JV talks, sort of

[DirtyWorks]

my thoughts exactly.
jonathan vaughters says he's happy with how it is now, even though there is a chance his racers get beaten by suttle microdopers.
that stance is difficult to understand if he's really dedicated to anti-doping and if his riders are really clean. perhaps he'd be more credible if he'd stop saying he's dedicated to anti-doping, but rather dedicated to scandal- and healthrisk-free cycling.

I read JV as a pragmatist. That leads to inconsistencies and in the best case a "never tested positive" pro sport that probably isn't almost killing athlete-dopers anymore. Yes, there are huge problems with taking a pragmatic stance and I'm not okay with it either because the bio-passport could really, actually, work much better.

Judging by the amount of information and participation in body building forums, we're not going back to pre-blood-doping performances, but I think we'd get close with a legitimate bio-passport and meaningful back-dated testing.

 

[the asian]

JV, Did you hire Alex Rasmussen back?

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

my thoughts exactly.
jonathan vaughters says he's happy with how it is now, even though there is a chance his racers get beaten by suttle microdopers.
that stance is difficult to understand if he's really dedicated to anti-doping and if his riders are really clean. perhaps he'd be more credible if he'd stop saying he's dedicated to anti-doping, but rather dedicated to scandal- and healthrisk-free cycling.

Good post. JV is not disgusted by doping in cycling. Should he be? I would say abso-f*ckin-lutely!

But he's not. He obviously wasn't into it, but as I've said before, that's his own personal deal. That's up to him to cheat, or not, at a personal level.

To blithely state that the BioPass is working is a fallacy, to say that today is better than yesterday means nothing.

Are dopers still in the upper ranks? Is the environment of doping still excluding clean, natural talent from the upper echelons of racing? Is the sport actually CLEAN?

But, if it's good enough for the soft fans and the media, then I guess it's 'mission accomplished'...

PS: GalicHo, probably the best post I've read in years. Thanks.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

my thoughts exactly.
jonathan vaughters says he's happy with how it is now, even though there is a chance his racers get beaten by suttle microdopers.
that stance is difficult to understand if he's really dedicated to anti-doping and if his riders are really clean. perhaps he'd be more credible if he'd stop saying he's dedicated to anti-doping, but rather dedicated to scandal- and healthrisk-free cycling.


As in: the lack of competence to smoothly cover up the other two issues?

Suttle microdopers? Now what now?

I don't think he is going to say anything like that.

 

[Granville57]

Well thanks. But I am not even fit enough to tie his shoe laces. That's how good Libertine is.

I thought "he" was a "she."

 

[MatParker117]

Ireland's an island. England isn't.

Still, come to Ireland some time and say that in a Dublin pub. Make sure of your exits, mind.

Well, "British Cycling" ain't all that interested in (or relevant to) Irish cycling - any money made off the Giro goes to ireland, not GB, and not British Cycling - so the follow the money argument falls apart a bit.

that's the difference. Pretty bl**dy obvious you might think...

Last time I checked Belfast was in the UK.

 

[martinvickers]

my thoughts exactly.
jonathan vaughters says he's happy with how it is now, even though there is a chance his racers get beaten by suttle microdopers.
that stance is difficult to understand if he's really dedicated to anti-doping and if his riders are really clean. perhaps he'd be more credible if he'd stop saying he's dedicated to anti-doping, but rather dedicated to scandal- and health-risk-free cycling.


As in: the lack of competence to smoothly cover up the other two issues?

Not remotely difficult to understand PIME.

If you are waiting for absolute certainty, 100% clean sport, or better still proof of 100% clean sport. Give. Up. Now.

It ain't never gonna happen.

Because -

1. You can NEVER prove a negative. It's simply a logical impossibility.

There is not a single athlete in any sport you can prove with 100% certain never doped. Not one. And that includes Moncoutie, Bassons and Lemond, all of whom are broadly accepted not to have done so.

Broadly accepted. But not proven 100%. Because as a matter of logic, it simply can't be done.

You cannot prove, 100%, that Greg Lemond, at some point in his life, on one occasion with no-one present, in some far flung hotel, did not dope.

I don't believe he did, not for a second. I believe he's clean. Strongly. There's lots of evidence to back his claims, very little if anything at all against them, and the same goes for Montcoutie and Bassons. But not ABSOLUTE proof. That's impossible.

I repeat again; you can NEVER prove a negative. So if your waiting for proof of 100% clean cycling, you're wasting your time and everyone else's. It is never going to happen, not in our mathematical universe. and the same goes for every sport. Every. Single. One.


2. People are people.

Haters gonna hate. Losers gonna lose.

And cheaters gonna cheat.

