Lance Armstrong vs. USADA

Lance Armstrong vs. USADA

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Lost_BMW

12,955 posts

175 months

Saturday 6th October 2012
quotequote all
^ I'd agree with a lot of the above, but re. Sky I really don't believe they are on anything. If you look at the utterly meticulous preparation that goes into their training and events - see 'The Road To Glory' series recently for example, even to the point of physios putting their own mattresses, pillows and bedding in each hotel - with that constant quest for even minute benefits and enhancements to performance, the incremental gains that bit-by-bit add to being at the top of the tree, it's not hard to see why they are amongst the current best.

On top of which measures of output/ output over time and times on stage have fallen back since the Armstrong era haven't they? That too suggests that, at least the very worst of the doping, has passed.

Edited by Lost_BMW on Saturday 6th October 17:34

JuniorD

8,616 posts

222 months

Saturday 6th October 2012
quotequote all
Anyone heard about the blood manuipulation practice "low dose carbon monoxide poisoning" which is *apparently* finding use in the pro peleton?

http://bikepure.org/2012/08/5635/

Sounds well dodgy when you could just wear a gimp mask as a vasodilator

Edited by JuniorD on Saturday 6th October 16:59

fid

2,428 posts

239 months

Saturday 6th October 2012
quotequote all
Dare2Fail said:
...Already I have niggling doubts, probably completely unfounded, about the way that Team Sky dominated this year's race...
Team Sky only dominated because Contador was banned, Cadel was exhausted before he started, and Andy Schleck hasn't had a good season. If you compare power outputs from the Team Sky riders in this year's TdF, they're not nearly as high as those from known dopers in previous years. I seem to recall reading that Chris Boardman's power outputs were exceptionally high.

samwilliams

836 posts

255 months

Saturday 6th October 2012
quotequote all
JuniorD said:
Anyone heard about the blood manuipulation practice "low dose carbon monoxide poisoning" which is *apparently* finding use in the pro peleton?

http://bikepure.org/2012/08/5635/

Sounds well dodgy when you could just wear a gimp mask as a vasodilator

Edited by JuniorD on Saturday 6th October 16:59
Is that scientific proof that smoking is good for athletic performance??!! (Well, it's a nice idea)

ETA - from my limited pharmacological knowledge, I don't really see how it works unless you have an inflated negative feedback response, as carbon monoxide irreversibly binds to the haemoglobin, making those red blood cells useless forevermore. Unless the reaction is to overproduce EPO and therefore end up with a greater number of useful cells than you started with, I don't quite get how it would be effective.

Edited by samwilliams on Saturday 6th October 17:45

Chris Stott

13,183 posts

196 months

Monday 8th October 2012
quotequote all
I've read some stuff on other sites where poeple have pretty much called out SKY/Wiggo/Froome for doping and presented some circumstancial evidence on the recent & rapid improvements made by Wiggo & Froome, and harder evidence in in the form of power outputs during this years Tour... It can sound very convincing at times.

But the more I think about it the more it seems unreaslistic... Given all the bad press they've had with The NOTW and phone hacking, you have to think SKY would have spelled out in no uncertain terms they did not want their name associated with doping in any way shape or form before they signed the sponsorship contract. It would be a PR nightmare for them on top of the other issues they face and they must have got some written assurances before they signed up to support cycling.

Robsti

12,241 posts

205 months

Monday 8th October 2012
quotequote all
Chris Stott said:
I've read some stuff on other sites where poeple have pretty much called out SKY/Wiggo/Froome for doping and presented some circumstancial evidence on the recent & rapid improvements made by Wiggo & Froome, and harder evidence in in the form of power outputs during this years Tour... It can sound very convincing at times.

But the more I think about it the more it seems unreaslistic... Given all the bad press they've had with The NOTW and phone hacking, you have to think SKY would have spelled out in no uncertain terms they did not want their name associated with doping in any way shape or form before they signed the sponsorship contract. It would be a PR nightmare for them on top of the other issues they face and they must have got some written assurances before they signed up to support cycling.
So why the dodgy doctors?

