Sky/Ineos Head Carer of 14 years discovered as member of Aderlass doping ring (Megathread)

[Dazed and Confused]

Chapeau to a handful of posters on this forum for getting a significant result related to doping.

 

[Rob5091]

Slovenian press willing to ask questions, Interview with Rozman's Ineos teammate and fellow "carer" Marko Dzalo from 23 July - (google translate)
https://www.rtvslo.si/sport/kolesar...dzalo-touri-so-vsako-leto-bolj-naporni/752689

Before the start of the Tour, the German broadcaster ARD reported that before you came to Ineos, a Slovenian member of the team was involved in the supply of doping in 2012. They found a connection through telephone communication with Mark Schmidt, a German doctor who was sentenced to four years and ten months in prison for his connection to doping, including in the Aderlass affair. How did that affect your team during the Tour?
The team's instructions are that we shouldn't answer these things, so unfortunately I can't comment.

(Rozman got Dzalo his first WT job at Skil-Shimano back in 2011)

 

[yaco]

It seems like the ITA are reexamining the case after public pressure. Now whether anything changes from the April investigation must be doubtful.

 

[Tim Cahill]

Team Ineos confirms investigation into employee Rozman

Nach ARD-Doku: Team Ineos bestätigt Ermittlungen gegen Mitarbeiter Rozman

David Rozman verlässt wegen Ermittlungen der Internationalen Test-Agentur die Tour de France. ARD-Recherchen hatten belegt: Der slowenische Chef-Pfleger des Teams Ineos soll Anfang der 2010er Jahre am Erfurter Blutdoping-Ring beteiligt gewesen sein.

www.sportschau.de

 

[Rob5091]

Here's a trip down memory lane, that in light of present developments, take on a different hue. From October 2013, on Tiernan-Locke,
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/o...-innocence-after-inconsistent-blood-test.html

Team Sky had “full access” to Jonathan Tiernan-Locke during the period he provided blood readings that flagged up inconsistencies in his biological passport, his former team claimed on Tuesday. ... Endura pointed out Team Sky had significant involvement with Tiernan-Locke prior to his official start date in January, including taking him in May 2012 to the training camp in Tenerife widely credited as being the catalyst for Bradley Wiggins’s Tour de France triumph.
Endura also claimed Team Sky had “full access” to the 28-year-old from that point on, including during the final quarter of 2012.

That is the period during which the tests that are being investigated by cycling’s world governing body are understood to have taken place.


Endura’s statement read: “JTL joined Endura Racing in January 2012 and, when it became clear he had World Tour potential, was made available to Team Garmin-Sharp in April [Sky claim this was in March] for physiological tests. No adverse results were reported back. He then accompanied Team Sky on their Tenerife training camp in May [Sky claim this was in April]. Team Sky had full access to JTL from the point it was agreed for him to train with them at this camp. This includes the period covering the last quarter of 2012.

“According to JTL, he undertook physiological tests for Team Sky directly after the World Championships in 2012 and although Endura never received any data from these tests, neither was anything raised by Team Sky as unusual or concerning.” .... Tiernan-Locke was “extremely confident” of proving the readings in question were the result of the illness he is said to have suffered since joining Team Sky.

Trip to Spain with Team Sky and some dodgy blood values. Wiggins wonder camp at Tenerife ...

 

[Rob5091]

Like some bad reccuring nightmare, another trip down memory lane,
The Parliamentary investigation into Team Sky. "The Whistleblowers" statement- from 2017
https://data.parliament.uk/writtene.../combatting-doping-in-sport/written/69004.pdf

2010, two Dr's, David Hulse and Richard Freeman, both came from a non cycling background, Dr Steve Peters was head of medicine. ...At the end of the season Dr David was sacked (paid off) publicly this was ascribed to the death of Txema.

From 2010 -
https://cyclinginc.com/team-sky-pul...following-the-tragic-death-of-txema-gonzalez/

The British Team Sky has pulled out of the Vuelta a España following the death of popular and widely-respected masseur and team helper Txema González. Sky has had health issues since the start of the Spanish Tour in the form of a virus that had already caused several riders to abandon the race.

González, however, was the unfortunate victim of an infection in his blood which took his life in a Seville hospital Friday evening. He was 43 years old.

