Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[JimmyFingers]

That doesn't mean a lot. All it shows is that doping to excess (like Riis racing with a hematocrit of 64) has more or less ended. I'm more inclined to believe that the peloton hasn't cleaned up much at all since Lance's day. You might have perhaps 5% more riders riding unassisted, and the rest of the dopers using a few thousand fewer units of EPO or one less blood bag than their predecessors.

Which I did allude to in the post. It certainly isn't definitive in any way

 

[JimmyFingers]

I think you'll find it is

I refer to the honourable gentleman the answer I gave moments ago

Actually I had no idea, just linked to it as the chap asked. It's a fairly meaningless statistic anyway, although it once gave me hope

 

[Grandillusion]

Sports Scientists blog

Possibly the most relelvant analysis to your question, with a good preamble about Bradley's outburst about...well this place. Basically the analysis tells us they were climbing within psyiological limits, but the counter to this is that they are doping to a minimum so giving themselves only a slight edge and performance within the realms of possibility, or that they were soft-pedalling, with an eye on their power meter to make sure they didn't trigger any alarms.

Depends on your viewpoint really, but power and speeds up the climbs are distinctly below the dark era speeds.

Thanks Jimmy, although I the link doesn't seem to be accessible at the mo; I'll try it again later.

Got the gist of what you're saying though - so really there's no reliable way of knowing for sure that some (maybe lower) level of enhancement is still regularly taking place? (Rhetorical).

What a pickle the sport is in. It's only a matter of time before the next major credibility-draining doping scandal then.

 

[JimmyFingers]

Thanks Jimmy, although I the link doesn't seem to be accessible at the mo; I'll try it again later.

Got the gist of what you're saying though - so really there's no reliable way of knowing for sure that some (maybe lower) level of enhancement is still regularly taking place? (Rhetorical).

What a pickle the sport is in. It's only a matter of time before the next major credibility-draining doping scandal then.

Basically you have on one hand the riders performing within physiological 'acceptable' levels, significantly lower than known dopers like Pantani and Armstrong but given that the riders and teams know what those levels are, there is plenty of scope to control their performance, keeping it within acceptable levels so as to not trip any wires, but enough to beat the opposition. It's a more sophioscated approach than previous eras so generally as evidence of clean riding riding power meters are largely debunked.

As I found out when I came in here using as evidence of Sky being clean.

That said it is at least something positive

 

[thehog]

I refer to the honourable gentleman the answer I gave moments ago

Actually I had no idea, just linked to it as the chap asked. It's a fairly meaningless statistic anyway, although it once gave me hope

Well if you're going to link to a blog that was once telling Lance was clean then at least have a link that works!

People might think you don't care enough to believe what you trumpet.

Maybe better you say "I don't know".

 

[Alphabet]

Power metres should be done away with in competition, but perhaps that's a matter for another thread.

 

[del1962]

Are you talking about Ross Tucker? (Sports Scientist)

 

[Libertine Seguros]

You seem to contradict yourself slightly with the two statements I've highlighted. Personally I would say it's far-fetched to say BC is undertaking Eastern-bloc style doping, meaning an entire generation of British cyclists and cycling staff have taken the moral decision to turn to dope to achieve results. You're are saying hundreds even thousands of people might be complicit in a grand deception. For me that is a bridge to far to even hint at without more concrete information to go on beyond 'convenience'. As I said, it's like saying British cyclists could never be good, so they must dope to achieve results.

Yet the example you cite are JTL and Froome, who aren't part of the 'academy' of BC, but whose talents have developed independently of BC and the suggested doping programme that is being run by them. Are you saying they are the exception that proves the rule?

There is no contradiction. I cite JTL and Froome as examples precisely BECAUSE they aren't part of the academy at BC. Because that's what makes their transformations more suspicious. They are people who just happened to chance upon realising that they're actually massive talents, at the time that the BC program was reaping its rewards.

The BC guys who came from within BC have improved, because they've been developed and nurtured to do so. So I'm not calling those suspicious. It's the way that guys who have nothing to do with the careful nurturing arm of BC have suddenly leapt to the front of the list of priority projects for Sky (and by proxy BC because of the blurry distinction) with sudden and extreme improvements that has raised my interest with regards to the coincidence. It's like Froome suddenly went from a guy who was there because of his passport and to provide support for BC's projects they were developing, to suddenly vaulting ahead of all of them and taking the opportunities that those riders he had been domestiquing for had been groomed for.

