Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[sniper]

I find a watch in my garden, I've never seen before. My brother says it fell out of Santa's sleigh as he was flying over the garden. I don't know how it got there. I have a million possible theories, but I am convinced the one proposed by my brother is false.

Do I need to have a single irrefutable explanation for how something happened in order to refute another explanation?

I dont know when sky started doping, in what quantities, with what products and what doctors. I don't know what the road to Damascus moment was. Do I need to in order to believe that the theory proposed by sky is incorrect?

lovely.
it's what i was thinking about.
the question whether or not (or in what quantities) wiggo doped prior to 2009 is interesting, sure, but eventually has little bearing on the question of whether or not he doped in 2009 through to 2012.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Well apart from Froome and Armstrong who went from grupetto to top step of the podium.

Rijs... and CH, Mauri, Jalabert, Wiggins

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

I gotta disagree. Riis had better palmares than Froome pre-transformation. Even so, he still didn't look like a future TdF winner. For me, Froome is the outlier of all outliers.

Rijs:
86-95-100-43-107-101-5-70-14-3-1 ...

Mauri:
98-130-92-71-78-1 ...

Froome:
84-36-2 ...

How Froome can be the outlier of outliers isn´t just beyond me, it should be beyond everybody.

I think you "suffer" from a very selective perception...

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Wiggo got to the end of the 2008 Olympics and had a good cry that his gold medals did not nett him million pound rewards.

2009 seems the ideal time to start hitting the pointy end of the field if he wants to cash in. Brailsford's team coming to life in 2010 means he can slip back into familiar surrounds too.

Would be interesting to see if DB wasn't creating a team if Wiggo would have done his 2009 season still.

I also do wonder, when a 2-bit team like Linda McCartney being created leads to its creator thinking they can roll in the dough, how pleased DB must be to head up such a lucrative operation like Sky.

 

[Granville57]

I find a watch in my garden...

Say it ain't so, hitch. Say it ain't so!

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Rijs:
86-95-100-43-107-101-5-70-14-3-1 ...

Mauri:
98-130-92-71-78-1 ...

Froome:
84-36-2 ...

How Froome can be the outlier of outliers isn´t just beyond me, it should be beyond everybody.

I think you "suffer" from a very selective perception...

Froome:
84-36-DSQ for holding onto a motorbike-2.

Don't forget that one, it's just as important to remember, especially when you're calling others out on being selective in their information.

Fair call on Mauri though, surprised I haven't seen him brought up as a point of comparison before that I recall; I have certainly myself focused on more recent transformations such as Mosquera, Kohl and Santi Pérez in comparisons - but still, 1991 was proper birth of EPO territory, and so I'm not sure if saying "not any more out of nowhere than Riis and Mauri" necessarily makes Froome any cleaner.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Froome:
84-36-DSQ for holding onto a motorbike-2.

Don't forget that one, it's just as important to remember. Fair call on Mauri, surprised I haven't seen him brought up as a point of comparison before that I recall; I have certainly focused on more recent transformations such as Mosquera, Kohl and Santi Pérez in comparisons - but still, 1991 was proper birth of EPO territory, and so I'm not sure if saying "not any more out of nowhere than Riis and Mauri" necessarily makes Froome any cleaner.

I don´t. But for fair comparisons I had to use GTs finished. Because we can´t remember or know why other transformers WDed. Certainly most of them did, b/c they knew they couldn´t get over the mountains in one piece together (especially LA). So not only did Froome bad in WDs, so did LA, Wiggins, etc.

If we not only looked at 1st step GT podiums, we certainly would have come up with more Mauris (like Lagutin for example , and those you mentioned).
But even looking only at transformed GT winners, Froome isn´t the outlier of outliers. I just tried to even out that propaganda. My point was not to say if Froome is clean or not.

Anyway, keep on posting. They have a basement and are a pretty good diversion from all the mud that is thrown around...

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I don´t. But for fair comparisons I had to use GTs finished. Because we can´t remember or know why other transformers WDed.

