Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[del1962]

brilliant explications.
appreciate you taking time to talk some sense into the minds of the clueless.

with all due respect, comments like "why don't we talk about riis and ekimov and leave oliver alone" is evidence either of trolling or of, well, you get it.

You mean a brilliant piece of politicians mumbo jumbo, I like MV's thought on her posts.

 

[sniper]

...

That is down to the electing body and their agenda. Its too early to tell with Cookson, but equally its too early to condemn. Give the guy a chance. There are decades of damage to undo. That won't happen in 6 months

he might be a brilliant president all round. .
but froome positive? hell will freeze over before cookson allows that to happen. under cookson, there is no reason to assyme cycling will clean up.

 

[gooner]

Who's going after Oli? It's Brian who is compromised by Oli's position at Sky, not Oli. Oli had his job there first, as you have pointed out, and Oli isn't in a position of enough power to affect matters, whereas Brian is. Now it's true that because of the comparatively powerless position, the potential conflict would be resolved more quietly with Oli going, but that hasn't seemed to be the gist of what is being talked about, because Oli isn't the one who's compromised.

Yes, we've had guys go after Oli. Kimmage has called on Brian to remove the conflict. Not to remove Brian but to remove the conflict of Oli working for the team. It's clear what he's referring to. Benotti agrees with this and sniper has said one way this can be resolved is by Oli Cookson stepping aside from Sky. This is what I was referring to and I wasn't putting your good self in this thinking.

*I see Oli reached out to Kimmage on twitter on this and has since deleted the account he set up to do it for some reason.

Also, while it is suspicious to have people like Eki running teams, or Ace in the car for Катюша, that's not really what we're talking about in this thread at this point. I'd assume that the Kazakh fed may well have a similar problem to the British in terms of blurred lines between the official national entity and the trade team, for example, but I don't read the language to know any more than the merest basics about who's who in the Kazakh fed and Astana. The issue is that an incestuous network has developed that creates a circling of the wagons, if you like; everybody involved has a vested interest. A bunch of positives at Sky would reflect badly on the sport; if Brailsford is involved, it would reflect badly not just on the individuals involved but on the entire track program which was built up under his tutelage in the public eye; it would reflect badly on Cookson for having been on the board of the holding company, and his son's livelihood may be at stake. People who are not directly connected, like David Millar, would have reasons to help bury bad news; in addition to his own personal relationship with Brailsford his sister's reputation is on the line. Furthermore for Cookson, he has a vested interest in preserving cycling's reputation in order for it to remain a profitable sport, so high profile positives of the current clean champions on the back of the recent public profile of the Armstrong judgement are not something he really wants either. That would be the same for any team, not just Sky, of course, but as they're the current team on top, it would be more high profile for them. And with Sky being connected to a media mogul owning much of the press in the team's homeland, they are in a good position to bury bad news anyway and discredit dissenting voices.

None of this means that anything untoward has gone on. But we do know that certain key figures within this network, who are connected intrinsically to both the trade team and the national entity, both on the coaching and the riding sides, are dishonest, and that the team has been keen to show as much transparency as the Staatssicherheitsdienst (notwithstanding that public survey where they whitewashed the options to get answers they liked, such as the brilliantly set up question "Team Sky are anti-doping, how does that make you feel about Team Sky?" where no answer allowed for the possibility that you might not believe them), and that does mean that fears of corruption, insider dealing and so on will arise.

But that's where the independent testing comes in and how I said previously is where our questioning would be better off aimed at. Plus, the different shareholding in the team has been transparent in their holdings in the team and in the case of Cookson, he hasn't hid the fact his son has been working for Sky. As far as the media mogul goes, I've seen more stories in the Times regarding Sky probably than any other UK newspaper. The tramadol story last week was by Jeremy Whittle on it and it was headlines on the back page. He along with Owen Slot on motoman and Porte and Froome visiting him. There's been a few articles on JTL and Rogers and why they hired them with their dodgy pasts.

