Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[thehog]

I can only see Medical records for Froome and his Bilharzia being required to demonstrate when he got it and how it was treated etc etc, but what is the problem with that. He wants people to believe he won the TdF clean, why not show everyone you whole history?

I remember David Walsh talking on competitor radio a few years ago calling for similar. He gave the analogy of police in England wanting to solve a murder crime and asked all men in area to come in a give a DNA sample so the police could exclude them from the investigation. 5000 thousand men came in to give DNA samples to prove they were innocent. He said it was the same for athletes. If they want to be believed in their performances they would have no issue with proving as much information as they possible could.

Not providing it only points to one thing and from what we saw Wiggins, Froome, Porte, Rogers have done at Sky means doping.

Good memory and very good point. Well done Sir!

DNA databases work extremely well in the process of elimination.

And adds to the fact Walsh got to close to his subject.

 

[dolophonic]

Digger.. that is right .. how cn you run the most scientific program in the history of cycling. Claiming to use science to generate marginal gains and yet have never tested Froome for VO2 ... really ?

 

[TailWindHome]

Brailsford knew exactly what Wiggins was capable off, was Wiggins not on TeamGB under Brailfords eye for years. I dont remember Brailsford (or anyone else) declaring Wiggins as a future TdF winner! Got a link.

Froome's rise screams doping to all but those blinded by nationalism.

I don't have a link showing that

However it's not a wild conclusion that if he came 4th in 2009 and Sky shelled out a lot of money to sign him then their expectations of him were probably fairly high.

 

[TailWindHome]

I'm back!

RE: VO2 they are hiding something. Anyone with a brain would see this.

Brailsford though...the very second he was asked for it last july he started stuttering and stammering and getting defensive.

And it's not just aggressive twitter users like me, as fran millar tried to make out, it;'s guys like grappe, vayer and that journalist.

I thought Vayer was the aggressive twitter user

 

[Mellow Velo]

Ah come on Jimmy. JTL spent most of that year with Sky in Tenerife and on other training camps. While still 'officially' an Endura rider he was mostly 'unofficially' with Sky. Let's call a spade a spade here!

As for negligence, that old tired excuse. We were fed the 'marginal gains' where the team leaves no stone unturned in their attention to details to extract the best performances possible out of their riders by the clean methods, warm downs, warm ups, etc etc but they claim negligence on Henao. They cannot have it both ways! They are either the team that does the attention to details on everything, hence garnering 'marginal gains' or they are just another run of the mill pro cycling team using the run of the mill performance enhancement methods.

Great post Benotti.

Yeah, great post.
You make it sound as if JTL was recruited by Sky to sell time share apartments.
Most of the year in Tenerife indeed.
Racing for Endura, all season, except in April, possible June.
Keep it real. Far too much spin.

I agree with the hog's post above. Common sense = common ground.

 

[TheGame]

I'm back!
And it's not just aggressive twitter users like me, as fran millar tried to make out, it;'s guys like grappe, vayer and that journalist.

Antoine is certainly aggressive, but I have not seen him say much about vo2 max, are you sure you are not referring to @vayerisms who is not antoine.

Which journalist? Kimmage?

One would say he is a fairly aggressive twitter user as well.


Thing is, if Sky came out tomorrow and said, "Okay, Okay, Froome's vo2 Max is 82.2"

Would you believe them?

 

[Justinr]

Who said he stopped doping while at Sky? Methods changed and JTL was a non responder, like EBH.

You really are going for it - are you saying EBH is a doper now?

 

[dolophonic]

the Game.. that is the whole point. That info should have been available ..
Transparency. One of their Key words.
Greatest climbing talent of all time. A natural.

 

[Mellow Velo]

You really are going for it - are you saying EBH is a doper now?

In Fairness, Benotti believes that the whole peloton is doped: no exceptions.

 

[bobbins]

I don't think anyone is being particularly aggressive on twitter, they are just calling out Sky / Dave B / Fran for not coming good with their promise.

Of they've got nothing to hide then why not release the data?

If I were a clean Brad or Froome I would make sure they published the data.

