The BikeZilla Jonathan Vaughters interview PtII

[skippythepinhead]

Zinoviev, I appreciate your thought-provoking response. I was in a car accident last week so my brain is still quite cloudy, so bear with me if I take a circuitous route: I think the frustration with JV for me is that I don't know what the goals are, so I have no way of knowing when harvest time is. What are the measures of the success of his approach? I know you were not intending to be JV's spokesman (his "Fabiani" as it were), but for me to become one of those people who place absolute faith in his efforts I really wish there were something more tangible than his word. If wishes were horses I guess.

 

[Cloxxki]

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.

I think doping in the pro peloton is nearly universal, although there will be a difference between team-organized and more amateurist doping. Landis having one the TdF while falling in the latter category.
So you also think that JV is "special" to this forum because of his native language. A mayority of Clinic members will consider him suspect due to this, and the teams he rode for. Fair enough. However, when he opens his mouth and does the fairplay rep, why all at once he seems to be believe sooner than when Riis does it? Admitting doping would raise JV's credibility most seem to think, yet his credibility already exceeds Riis'. It doesn't add up for me. The Clinic's perception I mean, to prefer JV's word as non-denying denier above (now) admitted ex-doper Riis.

 

[VeloCity]

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.

On the one hand, I get the feeling that JV would very much like to come clean, on the other hand, he's still the DS of a prominent professional cycling team and I doubt very much his sponsors would be too thrilled if he brought that kind of attention to the team. In his position, it probably is better to work under the radar for the time being, at least.

 

[VeloCity]

I think doping in the pro peloton is nearly universal, although there will be a difference between team-organized and more amateurist doping. Landis having one the TdF while falling in the latter category.
So you also think that JV is "special" to this forum because of his native language. A mayority of Clinic members will consider him suspect due to this, and the teams he rode for. Fair enough. However, when he opens his mouth and does the fairplay rep, why all at once he seems to be believe sooner than when Riis does it? Admitting doping would raise JV's credibility most seem to think, yet his credibility already exceeds Riis'. It doesn't add up for me. The Clinic's perception I mean, to prefer JV's word as non-denying denier above (now) admitted ex-doper Riis.

Well one reason may be that we discover after Riis' admission that he's putting Frank Schleck in touch with Fuentes. Which tends to undermine Riis' credibility a bit.

For me, I put Riis in the same category as Bruyneel - the win at all cost type who thinks the whole anti-doping thing is just a big bother. JV, for all of his faults, at least seems to be sincere about anti-doping. Now, it may turn out that JV is just like Riis and Bruyneel, and that would be disappointing, but for the time being I think he gets the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Zinoviev, I appreciate your thought-provoking response. I was in a car accident last week so my brain is still quite cloudy, so bear with me if I take a circuitous route: I think the frustration with JV for me is that I don't know what the goals are, so I have no way of knowing when harvest time is. What are the measures of the success of his approach?

I think that this is a very fair question, and exactly the sort of thing we should be asking him when he next shows up here.

I know you were not intending to be JV's spokesman (his "Fabiani" as it were), but for me to become one of those people who place absolute faith in his efforts I really wish there were something more tangible than his word. If wishes were horses I guess.

Just to be clear about this: I am specifically not advocating placing "absolute faith" in Vaughters or in anyone else inside the sport. What I am advocating could be called "critical engagement".

We should be asking difficult questions of people within the sport who take a prominent anti-doping stance. We shouldn't simply take them at face value. We shouldn't assume that they know best what to do, or treat anyone as some kind of messiah. But at the same tame, we shouldn't fall into the trap of assuming that tactical disagreements, or different assessments of some conjunctural issue, are evidence that people like Vaughters are frauds and conmen.

I'm saying that we should always leave open the possibility of principled tactical disagreement as opposed to presenting a binary choice of messiah or devil. I really don't think that a chorus of howling about how someone like Vaughters is a fraud, not based on any actual evidence of wrongdoing but resting instead on him expressing some strategic views we don't agree with is at all conducive to rational discussion.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

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.

I do - because I take the time to read their posts and opinions.

A great example is this very thread - plenty of different opinions here by people who have spent the time to articulate their view.
Lots of different opinions with the only common point that they are passionate about the sport.

What 'genuine action' could these people do? And what have your +600 posts done to show that?

