Lappartient is worse for cycling than Cookson?

[hfer07]

Re:

This from Lappartient on the way ASO played the disrepute card is pretty stunning:

"When the ASO announced its intention not to allow Chris Froome to participate in the Tour, it knew that we were preparing to announce our verdict, because we had informed them but they did it anyway," Lappartient revealed.

"We'll never know if it was a fortuitous or intentional manoeuvre, but it put us in difficulty because the UCI was considered the villain because we cleared a rider that a race organizer wanted to exclude."

Not only did ASO know, from the Valverde decision, that the disrepute card wouldn't withstand CAS, they also knew there was no need to play it as the case against Froome was about to be dropped.

I'll still call it a PR victory for ASO - it looked then and will continue to look like they showed leadership, tried to do something when everyone else was doing nothing - but it's not something anyone should applaud.

But ASO could have well banned Froome a month prior to the start of Le Tour had they genuinely wanted to make a bold statement & show leadership- yet they "waited" and "waited" until the "waiting" was done once WADA & UCI cleared Froome to race with impunity......

 

[samhocking]

I think more worrying, is Lappartient was clearly discussing Froome's case with ASO before the decision was announced. That is simply unacceptable. There's no valid reason to be taking an anti-doping case of a rider out of the UCI and be discussing it with a race organiser while in progress. I'm surprised WADA didn't say something about Lappartient's continually discussing the case with the media too, which was also unacceptable and completely against WADAs guidelines on handling anti-doping cases.

 

[rick james]

Re: Re:

It is called "Hey i am going to save my butt but you will get egg on your face" tactic.
Which is why Cycling cannot be great again.

Well, Cookson left a legacy that no one tests positive anymore. Lappartient did try to reign in Froome to get pushed back by WADA. He now has to try alternate methods.

So you are saying no one tested positive on cookson’s Watch?

 

[Angliru]

I think more worrying, is Lappartient was clearly discussing Froome's case with ASO before the decision was announced. That is simply unacceptable. There's no valid reason to be taking an anti-doping case of a rider out of the UCI and be discussing it with a race organiser while in progress. I'm surprised WADA didn't say something about Lappartient's continually discussing the case with the media too, which was also unacceptable and completely against WADAs guidelines on handling anti-doping cases.

If the decision/verdict had been reached, how is that "while in progress"?

 

[fmk_RoI]

I think more worrying, is Lappartient was clearly discussing Froome's case with ASO before the decision was announced. That is simply unacceptable. There's no valid reason to be taking an anti-doping case of a rider out of the UCI and be discussing it with a race organiser while in progress. I'm surprised WADA didn't say something about Lappartient's continually discussing the case with the media too, which was also unacceptable and completely against WADAs guidelines on handling anti-doping cases.

More hypocrisy? Weren't you only too happy to report rumours on the Cycling Smugcast of a verdict? Where do you think those rumours came from, thin air?

 

[samhocking]

Last time I checked fmk, I wasn't president of UCI or even signed up to having to abide by WADA guidelines on results management. I'm not bothered about media rumour, that's hardly unexpected, but UCI shouldn't be discussing a riders anti-doping verdict with a race organiser who has no part of the anti-doping process, just like they shouldn't with you or I either!

 

[thehog]

Last time I checked fmk, I wasn't president of UCI or even signed up to having to abide by WADA guidelines on results management. I'm not bothered about media rumour, that's hardly unexpected, but UCI shouldn't be discussing a riders anti-doping verdict with a race organiser who has no part of the anti-doping process, just like they shouldn't with you or I either!

So Sams platform for cyclings future is for the UCI not to speak to race organisers. You really do just make it up as you go

 

[fmk_RoI]

Last time I checked fmk, I wasn't president of UCI or even signed up to having to abide by WADA guidelines on results management. I'm not bothered about media rumour, that's hardly unexpected, but UCI shouldn't be discussing a riders anti-doping verdict with a race organiser who has no part of the anti-doping process, just like they shouldn't with you or I either!

You do like to exaggerate. All he said is ASO were informed an announcement was imminent. Which many would find perfectly reasonable. You now want to twist that into they discussed the verdict.

 

[samhocking]

And that damaged the credibility of Anti-doping. ASO knew UCI wee going to announce Froomes decision, so they banned Froome and Froome & UCI dealt with the suspicious timing. That's what I mean by ASO have no role to know anything. Them knowing anything damaged Anti-doping credibility and why WADA guidelines say this.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

And that damaged the credibility of Anti-doping. ASO knew UCI wee going to announce Froomes decision, so they banned Froome and Froome & UCI dealt with the suspicious timing. That's what I mean by ASO have no role to know anything. Them knowing anything damaged Anti-doping credibility and why WADA guidelines say this.