From his results as a junior and espoir, Jamie Burrow was a greater talent than Chris Froome and Jonathan Tiernan-Locke... put together. He was the #1 ranked U23 in the world in 1999. He was arguably the best talent Britain had created since Robert Millar. But for the last six years he's been riding Gran Fondos, because he came about at the wrong time. And at the same time Chris Froome is showing us exactly what happens if Andy Schleck was able to time trial, given his super-peaking and hilarious reinvention. Chris Froome and Jonathan Tiernan-Locke have hit upon their purple patches of form at the right time. But when you throw in the incredible timing of the patches of bilharzia that arrange themselves around contract signings and Grand Tours, it seems like Chris Froome's rejuvenation has had a lot to do with convenient timing. I'm perhaps guilty of over-thinking this because of how suspicious I've found the timing of other things regarding Chris Froome and his miracle development... but I look at him standing on the podium of the Vuelta and the Tour and think... that should have been Burrow. He should've been that guy. He had the results as an espoir that we could point to and say "he always had the talent to make it as a GT contender". We wouldn't be trying to analyse whether winning the Anatomic Jock Race or being in the same break as Johan van Summeren in week 3 of the Tour meant a guy could win a GT.

Regards a guy like JTL... he has good reasons for his surprise late development, and I acknowledge those. But that he happened to have that major improvement when he did - when he could benefit the most from it because of Sky's standing in World Cycling (and hey, hilly Classics has been one area where they hadn't that strong a presence, with Gerrans leaving, though Urán is of course pretty useful in that regard) - is interesting. Possibly coincidental, but it's difficult to avoid being sucked into conspiracy theories with Sky because they seem to be very good at behaving in such a way as to inspire them. All I know is, if a guy like Remmert Wielinga or Kai Reus started wrecking the .1-ranked races next year, it would be a surprise. Both of those guys were supertalents, way above Tiernan-Locke pre-mono, and both have given up cycling and had a year or two of comeback. But it would still be extremely surprising to see them at that level next year, and it would mean that people would question them. With them there would be ample room for a conspiracy theory about convenient timing as well, of course - with the former Rabo team hunting for a sponsor and needing Dutch riders to be at the forefront of people's thinking.

 

[BroDeal]

You seem to contradict yourself slightly with the two statements I've highlighted. Personally I would say it's far-fetched to say BC is undertaking Eastern-bloc style doping, meaning an entire generation of British cyclists and cycling staff have taken the moral decision to turn to dope to achieve results. You're are saying hundreds even thousands of people might be complicit in a grand deception.

I am pretty certain something like this could never ever ever happen in cycling.

 

[thehog]

There is no contradiction. I cite JTL and Froome as examples precisely BECAUSE they aren't part of the academy at BC. Because that's what makes their transformations more suspicious.

The BC guys who came from within BC have improved, because they've been developed and nurtured to do so. So I'm not calling those suspicious. It's the way that guys who have nothing to do with the careful nurturing arm of BC have suddenly leapt to the front of the list of priority projects for Sky (and by proxy BC because of the blurry distinction) with sudden and extreme improvements that has raised my interest with regards to the coincidence. It's like Froome suddenly went from a guy who was there because of his passport and to provide support for BC's projects they were developing, to suddenly vaulting ahead of all of them and taking the opportunities that those riders he had been domestiquing for had been groomed for.

From his results as a junior and espoir, Jamie Burrow was a greater talent than Chris Froome and Jonathan Tiernan-Locke... put together. He was the #1 ranked U23 in the world in 1999. He was arguably the best talent Britain had created since Robert Millar. But for the last six years he's been riding Gran Fondos, because he came about at the wrong time. And at the same time Chris Froome is showing us exactly what happens if Andy Schleck was able to time trial, given his super-peaking and hilarious reinvention. Chris Froome and Jonathan Tiernan-Locke have hit upon their purple patches of form at the right time. But when you throw in the incredible timing of the patches of bilharzia that arrange themselves around contract signings and Grand Tours, it seems like Chris Froome's rejuvenation has had a lot to do with convenient timing. I'm perhaps guilty of over-thinking this because of how suspicious I've found the timing of other things regarding Chris Froome and his miracle development... but I look at him standing on the podium of the Vuelta and the Tour and think... that should have been Burrow. He should've been that guy. He had the results as an espoir that we could point to and say "he always had the talent to make it as a GT contender". We wouldn't be trying to analyse whether winning the Anatomic Jock Race or being in the same break as Johan van Summeren in week 3 of the Tour meant a guy could win a GT.

The Atomic Jock Race indeed. It's that simple. Simpatico.

 

[thehog]

The Atomic Jock Race indeed. It's that simple. Simpatico.

