Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[DirtyWorks]

Re:

Its bigger since the Murdoch Empire stops at nothing, the people who are never visible

Don't discount the UCI's own greediness. You might not have read the CIRC report. It basically confirmed my crackpot theory that the UCI let USA Cycling/USPS off the leash to "grow cycling."

And now what is ASO up to in the UK? A stage race, a sportiv, another stage of the TdF. The UCI had a huge payout with the London Olympic games.

It seems to me the only stakeholders in cycling (UCI/ASO) are doing much better this time than they did with USPS/USA Cycling.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

This will be slightly long-winded post, but here is my opinion/feeling about the Team Sky...

1) Team Sky is only a tip of the iceberg, but the roots are in British Cycling & National Cycling Centre/Manchester Velodrome.

2) National Cycling Centre (from here on NCC) was opened in 1994 to promote & develop British Track Cycling. It is state-funded, institutionalised centre with open (and likely hidden) access to co-operation with universities, medical schools etc. in a way which (maybe except Astana) no road cycling trade team can even dream about...

3) NCC understandably started with an emphasis on track cycling as many track events are PURE performance sports with no tactics adaptation to daily conditions (elements of nature) etc. included. The results started to pile up :

1996 Olympics : no medals on track (Boardman & Sciandri took medals on road, but they had nothing to do with NCC, really)
2000 Olympics : Gold for Jason Queally in 1000 m TT, 3 other medals. No yet success in more tactical events like individual sprint, madison, keirin etc.
2004 Olympics : 2 Golds thru' Sir Brad & Chris Hoy
2008 Olympics : Total domination! 7 golds out of total of 10 available on track. Every "performance event" gold to UK! Only points races and men's madison slipped away...

4) 2009 : The birth of Team Sky in a very close co-operation of British Cycling...

I am bluntly accusing that NCC is a hotbed of very advanced doping research and the natural progression has been to start with the "easiest" pure performance sports and move towards most tactical, most pricey sport (= professional road cycling).

This would also explain why it is mostly British riders who do advance to "alien"-level in Team Sky. As it is national institution, the best of "knowledge" is not to be given for your competitors. While they are teammates in Sky, they are "enemies" of British Cycling in WCs/Olympics etc. Sky has employed a lot of talented foreigners, but the only one who appears to have been given "full 5-course meal" is Richie Porte. Otoh, numerous foreign riders (EBH, Löfkvist, Gerrans, Uran, Henao, Deignan, Roche, König etc) have remained very mortal, stagnated or even plummeted off the cliff while in Sky. So it is not only a "peloton a deux vitesses", but also "team a deux vitesses".

And this separates Team Sky from almost ALL of its competition... Even the richest competitors are still private teams - only Astana has similar governmental backing. However, I also think that cutting-edge sports medicinal research is more likely to happen in UK, than in Kazakhstan.

And this leads to...

5) I don't think Team Sky are BIGGER cheats than most of their competition (although they are the most double-faced in their insistence of innocence). Frankly, yesterday Froome put a whipping for plenty of riders/teams, which have no moral qualms in using any available PEDs/methods as long as they avoid being caught. However, the rest of the teams are restricted to "known methods" of blood transfusion / micro-dosing etc. while I'm pretty convinced Team Sky has some completely unknown, off-the-market, unpublicised stuff which they can utilise freely without ANY danger of detection (at this moment). Quite BALCOish, but likely with public sources / funding instead of private lab.

6) So, do I feel sorry for beaten "cheats" like Contador, Nibali, Piti etc. for them being caught way behind in "arms race". Not really. They would do the same without any remorse given a half-chance...

7) But at the same time - this is

- killing the suspense
- making the world of cycling even MORE unfair for riders. If the best stuff is (at least for a moment) available only for riders of certain nationality, why should others bother?

8) I am strong supporter of CLEAN sport. I also believe that to be unrealistic ideal. However, a world where the doping is limited to certain known methods/PEDs and doping controls can even hinder and put limitations to a use of those known "evils", the field is rather fair and even. The guys who want to ride clean will likely not win too often, but they are not in unconquerable disadvantage AND they pretty much know how much of headstart the dopers have...

9) But in a world where one group of riders (apparently not even close to a full team) have stuff which no one else knows about... That is no longer a sport. It is WORSE that Lance-years. At least Lance used same stuff as everybody else. He only could use it more efficiently as he had the "immunity" from getting caught and a "private line" to whistle-blow whomever had the audacity to raise their bar to match him (Hamilton, Mayo).

