under Erik de Bruin.
 
Dr. Maserati said:
He does say he thinks Sky are clean in that interview - he also (wait for it) adds numerous qualifiers:

......as I said, and you ignored, all you have (and I have) is our opinions that Walsh is wrong to believe Sky are clean.



No - quite the opposite.
He is saying what he believes - but is also careful to request that people in the know are welcome to change his opinion.

This is how he (and most journo's) work - they are reliant on well placed sources or people with inside info. That is ultimately how he exposed USPS.
Not on watts or VAM, people.

End of July at the tour - last article on froome.
No qualifier....right at the end he said they were wrong about Lance. And they are wrong about Froome.
 
Mar 25, 2013
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heart_attack_man said:
This is talking about reaction, not what CONVINCED him.

Also, games... Good one.

OK, this doesn't mean he was convinced by it.

Back then, it was obvious you could not be anti-doping and anti-Bassons. Impossible.

"Impossible" isn't a good enough word for you.
 
gooner said:
I'm not interested in your games. As MV said suggested your were nothing but facetious in your last response as you had no argument when something what Walsh said corresponded with what he said in SDS at a previous time when he wasn't embedded at Sky.

Bronstein just pointed out the results in 99 compared to 2013. Big woof, I did watch those two Tours you know. Nothing ground breaking in that. He wouldn't acknowledge the two quotes from Walsh either and wouldn't respond in kind to what was posted.

Point being that you chosed to ignore this consistency and still do while at the same time only quotes from SDS should be accepted from the likes of you but not others.

Avoriaz's post a couple of pages back hits the nail on the head on this topic.

Firstly, I did consider the two quotes ('Neither of these quotes'). I didn't 'respond in kind' because nothing in your post addressed or challenged my main point, which is that Walsh was willing to form an opinion on Armstrong based largely on his performances during the first half of the 99 TdF. Even if the Bassons incident was the 'key moment', it doesn't contradict my main point. Walsh didn't need any so called 'real evidence' to believe that Armstrong was a doper.

We have also seen extraordinary performances from Froome. He has bettered some of the climbing records of the so called EPO generation. Like Armstrong, he has also undergone a radical transformation. Yet in spite of all this, Walsh is willing to publicly state that he believes Froome is clean.

Do you accept that there is a glaring double standard being applied here?
 
Mar 25, 2013
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sittingbison said:
There is plenty of "evidence" that Sky are cheating. All discussed at length for thousands of posts in Sky, Wiggo and Dawg threads.

The real question is whether or not its "proof". Until its examined properly instead of being dismissed out of hand that question will remain unresolved.

I don't think anyone is dismissing out of hand any justified evidence. Times are an indicator but you can only get a hunch and strong gut feeling on the back of them. Nothing more definitive like we did in the first years of Lance's Tour wins.

Correctomundo. When a person does pop their head above the ramparts, it will be game over. All the "evidence" will suddenly be seen in a new light. Just like all the stuff in Landis and Hamiltons revelations.

There will one day be a disgruntles team mate or employee that will spill. JTL anyone?

MV pointed this out already. I hear people say it would have been better if he reported from the outside. This isn't directed just at Walsh but all journalists, why not speak with guys like de Jongh. He has been ditched because of ZTP. Let's say for argument sake Sky were up to something and he had full knowledge of it, wouldn't he be cheesed off that he has been removed while the team carry on with a BS policy as if everything is rosy in the garden. The same applies to Julich.

Too many reporters were trying to be the big boy at the Tour asking relentless questions to Froome and Brailsford "do Sky dope?". As if they would say "of course we do". It was getting nowhere but journalists didn't want to be seen to be doing nothing after what certain sections of the media were of accused of during the Armstrong era.

Instead they should have been out asking questions of the right people who previously worked or ridden for the team in the past and might have something to disclose. You might get more out of that than to do what they did during July this year. That would be the kind of journalism I'm interested to see in all this. Not ones who try to play to the gallery or audience.
 
gooner said:
OK, this doesn't mean he was convinced by it.



"Impossible" isn't a good enough word for you.

The quote I quoted from SDS states quite clearly that he was CONVINCED on the night of Sestriere during a phone call with his editor. Your quote happened AFTER that, and he was already CONVINCED.

He needs to be more than convinced to be convinced? Seriously? And you're the one talking about games... Wow.
 
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heart_attack_man said:
The quote I quoted from SDS states quite clearly that he was CONVINCED on the night of Sestriere during a phone call with his editor. Your quote happened AFTER that, and he was already CONVINCED.

He needs to be more than convinced to be convinced? Seriously? And you're the one talking about games... Wow.

Like I said, Avoriaz's post a few pages back hits the nail on the head with this.