Katuaha is entirely relelvant to this. I don't hear anyone speaking about Makarov when Rodriguez is winning or when Kristoff wins MSR. Instead all I've heard was Ben Swift after that day. Even with all these conflict of interests solely with Makarov, they had a positive with Galimzyanov.

I don't hear anyone calling for Makarov to be removed with him still in two roles. Brian is in one role and only then if he was in a similar position of having two roles could we then ask for that conflict of interests to be removed.

Leinders went more than a couple of months after the stuff came about his past. Sky had an investigation they promised in July 2012, and then at the end of September 2012, long after everything was known, Dave Brailsford was asked how that investigation was going, and he literally ran away from the question. They then dismissed Geert under cover of night one day before the Reasoned Decision was published, to try to bury their bad news. Not really the actions of a team that is trying to be transparent.

I will never defend the team on Leinders.

Many of the dubious docs simply haven't done anything high profile enough, or stupid enough, to be on the radar. When a team produces the transformations and performances Sky did in 2012, people immediately question where this came from. Leinders was barely mentioned on the forum before then. Similarly, I had no idea who José Ibarguren Taus was before Gilbert's magic 2011, but Gilbert's hugely dominant performances led to questions, which led to people discovering the past of Ibarguren and his being added to the list of notoriety. Lotto's disappointing 2012 campaign and OPQS' miraculous spring that same year after Ibarguren moved from one to the other only fuelled the fire further. Lower profile doping docs like Marcos Maynar wouldn't have come to our attention if they hadn't been so ridiculously blatant either.

There are many team docs that have dodgy history, but you'd have to do a fair bit of research to say who is dodgy and why. Whereas with people like Conconi, Ferrari, del Moral, Fuentes, their names are synonymous with doping and so people aren't able to let those names slide if they appear on a rider's or team's radar.

You forget the clear point I've made. I've said Leinders was rightly went after. I couldn't care less about whether they have been transformations or not, it doesn't make it any better for GreenEdge to have Rodriguez Alonso compared to Sky with Leinders all because GreenEdge haven't had a rider with the same transformation of Froome.

Here again I say it, if Yates won Turkey while he was at Sky, I think there would have been a different reaction around here and that's still with no doping doc on the books with Farrell and Freeman there nowadays. Yet this happens with Rodriguez Alonso on the payroll of GreenEdge and not a murmur of it.

With Yates, I don't even want to bring in that lad to the discussion and nothing tells me he's doping but I feel it's necessary to bring it in to show the hypocritical judgement of one over the other.

 

[gooner]

brilliant explications.
appreciate you taking time to talk some sense into the minds of the clueless.

with all due respect, comments like "why don't we talk about riis and ekimov and leave oliver alone" is evidence either of trolling or of, well, you get it.

The classic case of a guy with no argument, has to rely on others.

If you want to after Oli as you've already said it could be solved with his removal, off with yourself but your motives are clear.

I bring in Riis, Ekimov and co. because it brings in perspective to your comments about Oli Cookson leaving Sky and cycling.

 

[Benotti69]

The classic case of a guy with no argument, has to rely on others.

playing the man makes your arguments better!

If you want to after Oli as you've already said it could be solved with his removal, off with yourself but your motives are clear.

I bring in Riis, Ekimov and co. because it brings in perspective to your comments about Oli Cookson leaving Sky and cycling.

This is the Sky thread, if you want to talk about Eki, Riis etc there are threads or open a thread.

Sky fans whinging about other teams does not justify Sky's behaviour. It has been said countless times, no one believes the others are clean otherwise there would be threads as long as Sky ones.

 

[Chaddy]

Sky gets mentioned in ever single thread on this forum regardless whether the topic has anything to do with them or not.

 

[stutue]

It has been said countless times, no one believes the others are clean otherwise there would be threads as long as Sky ones.

You are either an absolute genius, or an utter thickie.

Keep talking.....

