Kimmage on Contador

[notcredible]

Agree.

Why does Kimmage care what Roche thinks?
I bet Roche does not care what Kimmage thinks.

"Me Me Me. Look at my framed copy of Me on L'Equipe front page"

Maybe Alberto and Kimmage should BOTH leave the sport...
Good riddance.

Kimmage left the sport quite some time ago. Try to keep up.

I believe the reason he brought Roche into the conversation is because he had spoken about Roche on the same radio show on previous occasions. The host had asked him if he believed in Roche. Kimmage replied that he likes Roche and that he hopes he can believe in him.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Please educate me. As far as I knew the spanish fed only makes a proposal or recommendation. I thought the UCI made the final decision on the sanction?

If not that makes no sense. No wonder why there is an inconsistency in bans.

Sadly it is true - and I agree with your last statement.

The UCI do 'Results Management' - ie, in the event of an Adverse Analytical Finding they check to see that all procedures have been followed eg: check if rider had a TUE where applicable.

After Results Management .... (UCI Anti-doping rules)

Chapter VII RESULTS MANAGEMENT. (Page 46 of 100)
234. If upon conclusion of the results management process, the UCI makes an assertion that an anti-doping rule violation has taken place, it shall request the National Federation of the License-Holder to instigate disciplinary proceedings.

Chapter IX RIGHT TO A FAIR HEARING (Page 47 of 100)
249. When, following the results management process described in chapter VII, the UCI makes an assertion that a License-Holder committed an anti-doping rule violation, it shall notify the License-Holder’s National Federation and request it to instigate disciplinary proceedings. It shall also send a copy of the test analysis report and/or other documentation. A copy of the request may be sent to the License-Holder and/or the License-Holder’s club or team.
A copy of the request is sent to WADA and to the License-Holder’s National Anti-Doping Organization.

Rights of the defense (Page 47 of 100)
256. The License-Holder shall be heard and the case investigated by the hearing panel having jurisdiction under the rules of the License-Holder’s National Federation.

 

[Darryl Webster]

That was my assumption as well

And I`s say it absalutly it is. "hoping he can believe" in Roche junior sais all you need to know.

I`m imagining the convo. "Dad, did you dope?"...well son, ner..I just saw a good doctor for training tips...theres no need to dope".. wink wink.
"so Dad, it`s faster these days so do you think I can win clean like you did, ?" ( winks back)

" yes son, heres a doctor I recomend for training advice"

" Ta dad, I think I`l join Bikepure and keep my mouth shut."

 

[notcredible]

And I`s say it absalutly it is. "hoping he can believe" in Roche junior sais all you need to know.

Sorry, I was paraphrasing. I did get the impression that he thought Roche junior was clean but of course he was hesitant to say so.

Tonight Kimmage was on TV and he did have a swipe at Roche senior...aswell as Roche junior, Kelly, Contador and of course Armstrong.

 

[flicker]

And I`s say it absalutly it is. "hoping he can believe" in Roche junior sais all you need to know.

I`m imagining the convo. "Dad, did you dope?"...well son, ner..I just saw a good doctor for training tips...theres no need to dope".. wink wink.
"so Dad, it`s faster these days so do you think I can win clean like you did, ?" ( winks back)

" yes son, heres a doctor I recomend for training advice"

" Ta dad, I think I`l join Bikepure and keep my mouth shut."

I like what you say and what Kimmage has to say. For the sake of professionalism Paul needs to keep things less personal with the characters involved. I will respect Paul all the more for that.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

And such people are meant to push things forward? If the solution is to come from guys like Kimmage, I guess I like the problem better. It's all very nice if at this point his job is about repeating "anti-doping" few times every hour and sharing his simple-minded thoughts that you can find in thousand versions all over the internet. But for some guys it's still cycling and perhaps they want to achieve, even if it's under conditions that aren't fairylike (and why would any of them, being clean or dirty, want to get results through disqualification of his rivals, is beyond me). I don't have to think twice about who, for me, deserves more respect. Hence I find sickening the way Kimmage speaks about Contador and Schleck. He knows cycling culture, the pressure and countless other factors, painting them as pure evil, plus making it seem like it's all black and white and riders do something wrong unless they risk everything and speak up- only stresses that it might be better for cycling if someone with more complex view started to voice his opinions as loudly.