I mentioned that already but I noticed you haven't responded to that.
 
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Walsh when he was asked that he knew after Sestriere.

https://twitter.com/DavidWalshST/status/353842327799869441

In SDS:

And at Le Puy de Fou, he took care of the doping questions. Perhaps there was a problem but journalists now needed to stop thinking cyclists were dopers, and if only we could fall back in love with the sport, things would be better. What I heard in Armstrong's words was the sport's old arrogance coming from a new source. Doping is not to be publicly discussed and then only to reassure the public that it's none of their business.

This also corresponds with his tweet above.

This was after his prologue win well before Sestriere.
 
gooner said:
Like I said, Avoriaz's post a few pages back hits the nail on the head with this.

I mentioned that already but I noticed you haven't responded to that.

I think I kind of get where you're going with this. Apologies, as I appear to have misunderstood YOUR point.

You're basing the argument around "context" - ie. 1999 vs 2013 doping "cultures". It's a fair, and reasonable point.

Avoriaz made the point that there is no Swart, O'reilly etc. - but there also wasn't after Sestriere, which is when he became convinced.

The counter to that though, is that context can be applied in more than one way - ie. Froome vs other competitors in the same era is also "context". I've got eyes - I watched Aix-3 etc. and Froome (and Porte for that matter) in the context of the current peloton does not seem credible. To blindly accept that, and even slightly worse, actually become a cheerleader for it is not good, and certainly not good JOURNALISM.

During the tour, the way Walsh was going on and sounding like a giddy school-girl, he sounded more like Liggett than he did a credible journalist. Which, to be honest, upset me a bit. Kimmage's reaction to Sky has been much more level-headed.

I think that even if Walsh had come to the same conclusion (They were wrong about Armstrong, they're wrong about Froome...), I wouldn't have as much of a problem as I did in the WAY in which he came to it.

He has applied inconsistency and double-standards, and IMO has gone into this with a perception-bias of "clean".
 
Oct 16, 2010
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Avoriaz said:
I would suggest the opposite is true here. 1999 was riding the tail of the freewheeling EPO era. The Festina wounds were incredibly fresh, it was the Tour of renewal and Bang! Armstrong dominates alone.

Fast forward to 2012 and riders haver served or are serving bans (Landis, Basso, Contador), there are thoughts of clean winners (Sastre, Evans), and a relatively cleaner peloton. Doping is, whether you like it or not, harder to get away with to the extent it had been at the dog end of the 90s. This leads him to suspend disbelief a little longer. There is as yet no Swart, O'Reilly or hospital room. Walsh has his eyes and ears open, and you will know if (not necessarily when) he finds it.

We, on the other hand, who aren't privy to internal workings, and having been burnt over the 90s and 00s often find the easier default to them cheating. In this way it protects us (as exemplified by your use of lack of evidence they are clean).
There is that flawed premisse again.
How do you know how hard it is to dope these days? You cant possibly have a clue.
Considering where the money is, the only reasonable thing to assume is that, if antidoping methods evolve, doping methods evolve with twice the speed. And thus there is plenty of reason to believe that cheaters anno 2013 have become much more careful and clever than anno 1999. And add to that that there still is no evidence whatsoever of Sky being clean, and the conclusion is simple: the default attitude wrt sky of a reporter/journo like walsh shlould be one of agnosticism, (and imo in the light of facts like leinders and froomes dominance his attitude should be one of skepticism). Instead he,s giving sky his fiat. Thats not credible, in my humble opinion.
 
sniper said:
There is that completely flawed premisse again.
How do you know how hard it is to dope these days? You know you dont have a clue.
Considering where the money is, the only reasonable thing to assume is that, if antidoping methods evolve, doping methods evolve with twice the speed. And thus there is plenty of reason to believe that cheaters anno 2013 have become much more careful and clever than anno 1999. And add to that that there still is no evidence whatsoever of Sky being clean, and the conclusion is simple: the default attitude wrt sky of a reporter/journo like walsh shlould be one of agnosticism, (and imo in the light of facts like leinders and froomes dominance his attitude should be one of skepticism). Instead he,s giving sky his fiat. Thats not credible, in my humble opinion.

Thanks Sniper. I don't actually think it is a flawed premise. Think back to 1999 - there was no test for EPO other than the 50% Hct level. This means, take EPO but don't go over 50%. The test was implemented in 2000. Today we have the test, the blood passport etc. I'm not saying that there isn't doping today, but like others, that there is less doping, a higher chance of being caught (admittedly not yet high enough), and therefore, less leeway to make the vast changes in performance.

