Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[The Chicken]

All countries are different. Generally speaking the great British public looks on dopers and sporting cheaters pretty poorly so theres a lot to lose. It comes down to a cost-benefit analysis at the end of the day. What are the consequences of getting caught?

Dwain Chambers is probably the highest profile case in recent years and he'll have suffered heavily financially and his reputation because of it.

I look on in wonder at the way confirmed cheats in other countries are "rehabilitated". In Spain Contador, Valverde have been barely affected, Museeuw is still a legend in Belgium, Virenque comes out smelling of roses in France and Pantani is revered in Italy. That just wouldn't happen here.

However we have **** food, get horribly drunk all the time and have a disgusting chav underclass that has no respect for itself or anyone else. And it rains.

Yes, and I should add that I'm British.

If they are busted, especially after a statement like that from Wiggins, man it would be a MONUMENTAL scandal here. I mean it would overshadow the Olympics. All Brailsford's past achievements gone to ****.

 

[simo1733]

That's a guess, right?
Hammer another ill fitting piece into the jigsaw.
OGE: Nobody, including Sky can drop Albasini, at Catalunya.
Simon Gerrans: Couldn't win a lottery if he held all the tickets, while at Sky, wins the TDU and Milan San Remo, as soon as he joins OGE.
Predicted to be unable to win many races with their roster turn out to be one of the most successful teams.

As for the US, I'm happy to take young TJ's performance on face value.
Evans 2012, just isn't the Evans of 2011. It's happened to him before.

And then there's the flying French, who seem to be untouchable.

OGE even wrote "The Edge of medicine" On their promotional material .They're not even shy about it.

 

[armchairclimber]

Funny place, The Clinic. You get a rider in yellow coming out with an unequivocal stance on doping....not "I've never tested positive" but "I've never doped and never will...and here's why".

The climbing power output stats are well within normal physiological boundaries (see the Sports Science boys).

Yet, there's a hard core of posters who seem to spend more time in the Clinic than anywhere else...I'm not even sure they watch the race. This hard core will never be satisfied, mainly because to be so would remove their raison d'etre.

You are parodies of yourselves. Wiggins was ill advised to publicly refer to you as c***s...I suspect he was right though.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Funny place, The Clinic. You get a rider in yellow coming out with an unequivocal stance on doping....not "I've never tested positive" but "I've never doped and never will...and here's why".

The climbing power output stats are well within normal physiological boundaries (see the Sports Science boys).

Yet, there's a hard core of posters who seem to spend more time in the Clinic than anywhere else...I'm not even sure they watch the race. This hard core will never be satisfied, mainly because to be so would remove their raison d'etre.

You are parodies of yourselves. Wiggins was ill advised to publicly refer to you as c***s...I suspect he was right though.

We love you too.

 

[thehog]

Well it's pretty convincing, isn't it?

But I haven't really changed my mind. For me Wiggo's performance is not the most suspicious, it's Team Sky's, the way they pull all day and arrive at the final climb completely in control, then set an infernal pace and end up with 4 guys in a group of 8, including Mick "Freiburg" Rogers and Chris "Borderline" Froome.

It does kind of stink of PR, though, even if Wiggins has written similar article in the past.

I wish they wouldn't bring their kids into it.... and this:

I was born in Belgium but I grew up in the British environment, with the Olympic side of the sport as well as the Tour de France. I don't care what people say, the attitude to doping in the UK is different to in Italy or France maybe, where a rider like Richard Virenque can dope, be caught, be banned, come back and be a national hero.

- I really don't like this French/Italy thing but not Britain.

 

[Fergoose]

So you are suggesting that Froome was doping in the supposed sickness window? How do you imagine doping in April benefits him in July. Obviously blood doping. So who is putting the doped blood back into him before the race and on rest days, as is the standard norm? Leinders?

Also since Leinders was hired due to a Soigneur's death of a viral infection then Leinders must have been monitoring Froome. So they would be completely aware of Froome throughout the year.

Leinders is reportedly not at the Tour, and is only contracted for 80 days work per annum. Hypothetically, with Froome’s trip(s) to Africa and six weeks off between Feb-Apr I think it is feasible that he can evade any team surveillance, including Leinders and go rogue. I’ve no idea if Froome was with the team consistently in all the days & weeks leading up to the Tour.

I hold my hand up as well at my ignorance about what Froome could possibly be doing. I can’t explain why Froome gets stronger in the 2nd and 3rd weeks of the last two GTs, while Wiggins appears to very marginally fade compared to the rest of the field.

Considering where Froome came from making Froome a GT contender is done by doping. So the same is for Wiggins.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on whether or not Froome pre-2011 and Wiggins pre-2009 (or Garmin Wiggins?) were comparable athletic specimens. Brailsford certainly seemed to consider Froome as merely borderline employable prior to the 2011 Vuelta.