Strange how you bash Kimmage and yet don't appear to know much about the guy.

Kimmage writes for the Sunday Times and concentrates on doing one on one interviews. He rarely covers cycling anymore. His last few books have been about soccer, his latest is about rugby.

Can you point out where he has called Contador or Schleck 'evil'?

If you're going to try and kill the messenger you should at least attempt to know what they look like.

 

[Mambo95]

Hi Mambo. I use my own name because I`m no longer involved or wish to be involved in elite or pro leval competetion. Therefore I`ve no fear of it coming back on top of me and TBH enjoy the freedom not giving a feck who I upset anymore.
Despite that I still have to post in riddles and be carefull naming names. Just because I know what I saw doesnt mean a defamation court will agree.
As a pro and before that at Elite amatuer leval I payed the price of being frank and open in my views on many things including doping and to a large extent hasened my own retirement when only 28.
Nic Roche?..well it aint about keeping food on HIS table is it?..he`s totaly Omarta.

This is exactly my point (sort of). Roche, for example, won't know anything about Contador that isn't already in the public domain - he's never ridden with him. He may have heard rumours, but they're just rumours. So why speak out? He won't make any impact, but he could cause damage to himself. So it's best to keep well out of it and get on with his own cycling.

 

[Winterfold]

Roche jnr has the benefit of the doubt now for me

He'll have seen the mess Wiggo got himself into by being outspoken then needing the peloton onside once he needed to be taken more seriously and I don't blame him for keeping schtum

To me he looks talented but human and on a french team... - and you can't blame the son for the father

 

[Darryl Webster]

To me he looks talented but human and on a french team... - and you can't blame the son for the father

"Arnold de Curboil, perjured to God, false to his king, the murderer of his friend, the seducer of his friend's wife, is fit for my prayers," said the abbot, "not for your steel. Swear no great oaths that you will kill him; still less swear that you will be avenged upon your mother; but if you must needs swear something, vow rather that you will leave them to their fate and never willingly cross their path again. And indeed, whether you promise that or not, you must needs keep away from them until you can claim your own with the chance of getting it back."

"My own!" exclaimed Gilbert. "Is Stoke not mine? Am I not my father's son?"

F Marion Crawford

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Well, if no one speaks out - be that Roche or someone else - for fear of retribution, then there will be no change. He doesn't have to call Contador out specifically as a doper, but I think Paul has a point. If Roche is clean, and wants a clean sport in a sport dominated by dopers and cheaters, to take a stand and flatly state that if Contador doped, then good riddance indeed, and all other dopers should be stopped as well, is the right thing to do.

If Roche speaks out, others should follow suit. As fans we should encourage them to do so and support them for doing so. And criticize them and pester them for remaining silent. People want to believe Evans and Sastre are two big names who are clean. Well, if they're clean, and being robbed of rightful victories by dopers who cheat them out of money and glory, if there ever was a time to take a stand against doping, with Contador about to be sanctioned, and Lance about to be indicted, now would be it.

I have to applaud Kimmage for having the guts to say some of the things he does, because he's speaking the truth. A truth that desperately needs to be repeated out loud.

Thanks for posting the link Dim.

 

[offbyone]

Sadly it is true - and I agree with your last statement.

The UCI do 'Results Management' - ie, in the event of an Adverse Analytical Finding they check to see that all procedures have been followed eg: check if rider had a TUE where applicable.