Melcior never DNFed a GT before his shock win, though, so we can at least use him as a direct comparison. I think Froome's DSQ has to be taken into account though, as the point was that in 2011 his progression had been going backwards ever since that 2009 Giro. On the face of it, 84-36-2 wouldn't seem that strange a progression, but there's two and a half years of his regressing horribly (though we now know bilharzia is partly to blame for that) between that 36 and that 2, that just taking the GT results without including the 2010 Giro can't bring up. He was lying in >100th when he was DSQed anyway, so that ought to be considered. He was seen as ridiculous because between that 2009 Giro and the 2011 Vuelta, there was really very little to recommend him as a World Tour rider let alone a GT winner; interest in him stemmed more from the potential he showed in 2008 and early 2009 and looking to get him back onto the path he'd been on then, not from anything he'd done that was especially noteworthy in the intervening period.

And also, omitting a key piece of information from your note of Froome's development (even though you have now justified it after the fact) was probably not the best thing to do in a post where you commented on others being selective in their interpretations.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Had posted this earlier today. Not necessarily nothing for in between 2009 and 2011.

From the same article:
"Chris Froome
A versatile rider who packs a mean punch in both the mountains and time trials. Froome has already claimed top-10 finishes at the Tours of Switzerland, Romandie and Castilla y Leon this season.
"

 

[Granville57]

Had posted this earlier today.

Foxxy, my friend, a wise man once said...

Who would expect to win in a head-to-head with The Libertine? A fool. That's who.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

And also, omitting a key piece of information from your note of Froome's development (even though you have now justified it after the fact) was probably not the best thing to do in a post where you commented on others being selective in their interpretations.

But it is what it is: very selective to call Froome the outlier. I mean I just gave a few examples of others. I could have gone on with Wiggings, all of LAs WDs, etc... But for the moment, to debunk the nonsense about Froome, I feel very safe it was enough. Of course not if we go to... nit picking.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Foxxy, my friend, a wise man once said...

He is got more time to sift trou the numbers*, otherwise it would be a night long battle with open ending.

* no offence to you Libertine. As I said, I love hard facts/numbers.

 

[red_flanders]

But it is what it is: very selective to call Froome the outlier. I mean I just gave a few examples of others. I could have gone on with Wiggings, all of LAs WDs, etc... But for the moment, to debunk the nonsense about Froome, I feel very safe it was enough. Of course not if we go to... nit picking.

Great, he's not the outlier.

I wonder what the response would have been if instead he was compared directly to other, similar outliers to point out how ridiculous the transformation was. More "debunking of nonsense"? But that's been done a hundred times already, and met with silence and obfuscation, alternately.

Why do you feel you need to bring "balance"? Why not just state what you think and back it up with your best argument?

"Balance" isn't interesting. Insight is, and truth is. We should be striving for the latter. Striving for balance is simply a transparent attempt to form the narrative in a particular way. It has nothing to do with the ultimate truth of the situation.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

"Balance" isn't interesting. Insight is, and truth is. We should be striving for the latter. Striving for balance is simply a transparent attempt to form the narrative in a particular way. It has nothing to do with the ultimate truth of the situation.

For me balance and hard facts are more interesting then for example a photo posted 100 times just to inflate a thread with zilch infos.
If you like it the other way, no problem.
But it´s certainly no insight or truth seeking when certain riders are called out solely and others are not. It´s just one sided propaganda and agenda...

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Why not just state what you think and back it up with your best argument?

I did that already. So

 

[red_flanders]

For me balance and hard facts are more interesting then for example a photo posted 100 times just to inflate a thread with zilch infos.
If you like it the other way, no problem.
But it´s certainly no insight or truth seeking when certain riders are called out solely and others are not. It´s just one sided propaganda and agenda...

One, false choice between balance and photo posting, and no one is doing it to "inflate" a thread, whatever that means.

Two, you are hardly in sole possession of "hard facts". If by "hard facts" you mean positive tests...well...

This is the Sky thread. Sky riders are called out. Doesn't that make sense?

If you had just made your point about Mauri that would be fine. That you are posting on this thread to add "balance" is agenda. To accuse others of an agenda is seems hypocritical. It would appear anyone disagreeing with you has an "agenda". It couldn't be simply that the facts have led them to a different conclusion than what you've come up with...