It all comes back to the transparency we were promised. It has disappeared when they are winning the biggest race in the sport which is the very moment it is needed.

Fully agree with that and happy for Sky to get a kicking over that. But I didn’t see the more credible recent TdF winners, Evans, Sastre and Andy Schleck showing great transparency when they won their TdFs. Sky have totally failed to back up their claims of openness, but are they worse than BMC, CSC & Leopard Trek? Admittedly, they didn’t have anything as dubious as Froome going on. On a tangent, did Garmin show openness during the Giro with Ryder?

That teams like RSNT are well known for the preparation, Katusha, Astana, Movistar, OPQS, BMC, Lampre, Liquigas and Lotto are not teams of squeaky cleanliness, yet Sky are making them look ordinary.

I’d argue that Basso, Leipheimer, Scarponi, Valverde, Cobo, Evans and Menchov are making themselves look ordinary. With the exception of Menchov they’ve all looked thoroughly ordinary compared even to their own teammates and various White jersey competitors. It is hard to make a case against Sky using guys like that as the benchmark. Their teams seem to be utterly incapable of bending the rules of the Biopassport outwith their home countries.

 

[thingswelike]

I don't keep a mental catalogue of plausible sounding denials, but you can't seriously think that a well-written and well prepared press release is meaningful evidence of him being clean.

No, but many here were quoting Wiggins press conferences and 'lack of forthright denial' as being pointers towards doping.
This, at the very least, should be considered as a counter to that.

 

[taiwan]

Yes, and I should add that I'm British.

If they are busted, especially after a statement like that from Wiggins, man it would be a MONUMENTAL scandal here. I mean it would overshadow the Olympics. All Brailsford's past achievements gone to ****.

Yes, he stakes are raised even higher. But what else are we seeing?

 

[will10]

Bradley Wiggins: I can never dope because it would cost me everything: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/jul/13/bradley-wiggins-dope-drugs

Good article. Almost turns a cynic like me into a believer... in Bradley that is, not in Rogers, Porte, Froome.

Edit: beaten like blood test.

It's basically paraphrasing the "I could never dope because I had cancer" BS LA rolled out.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Can you explain why a world class pursuit rider cannot become a world class road time trialist and why a world class road time trialist cannot become a GC contender?

If these 3 events are SO incompatible then we would expect there to be little cross over either way. We would not expect successful road cyclists to perform successfully on the track either. If you or anyone starts going down the "recovery" angle then you really have no clue about the training practices of world class track riders versus world class road cyclists. Who do you think trains at higher intensity on a regular basis for a lot of their career? So who would need better recovery?

Does anyone know anything about Charlie Walsh and his training methods?

Does anyone know about the training methods of every world record holding 4km men's pursuit team for the past 12yrs?

A 4min event is about 85% aerobic. A stage of the TdF is about 98% aerobic. Not that far apart.

Please, do tell him:

A 4k race vs 40 or 50k? You put a smile on my face. Even good old Chris Boardman - very nice fellow indeed - couldn't win a TT in Tour, Vuelta or Giro. Prologues ok, not the big 40k's.

But off course Brad, as the second coming, should be able to top that and transform in a GT winner. Bullocks. Indurain, Armstrong, Wiggins: no difference at all.

 

[taiwan]

I wish they wouldn't bring their kids into it.... and this:

I was born in Belgium but I grew up in the British environment, with the Olympic side of the sport as well as the Tour de France. I don't care what people say, the attitude to doping in the UK is different to in Italy or France maybe, where a rider like Richard Virenque can dope, be caught, be banned, come back and be a national hero.

- I really don't like this French/Italy thing but not Britain.

Right. 1. British riders have doped. 2. The pro sport in Britain is not on the same scale. 3. France for one has a good reputation concerning doping and asking questions in the press.

 

[goggalor]

It's basically paraphrasing the "I could never dope because I had cancer" BS LA rolled out.

Yup, that was the first thing I thought of as well.

 

[Cerberus]

Fully agree with that and happy for Sky to get a kicking over that. But I didn’t see the more credible recent TdF winners, Evans, Sastre and Andy Schleck showing great transparency when they won their TdFs. Sky have totally failed to back up their claims of openness, but are they worse than BMC, CSC & Leopard Trek? Admittedly, they didn’t have anything as dubious as Froome going on. On a tangent, did Garmin show openness during the Giro with Ryder?

But, And I think I speak for most of us skeptics/cynics. I don't think those guys are clean. I think they failed to be transparent, because they had something to hide. The question to me isn't if Wiggins is worse than Sastre. I don't think he is.

Nor is it whether he is cleaner than Armstrong. I have no doubt he is.

No, the question is if he's actually clean, and the lack of transparency along with his highins placing on the UCi suspicion list gives me little reason to reevaluate my skepticism.

 

[The Chicken]

It's basically paraphrasing the "I could never dope because I had cancer" BS LA rolled out.

