The Sky-Con-O-Meter. Predictions on how much more ridiculous they can get

[red_flanders]

These posts would also be completely off topic. Please stop the off-topic discussion. Last warning, thanks.

 

[King Of The Wolds]

Why are there two Sky thread that are essentially the same?

You'll have to ask Hog. He started this one, whilst the other was still in existence, and then bumped this one, 3 months after any previous activity, just a few days ago, with the Leinders info that was already in the other thread.

I agree though - 2 threads are pointless. Let's get this one closed down.

 

[King Of The Wolds]

Flanders. Sorry - just seen your post. On topic for me, from now on.

 

[red_flanders]

NP, thx King. Not as concerned about the 2 thread discussion as the rest of it.

RE: 2 threads, people complain when there are too many, and complain when there are too few. I'm leaving it as is. Thanks.

 

[thehog]

There is no evidence Ivan Basso doped in the 2006 Giro. No evidence Contador doped in any of his GT wins except the 2010 Tour. No evidence Cunego doped in 2004 except what Cunego himself has said with a nudge and a wink. No evidence any of Alejandro Valverde's results were ill-gotten - he's never failed a test.

The Clinic is not a court of law, and whether somebody doped or not is only a court of law situation on rare occasions. Only a small fraction of the dopers are ever caught. But absence of the kind of evidence that would be permissible in a court of law does not mean that there are no dots to join.

If something walks, swims, flies, looks, and quacks like a duck, a court might require further evidence; independent witnesses that corroborate your story that what you saw was, in fact, a duck; DNA tests and so forth to confirm this finding. However, in the absence of these, the duck might walk away on a technicality, but that doesn't mean there is not reasonable suspicion that the suspect walked, swam, flew, looked, and quacked like a duck and therefore was, in fact, a duck.

With all these questions of "where's the evidence"? I'm concerned the the forum is attempting use the parameters afforded only by a court of law.

In the first instance a forum should allow open discussion. Shutting down discussions based on "no evidence" hamstring and sends the forum into paralysis.

Suggesting Sky may have doped by the fact they hired Lienders is a reasonable amount of circumstantial evidence to at least have discussions on the matter.

Whilst I respect that people have differing views than my own and everyone has the right to object. What I find most concerning is that these objections mirror those of the 1999-2005 Armstrong era.

Surely we've moved on? At the very least shouldn't we ask questions of cycling? The sport that has chosen to let itself down so many times.

I rest my case.

 

[ebandit]

what case?

I rest my case.

what case? you forget that at the time that you allude to there really was serious evidence against lance

has brad had a back dated exemption certificate?

been to court to shut people up?

seen a book written highlighting his doping?

while it's convenient to your argument to link the 2 if brad / team sky are doping why is no-one speaking out?

 

[ebandit]

discussion

In the first instance a forum should allow open discussion. Shutting down discussions based on "no evidence" hamstring and sends the forum into paralysis.

discussion is good..........yet your quick to put down members questioning
your statements

sure make a claim...........but don't object to requests for you to back it up

 

[Joachim]

With all these questions of "where's the evidence"? I'm concerned the the forum is attempting use the parameters afforded only by a court of law.

In the first instance a forum should allow open discussion. Shutting down discussions based on "no evidence" hamstring and sends the forum into paralysis.

Suggesting Sky may have doped by the fact they hired Lienders is a reasonable amount of circumstantial evidence to at least have discussions on the matter.

Whilst I respect that people have differing views than my own and everyone has the right to object. What I find most concerning is that these objections mirror those of the 1999-2005 Armstrong era.

Surely we've moved on? At the very least shouldn't we ask questions of cycling? The sport that has chosen to let itself down so many times.

I rest my case.

Meaningful discussion means that claims need to be backed up with either substantiation or at least a persuasive argument, otherwise it has no value. You haven't done this. You've made a series of bold assertions, and that is all. That is why people are questioning the value of what you say. Without some form of substantiation your 'Wiggins is a client of Ferrari. 100%' is just noise. You haven't suggested that Sky have doped, you've asserted it. There is a big difference.