 

[131313]

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.

This, and the rest of your post pretty much summarize my own thoughts on the subject. I disagree with some his execution, but I trust his intent. It's obvious that many on this forum are simply going to see him as nothing as a charlatan no matter what, and view all of his words and actions through that perspective.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

I also think that when we are discussing people inside the sport and their anti-doping activity, we need to be appreciate the constraints their jobs place on their attitudes. It is simply not open to someone whose livelihood depends on pro cycling to take a "destroy the village to save the village" attitude. If sponsors and broadcasters abandon ship on a massive scale, anti-doping people and committed dopers alike can't pay their mortgages.

I don't mean that we should give people a free pass for that. I mean that we should understand that their strategic views are necessarily going to be shaped by their own interests. Sometimes that understanding will mean placing less weight on their views, but it doesn't mean that we should assume bad faith.

 

[skippythepinhead]

I think that this is a very fair question, and exactly the sort of thing we should be asking him when he next shows up here.

Just to be clear about this: I am specifically not advocating placing "absolute faith" in Vaughters or in anyone else inside the sport. What I am advocating could be called "critical engagement".

We should be asking difficult questions of people within the sport who take a prominent anti-doping stance. We shouldn't simply take them at face value. We shouldn't assume that they know best what to do, or treat anyone as some kind of messiah. But at the same tame, we shouldn't fall into the trap of assuming that tactical disagreements, or different assessments of some conjunctural issue, are evidence that people like Vaughters are frauds and conmen.

I'm saying that we should always leave open the possibility of principled tactical disagreement as opposed to presenting a binary choice of messiah or devil. I really don't think that a chorus of howling about how someone like Vaughters is a fraud, not based on any actual evidence of wrongdoing but resting instead on him expressing some strategic views we don't agree with is at all conducive to rational discussion.

I was not intending to place you in the position of having to defend a position that is not your own. It's clear to me what the point of your post was, and when I called it thought-provoking, it was in the sense that it made me take a critical look at my own earlier thoughts regarding JV. I am in the group of people that really wants to believe in the possibility of a consensus of what "clean" cycling might be and that a way to achieve it might be found.

(The jarring disconnect between JV's years and years of work on clean cycling and the amount of time that lapsed between Contador's positive and the announcement of that positive still has me in the "burn it down, burn it all down" camp.)

I'll remain a pessimist about JV's approach, if not his sincerity.

 

[Deagol]

On the one hand, I get the feeling that JV would very much like to come clean, on the other hand, he's still the DS of a prominent professional cycling team and I doubt very much his sponsors would be too thrilled if he brought that kind of attention to the team. In his position, it probably is better to work under the radar for the time being, at least.

Cloxxki raised a good point, though: Riis was in the same boat and did admit. It didn't seem to raise too much "specticle", sure wasn't the end of his career as a team boss

 

[Maxiton]

This isn't particularly hard to explain within the confines of Vaughters point of view. He is of the viewthat 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 think this is accurate and a key point.

I will admit to a certain amount of irritation at the rush to condemn, to accuse, to spit vitriol.

Same here.

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.

Another key point.

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.

Right, because the opposite approach - changing things as an outsider - would mean no team and little influence. In real terms it would also mean putting a huge target on your back, and to no purpose.

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.

<snip>Just to be clear about this: I am specifically not advocating placing "absolute faith" in Vaughters or in anyone else inside the sport. What I am advocating could be called "critical engagement".

We should be asking difficult questions of people within the sport who take a prominent anti-doping stance. We shouldn't simply take them at face value. We shouldn't assume that they know best what to do, or treat anyone as some kind of messiah. But at the same tame, we shouldn't fall into the trap of assuming that tactical disagreements, or different assessments of some conjunctural issue, are evidence that people like Vaughters are frauds and conmen.

I'm saying that we should always leave open the possibility of principled tactical disagreement as opposed to presenting a binary choice of messiah or devil. I really don't think that a chorus of howling about how someone like Vaughters is a fraud, not based on any actual evidence of wrongdoing but resting instead on him expressing some strategic views we don't agree with is at all conducive to rational discussion.

Thanks for that well reasoned argument. I agree with most of what you say. My post was an effort to ask a few tough questions - something I've been reticent about doing here for fear of stoking, or jumping into, some sort of mob mentality.