Yeh I see that too of course, but I guess I was initially taken aback that he would set himself up for a fall (to say the least) like this. Guess he had no other choice though.

 

[Machu Picchu]

No, but many here were quoting Wiggins press conferences and 'lack of forthright denial' as being pointers towards doping.
This, at the very least, should be considered as a counter to that.

It pointedly shows the difference between Wiggins bullish statements in the flesh and a thought out article penned in his name.

 

[goggalor]

Another thing, Wiggins would only lose everything if he's caught. If he dopes, then obviously he believes he can avoid that.

 

[simoni]

Actually, even more relevant is the likelihood of getting caught.

I did my undergrad dissertaion on this.

It comes down to:

Prob of committing crime = prob of getting caught x severity of sanction (fairly obvious when you think about it).

You could argue that e.g. Valverde and Contador have been minimally affected financially and reputationally in their home country so they continued to cheat even though the chance of getting clocked had increased. To them, the risk was worthwhile. In a society (not necessarily Britain) where you'd be ostracised if caught the equation balances differently.

Personally I've thought for a while that the penalties of doping are not severe enough but whilst there's issues with detection and "human rights", false positives etc. 8 year bans or whatever are made difficult to stack up.

 

[richtea]

It pointedly shows the difference between Wiggins bullish statements in the flesh and a thought out article penned in his name.

Fully ghost written do you think? Or just a hard edit by a PR professional?

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

I did my undergrad dissertaion on this.

It comes down to:

Prob of committing crime = prob of getting caught x severity of sanction (fairly obvious when you think about it).

You could argue that e.g. Valverde and Contador have been minimally affected financially and reputationally in their home country so they continued to cheat even though the chance of getting clocked had increased. To them, the risk was worthwhile. In a society (not necessarily Britain) where you'd be ostracised if caught the equation balances differently.

Personally I've thought for a while that the penalties of doping are not severe enough but whilst there's issues with detection and "human rights", false positives etc. 8 year bans or whatever are made difficult to stack up.

Shouldn't punishment fit the crime? US bankers cheated the world into a bankrupsy but are still in position. Isn't an eight year ban a little bit too much? Stripe m of all of their titles is punishment enough imho.

 

[Cobblestones]

So I am reading a lot of

"They must be doping...it isn't possible... We all know ... Etc etc"

I may be missing something but I am not seeing or hearing any evidence. And I have plenty of sympathy for those fans of cycling who have been let down so many times in the past ... I am one of them too!! AND that is certainly reason enough to be suspicious - no complaints from me.

The bit I struggle with is the total disregard for any possibility that they may be doing this without cheating... Because there doesn't seem to be any real evidence. I will be both happy and disappointed to be pointed in the direction of something a little more concrete.

I have my flame proof jacket on

T

Some of us had doubts in 2009 when Wigans released his values at a time when he was still trying out this transparency nonsense. A thread which is worthwhile to re-read.

 

[simo1733]

If Sky have a team wide doping program, wouldn't it be ironic if the only clean rider in the olympic road race team was David Millar.

 

[rolfrae]

I wish they wouldn't bring their kids into it.... and this:

I was born in Belgium but I grew up in the British environment, with the Olympic side of the sport as well as the Tour de France. I don't care what people say, the attitude to doping in the UK is different to in Italy or France maybe, where a rider like Richard Virenque can dope, be caught, be banned, come back and be a national hero.

- I really don't like this French/Italy thing but not Britain.

More importantly than him being a Brit is that he's a mod, and mods never took drugs...oh, wait a sec...

For what it's worth - which is nothing - I actually believe that he's telling the truth.

 

[richtea]

Prob of committing crime = prob of getting caught x severity of sanction

This equation describes the risk associated with commiting crime, not the probability of commiting crime (which would also need to include some measure of the potential payoff). An interesting approach is set out in this paper: http://www.polfed.org/PR_Crime_and_the_Economy.PDF if you are interested.

 

[Paco_P]

However we have **** food, get horribly drunk all the time and have a disgusting chav underclass that has no respect for itself or anyone else. And it rains.

Also some of you are horribly classist.

 

[simoni]

This equation describes the risk associated with commiting crime, not the probability of commiting crime (which would also need to include some measure of the potential payoff). An interesting approach is set out in this paper: http://www.polfed.org/PR_Crime_and_the_Economy.PDF if you are interested.

Aye, of course. It was back in another millenium when I wrote it!

Obivously you wouldn't risk a 95% chance of apprehension and 20 jears in jail to steel a packet of chewing gum (unless you valued the "buzz" extremely highly!)

I was quite interested in the subject for a while but couldn't really see how it'd pay the bills without staying in academia so I got diverted into something else.

The punishment should fit the crime such that people are dissuaded from committing the crime in the first place. However, we're all different.

Anyway, we digress. Back onto those cheating cyclists...