Ferminal said:
Sorry, I thought you were discounting the theory whereby he doped in recent years but did not disclose those activities to both Vaughters and the ADAs. In that case I only really see two alternatives, he was clean, or he wasn't and Vaughters knowingly supported him. The only remaining one would be that he doped, withheld that from Vaughters but told USADA/CCES so may have a sanction pending?
I believe that only two of them are plausible:
1) Clean
2) Doped, without the knowledge of his boss and has not disclosed anything to ADAs which would bring about a sanction.
As is pretty obvious in many of my posts, I personally view #2 as the most likely scenario for certain parts of his career.
I do not believe that discussing matters 8+ years ago with the ADAs and his employer significantly increases the likelihood of #1 being correct as we have seen countless partial admissions which are largely false. A meeting with an ADA doesn't always bring about the complete truth, as recently as a year ago Visconti/Pozzato/Scarponi were happy to tell CONI that their relationships with Dr. Ferrari were unrelated to doping.
The missing pieces for me are:
1) Hesjedal - I have no idea about that guy's personality (does he even have one?), so I have no way of assessing how likely it would be for him to lie, to either Vaughters or an ADA. I can certainly see how he would have incentive to lie to both, though, or at least be hazy about timelines.
2) the process - I would be inclined to think that a) USADA wouldn't just lob up some softballs and say 'thanks', they would ask 'so, um, did you continue after 2003?' and he would have told them. Unless you're a great liar, you don't go into that situation voluntarily and then just smoothly get off the hook - an interview is not as easy to lie in as a press release - which goes back to my lack of knowledge about point 1). And b), Hesjedal presumably disclosed his past to JV upon being hired at Slipstream back in the day, especially given D-Queued's info that JV was very interested in getting to the bottom of things when looking to hire Ryder. Why would Ryder lie to JV about doping when there was no punishment and no SOL to worry about? Did he predict in 2007-8 that there would be a need to testify in 2012 to USADA and somehow amazingly figure that he could say he stopped in 2004 or whatever and would be outside the 8-year SOL? It seems convenient in hindsight, but it doesn't make sense thinking about it from the perspective of Hesjedal at the time he was hired at Slipstream.
3) Vaughters - he knows the game of cycling, and if he's as committed to anti-doping as he says he is, he's not going to let Ryder off the hook in 2007-8 and say 'okay, so you've vaguely told me you doped a bit in 2003-04, that's cool'. I feel like I know enough about his methods that I'm confident he'd get something approaching full disclosure. So that means that a) Hesjedal lied really well to Vaughters and 2 ADAs, in a consistent manner, b) Vaughters didn't pay enough attention/wasn't thorough enough with Ryder to know if the details he gave to the officials match up with his story from 5-6 years ago, or c) Vaughters is covering for Hesjedal, baldly lying in the most cynical fashion possible. Or, of course, d) Hesjedal is telling the truth.
Something just doesn't add up - I feel like the most sensible explanation from a dispassionate perspective is d) followed by a). But d) doesn't make sense given the teams he was on in 2005-06 and the rumours around him in that time. I'm not yet enough of a hardened cynic to believe c), and I just don't believe b) is likely. So I'm waffling between the same choices as you, Ferminal.
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