After Results Management .... (UCI Anti-doping rules)

Thanks for the info. Very surprising to me. In fact, know this, I am shocked there is as much consistency as we have seen in the bans. I don't understand why the UCI wouldn't take responsibility to levy the discipline themselves. Is there some obvious reason I am missing?

 

[Kodiak]

Enjoyed listening to Kimmage going off. Reading the statement by AC reminded me much more of FL's whining after he popped hot on the **** test and claimed innocence. I hope the CAS hands him 2 years and public lashing.

 

[Berzin]

If you were clean you would scream with anger that these guys are taking your prize money and glory. If you were clean.

No you wouldn't...what are you talking about?

Go to your job and start yelling from the rooftops that you don't take office supplies like everyone else, and anyone caught taking pens and post-it packs should get fired and never be allowed to work anywhere ever again.

Then go fetch your turkey melt sandwich from the lounge refrigerator and tell me what it tastes like. If it's not dripping with arsenic you're one lucky man.

 

[Francois the Postman]

Well, if no one speaks out - be that Roche or someone else - for fear of retribution, then there will be no change. He doesn't have to call Contador out specifically as a doper, but I think Paul has a point. If Roche is clean, and wants a clean sport in a sport dominated by dopers and cheaters, to take a stand and flatly state that if Contador doped, then good riddance indeed, and all other dopers should be stopped as well, is the right thing to do.

If Roche speaks out, others should follow suit. As fans we should encourage them to do so and support them for doing so. And criticize them and pester them for remaining silent. People want to believe Evans and Sastre are two big names who are clean. Well, if they're clean, and being robbed of rightful victories by dopers who cheat them out of money and glory, if there ever was a time to take a stand against doping, with Contador about to be sanctioned, and Lance about to be indicted, now would be it.

I have to applaud Kimmage for having the guts to say some of the things he does, because he's speaking the truth. A truth that desperately needs to be repeated out loud.

Thanks for posting the link Dim.

It is one thing to have guts to speak out when it doesn't put your own livelihood on the line (arguably, it improves it). It is another thing to insist that others, who will risk their livelihood, should stick their neck out for your fight. Even if that is one for the greater good.

I have never been a fan of making other people risk far bigger things than I am putting on the line.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Kimmage should stop saying what he is targeting just now, or that we should simply accept things and roll over.

But my main problem remains that if it is correct that dope is so engrained in the sport that the gatekeepers are complicit, it is not totally fair to say "good riddance" to sheep who still need to feed from the field they are put in.

I too feel that this is a/the chance for riders to force a change if they have the guts to do so. But it is very easy for me to insist that others should be heroic to a level I don't need to be, as an outsider. I genuinely struggle to hold what is going on just now against individual riders.

If a rider has kept stumm about dope, kept his head down, didn't go for public theatrics, just got on with earning money the only way you can earn what your natural ability would roughly make you if there was a clean environment.... "good riddance?".

That is too strong for me. Honestly. I don't condone it, but I can't get myself to be that black and white either. Black and white is easy for me. For riders, it ain't.

Those that do pick white regardless. Heroes. They also pay the price. And they pay it up front. Warts and all.

Cycling as it is now and has been for a long time? It is a rock and a hard place.

Top gatekeepers however, they have the soft comfy place. They have genuine control over the place they are in, and the place that they create for others. For me it is a bit less about the riders, and more about the real instruments behind the institutionalisation. If there is genuine guilt: that's where it is.

That's where that "good riddance" is genuinely a wholly-deserved kick out of the door. They have a real choice in all of this, as their entire livelihood is based on the skills of others. For Contador?

Wholly or partly I think. And since he appears to have oodles of base talent, and doesn't sit on any doping high horse but just got on with it, I'm probably leaning more towards partly than wholly, to be frank.

Now if the majority is clean and the dopers we get are indeed the few rotten apples, I will eat all the humble pie in the world, and "good riddance" to the few spoiling it for the others is totally in place.

