Right to be cynical about Sky

stumps wrote:

Info request submitted to WADA and UCI. Just preparing a freedom of info to Sheffield Uni.

I'll wait to hear back then.

ianrobo wrote:

This story says why people are cynical

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/faster-than-lance-richie...

faster than LA ?? you have to query if you can be after what he did

What - that he beat Chris Froome by abut 1.5% or Lance by about 3% ?

ianrobo wrote:

Armstrong .... Some of the power readings people are working out are better than at the height of EPO etc,

Do you think we should be cynical at this ?

Maybe, maybe not, there's clearly still doping going on - any particular example... person, climber, sprinter ?

That said, as you know, it's not all about raw power output, particularly climbing - how much weight would Armstrong (in 1999) give away to Porte just before the Tour in 2014 do you reckon ?

Edit : BTW, I assume these times are taken from the same place. LA apparently started his timing from a supermarket on the way out of Menton, whilst Sky (not necessarily Richie) start a bit further down the road by the bus stop.

ianrobo wrote:

good question on weight but Porte in Paris to Nice looked very thin and thinner than before.

OK - but to go back to the original point; do you really think that there is something deeply suspicious about a modern, climbing oriented (normally shorter) professional rider, who is local to the climb and can pick when he rides, possibly starting from further down the road and weighing (as near as I can find out) about 10kg less actually going about 65 seconds than Armstrong did in 1999 (when power was, briefly, going down) ?

ianrobo wrote:

It is possible he could do it naturally, that is why I am cynical but not saying they dope. He may have been at peak form then, all going for him etc.

However LA had that extra 10% or so from EPO etc in his system to help him.

'99 was when they were getting the jitters about testing and the power was going down (for a bit), he potentially had more distance to cover, as mentioned by others it was not 'timed' in any accurate sense, he was probably carrying over 15% more weight on a different bike, different day yadda yadda yadda. I'm cynical about a lot of things - this, not so much.

Paul J wrote:

Obree had a significant aero advantage, saved him tens of Watts at least.

Not quite sure I'd place full confidence in Boardman having been clean, given he's had at least two different problems that could be related to hormone abuse (indeed, one of his problems is staggeringly rare in fit young men, outside of hormone abuse).

Ooooooh you've opened a can of worms having a go at Boardman on here, he sits at Gods right hand according to some

In all honesty though you do get freakish illnesses, a good friend of mine's dad takes meds every day because his liver produces a female hormone, the consultant claims he's a walking miracle, but i know what your on about.

Crosshouses wrote:

I'm new to following this sport so need some help.

As I understand it Dave Brailsford came into British Cycling in '97, built up a support team that won many Olympic and World medals and in 2010 combined his BC responsibilities with running the Sky Pro Cycling using the same BC support team.

Does this mean that we need to be cynical about Hoy, Kenny, Pendleton et al, or are track riders clean while road are not? Then what about the likes of Thomas, Wiggins, Kennagh who competed in both disciplines? Or the BC riders who belong to pro road teams other than Sky?

Reading about Armstrong and USPS it's clear that there were rumours and whistle blowers from their earliest days. Sky/BC must have disgruntled ex riders/staff or maybe just people who would like to make a bob or two selling their stories to the papers. So where are the Sky versions of Emma O'Reilly, Betsy Andreu or David Walsh? Why hasn't, for example, Chris Hoy said anything when his reputation would be at stake?

Then Sky is a very wealthy corporation who has given its financial backing to a team that claims to be clean. I'd be astonished if the contracts of their employees involved in cycling did not include draconian penalties if the team is shown to be doping. Surely there is a huge risk of financial and reputational ruin to all employed by Sky Pro Cycling if there was any proof of team approved doping which outweighs or removes temptation.

I think you have made all the arguments they would like to make…..but I am afraid that they have very little weight in terms of what happens in sport.