"My job consists essentially, I would like to say exclusively, of advising athletes of the best way to train and proposing to these athletes alternatives – perfectly legal alternatives – to the use of doping substances,” he explained. “High altitude training for instance rather than using Erythroprotein [EPO -ed] but, not only this also the use of nutrition in a targeted way.”

That will be Teneriife then Doctor?

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/1...ng-or-ever-seeing-him-dope.aspx#ixzz2F3tiNrmK

Is this the guy SkyFans were championing for their cause?

 

[Mellow Velo]

That will be Teneriife then Doctor?

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/1...ng-or-ever-seeing-him-dope.aspx#ixzz2F3tiNrmK

Is this the guy SkyFans were championing for their cause?

No, he's the guy you are championing for your cause.

 

[blackcat]

I am pretty certain something like this could never ever ever happen in cycling.

eastern bloc centralise, command control.

us'o'a great britain, capitalist mixed economies, outsource

epoSino

outsource advantage= plausible deniability

the plausible deniability trope is the drone warfare in the dopers arsenal. protection and immunisation of team complicity

 

[blackcat]

I am pretty certain something like this could never ever ever happen in cycling.

eastern bloc centralise, command control.

us'o'a great britain, capitalist mixed economies, outsource

epoSino

 

[sniper]

i fully agree with blackcat here...

 

[coinneach]

I watched Eurosports hour long programme on the '12 Tour last night.
It was an interesting experience!
When I watched it live, I was rooting for Wiggins Cavendish & Froome, and I was thrilled with what I saw.
Looking at it now, after months of Clinic "debate", I can see more easily where some posters are coming at it from.
I think if I wasn't a fan, the performance of the top two would raise more than eyebrows.
If either Wiggins or Froome had been without the other, they would still have won, but it wouldn't have looked so odd.
I'm not leaving the JimmyFingers camp, but my mind is more open. I wish Froome & Wiggins were in different teams and I look forward to next year, or maybe the year after!

 

[thehog]

I watched Eurosports hour long programme on the '12 Tour last night.
It was an interesting experience!
When I watched it live, I was rooting for Wiggins Cavendish & Froome, and I was thrilled with what I saw.

Looking at it now, after months of Clinic "debate", I can see more easily where some posters are coming at it from.

I think if I wasn't a fan, the performance of the top two would raise more than eyebrows.

If either Wiggins or Froome had been without the other, they would still have won, but it wouldn't have looked so odd.

I'm not leaving the JimmyFingers camp, but my mind is more open. I wish Froome & Wiggins were in different teams and I look forward to next year, or maybe the year after!

Perspective is a good thing.

Take Wiggins out of that race and Froome would look even more ET like.

 

[Wiggo Warrior]

If your BS filter hasn't been tweaked yet, you need to recalibrate it, because Sky have been spewing all sorts of crap that is not related to whether or not you believe they won the Tour de France clean.

It's almost a crime to snip that wonderful post but I have been trying to put some thoughts together that may help you understand where I am coming from. It may also partially answer MartinGT's welcome post to me a few pages back where he asks for my 'findings'.

I have bolded the bit of the above quote because your posted masterwork demonstrated exactly what I was going through after the reasoned decision and when Sky were taking fire about zero tolerance. That was when I decided to start from the beginning in the Sky thread again and follow every link. (It wasn't THAT much fun the first time.) You have managed to condense the main thread arguments with the perception bias stripped away in a way that took me months to get straight in my head.

The two main reasons for scepticism that keep being revisited ad infinitum on this thread and which seem to be shared to some extent by the prosecution and the defence are the suspicious personnel, now mostly moved on and the poor prior palmares for the two suddenly (Vuelta 2011 and Tour 2009 respectively) GC capable brits. (The other two riders who make up the rather attractively named Mitchie Froogins have been discussed at length as being GC capable, but lacking in form in previous years. If you assume as I do that form can change year to year then their performance is less of a problem and we are just back to the choice of whether it was coincidence/luck/training/other that helped them both return to form at the same time.)

Brad first, while I have always believed he was clean and this was only backed up when I read his blogs from 2004 forwards, I know that it is said that people believe things that they either want or fear to be true. Given my partiality I therefore couldn't trust this belief.

