Vandevelde interview - hope for a clean peloton

[hiero2]

From here: velonews /2012/06/ vande-velde-we-won-the-giro-with-chip-on-our-shoulders

This quote:

VN: What does it mean to the Garmin organization to win this Giro?
VdV: It’s almost incomprehensible. When we started in 2008, at that point in time, we didn’t even think it was possible to win a grand tour. This is really a litmus test for clean sport and how far the sport has come. It’s a great thing for our team and for our sport in general. We never would have thought this would have been possible. That’s how far our sport has come.

Thumbs up!

 

[hrotha]

The usual points about cycling having gone so far and being so clean now, without EVER acknowledging openly where it was, how it changed, why it changed, who changed and who didn't, so that the same kind of talk can be recycled time and time again. And we've been hearing it since 1999.

 

[Caruut]

Garmin wins, everyone is cleaner!

De Gendt wins, he is dirty!

 

[Berzin]

Vandevelde is beyond boring.

How has cycling changed when not one of the top people who have been and probably still are knee-deep in the doping apparatus-managers, doctors, director sportifs-were made to walk the plank during these last few years?

 

[Master50]

The usual points about cycling having gone so far and being so clean now, without EVER acknowledging openly where it was, how it changed, why it changed, who changed and who didn't, so that the same kind of talk can be recycled time and time again. And we've been hearing it since 1999.

Same can be said of the Clinic. Same perspective, same wild claims, same damnation without any proof, etc. VDV clearly acknowledges that something has changed and positively toward a cleaner peloton.

 

[Caruut]

Same can be said of the Clinic. Same perspective, same wild claims, same damnation without any proof, etc. VDV clearly acknowledges that something has changed and positively toward a cleaner peloton.

That's not actually saying the same about the clinic, though.

 

[hrotha]

Same can be said of the Clinic. Same perspective, same wild claims, same damnation without any proof, etc. VDV clearly acknowledges that something has changed and positively toward a cleaner peloton.

Way to miss the point. Vande Velde clearly didn't acknowledge where cycling was. What he saw. What he's been personally involved in. He's repeating the same thing we've been hearing from 1999. That's 13 years of this "cycling is now practically clean" thing. At some point, we're going to have to demand actual proof instead of taking those claims at face value.

 

[Lanark]

Way to miss the point. Vande Velde clearly didn't acknowledge where cycling was. What he saw. What he's been personally involved in. He's repeating the same thing we've been hearing from 1999. That's 13 years of this "cycling is now practically clean" thing. At some point, we're going to have to demand actual proof instead of taking those claims at face value.

Really? I barely heard that untill 4 years or so ago. I certainly can't remember anyone claiming cycling was practically clean in the early 00's.

 

[hrotha]

Really? I barely heard that untill 4 years or so ago. I certainly can't remember anyone claiming cycling was practically clean in the early 00's.

Samaranch wants clean Tour
[Jean-Marie] Leblanc will not easily reconcile his putdown of Bassons with his expressed desire to have a clean Tour
Sport is cleaner - Verbruggen
etc etc

 

[Libertine Seguros]

From here: velonews /2012/06/ vande-velde-we-won-the-giro-with-chip-on-our-shoulders

This quote:


Thumbs up!

The question is, do you personally believe the Garmin "we are a totally clean team" party line? If so, did you also believe it from HTC and Sky when they used it?

The fact of the matter is, there is still a lot of doping in the sport. We know this because people are being caught all the time, and because people who were involved in the 'bad old days' are still around now, still causing the same jumps in performance. Allen Lim, who worked at Garmin and oversaw Vande Velde and Wiggins' transformations into GC riders, was closely tied to US Postal and that investigation, so you can perhaps see why some take the talk of Garmin as a super clean team with a pinch of salt as they turn another rider of around 30 or even more and turn them into a GC contender.

