Lance Armstrong confession… Wiggins and Cav have their say (or don't)

_SiD_ wrote:

This is Kimmage from 1999.
The man is consistent in the face of popular consensus.
I don't think he's pointing the finger at wiggins - more Brailsfords lack of transparency and double standards.
I don't see bitter - surely the mans doing his job.
Phil Ligget calls himself a journalist as well - I know who's opinion I trust more.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/reserving-the-right-to-applaud-403806.html

He's absolutely pointing the finger at Wiggins, he wrote an article just after the tour basically accusing him on the grounds that he's been friendly with Armstrong in the past ! He is anything but consistent, read any of the interviews he's done with other sportsmen, no mention of drugs. He wrote a whole book with a poor lad who was paralysed playing rugby, no mention of drugs, despite the fact that the huge steroid abuse in rugby is a contributing factor to the increase in neck injuries. He'll take the coin of kiss a$$ like all the rest when it suits him

stumps wrote:

Just looked at 2012 TdF results.

After Wiggins and Froome the next set of riders for Sky were:

Michael Rogers at 54:52
Richie Porte at 1:20:49
Edvald Boasson Hagen at 1:52:34.

They were all pushing hard throughout the mountain stages until they could push no more and dropped away as their overall times show. If they were all on drugs as insinuated by kimmage than their times should and would have been better.

That's not exactly a scientific way of looking at it. You can look at LA's team and see exactly the same drop off to Hamilton, Landis, Andreu, Livingstone etc. The problem is that doping has not gone away, and it is those that win that are most likely to have used it (why dope when it doesn't help?!). This is why Wiggo gets faced with the questions, this is why we are suspicious. You can't close your eyes to this, and it would be wrong of Kimmage and Walshe to turn their backs on this. The fundamental thing is that we do not close our eyes to this possibility. Until a fool proof testing system is possible we should be sceptical of all achievements. I do feel sorry for cyclists though, I'm sure that drug taking is happening in a lot of other arenas. But only cycling is airing its dirty laundry. Take sprinting: following the Balco era we should be sceptical of all WRs, but the sports media take a blind eye to the likes of Bolt and Co.

colinth wrote:

Kimmage is scratching around for something to do, his career is already on the slide and now that LA is old news he's got nothing to say worth listening to. Screaming unfounded allegations at Wiggins and then kindly offering to let him address them in an exclusive interview is sad and desperate. Seems like the only person in the sport who doesn't want to move on is kimmage.

Also, the point someone made earlier about him addressing doping in other sports is something I put to him on email. He's interviewed dozens of sportsmen but had never ever mentioned drugs in any interview other than with a cyclist

Kimmage's problem is that he is suddenly about to become a nobody.

Now that Armstrong has been shown to be a cheat and everyone knows it, especiaily if he admits is, Kimmage is no longer the one guy out there speaking 'the truth'. That means after Lance confesses Kimmage is irrelevant, his job is done and he's not got anything left in his life.

His witch-hunt of Sky (which appears to based on the fact that they didn't want him hanging around the team at all hours during the Tour with complete access - bitter much?) runs the risk of him losing whatever good reputation he's built for himself. Yes Sky used the 'US Postal' model of controlling a race but they had to have the team there to do it and they were up against average opposition. These 'nudge nudge wink wink' insinuations about Sky are just harming Kimmage's rep and making him look desperate for another story, especially when he so gracefully offers to conduct an exclusive interview with Wiggins to 'clean up' a mess that Kimmage actually caused!

Kimmage's job is done, it's time for him to move aside gracefully.

Chuffy - Where that comparison fails (and I agree with OldRidgeback on this) is that Armstrong only competed in two Olympics: one could say that he deliberately avoided them to avoid the extra testing. The proximity of the TdF to the Olympics would make cheating all the more precarious.

drheaton wrote:

Kimmage's job is done, it's time for him to move aside gracefully.

Sure, but who should take up the mantle? I sort of get the impression people are tired of the drug allegations, which I understand.

But I also sense people want to suspend their scepticism about Wiggins and co (which I also understand).

The fact is that cycling is rather opaque about training and about drugs, this won't go away until it is.

