Topangarider said:
I was also imagining agents at bikezilla rather than it being electronic monitoring. Makes more sense of the way the question was put.
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Thanks!
I was also imagining agents at bikezilla rather than it being electronic monitoring. Makes more sense of the way the question was put.
Thank you, Dr M.
Mainly by phone. In fact, he did a Flammecast interview just minutes before he talked to me. He was a little hoarse, but still talked to me for nearly an hour.
And now I must bow out of the conversation. Again, thank you all. I always appreciate the notice, and the time some of you take to express your thoughts and opinions.
Mainly by phone. In fact, he did a Flammecast interview just minutes before he talked to me. He was a little hoarse, but still talked to me for nearly an hour.
And now I must bow out of the conversation. Again, thank you all. I always appreciate the notice, and the time some of you take to express your thoughts and opinions.
ScienceIsCool said:
People really do change and our priorities and the way we make decisions changes as we mature. I would find JV's current stance more convincing if he actually told us the story about how he changed. Was it a health scare? A guilty conscience? The dope didn't even work? The rest of the peloton cleaned up? A plea or ultimatum from a loved one?
I also believe he wants a cleaner sport than the one he competed in and that he discourages doping on his team. I guess it's good that he shares his experiences with young athletes that he works with but I tend to think that there are many young athletes he's never had contact with who might possibly benefit from his story.
I found it rather deteriorating in the 2nd part. Insightful in the 1st part and then when the questions were asked to JV they started like they were leading somewhere then stop and asked something completely different.
I'll try and be more specific (only trying to be constructive in the criticism) with examples: When talking about riders and transparency - trying to hint or lead to questions about Matt White or Trent Lowe? Or just general doping amongst riders?
A lot of questions seemed to get the same response too. Whether that was done because JV or the questions is debatable but I'm not sure if you know someone has a stubborn stance on a subject, why ask them to repeat that?
I'll try and be more specific (only trying to be constructive in the criticism) with examples: When talking about riders and transparency - trying to hint or lead to questions about Matt White or Trent Lowe? Or just general doping amongst riders?
A lot of questions seemed to get the same response too. Whether that was done because JV or the questions is debatable but I'm not sure if you know someone has a stubborn stance on a subject, why ask them to repeat that?
Damiano Machiavelli said:
I have been thinking this same thing for a couple of years now. And then Millar says his latest stupid thing and is writing a book..
Confirms that I was thinking about him so clearly. Super Wiggins, attempting to hire Contador, and now Millar the Lance defender- I don't trust Garmin.
RE: the JV interview- Damn he is good at dancing around a subject. very articulate and well spoken and infuriatingly non-committal.
With a quote like this: "That's when I realized that Lance was really fooling us when he said that everybody was doing as we did.." it seems bizarre that he won't come out and just give the world the plain-English non-innuendo "yes or No" that the general public needs. Ugg, now THAT would be a "way forward". I find JV's stance in the interview pretty darn obnoxious..... that answering a yes/no question is "making a specticle".
This might sound harsh, but my opinion of JV went down a few notches after reading that. Sounded like an articulate version of Oliver North or something...
i only had enough time to read part 2.
jv comes across a little feistier than usual. that made me think, why ?
is he tired of answering the same questions or is he irritated by the fact that his non-denial denial doesn't seem being bought ?
then i asked myself a question, would i look any differently at him or his team or his deeds in cycling if he did explicitly admit to doping ?
the benign answer is - i can't speak for others-but me NO, I WOULD NOT.
if he said stupid things, i'd still see them a stupid.
if he made a suspicious claim, i'd seek independent corroboration and do my own research in stead of philosophising about his credibility.
i'd rather ask how many tests his guys failed, is there evidence of corruption and a cover-up using catlin, how he deals with doping being at the head of professional teams association..etc ??
but that's me. i still don't understand why it's so important for people to hear what they want to hear when it's pretty obvious. did riis's admission change much in the eys of the cycling fans ? we know our sports history and exacting another 'check' is hardly going to change the past.
