Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[sittingbison]

...I have one final question htough to ask you or anyone, how does a cyclist (any cyclist) actually prove their innocence if they really are innocent of doping? What must they do in addition to signing a declaration??

well, not have a suspicion index rating of 7 would help.

from five upwards, the comments associated to the rider files started to become much more precise, “even affirmative”, from six to ten, the circumstantial evidence of possible doping was “overwhelming”

 

[Tinman]

OK jimmy, here are some actual hard facts that I just posted on another forum:

Kimmage wrote an article straight after the Olympics inquiring what had happened to the Sky transparency policy, a “no dopers policy”. They specifically and categorically stated “we will not employ doctors from within cycling”. Since then they have hired dodgy soigneurs Yates who has many question marks over him, Bobby Jullich who is named in the Evidence (reducted Rider 4) and Shane Sutton (see Darryl Webster), dodgy doctors Geert Leinders who ran the Rabobank systematic team based doping programme and Fabio Bartalucci who is named in the Sanremo raid from the 2001 Giro and a doctor at Bonjour when Lelarge tested positive and at Phonak back in the Hamilton/Camenzind/Perez era. Dodgy riders Dodger who has Ferrari AND Freiburg hanging over his head, and one of the top scores with 7 on the suspicion index (from five upwards, the comments associated to the rider files started to become much more precise, “even affirmative”, from six to ten, the circumstantial evidence of possible doping was “overwhelming”), Christian Knees 6 on the index, and Kanstantsin Siutsou with a mind blowing 8 on the index.

Every rider, director and team is now open to scrutiny, like it or not, fair or not. Even now omerta is operating on all cylinders, Brailesfords ill advised comments on signing a declaration withstanding, and various extremely experienced riders with ridiculous “I am shocked! Shocked I tell you!!” or impersonating Sgt Schults with “never saw anything” comments.

So how do you explain how clean transparent good ship Sky has such a scaly crew?

And who is the student journo who is going to submit the story to a major British daily?

 

[blackcat]

a slacker at Occupy

 

[Parrulo]

No performance was impossible from the perspective of the bounds of human achievement. The days of Pantani-speed are gone. However, take Rogers out of there and plug in somebody else. Let's say, for the sake of an argument, you plugged in Vladimir Karpets. He has good stage racing credentials, finished in the top 10 of the Vuelta a few years ago, has won the Tour de Suisse.

Vlad Karpets gets on the front in the Tour de France and puts half the GC contenders out the back, as part of a Movistar train of similar riders who've improved large-scale and are crushing the race. How do we feel? I doubt we'd have had such vociferous defences of a Movistar train of pain.

I see Mick Rogers rather like Vlad Karpets. Solid bike riders, functional climbers who accumulate results without ever really being noticeable except by their absence, who were probably dodgy earlier in their career. I don't rate Mick Rogers any higher than I rate Vladimir Karpets, and thus while his super-domestiquing performance is not outside the bounds of possibility, I don't buy it coming from him.

i, much like libertine, have made this analogy using movistar a few times before which since it's spanish and has spanish italian and portuguese riders it is as dodgy as it gets and funny enough we never got a reply to it. . . .

 

[The Hitch]

These things certainly don't help sky's image of being clean. But they are certainly not proof of doping. If you want cycling ride of doping then speculation is not going to help. The arguments that contain wild speculation are going to be dismissed as a conspiracy that just sees doping everywhere and that doesn't advance the cause. Yes challenge sky over inconsistancies but to have made up your mind already without eye witness accounts or the other kind of proof that eventually got LA just means the challenge can be easily dismissed.
I believe a more effective challenge comes from the perspective 'i want cycling to be clean but these things don't help what are you going to do about them so we can trust'. There will be another dominant team after Sky and another after that, and if cycling is to be redeemed at some point one of those teams will have to be trusted and beleived and not just dismissed because they win or we don't like them. Unless you don't beleive that will ever happen in which case walk away this is self harm to keep being hurt from a sport.

Also i don't get the Froome one handed thing. Sagan did a wheelie on one MTF does that prove doping?

You sound like someone who has never come accross the arguments against your position.

Yes a lot of what "the hog" posts senseless, but Wiggins and Froome absolutely destroyed the Tour de France and told us they were doing it for us.

