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Is Walsh on the Sky bandwagon?

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martinvickers said:
Leaving Rod aside - you have to admit, it's a complete p*sstake!

Why is it a pi1sstske? He served his ban. Aided anti-doping efforts in France. Is a good family man.

Is it because his French?

Truth be told the English speaking audience know very little about Virenque. His just another Euro the Brits like to kick and say "we're not like them".

Is he any different from David Miller?
 
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martinvickers said:
Well, we have a had various people tell us exactly who was in that hospital room, and Mrs Julich wasn't one of them - anything useful to add, or just keep avoiding the facts?


When you gonna read the thread?

No one said Mrs Jullich was in the room.

The original quote with Mrs Jullich

perico said:
Julich's a good dude. Anyone who knows him personally was aware that he was not proud of his 1998 3rd place at the Tour. His wife is basically his own "Betsy Andreau."


martinvickers said:
Betsy didn't choose to be put in that position; she was put there involuntarily. How she reacted is forever to her credit, but the point remains that what she did, in the deposition, was unique to her specific and unique circumstances - i.e. an eye witness to the godfather's full confession. And lets be clear, Frankie retired before it all came out. Walsh was contacted after that.

Betsy chose to tell the truth, seems lots have a problem with the truth in cycling, even now.


martinvickers said:
The rest of the post is barely legible trolling, and not frankly worthy of response.

Ball not man Marty.
 
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thehog said:
The Festina trials was gripping drama.

Virenque did a massive turn around one day in court and asked to speak when he confessed all.

It was a pure French black comedy!

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/results/2000/oct00/oct25news.shtml

Worth reading how it all unfolded.
Virenque wore the yellow jersey in Pau in 1992, and from then on his popularity soared. He played up to the public and reaped the benefits, although he was not held in high regard by the conservatives in the peloton. His generosity in donating his Tour de France winnings to the refugees in Rwanda in 1994 will be remembered, as will his mercenary abilities after he sold the exclusive rights to his marriage to Paris-Match.

Virenque's popularity in France has always belied his ability but in cycling, a high profile public image can be a lot of value to a sponsor. Despite having only 18 UCI wins in his 10 year career, he still asked for (and got) 6 million francs ($US 800,000) per year due to his celebrity status.
and Titi Voeckler, heir apparent to the lesser talented Richard. Both could go thru french housewives like StrongArm auditioning suitors for Yellow Rose.
 

martinvickers

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thehog said:
Why is it a pi1sstske? He served his ban. Aided anti-doping efforts in France. Is a good family man.

Is it because his French?

Truth be told the English speaking audience know very little about Virenque. His just another Euro the Brits like to kick and say "we're not like them".

Is he any different from David Miller?

Is David Millar in the Tours official publication, modelling the wares of a sponsor, whose name he personally and famously helped make synonomous with doping and scandal?

And I'm not saying it's Virenque taking the p!ss. You make a living how you can.

It would be like Lance fronting an ad for US Postal in the Tour Book - "always delivers!"! You can't not see the headslap comedy, surely?
 
martinvickers said:
Is David Millar in the Tours official publication, modelling the wares of a sponsor, whose name he personally and famously helped make synonomous with doping and scandal?

And I'm not saying it's Virenque taking the p!ss. You make a living how you can.

It would be like Lance fronting an ad for US Postal in the Tour Book - "always delivers!"! You can't not see the headslap comedy, surely?

Saint David of Miller is selling is own brand of redemption and doing very well out of it thank-you very much. For a guy who refused to pay tax for 7 years in France he's sold his brand well.

Miller has an equity share in Garmin-Slipstream. Campaigning the UCI for the ProTour licence meant profit for Miller along with the spoils of sitting on the WADA committee. Miller's anti-doping sermons line his pockets at the same time. He's not stupid. He paid his 800k debt to the French government and is one of the wealthiest in the sport today.