In case some missed it. Some very interesting points in this post.

It also points to a bigger fraud and organised doping set up than Armstrong.

With a load of insanity mixed in for good measure.

 

[Poursuivant]

What was the w/kg for the Froome group today?

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Ross Tucker to chat on Off The Ball in 19.45 Dublin time at newstalk.com, in case you didn't notice his twitter post and are interested.

https://twitter.com/Scienceofsport/status/621376716183724032

anyone heard this interview and could tell me a summary?

from the man himself

http://sportsscientists.com/2015/07/close-your-eyes-really-tightly/

Ross knocked it out of the park. Fantastic. My one frustration was that when talking about St Martin he didn't mention Porte coming 2nd. And didn't mention when talking about comparisons to Lance that Froomie came close to Lance in times 2 years ago.

But that's me being picky. The way they ended it was well done, and possibly pre planned seeing as how the interviewer clearly comes from the "Froome dopes" side. With the last question being how does Froome compare to the doping era and Ross saying that Froome's times fit right in with Pantani, Contador, Armstrong, Riis. Which actually isn't strictly true since Riis at least was better (won't say Pantani becuase while Pantani climbed better he ttd worse).

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Re:

With a load of insanity mixed in for good measure.

I'd really appreciate it if you could go through and highlight the "insanity".

For the most part I have appreciated your contribution, but this last post of yours is a red flag for me. I read the post in question and there are no grandiose claims or new ideas. Australia had a very similar thing going on (IMO) at the AIS before the government broke it up. Did you know Ashenden was overseas seeking to set up relationships with drug companies "for dope testing purposes" at the same time he and Robin Parisotto were doing said "dope detection testing" on AIS athletes? The government basically said - "hang on this looks like a massive conflict of interest" and pulled the pin.

To dismiss the post with such a hyperbolic adjective without even attempting to engage or express any counter claims is making my spidey senses tingle.

 

[Irondan]

Re:

Off topic perhaps, but could we please get a forum that allows for quoting only the one post you are responding to?

I agree. Unfortunately most people don't bother to remove the unneccessary quoted text because it's a giant pain in the butt.. Maybe we can bring it up in the appropriate thread to the Dev. Team... Sam's usually pretty good about responding to technical issues.

Okay, back to the Sky discussion. Apologies for the slight sidetrack.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

With a load of insanity mixed in for good measure.

I'd really appreciate it if you could go through and highlight the "insanity".

For the most part I have appreciated your contribution, but this last post of yours is a red flag for me. I read the post in question and there are no grandiose claims or new ideas. Australia had a very similar thing going on (IMO) at the AIS before the government broke it up.

To dismiss the post with such a hyperbolic adjective without even attempting to engage or express any counter claims is making my spidey senses tingle.

Hard for me to type long replies at the moment, but I've covered it in the past when accusations were levelled at Sheffield University because Dave Brailsford was using them for something (forgotten what it is now).

The suggestion that public money is being used to fund research at UK universities, because that is about the only place it could be done, into producing cutting edge doping products, risking academics careers and livelihoods for little to no gain to them (as they obviously couldn't publish it) for a sport practically no-one cares about in the UK can only be described as insane or stupid and I felt the first would be more acceptable. It's worth noting a huge number of researchers at UK universities are not British, so the insinuations of national ties to bespoke, publicly funded doping research are also crazy. Something like that could literally destroy a whole university's research program. It also completely misunderstands how public money is given to Universities, how it is managed and who it is accounted for.

Sky may be using something others aren't, the ketone drinks have come up several times, they are not doping but they are a good example, and it's possible a team like Sky could have a private lab to fully understand how doping affects their riders and so perfect exactly the right cocktail for each rider to give them a performance boost and make sure they do not trip the anti-doping tests. It's even possible that they are using public money to procure doping products, but I don't think that was happening at AIS was it? I have no idea how their public funding is managed so really can't comment on that, but Armstrong and the USPS team did it so it's not much of a stretch.

But, they're not getting stuff created for them through the public purse. That certainly wasn't happening at the AIS from everything I've read.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Re:

With a load of insanity mixed in for good measure.

I'd really appreciate it if you could go through and highlight the "insanity".

For the most part I have appreciated your contribution, but this last post of yours is a red flag for me. I read the post in question and there are no grandiose claims or new ideas. Australia had a very similar thing going on (IMO) at the AIS before the government broke it up.

To dismiss the post with such a hyperbolic adjective without even attempting to engage or express any counter claims is making my spidey senses tingle.

