Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[gooner]

Is that 'booted out' or removed? Totally different terminology.

I agree with Kimmage. Cookson jnr working for a UCI licenced team when Pop is the Pres of UCI is a COI.

How do you interpret it so when he says "removed"?

 

[gooner]

Is that 'booted out' or removed? Totally different terminology.

I agree with Kimmage. Cookson jnr working for a UCI licenced team when Pop is the Pres of UCI is a COI.

How do you interpret it so when he said "removed"?

 

[gooner]

Why does it surprise people when Kimmage doesn't know everything? He is human! He is not a cycling journalist. He is sports journalist specialising in interviews.

A sports journalist that when it comes to doping his eyes are mainly focussed on cycling. Maybe if he didn't burn bridges with Walsh and others, he might be more informed.

Did Kimmage use the term 'booted out' or are you putting words in his mouth?

Addressed in the above post.

You should do his PR. You obviously know best.

No Benotti, but it might achieve a hell of a lot more if he put his time into columns at the moment than his currently activity on twitter. Frankly that doesn't achieve nothing.

It is a total conflict of interest. The president and 'head of police of the sport' (remember anti doping is not independent) son should not be working on any team that has a UCI licence.

He's been working for that team for 4 years. You make it out he got the role after his father's candidacy was announced.

 

[sniper]

How do you interpret it so when he said "removed"?

very simple.
the COI needs to be removed.
either son quits job or father quits job.

that said, kimmage aint no fool. he knows nothing's gonna happen. but i think it's merely logical he points out the problem and expresses his disappointment.

 

[BYOP88]

well, sometimes reading this pages, it feels like one must justify rooting for Sky riders.
since this year I enjoy them winning races (not many) mostly because of the Clinic
everyone has their favourite dirty rider or team...
and I wear Decathlon gear...

...oh shyte! it must be that Kask helmet I bought last winter

Nah, you were a fan before this year.

 

[gooner]

very simple.
the COI needs to be removed.
either son quits job or father quits job.

Sniper, that's the unacceptable part, a guy who's done nothing wrong in the sport is been called to leave the sport.

Kimmage has done more now on calling for Oli Cookson to go than anything with the doctor at Katusha or Rodriguez Alonso at GreenEdge.

Just think about that for a sec. I think we need to get our priorities straight on the sport and direct it at the people who are more deserving of our attention.

 

[sniper]

Sniper, that's the unacceptable part, a guy who's done nothing wrong in the sport is been called to leave the sport.

obviously, cookson should have figured this out prior to presenting his candidacy.
in normal politics, such COI's often lead to people standing down.
otoh, everybody realizes that cycling has its own set of rules and that nobody's gonna stand down, so not to worry.

 

[sniper]

Kimmage has done more now on calling for Oli Cookson to go than anything with the doctor at Katusha or Rodriguez Alonso at GreenEdge.

Just think about that for a sec. I think we need to get our priorities straight on the sport and direct it at the people who are more deserving of our attention.

i think kimmage is worried about sky not doing the right thing, which would be, well, quite upsetting, wouldn't it.
and i think he's worried now about cookson being severely comprimised.
sounds plausible dont it?

 

[stutue]

I don't think Kimmage is worried about anything but trying to get his own name back in circulation.

Must have really hurt to lose the Sky gig

 

[Mellow Velo]

So if it slight deviates from previous team doping illness we can all go hallelujah they are cleans. Thanks MV Sky is cleans yippeeeee nothing to see here with loads of riders getting ill on one team, no sireee nothing to see here!!!!

You twisted historical incidents to qualify your claim of fact.
All I did was point this out.
No claims of cleans.
So no need for the childish outbursts.


Kimmage? Surely a day late and a dollar short on Oli Cookson.
Forums have known he worked for Sky for a long, long time.
Hardly the stuff of good investigative journalism.

I see we are having the same old over-the-top reaction from the usual suspects.

 

[Benotti69]

Sniper, that's the unacceptable part, a guy who's done nothing wrong in the sport is been called to leave the sport.

