Is Walsh on the Sky bandwagon?

[Froome19]

The escalation of ludicrous happenings generated by Sky has continued from ASO meetings

Ludicrous... ASO Meetings?

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Ludicrous... ASO Meetings?

For me, yes. Call it fundamentalist outrage if you wish, but Mr Transparent (Brailsford) has never explained why his team, which had no riders (2009), was meeting with ASO, or what they discussed.

And continued to do so every year since.

All we have is his claim they were going to win the Tour.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/sky-meeting-with-aso-is-routine-team-says

el oh el.

“We felt it’s our job to be transparent and tell people what we’re doing, and the more we can tell people the less mystery there is. We’re not doing it to try and convince them we’re clean, we are clean. We’re meeting them because we’re genuinely proud of the work we doing and they enjoyed what we had to show them," their spokesperson explained

 

[sniper]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/sky-meeting-with-aso-is-routine-team-says

tanx for the reminder. what a load of crap.

our no stone unturned philosophy

as in dictating what riders put on their bread, but not doublechecking the background of your docs? right.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

It's a pearler, innit?

Walsh could go through that article with a fine tooth comb and simply ask, "Please explain?" for every point raised. He would be persona non grata by the end of it, or have no reliable / reasonable answers to his questions.

 

[Ferminal]

Wasn't Froome in the break that day? Either way, the last man detached from the heads of state group before him was Johan van Summeren.

There were FAR too many riders in the void between the superchargers of 2008 (Riccò, Piepoli, Schumacher, Kohl obviously, and to this we can add the likes of Menchov) and the young and raw Froome who wasn't even the most impressive young African rider on his team (which wasn't exactly known for its cleanliness either), for us to accept it being logical for him to become a top rider without, as you say, some kind of assistance. He was not the total schmuck that he sometimes gets made out to be, and yes he showed signs of moderate promise that suggested he could one day be a pretty decent mountain domestique. But nothing that suggested this. Compare his impressive showing in the Alpe d'Huez stage with, say, Jakob Fuglsang in the 2009 Dauphiné or Roman Kreuziger's first tilts at the Tour. Both of those guys are now at Astana, so if you wanted to accuse them of doping I don't think you'd come up against much opposition. Why aren't THEY totally smiting the field, having shown way more promise than Froome?

Froome's 2008 Tour and 2009 Giro showed promise. It showed that he would be likely to be a worthwhile mountain domestique or maybe strong breakaway guy for the future. If you want me to pin somebody down as an example, I'd have thought he could be around the level of a Chris Anker Sørensen or Egoí Martínez. Augustyn looked more impressive, and was younger. Did I ever miscalculate or what.

Kreuziger was probably doping as an amateur. Fuglsang 2009 at Riis was probably a result of doping too.

Froome may have been clean in 2008.

 

[BroDeal]

Kreuziger was probably doping as an amateur. Fuglsang 2009 at Riis was probably a result of doping too.

Froome may have been clean in 2008.

Does anyone think Soler was clean in that time frame? If his teammate was on the sauce then what are the chances Froome, a man who had no moral problems with hacking people's email accounts to commit identity theft, would not also be on the juice?

 

[Archibald]

Yeah I think he looked to be a good guy to make some tempo. Genre Tiralongo or indeed CAS. Also guys like Fuglsang, Gesink, Kreuziger show that early promise isn't everything. The Dauphiné, Suisse and Vuelta results they showed were good, but of course the promise always requires some extra room for growth to be fulfilled, to become a GT podium rider. This didn't happen to any of them. They're now good domestiques who can either get a good top 10 or sacrifice their chances for a real GT rider. Right now there are probably some youngsters from 1990 or something who haven't shown much, but they're bound to have their breakthrough ride the coming seasons. Who knows who they are? Steve Bekaert? Very hard to determine, since there are load s of riders who have been impressive in one or two occasions.

am curious to see Nieve's improvement gains next year...