Hard for me to type long replies at the moment, but I've covered it in the past when accusations were levelled at Sheffield University because Dave Brailsford was using them for something (forgotten what it is now).

The suggestion that public money is being used to fund research at UK universities, because that is about the only place it could be done, into producing cutting edge doping products, risking academics careers and livelihoods for little to no gain to them (as they obviously couldn't publish it) for a sport practically no-one cares about in the UK can only be described as insane or stupid and I felt the first would be more acceptable. It's worth noting a huge number of researchers at UK universities are not British, so the insinuations of national ties to bespoke, publicly funded doping research are also crazy. Something like that could literally destroy a whole university's research program. It also completely misunderstands how public money is given to Universities, how it is managed and who it is accounted for.

Sky may be using something others aren't, the ketone drinks have come up several times, they are not doping but they are a good example, and it's possible a team like Sky could have a private lab to fully understand how doping affects their riders and so perfect exactly the right cocktail for each rider to give them a performance boost and make sure they do not trip the anti-doping tests. It's even possible that they are using public money to procure doping products, but I don't think that was happening at AIS was it? I have no idea how their public funding is managed so really can't comment on that, but Armstrong and the USPS team did it so it's not much of a stretch.

But, they're not getting stuff created for them through the public purse. That certainly wasn't happening at the AIS from everything I've read.

If Ashenden had not lost his job after he arrived overseas, I am pretty sure he was going to be returning to Australia with new doping products "for dope detection purposes", yes. Funded by AIS and thus public money, yes. Which is why (I believe) the government at the time shut it down, effectively firing him and leaving him stranded in a foreign country.

I didn't read this NCC post as implying the compounds were being created by the research institutions for the riders per se, more that they had access to anything new going on. Keeping in mind these drugs tend to be created for health purposes and they have advanced research methods and facilities. All of which could be of assistance to athletes.

It would be interesting to look into why Ketones were a focus for study and subsequent isolation / creation. They were a Brit invention and first isolated in the UK. It's not much of a stretch to put them into the hands of UK sporting power house.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

This is what Ferrari says:

The researcher Kieran Clarke, University of Oxford (British, always them...) synthesized in 2005 a KETONE monoester : ®-3-hydroxybutyl®-3- hydroxybutyrate, which is able to reproduce a ketosis similar to that of fasting.
The molecule, administered orally, is rapidly absorbed and immediately split into beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate: the maximum peak concentration in the blood is 2-3 hours after intake and the return to baseline comes after 8-10 hours (Regul Toxicol Pharmacol 2012 , 63 (3)) .
This Ketone monoester was recently patented and should be marketed in 2014 by a company called TdeltaS, even though the substance, according to claims by the company itself, has already been used by athletes from 2011 up to now...

http://www.53x12.com/do/show?page=article&id=131

TdeltaS are using "Sky use this stuff" as part of their marketing blurb - whether they do or not is yet to be determined. Brailsford is denying.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Too funny:

I came to Oxford in 1991, having gained my PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Queensland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRz7QOLIxVA

 

[seldon71]

Re: Re:

The suggestion that public money is being used to fund research at UK universities, because that is about the only place it could be done, into producing cutting edge doping products, risking academics careers and livelihoods for little to no gain to them (as they obviously couldn't publish it) for a sport practically no-one cares about in the UK can only be described as insane or stupid and I felt the first would be more acceptable.

Few corrections :

a) I don't think those results are used solely for cycling, but definitely also for swimmers, middle-/long-distance runners, canoeing, rowing and similar endurance sports.

b) it may not be done in medical universities - I guess you also have universities for sports research. Our much smaller economy (Finland) is strong enough to fund KiHu (Kilpa- ja Huippu-urheilun tutkimuskeskus), which translates to Research Centre for Competition & Top-Level Sports. A quite shady research centre indeed with some of their employees (doctors) being caught for administrating systematic doping together with cross-country skiing. Their careers were not ruined, but rather they were silently hired to influential positions in our healthcare system after their career in sports came to an end. And while they were never caught, similar scam was run with top Finnish swimmers in 90s (Jani Sievinen, Antti Kasvio).

c) UK looks like the darkest spot in Western Europe right now and that tends to happen when country is granted Olympic Games and EVERYTHING is sacrificed for being successful in your own games. While cycling probably only received a trickle-down effects (due it's splintered status between multitude of teams), the same happened in Spain for Barceloina games. Check their distance runners of that time. They were running on high-octane.

