JV talks, sort of

[the sceptic]

Garmin's a developmental squad for the true big-time dope teams. You go to Garmin, make a little less, but develop your "clean-cred" while you supercharge. Then you can go to the big players like BMC, Sky, Katusha, Movistar, Astana with a squeaky-clean passport and the Jonathan Vaughters seal of approval. Bingo. Big money.

That's my impression of Garmin.

What I found funniest about garmin is that all the ex-dopers become super talented when they are riding clean for garmin.

Everyone can do 5.99w/kg clean. So why did they start doping in the first place if they were always this talented?

 

[goggalor]

The JV quote is from his tweet here

Waiting on a few more sign offs on statement,but needless to say @ryder_hesjedal was 100% truthful,under oath,w CCES+USADA a v long time ago

Can't stop laughing at that phrasing. "Needless to say" he was 100% truthful under oath, lmao. Unlike the rest of the slipstream testimonies then. I wonder if Ryder's official press release version of his doping history agrees with what he told USADA. I mean, did he tell Travis he shot up once in Rasmussen's basement back in 2003? I can't believe Tygart would've accepted for that.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Can't stop laughing at that phrasing. "Needless to say" he was 100% truthful under oath, lmao. Unlike the rest of the slipstream testimonies then. I wonder if Ryder's official press release version of his doping history agrees with what he told USADA. I mean, did he tell Travis he shot up once in Rasmussen's basement back in 2003? I can't believe Tygart would've accepted for that.

I actually prefered the "under oath" sandwiched between commas.

 

[hrotha]

What I found funniest about garmin is that all the ex-dopers become super talented when they are riding clean for garmin.

Everyone can do 5.99w/kg clean. So why did they start doping in the first place if they were always this talented?

Don't get too carried away now. May I point to Hog's thread about Garmin being destroyed this year and JV needing to do something to stahp the farce for the good of his own team if nothing else?

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Don't get too carried away now. May I point to Hog's thread about Garmin being destroyed this year and JV needing to do something to stahp the farce for the good of his own team if nothing else?

Bagging blood so they can crush it at the Tour of Utah.

 

[the sceptic]

Don't get too carried away now. May I point to Hog's thread about Garmin being destroyed this year and JV needing to do something to stahp the farce for the good of his own team if nothing else?

I was just remembering JV talking about how Hesjedal could do 5.99w/kg and comparing it to his other clean riders who could do the same. But he probably never did anything that good when he was doping.

Indeed it does look like Hesjedals talent has magically disappeared again.

 

[The Hitch]

What sticks in the craw with Garmin's policy is that known and now unknown cheats continue to get paid and race and enjoy success without ever really atoning for the sins of the past. Ryder's admission neatly puts him outside the SoL which means the results throughout his career are untouchable. I've been reading a lot of bitterness towards him and his compatriots from the MTB world, how dominant they were at the time and how they denied clean riders opportunities. That success in MTB is pivotal to Ryder's career from then on, creating a platform from which he could secure contracts with good teams and get the opportunities to lead teams which he simply didn't deserve.

Whenever Ryder stopped doping his career is based on lies. And is continued to be based on lies and funded by Garmin and excused by Vaughters.

For me that is a difficult pill to swallow. Vaughters' dismissive manner at my question seems to say that he can condescend his way out of this to the internet investigators but it doesn't wash. When a rider of Ryder's standing with his Palmares admits to doping the entire results of his career must be brought into question, to say it doesn't apply, to spin the tired 'he only doped once and then saw the error of his ways' is insulting. Vaughters knows the game, he should know this cannot be swept under the carpet, and it is very damaging to his and Garmin's image.

I fully agree with you jim. Like you, I'm one of the people who was on jvs side for the last few years, and am very disappointed particularly with those tweets.

The original tweet about how we should be somehow thankful that Hejsedal didn't lie, was ridiculous especially considering history shows it was most definately not in his interest as he would have come off 100 times worse some point down the line.

no you don't get + points with me for boasting that you could have committed an even worse.crime, but didn't.