I disagree with the suggestion that JV should confess to doping. Riis, an inveterate doper, made his confession in order to get out in front of something that was threatening his continued involvement in the sport - exposure. JV doesn't yet face that dilemma and probably won't.

 

[hektoren]

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.

I don't think he's a fraud either. But the fear of sponsors pulling out on account of JV finally going all the way, admitting what he has already alluded to in the most circumspect ways, is an insult to the sponsors' intellects. My guess is that they've already talked this through with him. By not admitting openly, he'll only achieve that his background and first-hand experience with PED's will be THE talking-point of any and every interview, and I fail to see any gain from that.
And I fail to see how JV can be construed as the guy who works with the authorities, inasmuch as he tries to set up a cycling league where UCI lose power and control. He just isn't loyal to the system. Period. He sends out very mixed messages, and that just doesn't inspire respect and confidence. He appears to be more of a wishy-washy turncoat than an inspiring leader.

 

[Deagol]

I don't think he's a fraud either. But the fear of sponsors pulling out on account of JV finally going all the way, admitting what he has already alluded to in the most circumspect ways, is an insult to the sponsors' intellects. My guess is that they've already talked this through with him. By not admitting openly, he'll only achieve that his background and first-hand experience with PED's will be THE talking-point of any and every interview, and I fail to see any gain from that.
And I fail to see how JV can be construed as the guy who works with the authorities, inasmuch as he tries to set up a cycling league where UCI lose power and control. He just isn't loyal to the system. Period. He sends out very mixed messages, and that just doesn't inspire respect and confidence. He appears to be more of a wishy-washy turncoat than an inspiring leader.

Exactly. Anyone who follows pro cycling already knows JV doped. The confession of an "untarnished" former LA team member would go a long way in breaking the wall of ignorance surrounding the casual fan. It would help seperate them from the talking points that have been spoon-fed to them for so long.

 

[VeloCity]

Cloxxki raised a good point, though: Riis was in the same boat and did admit. It didn't seem to raise too much "specticle", sure wasn't the end of his career as a team boss

Riis has come out of it ok, but iirc, at the time, he lost one co-sponsor directly (can't remember which one) because of his admission (and the Basso situation) and I seem to remember he had quite a bit of trouble finding replacement sponsorship after CSC pulled out and before Saxo stepped in.

Considering that JV's whole schtick is the "clean team" thing, though, I think he'd have a whole lot more to lose than Riis did by admitting to his own doping - at least Riis never publicly proclaimed to be running a clean team.

 

[Deagol]

Riis has come out of it ok, but iirc, at the time, he lost one co-sponsor directly (can't remember which one) because of his admission (and the Basso situation) and I seem to remember he had quite a bit of trouble finding replacement sponsorship after CSC pulled out and before Saxo stepped in.

Considering that JV's whole schtick is the "clean team" thing, though, I think he'd have a whole lot more to lose than Riis did by admitting to his own doping - at least Riis never publicly proclaimed to be running a clean team.

Good points, but don't you think JV's doping will come to light anyway (eventualy) and he and garmin would be better off if the truth came out on his terms and on his timeline rather than waiting for it to be revealed through other means?

(of course, maybe it never will come-out....)

 

[Red Lobster]

I don't mean that we should give people a free pass for that. I mean that we should understand that their strategic views are necessarily going to be shaped by their own interests. Sometimes that understanding will mean placing less weight on their views, but it doesn't mean that we should assume bad faith.

Thanks for the excellent posts, Zinoviev Letter. Nice contributions and some new perspectives on points that I thought had been utterly talked to death.

 

[Merckx index]

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.

That would be me. I’m not saying there is no value to JV’s approach, and I certainly understand why he’s taking it. If I were in his position, I wouldn’t want to make a public confession, either. But after all that’s happened in the past year, it strikes me as a convenient, self-serving rationalization to say that his approach is better, or even anywhere nearly equally as effective, as that of the Public Confessor. If JV had just said, I prefer to do it this way, I don’t want all the negative attention that a confession would bring, I don’t want to be disruptive to the sport, fine. But everything that has happened in the wake of Floyd’s confession is a testament to how much more one man’s mea (and tua and tua and tua) culpa can change things than any amount of working behind the scenes.

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.