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

It would appear anyone disagreeing with you has an "agenda". It couldn't be simply that the facts have led them to a different conclusion than what you've come up with...

Disagreeing on what? I have no agenda. I only bring light in the dark when "facts" are brought up, that are easy to be debunked by true facts.
Which "facts" you mean? Because poster A says rider xy from Sky is doping, and 50 others follow, that means it is a fact?

This is the Sky thread. Sky riders are called out. Doesn't that make sense?

No, if the same (unproven opinions) are repeated over and over again. It just inflates the thread, thus the thread becomes useless since it´s too hard to find the little facts that might exist...

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Why do you feel you need to bring "balance"? Why not just state what you think and back it up with your best argument?

"Balance" isn't interesting. Insight is, and truth is. We should be striving for the latter. Striving for balance is simply a transparent attempt to form the narrative in a particular way. It has nothing to do with the ultimate truth of the situation.

Myers Briggs, INTP personality type LOVE to do this. Play devil's advocate, even if they in fact agree with the argument with which they appear to be disagreeing. It will make no sense to someone with more of a ---J leaning, and frustrate them no end. Which the INTP also loves to do. The INTP is not necessarily interested in truth or closing a matter, but exploring all its possibilities.

 

[Ripper]

Rijs:
86-95-100-43-107-101-5-70-14-3-1 ...

Mauri:
98-130-92-71-78-1 ...

Froome:
84-36-2 ...

At least we're comparing Froome to the right brand of winners ...

 

[RownhamHill]

If there's no positive test, or otherwise damning physical evidence, you don't "know". Got it. I don't "know" either. But many things are obvious, and I don't need to "know" them for them to be obvious.

So really what's the point of the conversation? If you will only accept that those riders who have been caught are the dopers, than just go with that list. I tend to think that the riders who have been caught are the tip of the iceberg, and it's pretty damn obvious who the un-caught worst offenders are.

More to the point, does Nibali need to be a doper for the points to be salient? I don't think it matters.

So I don't only accept that those riders who have been caught are dopers, not by a long shot. I didn't watch cycling - had no interest at all in it - ten years ago, because I couldn't stomach Lance. But yeah, if you're saying I like to see some compelling evidence before I'm happy to be confident in any one possibility, then yes, that's right. I do like to be convinced.

So what's the point of this conversation? I thought originally it was a discussion about Wiggins performance in the mid noughties, which you raised, and I added some (what I thought relevant, ie endemic doping, a change in the regulatory environmnet, and the possiblity that the opportunity to dope to the same level might have been curtailed) ideas to the discussion to explore the issue further. That's how I thought discussion worked. But it seems you don't really want to discuss, or explore your own thinking, you want to assert your hunches as fact. So I'll leave it there.

 

[deValtos]

At least we're comparing Froome to the right brand of winners ...

An issue here is that there is only one brand of winners to make comparisons against.

There have been countless dopers who have made smooth progressions and there have been countless dopers who have made rather erratic progressions.

As for clean winners who do we compare against ? Looking back over the past 50 years I guess you can use Lemond. Evans and Sastre are doubtful. Wiggins if you believe him. There's pretty much no one.

To say Froome's progression shows doping by use of comparison to previous riders makes little sense when all the comparisons are to dopers. Who's to say a clean rider can only progress smoothly ?

Of course the fact that there's hardly any clean comparisons to make is pretty damning.

 

[RownhamHill]

I find a watch in my garden, I've never seen before. My brother says it fell out of Santa's sleigh as he was flying over the garden. I don't know how it got there. I have a million possible theories, but I am convinced the one proposed by my brother is false.

Do I need to have a single irrefutable explanation for how something happened in order to refute another explanation?

I dont know when sky started doping, in what quantities, with what products and what doctors. I don't know what the road to Damascus moment was. Do I need to in order to believe that the theory proposed by sky is incorrect?