as to the other content, jv come across as ambiguous if not a holder of a double-standard. he wants to use media and he talks transparency but he does not want the media to 'run' with wrong information.
he should really learn how to say 'no comments' when verbalism clearly isn't working.
jv comes across a little feistier than usual. that made me think, why ?
is he tired of answering the same questions or is he irritated by the fact that his non-denial denial doesn't seem being bought ?
then i asked myself a question, would i look any differently at him or his team or his deeds in cycling if he did explicitly admit to doping ?
the benign answer is - i can't speak for others-but me NO, I WOULD NOT.
if he said stupid things, i'd still see them a stupid.
if he made a suspicious claim, i'd seek independent corroboration and do my own research in stead of philosophising about his credibility.
i'd rather ask how many tests his guys failed, is there evidence of corruption and a cover-up using catlin, how he deals with doping being at the head of professional teams association..etc ??
but that's me. i still don't understand why it's so important for people to hear what they want to hear when it's pretty obvious. did riis's admission change much in the eys of the cycling fans ? we know our sports history and exacting another 'check' is hardly going to change the past.
as to the other content, jv come across as ambiguous if not a holder of a double-standard. he wants to use media and he talks transparency but he does not want the media to 'run' with wrong information.
he should really learn how to say 'no comments' when verbalism clearly isn't working.
Very good work by Bikezilla. A good read, and JV clarified quite a few points for me.
My main problem with JV's stance is that by skirting the direct answers to his own past, it is he who is creating the spectacle. He's turning it into a bigger drama than it need be.
Now, the exact quote is:
Floyd's confessions—and yes, his accusations—have had a very direct effect on changing the course of history within cycling. What Floyd did, had a huge impact on forcing the issue into the mainstream media and opened the floodgates for everything that has followed. JV can claim "many, many years" of...whatever. But Floyd lit the fire under the feds to expand their inquiry beyond just Michael Ball—at least according to the feds. (Now, for all we know, the initial inquiry into Ball and Rock Racing may have emanated from some sort of Frankie/JV disclosures. We just don't know yet.)
It does, however, illustrate the fact the feds must have a tremendous of amount of information and testimony to sort through. If JV has been cooperating with the "authorities" for years, then the feds certainly know what he has to offer. Maybe they have good reason not to have JV's testimony before the Grand Jury at this point? It tells me that the feds are far from desperate. They must have plenty of other very damning evidence to already support their case.
My main problem with JV's stance is that by skirting the direct answers to his own past, it is he who is creating the spectacle. He's turning it into a bigger drama than it need be.
I too found this to be a bit of a disconnect. "Many, many years"? And what has happened?Merckx index said:
Now, the exact quote is:
Fantastic. <golf clap>
Floyd's confessions—and yes, his accusations—have had a very direct effect on changing the course of history within cycling. What Floyd did, had a huge impact on forcing the issue into the mainstream media and opened the floodgates for everything that has followed. JV can claim "many, many years" of...whatever. But Floyd lit the fire under the feds to expand their inquiry beyond just Michael Ball—at least according to the feds. (Now, for all we know, the initial inquiry into Ball and Rock Racing may have emanated from some sort of Frankie/JV disclosures. We just don't know yet.)
I found that to be extremely interesting. Now, maybe JV has been feeding "the authorities" information for quite some time, and maybe some of this information is going to have a significant impact on the federal case when everything blows wide open. Who really knows? Which is why I've always maintained a certain amount of latitude towards JV until this case really sees the light of day. There are just too many unknowns at this point.Merckx index said:
It does, however, illustrate the fact the feds must have a tremendous of amount of information and testimony to sort through. If JV has been cooperating with the "authorities" for years, then the feds certainly know what he has to offer. Maybe they have good reason not to have JV's testimony before the Grand Jury at this point? It tells me that the feds are far from desperate. They must have plenty of other very damning evidence to already support their case.