You could argue that the exoneration damaged anti-doping credibility (in that it made clear that with enough obfuscation and lawyering up, WADA will not fight their corner, creating the perception of one justice for the rich and one justice for the poor), but ASO's deliberate timing made sure that this was illuminated (and that they therefore were not seen to be complicit in anti-doping rolling over and playing dead), rather than that ASO damaged anti-doping credibility.

Rather like the 2002 Austrian GP video I posted a while back. How many times had F1 teams asked one driver to let another through, shuffled them deliberately with pit stops and so on? By waiting until the very last corner of a race he'd dominated and then pulling over to let Schumacher through, Barrichello showed us all that we weren't watching a fair fight - he followed orders but the way he did it made clear he was not to be blamed for the situation. That's all ASO were doing - distancing themselves from the exoneration of Froome. After all, ASO have a 49% stake in Unipublic too, so their second biggest race had a big asterisk hanging over it for months. And even if ASO knew about the decision before they decided to ban Froome, the exoneration coming a few days before the start of Le Tour after several months' radio silence would have been shady as all hell anyway.

 

[poupou]

Re:

And that damaged the credibility of Anti-doping. ASO knew UCI wee going to announce Froomes decision, so they banned Froome and Froome & UCI dealt with the suspicious timing. That's what I mean by ASO have no role to know anything. Them knowing anything damaged Anti-doping credibility and why WADA guidelines say this.

Don't be confuse, WADA damaged its credibility by not following its rules and principles. ASO just leaked it as would do an Assange!

 

[samhocking]

ASO leaked what?

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

And that damaged the credibility of Anti-doping. ASO knew UCI wee going to announce Froomes decision, so they banned Froome and Froome & UCI dealt with the suspicious timing. That's what I mean by ASO have no role to know anything. Them knowing anything damaged Anti-doping credibility and why WADA guidelines say this.

Don't be confuse, WADA damaged its credibility by not following its rules and principles. ASO just leaked it as would do an Assange!

Agreed. Sir Craig Reddie became a bigger fool than he already was

 

[samhocking]

Re: Re:

And that damaged the credibility of Anti-doping. ASO knew UCI wee going to announce Froomes decision, so they banned Froome and Froome & UCI dealt with the suspicious timing. That's what I mean by ASO have no role to know anything. Them knowing anything damaged Anti-doping credibility and why WADA guidelines say this.

Don't be confuse, WADA damaged its credibility by not following its rules and principles. ASO just leaked it as would do an Assange!

what rules and principles? once WADA expert casted doubts re test............should WADA just have

carried on regardless............well? just because da dawg deserved to be busted

Mark L

I'm hardly the only one thinking what Lappartient did was completely wrong. The fact is Lappartient had discussed Froome being cleared with ASO before it was announced by UCI and WADA. That is sickening to any claims to make cycling credible. It's simply bad Anti-doping results management.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

The fact is Lappartient had discussed Froome being cleared with ASO before it was announced by UCI and WADA.

Fact? Lappartient said ASO was informed UCI was about to announce a verdict. That is not a discussion. And that's a fact.

 

[samhocking]

Several have commented on this, that ASO knew Froome was going to be cleared before anyone else.

 

[thehog]

Several have commented on this, that ASO knew Froome was going to be cleared before anyone else.

Several? Alright Sam, let’s list them out shall we?

Links... names, anything....

 

[thehog]

Several have commented on this, that ASO knew Froome was going to be cleared before anyone else.

Several? Alright Sam, let’s list them out shall we?

Links... names, anything....

Any updates Sam?

 

[Craigee]

Re:

so the french guy finds wiggo's words 'unacceptable'.....tough titty! an ex cyclist may say exactly what they like

surely current events take priority..... give fans a sport everyone has faith in

Mark L

Yes he can say what he likes. Just confirming what those of us have suspected all along. People of the same ilk congregate together. Another terrible role model in cycling. When are they going to wake up that it is not okay to dope? What about the young ones who look up to them? They do have some responsibility there surely.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

Yes he can say what he likes. Just confirming what those of us have suspected all along. People of the same ilk congregate together. Another terrible role model in cycling. When are they going to wake up that it is not okay to dope? What about the young ones who look up to them? They do have some responsibility there surely.

Just to avoid confusion, what are you complaining about here, what Wiggins said, what Lappartient said, or what both of them said?

 

[samhocking]

The book is simply one mans narrative from childhood of the riders he was inspired by growing up and turning pro etc. It's simply his love affair with bike racing. As books go, it's been done a million times before. The part about Armstrong is actually from the perspective of Henri Desgrange, not Wiggins, but this has been ignored and used as a stick to beat Wiggins with sadly.