However, while the biopassport and other innovations may not have curbed doping per se, I do believe that they have limited it, not necessarily in terms of number of riders at it but in terms of amount of it that riders can get away with. Microdosing rather than the excesses of the 90s, with the stories of riders like Riis needing to be awoken in the middle of the night to make sure they didn't die. This does suggest that the gulf between the clean racehorses and the dirty racehorses is now less. This may explain why riders who were not able to be competitive now can be. But at the same time, in a cleaner péloton, the benefits of doping can be more obvious - see Riccò's comical attacks in the 2008 Tour. In the days of everybody sprinting up the mountains that may have been a decent attack, but it was run of the mill. Against that field it was absolutely hilarious.

 

[hrotha]

Gooner, I don't want cycling to truly, openly, sincerely acknowledge its past just to give me something to talk about here. I want it to face its past with honesty, because if it doesn't, how is it going to face its present at all? We've been hearing for over a decade that things have changed. When they say it now, they're explicitly referring to a time when most of them already rode, and when they were already saying the same things. "Let's look forward", "it's all in the past" and all that are BS stock phrases to maintain the statu quo. Simple as that.

We all know what cycling was like in the 90s? No. We don't know half the story.

Also, I don't think you'll find many quotes from me where I say some rider is definitely a doper without evidence.

 

[MarkvW]

Way to miss the point. Vande Velde clearly didn't acknowledge where cycling was. What he saw. What he's been personally involved in. He's repeating the same thing we've been hearing from 1999. That's 13 years of this "cycling is now practically clean" thing. At some point, we're going to have to demand actual proof instead of taking those claims at face value.

"Demanding actual proof" by cycling fans is not going to have ANY impact upon the cleanliness of professional cycling. Fans have ONLY ONE WAY to influence the conduct of their sport: If a fan doesn't like what he or she is seeing, the fan can take his or her attention and money away from the sport. If enough fans do that, there will be change.

In other words, the sport will only listen to the fans AFTER the fans walk away. The UCI continues their fig leaf ways because they know that their fans would rather support their dirty sport than leave.

If you want to change the pro peloton, you have to abandon it and the sponsors who support it.

Like that's going to happen! Complaining about doping and "demanding actual proof" is a lot more fun than doing the one little thing that might help clean up the sport.

 

[Benotti69]

Vandevelde rode for US Postal, Liberty Seguros, Team CSC so maybe he can tells us why he thinks it is a clean peloton in 2012.

I wouldn't hold my breath though for it being true or VDV telling us why!

 

[Caruut]

It is the same thing. Hrotha said the same stuff is recycled since 1999. Is'nt the same stuff recycled in the clinic everyday like the things that Master50 said in his post?

Oh yes indeed.

Yes, a doping forum often contains talk about doping.

You will see "clinic regulars" taking both sides of the argument, though. The wild accusations often come from people who don't visit so much. Hrotha himself posted, along with several others (including myself), about how the Peter Sagan thread was ridiculous. From pro cycling, there are just two lines "it's cleaner, but we won't tell you any details" and silence. That is completely different from the Clinic.

Can we only talk about something when there is concrete evidence? If dopers left concrete evidence all the time, there wouldn't be much doping, since they'd all get caught. It is only a problem because there isn't concrete evidence, and there never will be if people refuse to entertain the possibility of doping until there is concrete evidence.

Vandevelde, on the other hand, has been around the block. He knows exactly what has happened, yet decides not to mention it. He is in a position that no fan can ever be in, therefore it is fair to expect him to back up his assertions.

 

[goggalor]

Really? I barely heard that untill 4 years or so ago. I certainly can't remember anyone claiming cycling was practically clean in the early 00's.

Lance actually writes in "It's Not About the Bike" that the Festina affair was dirty but that it ultimately paved way for his win in 99. Pretty funny stuff.

 

[Race Radio]

Same can be said of the Clinic. Same perspective, same wild claims, same damnation without any proof, etc. VDV clearly acknowledges that something has changed and positively toward a cleaner peloton.

BS

There are plenty of posters in the clinic who talk about clean cycling. It is a common topic that VAM's and output and riders are getting slower and that leads to better racing.

Some would prefer the issue is ignored and not discussed. Ignoring it and pretending all is good is what got us in this

 

[Race Radio]

Vandevelde rode for US Postal, Liberty Seguros, Team CSC so maybe he can tells us why he thinks it is a clean peloton in 2012.

I wouldn't hold my breath though for it being true or VDV telling us why!