 

[stutue]

he might be a brilliant president all round. .
but froome positive? hell will freeze over before cookson allows that to happen. under cookson, there is no reason to assyme cycling will clean up.

There is no reason not to either.

What evidence do you have for your assertion that Cookson is corrupt?

 

[martinvickers]

Yes Martin just like Oli and Brian not talking to each other because at one point they were in different countries - that's not trolling and avoiding the obvious? And somehow that made it "indirect".... Riiiiight.

Please. You were tossing up full tosses wanting to be hit out of the park with that argument.

At least think about what you construct and read it over prior to posting.

Hey, you raised the 'shared dinner' nonsense, Hoggie, not me. You can't get upset when I mock that sort of silliness.

Being someone's relative doesn't make a 'direct' link, Hog, no matter how much you want it to. It's, as I said, almost a definition of indirect.

It was pure troll, Hog, and much, much worse, it was bl00min' obvious troll, and you have a reputation to keep up, my friend.

You're cleverer than that. Do better. Do better!!

 

[martinvickers]

ColOmbia.
....

Thanks for the input. I look forward to your further spelling advice - I'm sure I'll get Peloton wrong a few times, so stay alert!

 

[Mellow Velo]

playing the man makes your arguments better!

Dementia playing up?
It was fine yesterday, when you were left relying on it.

 

[gooner]

Dementia playing up?
It was fine yesterday, when you were left relying on it.

I think Benotti forgets I was accused of trolling.

 

[thehog]

Hey, you raised the 'shared dinner' nonsense, Hoggie, not me. You can't get upset when I mock that sort of silliness.

Being someone's relative doesn't make a 'direct' link, Hog, no matter how much you want it to. It's, as I said, almost a definition of indirect.

It was pure troll, Hog, and much, much worse, it was bl00min' obvious troll, and you have a reputation to keep up, my friend.

You're cleverer than that. Do better. Do better!!

Now you're just playing the man.

You attempted to suggest that Cookson Snr had no direct relationship with his son because at one time they were in different countries(!!).

It's fairly straightforward where the conflict of interest resides. I'm sure even you can see it.

One can safely see the logic is on my side of the fence no yours. My suggestion would be to check your position on this point and reconsider what you believe to be a direct relationship.

You may learn something.

 

[sniper]

There is no reason not to either.

a history lesson for you, free of charge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_cycling

What evidence do you have for your assertion that Cookson is corrupt?

who asserted this?

 

[stutue]

a history lesson for you, free of charge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_cycling

You said that under Cookson nothing would change. How does posting a list of historical doping cases support your position unless perhaps you are saying change is impossible?

who asserted this?

You did.

but froome positive? hell will freeze over before cookson allows that to happen.

Or did I misunderstand you. Perhaps you meant that Cookson will not allow Froome to test positive because he will not tolerate doping.

If it isn't that then you are directly accusing him of corruption. There is no other possible interpretation of your post. Is there any other mechanism by which Cookson can prevent a Froome positive?

It is either by anti-doping measures or by corrupt practices.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

You mean a brilliant piece of politicians mumbo jumbo, I like MV's thought on her posts.

I have my suspicions of Sky, as you well know. I have my suspicions that the current layered setup and the connections between the various arms of Britain's representatives in world cycling could be used for corrupt or nepotistic means. I do not necessarily think that it is being used for those means, however.

In another way, I strongly suspect certain people at Team Sky of being involved with doping. I do not think that doping is endemic in British cycling on a GDR-esque program, but I do think that if something big were to blow up involving someone central to it, like Brailsford, Wiggins or Kerrison, then the tentacles in many places could mean people who had no involvement get dragged into it.

How would you rather I express this, by means of two sentence troll posts at Sky's expense? Or would you just rather that I ignored my suspicions and fears and went the "never tested positive" approach that went so well in the past? If so, I'll meet you in the Valverde thread and we can swap places.