As one of the other posters noted, give us a timetable. Cycling has been trying this principled, reasoned approach at least since 1998. What has it given us? The passport, which Floyd said, and Ashenden’s recent work seems to confirm, can be easily beaten. I’m not saying that the passport wasn’t a worthwhile advance, and maybe it has reduced the amount of blood manipulation now possible to get away with. But it hasn’t touched the culture of cheating, of lying, of omerta. After all these years, Tyler says it was one of the hardest things in his life to come forward. Why should it be so difficult if the “principle, reasoned approach” had been making any headway at all in preparing the ground? If JV’s approach were really accomplishing something, shouldn’t it be a lot easier for someone like Tyler to tell what he knows? Or Kohl, to take another example? Shouldn’t it have had some impact on omerta?

IOW, is Vaughters' goal just to get better tests in place, to get ahead on the doping curve (forever a losing proposition), or to change the culture of cycling? I think his goal is mostly the latter, and I commend him for that, but I don't see any evidence that the culture has changed. Transfusing 150 ml of blood instead of 500 or a liter may reduce the PE effect of doping, and probably cyclists are safer for that, but it doesn't affect the culture that says find an edge and lie about it. All the evidence I have seen suggests that a change of that magnitude can't occur without a certain amount of public trauma and cleansing. It may not be pretty, but what is being revealed is a great deal uglier.

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.

When Floyd confessed, all the LA supporters said Floyd was a cheater and a liar, with no credibility.

When Tyler confessed, he was likewise a cheater and a liar with no credibility.

When 60m reported that George confessed, all the LA supporters said 60m either lied or misrepresented the facts.

With that as the background, how can people possibly think that JV’s public confession wouldn’t have had real value, particularly since he apparently has not yet been to the GJ (and therefore doesn’t have to be careful about what he says)? He would have been the most credible accuser of LA so far. An insider who was there when it was going on, never tested positive, has since spent several years trying to develop a clean team. His words on TV would have been golden. Even Fabiani would have had trouble with a “Vaughters is not Credible” attack.

On the one hand, I get the feeling that JV would very much like to come clean, on the other hand, he's still the DS of a prominent professional cycling team and I doubt very much his sponsors would be too thrilled if he brought that kind of attention to the team. In his position, it probably is better to work under the radar for the time being, at least.

Seems to me there’s a double standard here. Many of the LA supporters are now saying it doesn’t matter if he doped, they all did it. If that’s the case, what’s the big deal of a DS admitting?

 

[VeloCity]

Good points, but don't you think JV's doping will come to light anyway (eventualy) and he and garmin would be better off if the truth came out on his terms and on his timeline rather than waiting for it to be revealed through other means?

(of course, maybe it never will come-out....)

But it could also very possibly be Garmin asking JV not to come out with it, so as not to attract the wrong kind of attention...who knows? But all in all, I think JV's in a bit of a tough spot, so I'm a bit more sympathetic to his skirting around the edges without actually admitting to anything - like I said before, I really think he does want to come clean but unlike Landis and Hamilton, he's got to take into consideration the potential consequences it would have for many others as well, ie the riders and team personnel at Garmin. That is, if Landis admits, it really only affects him, but if JV were to admit, it could potentially affect a lot of other people - JV has responsibilities to others that Landis and Hamilton don't have.

 

[VeloCity]

Seems to me there’s a double standard here. Many of the LA supporters are now saying it doesn’t matter if he doped, they all did it. If that’s the case, what’s the big deal of a DS admitting?

I'd have no problem with JV admitting, but I can also see his dilemma.

 

[zigmeister]

Vaughters tries to make it seems as if any personal admission/denial of doping is entirely a philosophical Zen/Buddhist type of situation where each person has to be responsible and report to a higher power and it does nothing for the sport's future. Actually, he never clarified exactly why he won't answer the question except the "sports future" is what is important and it isn't necessary, and between him and his friends/family.

Of course, the real reason he never answers the question in an interview or public is due to being possibly caught in a lie and being indicted if he has to testify in front of a Grand Jury.

His statement at the end of the article is enough to confirm that:

“I have not appeared in front of a Grand Jury at this time. I fully expect that at some point I will, or that I'll be asked to.

As of here and now, today, that hasn't happened."


He has been very clever up to this point in not admitting publicly, or to anybody that he feels would ever dispute what he says, regarding his personal doping.