Team Sky will put this on their ignore list and let their tame journalists find another story.

The team jollys that the journos go on must be pretty good to be able to dictate the news this well.

 

[JimmyFingers]

Brailsford knew exactly what Wiggins was capable off, was Wiggins not on TeamGB under Brailfords eye for years. I dont remember Brailsford (or anyone else) declaring Wiggins as a future TdF winner! Got a link.

Froome's rise screams doping to all but those blinded by nationalism.

Froome may have the flag but he's Kenyan. He's never lived in Britain and never raced here. His Dad was English but he rides with the Kenyan flag on his bag. Personally I don't look at him and go 'I'll support him and believe everything I hear about him because he's British', I see his nationality as one of convenience and opportunity on his part, and of Team Sky's marketing department.

 

[HSNHSN]

I do honestly see your point, and it has validity, I'm just not sure how practical it is, or how much it would accomplish. But it certainly has merit.

The biggest advantage is that it gives a sort of baseline for professional cyclists. What people think about specific values is entirely to them and no matter what, there will always be cynics who believe everyone dopes and naïve people believing no one dopes. However, having a baseline, people can get a far better idea of what's going on. I mean, it's nice to see Horner (and few others) publishing his blood values, but this doesn't mean a thing, since there's hardly any material to compare it with.

In this regard, it is reasonable to ask how far the UCI is in researching this. They should have enough blood data from cyclists to have figured out what is normal and what isn't. I'd guess there's a lot more that can be said, though, than one'd expect at first. Are there actually statisticians and chemometrists employed by UCI? The latter group basically deals with the sort of questions on a day to day basis and should even be able to figure out some sort of standard protocol for analysing blood tests. Do we know if any such thing is even in place?

 

[JimmyFingers]

Not providing it only points to one thing and from what we saw Wiggins, Froome, Porte, Rogers have done at Sky means doping.

No-one provides it though, in real terms, why do you expect different from Sky?

 

[Justinr]

The bit is missed is if it's ALL made publicly available you have this nice collection of data that tells the story month on month, year on year for everyone.

You can see a passport for a Froome/Contador compared to a guy coming 123rd etc.

If riders withdraw en-masse later you can see if there was anything untoward.

You get the point? It stops the background work going on, the unknown. It's actually doping prevention through the fact the blood values are public.

Means the UCI or anyone else cannot manipulate the result like with Armstrong's passport.

A good and effective governing body needs to be accountable.

I think a lot of riders would appreciate it. Would stop donkey/racehorse conclusions been drawn.

I agree with that. They should have website where it is all published and accessible by the public.

 

[JimmyFingers]

Yeah the one thing you can be sure with Benotti is he is even with accusations of everyone. It's an admirable trait in an arena where plenty of personal preferences play a part in who people think are doping

 

[SundayRider]

I think the 'sky are really scientific and look into every detail' myth has been busted.

 

[BYOP88]

No-one provides it though, in real terms, why do you expect different from Sky?

The transparency they promised and went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about.

I do love in that video regarding Brailsford being asked about Froome's Vo2 test, that he gets all defensive.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

I would have thought that Sky's expectations regarding Wiggins future GT performance when they signed him would have been reasonably high - no?

 

[Benotti69]

I don't have a link showing that

However it's not a wild conclusion that if he came 4th in 2009 and Sky shelled out a lot of money to sign him then their expectations of him were probably fairly high.

Wiggins 4th in 2009 where his blood levels rose in the 3rd week at the TdF

Sky had expectations all right

 

[JimmyFingers]

The transparency they promised and went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about.

I do love in that video regarding Brailsford being asked about Froome's Vo2 test, that he gets all defensive.

So because of that you hold them to higher standards than the rest of the peloton and are more condemning when they fail to live up to those, got it.

 

[thehog]

The biggest advantage is that it gives a sort of baseline for professional cyclists. What people think about specific values is entirely to them and no matter what, there will always be cynics who believe everyone dopes and naïve people believing no one dopes. However, having a baseline, people can get a far better idea of what's going on. I mean, it's nice to see Horner (and few others) publishing his blood values, but this doesn't mean a thing, since there's hardly any material to compare it with.