From 2020 - Dr Freeman seems to use a dead soigneour to throw Dr David Hulse under the bus -
https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1100166/

Freeman was accused of aiming to have former doctor David Hulse removed from Team Sky in 2010.

Hulse had expressed concerns over protocols Freeman sought to introduce at Team Sky after a disappointing season. ...
According to The Guardian, Freeman denied suggestions he tried to remove Hulse over a disagreement regarding the policy.

Freeman claimed his disagreement with Hulse was over the care of Txema Gonzalez, a soigneur who died from a bacterial infection at the Vuelta a España in 2010.

The GMC's lawyer SimonJackson claimed Freeman had viewed Hulse as a bar to the progress of the team.

 

[Rob5091]

So we have a very dodgy "carer" with a contact to supply PED's and another who was running a blood doping ring.
Then we have a dodgy doctor who's medical records seem to keep disappearing (or get hacked by "Indians"), or are not "complete",
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/...nt-know-bulk-corticosteroid-order-used-317571

Today, recently appointed British Cycling chair Jonathan Browning confirmed British Cycling did not know what the large amounts of triamcinolone had been used for.
He said: "Unfortunately it appears that those records are not complete."

The other doctors at Sky of course were not too happy with Freeman. to the extent that (https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/...an-applying-fourth-bradley-wiggins-tue-318094 ),

...another doctor at Sky, changed the team's password for the World Anti-Doping Agency's ADAMS (anti-doping administration and management system) - the program where doctors formally request a TUE - after hearing that Freeman was wanting to apply for a Wiggins TUE before the national tour; it is not known what substance Freeman was hoping to be permitted to give Wiggins.

A new password for ADAMS is required every six months, and three days before the Tour of Britain, Farrell changed Sky's, without informing Freeman. Farrell explained why he refused to notify Freeman of the password to fellow doctor Richard Usher, who was Sky's medic at the upcoming race. Usher was supportive of Farrell's actions.

and the only person to know the contents of the "jiffy bag", (https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/...nt-know-bulk-corticosteroid-order-used-317571 )

...only Dr Richard Freeman, who was working for Sky at the time, had testified that the package contained fluimicil, a legal decongestant.

and of course, nobody but Freeman knew what exactly was going on,
(https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/...an-applying-fourth-bradley-wiggins-tue-318094 )

• The three other doctors at Sky in 2011 - Steve Baynes, Phil Riley and Usher - were not consulted on Wiggins' TUE before that year's Giro, and didn't find out that one had been administrated until some time later.
• Farrell was apparently unhappy with the lack of communication between Freeman and his colleagues. Sir Dave Brailsford, the team's principal, was aware of the tension, but Freeman continued to look after Wiggins.

A classic doping triptych- supplier, middle man, dodgy doctor.
Edit -add - just for giggles - Freeman has admitted to having at least 5 laptops. All of no use as they were stolen, hacked, destroyed by himself or he forgot the password.

 

[Rob5091]

Dr Freeman at the medical tribunal appears not so "fresh" as he claimed -
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...eeman-gmc-tribunal-testosterone-b1725308.html

The main interest in endurance cycling was blood doping.

Another strange occurance, (the mysterious 30 satchets Testogel) -https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ne...patches-sent-to-team-sky-and-british-cycling/

A medical supplier that allegedly sent a batch of testosterone patches to British Cycling and Team Sky has refused to cooperate with a UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) investigation into the incident, according to a report in theDaily Mail.

British Cycling has since confirmed that they will end their relationship with the Fit 4 Sport company, although the Daily Mail reports that Fit 4 Sport still name Team Sky among their clients.

It's all "curiouser and curiouser" ...

Edit - add - Re-reading the Daily Mail article on Fit4sport not cooperating, I see they mention a Liz Armer (https://finalscout.com/people/liz_armer ) who is sales director but for some reason her e-mail is @fitsportaustria.at FitSport Austria is a non-profit organization based in Vienna (https://www.fitsportaustria.at/main.asp?VID=1&kat1=87&kat2=690 ). Mistake or what?!

