Nicole Cooke attacks drug cheats in the womens peloton

[Mellow Velo]

I am appalled that so many men bleat on about the fact that the pressures were too great. Too great for what? This is not doing 71 mph on the motorway when the legal limit is 70. This is stealing somebody else's livelihood. It is theft just as much as putting your hand in a purse or wallet and taking money is theft. Theft has gone on since the dawn of time but because somebody, somewhere else, does it, does not mean it is right for you to do it. There can be no excuse.

What's not to admire?

http://www.podiumcafe.com/2013/1/14...res-with-one-of-the-most-explosive-retirement

 

[JimmyFingers]

The clinic has hundreds of.posters and some lurkers too so i would hesitate to take the opinions of 2 or 3 posters as indicative of mass forum bias.

True: I should have qualified it by saying 'displayed by certain posters'

 

[The Eggman]

As crappy as as a continental pro's life is women have it worse even when they are top riders.

Meh.

Sport doesn't owe anyone a living.

Back to lurking

 

[armchairclimber]

Top Lass. I heard the 5 Live interview and she sounded to me like someone who would tell everything she knows if asked under the right circumstances (ie. not in a 5 minute radio interview about her retirement). It was an invitation for the appropriate authorities to get in touch if ever there was one.

 

[JimmyFingers]

I found her statement to be the most moving and complete voluntary statement I've ever seen by a pro cyclist. Her career and personal strengths speak for themselves.

My intended narrow point was that even she won't name the names of the folks who invited her to take part in a medical program. And that's the crazy reality of this sport. No one publicly names names - yes they name already convicted dopers.

I think it's less omerta and more due process. To name names you'd have to have evidence to back you up or leave yourself open to accusations of slander/libel and the lawsuits that can bring. The scenario she describes would boil down her word against theirs. We've seen Lance be able to defend his cheating through the courts, Nicole's no mug, she wouldn't leave herself open to that sort of penalty.

Unless you're saying she should have exposed it at the time, in which case I would concede the point. It would have ended her career of course.

 

[taiwan]

Meh.

Sport doesn't owe anyone a living.

Back to lurking

...apart from it's contracted employees...

 

[Benotti69]

Well, you are certainly right in part. Here's a bit from the Independent newspaper in 2008:

""And he took me to see a doctor he'd worked with before with other athletes, Fabio Bartolucci, and he was able to offer advice and guidelines on how I could try and progress. And things started progressing. They were going OK – still not great – but then in March Fabio took on my coaching as well, and with his medical knowledge he was able to really help prescribe the training for my needs and my limits. And since then it's all been going well. It is a big turnaround. I think it's because I really believed in my dream and really wanted to make it happen and didn't give up when perhaps I might have done."

I see this doctor has been working with Sky from 11-12, yet I don't recall any discussion of him on the Sky thread (OK, it is easy to miss something there). How deeply was he involved in doping?

The Clinic's resident proctologist Dr Maserati pointed out Bartolucci working for Sky.

But as I said I hope Cooke was a clean cyclist but her career path seems to indicate otherwise and her admittance to Bartolucci's 'medical knowledge' says only 1 thing to me.

 

[sniper]

The Clinic's resident proctologist Dr Maserati pointed out Bartolucci working for Sky.

But as I said I hope Cooke was a clean cyclist but her career path seems to indicate otherwise and her admittance to Bartolucci's 'medical knowledge' says only 1 thing to me.

If Cooke is indeed lying through her teeth, the levels of hypocricy in that open letter of hers are staggering.

Though as far as women's cycling is concerned, I'm leaving an (albeit small) opening for the thought that some programs are being administered without the cyclist knowing what she is actually receiving. It would imply a huge naivity, but hey, i've seen naive women before.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Yeah right and the British cycling bteam was clean in London. Yeah right:rolleyes
Smashing world records from the EPo era with ease.
Uhhh girl you better shut up.

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

Yeah right and the British cycling bteam was clean in London. Yeah right:rolleyes
Smashing world records from the EPo era with ease.
Uhhh girl you better shut up.

She should shut up? But you with your one dimensional view should be allowed to rant on. Clown.

 

[taiwan]

Man if she is being dishonest then the hypocracy is at a level that's hard to comprehend. Try to be realistic about stuff cyclists say but this is a toughie, I really want to take her at face value.

 

[JimmyFingers]

I get the feeling some people are commenting on this without reading the article. As Sniper says, it would be a staggering level of hypocrisy to have knowingly doped and come out and said what she did, the way she did.

She speaks with huge passion, you can feel the frustration at the state of the sport and how the doping in the men's sport has had huge negative impact on the women's, and her struggle throughout her career to race despite doping, the lack of funding, unpaid wages, cut races and the lack of support for women riders generally. It's illuminating, straight talking and from the heart. Don't pass judgement on her until you have read, and if you don't my word for it, take Darryl Webster's, who has already commented in this thread.

