Sergio Henao suspended by sky

crazy-legs wrote:No one has

crazy-legs wrote:

No one has said anything about doping, you’re all inferring that. Sky have removed a rider from racing while they investigate some unusual readings. It’s not a positive test, it’s not an adverse analytical finding, it’s simply some unusual readings. The fact that Sky themselves discovered this, announced it to the UCI and took the rider out of competition would seem to suggest the very opposite of covering things up.

A cover up is when an athlete (in any sport) suddenly comes down with a mystery illness or injury and is miraculously unable to do the doping test that’s just been announced…

As mentioned, the problems are caused by wild uninformed speculation on internet forums whenever something like this happens. Might as well hold a flag up saying “all cynics, sceptics and Sky-bashers to the forum please!”

=D> Well said. Thank you!

As has been suggested above,
As has been suggested above, British Cycling will be pretty funked if there’s a positive doping test at Sky, if it’s been done on Brailsford’s watch, ‘cos it’ll damage the credibility of all the Olympic and track success over the last decade. Brailsford isn’t stupid – he must realise this.

I doubt Murdoch ‘s money would continue afterwards either.

The point about amateur
The point about amateur racers feeling they ‘have’ to dope and then accusing a team like Sky of being responsible just doesn’t hold up. Sky, Garmin and other clean teams are extremely vocal about the fact that they are clean – they promote the message that you can win without cheating.
Ironically, it’s people who call every stage winner a doper that are encouraging the young and impressionable to dope – they read everything and can’t filter out fact from fiction, then start thinking that they’ve got no hope without dope.

Or, there’s the theory that the type of person that’s driven to win will do so at any cost – and doping is part of that will to win.

Point is, it’s really hard to know much for sure, but throwing out accusations every single race gets no one anywhere.

It seems to me that Sky has
It seems to me that Sky has acted exactly as it would be expected to in this, it finds or is alerted to an unusual reading. It stops the individual racing while it investigates. That investigation looks into the potential environmental and geneological factors (“altitude native” at altitude) to see if this exaplains those readings. That would seem to fit with their stated approach and also without sounding too cynical, if they find something that can explain the readings/that riders from that part of the world are just ‘better’ physically – like East African marathon runners – then i imagine they want to be first to know so they can invest their time and energy developing/finding the next big thing from that region. So if they can identify something that makes a person predisposed to being a great rider/better than others, they will look to exploit that, or maybe find a way to scientifically recreate the factors to benefit their riders (by that i mean taking further things like oxygen tents, altitude training rather than chemically)

Given his stated position, I would be interested* in what Colin would suggest that Sky should do in this situation? (*Genuinely – i love a debate and opinions)

notfastenough wrote:Colin

notfastenough wrote:

Colin Peyresourde wrote:

I don’t care if it’s Sky or anyone else. But they do set themselves up to be hypocrits.

Mooleur – you show your own bigoted mindset. Suspension of disbelief.

My point about the youth cycling is that young riders are pushed to doping and the denial and continued support in a world where cheats prosper leads to casualties like these young men. You bury your head and that’s what you foster.

Face palm to you douche.

Are you for real? So innocent til proven (or even decent grounds for suspicion) guilty is indicative of a bigoted mindset? But ‘Ive decided that you’re all doping because some of you were’ isn’t?

When you say you still enjoy the racing, do you watch American wrestling too? May as well, if your opinion of the authenticity is that low.

Oh, well done with the personal insults too.

The mindset of innocent until proven guilty is a little misplaced around all professional sport. Unfortunately anti-doping has proven itself time and again to be unable to effectively police sport anywhere. Most of the time where it has found the cheats it is actually through the confessions of others involved in the sport. Just look what happened in Jamaica recently – they didn’t even bother to test their athletes before the Olympics. Result – a clean up in the sprinting. There’s the often quoted study which states that if athletes could dope and get away with it they would. But I choose to voice my dissent to the PR because you all seem to lap it up as a way of continuing your suspension of disbelief at what appears to be more likely. I can understand why, but I’m not going to let it just happen without naysaying.

Unfortunately human nature being what it is creates situations where if policing does not happen then the people DO justify their behaviour under the suspicion that everyone else is cheating/stealing too. It’s all there in black and white if you read David Millar’s book – he got into it because he was being beaten by those he suspected were cheating and eventually decided to do so too. He too also justified his doping by lying to himself, that he was just doing it compete, that he wasn’t cheating, just playing the game. But that is how insidious this culture is and pernicious.

Has the door shut on this sort of thing? The answer is no. Do we see doping moving into the amateur arena? The answer is ‘yes’. Marco Pantani doped as an amateur and he didn’t come from a world of means. He was just motivated enough to start doping.

If you are talking about insults I was just returning Mooleur’s. I just find the Sky ‘fan club’ a little deluded and blinded by patriotic fervour. Why is it that some of you choose to suppress your suspicion because it is Sky saying what they do? But maybe I shouldn’t expect so much from people that seem determined to suppress opinion and not engage with a debate.

Colin Peyresourde wrote:
My

Colin Peyresourde wrote:

My point about the youth cycling is that young riders are pushed to doping and the denial and continued support in a world where cheats prosper leads to casualties like these young men. You bury your head and that’s what you foster.

Or alternatively, young riders hear that they have to cheat, that they haven’t got a hope because “everyone” is doping, all they hear is doping doping doping, so go and do something else, like football where doping is just as prevalent if not more so, but no one cares and the money is better.

stumps wrote:Sky get a

stumps wrote:

Sky get a bashing because they are British and everyone from the UK loves to put down anything we are good at. You dont get it in the rest of Europe or USA.

So true. Plus there seem to be a ‘select few*’ who only bother posting/contributing on here if it involves having a dig at Sky.

*or one with multiple accounts!