But if folk have only one realistic option when they get their talent to where it ought to take it, and that is to make sure you compete at the level that you should be competing at if doping was no factor....

Let's just say I have less problems with Contador coming back than some/one.

But I hope this is the period that things finally do crumble and take cycling into a brighter future.

I expect that some riders are quite happy with the status quo though. Like someone said here on in another thread, accountants wouldn't probably be keen to get back to a PC-less era. I suspect some of the riders genuinely prefer some drugs to make the suffering a bit more bearable, to make the energy come a bit easier too.

I hope riders find the courage to try to change their own working conditions (and the conditions for those that follow) for the better.

But I have seen enough about people to know that that sort of bravery is far less common than you want it to be, and far less common than folk being brave about issues when it doesn't really put their own bones at risk.

To insist they should, for ultimately mostly me rather than them...... Nah. Sorry.

 

[131313]

I don't doubt there would be an outrage, but not on what 50 picograms? That is in my opinion not a real dope catch, though the plasticizers make it odd that no one has reacted.

The 'outrage' wont happen cause of 50 picograms but from a positive EPO, or whatsoever, test.

Only thing I've heard from riders was Gesink saying: If he doped he gets to deserve a ban, if its really due to bad meat its a bad thing.

Exactly. How can you have outrage when you yourself are worried about blowing a positive test for an inconsequential amount of something which could easily be from contamination.

Sorry, but the strict liability for substances such as this are total BS. I have more outrage for that than for Contador.

Now if you want to talk about the plasticizers, well, that's a different matter. But then, let's talk about the plasticizer test results for all of the top 20. Then I'll put together some outrage.

I like Kimmage's intent, to a degree, but I also think it's a total punk move to try and intimidate someone to say what you want them to say. Not much difference than Armstrong in a certain sense. I realize that's not a popular position on here, but oh well.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

No you wouldn't...what are you talking about?

Go to your job and start yelling from the rooftops that you don't take office supplies like everyone else, and anyone caught taking pens and post-it packs should get fired and never be allowed to work anywhere ever again.

Then go fetch your turkey melt sandwich from the lounge refrigerator and tell me what it tastes like. If it's not dripping with arsenic you're one lucky man.

What kind of analogy is that? Seriously. Stop this crap. First of all, for that analogy to have any sort of relevance, the guy taking office supplies would have to be the guy getting the promotion and making 10 times what the other guys make.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Exactly. How can you have outrage when you yourself are worried about blowing a positive test for an inconsequential amount of something which could easily be from contamination.

If all the riders are worried about blowing a positive because of faulty tests, why are we not hearing a chorus of complaints from the riders...until, of course, they get busted.

If the deck is stacked, we'd have an uprising of riders. But strangely, nothing.

 

[runninboy]

It is one thing to have guts to speak out when it doesn't put your own livelihood on the line (arguably, it improves it). It is another thing to insist that others, who will risk their livelihood, should stick their neck out for your fight. Even if that is one for the greater good.

I have never been a fan of making other people risk far bigger things than I am putting on the line.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Kimmage should stop saying what he is targeting just now, or that we should simply accept things and roll over.

But my main problem remains that if it is correct that dope is so engrained in the sport that the gatekeepers are complicit, it is not totally fair to say "good riddance" to sheep who still need to feed from the field they are put in....

I disagree. Life in general is never "totally fair", but we do have a responsibility to stand on our principles for the greater common good. That is what life in a civilized society is all about. You don't pass responsibility on to someone else, you take it on yourself. Now i realize people exploit this everyday but if we marginalize our actions by rationalizing them as not practical or beneficial to ourselves we just increase the problem.