Ultimately I think Team Sky and the other cycling teams need to work on their PR a lot more and these issues start to get less air. I don't think Cav was done any favours, but he should be used to all this. Why not just go for a cycle ride instead of doing a press conference? Let his wheels do the talking.

nostromo wrote:

Journalists keep asking the same questions to see if there is any difference in the answers. Also, when respondents get annoyed they can say things they perhaps didn't mean too, which is why journalists often seem to ask such 'dumb' or rude questions.

Wiggins and Cavendish will be press targets for quite some time. They both have the furthest to fall so it is understandable that they will be the focus of attention. Plus, in cycling terms, history tells us that a high percentage of athletes have been dopers, so despite the claims of "cycling is different now" the odds of riders being dirty are still quite high.

In PR terms, Sky, Wiggins and Froome probably need to lose this year - and lose badly. It would set their 2012 season in untainted aspic (see Cadel Evans) and derail the comparisons with USPostal.

It may happen naturally anyway if Wiggins' win last year was indeed a blip and the Centenary course is not to his favour. But if Sky just take up where they left off, the questions will continue to be asked. It's only natural, given the background.

PS: I would imagine a PR or press liaison job with a pro-cycling team would be an impossible job right now. I'd think twice about it.

Disagree with your comment 'In PR terms, Sky, Wiggins and Froome probably need to lose this year - and lose badly. It would set their 2012 season in untainted aspic (see Cadel Evans) and derail the comparisons with USPostal.'

All that would do is lead to the usual Twitter suspects, Kimmage et all claiming that this 'proves' that Sky must have been up to naughties with the people they've got rid of - i.e. successful with them, less successful without. With those accusers Sky are in a no-win situation.

dullard wrote:

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Reading these comments, you'd think it was Kimmage who'd been defrauding the sporting world and global institutions and denying good men and women the chance to prove themselves in the sport they love. No, he's the one who's been taking a stand, along with the marvelous Betsy Andreus and David Walsh's of the world, at huge personal expense, abuse and ridicule, against the shitbags like Armstrong, Verbruggen, McQuaid and Bruyneel who've been taking us all for a ride for the last couple of decades. He has simply pointed out that the style of Sky's victory in last year's Tour was very similar to USPS and Discovery (which it was), that Sky hired a doctor known to be dodgy (they did) and that the team's much-heralded policy of hiring only clean personnel has been shot to bits with the departure of Yates, Rogers, Barry etc (it has). And Sir BW and Cavendish can say it's time to move on all they want, but their sport that they earn millions out of because of us, the fans, has been a total effing lie for probably as long as many of us have been watching it: last clean winner was probably LeMond? So to accept now that it's all fine, they're all clean (Contador? Yeah, right) is not going to happen. Kimmage isn't a martyr. He's a tough little f#cker who's been through the mill and who was right all along.

I agree.

Given the history - surely we should be taking Kimmage's side first off and waiting to see if the riders can prove their innocence?

I mean come on - we've heard all this before, verbatim. And it turns out Kimmage was right. Spot on in fact.

Surely it's only fair to give the guy the benefit of the doubt this time around. He's proved his point - and his worth - once already.

Lacticlegs wrote:

Someone please help me out here.

Let me preface this by saying - i'm serious, I really would like to borrow some of your knowledge.

I love cycling - always have, and I desperately want to be a believer. But I'm having some trouble and here's why:

It is generally agreed that EPO and similar blood boosters can improve performance by as much as 15% - hence why it was a game changer from the early 90's onward.

If the peloton is really clean (or at least cleaner) then surely we should be seeing a drop-off in the average speeds for the TdF now, no?

But we haven't. Cadel's winning average speed in 2011 was 39.79kmh.

Brad's in 2012 was 39.83kmh.

These are pretty much the same speeds that Lance Armstrong was posting in his reign - faster than the year 2000 in fact, and fractionally slower than the other years.

Please help me here - I so don't want to believe that Brad et al are also doping...but Kimmage has a point (however unpleasantly he makes it).

What am I missing? Surely there are no technological improvements in bikes and equipment (or for that matter training and nutrition) that can account for a clean rider performing at the same level as the doping king? Not in just 5 years...