Yes, we've had guys go after Oli. Kimmage has called on Brian to remove the conflict. Not to remove Brian but to remove the conflict of Oli working for the team. It's clear what he's referring to. Benotti agrees with this and sniper has said one way this can be resolved is by Oli Cookson stepping aside from Sky. This is what I was referring to and I wasn't putting your good self in this thinking.

OK, I get you. I didn't necessarily read it in the same way as you, but I think we agree it is not Oli that is compromised by his position at Sky.

But that's where the independent testing comes in and how I said previously is where our questioning would be better off aimed at. Plus, the different shareholding in the team has been transparent in their holdings in the team and in the case of Cookson, he hasn't hid the fact his son has been working for Sky. As far as the media mogul goes, I've seen more stories in the Times regarding Sky probably than any other UK newspaper. The tramadol story last week was by Jeremy Whittle on it and it was headlines on the back page. He along with Owen Slot on motoman and Porte and Froome visiting him. There's been a few articles on JTL and Rogers and why they hired them with their dodgy pasts.

Fair enough, I agree with you on the independent testing. That would go a long way towards alleviating the fears of corruption and/or nepotism. That, and Brailsford finally leaving his post at British Cycling also helps, although he may still be around in the background, like SAF at Manchester United, I don't know. It remains to be seen.

Katuaha is entirely relelvant to this. I don't hear anyone speaking about Makarov when Rodriguez is winning or when Kristoff wins MSR. Instead all I've heard was Ben Swift after that day. Even with all these conflict of interests solely with Makarov, they had a positive with Galimzyanov.

I don't really understand why people were raising the subject of Swift that day. Races with profiles along the lines of that of San Remo are the kind of thing he's been good at since his own Катюша days. Maybe not over that kind of distance, and also he'd been kind of the B-team sprinter the last couple of years (especially when Cav was there) so he may have flown a bit under the radar since he wasn't bossing those fields like Greipel was with Grabsch, Gretsch and co. leading him out in 2009-10. I don't see any reason to suspect Ben Swift at this point in time.

You forget the clear point I've made. I've said Leinders was rightly went after. I couldn't care less about whether they have been transformations or not, it doesn't make it any better for GreenEdge to have Rodriguez Alonso compared to Sky with Leinders all because GreenEdge haven't had a rider with the same transformation of Froome.

Here again I say it, if Yates won Turkey while he was at Sky, I think there would have been a different reaction around here and that's still with no doping doc on the books with Farrell and Freeman there nowadays. Yet this happens with Rodriguez Alonso on the payroll of GreenEdge and not a murmur of it.

With Yates, I don't even want to bring in that lad to the discussion and nothing tells me he's doping but I feel it's necessary to bring it in to show the hypocritical judgement of one over the other.

I wasn't disagreeing that GreenEdge having Rodríguez Alonso is no better than Sky having Leinders, I was just illustrating why Sky were picked up on it more. The higher the profile, the more likely you are to draw attention; I wasn't really aware of how shady Ibarguren was until we started to wonder why Gilbert was so much stronger than before in 2011; I wasn't really aware of Leinders until people started to question why Team Sky had become so good and people started probing. That's when people (not myself, I'm too busy researching race routes to research team staff) looked into Leinders' past and how shady he was started to come out. When you don't have major profile success, you have to go some to get that attention (e.g. Marcos Maynar and 2008 LA-MSS).

While I concede the point with regards to if the Yates brothers were on Sky, they have been praised as riders with great potential for a couple of years now, and so it would have been less suspicious than if they were five years older with the same palmarès, or something. And Yates didn't win Turkey by riding away from everybody from the base of Elmali and then chasing every break solo like Gabrovski, or by riding up Selcuk in a Bert Grabsch gear like Sayar, and maybe just the fact he wasn't riding for Törku Seker Spor and had shown potential in international races before that was enough reason for people to reserve judgement. I do concede with regards to Sky, however that is now because Sky's PR in terms of public belief in them is beyond the point of no return for a lot of people, and riders are not given the benefit of the doubt that they may be afforded on other teams with equally shady people involved, simply because Sky have been that shady to such a high profile.