Well, we know the dope worked for him. That's been established. And we also know the peloton didn't clean up when he retired as a rider. But the other questions are very valid.ansimi said:
For me, the one thing that lingers from the article is:
And yet JV still lowers himself to post in The Clinic.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad every time he joins the conversation. But WTF, JV?
It sounds a bit like others who mock The Clinic, and yet can't keep away. Yeah, what goes on here has absolutely no impact on anything or anyone, anywhere. Even though some of the very people who are embedded in the details of the ongoing investigation are regular contributors. But the rest of us? Yeah, just a bunch of deluded naysayers that no one listens to...except that they all seem to.
Now that I think about that last quote a bit more, it actually ticks me off.
Well, maybe if they had more information to go on? But that's OK. Keep it all to yourself, and the "authorities."
Here is the Flammecast interview:
http://www.flammecast.com/episode-14the-derek-shane-and-jv-show.html
Our friend John Galloway, of Velocast fame, is back at it with a new partner and a new podcast, The Flammecast. (Maybe you guys knew about this but I just found out and am thrilled.)
I was a little disappointed with this interview, though. (The Flammecast one.) I thought Derek (John's partner, who did the interview) didn't really press JV where pressing was most needed.
When he was asked why he quit riding at such an early age, JV hemmed and hawed for what seemed like a great long time. Finally he came out with it: I got tired of being mediocre, he said. If I wanted to rise above mediocrity - win Milan-San Remo, for example, or place in the top ten at the TdF, I'd have had to dope. He didn't want to get caufght doing that, he said, and disappoint his family.
His decision to quit rather than dope is understandable and, I suppose, also commendable, but it does beg a few questions. If Vaughters, who for a long time held the record for ascent of Mont Ventoux, had to dope in order to rise above mediocrity and place well in the TdF, how does he explain the performance of his own riders who have placed in the top ten?
Further, if he is running a clean team inside a dirty sport, how does he account for his avid pursuit of riders we all know to be dirty? And when suddenly he has an influx of such riders, how does he deal with it? If at some point he spends millions of dollars bringing aboard, say, Contador (something he's already tried to do) or Gilbert (he mentioned Gilbert as THE rider right now he'd most like to have) and they stop getting results because they suddenly become vegetarians (i.e., stop eating beef), what then?
Does he sit the incoming rider down - let's say it's a star with his own organized doping protocol, one who has never ridden clean in his professional life - does he set this rider down and say, listen, pal, we ride on wheat grass and rice cakes around here, so you can fire your doctor? And what kind of response do you suppose that would illicit from our hypothetical star rider? Laughter?
And what of Allen Lim, who went direct from helping Floyd dope to the world's clean team, Radioshack, but not before stopping for some time at Garmin? If you're running the self-professed clean team (the other one - Garmin), why would you invite a guy like that into it? It must be difficult to find riders who have never doped, but physiologists?
These are some of the questions I wish he'd been asked. If this Armstrong thing goes to trial, it's quite likely Lim and maybe Vaughters will be compelled to testify. If that happens, you can bet Armstrong's lawyers will contrive some way to ask them about their own past practices while they have them under oath (in the effort to discredit them). That'll be interesting.
http://www.flammecast.com/episode-14the-derek-shane-and-jv-show.html
Our friend John Galloway, of Velocast fame, is back at it with a new partner and a new podcast, The Flammecast. (Maybe you guys knew about this but I just found out and am thrilled.)
I was a little disappointed with this interview, though. (The Flammecast one.) I thought Derek (John's partner, who did the interview) didn't really press JV where pressing was most needed.
When he was asked why he quit riding at such an early age, JV hemmed and hawed for what seemed like a great long time. Finally he came out with it: I got tired of being mediocre, he said. If I wanted to rise above mediocrity - win Milan-San Remo, for example, or place in the top ten at the TdF, I'd have had to dope. He didn't want to get caufght doing that, he said, and disappoint his family.