Yes, Sky employed Leinders, Leinders may be heavily implicated in doping some years ago. That is as far as it goes unless you have something else to put on the table.

Frankly, invoking Armstrong is the sign of the paucity of your arguments. It is The Clinic equivalent of Godwin's Law. Wiggins wore black socks in the TdF. So did Lance ergo Wiggins is a doper.

 

[sniper]

With all these questions of "where's the evidence"? I'm concerned the the forum is attempting use the parameters afforded only by a court of law.

In the first instance a forum should allow open discussion. Shutting down discussions based on "no evidence" hamstring and sends the forum into paralysis.

Suggesting Sky may have doped by the fact they hired Lienders is a reasonable amount of circumstantial evidence to at least have discussions on the matter.

Whilst I respect that people have differing views than my own and everyone has the right to object. What I find most concerning is that these objections mirror those of the 1999-2005 Armstrong era.

Surely we've moved on? At the very least shouldn't we ask questions of cycling? The sport that has chosen to let itself down so many times.

I rest my case.

+10.
pretty much my thoughts

Meaningful discussion means that claims need to be backed up with either substantiation or at least a persuasive argument, otherwise it has no value. You haven't done this.

Fail.
Hog and many others have pointed out such a ****load of dodginess, contradicting statements, and hard facts wrt Sky that we should start connecting dots a.s.a.p., before it's too late, i.e. before cycling has missed another opportunity to clean house and change course. If your eyes remain shut, it's because you choose to keep them shut, not because the arguments aren't persuasive enough.

...
Frankly, invoking Armstrong is the sign of the paucity of your arguments. It is The Clinic equivalent of Godwin's Law. Wiggins wore black socks in the TdF. So did Lance ergo Wiggins is a doper.

This is you bending the arguments to make them look silly.
But if you wanna be Liggett's best friend, keep up Sky's defence.

 

[Joachim]

we should start connecting dots a.s.a.p., before it's too late, i.e. before cycling has missed another opportunity to clean house and change course.

You can be assured that if cycling misses a chance to change it will be ****** all to do with what does or doesn't get said in a tiny corner of the Internet. You fail to grasp that unsubstantiated claims are just that. In other words, gossip.

If your eyes remain shut, it's because you choose to keep them shut, not because the arguments aren't persuasive enough.

Yes, there are lots of people who think that. You can find any number of them on any conspiracy website you choose, all of them absolutely convinced that the dots join up and that the rest of the world is blind.

This is you bending the arguments to make them look silly.
But if you wanna be Liggett's best friend, keep up Sky's defence.

See, you are at it now. Invoking the Armstrong demon in all of its guises, because you think it adds value to your argument. How can you possibly think that saying that adds anything to your position other than making you look infantile?

 

[thehog]

+10.
pretty much my thoughts


Fail.
Hog and many others have pointed out such a ****load of dodginess, contradicting statements, and hard facts wrt Sky that we should start connecting dots a.s.a.p., before it's too late, i.e. before cycling has missed another opportunity to clean house and change course. If your eyes remain shut, it's because you choose to keep them shut, not because the arguments aren't persuasive enough.


This is you bending the arguments to make them look silly.
But if you wanna be Liggett's best friend, keep up Sky's defence.

Thank-you.

This is the Clinic and by that virtue discusses matters of doping.

Not sure why so many object in discussing the matters presented in relation to doping & Sky (Clinic).

Sky hire nerifous doing Doctor; discuss.

That is all what I'm doing. Merely rasing question regards to Sky's conduct.

To present it another way; if Sky never hired Lienders, trained in Tenerife, had Yates as DS, likened themselves to USPS, employed Rogers, completely dominated the entire 2012 season, outrageouly dominated the 2012 Tour de France then maybe questions wouldn't be raised.

The fact that Sky did all those thing and refuse to provide answers why they did means the topics are worthy of discussion.

Suppression and censoring my questions probably won't get us to the answers that so desperately need to be answered.