Now you can reduce incentives, and increase disincentives to cheaters; you can make it difficult for them logistically, even morally if you can change the culture. You can increase punishments, and fund detection. But some b*gger is always gonna try. So long as people have ars*holes, some b*gger is gonna try.

You name a single rule, doping or non-doping. someone, somewhere, sometime will try and break it. Use a taxi in a marathon. fix a cricket match, or a football match. punch a defender off the ball in gaelic football (classic meath move ). Would someone try and put a motor inside a bike, like the silly Cancellara allegation. If they could, Damn right.

If you can't get behind a sport and its effort unless its already proven 100% clean, take up knitting; you're wasting your time otherwise. And to call for the impossible is simply silly, and naive. you may as well complain water fairies aren't sprinkling magic dust on Boonen.

So there's the truth.

And say you're JV, or if we don't trust him, it can be actually any of a host of people in love with an imperfect sport, in an imperfect world. And after eight decades of doping, and two of super charged doping, there are small small signs that your guys, who you are trying to keep clean, have a chance to compete and win clean - removing the deepest and most perverse doping incentive of all - the idea you can't win clean. That what doping exists (and it DOES exist) is less widespread, and certainly less effective than a few years previously. Jubilation? no. But some sort of happiness. Yeah, why not.

And by itteration, slow, boring, work you make the sport cleanER. because really, really, it's all you can ever, ever do.

So why don't you use your energy to help that, at whatever level you can. Personally, I'm writing to Cycling Ireland to try and get them not to nominate Pat, for all the good it will do. I donated, several times, to Kimmage. I'm very likely to be doing a masters soon, and then a PhD in international sports law, because I'm interested in using my skill set in the area - there's a course in switzerland, but i'm hoping to set up something closer to home (and cheaper). Little things, from little people.

Or equally good, find something else that you do trust 100%. But avoid religion. Tends to be a let down, like all cults.

 

[martinvickers]

Last time I checked Belfast was in the UK.

Last time I checked, cycling Ireland was a 32 county body, and Cycling Ulster worked under them. Last time I checked was about 10 minutes ago.

for the record? British cyclings memo of association (its basic constitutional document) states it's objects include the control of the sport for "Great Britain, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands" - Northern Ireland is not in any of these.

Here : See Paragraph 3(a)

 

[acoggan]

BTW I am not having a go at Coggan or Krebs.

That's bull****, pure and simple.

 

[martinvickers]

That's bull****, pure and simple.

keep it holy guys. Don't be baited into a suspension...

 

[JimmyFingers]

Not remotely difficult to understand PIME.

If you are waiting for absolute certainty, 100% clean sport, or better still proof of 100% clean sport. Give. Up. Now.

It ain't never gonna happen.

Because -

1. You can NEVER prove a negative. It's simply a logical impossibility.

There is not a single athlete in any sport you can prove with 100% certain never doped. Not one. And that includes Moncoutie, Bassons and Lemond, all of whom are broadly accepted not to have done so.

Broadly accepted. But not proven 100%. Because as a matter of logic, it simply can't be done.

You cannot prove, 100%, that Greg Lemond, at some point in his life, on one occasion with no-one present, in some far flung hotel, did not dope.

I don't believe he did, not for a second. I believe he's clean. Strongly. There's lots of evidence to back his claims, very little if anything at all against them, and the same goes for Montcoutie and Bassons. But not ABSOLUTE proof. That's impossible.

I repeat again; you can NEVER prove a negative. So if your waiting for proof of 100% clean cycling, you're wasting your time and everyone else's. It is never going to happen, not in our mathematical universe. and the same goes for every sport. Every. Single. One.


2. People are people.

Haters gonna hate. Losers gonna lose.

And cheaters gonna cheat.

Now you can reduce incentives, and increase disincentives to cheaters; you can make it difficult for them logistically, even morally if you can change the culture. You can increase punishments, and fund detection. But some b*gger is always gonna try. So long as people have ars*holes, some b*gger is gonna try.

You name a single rule, doping or non-doping. someone, somewhere, sometime will try and break it. Use a taxi in a marathon. fix a cricket match, or a football match. punch a defender off the ball in gaelic football (classic meath move ). Would someone try and put a motor inside a bike, like the silly Cancellara allegation. If they could, Damn right.

If you can't get behind a sport and its effort unless its already proven 100% clean, take up knitting; you're wasting your time otherwise. And to call for the impossible is simply silly, and naive. you may as well complain water fairies aren't sprinkling magic dust on Boonen.

So there's the truth.

And say you're JV, or if we don't trust him, it can be actually any of a host of people in love with an imperfect sport, in an imperfect world. And after eight decades of doping, and two of super charged doping, there are small small signs that your guys, who you are trying to keep clean, have a chance to compete and win clean - removing the deepest and most perverse doping incentive of all - the idea you can't win clean. That what doping exists (and it DOES exist) is less widespread, and certainly less effective than a few years previously. Jubilation? no. But some sort of happiness. Yeah, why not.

