From zero tolerance to zero credibility - Team Sky and Sir Dave Brailsford under attack

This year's TdF is going to get ugly I fear and it would not surprise me if something really nasty occurred to a Team Sky rider from the sort of gutter dwelling vigilante types that do not need much of an excuse like they had when the hypocrite Jalabert opened his 'drug residued' gob.

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Despite paying only £2000 in UK Taxes Google didn't break any specific Tax-Evasion laws

No need to read any further

So who is at fault there - Is Google at fault for making the tax laws work for them, or are the UK tax laws insufficient to allow Goole's practice?

Me, I would be looking to tighten up on the Tax laws.

How very British. Get good at something then have the journalists knock you down. We missed out on the 2018 World Cup thanks to the BBC Panorama programme.

Keep up Great British mediocrity.

Even if it cannot be proved that Team Sky broke any specific anti-doping rules

No need to read any further

  Another success story ruined by the uk press. Let's just all stop watching sport and watch bake off or some fucking wildlife shit.

I think the speeding analogy does work.  This is like an police car going at 60 in a 30, having radioed in to say it was attending an emergency.  Only it wasn't a genuine emergency, it was to get to the chippy before it closed.

This isn't just pushing the rules. It's cheating. They've used performance enhancing drugs to enhance performance, not for genuine medical need. 

And we haven't heard the last of it. Who did all the other 60-odd Kenalog doses go to?  How does a drugs supplier accidentally send, out of all the 100s of drugs it might mis-ship, the one drug which happens to be the most routinely abused performance enhancers in cycling history in the delivery format preferred by the 90s biggest drug cheats?

I have been suspecious ever since the beginning - team Sky was just as ambitious as US Postal in the Lance Armstrong era - win at all costs. Just using the phrase "marginal gains", haha, what a joke, but people believed it just like they believed the "why would Lance dope after barely surviving cancer". A culture of bullying just as US Postal. Can it really surprise anyone?

Even worse - how about UK track cycling - same management, same culture. Are all the gold medals as clean as they appear to be?

Not that I care about doping as long as it avoids deaths in the peloton. Sport is about winning at all cost. Cheating has been widespred in cycling ever since the first races including the tour the France of 1903!! Cheat all you like, just make sure nobody finds out. I actually find Lance to be a hero, it was fun to watch and he was a fantastic leader if there ever was one.

I thought HSBC were taking over next year, or have I got that wrong?

I actually think the speeding analogy is accurate, in that there is a level of hypocrisy here. Everyone fudges the rules a times, all of us fans, and so do other teams. 

But then again Sky fed heavily into the hypocrisy by marketing themselves as white knights cleaner than the driven snow. They set up their own trumped-up rules, and then reapetedly broke them. They hired (pretty known in many cases) dopers as staff, riders, and even medics. They failed to back up their records. They failed to be transparent. They failed to own up to their mistakes. And, to compound those trangressions with the worst of vices, they started winning.

They brought a huge spotlight onto themselves, and only made it bigger through their results and their discourse. It's sliver of a shame, as I doubt most other teams are any better. And they've done more than most to advance cycling. They were uniquely unafraid to experiment and learn through their failures be it in training (poor Porte's patchy peaking) or fabrics (sunblock anyone?) or techology (let's bring back elastomers!) or anything else, really.

But pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. And they really soared on those wax, I'm sorry, hydrodynamic nano-optimized friction antagonist, wings. It's only fitting that the unwavering hypocrisy that accompanied their rise will reach its ultimate form in a chain reaction so brilliant it can only be described as beautiful: hypocritical fans, who never cared about anything but the laundry; cycling journalists, who without them would just fill their time interviewing Contador and Van Avermaet; sporting journalists, who haves so adapated to burrowing in the sand (football, anyone?) that they're growing scales, and politicians. Ce'est la vie, n'est ce pas?