d) Australia indeed had same type of programme (without road cycling trade team) for track cycling and swimming. Dirty as hell & completely public-funded. Yes, it has been torn down...

e) altogether - whenever a "National Team" enters road cycling world, it should be seen as double-suspicious. Rabobank was one of these, Astana obviously, going further back in history there was Telekom. Sorry to say, but national sports federations & national anti-doping associations tend to "sleep in same bed". By being a National Federation team, you are pretty safe of getting caught by domestic testing (unless you are too obvious and "asked" to be picked off as an example - see JTL). One team which I strongly advise you all to keep an eye on is Synergy Baku Cycling Project. Azerbaijan has truckloads of money, absolutely no moral conscience, they are dead-serious in getting global exposure in multiple different stages and have no similar international entry obstacles, which have blocked Iranians from going berserk in any major event. Besides, they have already shown their "colours" by hiring ex-Sky Jeremy Hunt as their DS. If Aliyevs stay interested in cycling, that team maybe doing some ridiculous stuff in about 4 years time....

 

[Miburo]

HLN, biggest paper in belgium called out sky (thomas). Mentioned the marginal gains and even leinders, didn't see that one coming then again it's popular right now to do it.

 

[Macky16]

This is all well and good, but your case still boils down to 'They are too good to be clean', how do we know they are too good? 'Because I know they are too good', You need to provide some evidence either of drug taking or that these performances genuinely are physiologically impossible without cheating in order to legitimately make those assertions with that level of confidence.

Given the advances in training, nutrition, bike/clothing technology to claim that the only way that froome could complete with the performances of the EPO era is drugs seems to ignore all these other possibilities. Yes he could be doping, yes sky and british cycling could be doping, but there are also many other equally if not more probable explanations, esp given the amount of drug testing that occurs and the absence of any direct accusations of drug taking.

 

[Gung Ho Gun]

I do not necessarily think these performances are physiologically impossible
I am 100% certain that someone who is capable of these performances clean, will win more than the Anatomic Jock Race by the time he reaches age 26

 

[Bronstein]

Re:

This is all well and good, but your case still boils down to 'They are too good to be clean', how do we know they are too good? 'Because I know they are too good', You need to provide some evidence either of drug taking or that these performances genuinely are physiologically impossible without cheating in order to legitimately make those assertions with that level of confidence.

Given the advances in training, nutrition, bike/clothing technology to claim that the only way that froome could complete with the performances of the EPO era is drugs seems to ignore all these other possibilities. Yes he could be doping, yes sky and british cycling could be doping, but there are also many other equally if not more probable explanations, esp given the amount of drug testing that occurs and the absence of any direct accusations of drug taking.

Such as?

 

[Zam_Olyas]

I have seriously come to think that Sky are possiby clean.

 

[Singer01]

can anybody say (with some degree of expertise) what G is on to generate this kind of transformation. what would his program look like to turn him from mid 20s last year to 2nd strongest (and getting stronger) this year?

 

[Knutsen]

Re:

I have seriously come to think that Sky are possiby clean.

Sincere or not, only a masochist would say that. You are in for it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tym0MObFpTI

The Brits has their ways.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

If Ashenden had not lost his job after he arrived overseas, I am pretty sure he was going to be returning to Australia with new doping products "for dope detection purposes", yes. Funded by AIS and thus public money, yes. Which is why (I believe) the government at the time shut it down, effectively firing him and leaving him stranded in a foreign country.

It's probably worthwhile defining new doping products at this point. I'm taking it to mean things not currently available, either specifically designed for doping of syphoned off to doping at an early stage in development (pre-FDA/MHRA approval). Is that fair?

In this case EPO wasn't a new doing product. AICAR isn't etc. and that's what I'm driving at. The idea something is being created specifically for doping and being given out without any approval is crazy. Testing things as performance enhancers after discovery? Quite possible, though highly unlikely to involve UK universities in any nefarious way.

I didn't read this NCC post as implying the compounds were being created by the research institutions for the riders per se, more that they had access to anything new going on. Keeping in mind these drugs tend to be created for health purposes and they have advanced research methods and facilities. All of which could be of assistance to athletes.

This is still very, very unlikely. The UK has some of the most stringent ethics processes in the world (I know as I've been involved with lots of ethics applications). The idea that leading medical researchers would happily pass things on to a load of sports teams is misdirected at best and if they were going to do it cycling would be right at the bottom of the list. This kind of thing would literally destroy a university, no doubt several universities and associated NHS trusts, charities, private companies etc. involved in the research for literally no gain. The Pharmaceutical industry is enormous, the idea of risking any potential new drug to help out a few athletes no-one cares about is insane.

