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daddyELVIS.
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June 22, 2014 at 9:57 pm #21744
Walsh has been very quiet since puffer-gate and the subsequent revelations about Froome’s TUE at the TdR – but today, in an article for the Sunday Times, he broke his silence.
I’ve only seen quotes from the article on the CN website, but the following is quite telling:
“What has happened to the team’s belief that TUEs should not be sought for riders in competition? Farrell says he was unaware this ethical position existed within the team. Froome says he never heard of it. But Peters has said it did exist at one point and the team are in only their fifth year,” Walsh writes. “As in the case of the appointment of (former Rabobank doctor) Leinders, Team Sky talk the talk of high ethical standards but do not walk the walk.”
Finally, from Walsh’s own mouth – Sky talk the talk, but do not walk the walk!
I’m sure Walsh hasn’t delved too far below the surface in this article, but it’s a start!
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fukawitribe
daddyELVIS wrote:fukawitribe
daddyELVIS wrote:fukawitribe wrote:Well, you could always stop using them… :)
Can’t recall using them :W
Perhaps an apology of sorts – it’s not just you, and my differences with you are mainly of a subtley different bent. However, here’s what I seem to see from yourself and others
Person 1 : Sky seem to be handling situation X OK, what more would you expect ?
Person 2 : If Sky were as clean and ethical as they pretend/there was nothing to hide, they would do Y in response to X (where X is whatever the person that person deems ‘acceptable’ to them)
Person 2 : Sky did not do X, therefore there is something to hide/they’re unethical etcDoesn’t sound familiar at all when that team comes up in conversation ?
bashthebox
And Coppi won by 28 minutes,
And Coppi won by 28 minutes, before there was any sophisticated doping of any sort. So what’s your point, again?fukawitribe wrote:
Well, youfukawitribe wrote:Well, you could always stop using them… :)
Can’t recall using them :W
fukawitribe
daddyELVIS wrote:fukawitribe
daddyELVIS wrote:fukawitribe wrote:….straw menI wondered when they would arrive :S
Well, you could always stop using them… 🙂
fukawitribe wrote:….straw
fukawitribe wrote:….straw menI wondered when they would arrive :S
bashthebox wrote:
Everyonebashthebox wrote:Everyone sarcastically says “pineapple and water” but that’s really missing the point about the aggregation of gains thing. Some of the gains just aren’t that marginal at all, and when we’re only talking 3 minutes over the course of 90 hours riding…
Froome won by 4′ 20″ – the biggest winning margin since the Armstrong years – just sayin’
fukawitribe
daddyELVIS wrote:I hope that
daddyELVIS wrote:I hope that clears that up!Not really, no. Your entire argument is seemingly predicated on Sky behaviour being “total BS” and some over expectation of transparency e.g. as you once said
“If they were as clean and ethical as they say then they would have everything to gain from total transparency”
…it is not up to them to provide you with what you believe is sufficient.
I am not a Sky ‘fan’, nor am I blind to the possibility of skullduggery on their part, but I don’t find much point in endlessly debating straw men either.
fukawitribe wrote:daddyELVIS
fukawitribe wrote:daddyELVIS wrote:farrell wrote:DaddyElvis, GKam, Glynr – Do you think all British riders, from 1997 onwards, should be stripped of every medal they have won?….
Besides, I can’t remember calling for any cyclist (past or present, track or road) to be stripped of any titles – why would I do that?
Read farrells reply to the questions about that. It seems to me he’s merely taking the current situation and extrapolating back to get to one of a number of possible (though not necessarily correct) conclusions. If that conclusion was correct then, given your previous posts, presumably it should result in the medals being stripped.
What I’m saying is two-fold:
1) I don’t believe Brailsford’s claims that a person can’t control and be selective about cheating
2) I’m not calling for the stripping of medals or titles from convicted dopers – that a choice for the authorities to make.
My viewpoint is that top-level pro sport is awash with doping (both ‘legal’ and illegal) and the doping is way ahead of the testing. Therefore if you strip a title, how can you be certain the 2nd placed competitor (who then becomes the default winner) is 100% clean? You can’t. Therefore if you strip a title, the only safe option is to have no winner (as is now the case with the 7 Tours from 99-05), but that would make sport a farce!
My issue with Sky is not that they may (or may not) be doping – any team in the pro peloton could be doping for all I know. My issue is that they promised so much about doing things differently, being transparent, being cleaner than clean, so we could be left with no doubt about their integrity and cleanliness. But, this has been PR guff and total BS. This is where I feel let down with Sky.
I’ve said at various times that I don’t think the issue of doping in sport is a simple black & white issue – and when a rider gets popped for doping, I’m not usually too critical, as he’s likely to be no more or less doped (over the course of a season of training and racing) than the next rider.