His decision to quit rather than dope is understandable and, I suppose, also commendable, but it does beg a few questions. If Vaughters, who for a long time held the record for ascent of Mont Ventoux, had to dope in order to rise above mediocrity and place well in the TdF, how does he explain the performance of his own riders who have placed in the top ten?
Further, if he is running a clean team inside a dirty sport, how does he account for his avid pursuit of riders we all know to be dirty? And when suddenly he has an influx of such riders, how does he deal with it? If at some point he spends millions of dollars bringing aboard, say, Contador (something he's already tried to do) or Gilbert (he mentioned Gilbert as THE rider right now he'd most like to have) and they stop getting results because they suddenly become vegetarians (i.e., stop eating beef), what then?
Does he sit the incoming rider down - let's say it's a star with his own organized doping protocol, one who has never ridden clean in his professional life - does he set this rider down and say, listen, pal, we ride on wheat grass and rice cakes around here, so you can fire your doctor? And what kind of response do you suppose that would illicit from our hypothetical star rider? Laughter?
And what of Allen Lim, who went direct from helping Floyd dope to the world's clean team, Radioshack, but not before stopping for some time at Garmin? If you're running the self-professed clean team (the other one - Garmin), why would you invite a guy like that into it? It must be difficult to find riders who have never doped, but physiologists?
These are some of the questions I wish he'd been asked. If this Armstrong thing goes to trial, it's quite likely Lim and maybe Vaughters will be compelled to testify. If that happens, you can bet Armstrong's lawyers will contrive some way to ask them about their own past practices while they have them under oath (in the effort to discredit them). That'll be interesting.
Granville57 said:Well, we know the dope worked for him. That's been established. And we also know the peloton didn't clean up when he retired as a rider. But the other questions are very valid.
For me, the one thing that lingers from the article is:
And yet JV still lowers himself to post in The Clinic.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad every time he joins the conversation. But WTF, JV?
It sounds a bit like others who mock The Clinic, and yet can't keep away. Yeah, what goes on here has absolutely no impact on anything or anyone, anywhere. Even though some of the very people who are embedded in the details of the ongoing investigation are regular contributors. But the rest of us? Yeah, just a bunch of deluded naysayers that no one listens to...except that they all seem to.
Now that I think about that last quote a bit more, it actually ticks me off.
Well, maybe if they had more information to go on? But that's OK. Keep it all to yourself, and the "authorities."
I believe JV is exceedingly naive. Or, to restate that slightly, I hope he is exceedingly naive. The fight against doping in cycling can't be won by just "making sure young riders aren't faced with the problem of whether to dope or not to dope." Dope is out there, spectacularly so. It's a multi-billion dollar industry and black economy. The know-how is out there. And a team manager will never be the be-all and end-all for any rider. If the riders don't have to face up to that choice on the team, there're still plenty of settings where the choice will have to be made.
Look at what was done with smoking, building non-smoking generations, a great success. It was done by coming at the problem from all angles. Having emphysema-patients telling it like it is makes an impression on kids. Printing photos of smokers' lungs has an effect. Prohibition has an effect. Infomercials has an effect. Positive role-models have an effect.
JV may diss the media outlets' effect on doping, the Clinic's effect, but it's silly, really. It's all part of the solution, and not the problem.
It is this, the notion that media and fans doesn't need to know and have very little impact, that makes me think JV isn't sincere, full of BS and wrong.
If JV, his clean riders(presumed) and all the other clean riders in the peloton started using media to let the fans know whats what and who the dopers are that cheats them every day and started hatin on cheating instead of protecting it, it would be much harder to dope in the peloton.
Libel etc, but what I mean is more extraterrestrial quotes and also get proof and rat to the media. Don't wait for authorities to come asking. The media and fans will punish dopers and doping teams much harder and much faster, serve as much greater deterrent, and get rid of them much more efficiently than authorities, UCI or WADA ever will. E.g M.Rasmussen and the italian journo/former cyclist seeing him in italy.