And the tweet to you was also bad.

the fact of the matter is Hejsedal would have gotten away with it. The confessions to usada and jv mean little. Being exposed as a doper in public is the most basic and mandatory pennance for any doper. I don't care if you told your wife, your parents, your priest, wada, usada, the UN, the president,whoever the ****
I don't even care if you get secretly stripped have to secretly give back all your money, and are serving a secret ban., if the public doesn't know about it you have gotten away with it and if you keep it from the public then you are not repentant by any definition of the word.

Jvs star rider, the one on who so much hype about clean cycling has been placed, has been caught clearly trying to get away with it.

unless jv spent the last few years strongly urging Ryder to make a public confession, he has played a part in this conspiracy.

For a team who's entire raison detre is anti doping, that is unacceptable. And jv should be on his knees trying to figure out how he will.make this up, rather than lecturing others. If he is actually serious about presenting Garmin as antidopinginc, that is.

 

[martinvickers]

I fully agree with you jim. Like you, I'm one of the people who was on jvs side for the last few years, and am very disappointed particularly with those tweets.

The original tweet about how we should be somehow thankful that Hejsedal didn't lie, was ridiculous especially considering history shows it was most definately not in his interest as he would have come off 100 times worse some point down the line.

no you don't get + points with me for boasting that you could have committed an even worse.crime, but didn't.

And the tweet to you was also bad.

the fact of the matter is Hejsedal would have gotten away with it. The confessions to usada and jv mean little. Being exposed as a doper in public is the most basic and mandatory pennance for any doper. I don't care if you told your wife, your parents, your priest, wada, usada, the UN, the president,whoever the ****
I don't even care if you get secretly stripped have to secretly give back all your money, and are serving a secret ban., if the public doesn't know about it you have gotten away with it and if you keep it from the public then you are not repentant by any definition of the word.

Jvs star rider, the one on who so much hype about clean cycling has been placed, has been caught clearly trying to get away with it.

unless jv spent the last few years strongly urging Ryder to make a public confession, he has played a part in this conspiracy.

For a team who's entire raison detre is anti doping, that is unacceptable. And jv should be on his knees trying to figure out how he will.make this up, rather than lecturing others. If he is actually serious about presenting Garmin as antidopinginc, that is.

good post, Hitch

 

[thehog]

good post, Hitch

Agreed. Excellent post.

What's ironic about all of this is how doping is so interconnected.

The doctors, the suppliers, the riders and the dope all find a way to find each other.

 

[sniper]

While I agree that Hesjedal having doped is "old news" (sorta; obviously it wasn't confirmed, but the savvy folk was 95% sure, and JV knew that) and that as such it doesn't have an impact on the believability of his Giro win, the perceived lack of honesty in dealing with the confession does have an effect on how his subsequent career is seen. The confession is a bit of a screw-up because it won't satisfy anyone: the naive think Hesjedal has NOW become tainted, while the savvy are 95% sure Hesjedal is only giving us a low-fat confession and is still lying.

good post

Most of the latter group have no problem with past dopers per se, but have a low tolerance for liars and bullshiɨters.

but then why the high tolerance in here for guys like danielson, vdv and jv?
you need half a brain to see through the everybody-stopped-doping-post-2006-lie.

 

[D-Queued]

...

the fact of the matter is Hejsedal would have gotten away with it. The confessions to usada and jv mean little. Being exposed as a doper in public is the most basic and mandatory pennance for any doper. ...

Jvs star rider, the one on who so much hype about clean cycling has been placed, has been caught clearly trying to get away with it.

...

good post, Hitch

Agreed. Excellent post.

What's ironic about all of this is how doping is so interconnected.

The doctors, the suppliers, the riders and the dope all find a way to find each other.

Add me to the fan club.

My favorite extractions are incorporated.

Dave.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

I fully agree with you jim. Like you, I'm one of the people who was on jvs side for the last few years, and am very disappointed particularly with those tweets.