In this regard, it is reasonable to ask how far the UCI is in researching this. They should have enough blood data from cyclists to have figured out what is normal and what isn't. I'd guess there's a lot more that can be said, though, than one'd expect at first. Are there actually statisticians and chemometrists employed by UCI? The latter group basically deals with the sort of questions on a day to day basis and should even be able to figure out some sort of standard protocol for analysing blood tests. Do we know if any such thing is even in place?

Excellent post. An extension of this and some will see this going 'left of field' but 'wearables' will change the playing friend.

What do I mean by this? Joe Public humans have access to what type of data? Heart rate, temperature? That's about it.

Pro cyclists have access to power, lactate, blood levels, heart rate, glucose levels etc etc.

Very soon and I'd estimate about 18 months from now Joe Public with iWatch, healthbook and the myriad of other devices is going to have a much more detailed and accurate view of their current health and life. Prior to this it was a snapshot in time which a doctors visit.

And the reason I mention all this, is that Joe Public will soon know exactly what haemocrit etc. is and how it translates to normal human beings and non manipulated view of their blood work. And from there normal human baselines will be drawn and uploaded to the Internet. That will also be compared to pro athletes.

Lance was always able to make stories up about enlarged hearts and elongated arteries etc. because public simply had no idea if this was possible or not.

To your point; the UCI has an amazing database of blood statistics that already is cross referenced to races and the ADAMS system. It's all there. It would be a goldmine of information and is already being used. That should be released to the public in some form.

 

[Benotti69]

No-one provides it though, in real terms, why do you expect different from Sky?

Because Sky started it with their declarations of doing it differently. They produced a 'tome' about being the clean and fully transparent team.

They wanted Journalists to embed and see how clean and transparent they were doing it. They indirectly 'shat' on everyone else (exception being Garmin) by saying this and whats more they declared they were not going to hire anyone who had a history!

See, now the chickens are coming home and Sky (and their fans) are crying why are you picking on Sky? Because they told us they were not like other teams, no dodgy doctors, squeaky clean riders full transparency etc etc etc

No other team put themselves above the parapet like Sky, which they were applauded for in the beginning, but now they behave like every other team that has won the TdF they want to be treated like every other team.
Sorry no can do.

Sky should declare they are a run of the mill pro cycling team doing what pro cycling teams do and then the sky threads will dry up!

 

[Justinr]

You forgot, Doping Doctor, check, ex dopers (Barry, Rogers, De Jongh, Yates) check, saying they were going to be fully transparent and not being transparent (ie Lying) check.

Can you point to any clean GT winners who came from the grupetto late and middle of their careers to win the biggest and hardest GT event, TdF?

Because this is what Wiggins and Froome have done against any ones expectations even Sky's.

Well you'd have to go a long way back to name anyone who you could truly claimed has won the TDF regardless of whether they had come from the grupetto. I think I could only name 3 riders I believe won the it clean in the last 25 years : LeMond, Wiggins and Froome.

I agree it doesn't look good with certain names, although from memory Leinders, Barry, and Jullich hadn't been implicated when they went to Sky. The others probably weren't a good choice for sure but that doesn't prove their is a team doping program involving new talent.

 

[Benotti69]

Froome may have the flag but he's Kenyan. He's never lived in Britain and never raced here. His Dad was English but he rides with the Kenyan flag on his bag. Personally I don't look at him and go 'I'll support him and believe everything I hear about him because he's British', I see his nationality as one of convenience and opportunity on his part, and of Team Sky's marketing department.

A guy who would take the route of declaring for Britain as convenience and opportunity in my opinion would have no problem doing other things that are convenient and provide an opportunity

 

[Justinr]

BecThey indirectly 'shat' on everyone else (exception being Garmin) by saying this and whats more they declared they were not going to hire anyone who had a history!

Technically most of those didn't have a known history when they were hired. When their history came out they were fired.

But you're right they did put themselves up above the rest - they still believe that but of course life is never that simple. Could you (or anyone) get away with saying that you'd only be friends with people who hadn't broken the law?