JV is basically the biggest enforcer of omerta with his the media and fans doesn't need to know ****. They are exactly the ones who need to know.
to post about JV's comment
he is wrong, see the influence of CBS, SI, NYT, WSJ and others.
If JV feels about fans and media have no impact, why does he play with them so?
why post on here to the fans and why let the media into the workings of Garmin HQ and make videos about races etc....
He is selling a 'clean' team and pushing it as hard as he can to the media and fans, but we have no impact? surely if the fans follow Garmin as their number 1 team, due to its alleged 'clean' riders, then the other teams have to follow his lead, so who has had the impact the team or the fans.
Snakeoil salesman.
he is wrong, see the influence of CBS, SI, NYT, WSJ and others.
If JV feels about fans and media have no impact, why does he play with them so?
why post on here to the fans and why let the media into the workings of Garmin HQ and make videos about races etc....
He is selling a 'clean' team and pushing it as hard as he can to the media and fans, but we have no impact? surely if the fans follow Garmin as their number 1 team, due to its alleged 'clean' riders, then the other teams have to follow his lead, so who has had the impact the team or the fans.
Snakeoil salesman.
Phase I is riders admitting that without PEDs, "nobody" has any place as a rider in professional cycling.
Phase II will be DS's admitting that running a team without some freedom for riders to be on PED's renders your an amateur team, nomatter how big your budget.
Phase II will be DS's admitting that running a team without some freedom for riders to be on PED's renders your an amateur team, nomatter how big your budget.
Dr. Maserati said:
What about you? Did you ask them all?
You seem to know a lot about other posters motivation on here.
If I were as concerned as people claim to be on here, I would be taking genuine action, not spending my time posting thousands of times on here and refusing to drink Michelob.
Yea, the media will have no effect on what pro cycling does.
Humm... who reported on the pro cycling team team car getting stopped at the border crossing with a load of PED's back in 1998? Yea, that had no effect, well at least in French pro cycling it did. (yea police bust but they didn't report it did they?)
Lets not talk about the past, so why is his 2000 wasp sting issue brought up again and talked about like the realization of a born again? Its the past and has no factor in the present, right? Lets not look back and talk about how you didn't dope in 2000. Lets leave the past behind us.
For the dot connectors.
...the IM discussion with Frankie...Floyd's admission and stories...Tyler's 60 minutes interview... = Doped
We know he got the white lunch bags in 1999. So the next interview should not ask if he doped but instead, "How did you evade the doping tests in 1999?"; "What was your independent non-official hematocrit in 1999 pre-tour?"; "How did you keep your hematocrit below 50 in 1999?"; "Why didn't you report Trent Lowe to WADA on his suspect blood values?"; "Why did you let Trent race if he was not healthy?".
I can see his angle on not admitting, but it is now coming off like a tease and in the end it will come out and of course will be from a news story not him. The old Telekom team all (minus Jan?) admitted to doping and everyone seems to have let them all go as far as blame goes, minus Riis to some extent. Something to ponder for him.
Transparency and hiding at the same time, not sure that's even going to work as far as changing things. It sounds more like they will be transparent on information leaked or discovered (like they have a choice on that) and then they will hide everything else they are doing to combat doping or altering the system to prevent doping, basically what we have now, the hiding.
The future will be different but only if a rider goes through his team/hands, otherwise they will be exposed to the "old" system. Not quite the big changes I think will change cycling.
I still think back of the Andre Agassi commercial, "Image is everything", did he buy that hook, line and sinker? We should find out if he owns a Cannon camera.
Humm... who reported on the pro cycling team team car getting stopped at the border crossing with a load of PED's back in 1998? Yea, that had no effect
, well at least in French pro cycling it did. (yea police bust but they didn't report it did they?)Lets not talk about the past, so why is his 2000 wasp sting issue brought up again and talked about like the realization of a born again? Its the past and has no factor in the present, right? Lets not look back and talk about how you didn't dope in 2000. Lets leave the past behind us.
For the dot connectors.