The original tweet about how we should be somehow thankful that Hejsedal didn't lie, was ridiculous especially considering history shows it was most definately not in his interest as he would have come off 100 times worse some point down the line.

no you don't get + points with me for boasting that you could have committed an even worse.crime, but didn't.

And the tweet to you was also bad.

the fact of the matter is Hejsedal would have gotten away with it. The confessions to usada and jv mean little. Being exposed as a doper in public is the most basic and mandatory pennance for any doper. I don't care if you told your wife, your parents, your priest, wada, usada, the UN, the president,whoever the ****
I don't even care if you get secretly stripped have to secretly give back all your money, and are serving a secret ban., if the public doesn't know about it you have gotten away with it and if you keep it from the public then you are not repentant by any definition of the word.

Jvs star rider, the one on who so much hype about clean cycling has been placed, has been caught clearly trying to get away with it.

unless jv spent the last few years strongly urging Ryder to make a public confession, he has played a part in this conspiracy.

For a team who's entire raison detre is anti doping, that is unacceptable.And jv should be on his knees trying to figure out how he will.make this up, rather than lecturing others. If he is actually serious about presenting Garmin as antidopinginc, that is.

The fact of the matter is RH did get away with it.
No sanction, no loss of earnings.

Your final paragraph is interesting.
Why is it "unacceptable"? It is hardly a surprise that RH previously doped - and there was not this demand of a confession from others like CVV, DZ etc before they were exposed.

 

[WinterRider]

good post, Hitch

Best post in this thread so far in my opinion.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

I was not initially an JV supporter. Over time, I began to believe that JV was honest about trying to have a clean team and that he genuinely wanted to promote things that would help riders compete clean.

I still stand behind that belief. I just don't think JV is saying in public that he does everything within his team to provide them jobs without having to dope, and that he has a genuine anti-doping stance, but behind the scenes, he is encouraging or in any way facilitating the doping of his riders.

Does RH's situation look good for him? No. Has he sometimes spoken out of both sides of his mouth? Yes. But I just don't believe his goal is to do anything but have a clean WT cycling team that makes money. Those two goals have been incompatible in years past, but I don't see him as trying to keep that dynamic in place. I just don't.

As for Ryder, he sounds like a Class A d0uche...in fact, JV can be d0uchey sometimes, but I think that his motivations to have a clean sport are genuine.

 

[thehog]

Add me to the fan club.

My favorite extractions are incorporated.

Dave.

I'd add a little more to this.

To elaborate.

RH didn't just stumble into the room one day and saw everyone doping and made a bad mistake under peer pressure.

He sort out Rassmussen. He knew Ras and his connections from Chicken's MTB days.

He was taught how to inject the right way, how to avoid controls but most importantly made the right connections.

What he leant in that month was premeditated and for the very purposes to succeed himself by cheating.

He continued to dope thereafter and appears to have known all the right people to enable it and not test positive.

He was not a naive Anglo rider first time in Europe.

He knew exactly what he was doing. The I'm sorry, it sorta only happened once, doesn't cut it. He wasn't bullied. He doped freely and with the aim of cheating to win.

And he knows it as does JV.

No other way to spin it.

 

[WinterRider]

The fact of the matter is RH did get away with it.
No sanction, no loss of earnings.

Your final paragraph is interesting.
Why is it "unacceptable"? It is hardly a surprise that RH previously doped - and there was not this demand of a confession from others like CVV, DZ etc before they were exposed.

Clearly JV feels it is OK to hire known (to him) dopers who have not been caught or sanctioned in anyway.

His premise being that as long as they ride dope free on his team, he has no ethical problems.

This policy clearly indicates that he does not feel that his riders deserve to be sanctioned for past doping as long as they make the transition to dope free riding.

But if he is really interested in transparency and cleaning up the sport, then he should have a policy that the day your known (to him) doping has passed the 8 year SOL, you should publicly admit it.

If they had such a policy in place for new hires to the Garmin Team, I would accept it.