Kimmage has done more now on calling for Oli Cookson to go than anything with the doctor at Katusha or Rodriguez Alonso at GreenEdge.

Just think about that for a sec. I think we need to get our priorities straight on the sport and direct it at the people who are more deserving of our attention.

Oh like they didn't see it coming! Cookson Snr was head of BC going for Pres of UCI and they couldn't see that there might be a COI? Bollix!

That the President of the sport should not be questioned when it warrants it, if that is not a priority well lets all go home and forget about it.............

 

[gooner]

Oh like they didn't see it coming! Cookson Snr was head of BC going for Pres of UCI and they couldn't see that there might be a COI? Bollix!

Firstly, he's been at Sky for 4 years. Cookson didn't come forward with his candidacy until around a year ago and Oli didn't get the job after that announcement, it was well before it, a point that you still fail to grasp.

Secondly, Cookson Snr and Sky have done nothing to hide the fact of him working with the team.

That the President of the sport should not be questioned when it warrants it, if that is not a priority well lets all go home and forget about it.............

He can be questioned but questioned when he fails to meet desired level of his job description. This doesn't come into it here and only if Brian himself was involved in two roles where there's a conflict of interests, could we then call for his resignation in one of them.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Even if it weren't considered a conflict of interest, there is a very intricate web of connections going on here.

Cookson had previously been on the board of the licence-holding company behind Team Sky. Cookson's son works for Team Sky. Given Sky's position in the sport and the potential for cronyism, if it hadn't been for the progress in respect of women's cycling under Cookson I'd almost have rooted for McQuaid to win the UCI presidential election, since it's better the devil you know. The web continues to a much more confused level between Sky and British Cycling though, much more than between the UCI and Sky. Does the man in the street know where the line between Team Sky and British Cycling is? Nearly everybody connected to cycling in the UK has some kind of relationship there; David Millar has the fact that British Cycling escaped the country's own embargo on dopers competing at the Olympics on his side and his close personal relationship with Dave Brailsford in addition to his sister's working for the team; the track team all have connections to the likes of Ellingworth and Brailsford, many of the women have the connection all the way back to the Halford's women's team that was built around Nicole Cooke's Olympic gold (which was of course done under the GB banner). The Sky sponsorship of much of the track team also helps interlink the athletes more (Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton have never raced the road professionally, but can still be seen in black and blue Sky kits), and the bonus interconnected web of the Murdoch press means that there is a very effective media blitz available to Team Sky (as we saw to a cringe-worthy level when the team first kicked off). This also means that dissenting voices can be buried under an avalanche of sycophantic drivel, which was the case even before David Walsh started wittering about symbolic yellow butterflies and damaging his own well-deserved reputation by producing arguments and cases unbecoming of a journalist of his standing in order to justify the team he was embedded at.

So, to sum up, Sky have connections on two levels to the head of the UCI, they are tied inseparably to the national federation that nominated that man to run for election to the head of the UCI, they control the public image of cycling in the UK, they have a strong tie to the media and a strong interest in quelling dissenting voices, and they have no problem with bending or hiding the truth in order to preserve their positions.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either Cookson, Brailsford, Millar, Walsh or anybody else in the construction of this network of interconnected entities. But the system is clearly open to certain abuses, and such a network does maximise the opportunity for such abuses of the system to take place, and you would normally anticipate that a company with such a tangled web of connections would need to be quite transparent about operations in order to negate suspicions of actions such as, say, insider trading. And then we're coming back to asking for transparency out of Team Sky, and we know where that ends up.

 

[gooner]

Kimmage? Surely a day late and a dollar short on Oli Cookson.
Forums have known he worked for Sky for a long, long time.
Hardly the stuff of good investigative journalism.

I see we are having the same old over-the-top reaction from the usual suspects.

Kimmage is jumping on a Gazzetta article about Oli Cookson that's going around currently at the moment. If he was still mates with Walsh he would have known this long ago or if he even read Walsh's book.

I keep saying this, Kimmage's constant falling out with others is not the way to go about this, he burns bridges and that's not the kind of guy who I would pin my hopes on getting some inside info of Sky's possible untoward behaviour.