It would be interesting to look into why Ketones were a focus for study and subsequent isolation / creation. They were a Brit invention and first isolated in the UK. It's not much of a stretch to put them into the hands of UK sporting power house.

This isn't really correct or relevant. Ketones covers a huge range of compounds, not just the few being touted as miracle fuels and ketosis is a part of basic metabolism that has been known about for a very long time. They weren't invented by anyone.

It's not relevant because it isn't doping, using it to enforce an idea that doping is endemic in UK sport is a strawman. You might as well say that Cavendish discovered the structure of water, so the use of water in sports nutrition ties the UK to doping (massive artistic licence I know, but easier than picking glycolysis, which ties Germans and Russians to doping via the Embden–Meyerhof–Parnas pathway ).

 

[Franklin]

Re: Re:

The idea that leading medical researchers would happily pass things on to a load of sports teams is misdirected at best and if they were going to do it cycling would be right at the bottom of the list. This kind of thing would literally destroy a university, no doubt several universities and associated NHS trusts, charities, private companies etc. involved in the research for literally no gain. The Pharmaceutical industry is enormous, the idea of risking any potential new drug to help out a few athletes no-one cares about is insane.=

Conconi was a dream?
Freiburg is in a corrupt third-world country which is known for it's flawed ethics? It's now a destroyed crater where nobody works anymore?
Ethics at university are infallible? So those articles of fraudulous professors at Dutch Universities are a mirage? Or are you saying the Dutch are inherently more unethical than the Brittish?

And the fallacy that a drug has to be cycling specific is quite clear here: a drug that works for cyclists would also work for Football, running and even swimming. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to think of a sport which wouldn't benefit from strength, endurance and recovery.

Your dismissal on the grounds of ethics and morals has been shown to be absolutely worthless against money. Your notion that universities are a beacon of ethics are especially hilarious.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

Few corrections :

a) I don't think those results are used solely for cycling, but definitely also for swimmers, middle-/long-distance runners, canoeing, rowing and similar endurance sports.

The swimming I don't get, it's also my problem with the accusations levelled at Kerrison. British Swimming gets huge amounts of money and their results are terrible and that's where Kerrison came from. In fact, I think the results were some of the worst in decades when Kerrison was there. If there is publicly funded research available to all these sports in some sort of underground doping syndicate, why are the swimmers so poor?

Even though I did it for a while I know nothing about canoeing so can't comment and rowing and long distance running I just think is standard doping and we happened to hit a few good responders. Also, if this is hinting at Farah it's worth noting he was a fairly good but hardly exceptional runner while training in the UK but only became a world beater when he moved to the Oregon Project in the US.

b) it may not be done in medical universities - I guess you also have universities for sports research. Our much smaller economy (Finland) is strong enough to fund KiHu (Kilpa- ja Huippu-urheilun tutkimuskeskus), which translates to Research Centre for Competition & Top-Level Sports. A quite shady research centre indeed with some of their employees (doctors) being caught for administrating systematic doping together with cross-country skiing. Their careers were not ruined, but rather they were silently hired to influential positions in our healthcare system after their career in sports came to an end. And while they were never caught, similar scam was run with top Finnish swimmers in 90s (Jani Sievinen, Antti Kasvio).

Real medical research is invariably done at universities in collaboration with the NHS and private companies. It's part of what I do. The top sports science departments are parts of universities and would have to collaborate with people who have the required facilities.

Refining doping is vastly different to coming up with new doping products. I have no issue with the idea that there may be public funding being used to refine doping (although I highly doubt that those trials are being done at universities) and this would be being done by the sports bodies themselves, like British Cycling etc.

c) UK looks like the darkest spot in Western Europe right now and that tends to happen when country is granted Olympic Games and EVERYTHING is sacrificed for being successful in your own games. While cycling probably only received a trickle-down effects (due it's splintered status between multitude of teams), the same happened in Spain for Barceloina games. Check their distance runners of that time. They were running on high-octane.

Again, I don't get this at all. How is the UK the "darkest spot"? Darkest spot for what? Doping? Unethical medical research? Crap weather? I don't see us smashing everyone in every sport. Our best long distance runner doesn't even train with a UK facility at the moment. Yes, we performed ridiculously well in the olympics, but better doping is not the same as new doping.

d) Australia indeed had same type of programme (without road cycling trade team) for track cycling and swimming. Dirty as hell & completely public-funded. Yes, it has been torn down...