DJRC

23,563 posts

235 months

Monday 8th October 2012
quotequote all
I rather suspect it might be difficult finding any doctors in that game who werent involved in dodgyness somehow or other frown

Its not a particularly good advert for the medical profession to me...and bugger all happens to them it seems. Ethics be damned. All a far cry from the doc at the Quinns match and the much vaunted hand wringing.

Chris Stott

13,183 posts

196 months

Monday 8th October 2012
quotequote all
Robsti said:
So why the dodgy doctors?
It's a fair question, and one where the official reply of 'expertise in handling saddle sores' seems a bit... well... smelly!

But I still don't think SKY would allow itself to be exposed to the bad publicity that would come from a positive doping result for one of their riders.

Another thing that occurs to me is the role of David Brailsford in both SKY and UK cycling... if people really think SKY are doping, surely by association, this also calls in to question the integrity of the British national cycling team that have been so successful at the last 2 Olympics? The fall out from a positive test from any of the big names in this organisation would be horrendous for the individual, the team and the country.

London424

Original Poster:

12,826 posts

174 months

Monday 8th October 2012
quotequote all
Chris Stott said:
Robsti said:
So why the dodgy doctors?
It's a fair question, and one where the official reply of 'expertise in handling saddle sores' seems a bit... well... smelly!

But I still don't think SKY would allow itself to be exposed to the bad publicity that would come from a positive doping result for one of their riders.

Another thing that occurs to me is the role of David Brailsford in both SKY and UK cycling... if people really think SKY are doping, surely by association, this also calls in to question the integrity of the British national cycling team that have been so successful at the last 2 Olympics? The fall out from a positive test from any of the big names in this organisation would be horrendous for the individual, the team and the country.
Better hope that they don't ps off any people who become ex-teammates wink

epom

11,396 posts

160 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
quotequote all
It seems to me that a lot of people on here believe Sky not to be doping simply because they are a British team with British riders, I'm all for patriotism and that but... I accept that nothing has turned up yet.

aspender

1,305 posts

264 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
quotequote all
epom said:
It seems to me that a lot of people on here believe Sky not to be doping simply because they are a British team with British riders, I'm all for patriotism and that but... I accept that nothing has turned up yet.
Not sure. I certainly agree that I want them to be dope free for those reasons (as well as just out of sheer principle) but I don't agree that it clouds my ability to apply critical judgement and healthy scepticism. Your final statement sums it up for me. We all have personal levels of confidence to pass before we believe something to be true. In so far as doping is concerned mine sits somewhere nearer "beyond reasonable doubt" than "oh, there's a puff of smoke therefore the house is burning down" so with USPS I have seen enough to satisfy me that Armstrong doped, but with Sky I haven't yet.

Take the Leinders argument. Doctor at Rabobank when they doped, and it was stated that at the time the doctors turned a blind eye, basically saying if it has to be done let's make sure it is done safely. So, yes, Leinders has a tainted past. But for me personally it is a stretch to convert this into an argument that he therefore is suspect now without further corroborating evidence. If he is now operating in a team and environment where the basic pressure is not there then it is perfectly possible for him to operate with his experience of cycling medical issues without any recourse to doping. The Leinders argument also pre-supposes that people cannot reform.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
quotequote all
epom said:
It seems to me that a lot of people on here believe Sky not to be doping simply because they are a British team with British riders, I'm all for patriotism and that but... I accept that nothing has turned up yet.
on the other hand, a lot of people know Sky are not doping because they have been following professional cycling for more than 2 years.....