Why Lienders and not some other Doctor?

 

[Joachim]

That is all what I'm doing. Merely rasing question regards to Sky's conduct.
.

No. You are making definitive statements, not hypotheses.

By all means ask questions. But don't resort to making stuff up, in the hope that it will then be inculcated into the collective forum mythology.

You won't get the irony of this, but that part of your last post where you quote what you consider to be suspicious behaviour (employing riders, training, winning) is your version of marginal gains.

Doesn't add up, does it.

 

[sniper]

You can be assured that if cycling misses a chance to change it will be ****** all to do with what does or doesn't get said in a tiny corner of the Internet. You fail to grasp that unsubstantiated claims are just that. In other words, gossip.
...

with 'we' I meant fans AND journalists.

We need journalists to make critical inquiries into Sky's success, even when hard evidence of doping offences is not available.
You call it gossip. I call it plausible speculation based on common sense. Common sense (which in turn relies largely on past experiences) suggests that there are significant chances that Sky are doping.
IMO, journalists should more often take recourse to common sense speculation as a means to apply pressure. It would compell Sky (and other teams) to become more transparent, e.g. by publishing passport data, etc.

The shotgun evidence against armstrong was also marginal.
Where would we be if guys like Kimmage and Walsh would have stopped applying common sense?

 

[Joachim]

with 'we' I meant fans AND journalists.

We need journalists to make critical inquiries into Sky's success, even when hard evidence of doping offences is not available.
You call it gossip. I call it plausible speculation based on common sense. Common sense (which in turn relies largely on past experiences) suggests that there are significant chances that Sky are doping.
IMO, journalists should more often take recourse to common sense speculation as a means to apply pressure. It would compell Sky (and other teams) to become more transparent, e.g. by publishing passport data, etc.

The shotgun evidence against armstrong was also marginal.
Where would we be if guys like Kimmage and Walsh would have stopped applying common sense?

Eh? They didn't apply common sense, they had solid circumstantial evidence, have you not read L.A. Confidentiel? They also had contacts some of whom would only talk off-the-record. They knew Armstrong was a massive doper (didn't we all) but not in the same way that 'hog' claims to know. To claim to know something you have to believe it, and that belief has to be true and justifiable. Hog only satisfies one of those criteria.

Armstrong was swimming in **** for years, and whilst Kimmage and Walsh made their valuable contributions (and their journalistic careers) the real meat on the bones came from Landis and Hamilton. Those two kicked it off. Kimmage was a partial conduit in that. It took direct testimony from team members to bring Armstrong down.

Maybe we'll see some dirt come out on Sky, maybe we won't. Maybe there isn't any. Frankly, if you want the truth to come out then the multiplicity of statements found in these pages stating that Sky are definitely doping, without circumstantial evidence or testimony, are actually harming the credibility of any inquiry. It just looks like what it is.

Out of sheer boredom, a love of intrigue, and an extreme dislike of Murdoch, I'd love to see Sky explode with a mega-doping scandal. But, I'm not going to accept stuff that is made up, nor am I going to give any credence to atrociously concocted arguments.

 

[sniper]

a plea for more gossiping

..(snipped).

obviously we had more on lance than we now have on sky. but there is plenty of circumstatial evidence for the press to start inquiring into sky's success. perhaps we simply disagree in terms of the weight of that circumstantial evidence. I (and e.g. Hog) think it's severe.

and why not learn from the armstrong case?
if the case taught us anything, then it's the fact that we (i.e. fans and press) should act much earlier and start inquiring much earlier, which in the case of Sky is round about now.

who wants their intelligence to be insulted by marginal gains talk any longer? I don't.

Teams like Sky likely also have learned alot from the Armstrong case, for instance how to cover up evidence and not leave any tangible traces of doping. It's why we should be additionally cautious and weary, and why we should not sit back and wait for tangible evidence to surface.

And we didn't even need the armstrong-case to tell us that in cycling where there is smoke there is fire.

Increase the pressure.