Reading what he says he doesn't seem very secure about his own abilities and I don't personally find it a big stretch that he was happy working as a domestique/breakaway/prologue rider particularly having been given Chris Boardman as a mentor. I think he was mainly just happy not to be stacking shelves

BC would have had no motivation to help him improve in road terms and risk losing their multi millions laying golden goose before his track olympic time limit was up when the UCI removed the IP from the schedule. By concentrating on prologues and working for his teams including soft pedalling ITT's to save energy they got improved endurance, lower chance of injuries and training concentrated on relevant distances. I am in two minds as to whether it was a cynical attempt to hold him back on the road or a rather more well meaning attempt to keep him from getting into the same mess as David Millar with the prevalence of doping at the time.

There was a bar graph (extreme reticulocytes?) earlier in this thread that attracted much hilarity and a Sky related modification where 2002 was added again and labelled 2012 in counterpoint to the assertion that Sky were taking the peloton back to that level of doping. A few pages later there was a CQ ranking graph for Brad that attracted similar hilarity with an almost identical horizontal axis, and a quite striking inverse correlation. Bearing in mind that his focus was on the track between 2002 and 2008 we need a third graph of his track accomplishments, which I haven't yet produced, but a quick look at wiki shows his Athens and Beijing track focus quite strikingly apart from the Cofidis years in which I believe he did attempt to make the transition to the road but with minimal support.

You'll know better than me but was this era still full of superhuman performances? If it was then this will have reinforced his belief that he wasn't good enough to mix it with the stars on the road, probably to BC's relief. Post Moreni he would have been back in the track fold almost 100% resulting in a considerable number of gold medals and world records and almost no road results for that year. If not for the virus before Beijing knocking the edge off his form it could have been another medal with Cav and possibly an IP record.

So after Beijing in the winter of 2008 two people whose opinions he trusts (SS & JV) tell him that if he loses weight to maximise w/kg he has the numbers to make it on the road. JV is his new boss and a BC program is set up to lose the track muscle and optimise his body weight. 2009 he has to be 'trained' in races by his team how to ride in the head of the field because he's never done it before. (In many ways the 2009 Tour Brad is my favourite because he seems to have been having fun in the race, trying things out for the first time. I don't think he had much fun this year.)

I have seen mention in the forum of an Allen Lim interview relating to weight loss where the first year yields 'stellar' results and the second 'poor' results but have not managed to track down the original interview. Brad's performance in 2010 Giro and Tour may have been a combination of stress of being a team leader for the first time, not putting enough work in as he has admitted in the winter months particularly during the changeover period, and this effect that Lim has been quoted as observing.

Post 2010 Tour he gets the famous 'bollocking' from DB and SS and asks SS to coach him. The 'inner circle' is put together with Tim Kerrison and Dr Freeman to get him fit.

Then the meteoric rise that everyone has seen over the last two years.

On the dodgy docs topic, I have never seen any other Doctor mentioned in connection with Brad and Dr Freeman seems to have an anti-doping past? This was part of what made me think that there was very little chance that there was any team doping going on as that seems an ethical shift too far.

Regarding Leinders who doesn't and Fabio Bartalucci who does appear in Dopeology, reading between the lines and explicitly stated in a couple of DB interviews it was the riders who requested cycling docs to be added to the team. Sky seem to be run unusually democratically with the riders having a say in all aspects of the team. Sky interviewed four and took on two part time. If they were the two who interviewed best and are as dodgy as reports have it then I dread to think what the other two were like. Leinders seems to have spent some of his 80 days with the classics team and Bartalucci with minor stage races and only in Feb 2012 as far as I have been able to discover. I would have thought that the non race days would have included sharing cycling/endurance specific medical information with the Sky medical team so that they could revert at some point to the non-cycling talent, as has happened.

I think this is getting too long now, so I'll leave it for everyone to poke holes in and look forward to a response. Chris Froome will just have to wait his turn

Note: I haven't put sources for any of this and hope it is clearly shown where I have read something or just speculated but if not just ask and I will try to refind any interviews etc. Some of the information comes from the documentaries and books but mostly from the printed press. The blogs are on the Guardian.

 

[thehog]

That will be Teneriife then Doctor?

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/1...ng-or-ever-seeing-him-dope.aspx#ixzz2F3tiNrmK

Is this the guy SkyFans were championing for their cause?

And some more connectivity;

''We've got the makings of an incredible team with Richie Porte, Michael Rogers and Chris Froome" he said. "This is by far the best team we've had on paper. All of a sudden we've got one of the strongest teams in cycling. It's like the old Postal days. I have visions of five or six guys ahead of me in the mountains and Cav out the back! But he'll have green so it won't matter".

Bradley Wiggins, Cycling Weekly, 26th January.

 

[badboygolf16v]

that should have been Burrow. He should've been that guy. He had the results as an espoir that we could point to and say "he always had the talent to make it as a GT contender".