We arent talking about scraping a classic here, we are talking about 2 people who well into their 20's were seen as total no hopers, suddenly climb and time trial miles better than anyone else, and walk around calling themselves US postal 2, and whatsmore, declare their victory a victory for clean cycling.

And when asked what he would say to doping, the answer was a 13 year old gangster rap wannabee im so tough dismissal - **** you, say it to my face, see what happens (im refering to the tweet as well as the press conference).

And the more anyone looks into the teams attempt to hijack the anti doping trademark for themselves, the more and more dishonest they appear.

And you are surprised that this thread is so popular?

 

[Zam_Olyas]

He's a known long-term doper, but because he rode for the Tour winner he is clean?

And what we are told is, no hard prove that he is a life long doper LOL, i was actually a fan of Micky in his early t-mobile days .....coming next, froome performance is a career progression and there is nothing to be suspicious about.

 

[sittingbison]

....coming next, froome performance is a career progression and there is nothing to be suspicious about.

oh god, please no!!

I like foxybrown, normally posts great stuff. But in this and the Froome threads a month or so ago he started a completely ridiculous "Look everyone Froomes career progression is the same as Cadel, Sastre and AC" argument, along with graphs of pro-cycling accrued points (which actually showed the complete opposite lol).

 

[Krebs cycle]

You wish:

Michael Rogers: “I’ve seen a five to seven per cent increase in my general threshold power. And that’s great." - RideMedia, 2012.

Hint: this is not a normal increase.

From the start of base training through to competition peaking, a 5-7% increase in threshold power is pretty much average. There is nothing special about it. You think Kerrison must be a doping mastermind because he helped Rogers improve his threshold power by 7% from a period when Rogers was coming off a year of no racing and hardly any training due to illness, through to a peak in the yearly cycle. I think its pretty ordinary actually. I would be impressed if it was 10-15% and if it was 15-20% then I would start wondering whether doping was involved.

Wow. The PhD in exercise physiology does not know how to prove a rider is clean. What happened to your slavish praise of the athlete's passport and Ashenden's expert analysis?

Ooh ooh, I know!! Why don't we ask someone who has studied hypoxia in athletes and has a PhD and 10 years experience working with elite athletes what he considers "proof" of a clean athlete. How about it, Krebs Cycle?

oh yes, and now for more trolling. Just grow up already. You act like a 5yr old everytime I post something.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

From the start of base training through to competition peaking, a 5-7% increase in threshold power is pretty much average. There is nothing special about it. You think Kerrison must be a doping mastermind because he helped Rogers improve his threshold power by 7% from a period when Rogers was coming off a year of no racing and hardly any training due to illness, through to a peak in the yearly cycle. I think its pretty ordinary actually. I would be impressed if it was 10-15% and if it was 15-20% then I would start wondering whether doping was involved.

You're forgetting the very next line Dauphine - that's not pre-season, up Joux Plane, 1000m in 34:50, 9th stage, front group, 2nd overall, 160km with 3000m, best ever power report.

And as I have already shown, riders don't talk about when they were in bed with the flu for 6 months when they talk threshold improvement. Don't be so disingenuous, it makes you look foolish.

 

[TubularBills]

Same story, different day...

Time to dust this one off:

" If you can't add 1 + 1 then I can't help you."

and this:

{ ... another chestnut from Ullrich} :

"I have seen many lean riders in the peloton, but very few Tour winners",*…

[same schite, different day.]

 

[Dear Wiggo]

oh yes, and now for more trolling. Just grow up already. You act like a 5yr old everytime I post something.

So no way of proving you're clean? Tell me more about the blood passport, please.

What does it prove?

 

[oncehadhair]

And what we are told is, no hard prove that he is a life long doper LOL, i was actually a fan of Micky in his early t-mobile days .....coming next, froome performance is a career progression and there is nothing to be suspicious about.

Speaking of Froome. When is he going to find a team he can lead?

 

[TubularBills]

Speaking of Froome. When is he going to find a team he can lead?

The shower line in the pokey?

 

[Krebs cycle]

well, not have a suspicion index rating of 7 would help.

I suppose it would help, but something is clearly amiss with that list when the UCI puts Lance at 4 but then an independent expert claims Lance's blood results from 2009-2010 are strongly indicative of blood manipulation.