As for theories, why would wiggins only start doping in 09, maybe he only got introduced to it then. Maybe its because Vaughters told him he had the potential to be a gt contender and wiggins decided he would do what everyone else does. Maybe he went to the Giro on top clean form, realized that clean he could do decent in the mountains and decided to go full in. Maybe BC who he was training with introduced him, after they decided they wanted to win the Tour within 5 years. Maybe he decided himself. Any of those is possible, and all of those I consider infinately more likely than that Wiggins, having done the Giro which is the worst way to approach the Tour to begin with, on a few weeks notice was able to defeat top gt contenders on full doping programmes like Fraenk, Kreuziger, Kloeden, who had focused their entire season on the race.

Wiggins own story contradicts itself here because in 2012 Wiggins claimed he needed half a season of prep to reach full peak for the Tour. Yet in 2009 he did the exact opposite, getting a few weeks in before the Giro and still managed to get never before seen (on any cyclist) form.

Fair enough.

Personally I don't find any of the explanations particularly satisfactory - the idea that he slogged through seven or eight years on the road clean through the early noughties, and only the realised he needed drugs to win in 2009 strikes me as odd.

I think the ultimate key to explain his GC success is his weight. Especially given his performances climbing/in Roubaix this season - he's obviously still got elite ability on the flat, but not uphill. And he's still obviously targeting certain races (talking of competing in Roubaix (which he did), winning California, having another crack at world's TT (which he medaled last year in his 'fat' wiggo stage). It would seem odd, if he was doping in the standard manner (oxygen vector) that he could stop, lose approximately 15% of his peak performance (or whatever, maybe more?) and still target the pointy end of a monuments/worlds. Which furthermore suggests if he was doping, he still is, but his focus/preparation is different (probably involving eating more food) in a way that precludes competing at the sharp end of GC with climbs. But if a change in focus/preparation can effect outcomes now, it seems to be reasonable to suggest a change the opposite way could have equally effected outcomes in 2009 - no?

So then the question becomes, how did he lose the weight, and maintain the 'twiggo' look through 09-early13? Sure that could involve a doping explanation, but not - I would suggest - the standard oxygen vector explanation alone. But I don't know what the explanation is, and I don't know whether it's possible that it could involve an alternative 'clean' sport's science/nutrition explanation either - so I just don't know. (And yes, it's entirely possible he was oxygen vector doping from 2001-14, and there's still some other explanation (either fair or foul) for the rise and fall of his GC ambitions/waistline)

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

An issue here is that there is only one brand of winners to make comparisons against.

There have been countless dopers who have made smooth progressions and there have been countless dopers who have made rather erratic progressions.

As for clean winners who do we compare against ? Looking back over the past 50 years I guess you can use Lemond. Evans and Sastre are doubtful. Wiggins if you believe him. There's pretty much no one.

To say Froome's progression shows doping by use of comparison to previous riders makes little sense when all the comparisons are to dopers. Who's to say a clean rider can only progress smoothly ?

Of course the fact that there's hardly any clean comparisons to make is pretty damning.

Was thinking somehow the same. We can´t compare Froome to clean winners. Simply because there are none we could be sure of. Not even Lemond (after his shooting accident at least) ...

 

[The Hitch]

An issue here is that there is only one brand of winners to make comparisons against.

There have been countless dopers who have made smooth progressions and there have been countless dopers who have made rather erratic progressions.

As for clean winners who do we compare against ? Looking back over the past 50 years I guess you can use Lemond. Evans and Sastre are doubtful. Wiggins if you believe him. There's pretty much no one.

To say Froome's progression shows doping by use of comparison to previous riders makes little sense when all the comparisons are to dopers. Who's to say a clean rider can only progress smoothly ?

Of course the fact that there's hardly any clean comparisons to make is pretty damning.

If you follow that thought... why weren't there any clean winners.

Because only people who doped were able to reach those speeds. Only people who doped were able to finish 10 minutes down on those speeds.

So froome and Wiggins can't be compared to any clean athlete because everyone who achieved what they did, or came close to achieving what they did, was doped. Yes I find that interesting too.

 

[Benotti69]

Froome:
84-36-2 ...

How Froome can be the outlier of outliers isn´t just beyond me, it should be beyond everybody.

I think you "suffer" from a very selective perception...

If you are going to ignore holding on to motorbikes and disqualification you really should not be in here.