With Sky, it’s the BS that gets right up my nose!
BTW, the one rider I am most confident about is Taylor Phinney – this is based on how outspoken he is against even ‘legal’ doping. Granted, we only have his word to go by, so we could be let down in the future, especially if his class (see his palmares as a 17 – 20 yr old) doesn’t quite get him the results you may expect as a senior rider (a rider in such a position may get frustrated and be tempted!).
My own favourite riders, of course I have suspicions about – 1 is a convicted doper. But they are favourites none-the-less because I watch the sport as a fan, excited by classy riding, and I’m not naïve to think that pro sport at that level is fuel by bread and water.
I hope that clears that up!
mooleur wrote:daddyELVIS
mooleur wrote:daddyELVIS wrote: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
farrell
fukawitribe wrote:Of course I
fukawitribe wrote:Of course I might have that completely arse about face – in which case he’ll hopefully correct me.No, you are following the demented logic of it all correctly.
mooleur
daddyELVIS wrote:mooleur
daddyELVIS wrote:mooleur wrote:I think their statements were actually around having none of their *riders* having had past links to doping – back office staff-wise I think we can all agree that’s nigh on impossible.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?
I’m tempted to play along
I’m tempted to play along with the twitterati here, but I won’t.Everyone sarcastically says “pineapple and water” but that’s really missing the point about the aggregation of gains thing. Some of the gains just aren’t that marginal at all, and when we’re only talking 3 minutes over the course of 90 hours riding (or, if you’d prefer, an hour or so of ITTs and maybe 8-10 hours of mountain passes) the difference between winning and losing is tiny. Teeny tiny. Even on my 11 hour example there, where the individual comes to the fore instead of being swept in the peloton, we’re talking less than 0.5% difference between first and second.
Have a read of “Faster’ by Dr Hutch, in which he talks to a lot of riders, coaches, nutritionalists and even psychologists, some of whom work for Sky. To take one huge example, the way the body converts the nitrates beetroot juice to nitrites can make the way your body uses its energy up to 16% more efficient. 16%! That’s not marginal, that’s vast. There’s all sorts of examples like that in the book, and presumably those are the ones the teams assume everyone knows. If a team has the inside track on something else nutritional,technical or otherwise then it’s unlikely they’ll share that knowledge because they’d be giving away a legal advantage to their competitors.Ok, the TUE thing does need to be hugely looked into – corticosteroids apparently make a massive difference to both your weight and your ability to soak up the pain, but there’s not much illegal about them at the moment. It’s sad that teams use them, but on the other hand you’ve got to assume the UCI will encourage teams to ensure their big names are competing in races – it’s why people watch the sport, and in turn it’s how the sport makes money. And if a team’s been building one rider towards a GT and unlucky illness strikes, will they pull out and ruin their season, or take the TUE and hope they can compete?
Imagine Froome and Bertie caught a cold in Yorkshire, didn’t take any medicine and were dropped by the Peloton before London? Suddenly the great battle we were promised is gone.unclebadger
Surely the Biological
Surely the Biological Passport means that they cant be doing anything too exotic.I wonder if an athlete is sick and then takes some medicine then is the potential PED benefit is balanced out by the fact he is sick in the first place?
The issue to me here is not that Sky used an exemption but that the TUE should be issued by committee and not by an individual.
Its all in the Pineapple Juice and water combo of course !
fukawitribe
daddyELVIS wrote:farrell
daddyELVIS wrote:farrell wrote:DaddyElvis, GKam, Glynr – Do you think all British riders, from 1997 onwards, should be stripped of every medal they have won?….
Besides, I can’t remember calling for any cyclist (past or present, track or road) to be stripped of any titles – why would I do that?
Read farrells reply to the questions about that. It seems to me he’s merely taking the current situation and extrapolating back to get to one of a number of possible (though not necessarily correct) conclusions. If that conclusion was correct then, given your previous posts, presumably it should result in the medals being stripped.
It is not to say that conclusion is correct, or even probable – indeed that’s probably part of the point – but seems inline with what you’d expect from a team so manipulative and with such evil intent as portrayed in the reasoning of a number of people on the intertubes.
Of course I might have that completely arse about face – in which case he’ll hopefully correct me.
farrell wrote:DaddyElvis,
farrell wrote:DaddyElvis, GKam, Glynr – Do you think all British riders, from 1997 onwards, should be stripped of every medal they have won?Why would I think that? I actually think you can cheat on a Monday but not on a Tuesday 😉
Besides, I can’t remember calling for any cyclist (past or present, track or road) to be stripped of any titles – why would I do that?
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