 

[Ferminal]

Does anyone think Soler was clean in that time frame?

Not really. Barloworld had other dodgies, either before/after or whilst at the team. Nothing less is to be expected from Corti/Volpi.

There is no real way of knowing what Froome did or didn't do there. IMO probably "clean", no major EPO regime but maybe some good support from team doctors.

 

[gooner]

Shane Stokes speaks a lot of sense.

It was good. Agreed.

Of note that cyclists in the peloton have raised skepticism to Stokes in regards to Sky.

Shane offered to Sky Ashenden to go over their numbers and offer independent analysis. Sky never came back to him.

This is despite Brailsford asking the media what they want.

Reading the 2007 speeds quote was a nice touch.

It's OK for Shane to go back to 2007, so why don't we go back to one in 99 from him.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/lances-life-wheel-turns-full-circle-26145118.html

Instead of just spouting about all this on radio and twitter, why doesn't he ask the appropriate people and if he feels so strongly about it, write a big column on the Irish Times who he works for also. He can expand on his claim of other teams who have strong reservations on Sky and share it with us.

What he's doing at the moment is achieving nothing.

Walsh went after plenty of athletes who were not guilty!!! Armstrong, Smith De Bruin, Contador, Rasmussen, Roche.........

Wrong. Armstrong had the bullying of Bassons and the story in Le Monde about the positive. Smith had the link with her doping husband and her rise would be the equivalent of Froome coming out of nowhere in his late 30's and finishing 2nd in the Vuelta in 2011. It doesn't compare. Look at the famous Sports Illustrated article in 1997 about her rise. Rasmussen was thrown out of the Tour and Contador was linked with Puerto before Walsh said that. On Roche, Walsh went to Italy for a week after the story with Conconi first broke over there and got the backbone and facts on Roche's association with him.

Berzin. Probably because he can relate to Walsh. After all, just like Walsh, Berzin was only about Armstrong.

You couldn't be more wrong on Walsh.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Gooner, Walsh did not argue Contador doped because of Puerto, no, he argued he was a doper because he went as fast as dopers. Why apply this logic to Contador and not to Froome?

Trick question, because Froome had a tailwind of course

 

[elduggo]

You mean aside from several seasoned pros on the same team having mid career, or even late career in the case of Wigans, transformations that allow them to match the performance of dopers even though none of the riders showed they had that potential in their early years and the best of them now could be aptly described pre-transformation as a chump who was barely good enough to get a pro contract?

all this despite the fact that the employees (backroom, management, etc) at Sky, according to Sean Yates, knew nothing about cycling

 

[Zam_Olyas]

It's OK for Shane to go back to 2007, so why don't we go back to one in 99 from him.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/lances-life-wheel-turns-full-circle-26145118.html

Instead of just spouting about all this on radio and twitter, why doesn't he ask the appropriate people and if he feels so strongly about it, write a big column on the Irish Times who he works for also. He can expand on his claim of other teams who have strong reservations on Sky and share it with us.

What he's doing at the moment is achieving nothing.



Wrong. Armstrong had the bullying of Bassons and the story in Le Monde about the positive. Smith had the link with her doping husband and her rise would be the equivalent of Froome coming out of nowhere in his late 30's and finishing 2nd in the Vuelta in 2011. It doesn't compare. Look at the famous Sports Illustrated article in 1997 about her rise. Rasmussen was thrown out of the Tour and Contador was linked with Puerto before Walsh said that. On Roche, Walsh went to Italy for a week after the story with Conconi first broke over there and got the backbone and facts on Roche's association with him.



You couldn't be more wrong on Walsh.

He was asked a question and what else was he supposed to do? ... no comments??