And by itteration, slow, boring, work you make the sport cleanER. because really, really, it's all you can ever, ever do.

So why don't you use your energy to help that, at whatever level you can. Personally, I'm writing to Cycling Ireland to try and get them not to nominate Pat, for all the good it will do. I donated, several times, to Kimmage. I'm very likely to be doing a masters soon, and then a PhD in international sports law, because I'm interested in using my skill set in the area - there's a course in switzerland, but i'm hoping to set up something closer to home (and cheaper). Little things, from little people.

Or equally good, find something else that you do trust 100%. But avoid religion. Tends to be a let down, like all cults.

Good post Vickers

 

[Athame]

The Sky thread is the current soap opera for the sport.

I thought that definite article needed an italicization and bolding, too.
______________________________________ Sort of puts it into perspective....

 

[blackcat]

Suttle microdopers? Now what now?

I don't think he is going to say anything like that.

the "h" is silent and invisible.

shuttle microdopers. after DC cut back on nasa and the space program and cape canaveral, it became suttle doping.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Why this? why that? The explain this, then explain that. You guys have't worked out what a strawman argument is yet have you?

There could be dozens of possible answers to those questions. The most likely one has been discussed many times before.... it was not part of Wiggins plan to go chasing a high GC place in those races because his priority goal was on the track.

Why is this so hard to believe? That a cyclist who wants to win an olympic gold medal in the IP would not base their entire training and preparation around peaking for a GT at a different time of the year? In fact it beggars belief that anyone would think that a cyclist who wanted to win a gold in the IP would try to compete to win or place highly in a GT. Even a rank amateur could understand that training to win these two events wouldn't be perfectly compatible with each other. So why can't you guys figure it out? You're better than that. However, a rank amateur might not realise that the underlying physiological characteristics required to win these two very different events are surprisingly similar. But you guys don't realise that despite the fact I've told you dozens of times and posted links to studies which prove it.

Sometimes you guys demonstrate excellent knowledge of cycling history, but then you turn around and make statements that make you look as if you don't know anything about the physiological demands or physiological characteristics of elite cycling performance.

Thanks for spelling it out, again....

And yet curiously enough, Wiggins is part of the world cup TP team that wins a world cup in Manchester, on 20th February, 2011, in a time of 3:55. ie quick.

And then 2 weeks later starts week-long Paris Nice, finishing 3rd, including a handy 2nd in the 27km (6.5 x the distance of a team pursuit) TT, losing only 20 seconds to Tony Martin.

The eight-day, 1,307km race

Now. I am pretty sure he was doing longer than 4km TTT efforts in the lead up to the world cup (Nov-Jan), or he would not have finished Paris Nice anywhere near as well as he did.

When are you, Krebs, going to stop defending Brad Wiggins complete and utter inability on the road with such a weak argument as "he was concentrating on the track".

Darryl Webster was IP champ of UK based on road miles.
Hepburn just broke Wiggins IP record on road miles.

You can pursuit on road miles. It's not rocket science. It's a fallacy that Wiggins was concentrating on track and therefore could not ride hard on the road. Complete and utter fallacy.

It may be true that Wiggins just could not be bothered becoming a multi-millionaire.
It may be true that a clean Wiggins refusing to dope could not make it in a peloton of dopers.
It may be true that Wiggins is now doping.

But it's not true you can't race hard on the road - GTs or not - and do well at track pursuit. That is a fallacy.

 

[blackcat]

Good post. JV is not disgusted by doping in cycling. Should he be? I would say abso-f*ckin-lutely!.

care to make an argument with any intellectual rigour, why should JV be disgusted?

you are not watching a trade sideshow selling the ideals of youth sport to soccer moms.

what is inherently bad about doping? I am not running an apologia. I would prefer truth and transparency. this, i dont get neither... but, why am I owed the truth and transparency?

 

[blackcat]

I read JV as a pragmatist. That leads to inconsistencies and in the best case a "never tested positive" pro sport that probably isn't almost killing athlete-dopers anymore. Yes, there are huge problems with taking a pragmatic stance and I'm not okay with it either because the bio-passport could really, actually, work much better.

Judging by the amount of information and participation in body building forums, we're not going back to pre-blood-doping performances, but I think we'd get close with a legitimate bio-passport and meaningful back-dated testing.

have to agree
realist, consensus builder, negotiator, politician, with a strong leaning to utilitarian + instrumental(ist) ends.

remind you of anyone?

hope and change you can believe in. or not.