 

[ebandit]

discussion

This is the Clinic and by that virtue discusses matters of doping.

hoggie you sure prefer 'double standards' remember discussion is that.......
not just agreement

thank-you

 

[Joachim]

but there is plenty of circumstatial evidence for the press to start inquiring sky's success.

Except that there isn't. Words like 'Tenerife' are not evidence. Winning is not evidence, especially when not a single sports physiologist with any background has cast doubts on the physical parameters of the winning efforts. Employing Yates is no more evidence than employing Julich, or any number of people in Garmin and most other teams. One of my favourite riders, Zabel, doped. Can we condemn Cavendish just because he worked with Zabel? Who the hell else is there to employ? One by one even the most sacred cows are falling, not through choice but because they are forced to through solid implication by others. With Sky there has been none of this. It may come or it may not.

Even with the Leinders issue, for exactly the same reasons as above, it is too early to make the leap of faith into assumption of guilt. Faith won't do. I agree that the Leinders issue has not been satisfactorily resolved. We will have to wait and see.

and why not learn from the armstrong case?
if the case taught us anything, then it's the fact that we (i.e. fans and press) should act much earlier and start inquiring much earlier, which in the case of Sky is round about now.

People did learn. What the Armstrong case teaches us is that corruption works. It teaches us that the UCI needs a reformation.

who wants their intelligence to be insulted by marginal gains talk any longer? I don't.

You miss the point with that. You aren't alone in that. 'Marginal gains' is about being able to afford the tiniest details. It is also about psyching out your opponents, and probably most of all bigging yourself up as a team manager

Teams like Sky likely also have learned alot from the Armstrong case, for instance how to cover up evidence and not leave any tangible traces of doping.

See? That presupposes Sky are doping. You've already decided that and everything you see will be seen with prejudice. It is a fallacy that is in abundance on these pages. You aren't alone, I am not condemning you for it even though I think you are wrong, because it is born out of understandable cynicism. You've the right motivation, but the wrong method.

It is precisely because of this that Wiggins or Sky are unlikely to ever release blood values to you. That doesn't mean the wont get scrutinised, they will, but not by Internet-educated self-appointed experts.

 

[will10]

For Joachim: I found this from August but it's missing a few bits and pieces that have come to light since then.

- Rogers, Porte and Wiggins endless form peaks from February to July.

- Christopher Froome's stratospheric rise from a rider deemed unworthy of a contract renewal, to a very close 2nd in the Vuelta.

- Froome incapable of even helping the team at Romandie (end of May 2012) -> the best rider in the race at the Tour. In fact in view of the first point, I guess we should be expecting Froome to be running an endless peak of his own, stretching Dauphine, Tour, Olympics, Vuelta, Worlds and Lombardy, right?

- Michael Rogers openly expressing in the press that he is putting out the biggest numbers in his career, a career which included working with Ferrari and two seasons at T-Mobile during a very messy period, with both the Puerto and the Uni of Freiberg blood doping scandals. A 32 year old who has never climbed with the best prior to this Tour, dropping all but the top GC guys. His epic 50km pull on the La Toussuire stage to leave us with a group of 20 at the bottom of the final climb. Who needs EPO and blood transfusions if you've got a swimming coach and a few marginal gains?

- Froome's near-record ascent of La Toussuire, despite spending most of the second half of the climb looking over his shoulder to make sure he didn't drop Brad.

- The Sky train climbing the Peyresourde almost as quickly as the ridiculous record set by Rasmussen and Contador's infamous battle.

- Porte miraculously a top 8 climber in the Tour, dropping reputed climbers who stuck minutes into him at his previous "best" climbing performance, the Giro 2010.

- The under-the-radar recruitment of Geert Leinders. Why him? Even if he's changed his ways, surely the guilt-by-association rumours aren't worth the risk?

- The change of attitude from the 100% transparent team we were assured in 2010: In 2007 Wiggins also said that any staff, doctor, DS etc. with "1% suspicion" should be excluded from the Tour, and yet here we are - he's won the Tour with a team which hired Geert Leinders, Sean Yates, Michael Barry and Mick Rogers.