Have to remember this was 6 years ago. Hands up any MDs of start up multi million pound companies with 80+ staff who would remember, or even known about this at the time when you have trusted staff to perform a competent duty. Big test should be 'could this happen again now'. With current world class governance systems and third party consulting and auditing now done by Sky, I think that is highly unlikely. The fact that other doctors stepped in at the time suggests the governance back then was pretty tight. And all this done WITHOUT ANY RULES ACTUALLY BEING BROKEN. The nature of any performance environment is to push the rules to the limit, but without crossing it. Appears Sky have worked hand in hand with the authorities to check everything they do is OK, and this is still not good enough apparently. The package is a strange occurence, and yes does bring a load of questions. But again this was 6 years ago, maybe someone needs to go in there today and see if it could happen again before trying to dismantle a fantastic British success story for the sake a personal journalistic ego boost.

The way I look at this is the word integrity, ie, doing the right thing when no-one is looking. If you're 'busted' doing something that is in your mind 'part of the game', is that justifiable in the wider audience, or would the general public/media jump on you for doing something which they perceive as unacceptable

For me, that's where Team Sky are really falling down. Lack of integrity and credibility is hitting them currently in the public domain, they are probably losing some respect in the peloton and potentially down the line, they could be hit financially as well if Sky choose to withdraw

I bet some other teams are thinking 'thank f*ck for this' though. I'd be surprised if there's not been more of this stuff over the years.

That there's even still debate about how 'right' (not 'legally') Sky have acted only shows just how jaded some who follow cycling have become. As the article says, Sky set themselves up as the white knights of the sport, but have fallen quite some way short of that.

The mantra should be: Do the right thing and be seen to be doing it. Teams should look at how things even *could* look in hindsight and make sure they have the records and means to justify themselves if they need to. It's standard governance throughout good business and with cycling's less-than-stellar recent history it shouldn't be a lesson that needs to be spelt out.

The one thing Brailsford is absolutely bang-to-rights on, and the reason he should go, is the apalling media handling of the whole TUE/Jiffy bag story. 

Now, that might be because there isn't a good and plausible story to tell in defence or it might be because repeated cock-ups or missing information have undermined  that story but either way he is accountable, as I understand the way Team Sky are set up.

If he simply asked himself whether he is now an asset or a liability to the team I think the answer would be self evident.

so yeah, they lied about never exceeding 50 mph, but hey - they were only doing 75mph...

I wonder if we'll ever see an era where basically it's down to Mother Nature - if you're ill or suffering a problem then this isn't the event/sport for you?

Any editorials in the Murdoch press?

Na... I think the analogy is nearly perfect... people drive on the motorway working to a rule that is roughly; penalties are applied at given speedlimit +10%. 

That may not be official, but its a safe rule to use.

So... using a drug through a TUE is valid as long as the TUE is defendable / cleared. 

Personally speaking, the Sky doctor(s) were taking the piss... asking for permission to use a rocket fuel solution when not nexessary. 

However, why not take the piss, if the authorites say no, you do something else, if they say yes, you are well away... a marginal gain in the bank.

For me, all this current attention is bollards. The smoking gun, if there is one, is the relationship between Team Sky, its doctors and the individual in the UCI / WADA granting the TUEs.

If there are grounds for going nuts, it is around how that relationship was manipulated, and whether in doing so, the TUE submission went from playing in the grey's to out and out cheating.

All this talk about hurt feelings, projecting one image and living another is completely pointless... as is talk about that bloody jiffy bag... The focus needs and should be around the relationship between Sky and the authorities. 

I'm still at something of a loss about the specific accusations being laid at Brailsford's door here.

Now, having being burned back with the Armstrong situation - I was very much along the lines of "until there's evidence of wrongdoing, there shouldn't be all this uproar" back then - I'm still very much one to wait to see what the accusation and evidence are before doing anything else.

Is there a specific allegation here, aside from 'he cheated' or 'no smoke without fire'?

"it's clear now that at the very least they pushed right up against the limits of what is legally allowed"

How many of us drive at 29mph or less all the time in a 30mph zone. If it's within the rules it's within the rules.