In addition you categorize the situation between Roche & PK differently than i would. I see it that Paul has given Roche a tremendous opportunity to come forward with information. It is one thing to volunteer to "rat out" your fellow man. But when someone asks you a direct question it is an opportunity to do something productive. I have been in similar situtations and the rationale is
"i won't rat you out, but if someone asks, i am not going to lie for you".
Too bad Roche didn't seize the opportunity to be a leader and take responsibility. You can't blame him, this is the way people are raised nowadays, put you most certainly can be disappointed with his lack of character.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

It is one thing to have guts to speak out when it doesn't put your own livelihood on the line (arguably, it improves it). It is another thing to insist that others, who will risk their livelihood, should stick their neck out for your fight. Even if that is one for the greater good.

I have never been a fan of making other people risk far bigger things than I am putting on the line.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Kimmage should stop saying what he is targeting just now, or that we should simply accept things and roll over.

But my main problem remains that if it is correct that dope is so engrained in the sport that the gatekeepers are complicit, it is not totally fair to say "good riddance" to sheep who still need to feed from the field they are put in.

I too feel that this is a/the chance for riders to force a change if they have the guts to do so. But it is very easy for me to insist that others should be heroic to a level I don't need to be, as an outsider. I genuinely struggle to hold what is going on just now against individual riders.

If a rider has kept stumm about dope, kept his head down, didn't go for public theatrics, just got on with earning money the only way you can earn what your natural ability would roughly make you if there was a clean environment.... "good riddance?".

That is too strong for me. Honestly. I don't condone it, but I can't get myself to be that black and white either. Black and white is easy for me. For riders, it ain't.

Those that do pick white regardless. Heroes. They also pay the price. And they pay it up front. Warts and all.

Cycling as it is now and has been for a long time? It is a rock and a hard place.

Top gatekeepers however, they have the soft comfy place. They have genuine control over the place they are in, and the place that they create for others. For me it is a bit less about the riders, and more about the real instruments behind the institutionalisation. If there is genuine guilt: that's where it is.

That's where that "good riddance" is genuinely a wholly-deserved kick out of the door. They have a real choice in all of this, as their entire livelihood is based on the skills of others. For Contador?

Wholly or partly I think. And since he appears to have oodles of base talent, and doesn't sit on any doping high horse but just got on with it, I'm probably leaning more towards partly than wholly, to be frank.

Now if the majority is clean and the dopers we get are indeed the few rotten apples, I will eat all the humble pie in the world, and "good riddance" to the few spoiling it for the others is totally in place.

But if folk have only one realistic option when they get their talent to where it ought to take it, and that is to make sure you compete at the level that you should be competing at if doping was no factor....

Let's just say I have less problems with Contador coming back than some/one.

But I hope this is the period that things finally do crumble and take cycling into a brighter future.

I expect that some riders are quite happy with the status quo though. Like someone said here on in another thread, accountants wouldn't probably be keen to get back to a PC-less era. I suspect some of the riders genuinely prefer some drugs to make the suffering a bit more bearable, to make the energy come a bit easier too.

I hope riders find the courage to try to change their own working conditions (and the conditions for those that follow) for the better.

But I have seen enough about people to know that that sort of bravery is far less common than you want it to be, and far less common than folk being brave about issues when it doesn't really put their own bones at risk.

To insist they should, for ultimately mostly me rather than them...... Nah. Sorry.

Great post.

Punk b!tches on this thread should read this. Or have it read to you. Postman is dropping some knowledge and he ain't charging.

Honestly, though, I don't believe for a second that the sport is just busting the "few" rotten apples. No way. What gives me some pause is the thought that, if we, as fans, are calling for tougher stages, more climbing, more pain, we may bear some of the responsibility in creating the doping culture in the sport. At some point, these efforts are just not healthy.

 

[TexPat]

I disagree. Life in general is never "totally fair", but we do have a responsibility to stand on our principles for the greater common good. That is what life in a civilized society is all about. You don't pass responsibility on to someone else, you take it on yourself. Now i realize people exploit this everyday but if we marginalize our actions by rationalizing them as not practical or beneficial to ourselves we just increase the problem.