 

[Joachim]

For Joachim: I found this from August but it's missing a few bits and pieces that have come to light since then.

Here's your homework. Strip out all the emotive language, value-laden adjectives, presupposition and corresponding conclusions and repost it and I'll assess the merits of it fairly.

 

[The Hitch]

.

For Joachim: I found this from August but it's missing a few bits and pieces that have come to light since then.

Wiggins going from.top5 tter who never won a non prologue tt to during 5 glorious months winning every single non prologue tt including the.mountain one.

Wiggins speeds at tdf and Olympics tts matching and surpassing all the doping greats.

Im shocked btw.to hear wiggins did peyresoudes.almost as fast as 07 contador and rasmussen. The argument you read in every single " wiggins won clean" article is that the times.were.slower ( always conveniently ignoring the tts )

And that's just their tour performance.

There's also.wiggins going from being anti doping doctors and pro.scepticism.in cycling to being pro doping doctors and telling sceptics that they are "bone.idle ****ers" and daring them to " say it to.his face".

There's wiggins bizzarely claiming at the tdf presentation that doping was "15 years ago" ( despite the supposedly " sickening" experience 5 years ago of being searched by police because a teammates was caught - did he forget) and equally bizzarely claiming to.have only ridden against lance in one race in 2005 ( despite the fact that his own autobiography has him and lance riding in 2009 on the cover, and despite the fact that he ciited repeatedly the experience of riding with lance in 2009 as an inspiration behind his own training and wins).

Wiggins defending lance and attacking landis as a drunk

There's sky - who.claim to.be new age anti.doping being cosy with the uci.

And what btw is the.miracle.of clean cycling doing being paisans with the likes of.vino ?

There's also sky - who.claimed to.hire only clean staff and riders bringing in the likes of yates and barry then styling themselves as ukpostal. I mean wtf.

Bailsford explaining marginal gains as working because cycling was entirely doping based and everyone was too.focused with doping to.think.about actually training before 2010, then 1 by 1 expressing shock as staff on his team are revealed as former dopers.
Then expressing shock that lance doped - if you didn't know they were doping, how could.cycling have been doping based?


Though- to be pedantic his giro tt win was not a prologue in name as it was a few metres.too.long. But it was a prologue effort

 

[Bexon30]

.

Wiggins going from.top5 tter who never won a non prologue tt to during 5 glorious months winning every single non prologue tt including the.mountain one.

Wiggins speeds at tdf and Olympics tts matching and surpassing all the doping greats.

Im shocked btw.to hear wiggins did peyresoudes.almost as fast as 07 contador and rasmussen. The argument you read in every single " wiggins won clean" article is that the times.were.slower ( always conveniently ignoring the tts )

And that's just their tour performance.



There's also.wiggins going from being anti doping doctors and pro.scepticism.in cycling to being pro doping doctors and telling sceptics that they are "bone.idle ****ers" and daring them to " say it to.his face".

There's wiggins bizzarely claiming at the tdf presentation that doping was "15 years ago" ( despite the supposedly " sickening" experience 5 years ago of being searched by police because a teammates was caught - did he forget) and equally bizzarely claiming to.have only ridden against lance in one race in 2005 ( despite the fact that his own autobiography has him and lance riding in 2009 on the cover, and despite the fact that he ciited repeatedly the experience of riding with lance in 2009 as an inspiration behind his own training and wins).

Wiggins defending lance and attacking landis as a drunk

There's sky - who.claim to.be new age anti.doping being cosy with the uci.

And what btw is the.miracle.of clean cycling doing being paisans with the likes of.vino ?

There's also sky - who.claimed to.hire only clean staff and riders bringing in the likes of yates and barry then styling themselves as ukpostal. I mean wtf.

Bailsford explaining marginal gains as working because cycling was entirely doping based and everyone was too.focused with doping to.think.about actually training before 2010, then 1 by 1 expressing shock as staff on his team are revealed as former dopers.
Then expressing shock that lance doped - if you didn't know they were doping, how could.cycling have been doping based?


