Are cracks appearing in the Walsh / Sky love affair?

I’m not sure I compared
I’m not sure I compared Froome to Coppi except to hold up the daftness of moaning about a 3 and a half minute time gap being an obvious indicator of doping.
Almost every winning margin in the (major) EPO era was 4 mins or more, sure – but what about mr 2nd place? So he wasn’t doping? Do me a favour.

Look, there may be doping going on, there may not. But there’s no evidence to prove it either way so it all comes down to heresay and assumptions. Sky aren’t doing everything the way we want, perhaps – but which team is? Full transparency is a ludicrous thing to demand in the context of professional sport unless every single team is doing it 100% of the time. If they’re not, then it’s not a level playing field is it? Even then, the weaker teams have so much more to gain from full transparency than the stronger ones, so it’s never gonna happen.

daddyELVIS wrote:mooleur

daddyELVIS wrote:

mooleur wrote:

[quote=daddyELVIS]Sorry, you’re mistaken – they even went so far as to say they wouldn’t even employ docs from cycling.

Sorry, I’ve never seen statements stating that they would never employ back office staff who had links to doping, note the use of the word *links* – do you have a copy or URL of the article stating this?

4th paragraph: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2009/jun/28/tour-de-france-dave-brailsford

You may have seen this article from Kimmage and dismissed it as the work of a desperate man on a desperate mission, but I think he makes some very interesting and valid points: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-2177405/Bradley-Wiggins-battle-cyclings-drug-demons–Paul-Kimmage.html%5B/quote%5D

Thanks for those – I still stand by what I said, though, Brailsford did state previous violation – links to questionable people in sport aren’t necessarily proof of any violation. It’s only logical to assume that at some point, there are going to be staff involved at any level in any GT team that have had a brush with the darker past in some shape or form. That’s just unfortunate fact. It doesn’t, however, mean all their riders are doped up to the nines.

daddyELVIS wrote: However,

daddyELVIS wrote:

However, please do check exactly what DB said when justifying the hiring of Leinders – any ounce of respect I might have had for him was lost right there!

I have been doing just that. Sounds like naivety and a lack of planning to me (oh the irony). By Skys own admission, the previous decision to hire British, non-cycling doctors would have left them ill-prepared, if continued, if someone on their medical staff went away – as happened when their soigneur died suddenly. They went with someone (part of 4 part-time positions as I understand it) with previous experience, in particular with riders in adverse and extreme conditions.

Sky also began to realise that you can’t always get what you dream of… (Brailsford 2011)

“We’ve got to admit now there is a difference between having a dream, an aspirational goal, and specific targets. So what we need to do with individuals is to allow them to work towards specific targets – so it is something they can control.

“If I could wind the clock back we would have a much more humble arrival into professional road cycling. There was a real element of hype and I’ll hold my hand up and admit I got caught up in that. We would tone that down if we could start all over again.”

That’s fairly open to me. When things started crawling out of the woodwork, they spoke with Leinders and investigated, BR had this to say at the time (road.cc)

“I categorically, 100 per cent say that there’s no risk of anything untoward happening in this team since he [Leinders] has been with us,” insisted Brailsford, quoted on Telegraph.co.uk.

“I’ve seen nothing and neither have the full-time medics. I’d put my life on it,” he continued, adding: “”He’s done nothing wrong here, but we have a reputational risk.

“This is not about doping. We’re pushing the guys to their limits, so we need to look after them. It’s about genuine medical practice,” he maintained.

Brailsford went on: “We have had discussions with him and once we’ve established the facts, we will take the appropriate action.”

They investigated, and terminated his contract. Afterwards Brailsford said of the matter

“The whole thing is my responsibility,” said Brailsford. “I will take that squarely on the chin. It’s something I regret, it’s a mistake.”

“I should not have done it. I made an error of judgment.”

None of that comes across as a straw-man. Stupid ? Yes. Predictable ? Probably. Evil, plotting, scheming, cheats ? Probably not. People trying very hard to win whilst doing making things marginally better in cycling ? I’d say so, but many wouldn’t. It’s also incredibly difficult to prove you’re not doing something, especially in a competitive sport. Up to you – I like to think i’m open minded on this either way and I think where I have an issue with some, such as yourself, is that you’ve got yourself in a position where you can’t reasonably change your mind no matter what happens. I really hope i’m actually wrong on that.

Was he though? I mean, is
Was he though? I mean, is that something you can possibly know?
There’s 70 years between them competing, training, nutrition, technology, attitudes, money – so much is different. Christ, there’s enough differences in the last 10 years that it’s hard to compare today’s athletes to the era of massive EPO abuse.