 

[elduggo]

Instead of just spouting about all this on radio and twitter, why doesn't he ask the appropriate people and if he feels so strongly about it, write a big column on the Irish Times who he works for also. He can expand on his claim of other teams who have strong reservations on Sky and share it with us.

pretty sure he doesn't work for the Irish Times.

also, rather than you spout about it on a message board, how about actually addressing some of the points he made?

you couldn't be more wrong about Stokes.

 

[gooner]

Gooner, Walsh did not argue Contador doped because of Puerto, no, he argued he was a doper because he went as fast as dopers. Why apply this logic to Contador and not to Froome?

Trick question, because Froome had a tailwind of course

La Flo, that's fair enough but Walsh wrote an article a number of years back about Contador, Puerto and Liberty Seguros. He wasn't accusing him out of nowhere.

Benotti is wrongfully trying to claim that Walsh was doing that.

 

[Gung Ho Gun]

Gooner, Walsh did not argue Contador doped because of Puerto, no, he argued he was a doper because he went as fast as dopers. Why apply this logic to Contador and not to Froome?

Trick question, because Froome had a tailwind of course

"Michael Rasmussen went up the Gourette-Col d'Aubisque faster than Lance Armstrong ever went up it. Alberto Contador was alongside him the whole way."

Which, at the time, was met with the following criticism:
"I would point out that Armstrong never did a stage of the Tour de France that ended with a climb up d'Aubisque. Comparing Contador's ascent of d'Aubisque at the end of the stage to Armstrong's ascent in the middle of the stage (and we all know that Armstrong waited until the final climbs that were mountaintop finishes before launching his attacks) strikes me as uninformed at best and disengenuous at worst."

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/interview-david-walsh-on-inside-team-sky

If they were intent upon fooling me and used it all as a ruse to convince people, that would make the team out to be incredibly cynical. If you'd said to me before I joined the team, I'd have admitted that it was a possibility. But having spent the guts of ten weeks with these people, I can tell you now that it's not a possibility because the people who are the pillars of the management, people like Brailsford, Tim Kerrison, Rod Ellingworth, the lead doctor Alan Farrell and the lead carer Mario Pafundi, they're just not those kind of people. They're not the kind of people who would be duplicitous in that way.

http://www.veloveritas.co.uk/2009/01/21/chris-froome-working-hard-getting-results/

Moises isnt a bad guy!

My aime is to do well in the young riders classification

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/road/2009/giro09/?id=results/giro0921#gc

Young rider classification

1 Kevin Seeldraeyers (Bel) Quick Step 86.19.26
2 Francesco Masciarelli (Ita) Acqua & Sapone - Caffe Mokambo 2.55
3 Francis De Greef (Bel) Silence-Lotto 17.03
4 Thomas L&#246]Wrong. Armstrong had the bullying of Bassons and the story in Le Monde about the positive. Smith had the link with her doping husband and her rise would be the equivalent of Froome coming out of nowhere in his late 30's and finishing 2nd in the Vuelta in 2011. It doesn't compare. Look at the famous Sports Illustrated article in 1997 about her rise. Rasmussen was thrown out of the Tour and Contador was linked with Puerto before Walsh said that. On Roche, Walsh went to Italy for a week after the story with Conconi first broke over there and got the backbone and facts on Roche's association with him.[/QUOTE]Because there is nothing suspicious on being from an hour down to the big Kevin Seeldrayers to the best cyclist in the world. You just dont want to see it is completely in line with the Michelle Smith transformation.

Your rant re - Stokes is typical; didnt Walsh withness the rambling of pills while in the presence of Kelly? Did he report about it at the time? We all know that anser, Kelly was a good doper, Barabbas cum suis are bad dopers.

If you read that article of Stokes correctly his writing style is exactly the same how Walsh is now reporting on team Sky. Good thing Stokes has learned from the past, Walsh seems - I repeat: seems - to be back to his reporting on Kelly days.

La Flo, that's fair enough but Walsh wrote an article a number of years back about Contador, Puerto and Liberty Seguros. He wasn't accusing him out of nowhere.