If he ever said in the past in an interview years ago that he never doped, then he tells the GJ he did...well, that is bad. And vice versa, and could be considering a federal offense with possible jail time for lying to a GJ.

So, just never answer the question except to a GJ. You are safe. Anything else he states regarding the situation is plain nonsense and it's only CYA situation. His personal interest/well being and self centered motives are what he is truly concerned about. Not the sports future.

 

[pmcg76]

Have to say there has been a lot of excellent thoughtful posts on this tread from various posters over the last few pages. None of this hysterical JV is a fraud because we are all stupid type posts.

 

[Damiano Machiavelli]

...like I said before, I really think he does want to come clean...

What makes you think that? What has JV ever done that indicates that he wants to come forward? His behavior in the SCA case can only be described as that of a weasel. What JV wants is to have his cake and eat it too. The same people criticizing Lance for hiding behind cancer allow JV to hide behind the good of the sport or the good of his team. That same type of thinking is what led the UCI to cover up the doping problem.

I suspect that David Millar's much ridiculed and contradictory views were not formulated in a vacuum. His way of thinking comes directly from JV. The difference is that Millar is not smart enough state his views in wishy washy double speak like JV.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

Part of the problem is that for someone who is so anti-doping, Vaughters is so evasive when it comes to his own doping. He promises openness and transparency and then never really delivers. He tells us to trust him, but can't seem to see why people don't trust him (or anyone in cycling). He talks the talk, but there is no evidence of him actually backing it up with actions.

I think that the feeling that a lot of his anti-doping rhetoric is PR spin is valid.

I do think there is a lot of pinning unrealistic hopes on him. The bottomline is that he doesn't want to do anything that will harm his team or his bank balance.

To go back to ZL's post, he is the classic moderate member of the old guard within the ancien regime. Cycling's very own Egon Krenz

 

[VeloCity]

What makes you think that? What has JV ever done that indicates that he wants to come forward? His behavior in the SCA case can only be described as that of a weasel. What JV wants is to have his cake and eat it too. The same people criticizing Lance for hiding behind cancer allow JV to hide behind the good of the sport or the good of his team. That same type of thinking is what led the UCI to cover up the doping problem.

Because JV's all but come right out and admitted it (sort of like Ullrich, actually - a tacit admission without actually admitting). JV could've denied everything - hey, I've never doped, never touched the stuff, have no idea what you're talking about - but he hasn't. What you call wishy-washy I interpret as someone who wants to come forth but can't because of other considerations, ie as he's still involved in the sport, his hands are a bit tied. So he skirts around the edges.

Anyway, I can't see how someone would be willing to voluntarily put their job and livelihood at stake just to admit to something that we all suspect he was doing. As I said before, Landis and Hamilton etc really had nothing to lose, but JV potentially has a lot to lose.

Remember too, Riis - the only real comparison to JV's situation - was basically forced into admitting his doping because of d'Hont - it certainly wasn't voluntary. But I also get the feeling that Riis was relieved to finally admit to doping - he also could've denied everything, but didn't. Not that anyone would've believed him, but he could've denied it all. I sort of get the same sense with JV - he'll spill when he's "forced" to spill, but it'll be a convenient excuse to spill, if that makes sense.

 

[zigmeister]

Part of the problem is that for someone who is so anti-doping, Vaughters is so evasive when it comes to his own doping. He promises openness and transparency and then never really delivers. He tells us to trust him, but can't seem to see why people don't trust him (or anyone in cycling). He talks the talk, but there is no evidence of him actually backing it up with actions.

I think that the feeling that a lot of his anti-doping rhetoric is PR spin is valid.

I do think there is a lot of pinning unrealistic hopes on him. The bottomline is that he doesn't want to do anything that will harm his team or his bank balance.

To go back to ZL's post, he is the classic moderate member of the old guard within the ancien regime. Cycling's very own Egon Krenz

Concur with this. He has is own personal motives and self interests at hand first and foremost. Do I blame him for that? Nope. He knows that 1 guy can't be a martyr and change anything alone. I would likely do the same. CYA.

But to continue this rhetoric about honesty, making the sport cleaner, and then to never reveal certain information about his own past is an oxymoron.

That, and him never admitting it publicly to anybody prevents him from being caught in a GJ testimony lie potentially.