 

[webvan]

Yeah but how can he vouch for a cheater? Why wouldn't the guy start again at Garmin under his "supervision" especially with a DS like Matthew White?! A guy like Millar, ok, he got nailed, became vocal about it, but a guy like RH, what's the incentive for him not to go to the darkside again when it served him so well?

Anyway that RH situation is really bad...what with Chicken being involved, RH walking off on a technicality, Leinders prescribing, JV playing us for idiots...it really hits hard, harder than a lot of the previous stuff for some reason. The only hope is that Bruyneel is going to kick some *** and expose more cheaters.

As for USADA, they can't be buying the ridiculous "I stopped doping in 200x" surely ?! You'd think they'd fall off their chair each time they hear that "dog ate my homework" kind of explanation !

 

[ChewbaccaD]

I am also not sure I believe that Ryder had an duty to destroy his life by admitting doping when he was not caught just so people would believe he genuinely did not want to dope. I have experience with helping people deal with admission and/or amending the past, and there are no hard and fast rules as to when you admit things that will certainly affect your and the life of your family dramatically. This is a situation where I don't think my advice to Ryder would have been "you need to sacrifice yourself for the cause of anti-doping" considering that if you stood on the side of the road at a professional race and threw a 50 darts up into the air as the peloton passed, you'd be pretty sure that the only darts that didn't hit an active or former doper would be the ones that hit the road...maybe one or two of the others.

So ask yourself if you'd advise your favorite doper...sorry, rider to just come out and confess and take the punishment. Would you do it if you were in his shoes?

 

[ChewbaccaD]

Clearly JV feels it is OK to hire known (to him) dopers who have not been caught or sanctioned in anyway.

His premise being that as long as they ride dope free on his team, he has no ethical problems.

This policy clearly indicates that he does not feel that his riders deserve to be sanctioned for past doping as long as they make the transition to dope free riding.

But if he is really interested in transparency and cleaning up the sport, then he should have a policy that the day your known (to him) doping has passed the 8 year SOL, you should publicly admit it.

If they had such a policy in place for new hires to the Garmin Team, I would accept it.

That is a fair policy. Great post.

 

[JimmyFingers]

I fully agree with you jim. Like you, I'm one of the people who was on jvs side for the last few years, and am very disappointed particularly with those tweets.

The original tweet about how we should be somehow thankful that Hejsedal didn't lie, was ridiculous especially considering history shows it was most definately not in his interest as he would have come off 100 times worse some point down the line.

no you don't get + points with me for boasting that you could have committed an even worse.crime, but didn't.

And the tweet to you was also bad.

the fact of the matter is Hejsedal would have gotten away with it. The confessions to usada and jv mean little. Being exposed as a doper in public is the most basic and mandatory pennance for any doper. I don't care if you told your wife, your parents, your priest, wada, usada, the UN, the president,whoever the ****
I don't even care if you get secretly stripped have to secretly give back all your money, and are serving a secret ban., if the public doesn't know about it you have gotten away with it and if you keep it from the public then you are not repentant by any definition of the word.

Jvs star rider, the one on who so much hype about clean cycling has been placed, has been caught clearly trying to get away with it.

unless jv spent the last few years strongly urging Ryder to make a public confession, he has played a part in this conspiracy.

For a team who's entire raison detre is anti doping, that is unacceptable. And jv should be on his knees trying to figure out how he will.make this up, rather than lecturing others. If he is actually serious about presenting Garmin as antidopinginc, that is.

For once we are in full agreement and JVs attempts to obfuscate and misdirect runs contrary to his 'open' approach he attempted here. Once he engaged with the doubters, shared their cynicism to an extent, at least about previous era of cycling, and for that he earnt admiration from me. When he responded with 'to the uneducated' to me I was at once insulted and very, very disappointed. My reply was 'some of us want to believe but it is hard'.