Anyone?

You will find in all sports that as training methods, nutrition and general lifestyle of athletes gets better so do their times etc etc.

Look at runners, constantly breaking records and getting faster, swimmers, footballers playing longer despite playing more games, rugby players fitter than ever. The list goes on and you could say some will have cheated through drugs but a very small %. The same goes for cyclists, they are getting fitter, better prepared, better kit and other team members virtually killing themselves on climbs to make it easier for the likes of Brad and Froome, hence quicker times. Remember as well this years Tour had 2 long time trials which Brad excels at and this would increase his overall speed rather than having say another mountain top finish.

Nice use of rhetoric lactic legs.

These are the questions which have not been answered and actually I think we know the answers. But I should point out that while EPO can boost your hematocrit it is possible to boost it naturally (by altitude training/oxygen tents) or you may have a naturally high level - this is why the limit is set at 50%, because is very very unlikely to occur naturally. The highest natural count recorded appears to be around 47%.

Ultimately it's very hard to reach the 40s naturally though. It is said that when Jonathan Vaughters went to Johan Bruyneel with details of a contract he was offered by another team he laughed at him because JV's natural figures were so high that EPO offered him little improvement.

It's an interesting argument about the speed too. The speed increases from Merkyx to Lemond are not massive (1982 was about the time blood doping came in). And there were radical changes in the technology - aluminium frames and carbon frames, skin tight suits etc. I don't think you can put much down to that nowadays (i.e. between the 1990s and now).

I think the problem for me is that Wiggins and co. had no bad days. It would also be interesting to see their training laid bare, as well as blood results publicly reported. My girlfriend is reading about Pantani and how there were clear issues with some of the blood sampling, but no one took clear action. Unfortunately the authorities do not do enough to expose this as they all have vested interests.

stumps wrote:

You will find in all sports that as training methods, nutrition and general lifestyle of athletes gets better so do their times etc etc.

Look at runners, constantly breaking records and getting faster, swimmers, footballers playing longer despite playing more games, rugby players fitter than ever. The list goes on and you could say some will have cheated through drugs but a very small %. The same goes for cyclists, they are getting fitter, better prepared, better kit and other team members virtually killing themselves on climbs to make it easier for the likes of Brad and Froome, hence quicker times. Remember as well this years Tour had 2 long time trials which Brad excels at and this would increase his overall speed rather than having say another mountain top finish.

It's naive to think that other athletes don't use the same freely available drugs when competing. There are numerous cases of athletes from all sports abusing drugs. Football even has a problem. I don't know if you remember Jaap Stam and Edgar Davids receiving suspensions. Unfortunately drug testing is very unfashionable and not particularly reliable. Who wants to defrock a national champion idolised by a nation?

Don't believe the old routine of better training. If that was the case you'd have trickle down from the pros sooner or later. Better training is the smoke and mirrors of our age. More telemetry helps, but the gains you talk of are not substantial. If you followed the whole Armstrong affair he ran the 'marginal' gains racket that Sky now do, claiming the best equipment. It's a marketing mans dream and lines the pockets of the stars and the manufacturer.

I like to believe this stuff, but it doesn't mean I'm not sceptical too.

hi colin - yes that was my thought too.

Problem is that the better training mantra was exactly what Armstrong was saying all that time too.

I agree with stumpy Couldn't believe Kimmage had a pop at wiggins and sky He just comes across as angry with cyclists who have success

stumps wrote:

Lacticlegs, Brad did have a bad day at the office on the stage that Valverde won. Froome was urging him on to catch Valverde and win the stage but he had nothing left.

Its the old saying "one swallow does not a summer make" but it shows he was out on his feet.

The decision is yours to make and until a result shows any of the Sky team cheated then you will always get buffoons like Kimmage pointing fingers.

Hi Stumpy - and Lee (post just below yours),

That's true of course and despite my scepticism I want to believe so will try to 'suspend disbelief' until further evidence arises...

I can't reasonably wait for a positive result to prove the case though - 'you know who' never got tired of saying he never tested positive (dubious Swiss tour cover-ups notwithstanding), and if you've read Hamilton's book then faith in the testing and testers would be...misplaced at the least.