Benotti is wrongfully trying to claim that Walsh was doing that.

Link us up then.

 

[goggalor]

Gooner, Walsh did not argue Contador doped because of Puerto, no, he argued he was a doper because he went as fast as dopers.

Don't forget Contador is also Spanish.

 

[gooner]

pretty sure he doesn't work for the Irish Times.

also, rather than you spout about it on a message board, how about actually addressing some of the points he made?

you couldn't be more wrong about Stokes.

How about reading my posts throughout the thread?

Is that too hard.

http://www.irishtimes.com/search/shane-stokes-7.1837404

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/interview-david-walsh-on-inside-team-sky



http://www.veloveritas.co.uk/2009/01/21/chris-froome-working-hard-getting-results/


http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/road/2009/giro09/?id=results/giro0921#gc

Young rider classification

1 Kevin Seeldraeyers (Bel) Quick Step 86.19.26
2 Francesco Masciarelli (Ita) Acqua & Sapone - Caffe Mokambo 2.55
3 Francis De Greef (Bel) Silence-Lotto 17.03
4 Thomas Lövkvist (Swe) Team Columbia - Highroad 31.45
5 Jackson Rodriguez (Ven) Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni 34.37
6 Andrey Zeits (Kaz) Astana 58.41
7 Christopher Froome (GBr) Barloworld 59.06
Because there is nothing suspicious on being from an hour down to the big Kevin Seeldrayers to the best cyclist in the world. You just dont want to see it is completely in line with the Michelle Smith transformation.

Your rant re - Stokes is typical; didnt Walsh withness the rambling of pills while in the presence of Kelly? Did he report about it at the time? We all know that anser, Kelly was a good doper, Barabbas cum suis are bad dopers.

If you read that article of Stokes correctly his writing style is exactly the same how Walsh is now reporting on team Sky. Good thing Stokes has learned from the past, Walsh seems - I repeat: seems - to be back to his reporting on Kelly days.Link us up then.

It quite simple, it's grand to point out inconsistencies with Walsh but not Stokes because it fits your stance. I'm looking forward to the list of articles of what Stokes exposed in the sport. I notice no one still mentions or captions how Walsh got the JTL story. Did Shane Stokes do that by any chance? Expressing suspicion or reservations on twitter or radio achieves nothing.

You're not living in the real world if you think Froome starting to dominate in his mid 20s is the same as a swimmer doing it at a similar age. It's quite laughable.

Simple question, what age would that be in regards to Froome?

If you want to answer to it, respond to the specific points in the Sports Illustrated article. It has been noticed you never responded to the quoted sections I posted up thread from it which give a clear image of the transformation she made.

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=1372514&postcount=2799

 

[elduggo]

How about reading my posts throughout the thread?

Is that too hard.

http://www.irishtimes.com/search/shane-stokes-7.1837404

let me rephrase

I am pretty sure he is not an employee of the Irish Times.

better?

 

[gooner]

let me rephrase

I am pretty sure he is not an employee of the Irish Times.

better?

He has written plenty for the Irish Times. I'm sure if has something of new to offer on all this which has no libel issues, they'd be more to willing to hear.

Still, he could do a feature piece on Velonation.

Kimmage is similar with the Irish Independent.

At the end of the day it was the Walsh, Ressiot and Ballester type of journalism that did the trick with Lance/USP, not radio interviews or twitter comments expressing reservations or strong suspicions.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

At the end of the day it was the Walsh, Ressiot and Ballester type of journalism that did the trick with Lance/USP, not radio interviews or twitter comments expressing reservations or strong suspicions.

It was USADA. wtf are you talking about? And twitter didn't exist.

 

[gooner]

It was USADA. wtf are you talking about? And twitter didn't exist.

I do know that.

I'm referring specifically to the type of journalism which made the biggest impact of influencing people's positions regarding Lance.