 

[Tim Cahill]

There is the possibility bearing in mind it's 2012 we're talking about that the other infamous doctor of the time, Leinders, would have been the one - Kohl attested to Schmidt being involved in his doping, and he was part of the Humanplasma circle. This then involved Michael Rasmussen, from whose testimonies we have a link to Leinders, and we know that oversight and assisting riders who were doping from returning positive tests was a large part of what his role at Rabobank was known for.

The other possibility if we are talking riders and race-side staffers would leave a couple of other relevant possibilities. Somebody who went from Milram (where Mark Schmidt had been prior to this) to Team Sky was Christian Knees, who was picked up off the scrap heap when Milram collapsed at the end of 2010 and repurposed into a rouleur domestique par excellence by the team, and was at the 2012 Tour. Sky couldn't really pick up any ex-Gerolsteiner riders with their farcical white paper strategy at the time (despite having the likes of Mick Rogers of course), but Milram were likely fair game as they'd been an underfunded, mismanaged mess over the time since the bottom fell out of German cycling in 2007 and Petacchi had had his ban, so their results had not been especially noteworthy and there wasn't so much suspicion of them at the time as there might have been 2-3 years previously. However, probably a more logical connection than somebody in a relatively peripheral domestique position as Knees was, would be Servais Knaven - he is a known doper with his own history, as has long since been known, and he had been at Milram as a rider in 2009-10 before joining Sky as a DS, where he stayed all the way until 2022, being one of the men in the car for several of their greatest successes.

This is all pure conjecture and theory-crafting, I hasten to add, but these would appear the line-of-best-fit avenues of discourse.

Here's one, a while back there was confusion as to why Ineos would pick Lotto–Kern Haus as a dev team when British Cycling was circling the drain.

A possible link to the conspiracy. Christian Henn, of old Telekom fame, Gerolsteiner, the now notorious 09-10 Milram iteration, recently retired as the DS there, perhaps passing down the old traditions?

There is a tragicomic element to all of it to be honest. Even many of those who thought they were on some stuff perceived it as a bit more sophisticated than this. Nobody with half a clue thought Froome's transformation came about though dodgy TUE's and colouring a touch outside the lines, but I thought they would at least have the funding and knowhow available to do this through channels a bit less blatant.

It just feels like they've commandeered the bastardised skeleton of a post-Puerto Germanic doping network, and the sinister, new-age, technocratic medical program many perceived was just some of the old heads getting some gear in for the lads. 'The stuff we used at Milram', as an aside it's not exactly setting the bar high either, I'm just disappointed they didn't get Linus Gerdemann in for a big Tour GC charge.

This guy was just there, known, named in court, working as head carer and nobody thought to do some digging, we are hearing about this completely out of nowhere years after the fact. Sky have been bailed out by a lack of curiosity and gullibility within cycling media, plus ça change.

 

[Rob5091]

The big hope for the ITA, but maybe not the UCI or Ineos, is that Rozman talks à la soigneur Jef d'Hont at Telekom did.
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dhont-simply-defending-himself/

Re-reading the Freeman story, it's like there's a black hole around which everyone is walking and talking. Lots of statements by people at Sky, which obviously were written by lawyers, and the whole farcial explainations for lost medical records and even deleted text messages on Freeman's phone.

Using dodgy doctors for doping means everything can be hidden under the "doctor-patient" confidentiality, but the weak link in the chain is the middle man (Rozman in this case) who is not. If the middle man talks, he ends up being thrown out of the sport, loses income, possible legal cases and expenses, hounded on social media, and not the least in this day and age of big bucks, threats to his well being. In other words, no good thing can come out of "spilling the beans", unless he's faced with other threats.

Rozman's position at Ineos is untenable, as the "clean image/ideal" of Sir Dave and Ineos makes it impossible for him to continue there. I guess there's a NDA in Rozman's contract, so a fat envelope under the table and a return to Slovenia seems on the cards. (There's this weird story of the Rozman family as told by David Walsh of how spiritual and religous they are, including one who became a priest. It's all a bit Italian mafia like.)

What this whole mess does throw a light on again is the sudden rise and fall of the "Mark Padun" era at Bahrain and what the heck went on there, and the possible involvement of dodgy characters at team UAE.