Besides, there are many admitted or proven dopers on that list with scores of 4 or less so I'm not sure how that would alleviate the concerns of folks around here.

 

[Ferminal]

Most names 4 or higher are ones you would associate with doping at some stage of their careers.

 

[sittingbison]

I suppose it would help, but something is clearly amiss with that list when the UCI puts Lance at 4 but then an independent expert claims Lance's blood results from 2009-2010 are strongly indicative of blood manipulation.

Besides, there are many admitted or proven dopers on that list with scores of 4 or less so I'm not sure how that would alleviate the concerns of folks around here.

krebs, the reverse is also true. Lance and all those admitted and proven dopers are LESS suspicious than Dodger, Knees, Thomas and Siutsou (sic). Anyway, if Dodger had a suspicion index of say 0 like his team mate EBH, at least it would be something for his fans to point at, rather than the reverse.

On a quick side note, dobbers DaveZ and Barry are 0, and Big George 1. Levi and CVV are 4.

 

[Krebs cycle]

You're forgetting the very next line Dauphine - that's not pre-season, up Joux Plane, 1000m in 34:50, 9th stage, front group, 2nd overall, 160km with 3000m, best ever power report.

Rogers made that statement just after that stage right? So he is in peak performance at the Dauphine in June and you think its not possible to have improved threshold power by 7% from November 2011 through to June 2012?

So what if he said it's his best power numbers? It remains an unproven assumption that Rogers doped throughout his career and at age 32 he should clearly be in his prime.

And as I have already shown, riders don't talk about when they were in bed with the flu for 6 months when they talk threshold improvement. Don't be so disingenuous, it makes you look foolish.

This is ridiculous. You are just making stuff up. And yet again you just can't help but start with the subtle trolling.

 

[Krebs cycle]

krebs, the reverse is also true. Lance and all those admitted and proven dopers are LESS suspicious than Dodger, Knees and Siutsou (sic). Anyway, if Dodger had a suspicion index of say 0 like his team mate EBH, at least it would be something for his fans to point at, rather than the reverse.

On a quick side note, dobbers DaveZ and Barry are 0, and Big George 1. Levi and CVV are 4.

The whole point of anti-doping test procedures though is to avoid false positives. A threshold needs to be set somewhere and so far it appears to be so high that even Menchov and Popovyich are not sanctioned on biopassport charges. Is that a problem with the passport method itself or with the UCI? Can we be certain the list is a true unedited, unbiased document which comes from the biopassport panel or was it a leak from someone who played around with it first? The UCI is corrupt and dirty, so why trust a leaked, unverified document from such a corrupt organisation?

 

[Dear Wiggo]

This is ridiculous. You are just making stuff up. And yet again you just can't help but start with the subtle trolling.

You honestly think someone says

"I improved my cycling threshold 5-7% because I am working with a new swimming coach, oh and I hit my best ever 34:50 power numbers at age 32 when completely shattered and fatigued"

and they are talking about their off-season threshold?

Seriously?

And you've spent 10 years with elite athletes?

Seriously?

 

[Dear Wiggo]

The whole point of anti-doping test procedures though is to avoid false positives.

Ahhhh and here we all thought the whole point of anti-doping procedures was to catch dopers.

Man. So glad you are here to break things down for us.

 

[skidmark]

No performance was impossible from the perspective of the bounds of human achievement. The days of Pantani-speed are gone. However, take Rogers out of there and plug in somebody else. Let's say, for the sake of an argument, you plugged in Vladimir Karpets. He has good stage racing credentials, finished in the top 10 of the Vuelta a few years ago, has won the Tour de Suisse.

Vlad Karpets gets on the front in the Tour de France and puts half the GC contenders out the back, as part of a Movistar train of similar riders who've improved large-scale and are crushing the race. How do we feel? I doubt we'd have had such vociferous defences of a Movistar train of pain.

I see Mick Rogers rather like Vlad Karpets. Solid bike riders, functional climbers who accumulate results without ever really being noticeable except by their absence, who were probably dodgy earlier in their career. I don't rate Mick Rogers any higher than I rate Vladimir Karpets, and thus while his super-domestiquing performance is not outside the bounds of possibility, I don't buy it coming from him.