I agree Virenque is pure comedy. But he doesn't take himself seriously as all the Skybots do. They see him as the Black Plague but Virenque just laughs at it and hits the celebrity parties at Cannes.

Virenque at least was telling the media what joke Armstrong was back in the days when the British and American press were fawning over Lance.

And no one wears leather trousers like Richard :cool:

So what's the difference better a Festina advertisement and Miller asking for cash for his new movie?

340895-cocktail-de-la-maison-de-grisogono-a-620x0-3.jpg


david-millar-interview-5.jpg
 
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Back on topic.

I notice that everyone is falling in love with Walsh over on twitter, I wonder what happened to those that were critical. :rolleyes:

What do you think Martin, is Walsh still unbiased and looking for the truth?
 

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the sceptic said:
Back on topic.

I notice that everyone is falling in love with Walsh over on twitter, I wonder what happened to those that were critical. :rolleyes:

What do you think Martin, is Walsh still unbiased and looking for the truth?

Why does what I think matter to you? What probative value does it have? Seems a peculiar way to get back on topic...
 
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martinvickers said:
Why does what I think matter to you? What probative value does it have? Seems a peculiar way to get back on topic...

Its the topic of the thread. I was wondering if you had found any evidence yet.

Feel free to get back to vortexing and insulting Benotti.
 

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the sceptic said:
Its the topic of the thread. I was wondering if you had found any evidence yet.

Feel free to get back to vortexing and insulting Benotti.

I didn't insult Benotti. I criticised his post, and absolutely justifiably. A rather important difference.

Personally, given your public admission that you wanted to bait me into getting a ban like Maserati, I consider the accusation of vortexing both an attempted insult, and a deliberate attempt to bait. Please desist from both.
 

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Netserk said:
It's been some time, but IIRC it was a middle position.

However has that position changed the slightest recently, and if so in what direction?

MY position was that he's a good journalist, an 'average' long form writer, and the book is , to be blunt, patchy. I enjoyed for the gossippy bits, and found the last few pages very hard to digest in tone.

It remains my position.

Some of the criticism of it has been justified; it's no proof of cleanliness, if such a thing were possible. A fair amount is not justified - either assuming motive on, to me, ridiculous grounds or taking the worst possible construction from potentially ambiguous narratives to suit the critics own preformed views.

I think it's probably professionally unwise of him to ghost Froome's auto, but given the nature of some of the criticism of him, not altogether surprising. He's certainly seen a different side of people who till now he would have seen as fellow travellers; his blocking of Digger is indicative of that.

But is he 'on the bandwagon'? I'm reasonably confident breaking the JTL story means no. I've seen no criticism of that point that I find in any way plausible, to be honest.
 
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thehog said:
Good PR for Sky. Yes.

JTL, no.

He's been cut and just about hung out to dry.

Lee Harvey he is :rolleyes:

Great PR saying why did Sky sign Rogers after his past with Ferrari. Brailsford and Fran must have been delighted with a huge picture of Wiggins in his yellow jersey alongside Rogers sprawled across the top half of a broadsheet newspaper.

It was far from a PR article.
 
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gooner said:
Great PR saying why did Sky sign Rogers after his past with Ferrari. Brailsford and Fran must have been delighted with a huge picture of Wiggins in his yellow jersey alongside Rogers sprawled across the top half of a broadsheet newspaper.

It was far from a PR article.
Why didnt he write before about Rogers' dodgy past? Libel issues? Dont think so, no libel issues due to the USADA rapport.

So why now?
 
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gooner said:
Great PR saying why did Sky sign Rogers after his past with Ferrari. Brailsford and Fran must have been delighted with a huge picture of Wiggins in his yellow jersey alongside Rogers sprawled across the top half of a broadsheet newspaper.

It was far from a PR article.

Hes playing the long game. He wrote an article today about Breyne and pretty much said that its China's fault (or did he? - maybe it was the UCI he was finger pointing at) for the clen positive (and subsequent suicide attempt).

Never even mentioned Rogers in the article. Funny that
 

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