We're not saying Burrow was clean are we?

 

[martinvickers]

And some more connectivity;

is this supposed to be evidence of involvement with Ferrari?

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Bearing in mind that his focus was on the track between 2002 and 2008 we need a third graph of his track accomplishments, which I haven't yet produced, but a quick look at wiki shows his Athens and Beijing track focus quite strikingly apart from the Cofidis years in which I believe he did attempt to make the transition to the road but with minimal support.

You'll know better than me but was this era still full of superhuman performances? If it was then this will have reinforced his belief that he wasn't good enough to mix it with the stars on the road, probably to BC's relief.

Good post, WW.

According to affidavits from the USADA investigation, 2006 is the year everyone stopped doping, then according to JV, a truce was called in 2008.

Having read David Millar's book now, the whole "track focus" thing looks even less explanatory in terms of reason for lack of performance from Brad, for me. Mainly due to the clean Millar beating a doped Armstrong in a Tour prologue, matching Brad in another prologue and winning national TT and IP titles, all clean after 2 years out of the sport.

Couple this with Brad's team mate, Rob Hayles having an interesting Hct in 2008, very deftly handled by DB, and Brad's apparently very amorous feelings towards Armstrong the year he broke into the big leagues (2009), there's still too much of a cloud of doping doubt surrounding his rise to the top for me.

My concern with the track results graph you suggest remains. Namely that it's such a small pond that the big fish's accomplishments are too greatly amplified. The assumption is also that he was clean riding the track. It's pretty clear doping was going on when Brad was soundly beating other IPers, which further compounds my unease about that graph.

Add a slight 2nd week blood profile tremor for both his 2009 Giro and Tour, and I'm too far gone to accept this performance from 2009 on has been clean.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

We're not saying Burrow was clean are we?

Of course not. When he was the #1 U23 in the world it was what, 1998? 1999?

But by being the #1 U23 in the world, you have context that suggests that potential to be one of the absolute elites of world cycling is there. His palmarès to the age of 23 blows JTL and Froome to pieces, and if he then took the pro world by storm, we'd look at his previous palmarès and go, "yea, that guy had the makings of a star". There's no need for the arguments about whether winning the Anatomic Jock Race, coming 9th on a mountain stage in the Brixia Tour and being in the breakaway with Johan van Summeren constitutes GT-contending potential, because Burrow always showed it.

 

[will10]

Of course not. When he was the #1 U23 in the world it was what, 1998? 1999?

But by being the #1 U23 in the world, you have context that suggests that potential to be one of the absolute elites of world cycling is there. His palmarès to the age of 23 blows JTL and Froome to pieces, and if he then took the pro world by storm, we'd look at his previous palmarès and go, "yea, that guy had the makings of a star". There's no need for the arguments about whether winning the Anatomic Jock Race, coming 9th on a mountain stage in the Brixia Tour and being in the breakaway with Johan van Summeren constitutes GT-contending potential, because Burrow always showed it.

I know where you're coming from and to some extent I agree with you. But the bolded sentence is somewhat inline with those LA apologists who say "Lance wouldn't won the Tour anyway if everyone was clean", which we know to be unlikely. Lance's physiology was more suited to aggressive O2 vector doping than f/ex Vaughters'. One could argue that by being ranked #1 U23 in the World at a time when EPO use was rampant, Burrow may have been in the same boat as Lance.

In all honesty I don't think there's any need to cherry pick a rider like Burrow and say he showed more potential than Froome - you could've pick about 75% of the peloton in 2011 at random and said the same.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I know where you're coming from and to some extent I agree with you. But the bolded sentence is somewhat inline with those LA apologists who say "Lance wouldn't won the Tour anyway if everyone was clean", which we know to be unlikely. Lance's physiology was more suited to aggressive O2 vector doping than f/ex Vaughters'. One could argue that by being ranked #1 U23 in the World at a time when EPO use was rampant, Burrow may have been in the same boat as Lance.

In all honesty I don't think there's any need to cherry pick a rider like Burrow and say he showed more potential than Froome - you could've pick about 75% of the peloton in 2011 at random and said the same.

I cherry-picked Burrow initially as part of my comparison of the luck of timing, to explain why I find it a little convenient that Britain has 'lucked into' a talent like Froome, when they've actually produced seemingly better talents in the past through that luck method, and they've wound up going nowhere. Froome, on the other hand, has just fortuitously found himself discovering that he has world-beating potential at the precise moment when he can get the big contract for it and the world-beating team behind him.