Yup, you've described it perfectly.

 

[Krebs cycle]

You honestly think someone says

"I improved my cycling threshold 5-7% because I am working with a new swimming coach, oh and I hit my best ever 34:50 power numbers at age 32 when completely shattered and fatigued"

and they are talking about their off-season threshold?

Seriously?

And you've spent 10 years with elite athletes?

Seriously?

Yes, that is correct and in those 10yrs I never met an athlete who said "I have improved my power by 7%" but was referring to some lab test or power meter data from 6yrs ago. Similarly, when I have reported the results of lactate threshold testing to coaches, neither they nor I, are very interested in what the athlete did 6yrs ago. Why would we? What relevance does it have to the current season? Almost none. Mainly what we want to know is if the training that has been done in the past 4-6 months has been successful at improving threshold power, and if so, by how much.

On the other hand, athletes are usually acutely aware of their PB results. If Rogers says he posted his best ever 30min wattage, then I would be very certain he is referring to his best ever recorded 30min average power. Note carefully that he can't possibly know what his best 30min average wattage would be for a climb or TT in which he was not using a power meter, so in actual fact maybe he doesn't even know for sure if it is a true PB.

The association with T-mobile and Ferrari are cause for suspicion yes, but on their own they are not high enough for me to conclude that he has been consistently doping since 2003 when he showed his ability by winning the TT world championships, which therefore means that there is little reason for me to believe that hitting a 30min average power PB at age 32 is something unusual.

 

[Krebs cycle]

Ahhhh and here we all thought the whole point of anti-doping procedures was to catch dopers.

Man. So glad you are here to break things down for us.

Umm no actually the whole point of anti-doping testing is to discourage doping.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Yes, that is correct and in those 10yrs I never met an athlete who said "I have improved my power by 7%" but was referring to some lab test or power meter data from 6yrs ago

But the point is - once you hit your genetic potential, your power barely shifts. You may improve +1% a year to a point, but after 3-5 years full-time, you aren't changing dramatically.

Mick feels it's noteworthy to say he improved his threshold - you are claiming that is the improvement since the off-season?

I don't think you've read the interview.

He's discussing his previous year, so at the very least it's discussing his FTP from the year before - 2011.

But the fact remains - your genetic potential, achieved after 5 years or so - hardly changes. Threshold is measured recovered, as part of testing. So whether that was measured 6 years ago or last year, it's still your max.

In one year he has increased that threshold 5-7%. Coz a swimming coach is training him... oh wait the swimming coach was training them the year before as well... something isn't right here.

On the other hand, athletes are usually acutely aware of their PB results. If Rogers says he posted his best ever 30min wattage, then I would be very certain he is referring to his best ever recorded 30min average power. Note carefully that he can't possibly know what his best 30min average wattage would be for a climb or TT in which he was not using a power meter, so in actual fact maybe he doesn't even know for sure if it is a true PB.

Are you suggesting he did a bunch of PBs in the past and had no power meter, so his statement "I hit a PB" is false?

Given AIS have been using SRMs since forever, and Mick was at the AIS, we can safely assume he had or used one there. But there's no real data from that time.

He definitely had one in 2010 at HighRoad.

And this PB is happening on stage 9, 160km with 3000m climbing, up the final 1000m climb, coming second overall... mega fatigue factors at play.

In 2010 he had the following results:
Tour of California - 1st
Tour of Romandie - 3rd
Vuelta al Pais Vasco, Mountains classification - 7th
Critérium International - 2nd
Tirreno - Adriatico - 6th
Vuelta a Andalucia / Ruta Del Sol - 1st

That's a solid year to then have your best ever 34:50 power recording 2 years later.

Given your 34:50 time is about 102% of your FTP, and he just PB'd his 34:50 time while massively fatigued, I'd be willing to bet the threshold he's talking about (a rested and recovered measure) is his genetic potential threshold, and he's improved it 5-7%. Definitely NOT his off-season threshold.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Umm no actually the whole point of anti-doping testing is to discourage doping.

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority's (ASADA) aims to protect Australia's sporting integrity through the elimination of doping.

WADA works towards a vision of a world where all athletes compete in a doping-free sporting environment.