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

Yeah right and the British cycling bteam was clean in London. Yeah right:rolleyes
Smashing world records from the EPo era with ease.

Which world records were these, then?

 

[Mellow Velo]

The Clinic's resident proctologist Dr Maserati pointed out Bartolucci working for Sky.

But as I said I hope Cooke was a clean cyclist but her career path seems to indicate otherwise and her admittance to Bartolucci's 'medical knowledge' says only 1 thing to me.

How so?
As a junior she was in a class of her own.

Everything says only one thing to you.

Dr M also pointed out your ignorance.

Yeah right and the British cycling bteam was clean in London. Yeah right:rolleyes
Smashing world records from the EPo era with ease.
Uhhh girl you better shut up.

Stick to something you have a vague knowledge of: such as US road surfaces.

 

[Benotti69]

How so?
As a junior she was in a class of her own.

Since she stopped working with Bartolucci she has been a pale shadow of herself.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Since she stopped working with Bartolucci she has been a pale shadow of herself.

When did she start and when did she stop?

As far as I know, nothing from the San Remo raid stuck.
Nine doctors were taken in for question, not just the one you intimated.
Were any banned substances found in his possession, like they were with Dario Frigo?
I'm asking you for specifics, because I don't know.

As doctors go, he appears pretty clean, if there are no specifics.

Trying to throw this baby out with the bath water is nuts.

 

[sniper]

I'm lining up with Benotti here.
If doping is as viable in women's cycling as Cooke suggests, it raises the question how she was able to win gold in 2008. Or is she on the Vaughters/Millar bandwagon claiming it all got clean(ish) after 2007?

When she was young she could apparently excell in a level playing field. Was there a level playing field in 2008?

And to assume that Bartolucci inspired her into winning clean is, well, naive.
what did he do? improve her cadence? Tell her to warm down?

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

It's pretty obvious that certain posters just want to believe everyone is doping (not just in cycling but in every sport) regardless of whether they have any evidence or not. No doubt this negative outlook extends to all aspects of their lives, I'm not sure I could live like that to be honest.

 

[Mellow Velo]

I'm lining up with Benotti here.
If doping is as viable in women's cycling as Cooke suggests, it raises the question how she was able to win gold in 2008. Or is she on the Vaughters/Millar bandwagon claiming it all got clean(ish) after 2007?

When she was young she could apparently excell in a level playing field. Was there a level playing field in 2008?

And to assume that Bartolucci inspired her into winning clean is, well, naive.
what did he do? improve her cadence? Tell her to warm down?

You aligned with Benotti? What a surprise. Tin foil sheep.

All we have been offered is that at some point, Nicole worked with a doctor who was raided, along with everyone else and subsequently released.
No other connection to anything.

Benotti's OP on Bartolucci was heavy on the negative spin, light on facts and rounded off with a: "I seem to recall" (but I'm not really sure).


As I said, Nicole was a already prodigious talent as a youngster: a class apart.
Later in her career, she was dogged by injury.
Did her working relationship with said doctor mirror her results?
Benotti says so, but so far, nothing forthcoming to corroborate
the statement.

So instead of heeding her words and applauding her attack on the establishment; the institution that we all blame for the state of the sport, we are dragged into the usual mire of degrading the messenger and ignoring the message.

 

[JimmyFingers]

It's just default assumption that someone dopes because a) she won and b) she worked with a doctor once. Beyond that neither of them know anything about her career apart from what they have just read on Wikipedia

It's just a short cut to thinking

 

[sniper]

You aligned with Benotti? What a surprise. Tin foil sheep..

attacking the messenger(s) again? surprise indeed.

As I said, Nicole was a already prodigious talent as a youngster: a class apart.

And as I said, it was a level playing field then and there. She herself says that, by contrast, the pro-women-peloton was all but a level playing field. So how did she excell in 2008?

And I asked you to give us a thought on the type of gains Bartolucci endowed her with. cadence? warming down?
*crickets*

 

[Big Doopie]

nicole cooke's statement reads like every clean cyclist's should.

time should confirm whether it is truth.

if she is in fact lying the hypocrisy is bound to rile those who know and it will come out.

however, if in 20 years no one has come forward (like with lemond), then i would wager she is what she says she is.

 

[Mellow Velo]

And I asked you to give us a thought on the type of gains Bartolucci endowed her with. cadence? warming down?
*crickets*

You really don't see a roll for doctors in sports, at all, do you?
You are right: words fail me at this juncture.

 

[SundayRider]

Who here paid to read that book? Good work fella

Not all dopers are created equal, yes they are all cheats but there are dopers who are good people and dopers who are bad people.

 

[SundayRider]

Anybody else notice that she didn't have any good words for Team Sky.