In addition you categorize the situation between Roche & PK differently than i would. I see it that Paul has given Roche a tremendous opportunity to come forward with information. It is one thing to volunteer to "rat out" your fellow man. But when someone asks you a direct question it is an opportunity to do something productive. I have been in similar situtations and the rationale is
"i won't rat you out, but if someone asks, i am not going to lie for you".
Too bad Roche didn't seize the opportunity to be a leader and take responsibility. You can't blame him, this is the way people are raised nowadays, put you most certainly can be disappointed with his lack of character.

This is how I see it as well. No one is forcing the guys to race. No one is forcing them to ride longer, harder races. No one is forcing them to cheat. These are decisions they make for themselves. Just like the decision to play by the rules.
And, obviously I can't possibly agree that there is a financial imperative for someone to not rat out their team mates. This is why the spitting in the soup phrase was invented. It's a flawed metaphor.
The soup is already rancid and needs to be chucked out before everyone chokes on it.

 

[Barrus]

The problem the the plasticizers is that it has never been confirmed by any cycling authority (nor should it be, as the test wasn't ratified at the time). As far as I know, only the NY Times has really mentioned it. As such, it exists only as a rumour, and I'm sure many a clean cyclist has heard a false rumour about themselves.

No, it came from the German television, or newspaper, at least one of those had the scope on that, I thought it was the ARD

 

[hfer07]

That's what keeps bugging me. Why isn't there outrage in the world of cycling? Why aren't the others screaming about this?

O.M.E.R.T.A.com

 

[gree0232]

It is one thing to have guts to speak out when it doesn't put your own livelihood on the line (arguably, it improves it). It is another thing to insist that others, who will risk their livelihood, should stick their neck out for your fight. Even if that is one for the greater good.

I have never been a fan of making other people risk far bigger things than I am putting on the line.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Kimmage should stop saying what he is targeting just now, or that we should simply accept things and roll over.

But my main problem remains that if it is correct that dope is so engrained in the sport that the gatekeepers are complicit, it is not totally fair to say "good riddance" to sheep who still need to feed from the field they are put in.

I too feel that this is a/the chance for riders to force a change if they have the guts to do so. But it is very easy for me to insist that others should be heroic to a level I don't need to be, as an outsider. I genuinely struggle to hold what is going on just now against individual riders.

If a rider has kept stumm about dope, kept his head down, didn't go for public theatrics, just got on with earning money the only way you can earn what your natural ability would roughly make you if there was a clean environment.... "good riddance?".

That is too strong for me. Honestly. I don't condone it, but I can't get myself to be that black and white either. Black and white is easy for me. For riders, it ain't.

Those that do pick white regardless. Heroes. They also pay the price. And they pay it up front. Warts and all.

Cycling as it is now and has been for a long time? It is a rock and a hard place.

Top gatekeepers however, they have the soft comfy place. They have genuine control over the place they are in, and the place that they create for others. For me it is a bit less about the riders, and more about the real instruments behind the institutionalisation. If there is genuine guilt: that's where it is.

That's where that "good riddance" is genuinely a wholly-deserved kick out of the door. They have a real choice in all of this, as their entire livelihood is based on the skills of others. For Contador?

Wholly or partly I think. And since he appears to have oodles of base talent, and doesn't sit on any doping high horse but just got on with it, I'm probably leaning more towards partly than wholly, to be frank.

Now if the majority is clean and the dopers we get are indeed the few rotten apples, I will eat all the humble pie in the world, and "good riddance" to the few spoiling it for the others is totally in place.

But if folk have only one realistic option when they get their talent to where it ought to take it, and that is to make sure you compete at the level that you should be competing at if doping was no factor....

Let's just say I have less problems with Contador coming back than some/one.

But I hope this is the period that things finally do crumble and take cycling into a brighter future.