Whether you like cycling or not, Lance is fascinating as a 21st-century cultural and social phenomenon. There are any number of books analysing his career, the corporate interests behind it and the context in which it took place. It’s unbelievable in the most literal sense, but it’s also interesting as regards the way cycling defines itself as a sport. Legend has it that Henri Desgrange, the ‘Father of the Tour’, envisaged a ‘perfect winner’. He was of the idea that the ideal Tour de France would have one finisher, a type of super-athlete who would not only defeat his opponents, but also whatever nature might throw at him. It was an extreme version of cycling, and a very French one. It also explains why Tour de France winners tended to be masochistic, obsessive and, on occasion, borderline sociopathic.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

The part about Armstrong is actually from the perspective of Henri Desgrange, not Wiggins, but this has been ignored and used as a stick to beat Wiggins with sadly.

Given Desgrange is dead nearly eighty years now, I think that's a stretch, even by your notoriously loose standards of truthfulness. The chapter is fully from Wiggins's perspective (a clue: "I'll never forget the first time I 'met' Lance Armstrong."). Wiggins (with help from Herbie Sykes) argues that, in his opinion, Armstrong is the type of rider Desgrange would have approved of. To which one has to say "up to a point, Lord Copper." Because while Armstrong, while winning, would have been the type of rider Desgrange lionised, once caught, once Armstrong brought the race into disrepute, the Texan became the type of rider Desgrange would have turned against. In the opinion of others, that is, Desgrange not being around today to dispute these claims. But to borrow from Lappartient here, we only have to go back to Pélissier to support that opinion.

Goddet, on the other hand, was a more forgiving kind of man, he even helped rahabilitate Maurice Garin, the villain of the 1904 Tour.

As for the nonsense of Desgrange's "perfect winner" - the legend only refers to an ideal Tour, the one ending with one rider still standing: "Le Tour idéal serait un Tour où un seul coureur réussirait à terminer l'epreuve."

 

[samhocking]

I'm talking more about Wiggins source for his 'perfect winner' quote, not the original or its worded accuracy. That IS a Henri Desgrange quote from the times in interviews/ his columns in L’Équipe as you say.

Wiggins book reads very similarly to Henri Desgrange's wiki page, which is most likely where Wiggins / his research lifted the 'perfect winner' idea from, or from Robert Penns book which is where the wiki entry originates from. Robert Penns source in his book is L’Équipe's interview/column with Desgrange.

In terms of Henri Desgrange, discussing a 'perfect winner' at all in that interview, that is in relation to him discussing Tulio Campagnolo wanting to introduce gears and/or Mavic, their aluminium rims to the Tour de France in his L’Équipe column, both of which he was against at the time but in your source too. (See Robert Penn below)

WIKI
"To Desgrange, the Tour de France was not simply a long-distance and multi-day cycle race - an idea invented by Lefèvre - but close to what would now be called social engineering. He sought not just the best cyclist but a supreme athlete. To him, he said several times, the perfect Tour would have a perfect winner only if one man survived."

ROBERT PENN
Henri Desgranges, the editor of a French sporting daily, developed the idea of the Tour de France in order to outsell a rival newspaper. He wanted stories of machismo in forbidding mountains, adversity in extreme weather, heroism and the crucifixion of men. He wasn't interested in gadgetry. Desgranges said "Variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles rather than by the artifice of a derailleur? We are getting soft." When the French component company Mavic produced the first aluminium wheel rims, Desgranges prohibited the use of them too. "The perfect Tour", he often said, "would have a perfect winner if only one man survived."

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

I'm talking more about Wiggins source for 'perfect winner' quote, not the original.

You were talking about perspective and were correctly called out on that lie.

Now you want to do sources? Well please, don't insult me by using a citation-free Wiki quote or by holding Robert Penn up as some kind of expert. He's not. And please, L'Équipe never, ever interviewed Desgrange. He was six years dead before that paper was born.

The comment is, as Wiggins said, as I said, a legend. No one has a source for it. The best approximation of its orgins that many agree on is that it was a post-war coinage by Goddet and co for the relaunched race. This doesn't stop it being repeated in dozens of books (seriously, you really think so little of Wiggins and Sykes you imagine them relying on Wiki and Penn for their knowledge? That speaks volumes about you). It is, after all, legendary.

 

[samhocking]

We are in agreement, what's the problem? Wiggins 'perfect winner' source is clearly not his own thoughts. It's not even worded as his own thought either, it's worded as Desgranges. True, the 'perfect winner' is probably not exactly what Desgrange actually said, but in his book he says 'Legend has it'. He's not pretending accuracy or anything, simply looking at various sources where the 'perfect winner' quote has been used for years before Wiggins book and obviously where the 'perfect winner' legend comes from for Wiggins too. Penn and Wiki are just two obvious examples that use the term as does Wiggins book, nothing more than that. My original claim remains "The part about Armstrong is actually from the perspective of Henri Desgrange, not Wiggins" regardless of its accuracy.