 

[zlev11]

What this whole mess does throw a light on again is the sudden rise and fall of the "Mark Padun" era at Bahrain and what the heck went on there, and the possible involvement of dodgy characters at team UAE.

sorry, what are the links to Bahrain and Padun here? i always had a sneaking suspicion they were working with Ferrari back then (many of their DS were known Ferrari clients).

 

[Rob5091]

sorry, what are the links to Bahrain and Padun here? i always had a sneaking suspicion they were working with Ferrari back then (many of their DS were known Ferrari clients).

A couple of links -

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/bahrain-meridas-milan-erzen-under-uci-investigation/

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1101516/

According to reports from Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Eržen's name was brought up in court during Schmidt's trial.

The German doctor claimed that Eržen "wanted to enter into a business relationship" and asked for "a machine".

It is not the first time Slovenia's Eržen, who has experience as a rider, talent scout, coach, altitude training expert, rider agent and manager, has been linked to the case.

In 2019, it was reported that the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation had documentation that Eržen made contact with Schmidt through a Croatian intermediary to purchase a centrifuge, used in blood transfusions to separate red cells from plasma.

Schmidt had allegedly refused to engage with Eržen.

 

[zlev11]

A couple of links -

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/bahrain-meridas-milan-erzen-under-uci-investigation/

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1101516/

ah yes i knew about all of that but i'm not sure if it's relevant to their 2021-2022 performances (other than highlighting the fact that they're willing to play ball). wasn't Schmidt in prison by then?

 

[Rob5091]

The Bahrain/ Eržen/Slovenia connection is interesting, but as you say, Schmidt was busted in 2019 and in court the following year. Eržen clearly wanted to be a part of Schmidt's "clientele" or more likely some dodgy partnership but Schmidt didn't want anything to do with him (apparently). Why? Maybe Rozman was buying a machine for Eržen.
Some of the people at Bahrain were busted because of Operation Aderlass, so clearly Eržen/Bahrain were already in the process of doping, and must have found some other "partner" (the mysterious Croatian maybe who keeps poping up in relation to this story), post Schmidt.

The UCI must know more then they're saying as they've had their eye on "several Slovenian individuals, including riders, rider support personnel and team management staff" since 2015. I guess the UCI, in one shape or another, were behind the two police raids (in 2021 and 2022) on Bahrain's hotel and people's homes/offices.
(Just as another aside to this whole sordid affair, the story of one of Schmidt's co-defendants, Dirk Q -
https://web.archive.org/web/2020111...ze-hatte-Menschen-zu-Tode-gepruegelt-100.html )

 

[Tim Cahill]

Brilliant scenes, he can't've given them anything good, they were *** useless.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1951027518690996595

 

[E_F_]

Brilliant scenes, he can't've given them anything good, they were *** useless.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1951027518690996595

Must've worked on Højlund, though...

 

[Rob5091]

HIF stabilizers as masking agent for blood doping ...
https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/leistungssteigerung-durch-hif-stabilisatoren-epo-doping-2-100.html

"According to the testimony of people involved, HIF stabilizers were also used in the environment of "Operation Aderlass". It has been proven that blood transfusions have been manipulated and HIF stabilizers have presumably been used in this context to adapt the blood count in such a way that the blood transfusions as such are not initially noticeable."

This is because the stabilizers ensure that the detection of prohibited blood transfusions becomes even more difficult than it already is. These can be proven in a relatively complicated way by the fact that certain parameters show changes in the biological passport if there have been prohibited transfusions. If you still use HIF stabilizers, you can correct these changes.

 

[Cassirer]

Oh yeeeeees Nairo to be double tdf champion!

 

[thetdog666]

Oh yeeeeees Nairo to be double tdf champion!

Oh yeah cause he's clean..............

 

[Cassirer]

Oh yeah cause he's clean..............

tbf everyone who hung on to the sky train for too long would fail a doping test, its like passive smoking.

 

[Rob5091]

Oh yeeeeees Nairo to be double tdf champion!

Whoa there! Did you see the story of Nairoman's doctor ... ? Let's not get carried away here.

 

[Cassirer]

Whoa there! Did you see the story of Nairoman's doctor ... ? Let's not get carried away here.

Right, of course...valverde!!!! Oh wait...