I don't go in for the guilty before proved innocent, but Ryder is clearly guilty of doping during his career. The extent of that doping is open to debate but for me that is a moot point anyway: he cheated, he gained a living from it, he was never caught, he's never faced censure. In the process he's pulled the wool over our eyes and Vaughters in certainly complicit in that.

A foul in football is a foul in football, whether or not you get the red card. Ryder deserved the red card, never got it, and then managed to score the winning goal. Him and Garmin have both profited from his doping 'past'.

 

[sniper]

still don't get why USADA vouched for the truthfulness of Ryder's testimony.

do JV and USADA have some sort of agreement that we don't know of?
a Limited Hangout agreement?

 

[lean mean &green]

I was not initially an JV supporter. Over time, I began to believe that JV was honest about trying to have a clean team and that he genuinely wanted to promote things that would help riders compete clean.

I still stand behind that belief. I just don't think JV is saying in public that he does everything within his team to provide them jobs without having to dope, and that he has a genuine anti-doping stance, but behind the scenes, he is encouraging or in any way facilitating the doping of his riders.

Does RH's situation look good for him? No. Has he sometimes spoken out of both sides of his mouth? Yes. But I just don't believe his goal is to do anything but have a clean WT cycling team that makes money. Those two goals have been incompatible in years past, but I don't see him as trying to keep that dynamic in place. I just don't.

As for Ryder, he sounds like a Class A d0uche...in fact, JV can be d0uchey sometimes, but I think that his motivations to have a clean sport are genuine.

you're probably right. the problem is, for the short term financial interests of the sport, JV wants, or maybe needs is the better word, the clean up to happen silently away from prying eyes so as not to scare off sponsors which make the entire circus run. at the same time he needs to show us the clean up is occurring. he can't do both.

some public shaming of past or current dopers is probably necessary but it sabotages his success. his position is completely compromised. IMO he's royally screwed.

 

[Netserk]

I am also not sure I believe that Ryder had an duty to destroy his life by admitting doping when he was not caught just so people would believe he genuinely did not want to dope. I have experience with helping people deal with admission and/or amending the past, and there are no hard and fast rules as to when you admit things that will certainly affect your and the life of your family dramatically. This is a situation where I don't think my advice to Ryder would have been "you need to sacrifice yourself for the cause of anti-doping" considering that if you stood on the side of the road at a professional race and threw a 50 darts up into the air as the peloton passed, you'd be pretty sure that the only darts that didn't hit an active or former doper would be the ones that hit the road...maybe one or two of the others.

So ask yourself if you'd advise your favorite doper...sorry, rider to just come out and confess and take the punishment. Would you do it if you were in his shoes?

If I was Ryder and I had doped in 2005/6/7 as well (and was clean on Garmin), I'd taken a six month suspension together with the other Garmin boys last year.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

If I was Ryder and I had doped in 2005/6/7 as well (and was clean on Garmin), I'd taken a six month suspension together with the other Garmin boys last year.

Gotta remember the boy just closed the biggest deal of his life. No way he would want to soil that while it was still firmly in peoples memory.

I would have done what Ryder did.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Clearly JV feels it is OK to hire known (to him) dopers who have not been caught or sanctioned in anyway.

His premise being that as long as they ride dope free on his team, he has no ethical problems.

This policy clearly indicates that he does not feel that his riders deserve to be sanctioned for past doping as long as they make the transition to dope free riding.

But if he is really interested in transparency and cleaning up the sport, then he should have a policy that the day your known (to him) doping has passed the 8 year SOL, you should publicly admit it.

If they had such a policy in place for new hires to the Garmin Team, I would accept it.

But see this would be PR - nothing more.
And that is what JV gets (sometimes fairly) accused of.

Again - it is not JV or Garmins job or role to get rid of doping.
The 'transparency' issue is just PR - if you are anti-doping and want to assist in anti-doping making bland confessions on SoL day is pointless.

The "My name is Ryder and I am a doper, I am sort of sorry" is of no benefit to dismantling the doping system and network - the only way and place to do that is the ADAs, and that is not something that the public needs to instantly aware of.