I expect that some riders are quite happy with the status quo though. Like someone said here on in another thread, accountants wouldn't probably be keen to get back to a PC-less era. I suspect some of the riders genuinely prefer some drugs to make the suffering a bit more bearable, to make the energy come a bit easier too.

I hope riders find the courage to try to change their own working conditions (and the conditions for those that follow) for the better.

But I have seen enough about people to know that that sort of bravery is far less common than you want it to be, and far less common than folk being brave about issues when it doesn't really put their own bones at risk.

To insist they should, for ultimately mostly me rather than them...... Nah. Sorry.

I am curious as to why so many people are demanding that 'cyclists' come forward to denounce AC and other cyclists?

What would Roche, for example, know about the specifics of AC doping? He is not on the same team, and does not share management, etc. with AC. What exactly is he supposed to denounce?

What would Andy Schleck know about the specifics of AC doping? Does the fact that he finished second to AC somehow mean he is knowledgable about the specifics of AC's PED use?

If an office mate in your office pops hot for cocaine, are you also guilty of using cocaine UNLESS you immediately denounce him?

Paul Kimmage is a zealot. He may be right, but there is no PROFESSIONAL agency of person in the world that runs around not just taking an extreme position on a doping case - but expanding a case for one rider, one being held accountable by the system mind you, and using that as a basis to condemn the entirelty of a sport.

I wonder when zealots like Paul Kimmage will realize that with:

1. Police raids in Spain, France, Austria, Italy, and the US breaking up actual dope rings ....

2. An invasive test policy, the most stringent in the world ....

3. And the fact that cyclists are getting caught ....

I would say that the reality of the sport is that PED problem is getting better in cycling, not worse. Acerbic, evidenceless, accussations against riders - like, "Roche is doped because he did not wade in with accussations and denunciations like our resident zealot" is not proof of drug use (not by ANY standard ANYWHERE) but a distinct lack of professionalism.

AC was just found guilty for a trace amount of clen, one so small that it could not possibly have had a performance enhacing effect, and zealots like Kimmage think nothing has changed since the pre-Festina days?

Why do we give the zealots, the rabid accussers, access to our sport?

Does anyone really think that running around accussing people of doping is what will clean up doping?

Props to CONI, the Guardi Civil, the Gendarme, the testers, and agencies for making PED use in cycling more difficult. Acerbic amateurs with nothing more than accussations and scathing commentary are unhelpful at best .... as they are in any situation.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Ok I am going to cut to the most interesting part of your post.

1. Police raids in Spain, France, Austria, Italy, and the US breaking up actual dope rings ....

2. An invasive test policy, the most stringent in the world ....

3. And the fact that cyclists are getting caught ....

If number 2 was true then why is there the reality of number 1?

AC was just found guilty for a trace amount of clen, one so small that it could not possibly have had a performance enhacing effect, and zealots like Kimmage think nothing has changed since the pre-Festina days?

Since you appear to know - how much Clenbuterol do you need to have in your system (and when) for it to be 'possibly' performance enhancing?

Props to CONI, the Guardi Civil, the Gendarme, the testers, and agencies for making PED use in cycling more difficult. Acerbic amateurs with nothing more than accussations and scathing commentary are unhelpful at best .... as they are in any situation.

You realize Kimmage was a former Pro and he is presently a Sports Journalist so he knows what he is talking about and has the right to ask.

 

[131313]

If all the riders are worried about blowing a positive because of faulty tests, why are we not hearing a chorus of complaints from the riders...until, of course, they get busted.

If the deck is stacked, we'd have an uprising of riders. But strangely, nothing.

If you wanna know the truth, I sent a letter to WADA and the USADA about it, as have several of my teammates and at least 3 team directors. I suspect there's actually a LOT of complaining about it. Frankly I think this has more utility than complaining about it on an internet forum or in the press.

That said, I also have a difficult time getting worked up for Contador's defense, because of the whole plasticizer thing.

I suspect many other people feel the same way.