Winners want to win, team sponsors want people to win. Do you think that Sky is different to US Postal? Or ONCE? Or Festina? Or Astana…..in fact you could draw a parallel with Astana with BC as they are state representatives. People hide behind these reputations and corporate walls…..riders are 'left' to dope, but given access to the means to do so.

You talk about Emma O'Reilly etc. But why isn't there one for the Cofidis team? Or Polti or Carrera? The reason being that they are either still involved in the sport (most likely) and that there was no super a-hole pissing them off/pissing on them/pissing on their grave like LA. The point of Omertà is that when you end up trashing the reputation of others you must trash your own, and want to see a reason for doing so…..

I'm not going to trash the track cycling stars specifically, but there's really no reason to believe that the success there is any different from the road. The main argument against there no being no dope is a) at least one other country in the world would dope (as the anti-dopers cannot catch the dopers) and you'd see one country dominate b) doping affects pretty much every sport (even golf, I sh!t you not).

Basically if you leave the keys to the cookie jar out, and you leave them there long enough, you'll find no more cookies in the jar, no matter how much people tell you they are on a diet, how honest they are or why they have no reason to eat them (see LA 101 on denials).

andyp wrote:

wow. If you think that's clever, I advise you to spend the rest of your life in solitary confinement. Your mind might get blown apart by some other obvious facts.

OK - in simpler terms, you know what I was referring to when I said 'the same' - don't be an ass. Fair enough ?

ianrobo wrote:

Well Nibali today was beaten on the smallish climbs in Milan-Sanremo by reknown climbers Cav and Greipel, obviously the pills not working yet.

I know (or hope!) you're being flippant with that comment but Nibali did actually get caught up in a crash on one of the descents - he was further back in the peloton when Sky were forcing the pace on the front. He came out of it very lightly but it'll have put him much further down the field. Cav and Griepel were quite far up the bunch when they started the Poggio.

fukawitribe wrote:

Colin sees the devil in everyone it seems - I agree with some of what he says, but not his apparent unequivocal belief that he knows it applies everywhere.

We all know there is doping going on, and some teams or individuals seem more obvious targets than others, but there appears to be this naive belief that suspicion implies proof

You're putting words in my mouth. I don't think that Sky are any different from any other team. There is little proof that doping has been eradicated. But I think it is naive to think that just because a team talks about being drug free that it is when the results do not indicate them to be second best.

Sky say they do blood samples to check their riders are clean. This seems like PR. The tests equally tell them that their riders are not in imminent danger of being caught. You seem to be somewhat aware, but believe that the Sky policy means that they are 100% clean, but JTL was hardly a guarantee of that.

The CIRC did little to prove any assertion that any team is drug free. It maybe done at an individual level or at a team level. We know the means and the reasons why, just not who, when and how much.

It's nice to believe the PR but only when the ADAs have a full and fool proof means of testing will you see doping eradicated. Until then you'll just see it by degrees. I agree we're not going to see Riis or Armstrong like performances, but in order to compete, especially in stage races, you need to dope.

bashthebox wrote:

The JTL thing with Sky might be a pretty good indicator that they keep their riders clean, don't you think? He was flying with Endura in his last season there, won the ToB as well as various other races in 2012. Did pretty well in the world champs, then went to Sky the next season... at which point he forgot how to ride a bike, judging by his form. And of course the bio passport got flagged from his time at Endura, and Sky dumped him sharpish. So why was his form so awful at Sky? Presumably because the team prevented him from doping?

The very fact they took him on speaks volumes.

ianrobo wrote:

With Porte and Thomas both winning we can safely say that Sky have had a fantastic Spring.

I have tried to google this to confirm this. Was it David Walsh in defence of them and any allegations that they could not be doping, said they could not be as were so poor in the Spring ?

So - aside from Skys extra focus on the classics for this year, changing their training for it and so on - given they have had more success this year what do you think that might prove or indicate ?

You've sort of left a hanging implication there and whilst logic dictates an answer to that question I have a funny feeling you're thinking of an entirely different one.