You have to look at the career of Wiggo and Cav amongst others in Sky to appreciate this whole thing. they were brought up in the closet world of track cycling where everything is scrutinised. the track world has been ahead of the road in terms of testing for years. In a sport where 1/10th of a second is a big gap, testing and scrutiny of the riders physcial capacity was far more common than road racing where the winning margins for races is often far greater (sprints exlcuded but they are largely irrelevant). Any Sky rider who is doping, is doing so on his own and likely to be a fringe rider but no performances spring to mind to sugegst something like this, and as the others have said, DB is so closely linked to loads of other cycling acheivements that the pack of cards would tumble down quick enough....

Wiggo and Cav will have been tested frequently from the late nineties through several Olympics to the current day and there is no evidence, nor any allegations to say that they have doped in the past, no witnesses etc

The Brailsford training methods/regime has been stuided by many coaches and scientists, and almost replicated like for like by Cycling Australia in prep for 2012, and people have found the small gains approach to be suitable for many other sports but it just works for cyclists.

it just annoys me when the harder these guys work and the more they train, they more they win and with that the frequency of these stories appear. take the Womens Team Pursuit as an example, they broke six world records at the Olympics on the way to gold medal by beating each time by about 1/10th of a second.
It was a perfect example of the Brailsford model. Trace that into the Sky team and you see the same results, the races are longer so the performance increases are bigger but thats the only reason.

it just seems to me that the cyclists who train the hardest, and achieve what many think of as impossible sporting achievements, are the ones who get the doping allegations thrown at them.

Go run 5000m as fast as you can, then take 7 minutes off that time and you are probably close to Mo Farah's pace, you think thats impossible because you cant get anywahere near Mo's time but you dont train or eat like Mo (actually I dont think he does eat but thats irrelevant!) but why isnt Mo or Alberto Salazar hit with these allegations? Its not like Athletics is clean....

As for the "dodgy doctor", you could argue why Manchester City persevere with the likes of Mario Balotelli, he sulks, he gets sent off, he also happens to be a brilliant footballer. Sometimes, if you want the best people in your team, you have to appreciate that they come with baggage. I doubt there is any doctor in the pro tour peloton without some link to a doping scandal, degrees of seperation and all that.

Finally, doping just isnt in UK cycling culture and it never has (Simpson aside), its the "plucky Brit" syndrome, we train clean, we turn up clean, we win or lose clean, we go home, we train some more. I can remeber when there was only one lone Brit in the World Champs or le tour at all, step up Max Sciandri, let alone a bloody team of them!

Read the stories from the likes of Barry Hoban and its clear that the British would rather turn up and lose than dope.

Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 9th October 13:39

Chris Stott

13,183 posts

196 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
quotequote all
epom said:
It seems to me that a lot of people on here believe Sky not to be doping simply because they are a British team with British riders, I'm all for patriotism and that but... I accept that nothing has turned up yet.
I wouldn't assume SKY weren't doping just because they are primarily a British run team.

I would assume they aren't doping as I'd assume their sponsor asked for some cats iron guarentees before handing over millions of pounds.

I also struggle to believe Brailsford would allow himself and his reputation to get dragged in to the dirt.

Of course I could be completely misguided and SKY and the British Olympic squard have been pinning up every night with something super special and as yet undetectable...

Nigel H

1,806 posts

209 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
quotequote all
Chris Stott said:
epom said:
It seems to me that a lot of people on here believe Sky not to be doping simply because they are a British team with British riders, I'm all for patriotism and that but... I accept that nothing has turned up yet.
I wouldn't assume SKY weren't doping just because they are primarily a British run team.

I would assume they aren't doping as I'd assume their sponsor asked for some cats iron guarentees before handing over millions of pounds.

I also struggle to believe Brailsford would allow himself and his reputation to get dragged in to the dirt.

Of course I could be completely misguided and SKY and the British Olympic squard have been pinning up every night with something super special and as yet undetectable...
And that's the problem, it could be undetectable. If you read the Hamilton and Millar books you get an idea of how relatively easy it was to thing to do and not get caught; they both did of for years, so what's to say they're not doing something new now?

I've no view one way or the other on this, I want to believe Sky are clean, it's just that the weight of evidence from the last 15 years makes me have slight doubts.

