JV goes there: marginal gains!
Race Radio said:
A couple of important points of critique that deserve to be on the discussion table:
First:
hrotha said:
(...)
What I can't agree with is the talk about cycling constantly improving with regards to doping. Maybe with regards to blood doping (just maybe), but some of the things we've seen in 2011 and 2012 rather point towards a turn for the worse.
That view of continuous linear progress is IMO outdated.
+1
Who's JV fooling? He can't honestly believe that himself. With Fränk's positive we had the nr. 3 of last years TdF busted. 2010's TdF winner stripped of the title. 2012 Olympics winner's name is a certain Vino. And is Bruyneel's doped-to-the-gills Radioshack really getting their asses kicked by clean riders?
Second, and most importantly:
the big ring said:
It's all about marginal gains now. Cool.
hrotha said:
Yeah, that was disappointing to read, although expected.
The thing with marginal gains is that it only works if riders who dope don't bother with those marginal gains (let's accept for argument's sake that doping gives you a 2% boost and those marginal gains another 2%; hello, the dopers still come out on top)... (...)
+1
So more marginal gains talk coming from JV.
Pretty stunning imho coming from a guy who testified (or is about to testify) against Bruyneel and Lance, two guys who once laid the foundations for the "marginal gains" talk.
If Lance's seven year dominance was based on marginal gains (as he and Bruyneel have often made us believe), can anybody (or JV himself) please tell me how Sky is beating the sh*t out of Bruyneel's Radioshack all season based on marginal gains?
More generally, can please somebody tell me how JV's talk of marginal gains is consistent with a serious ant-doping stance? "Marginal gains" is Brailsford's mantra and we all, including JV, know that Yates and Leinders are at the spine of that team.
(To be sure, JV did, thank god, acknowledge that Leinders' appointment by Sky is highly troublesome, though he refused to connect the remaining dots).