You will be happy to know that VDV told the right people exactly what was happening on those team

 

[Benotti69]

You will be happy to know that VDV told the right people exactly what was happening on those team

Good to hear. Hopefully it will do some good.

 

[hrotha]

You will be happy to know that VDV told the right people exactly what was happening on those team

Did he have anything to say about Garmin? And if so, did he say it?

 

[hrotha]

Of course we join the dots. We only get very fragmentary information, rumours and some hard evidence here and there, and with that we have to reconstruct a coherent picture. What else can we do? There's a difference between that, and making categorical statements. Most people here aren't prejudiced. They have their understanding of doping, which changes as new information is revealed. When credible information challenges the picture they have developed, they're glad to reconsider it. What makes little sense is for insiders, DSs, riders or whatever complaining about us speculating, when they're the ones to blame for our lack of more plentiful solid data.

There are forumers who do say everybody dopes, everybody will always dope, regardless of the evidence. Those are not the majority, and I don't belong in that group.

I already addressed the "look forward" BS. You still haven't given us any reason to believe this time, the nth time we hear cycling is almost clean for practical purposes, we should give it more credibility than the n times we heard it before. That very same "it's in the past" reasoning was regularly used by the UCI, at the same time as they were accepting bribes to make positives disappear.

 

[hrotha]

You admit you join the dots so don't be going around and talking about doping as if you are some expert on it with certain riders.

By the way where was this "fragmentary information, rumours and some hard evidence here and there" when you called up on Hesjedal and Wiggins? You said this is what you use to "reconstruct a coherent picture" so where is all this information, rumours and hard evidence then? Correct me if I wrong but you did'nt seem to produce this when you pulled up on the 2 of them yesterday.

I never said Wiggins and Hesjedal definitely dope. I said to dismiss the notion entirely is just silly, especially in the case of Wiggins because, regardless of his guilt, his case should raise all the red flags in light of the history of the sport. I was attacking your position that their doing well proves cycling is clean, because it made no logical sense.

That's what I've been saying all along. Sorry if it doesn't line up with your strawmanning.

 

[FabulousCandelabra]

Thomas Knox writes in the velonews comments "C.V. exemplifies everything good about cycling. What a humble guy, many forget that aside from a bad patch 1 kilo from the top of the final climb of stage 16 in the TDF C.V.could have won the TDF."

What is he talking about??

 

[RHRH19861986]

Some statements of Vandevelde just seem insane to me... He has been pro for so many years, so I fear he really believes what he says here. For me, this shows that you tend to live in your own world after so many years in pro cycling.

What do Vaughters, Vandevelde etc. want to tell us about clean cycling? What do they know about clean cycling? I still prefer who just do it, take their medicine and shut up about it, instead of speaking about clean cycling.
The guys like Moncoutie, who really stay clean, hardly ever speak about being clean, they´re just ****ed about what´s going on, and they never win races like the Giro.

 

[The Hitch]

VDV clearly acknowledges that something has changed and positively toward a cleaner peloton.

If they sport is moving more in the right direction lets embrace it and not get stuck up in the past.
.

As Mario Puzo wrote "Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment."

Point is one can't analyze the issue properly if one approaches it emotionally.

Yeah it would be nice if the peloton was clean. But that does not mean we should give more validity to those who say it is clean than those who say it is dirty simply because we would like it that way.

The first quote from Master50 sounds suspiciously familiar to incoming governments who dismiss any legitimate questions or criticisms with "thats all in the past, lets look to the future", and accuse the questioners of being negative.

Anyway it is interesting you say you would like "proof" when you don't seem to need it yourself when you are talking in the clinic about certain riders and doping on a regular basis

hrotha? You have seen him assert without proof. From my experience easily the most fair minded poster in the history of the forum.

 

[Ripper]

hrotha - you seem pretty grouchy in many of your posts, perhaps even crusty. Why is that? FWIW, I do not think VdV is really in a position to make a lot of comments about the past for obvious reasons (investigations, slander suits). Also, he might have to talk for a very long time!

Gooner - for someone who does not seem to like to read what is in the clinic, you sure come here a fair bit? Why?