The Armitstead doping thread.

[bikinggirl]

It is an disgrace that Armistead can participate in todays race. Lot of riders have been banned for less. What else can you expect with Mr. Crookson at the wheel.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

Uh huh, it wasn't a very good opinion, just mere supposition.

You want to critique it, critique it. I'll admit I'm not as good with suppositories as some.

 

[wrinklyvet]

Re:

It is an disgrace that Armistead can participate in todays race. Lot of riders have been banned for less. What else can you expect with Mr. Crookson at the wheel.

Is he at the wheel of CAS as well? I hadn't heard.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

It is an disgrace that Armistead can participate in todays race. Lot of riders have been banned for less. What else can you expect with Mr. Crookson at the wheel.

Is he at the wheel of CAS as well? I hadn't heard.

CAS. UKAD too. And IOC. ITV and BBC also. But (obv) not the Hate Mail. It's a job share thing for OAPs.

 

[wrinklyvet]

Re: Re:

It is an disgrace that Armistead can participate in todays race. Lot of riders have been banned for less. What else can you expect with Mr. Crookson at the wheel.

Is he at the wheel of CAS as well? I hadn't heard.

CAS. UKAD too. And IOC. ITV and BBC also. But (obv) not the Hate Mail. It's a job share thing for OAPs.

I thought as much. Explains a lot!

 

[sniper]

Re:

It is an disgrace that Armistead can participate in todays race. Lot of riders have been banned for less. What else can you expect with Mr. Crookson at the wheel.

With Brian "conflicts of interest" Cookson at the wheel you can expect zero positives among the top pros, maybe with the occasional non-anglophone sacrificial lamb, so that UCI are seen to do the right thing.
Cookson is busy growing cycling, men and women. A ban for Armitstead would be most inconvenient indeed.

Meanwhile Cookson is filling his pockets with UCI money and arranging jobs for his son.
Cycling is a joke with a clown at the wheel.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

With Brian "conflicts of interest" Cookson at the wheel you can expect zero positives among the top pros, maybe with the occasional non-anglophone sacrificial lamb, so that UCI are seen to do the right thing.

1) Simon Yates
2) LA was a UKAD case, nowt to do with UCI

 

[Cannibal72]

Re: Re:

It is an disgrace that Armistead can participate in todays race. Lot of riders have been banned for less. What else can you expect with Mr. Crookson at the wheel.

Is he at the wheel of CAS as well? I hadn't heard.

CAS. UKAD too. And IOC. ITV and BBC also. But (obv) not the Hate Mail. It's a job share thing for OAPs.

Wait, I thought Rupert Murdoch ran CAS, WADA, the UCI, the IOC, and the Illuminati. I'm so confused...

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

With Brian "conflicts of interest" Cookson at the wheel you can expect zero positives among the top pros, maybe with the occasional non-anglophone sacrificial lamb, so that UCI are seen to do the right thing.

1) Simon Yates
2) LA was a UKAD case, nowt to do with UCI

1)
sure, but the test was most likely done by AFLD, whilst UCI's subsequent ruling on Yates pretty much proves several points that are being made here in the Clinic about the deplorable state of pro-cycling and Cookson's benevolence towards (non-Kazachstanian) dopers.

And in a year or so from now we'll get another anglophone positive for marihuana or cocaine, allowing the Cookson apologists to go "See, he's really trying to catch cheats!", whilst the rider in question will get exonerated or get off with a three month sitter.

2)
Unfortunately, in light of Cookson's particular history with BC, we don't know what UCI's involvement/pressure/influence behind the scenes was or wasnt. The conflicts of interest are such that the only reasonable attitude is an attitude of suspicion. Even if UCI didn't get actively involved, UKAD/BC's decision to back Lizzie may have been influenced indirectly by the conflicts of interest between Cookson and BC. It's human nature.
If you put any trust in the public statements from UCI/BC/UKAD/Lizzie on this case, there's not much I can do to help you.

 

[Chaddy]

Have I missed something, did UKAD back LA?

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

Wait, I thought Rupert Murdoch ran CAS, WADA, the UCI, the IOC, and the Illuminati. I'm so confused...

You haven't heard? Rupe is BC. The beard, even better than Superman's glasses as far as disguises go.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

the test was most likely done by AFLD

You could check. But why bother, verifiable facts don't matter around here.

we don't know what UCI's involvement/pressure/influence behind the scenes was or wasnt.

But we can guess and use that guess to support an argument that has already been built upon a heap of guesses.

 

[sniper]

Re:

Have I missed something, did UKAD back LA?

yes they did.
this was going to be burried if not for the Daily Mail.
You don't go promoting a book or winning the ToB or booking wedding bands if you have a CAS case and a possible ban pending.
My guess is UKAD and BC made the deal shortly after the 9th, told Lizzie to delete some tweets to not upset the official story line about the family crisis, and told her to go back to winning races.
Tranquilo.
By the 15th she is racing the tour of Britain which she wins stuffing everyone and obviously in good spirits. A real big goal for the year that was. A big race you would need to do some good "preparation" for, so the missed test now looks even more deliberate.
Whatever she needed BC and UKADA to sort out, it was sorted out between the 9th and the 15th.