Ironically, one of the Sky riders I gave the benefit of the doubt to was Sergio Henao, since although many of the races he was doing were not UCI categorised in Colombia, he was bossing some races with some pretty useful fields down there and was thought of as a sure thing when he came to Europe.

 

[sniper]

You said that under Cookson nothing would change. How does posting a list of historical doping cases support your position unless perhaps you are saying change is impossible?

i said "there's no reason to assume cookson will clean up cycling"
you said there is no reason not to.
i showed you a whole list of reasons.

If it isn't that then you are directly accusing him of corruption.

i certainly don't think he's corrupt as we speak, but plenty of reasons (see previous pages in this thread) to fear he'll shove a froome positive under the table if he can.
if you wanna call that "asserting cookson is corrupt" or "accusing cookson of corruption", well go ahead and bend it like that.

if you'd accuse me of accusing cookson of being "corruptable", I could agree with that.
his and sky's fate are too closely related.

 

[stutue]

i said "there's no reason to assume cookson will clean up cycling"
you said there is no reason not to.
i showed you a whole list of reasons.

I think you've just done a monumental durrr.

We are talking about 'cleaning up cycling', which I'm sure we agree means tackling the doping issue. You posted a list of doping cases. That is the very thing he has to clean up rather than reasons why he can't/won't clean it up.

I certainly don't think he's corrupt as we speak, but plenty of reasons (see previous pages in this thread) to fear he'll shove a froome positive under the table if he can.
if you wanna call that "asserting cookson is corrupt" or "accusing cookson of corruption", well go ahead and bend it like that.

Are we agreed that you meant preventing a Froome positive by means of corruption?

You said "hell will freeze over before Cookson allows that". Therefore you assess him as already being corrupt, regardless of whether the act of covering up a positive has taken place.

If you'd accuse me of accusing cookson of being "corruptable", I could agree with that.

As I've said, I'd argue that you were saying something quite different, but I accept that you meant the above, and you meant it in good faith.

Now then....

What evidence do you have to support your claim that he is corruptible?

(It is, after all, a serious allegation)

 

[sniper]

...

fair enough

What evidence do you have to support your claim that he is corruptible?

(It is, after all, a serious allegation)

there's no evidence of wrongdoing.
there's plenty of evidence though of several COIs (one more weighty than the other).
check libertine's posts for a concise summary.
COIs justify concern of future wrongdoing. (check dictionary for definition of COI)

 

[stutue]

fair enough
there's no evidence of wrongdoing.
there's plenty of evidence though of several COIs (one more weighty than the other).
check libertine's posts for a concise summary.
COIs justify concern of future wrongdoing. (check dictionary for definition of COI)

I've already posted somewhere (I've posted so much on about 3 similar threads that I can't remember what I've posted where ) that I think potential COIs are inevitable.

But, I think what you are suggesting is akin to thinking that anybody who goes into a supermarket is open to shoplifting simply because there are goods on display.

I think you need more than that to draw the conclusions you have drawn. Evidence of prior behaviour for example. I don't know of any, but I'll accept your argument if you do.

 

[sniper]

..
I think you need more than that to draw the conclusions you have drawn.

no conclusions.
concerns.

But, I think what you are suggesting is akin to thinking that anybody who goes into a supermarket is open to shoplifting simply because there are goods on display.

how is it akin?
again, check libertine's posts.
We can have different opinions about how signifcant those COIs are.
I find them troubling, so does Kimmage, so do a whole lot of other posters.
You don't find them troubling, fair enough.

We the fans don't have to prove Cookson is corrupt. Cookson has to prove to us the fans that he isn't. Sorry but that's his fate thanks to his predecessors.
Thus far he's convincing the likes of Walsh. He's not convincing the likes of Kimmage.
I think Cookson can live with that.

 

[stutue]

no conclusions.
concerns

I think you have drawn conclusions....

but froome positive? hell will freeze over before cookson allows that to happen.