Of course his acolytes will say he's asking the tough questions, you know the tough questions of a few tweets on twitter and not actually doing the work regarding writing columns on it or turning up at the odd race putting a question to someone.

If only Walsh, Ballester and Ressiot had twitter back then.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

You miss the point. It's simply another symptom of an increasingly incestuous relationship.

Exactly.

I'd say something if Brian himself was in two positions that were of conflict of interests. That's not the case and his son is free to have a role in the sport and it's unacceptable for people calling for him to be removed just because his father has moved into another role.

Replace Cookson with the MCQuaids and what does one get?

The fact that Sky give Fran Millars company over £70k a year to help their cycling department run a london to brighton / london to paris and trip to the Pinarello gran fondo based on Dave Bs recommendation is probably more dodgy than Oli Cookson being employed by them.

Fran is clean!

Ooops.

[this and what Libertine wrote in much better wordings]

 

[stutue]

Kimmage is so ****ed at losing the Sky gig.

Would have got his name back in the headlines, maybe got a book deal off it too.

No wonder he's so bitter.

 

[bewildered]

agree that the COI with Cookson and BC/Sky is the real issue and needs to be removed. It stinks.

Oli Cookson doesn't have to resign. The conflict could be removed by independent testing. Simple. Everybody should be happy with that, the Cooksons, Sky fans and Sky sceptics.

Why would Cookson have an issue with this? I think the answer is obvious. Bad for business. Control of all negative publicity and $$$ are again the priorities, not clean competition.

 

[armchairclimber]

Even if it weren't considered a conflict of interest, there is a very intricate web of connections going on here.

Cookson had previously been on the board of the licence-holding company behind Team Sky. Cookson's son works for Team Sky. Given Sky's position in the sport and the potential for cronyism, if it hadn't been for the progress in respect of women's cycling under Cookson I'd almost have rooted for McQuaid to win the UCI presidential election, since it's better the devil you know. The web continues to a much more confused level between Sky and British Cycling though, much more than between the UCI and Sky. Does the man in the street know where the line between Team Sky and British Cycling is? Nearly everybody connected to cycling in the UK has some kind of relationship there; David Millar has the fact that British Cycling escaped the country's own embargo on dopers competing at the Olympics on his side and his close personal relationship with Dave Brailsford in addition to his sister's working for the team; the track team all have connections to the likes of Ellingworth and Brailsford, many of the women have the connection all the way back to the Halford's women's team that was built around Nicole Cooke's Olympic gold (which was of course done under the GB banner). The Sky sponsorship of much of the track team also helps interlink the athletes more (Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton have never raced the road professionally, but can still be seen in black and blue Sky kits), and the bonus interconnected web of the Murdoch press means that there is a very effective media blitz available to Team Sky (as we saw to a cringe-worthy level when the team first kicked off). This also means that dissenting voices can be buried under an avalanche of sycophantic drivel, which was the case even before David Walsh started wittering about symbolic yellow butterflies and damaging his own well-deserved reputation by producing arguments and cases unbecoming of a journalist of his standing in order to justify the team he was embedded at.

So, to sum up, Sky have connections on two levels to the head of the UCI, they are tied inseparably to the national federation that nominated that man to run for election to the head of the UCI, they control the public image of cycling in the UK, they have a strong tie to the media and a strong interest in quelling dissenting voices, and they have no problem with bending or hiding the truth in order to preserve their positions.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either Cookson, Brailsford, Millar, Walsh or anybody else in the construction of this network of interconnected entities. But the system is clearly open to certain abuses, and such a network does maximise the opportunity for such abuses of the system to take place, and you would normally anticipate that a company with such a tangled web of connections would need to be quite transparent about operations in order to negate suspicions of actions such as, say, insider trading. And then we're coming back to asking for transparency out of Team Sky, and we know where that ends up.

I think this is the best post I have ever seen in the clinic....by some margin.

 

[bewildered]

Sniper, that's the unacceptable part, a guy who's done nothing wrong in the sport is been called to leave the sport.