 

[elduggo]

He has written plenty for the Irish Times. I'm sure if has something of new to offer on all this which has no libel issues, they'd be more to willing to hear.

Still, he could do a feature piece on Velonation.

Kimmage is similar with the Irish Independent.

At the end of the day it was the Walsh, Ressiot and Ballester type of journalism that did the trick with Lance/USP, not radio interviews or twitter comments expressing reservations or strong suspicions.

I am sure that whatever Stokes says on twitter, velonation or the radio is of no concern to the Irish Times, given he is not directly employed by them. The majority of Stoke's articles in the IT are his friday columns about the local racing scene. Even the stage reviews the IT print during grand tours are generally bought second-hand from the guardian service.

If the inference is that Stokes should hold his tongue because the Irish Times commission articles from him, I would suggest that this is very incorrect.

 

[gooner]

I am sure that whatever Stokes says on twitter, velonation or the radio is of no concern to the Irish Times, given he is not directly employed by them. The majority of Stoke's articles in the IT are his friday columns about the local racing scene. Even the stage reviews the IT print during grand tours are generally bought second-hand from the guardian service.

If the inference is that Stokes should hold his tongue because the Irish Times commission articles from him, I would suggest that this is very incorrect.

I never said that.

He has platforms to share what he knows. If it's not the Irish Times, a feature piece on Velonation will do nicely. Either way, it shouldn't matter.

 

[RownhamHill]

Why don't you take one step back and tell us honestly what you think of the quality of walsh's arguments. Why are you skipping that part? There are several pages with quality posts taking apart those arguments. Address those posts. Address walsh's arguments.

After you've done that, come back and tell us whether or not a man of walsh's caliber is likely to really believe in those arguments.

Sorry, just seen this, wasn't ignoring your question. I don't really understand what you mean by addressing his arguments (eg he says he believes in Dave Brailsford, how do you address that statement in anything other than a pantomime 'oh no he doesn't', 'oh yes he does' style?), but the response below is what I 'think' about the whole thing, that hopefully goes some way to answering your question.

Honestly, I think (from what I've seen of it parsed through these boards, as I haven't read the book) that Walsh's writing is very interesting, and gives me pause for thought.

I choose to take what he says at face value, in that I think he probably genuinely believes what he is writing, and it's very obvious that as a result of spending lots of time with the team he has gone from being cautiously sceptical about their cleanliness to a true believer in it.

That, in and of itself, isn't enough to convince me personally that Sky is clean (because why would it), but it is an interesting 'dot' of evidence as far as I'm concerned.

And it's interesting because it then begs the question as to why he now is a true believer: he could be cynically lying about the whole experience (which I personally dismiss as just too far-fetched a possibility, but of course I could be wrong), he could be being made a complete patsy by team Sky or Froome himself (which, if they/he are/is doping, is the obvious thing for them/him to do, and I certainly don't dismiss), or (whisper it) it could be because they are clean and that spending 10 weeks with them is enough to form that judgement from one's observations (which again I don't dismiss).

Also, leaving aside the 'quality' or truthfulness of Walsh's argument, as a separate note I actually have a lot of respect for him for having the courage of his convictions/brazen cynicism (delete as appropriate) in this case. I actually think it would have been easier for him to project a veneer of objectivity as Skidmark so eloquently laid out, but that doing that would actually have been fundamentally dishonest - it would have been covering his own **** in case in 1 week/month/year/decade it all blows up in his face and his reputation would be left in tatters (at worst he'd be shown as part of a cynical fraud, at best a blithering idiot who Sky made a fool out of (see Armstrong/Ligget)). As it is, he has laid his cards on the table - and whether you think it's a winning hand or not at least (I tend to think) he's been honest about what he thinks.

Of course, since I don't know Walsh, I don't know any one from team Sky, and I have no way of forming any kind of meaningful judgement that goes beyond my own prejudices, suspicions and hopes I remain open to all eventual possibilities.