I think Walsh is agnostic about Sky - hence he says there are questions to be answered - as we all should be agnostic, including you. But to say there is no evidence of their being clean (which shows your default position to be that you think they are doping) is an exact replica of another saying there is no evidence of their being dirty. There is no evidence of either. The longer this goes on should (logically) suggest a steer towards a more positive agnosticism (which is where Walsh has headed), as it is easier to prove guilt than innocence in these matters.

Unfortunately, a massive opportunity was missed in 2000 by not retro testing 1999 samples for EPO once the test became available.
 
sniper said:
Ow, and @avoriaz: out of curiosity, what do you make of the large lack of positives in 2013? Signs of a spectacularly clean peloton?

Are you referring to the season or to the Tour?

I am not worried by a "large lack of positives", and only would be if I knew that there were a large number of riders who should test positive. I don't know this.

By the way, if I can't possibly have a clue as to how hard it is dope and get away with it, how can you know how easy it is?
 
Oct 16, 2010
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Avoriaz said:
By the way, if I can't possibly have a clue as to how hard it is dope and get away with it, how can you know how easy it is?
Bingo, we cant, so default should be agnosticism, and thats not what walsh is displaying.
 
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Avoriaz said:
Thanks Sniper. I don't actually think it is a flawed premise. Think back to 1999 - there was no test for EPO other than the 50% Hct level. This means, take EPO but don't go over 50%. The test was implemented in 2000. Today we have the test, the blood passport etc. I'm not saying that there isn't doping today, but like others, that there is less doping, a higher chance of being caught (admittedly not yet high enough), and therefore, less leeway to make the vast changes in performance.

I think Walsh is agnostic about Sky - hence he says there are questions to be answered - as we all should be agnostic, including you. But to say there is no evidence of their being clean (which shows your default position to be that you think they are doping) is an exact replica of another saying there is no evidence of their being dirty. There is no evidence of either. The longer this goes on should (logically) suggest a steer towards a more positive agnosticism (which is where Walsh has headed), as it is easier to prove guilt than innocence in these matters.

Unfortunately, a massive opportunity was missed in 2000 by not retro testing 1999 samples for EPO once the test became available.
how is walsh agnostic? I assume you read the why i beleive in froome piece?
Not agnostic, avoriaz. "Froomes doubters will be provem wrong"(or along those lines), was one of several non_agnostic statements in that piece.
And wrt antidoping, he said its now better than it was before, whereas you seem to agree we cant know either way. So again, walsh not beig agnostic.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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JimmyFingers said:
How could there be evidence of them being clean exactly? What form does that take?
Hiring a doc responsible for letting serial dopers and GT contenders like menchov and rasmussen fly under the radar during a decade or so certainlt isn't evidence of cleanlihood.
Beating armstrong times uphill certainly isn't either.
Not releasing full sets of BP and power data isn't either.

So yeah, good question Jimmy.
But Walsh knows, so why not ask him.
 

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heart_attack_man said:
I think I kind of get where you're going with this. Apologies, as I appear to have misunderstood YOUR point.

You're basing the argument around "context" - ie. 1999 vs 2013 doping "cultures". It's a fair, and reasonable point.

Avoriaz made the point that there is no Swart, O'reilly etc. - but there also wasn't after Sestriere, which is when he became convinced.

The counter to that though, is that context can be applied in more than one way - ie. Froome vs other competitors in the same era is also "context". I've got eyes - I watched Aix-3 etc. and Froome (and Porte for that matter) in the context of the current peloton does not seem credible. To blindly accept that, and even slightly worse, actually become a cheerleader for it is not good, and certainly not good JOURNALISM.

And again, in the absence of actual evidence we are thrown back to personal feelings.

Tell me, HAM, in all gentleness. Do you think Gooner has eyes? JimmyFingers? The Doc?

Does Walsh have eyes?

Is there any particular, logical, reason we should favour what goes through your eyes, as to what goes through theirs?

It just seems to be the "well, I know what I saw" fallacy. AKA "i don't need no stinking facts". We've been down this cul de sac umpteen times. It becomes no more convincing.

During the tour, the way Walsh was going on and sounding like a giddy school-girl, he sounded more like Liggett than he did a credible journalist. Which, to be honest, upset me a bit. Kimmage's reaction to Sky has been much more level-headed.

1. Your impression of Walsh may well be honest and genuine, but it's meaningless. It still boils down to "walsh didn't say what i wanted him to. Under the bus with him!". No value beyond a good vent, which admittedly we all enjoy from time to time.

2. If you think Kimmage was level headed, after the bizarre Boassen Hagan confrontation BEFORE FROOME TURNED A PEDAL at the tour, you need to lay off the backy. I repeat, before Froome turned a pedal.

