Oier Lazkano

[Netserk]

Yeah that really stuck out, seemed like a double standard no? Here are all the talking points I’ve seen in various articles and on social media this morning regarding this;

- “3 out of 5 years” the rider was tested for at Movistar all came back clean.

- Lazkano connected to shadowy figures outside the team.

- Didn’t see ABP data

- Lack of diligence by RB

In my opinion Movistar are bang to rights, but they are getting their story out there, hammering their points home in the media, trying to get ahead of things. Meanwhile we first found out Lazkano was no longer with RB from a sidenote in a random article.

They could come out of this well, get all their guys out there talking about how none of his anomalous readings pertain to the past 10 months, about how their internal testing clearly stifled a lone wolf connected to actors outside the team, we stopped him racing and kicked him out as soon as we knew. They knew this was coming, they have had months to figure out how to handle it. Where is the strategy, and if it’s this, then do they realise that regardless of how well-meaning it might be it makes them look guilty, where’s Denk going on the attack, fronting up.

Maybe my social media algorithm is just Hispanic and they are doing all of these things. Or maybe we will get a carefully worded committee led version of events, 2 weeks later, when everyone apart from like 4 guys on here are past giving a ***.

I think the story dries up quicker if they stay quiet.

 

[Tim Cahill]

I think the story dries up quicker if they stay quiet.

The cynic in me thinks it dries up in a few days regardless of what is said, short of them blowing open a criminal underworld.

All that matters now is what team is front and centre when you google “Lazkano doping” 5 years down the line. Not hapless old Eusebio, the kindly Spanish uncle who just bungled the admin, if anything he’s the victim here.

 

[search]

related to the APB, I found interesting that Fiorelli recently said, that on top of ADAMS (so he seems to have provided his password), he was able to provide a lot of additional data to Visma, as Bardiani did their own blood pass to be on the safe side.

So if Bardiani is able to do something like that, you would normally think a WT team is even more so...

 

[Ilmaestro99]

5 years of blood doping and 5 years of passing doping tests.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yeah that really stuck out, seemed like a double standard no? Here are all the talking points I’ve seen in various articles and on social media this morning regarding this;

- “3 out of 5 years” the rider was tested for at Movistar all came back clean.

- Lazkano connected to shadowy figures outside the team.

- Didn’t see ABP data

- Lack of diligence by RB

In my opinion Movistar are bang to rights, but they are getting their story out there, hammering their points home in the media, trying to get ahead of things. Meanwhile we first found out Lazkano was no longer with RB from a sidenote in a random article.

They could come out of this well, get all their guys out there talking about how none of his anomalous readings pertain to the past 10 months, about how their internal testing clearly stifled a lone wolf connected to actors outside the team, we stopped him racing and kicked him out as soon as we knew. They knew this was coming, they have had months to figure out how to handle it. Where is the strategy, and if it’s this, then do they realise that regardless of how well-meaning it might be it makes them look guilty, where’s Denk going on the attack, fronting up.

Maybe my social media algorithm is just Hispanic and they are doing all of these things. Or maybe we will get a carefully worded committee led version of events, 2 weeks later, when everyone apart from like 4 guys on here are past giving a ***.

The last issue Movistar had was Jaime Rosón where they were on the receiving end of the same problem that Lazkano has provided for Red Bull. They got Lazkano from the same source so they're trying to pass the buck over in the same direction and the years on the report allow them the chance to viably do that.

Largely because often the guys who jump up a level and then get busted on the biopassport are caught because they aren't able to maintain the kind of blood levels they were using previously while under higher levels of scrutiny. Examples would be like Jonathan Tiernan-Locke or Giovanni Carboni from Continental to ProConti or WT, or Jaime Rosón and Franck Bonnamour from PC to WT. Caja Rural themselves have been on the receiving end like this, with Alberto Gallego back in the day, although that was a straight-up positive test before he could flag the biopass. Or, hell, someone like Alex Diniz when his team stepped up from Conti to ProConti and had to become biopassport compliant, he couldn't keep his blood levels at the level he'd doped up to as a Conti rider when he just had to be within the legal limits at isolated tests. Similarly you have those riders who suddenly stop delivering when they have to be under biopassport compliant teams, like Danilo Celano.