Robsti

12,241 posts

205 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
quotequote all
pablo said:
on the other hand, a lot of people know Sky are not doping because they have been following professional cycling for more than 2 years.....

You have to look at the career of Wiggo and Cav amongst others in Sky to appreciate this whole thing. they were brought up in the closet world of track cycling where everything is scrutinised. the track world has been ahead of the road in terms of testing for years. In a sport where 1/10th of a second is a big gap, testing and scrutiny of the riders physcial capacity was far more common than road racing where the winning margins for races is often far greater (sprints exlcuded but they are largely irrelevant). Any Sky rider who is doping, is doing so on his own and likely to be a fringe rider but no performances spring to mind to sugegst something like this, and as the others have said, DB is so closely linked to loads of other cycling acheivements that the pack of cards would tumble down quick enough....

Wiggo and Cav will have been tested frequently from the late nineties through several Olympics to the current day and there is no evidence, nor any allegations to say that they have doped in the past, no witnesses etc
The Brailsford training methods/regime has been stuided by many coaches and scientists, and almost replicated like for like by Cycling Australia in prep for 2012, and people have found the small gains approach to be suitable for many other sports but it just works for cyclists.

it just annoys me when the harder these guys work and the more they train, they more they win and with that the frequency of these stories appear. take the Womens Team Pursuit as an example, they broke six world records at the Olympics on the way to gold medal by beating each time by about 1/10th of a second.
It was a perfect example of the Brailsford model. Trace that into the Sky team and you see the same results, the races are longer so the performance increases are bigger but thats the only reason

it just seems to me that the cyclists who train the hardest, and achieve what many think of as impossible sporting achievements, are the ones who get the doping allegations thrown at them.

Go run 5000m as fast as you can, then take 7 minutes off that time and you are probably close to Mo Farah's pace, you think thats impossible because you cant get anywahere near Mo's time but you dont train or eat like Mo (actually I dont think he does eat but thats irrelevant!) but why isnt Mo or Alberto Salazar hit with these allegations? Its not like Athletics is clean....
As for the "dodgy doctor", you could argue why Manchester City persevere with the likes of Mario Balotelli, he sulks, he gets sent off, he also happens to be a brilliant footballer. Sometimes, if you want the best people in your team, you have to appreciate that they come with baggage. I doubt there is any doctor in the pro tour peloton without some link to a doping scandal, degrees of seperation and all that.

Finally, doping just isnt in UK cycling culture and it never has (Simpson aside), its the "plucky Brit" syndrome, we train clean, we turn up clean, we win or lose clean, we go home, we train some more. I can remeber when there was only one
lone Brit in the World Champs or le tour at all, step up Max Sciandri, let alone a bloody team of them!

Read the stories from the likes of Barry Hoban and its clear that the British would rather turn up and lose than dope.

Edited by pablo on Tuesday 9th October 13:39
Not just Simpson!

Sean Yates ,David McCann and David Millar have all been caught.

I hope Sky are clean as I hope all teams are clean BUT it's so hard to believe anymore.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
quotequote all
Nigel H said:
Chris Stott said:
epom said:
It seems to me that a lot of people on here believe Sky not to be doping simply because they are a British team with British riders, I'm all for patriotism and that but... I accept that nothing has turned up yet.
I wouldn't assume SKY weren't doping just because they are primarily a British run team.

I would assume they aren't doping as I'd assume their sponsor asked for some cats iron guarentees before handing over millions of pounds.

I also struggle to believe Brailsford would allow himself and his reputation to get dragged in to the dirt.

Of course I could be completely misguided and SKY and the British Olympic squard have been pinning up every night with something super special and as yet undetectable...
And that's the problem, it could be undetectable. If you read the Hamilton and Millar books you get an idea of how relatively easy it was to thing to do and not get caught; they both did of for years, so what's to say they're not doing something new now?

