Breaking News: Team Sky gives detailed response on Bradley Wiggins mystery package

Simmo72 wrote:

I just think the house of commons should stay out of it.  Leave it to the professional bodies, not some grubby little rodent eyeing an opportunity to raise their profile on a topic they know nothing about.

Sky have cocked up, but on workflow process and best practice (like in any presured organisation),  that is all. 

When's that ever stopped anyone?

They're involved becasue the govt. gives £26M of public money to BC each year and the Sky pro team's in the frame because of the way it co-exists with BC sharing people, resources and governance.

STiG911 wrote:

Agree with RobD and Stumps - insofar as this is a PR fudge by Sky, there's been no evidence of actual doping, yet people are still too keen to throw mud.

I largely disagree on the mud-slinging.

There is the anti-Sky mob, yes: the same people slinging mud over the BS over Froome's power meter data. There are Sky fanboys: the 'nothing to see here' twonks who will happily put their fingers in their ears and whistle even if was coming out that Sky were undeniably the next US Postal. Both sets are obvious and can easily be stepped over in forums and comments.

But Froome used (2?) TUEs and was open about it - he's coming out of this pretty unscathed, except potentially by association. Probably doesn't harm him that he's expressed regret and said he wouldn't want to be doing that again. There's a clear distinction being made between hypocrisy, lies, and using TUEs and being open about it.

And there's the thing. This isn't just a PR disaster. What happened first was that Wiggins 'look no needles' , Brailsford and Sky have painted this whiter-than-white image that leaves no room for grey. And then you have Wiggins lying about having injected and it actually transpiring that there's quite a lot of grey in Sky's armoury. It may well only be pushing TUEs and if you heard that from Astana you might think 'ah, is that all'... But Astana have only ever been just another pro team.

But given Sky's stance, it's hypocritical. It's untrustworthy. Reputation-busting, and they've put a lot into their reputation.

And that's the reason for the PR disaster - people are shifting awkwardly in front of cameras and laptops have been 'stolen' because even the best-case scenario - the exploitation of TUEs - does not fit with the picture Sky themselves painted of themselves.

So that's the reason for most considered 'mud-slinging' in this - it's them rightly being called out on the hypocrisy, and pointing out that they're not quite as squeaky as they like to portray.

tl;dr: Dave isn't the Messiah, he's (been a bit of) a naughty boy.

Stumps wrote:

Its been a PR nightmare for Sky but as for the whole team drug taking etc its more down to peoples dislike of the team and just wanting to having a pop at them.

After all IS there any evidence at all that it was an illegal substance, i'm not talking about the "no one failed a test" blah blah blah but actual evidence that it was a steriod, epo etc or is it all down to peoples supposition that it was ?  

However if there was wide spread drug taking on a whole team level what about the riders who have since left and go on to win stages / races with other teams (Porte, Gerrans, Cav, Hayman) are they still taking the drugs and their current teams are complicite in this or is it all just a storm in a tea cup whipped by the press or rather a reporter who wants to make a name for himself ?

So do we just trust that they are telling the truth? How come they can't explain their actions? Do you not think the Parliamentary committee hearing is not damning?

We all know that the sport is riddled with doping. Doping is not just EPO and blood bags. Team Sky have screwed up and fuelled the hate but they've also raised suspicion for many, many people who had hoped that they would be 100% clean and transparent. Recent revelations over the jiffy bag, Kenacort etc are disturbing. Some of you may have Paul Kimmage marked as a hater but he makes some valid points in this chat with Cycling Tips.

I see Geraint Thomas is one of several riders to tweet support for DB. That's very nice of him but IMHO it will take more than rider tweets to reassure fans of the sport. We've seen it all before, most of us know better than to believe in miracles.

HarrogateSpa wrote:

road.cc is becoming almost unreadable for me, because there's so much advertising on the index page, it takes an age to load. It also keeps auto-scrolling, or jumping to another part of the page lower down with a video advert.

Edit your localhosts file

HarrogateSpa wrote:

road.cc is becoming almost unreadable for me, because there's so much advertising on the index page, it takes an age to load. It also keeps auto-scrolling, or jumping to another part of the page lower down with a video advert.

Get an ad-blocker.  The "ad blocking is theft" brigade can sod off.  Websites that support themselves via advertising really ought to make an effort to ensure that their ads don't spoil the browsing experience so much that people turn them off.  For me, that covers pretty much any website with video ads, pop-overs and time delays.

Another David wrote:

This document will likely be an insult to one's intelligence, so no desire to read it. Sky should research the horse/door/bolted scenario

If you read the document, it explains why it ws not published sooner

I strongly suspect that Sky / BC have always pushed limits of legality but I think the fact that none of the insiders  who have made bullying  / sexism allegations have made doping allegations too is telling.