I have not seen any evidence at all that the AIS were involved in developing new doping products, defining new doping products as new biologically active molecules and that's my main issue with your first post. Involved in refining doping with known drugs? Fine, no problem there.

Dragging in cutting edge medical research and syphoning off and risking possible life-saving drugs just to help athletes with in a quasi-nationalistic sense, even though a huge number of people involved are not British? Insane.

e) altogether - whenever a "National Team" enters road cycling world, it should be seen as double-suspicious. Rabobank was one of these, Astana obviously, going further back in history there was Telekom. Sorry to say, but national sports federations & national anti-doping associations tend to "sleep in same bed". By being a National Federation team, you are pretty safe of getting caught by domestic testing (unless you are too obvious and "asked" to be picked off as an example - see JTL). One team which I strongly advise you all to keep an eye on is Synergy Baku Cycling Project. Azerbaijan has truckloads of money, absolutely no moral conscience, they are dead-serious in getting global exposure in multiple different stages and have no similar international entry obstacles, which have blocked Iranians from going berserk in any major event. Besides, they have already shown their "colours" by hiring ex-Sky Jeremy Hunt as their DS. If Aliyevs stay interested in cycling, that team maybe doing some ridiculous stuff in about 4 years time....

Which team isn't a national team? They're all registered somewhere and almost all have ties to that country beyond the licence as far as I can see. You're basically saying we should be suspicious of every cycling team... and we are.

I'm fully aware of the risks of nationalised anti-doping, I've always been against it and still am.


To be clear, I would say the same about accusations levelled at any country and I'll say the same about your accusations against Azerbaijan. Spending loads of money to refine known doping or available products? Fine.

Actually carrying out medical research which involves a ridiculous amount of money, clinical trials, extremely stringent regulatory hoops to jump through and a very large number of people? Insane.

FYI, the cost to bring a new drug to market varies but is between $1-6 billion. That should really be the only argument needed.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Re:

With a load of insanity mixed in for good measure.

If you get a chance, quoting the specific paragraphs or complete sentences that are insane would help me understand your somewhat hyperbolic post.

Thanks.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

The idea that leading medical researchers would happily pass things on to a load of sports teams is misdirected at best and if they were going to do it cycling would be right at the bottom of the list. This kind of thing would literally destroy a university, no doubt several universities and associated NHS trusts, charities, private companies etc. involved in the research for literally no gain. The Pharmaceutical industry is enormous, the idea of risking any potential new drug to help out a few athletes no-one cares about is insane.=

Conconi was a dream?
Freiburg is in a corrupt third-world country which is known for it's flawed ethics? It's now a destroyed crater where nobody works anymore?
Ethics at university are infallible? So those articles of fraudulous professors at Dutch Universities are a mirage? Or are you saying the Dutch are inherently more unethical than the Brittish?

And the fallacy that a drug has to be cycling specific is quite clear here: a drug that works for cyclists would also work for Football, running and even swimming. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to think of a sport which wouldn't benefit from strength, endurance and recovery.

Your dismissal on the grounds of ethics and morals has been shown to be absolutely worthless against money. Your notion that universities are a beacon of ethics are especially hilarious.

Please read and understand my posts before replying to them. it's right there in what you quoted, I've even highlighted it for you.

I've made no reference to drugs being specific to any sport, I've merely replied to a post that discusses a limited range of sports. Don't put words in my mouth.

 

[Franklin]

Re: Re:

Actually carrying out medical research which involves a ridiculous amount of money, clinical trials, extremely stringent regulatory hoops to jump through and a very large number of people? Insane.

FYI, the cost to bring a new drug to market varies but is between $1-6 billion. That should really be the only argument needed.

RETRACTION: Someone did claim exactly what you siad. Applogies, that does indeed rank into the tin--foil cuckoo category.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Re:

FYI, the cost to bring a new drug to market varies but is between $1-6 billion. That should really be the only argument needed.

If the NCC post had even suggested that that is what is going on - drugs designed for sports - I would agree with you. But it isn't. Not by even the most warped interpretation I can conjure, at any rate.

As for your call to arms for the ethics of universities. Well.

My understanding of the banking system in the UK makes them sound like a bunch of butchers, ripping the financial resources out of the country on the way to a golden parachute. And that's a regulated industry, where ethics are not even allowed to be leaned on, and they still get away with it.

Unis in this day and age are sorely needing funding and your belief that UK unis are all ok is cute.