The problem for them is that, of course, unlike Tiernan-Locke (or guys like Pecharromán, Popovych, Celano etc.), it's not like Lazkano suddenly dropped off at Movistar. Rosón had not yet delivered much of great value at Movistar and they could claim adequate distance from the violations. Cobo likewise gives them that option, because he was dreadful in both of his stints with the team, the first time admittedly heavily influenced by his mental health struggles and the performance difference was beyond the level of clean/dirty. They can't do that with Lazkano. Rosón signed for them after winning the queen stage in Croatia and Turkey and finishing on the GC podium in Croatia, on the podium in Coppi e Bartali and top 5 in the Vuelta a Burgos, results which outstrip what he managed with Movistar; by comparison Lazkano's dramatic improvement came under Movistar's watch. His best results with Caja were a stage win in the Volta a Portugal and a 15th place in the Tour de Luxembourg.

 

[Tim Cahill]

The last issue Movistar had was Jaime Rosón where they were on the receiving end of the same problem that Lazkano has provided for Red Bull. They got Lazkano from the same source so they're trying to pass the buck over in the same direction and the years on the report allow them the chance to viably do that.

Largely because often the guys who jump up a level and then get busted on the biopassport are caught because they aren't able to maintain the kind of blood levels they were using previously while under higher levels of scrutiny. Examples would be like Jonathan Tiernan-Locke or Giovanni Carboni from Continental to ProConti or WT, or Jaime Rosón and Franck Bonnamour from PC to WT. Caja Rural themselves have been on the receiving end like this, with Alberto Gallego back in the day, although that was a straight-up positive test before he could flag the biopass. Or, hell, someone like Alex Diniz when his team stepped up from Conti to ProConti and had to become biopassport compliant, he couldn't keep his blood levels at the level he'd doped up to as a Conti rider when he just had to be within the legal limits at isolated tests. Similarly you have those riders who suddenly stop delivering when they have to be under biopassport compliant teams, like Danilo Celano.

The problem for them is that, of course, unlike Tiernan-Locke (or guys like Pecharromán, Popovych, Celano etc.), it's not like Lazkano suddenly dropped off at Movistar. Rosón had not yet delivered much of great value at Movistar and they could claim adequate distance from the violations. Cobo likewise gives them that option, because he was dreadful in both of his stints with the team, the first time admittedly heavily influenced by his mental health struggles and the performance difference was beyond the level of clean/dirty. They can't do that with Lazkano. Rosón signed for them after winning the queen stage in Croatia and Turkey and finishing on the GC podium in Croatia, on the podium in Coppi e Bartali and top 5 in the Vuelta a Burgos, results which outstrip what he managed with Movistar; by comparison Lazkano's dramatic improvement came under Movistar's watch. His best results with Caja were a stage win in the Volta a Portugal and a 15th place in the Tour de Luxembourg.

Yeah I think that this is coming from Arribas in particular at least confirms what the Abarca line of attack is going to be. Whether it is going to work is a different story.

Another issue that concerns me is the fact that the writer waited until the coast was clear to report on it, he is no virgin after all, and no doubt knew what was going on (as others also did). Reporting on whether there is an ongoing investigation is not libel, as truth would be the ultimate defence in this circumstance. (Quid Pro Quo?)

There is a tragicomic element to how this has developed, that forum troll Roberto Pistore, who posts as "UncleCycling" on twitter was the only one talking openly about this stuff in the past month is as worrying as it is funny. It's like if Digger was the one to break the Froome positive. As others have remarked on here, 5 years of biopassport data, device seizures and a lengthy bureaucratic minefield is what it's taking just to catch out the 147th best rider in the world, and he didn't even test for a substance. What's it going to take to get someone who has friends and money when the methods seem so far ahead and when so few are asking the questions.

Anyway there is surely more to come on this, apparently Lazkano has gone into isolation, so the chances of him throwing his arms up in the air and giving it the old 'You got me!' are slim, Red Bull I think will put something more substantive out there.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

5 years of blood doping and 5 years of passing doping tests.

That's hardly a record. Valverde managed to do it for 84 years.

 

[HashRouge]

Larry Warbasse is on the latest episode of the Cycling Podcast and he and Daniel Friebe talk quite a bit about the Lazkano case. The most interesting bit for me was just their general conversation about the biological passport and how it works. Larry said that riders don't get access to their blood data anymore, which I found hard to understand. Does that mean teams can't see it either? How would that then work for a rider moving to a new team? If anyone can shed a bit more light on it, I'd be grateful!

They also said that even people close to Lazkano didn't seem to know what had been going on with him this year. So it really does seem to have been kept very quiet until the UCI announcement.