...the IM discussion with Frankie...Floyd's admission and stories...Tyler's 60 minutes interview... = Doped
We know he got the white lunch bags in 1999. So the next interview should not ask if he doped but instead, "How did you evade the doping tests in 1999?"; "What was your independent non-official hematocrit in 1999 pre-tour?"; "How did you keep your hematocrit below 50 in 1999?"; "Why didn't you report Trent Lowe to WADA on his suspect blood values?"; "Why did you let Trent race if he was not healthy?".
I can see his angle on not admitting, but it is now coming off like a tease and in the end it will come out and of course will be from a news story not him. The old Telekom team all (minus Jan?) admitted to doping and everyone seems to have let them all go as far as blame goes, minus Riis to some extent. Something to ponder for him.
Transparency and hiding at the same time, not sure that's even going to work as far as changing things. It sounds more like they will be transparent on information leaked or discovered (like they have a choice on that) and then they will hide everything else they are doing to combat doping or altering the system to prevent doping, basically what we have now, the hiding.
The future will be different but only if a rider goes through his team/hands, otherwise they will be exposed to the "old" system. Not quite the big changes I think will change cycling.
I still think back of the Andre Agassi commercial, "Image is everything", did he buy that hook, line and sinker? We should find out if he owns a Cannon camera.
Maxiton said:
This isn't particularly hard to explain within the confines of Vaughters point of view. He is of the view that there are more clean riders and that the doped riders are on less extreme programmes than in his day. This gives more scope for very talented riders to win a big one day race or hit the top 10 in a Grand Tour without being hopped up.
I will admit to a certain amount of irritation at the rush to condemn, to accuse, to spit vitriol. Many people here seem to refuse to accept that there can be any principled, reasoned, disagreement on matters of anti-doping strategy. Anyone who takes a different stance must be pulling a fast one.
Vaughters may conceivably be the biggest liar of them all, operating a massive fraud, but really, how likely is that? Why go to all the bother of running this clean team hype for years on end? It isn't necessary to do that to prosper in professional cycling, Lord knows. And while it gets Garmin some added publicity, it also hands the world and its dog a stick to beat the team with and probably dooms the team if any unpleasant revelations come down the road. The disadvantages of taking that route for a team that is actually still full of dopers would massively outweigh the advantages.
As for running that kind of con operation while simultaneously picking constant rows with the UCI and getting yourself singled out as the "ringleader" of team efforts to change the balance of power in the sport, well that would just be suicidally stupid.
What is much more likely, particularly given his own career progression, is that Vaughters is entirely sincere about his anti-doping stance. But crucially he disagrees with most of the people here on very important points of strategy because his is the consummate insiders approach to change. He doesn't want to tear down the sport. He doesn't want to knock out the foundations and let it all come tumbling down. In fact, he has a strong personal vested interest in the survival of a viable pro circuit, without a massive withdrawal of sponsorship and media coverage of races in a way that few other posters here have.
Somebody talked above about Liberals in the US anti-Vietnam War movement and that was actually a very insightful comparison. More broadly, we can compare the disagreement to disputes between revolutionaries and reformists in left wing political movements - fix things from within or tear it down and start again? Vaughters has nailed his colours to the mast. He wants to change things from within.
So he founds a team with a strong emphasis on anti-doping and various sets of internal testing. And he runs that ethical cycling association with the French teams. And he supports measures like the biological passport, measures which are arguably ineffective in stamping out doping but which crucially from his point of view do limit how much a doper can dope, making non-dopers potentially more competitive.
To the "outsider" approach, that's nearly useless. You can still dope, you just have to do it more carefully and in smaller amounts. From the "insider", reformist, perspective however it's an important advance because you can demonstrate to the kid coming into cycling that success is possible without being hopped up.
Further, he supports collaboration with the anti-doping authorities, in the hope that this will make them more effective. But he doesn't advocate running to the media with every new revelation because that scares away sponsors and fans. Someone advocating reform from the inside has a fine line to tread in this regard: Quite genuinely wanting to stop dopers from depriving clean riders of wins, but not wanting to make the media coverage of every important race into another doping circus.