Kimmage is an unfortunately uncharismatic individual which doesn't help him, and a few years ago I'd have dismissed him completely. But - he has earned the right to say what he is saying, and despite the rough-and-ready packaging, what he is saying has some merit I think - or at least deserves a considered response from the riders rather than a put-down or belittlement.

He got that last time. But he was right. Seems a bit harsh to accuse him of being bitter - I'm pretty sure I would be too. Guy lost his job, got sued, slated in the press from all angles...and yet he was right.

Sigh. Oh for the days of innocence.

bashthebox wrote:

Wiggo didn't do anything superhuman though, did he?

No he didn't - as I said above - I'm not questioning him personally. It bordered on boring - which is why the comparisons are being drawn with USPS.

The Vuelta - exciting as it was - was unbelievable at times. I just don't believe Contador - there you go - my opinion. I don't believe Riis should be involved in professional cycling - at any level.
I was encouraged when Rodriguez had a bad day as I was when Evans struggled at the Tour but finished.

The big problem is the lens we're viewing cycling through i.e. 25 years of superhuman, unbelievable performances. The sport needs re-calibrated where the norm isn't CGI special effects and fireworks - I feel it's slowly getting back to gritty realism, which is much more exciting.

Lacticlegs wrote:

hi colin - yes that was my thought too.

Problem is that the better training mantra was exactly what Armstrong was saying all that time too.

Things cannot be dismissed out of hand because Armstrong said x or y, or USPS did x or y. This would mean that the entire sport has to find a whole new lexicon of words. What, it means that the following factors have to be dismissed (not exhaustive)?:

strong team support
domestiques setting a hard pace to whittle down the front group
different approach to training
etc

Lacticlegs wrote:

dullard wrote:

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Reading these comments, you'd think it was Kimmage who'd been defrauding the sporting world and global institutions and denying good men and women the chance to prove themselves in the sport they love. No, he's the one who's been taking a stand, along with the marvelous Betsy Andreus and David Walsh's of the world, at huge personal expense, abuse and ridicule, against the shitbags like Armstrong, Verbruggen, McQuaid and Bruyneel who've been taking us all for a ride for the last couple of decades. He has simply pointed out that the style of Sky's victory in last year's Tour was very similar to USPS and Discovery (which it was), that Sky hired a doctor known to be dodgy (they did) and that the team's much-heralded policy of hiring only clean personnel has been shot to bits with the departure of Yates, Rogers, Barry etc (it has). And Sir BW and Cavendish can say it's time to move on all they want, but their sport that they earn millions out of because of us, the fans, has been a total effing lie for probably as long as many of us have been watching it: last clean winner was probably LeMond? So to accept now that it's all fine, they're all clean (Contador? Yeah, right) is not going to happen. Kimmage isn't a martyr. He's a tough little f#cker who's been through the mill and who was right all along.

I agree.

Given the history - surely we should be taking Kimmage's side first off and waiting to see if the riders can prove their innocence?

I mean come on - we've heard all this before, verbatim. And it turns out Kimmage was right. Spot on in fact.

Surely it's only fair to give the guy the benefit of the doubt this time around. He's proved his point - and his worth - once already.

No, I'm sorry: your suggestion is that a journalist's word is taken as gospel, the rider is treated as guilty until and only IF they prove their innocence.

Jesus Christ, what kind of trial by journalism and mob are you suggesting?

Decster wrote:

Wiggins who loved Lance has a lot to answer in my book.

In 2006 he said any one with 1% suspicion of working with a doping doctor shouldn't be let anywhere near the TdF, the works with Leinders.

Wiggins appears to have fallen to the allure of riches that comes with winning, which means doping to win.

Kimmage called Armstrong out in 1999

http://www.independent.ie/sport/reserving-the-right-to-applaud-403806.html

Wiggins should show more respect. If Wiggins wanted to end all the doping speculation, all he has to do is sit down with Kimmage. That will be the end of it.

That he wont and calls Kimmage names is so Armstrong like.

Kimmage loves the sport.

That he wont makes it all the

As you say that Wiggins doped to win, I hope that you've taken your evidence to UKAD?