Kimmage is very honest, very genuine and very anti-doping. He may well be right about Sky. I repeat, he may well be right. But let's be honest folks, Kimmage's mind was all but made up before the tour began. Indeed, there's a very interesting and pointed video where he starts to get visibly upset when his friend Frankie Andreau does not agree with Kimmage about the suspiciousness of Froome.

Pesumably Frankie has eyes too.

I would note only this other point. On the infamous Ventoux stage, Walsh's eyes were right there at the Ventoux - maybe clouded by bias, maybe not. But they were there, close up.

Kimmage's eyes, like the rest of him, was at L'Alpe d'Huez.

Now Kimmage emphatically isn't the point of the thread so we'll take it no further, and i apologise for the detail i've already gone into, but a very direct comparison was made, it had to be addressed.

I repeat, Kimmage is very honest, very genuine and very anti-doping. He's an admirable man in many ways. But he wasn't the devil when the world was siding with Armstrong. and he's not a saint now. He's a human, fallible, like Walsh, like us all. But to hold Kimmage out as an example of objectivity to Walsh, which you did, is risible. The idea that Walsh was 'out there' on bias compared to others, notably Kimmage, doesn't stack up to examination.

He has applied inconsistency and double-standards, and IMO has gone into this with a perception-bias of "clean".

no-one on this thread is unbiased. No-one. And very few journos are either. Everyone starts with instincts and feelings and thoughts and suspicions. The good journalist isn't bias free. the good journo knows how to set aside the bias and look for the evidence. And if we don't have enough yet, if ther is an absence of facts, the correct answer is not to make some up, or despense with the need - the answer is to start trying to get more facts - and reserving judgement till you do.

And that takes patience, and self control, and knowing the difference between scepticism and cynicism.

Which, to be honest, is hard to find here sometimes. and that's not good thing.
 

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sniper said:
There is that flawed premisse again.
How do you know how hard it is to dope these days? You cant possibly have a clue.

AVERAGE climbing speeds are down from the Festina heights. That's a simple verifiable fact.

More riders, both minnows and somebodies, have been caught in recent years, and dealt with relatively strictly. Again, it's recorded, black and white, verifiable.

If you don't believe me, tell me, how many GT winners were disqualified PRIOR to 1991 because of Drugs? How many life bans?

So actually, yes, we can have a pretty good clue, the sport is cleanER though not clean, and that the effectiveness of what can can get through the system is less.

You may not believe it, or wish to believe it. Doesn't make it less true.


Considering where the money is, the only reasonable thing to assume is that, if antidoping methods evolve, doping methods evolve with twice the speed.

That's patently absurd. Why must we assume any such thing? Twice the speed? How do you quantify that? What new doping methods are coming close to the effectiveness of EPO, full on blood doping?


And thus there is plenty of reason to believe that cheaters anno 2013 have become much more careful and clever than anno 1999.

So when lance says legs and bodies can evolve in that time period, we, of course mock him. But when you suggest brains can evolve at exactly the same pace, we have to take you seriously?

Yep, sure...

And add to that that there still is no evidence whatsoever of Sky being clean,

1. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
2. you can't prove a negative. IT's a logical nonsense to expect it.
 

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sniper said:
Ow, and @avoriaz: out of curiosity, what do you make of the large lack of positives in 2013? Signs of a spectacularly clean peloton?

1. There were a number of high profile positives in the Giro, lest we forget. That was in 2013. The Tour is not cycling.

2. Valverde, Contador have the sword of Damocles over their head - next time, it's for life. Contador's performance was noticably 'weaker' than in his 'pomp'. Draw your own conclusions from that.

Evans and Schleck, the two riders lest we forget duked out the tour only two years ago, were nowhere. Ryder H wasn't much better. That's some pretty crap dope they're on. Doesn't look twice as good to me...

There was a breakout performance from a tiny colombian climber who had shown excellent form prior to the tour, and who didn't do great on the flat time trial - so far, so within the range of expectations for tny colombians. Is he clean? who knows...but that's the point. We don't.

None of the 'contenders' was strong the entire three weeks, not even Froome, though he clearly came closest. Quintana had a very average time trial, Berti, Valverde, dan Martin and the dutch pair faded, as frankly did Froome, though to a lesser degree. Purito barely showed till the last week.

Were they all clean. Who knows, i don't. But were they all automatically dirty? Nope, not buying that. There's just no evidence. Find some and we can talk.

3. Not for the first time recently, the most extraordinary performance was not in the tour, but the Vuelta. If Spain brings in the sort of laws they are considering, in line with France, I wouldn't be shocked if that changed, too. Again, draw your own conclusions...
 

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