Parker said:
So what it comes down is your opinion. That is more important than the truth. The 'truth' is paramount as long as it is written by you.
In your opinion Leinders could only have been hired for doping. That must not be contadicted. The first rule of internet forums is 'protect your opinion'. While Kennaugh knows what the truth is, it cannot be compared to the validity of you opinion (how can it when you are so infallible?). How arrogant are you to think that your unsupported opinions are more valid than his actual experiences? Fool and liar, you call him. Based on nothing more than your opinion. Incredibly arrogant is the answer.
So you want people to speak out against dopers. But only on the condition that the rider saying it is acceptable to you and voices your opinion, not theirs.
Except where I never actually said that. What I implied was that if a team desperate to be seen as at the forefront of a new clean generation wanted to hire somebody to fulfil the doctor's functions but not to dope, Geert Leinders, a doctor known for doping riders, is a stupid idea.
You were arguing that we don't know the full details of a team doctor's role as a point against people being very cynical about Kennaugh's assertion that Leinders only took riders' weights, so calm it with the suspicion and derision. I was arguing that it's impossible to avoid suspicion when a clean team hires Geert Leinders, because of the reputational risk that Brailsford so belatedly admitted existed.
1. If you want to hire a doctor to dope your riders, Leinders is a good guy to have around, anecdotal evidence from Rabobank has shown.
2. If you want to hire a doctor to ride clean, Leinders may well be a good guy to have around, I don't know. However because of point 1, his reputation will always mean that his presence arouses suspicion.
3. If you want to hire a doctor to ride clean and ensure that the team looks clean, Leinders is not a good guy to have around, because his past shady activities precede and destroy him.
It's possible that Leinders went to Sky with every intent of acting in the interests of clean cycling. It's entirely possible that Leinders' hiring was not to do with doping. In which case Leinders' presence at Sky is a red herring in the Clinic's prying into Sky's perceived shadiness. BUT, if it is a red herring... why are there red herrings? Why does the team hire a guy whose presence they need to justify at all turns because of his doping connections? It's just a terrible decision.
And of course, this is notwithstanding that his presence on the team more or less guarantees doping. Not in the words of the Clinic (though I'm sure most of the so-called Clinic 12 would happily say so), but in fact in the words of Dave Brailsford, who more or less acknowledges his own hypocrisy AND that people connected to Team Sky are cheats:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/brailsford-hits-back-at-accusations-and-criticism-of-team-sky
Dave Brailsford said:
"Of course it was a mistake. Absolutely. But hiring one doctor, who worked for 40 days, does that means we're doping now, are we? How does that work?" he said, using a stream of questions to give his answer.
So far so good. However,
in the very next paragraph, he is quoted thus:
"If you’re a cheat, you're a cheat, you're not half a cheat. You wouldn't say, 'I'll cheat here but I'm not going to cheat over there]
So, in hiring one doctor (who is a known doping doctor), it DOESN'T mean they're doping... BUT anybody who cheats IS a cheat, and cannot reform, or change. And as Leinders was a doping doc at Rabo, he would be perfectly willing to do so at Sky, because Brailsford doesn't believe in reformed dopers (except maybe David Millar).
Leinders' role may have been innocent, but because he is Geert Leinders, people will always have their own position on whether to believe that or not. Kennaugh can state from a position of knowledge, but his position is not independent because he is part of the team under question and has his own reputation to think about. You know that, I know that. I can claim independence, but I cannot state from a position of knowledge (and would have to declare a prior prejudice, of course).
The only way to fully prevent people connecting the Leinders dot would have been not to have hired him in the first place. And Brailsford knows that as well as anybody, since he admits it was a mistake.
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