Kimmage has done more now on calling for Oli Cookson to go than anything with the doctor at Katusha or Rodriguez Alonso at GreenEdge.

Just think about that for a sec. I think we need to get our priorities straight on the sport and direct it at the people who are more deserving of our attention.

Where did Kimmage call for Oil to go? He called for the conflict to be removed. He is right. It could be removed by independent transparent testing. But that would be suicide for the real aims of the UCI and we all know why.

 

[Benotti69]

You twisted historical incidents to qualify your claim of fact.
All I did was point this out.
No claims of cleans.
So no need for the childish outbursts.

Ooh glad you have seen the dark side to sky

Kimmage? Surely a day late and a dollar short on Oli Cookson.
Forums have known he worked for Sky for a long, long time.
Hardly the stuff of good investigative journalism.

Dont remember Kimmage claiming to be an investigative journalist. But then he never calimed to be a cycling journalist either so to know all the intricacies of the sport is not his job. Why has Benson not written about it? Why are you not calling Benson out?

I see we are having the same old over-the-top reaction from the usual suspects.

Same shoot the messengers ****e peddled by the usual fans that want heroes from their sport of choice and refusal to look at anything in its reality.

 

[Benotti69]

Firstly, he's been at Sky for 4 years. Cookson didn't come forward with his candidacy until around a year ago and Oli didn't get the job after that announcement, it was well before it, a point that you still fail to grasp.

Secondly, Cookson Snr and Sky have done nothing to hide the fact of him working with the team.

In cycling everything is above board...........

He can be questioned but questioned when he fails to meet desired level of his job description. This doesn't come into it here and only if Brian himself was involved in two roles where there's a conflict of interests, could we then call for his resignation in one of them.

Cookson has failed the sport in the biggest way, by not making the anti doping independent and properly funding it. So, IN MY OPINION, it stands the guy is not above board and having Oli is sky is probably to the benefit of sky. How, well that will out in time.

Amazing how people forget the history of the sport.......Cookson was hailed as a change, yeah pull the other one, it has balls on it, unlike Cookson.

 

[sniper]

Is Sky really that short on people who can translate from Spanish that they need to send Cookson jr to Colombia?

I don't mind him fluffing pillows or whatever the **** he is doing at Sky, I do however mind him being closer than he really should be when there is a potential doping violation in the air.

agree that the COI with Cookson and BC/Sky is the real issue and needs to be removed. It stinks.

Oli Cookson doesn't have to resign. The conflict could be removed by independent testing. Simple. Everybody should be happy with that, the Cooksons, Sky fans and Sky sceptics.

Why would Cookson have an issue with this? I think the answer is obvious. Bad for business. Control of all negative publicity and $$$ are again the priorities, not clean competition.

good points.

 

[DirtyWorks]

But the system is clearly open to certain abuses, and such a network does maximise the opportunity for such abuses of the system to take place, and you would normally anticipate that a company with such a tangled web of connections would need to be quite transparent about operations in order to negate suspicions of actions such as, say, insider trading. And then we're coming back to asking for transparency out of Team Sky, and we know where that ends up.

To add to this excellent post, historically, national federations have protected their riders before. That includes National Olympic Committees.

It's absolutely true that noone including me can make the leap to "....therefore Sky, Sky rider XYZ is doping..." Just that all the preconditions for another sporting fraud are there.

 

[the sceptic]

agree that the COI with Cookson and BC/Sky is the real issue and needs to be removed. It stinks.

Oli Cookson doesn't have to resign. The conflict could be removed by independent testing. Simple. Everybody should be happy with that, the Cooksons, Sky fans and Sky sceptics.

Why would Cookson have an issue with this? I think the answer is obvious. Bad for business. Control of all negative publicity and $$$ are again the priorities, not clean competition.

Dont worry, as soon as Cookson becomes UCI president he will make anti-doping independent.

 

[red_flanders]

Dont worry, as soon as Cookson becomes UCI president he will make anti-doping independent.

Great news!!! I'm so excited!