That's a pretty definitive comment. No suggestion of 'might' or 'possibility'.

For the rest of your last post, I can understand your cyniscism. I baulk at the mention of Kimmage, though. I think he's a 'kin lowbrowed idiot.

We can have different opinions...

Yes, we can, and I appreciate the nonaggressive tone and lack of insult in your posting style

 

[gooner]

OK, I get you. I didn't necessarily read it in the same way as you, but I think we agree it is not Oli that is compromised by his position at Sky.


Fair enough, I agree with you on the independent testing. That would go a long way towards alleviating the fears of corruption and/or nepotism. That, and Brailsford finally leaving his post at British Cycling also helps, although he may still be around in the background, like SAF at Manchester United, I don't know. It remains to be seen.

I don't really understand why people were raising the subject of Swift that day. Races with profiles along the lines of that of San Remo are the kind of thing he's been good at since his own Катюша days. Maybe not over that kind of distance, and also he'd been kind of the B-team sprinter the last couple of years (especially when Cav was there) so he may have flown a bit under the radar since he wasn't bossing those fields like Greipel was with Grabsch, Gretsch and co. leading him out in 2009-10. I don't see any reason to suspect Ben Swift at this point in time.


I wasn't disagreeing that GreenEdge having Rodríguez Alonso is no better than Sky having Leinders, I was just illustrating why Sky were picked up on it more. The higher the profile, the more likely you are to draw attention; I wasn't really aware of how shady Ibarguren was until we started to wonder why Gilbert was so much stronger than before in 2011; I wasn't really aware of Leinders until people started to question why Team Sky had become so good and people started probing. That's when people (not myself, I'm too busy researching race routes to research team staff) looked into Leinders' past and how shady he was started to come out. When you don't have major profile success, you have to go some to get that attention (e.g. Marcos Maynar and 2008 LA-MSS).

While I concede the point with regards to if the Yates brothers were on Sky, they have been praised as riders with great potential for a couple of years now, and so it would have been less suspicious than if they were five years older with the same palmarès, or something. And Yates didn't win Turkey by riding away from everybody from the base of Elmali and then chasing every break solo like Gabrovski, or by riding up Selcuk in a Bert Grabsch gear like Sayar, and maybe just the fact he wasn't riding for Törku Seker Spor and had shown potential in international races before that was enough reason for people to reserve judgement. I do concede with regards to Sky, however that is now because Sky's PR in terms of public belief in them is beyond the point of no return for a lot of people, and riders are not given the benefit of the doubt that they may be afforded on other teams with equally shady people involved, simply because Sky have been that shady to such a high profile.

Ironically, one of the Sky riders I gave the benefit of the doubt to was Sergio Henao, since although many of the races he was doing were not UCI categorised in Colombia, he was bossing some races with some pretty useful fields down there and was thought of as a sure thing when he came to Europe.

Fair points.

 

[del1962]

I have my suspicions of Sky,

mumbo jumbo snipped for brevity

past? If so, I'll meet you in the Valverde thread and we can swap places.


more mumbo jumbo sbipped for brevity

To be honest I would have more respect for you if you just said you hate Sky and love Valverde because he is a doper who "always had talent" rather than saying it just dressed up in the flowery political speak you seem to love

 

[martinvickers]

Now you're just playing the man.

You attempted to suggest that Cookson Snr had no direct relationship with his son because at one time they were in different countries(!!).

It's fairly straightforward where the conflict of interest resides. I'm sure even you can see it.

One can safely see the logic is on my side of the fence no yours. My suggestion would be to check your position on this point and reconsider what you believe to be a direct relationship.

You may learn something.

Wow, and that's a strawman on the river, Hog. Trolling straight, strawman high.

Come on, Hogster, We know this from you isn't going to work. You pushed a little too far in the first instance, you got caught. It's no biggie. We all go on tilt occasionally. Just saddle up, and try and catch me next time...