I can see why a lot of this is frustrating and annoying to many of us on the outside. There are certainly points that I disagree with him on. Quite a number of them in fact, particularly concerning the utility of media scandals. But all of what Vaughters argues and presents himself as doing is perfectly in keeping with a perspective of reforming things from within. And yes, I'd much rather have team bosses with that perspective than with the more cynical perspectives I suspect that many of them hold.
Vaughters may conceivably be the biggest liar of them all, operating a massive fraud, but really, how likely is that? Why go to all the bother of running this clean team hype for years on end? It isn't necessary to do that to prosper in professional cycling, Lord knows. And while it gets Garmin some added publicity, it also hands the world and its dog a stick to beat the team with and probably dooms the team if any unpleasant revelations come down the road. The disadvantages of taking that route for a team that is actually still full of dopers would massively outweigh the advantages.
As for running that kind of con operation while simultaneously picking constant rows with the UCI and getting yourself singled out as the "ringleader" of team efforts to change the balance of power in the sport, well that would just be suicidally stupid.
What is much more likely, particularly given his own career progression, is that Vaughters is entirely sincere about his anti-doping stance. But crucially he disagrees with most of the people here on very important points of strategy because his is the consummate insiders approach to change. He doesn't want to tear down the sport. He doesn't want to knock out the foundations and let it all come tumbling down. In fact, he has a strong personal vested interest in the survival of a viable pro circuit, without a massive withdrawal of sponsorship and media coverage of races in a way that few other posters here have.
Somebody talked above about Liberals in the US anti-Vietnam War movement and that was actually a very insightful comparison. More broadly, we can compare the disagreement to disputes between revolutionaries and reformists in left wing political movements - fix things from within or tear it down and start again? Vaughters has nailed his colours to the mast. He wants to change things from within.
So he founds a team with a strong emphasis on anti-doping and various sets of internal testing. And he runs that ethical cycling association with the French teams. And he supports measures like the biological passport, measures which are arguably ineffective in stamping out doping but which crucially from his point of view do limit how much a doper can dope, making non-dopers potentially more competitive.
To the "outsider" approach, that's nearly useless. You can still dope, you just have to do it more carefully and in smaller amounts. From the "insider", reformist, perspective however it's an important advance because you can demonstrate to the kid coming into cycling that success is possible without being hopped up.
Further, he supports collaboration with the anti-doping authorities, in the hope that this will make them more effective. But he doesn't advocate running to the media with every new revelation because that scares away sponsors and fans. Someone advocating reform from the inside has a fine line to tread in this regard: Quite genuinely wanting to stop dopers from depriving clean riders of wins, but not wanting to make the media coverage of every important race into another doping circus.
I can see why a lot of this is frustrating and annoying to many of us on the outside. There are certainly points that I disagree with him on. Quite a number of them in fact, particularly concerning the utility of media scandals. But all of what Vaughters argues and presents himself as doing is perfectly in keeping with a perspective of reforming things from within. And yes, I'd much rather have team bosses with that perspective than with the more cynical perspectives I suspect that many of them hold.
Very nice post Zinoviev Letter. That really nailed it.
And yes it is frustrating and annoying to me on the outside. Perhaps a little for selfish reasons since I love scandals and turmoil. Change your ways JV and don't be such a sissy!
And yes it is frustrating and annoying to me on the outside. Perhaps a little for selfish reasons since I love scandals and turmoil. Change your ways JV and don't be such a sissy!
Zinoviev Letter said:
Sorry, but the comparison with revolutionaries and reformists is a very, very poor one. An admission from JV that he indeed doped just doesn't have that tabula rasa power in it. It would make headlines for about 15 minutes, but it wouldn't topple anything. What it would do, however, is increase his credibility. I believe he runs a clean team, but by not going the whole hog he sends out a very mixed message. One of "I want a clean sport" but "I won't break the omertà."
No-one should doubt the power of the confessional. Ask the catholic church.