 

[kwikki]

Re: Re:

Have I missed something, did UKAD back LA?

yes they did.
this was going to be burried if not for the Daily Mail.
You don't go promoting a book or winning the ToB or booking wedding bands if you have a CAS case and a possible ban pending.
My guess is UKAD and BC made the deal shortly after the 9th, told Lizzie to delete some tweets to not upset the official story line about the family crisis, and told her to go back to winning races.
Tranquilo.
By the 15th she is racing the tour of Britain which she wins stuffing everyone and obviously in good spirits. A real big goal for the year that was. A big race you would need to do some good "preparation" for, so the missed test now looks even more deliberate.
Whatever she needed BC and UKADA to sort out, it was sorted out between the 9th and the 15th.

Yes. I'm sure you are right. BC and UKAD did a deal.

Not quite sure where the CAS hearing against UKAD fits into your guess but I'm sure you'll find a way to make it work for you.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

the test was most likely done by AFLD

You could check. But why bother, verifiable facts don't matter around here.

we don't know what UCI's involvement/pressure/influence behind the scenes was or wasnt.

But we can guess and use that guess to support an argument that has already been built upon a heap of guesses.

1) Has it been officially disclosed who did the testing on Yates? Not to my knowledge, but the most plausible guess is that it was AFLD.

2) If Lizzie is on three strikes and about to miss the games, Uncle Brian gets dialed in for sure. Uncle Brian calls Lord Reedie, Reedie does the magic with CAS, et voila. Everybody tranquilo.

 

[hondated]

So given all this , what can we expect to see today. A win or lose.
If we agree she's a doper then clearly given all this that's the last thing she will do today surely !
So if she wins its got to be because of her abilities, isn't it !
Or would it be more convenient for her and her future to just lose and let the sun set on this whole issue !.
Its going to be an interesting day even before they set off.
I am sure your all let me know if I am just being naïve.

It's difficult to say what Lizzie can do here, and what she does or doesn't do wouldn't prove anything either way.

The course is not ideally suited to her; the Giro is practically the only race she ever does where she's not the team's preferred option, and she never does the other mountainous stage races like the Emakumeen Bira or the Giro del Trentino. She's got great explosivity but has never been that competitive over longer climbs, so if she was to struggle it shouldn't prove anything as she's never been that strong on this type of course.

At the same time, Greg van Avermaet won yesterday and people are now saying, hang on maybe it wasn't as tough as we thought, and people like Emma Johansson come back into the reckoning. Emma has historically better climbing chops than Lizzie (she's won Bira, for example) but not that much more so than Lizzie, so given the phenomenal year she's been having it's not a huge stretch to imagine Armitstead can make it to the front group and fight out the win or escape from riders tired from trying to distance her late on. Lizzie is also an excellent descender (it's how she won the Trofeo Binda, the hardest one-day classic, climbing-wise, she has on her palmarès) and so the climbers (especially those who are poor descenders like Abbott) will need a big enough gap at the summit that she can't chase back on. So if she wins it isn't an enormous shock either.

Lizzie is absolutely not a rider to half-ass it either. She would never be entering a race to make the numbers up, especially when it's a race as important as this. She's here to win, quietly losing and letting the issue blow over won't even cross her mind. Notwithstanding that she probably genuinely believes it was somebody else's fault those tests got missed, she will absolutely feel that no matter what others may think (although it upsets her that people think she's not 100% honest when they find out she's been lying to them constantly for the last month), she's been cleared and there's no reason she should be questioned if she wins. She also may be motivated by spite and rivalry considering her reprieve, and her subsequent buck-passing and self-justification, have not been met with sympathy from within the bunch, in fact quite the opposite. And this may well have affected her preparation as well.

But the thing is, as she herself knows (and tearfully pointed out), if she wins, it opens up a whole new can of worms and people will never trust it. If she doesn't win, people (especially casual fans, Olympics-only fans and even among more dedicated cycling fans, those who just look at her status as World Champion and her successes this year and don't take parcours into account) will anticipate it's because she wasn't able to get away with cheating anymore. Even among those more dedicated fans (such as myself, not to be too self-aggrandizing, that's her job), the fact we now know about all these missed tests makes her very selective calendar and her alternation of dominant victory and sickness-related absence much more worthy of scepticism. And her behaviour around the missed tests is suspicious in and of itself, with so many seeming logic holes (she sets a time for her testing availability, then puts her phone on silent so she isn't disturbed during the specific time she said it was ok to disturb her?) and the seeming cover-up is such that it makes it hard to trust her, and the continual shifting of blame to others and defensive privacy-invading hypocrisy from her fiancée makes it hard to feel sympathetic to her.