 

[Athame]

the "h" is silent and invisible.

shuttle microdopers. after DC cut back on nasa and the space program and cape canaveral, it became suttle doping.

______________________________ Chapeau!

 

[MatParker117]

Last time I checked, cycling Ireland was a 32 county body, and Cycling Ulster worked under them. Last time I checked was about 10 minutes ago.

for the record? British cyclings memo of association (its basic constitutional document) states it's objects include the control of the sport for "Great Britain, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands" - Northern Ireland is not in any of these.

Here : See Paragraph 3(a)

Not my point but I was unclear. Sportspeople are ridiculously taxed in this country (I think it's 50% of appearance fees and winnings, don't know if there are deals in place for the Giro and the Tour). Trust me GB will make a good amount of money of the 2014 Giro.

 

[blackcat]

explain why two Sky riders alone are beating guys like Evans where as in 2007 and 2009 they weren't, then and only then will the Clinic 12 believe you.

this is easy.

Wiggins WAS beating CE at Duphine. He won it twice.

Evans won TdF and accomplished career goal. and had a young son. wound it back

 

[Dear Wiggo]

this is easy.

Wiggins WAS beating CE at Duphine. He won it twice.

Evans won TdF and accomplished career goal. and had a young son. wound it back

Wrong thread, but I was seriously bummed when they adopted, as I had an inkling that would be the beginning of the end.

 

[blackcat]

I think your posts often hit a lot of wrong notes (and a lot of right ones) but this one hit ALL the right notes and so perfectly I couldn't help but reread it 3 times before I even pressed the "post reply" button. As far as I can remember, it's the best non libertine seguros post I've ever read in the clinic.

but it still is fundamentally flawed.

jamie burrow holds the record of plateau de beille beating a pantani record in ronde l'izard circa 99. he also beat the reigning u23 chrono champ thor hushovd in same race.

point, we dont know these riders' baselines. (clean)

we know doping and the rounding error metaphor of D-Q.

rounding errors on a comprehensive burrow/pantani program surpass any cumulative marginal gains.

and there are too many scientific variables to quantify the power on these individual stages GH wants.

CANT
HAPPEN.


what we know: we know the rounding error metaphor is sound.

we know it is anathema to science.

this tension, inviting sports scientists into the tent, to quantify things (power) without being able to ascertain the dope % improvement.

Cos you need to know the baseline.

reconcile this tension (contradiction)
cant be done.


wont matter how much MIT or CalTech put their best minds to it. Cant be done folks.

 

[blackcat]

Wrong thread, but I was seriously bummed when they adopted, as I had an inkling that would be the beginning of the end.

CE's fertility a big thing for you.

Sorry no natural conception.

Twas Immaculate

 

[Dear Wiggo]

CE's fertility a big thing for you.

Sorry no natural conception.

Twas Immaculate

More like he wanted to avoid destroying the beauty of Chiara, with which I whole heartedly agree. La bella.

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

care to make an argument with any intellectual rigour, why should JV be disgusted?

you are not watching a trade sideshow selling the ideals of youth sport to soccer moms.

what is inherently bad about doping? I am not running an apologia. I would prefer truth and transparency. this, i dont get neither... but, why am I owed the truth and transparency?

Whew! ANY intellectual rigour? That may be a tall order for me...

JV should be disgusted because that's his argument for a "clean team". He publicly told his tale of feeling hollow victories while cranked. He has gone out of his way to market Garmin as clean, jumped on the no needle bandwagon, signed the MPCC agreement, etc...

If he's not disgusted with doping in cycling, then he's blowing a huge mother cloud of smoke up our collective poopers.

What is inherently bad about doping? It's cheating.

Why are you owed truth and transparency? Because for generations you've been lied to, and the head nuts haven't changed the narrative. They keep saying, "believe us" without proving anything. If they want us to believe, then they owe us transparency.

 

[JV1973]

Whew! ANY intellectual rigour? That may be a tall order for me...

JV should be disgusted because that's his argument for a "clean team". He publicly told his tale of feeling hollow victories while cranked. He has gone out of his way to market Garmin as clean, jumped on the no needle bandwagon, signed the MPCC agreement, etc...

If he's not disgusted with doping in cycling, then he's blowing a huge mother cloud of smoke up our collective poopers.

What is inherently bad about doping? It's cheating.

Why are you owed truth and transparency? Because for generations you've been lied to, and the head nuts haven't changed the narrative. They keep saying, "believe us" without proving anything. If they want us to believe, then they owe us transparency.

gotta agree w blackcat . youre accusing me of having a different emotion than i do, without basis or argument. i think ive written many a piece that demonstrates the reasons doping ruins the game and ruins the people in the game. just because i dont rant and accuse in a forum does not give you the right to assume my feelings.

i would never comment or assume yours.