An admission of PED-use wouldn't for one second preclude working for change within the sport.
ZV, you are by far the best poster (in my eyes) on here. Never seen a unreasoned opinion nor one that isn't carefully explained coherently and rationally.
Thanks
Thanks
hektoren said:
Agree very much with this, but don't think zinievs post really is an argument against it, he just explains JV's stance and his actions in light of this. JV is for the reasons stated above wrong in thinking that an outright admission would be negative ofc.
Why would we believe JV above others? I don't get that point. Because he's an english speaker, he's more likely to be popular on a forum such as this?
LA made some pro-clean statements over the years, which are in the process of being proven to be lies.
JV's team sent a rider with illness and performance issues to the doc that helped Landis out to juggle blood bags at the Tour de France. Like there are no other docs available to do a check up with an athlete.
I used to believe in Lance, I used to believe in Floyd (still not sure about the epi/testosteron he was nailed for). Why would I believe a former hardcore doper the way he runs his team? Bad race performances would boost his credibility more than an open admission on his own active career.
Do we believe Riis to keep his team clean after the EPO admission? I did, for a moment. Now I'm just not ready to speak out on it. His riders fail to fail in a time when blood transfusions are still everyday's business. He's not "team motivating" them to pedal 0.5W/kg harder than the other guys. Everyone tries their best, it's friggin pro sports, not a sold carnaval ride around the church.
LA made some pro-clean statements over the years, which are in the process of being proven to be lies.
JV's team sent a rider with illness and performance issues to the doc that helped Landis out to juggle blood bags at the Tour de France. Like there are no other docs available to do a check up with an athlete.
I used to believe in Lance, I used to believe in Floyd (still not sure about the epi/testosteron he was nailed for). Why would I believe a former hardcore doper the way he runs his team? Bad race performances would boost his credibility more than an open admission on his own active career.
Do we believe Riis to keep his team clean after the EPO admission? I did, for a moment. Now I'm just not ready to speak out on it. His riders fail to fail in a time when blood transfusions are still everyday's business. He's not "team motivating" them to pedal 0.5W/kg harder than the other guys. Everyone tries their best, it's friggin pro sports, not a sold carnaval ride around the church.
hektoren said:
Let me be clear about this: I think that Vaughters talking openly about his past would be on balance the correct thing to do tactically. As I said in my post above, I don't actually agree with every aspect of his approach. I'm mostly trying to broaden the debate out beyond "He's a fraud!". People can quite sincerely be anti-doping and still strongly disagree about the best strategies and the best way forward. It doesn't help the discussion to take as a starting point the assumption that everyone who disagrees with us is a Machiavellian conman.
I think that from his point of view, he is doing more of that fine line walking I talked about above. On the one hand, he puts things in ways that makes the situation very clear to those of us who follow such matters. He does everything short of putting it on a billboard on Time Square.
On the other hand, he avoids stirring up unhelpful headlines along the lines of "Clean Team Boss Admits Doping", headlines which might scare the horses. He also has enough understanding of PR and the media (and internet forums!) to know that public admissions would not close the matter for a second but would simply lead to even louder demands for him to name other names. He does not want to be the focus of that sort of furore, might not want to be the guy every former doper in the sport blames for personally fingering them, might not want the name of his team dragged into those rows - all of which are more or less selfish reasons for being less than entirely open. But it also and this is vital to understand fits his wider, insider's strategy, which is to say: Work with the authorities to improve enforcement, don't tear down interest in the sport through the media, discouraging fans and sponsors.
Cloxxki said:
People on this forum fall into two broad categories on this issue: Doping is nearly universal (I think that these people are incorrect) versus doping still exists, is still a major problem, but there are plenty of riders who are not doped (this is my view).
The major teams which people in the second category tend to give the benefit of the doubt to are mostly French rather than Anglophone. If anything certain Anglophone teams attract the most suspicion around these parts. This forum is not the mainstream sports media, where people who share a common language or a common nationality get an easier ride.
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