Maybe those sections of the British press that want to keep the clean heroes story going on would try to sell an Armitstead victory as a redemption story, putting the trouble behind her - but given that there's now a growing feeling in the péloton that she shouldn't even be there and that this was hidden until a part of the press blew the lid off it, it would almost be an invitation to investigate further.

I'm afraid you aren't going to get any straightforward answers shown in today's road race. There are too many factors at play, and neither a gold medal nor an anonymous 15th place, nor even a tearful DNF, will clarify much.

LS Am I correct in thinking that her team mates didn't want to work for her because it looked like that to me.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

this was going to be burried if not for the Daily Mail

I think you mean if not for the Mail's source. And looking at Ollie Holt's screed today I would have thought some of the more colourful imaginations around here would be taking a punt on the identity of that source being someone within UKAD.

 

[fmk_RoI]

LS Am I correct in thinking that her team mates didn't want to work for her because it looked like that to me.

Were we watching the same race? Harris buried herself for LA, ditto Pooley.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

LS Am I correct in thinking that her team mates didn't want to work for her because it looked like that to me.

Were we watching the same race? Harris buried herself for LA, ditto Pooley.

Pooley attacked on an early climb when LA had a mechanical, Harris dithered over whether to drop back for Lizzie and leave Pooley on her own, or to stay up there and trust Lizzie to come back, after which Armitstead gave her the hairdryer treatment. After that, though, they did their jobs fine. Nikki Harris is specifically in the team because she gets on well with Lizzie and is a strong reliable worker for her - however, she's a former cyclocrosser in her first full road season (she's done road racing at times in the past, but this has been the first full on season) and it seems to be taking a toll; while she did her job of managing things on the cobbles, she was struggling to keep contact on the climbs on the first circuit so once the pack was safely together after the first circuit was over, ahead of the final ascent and Lizzie was safely tucked in the bunch, she climbed off. When the Bronzini/van Dijk/Plichta move got away, most of the other strong teams (Germany, USA) managed to get people across to it which put the onus on Great Britain as the team with the biggest favourite without representation in the group. Pooley managed the gap for some time on her own, particularly on the climbs, and when nobody else was willing to take up the slack, attacked herself to make others chase. Again, once it was all settled up ahead of the final climb, Pooley had used up far too much energy to be a player in the finale herself, so once she'd done her bit for Lizzie she climbed off ready for the time trial. Despite her disagreements with BC over the years, Emma P is absolutely a team player and I think after the racing she's done this season she knew she wasn't going to win a medal individually in the RR.

 

[Benotti69]

Vaughters 2 cents on Armistead

Jonathan Vaughters‏@Vaughters

@timross21 no idea. As a person, she's horrible. Not nice at all. But I have no idea on this story.

for what it is worth.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Pooley attacked on an early climb when LA had a mechanical, Harris dithered over whether to drop back for Lizzie and leave Pooley on her own, or to stay up there and trust Lizzie to come back, after which Armitstead gave her the hairdryer treatment.

I did see that and I think we would both put that down to bad timing and no radios.

Despite her disagreements with BC over the years, Emma P is absolutely a team player and I think after the racing she's done this season she knew she wasn't going to win a medal individually in the RR.

Her apparent off-the-bike pre-race protest(*) notwithstanding I think that's a spot on assessment of her.

(*) Helen Pidd, in the Gruan

"The triathlete certainly had little to say to Armitstead as they waited for the start on Copacabana. She had already turned up late and alone to sign on, leaving Armitstead and Harris to hang around awkwardly on the seafront with camera lenses pointed in their faces as they waited for her."

 

[BYOP88]

Re:

Vaughters 2 cents on Armistead

Jonathan Vaughters‏@Vaughters

@timross21 no idea. As a person, she's horrible. Not nice at all. But I have no idea on this story.

for what it is worth.

So I'm guessing Deignan ain't going to ride for Cannondale.

 

[thehog]

Re:

It is an disgrace that Armistead can participate in todays race. Lot of riders have been banned for less. What else can you expect with Mr. Crookson at the wheel.

Cookson was in following car. He loves this ***. Selfies, meeting cyclists from 20 years ago, smiling nervously. All in a day's work for President Transprency.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

So I'm guessing Deignan ain't going to ride for Cannondale.

Not sure JV can afford the luxury of another guy whose season lasts all of two months. And Deignan doesn't even have the personality of Gaimon.

 

[thehog]

Re:

Vaughters 2 cents on Armistead

Jonathan Vaughters‏@Vaughters

@timross21 no idea. As a person, she's horrible. Not nice at all. But I have no idea on this story.

for what it is worth.

JV gets off the fence. She must piss a lot people off for JV to be upset.