Though- to be pedantic his giro tt win was not a prologue in name as it was a few metres.too.long. But it was a prologue effort

This +1.
Chicken Contador was ridiculous so as for Brad????

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Except that there isn't. Words like 'Tenerife' are not evidence. Winning is not evidence, especially when not a single sports physiologist with any background has cast doubts on the physical parameters of the winning efforts. Employing Yates is no more evidence than employing Julich, or any number of people in Garmin and most other teams. One of my favourite riders, Zabel, doped. Can we condemn Cavendish just because he worked with Zabel? Who the hell else is there to employ? One by one even the most sacred cows are falling, not through choice but because they are forced to through solid implication by others. With Sky there has been none of this. It may come or it may not.

No. Things like the above are evidence. Not evidence that Sky doped, but that Sky's PR is full of propagandistic garbage that should be treated with the disdain it deserves.

And if we can't believe the 'attention to detail' and 'zero tolerance' PR spiel, because they've proven to be false otherwise we wouldn't have the situation we have had this offseason with guys like de Jongh leaving and guys like Yates and Rogers being quietly shuffled off so as to draw as little attention as possible, then what reason do us fans have for believing the other parts of their PR, about the marginal gains and the clean team stuff? The thing is, you may say that we ought to give the team the benefit of the doubt, but the fact is, it's hard to do that when they've already been caught lying to us in those PR spin programs. When they say they're going to be clean and they're going to be transparent, and then are found lying about multiple things (transparency being one of them, which is key), then the onus is on them to provide said transparency so that fans can actually believe the clean team stuff with the backing of something more tangible than blind faith.

As I've said many times, Brailsford made a rod for his own back at inception with Team Sky by promising several things that he couldn't realistically achieve. The fully clean team with nobody with any connection to doping ever was always going to be hard to reconcile with the 'Tour winner within 5 years' stuff. Not because they necessarily needed dope to do it, but because they needed experienced DSes, soigneurs et al, most of which will have come from the EPO era. You may believe that guys like Leinders and Rogers didn't do anything wrong at Team Sky, and that's your prerogative in the absence of any genuine evidence of wrongdoing besides guesswork based on performance level improvements. But their very presence there is a massive red flag that places additional requirements on Sky if they want people to swallow their 'clean team zero tolerance' talk whole. Because they then have to justify the presence of these characters with chequered histories within the scope of their 'zero tolerance' policy, which either entails feigning naïveté or fashioning some parameters that allow these recruitments to still fit with the team's ethos.

No animal may sleep in a bed - with sheets.
No animal may drink alcohol - to excess.
No animal may kill another animal - without cause.

 

[Joachim]

.Im shocked btw.to hear wiggins did peyresoudes.almost as fast as 07 contador and rasmussen.

So what were the times, and what are the assumptions being made in the comparisons?

I don't know. Let's pluck a figure out of the air. I'm going for BW & CF being...ooh...3 minutes slower.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

obviously we had more on lance than we now have on sky.

How many years did that take?

No, we have more on Sky than on Pharmstrong in 1999.

@ Joachim: we, the public, have been made a fool of too many times, for too long. When something in cycling is almost too good to be true it often/always is too good to be true. Basso 2006, the chicken 2007, etc etc.

SKY 2012 is the same deal.

 

[badboygolf16v]

Eh? They didn't apply common sense, they had solid circumstantial evidence, have you not read L.A. Confidentiel?.

In 'Seven Deadly Sins' Walsh recounts the story of his investigations into Armstrong. His initial misgivings were based on common sense not solid evidence.

I'm confident that many people contributing to this forum have the background to form such misgivings themselves regarding Team Sky. They may not have the contacts or the background to pursue it in the same way Walsh did, because they are not journalists, but their experience and knowledge is more than adequate to form reasoned and rational suspicions.

It's early days in the Team Sky story, I'm sure there's more to tell. For now, people with concerns must keep pressing for more scrutiny. That's the only thing they can do.