I've no view one way or the other on this, I want to believe Sky are clean, it's just that the weight of evidence from the last 15 years makes me have slight doubts.
the thing i dont get is why cast all the doubt upon Sky, just because they won and not FDJ for example, I mean where the hell did Thibaut Pinot come from? the youngest guy to finish in the top 10 of le tour since god knows when and he absolutely destroyed some of the best riders in the world.....

... and four examples does not a culture make. This is by no means conclusive but does prove my point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_...

Robsti

12,241 posts

205 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
quotequote all
pablo said:
the thing i dont get is why cast all the doubt upon Sky, just because they won and not FDJ for example, I mean where the hell did Thibaut Pinot come from? the youngest guy to finish in the top 10 of le tour since god knows when and he absolutely destroyed some of the best riders in the world.....

... and four examples does not a culture make. This is by no means conclusive but does prove my point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_...
Pinot and Froome.

Dare2Fail

3,808 posts

207 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
quotequote all
pablo said:
the thing i dont get is why cast all the doubt upon Sky, just because they won and not FDJ for example, I mean where the hell did Thibaut Pinot come from? the youngest guy to finish in the top 10 of le tour since god knows when and he absolutely destroyed some of the best riders in the world.....

... and four examples does not a culture make. This is by no means conclusive but does prove my point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_...
pablo said:
the thing i dont get is why cast all the doubt upon Sky, just because they won and not FDJ for example, I mean where the hell did Thibaut Pinot come from? the youngest guy to finish in the top 10 of le tour since god knows when and he absolutely destroyed some of the best riders in the world.....

... and four examples does not a culture make. This is by no means conclusive but does prove my point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_...
I will jump in here as I mentioned Sky for the first time in a few pages on this thread so maybe I have dug up an old discussion. The reasons I made reference to concerns about Team Sky were:-

1. A general cynicism about the sport of pro cycling, which probably wasn't helped by the fact that I had literally just finished reading Hamilton's book at the time of posting. Hamilton does make the point in the closing chapter that he seems to think that the sport is clean (or cleaner) simply from looking at stage times. He makes a comment that the winning time of Alp D'Huez (sp?) in 2012 would have crossed the line in a mighty position of 41st in the Hamilton/Armstrong era. This in itself helps support the argument that the sport is cleaning up.

2. I think the reasons Sky are a bit under the microscope is because, in my very casual eye, they were the team that absolutely dominated this years Tour. Getting back to the Hamilton book (and apologies if my posts are coming across as 'I have read a book and therefore know it all', it certainly isn't my intention) he makes the point that in his era you could spot the team that had made a big breakthrough in doping by the fact that team dominated stages/events. It wasn't one rider from the team that did well, it was the entire team. Given the strong performance by the entire Sky team in the overall GC it fits into Hamilton's criteria, but that could just be sheer coincidence.

fid

2,428 posts

239 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
quotequote all
Dare2Fail said:
I will jump in here as I mentioned Sky for the first time in a few pages on this thread so maybe I have dug up an old discussion. The reasons I made reference to concerns about Team Sky were:-

1. A general cynicism about the sport of pro cycling, which probably wasn't helped by the fact that I had literally just finished reading Hamilton's book at the time of posting. Hamilton does make the point in the closing chapter that he seems to think that the sport is clean (or cleaner) simply from looking at stage times. He makes a comment that the winning time of Alp D'Huez (sp?) in 2012 would have crossed the line in a mighty position of 41st in the Hamilton/Armstrong era. This in itself helps support the argument that the sport is cleaning up.

2. I think the reasons Sky are a bit under the microscope is because, in my very casual eye, they were the team that absolutely dominated this years Tour. Getting back to the Hamilton book (and apologies if my posts are coming across as 'I have read a book and therefore know it all', it certainly isn't my intention) he makes the point that in his era you could spot the team that had made a big breakthrough in doping by the fact that team dominated stages/events. It wasn't one rider from the team that did well, it was the entire team. Given the strong performance by the entire Sky team in the overall GC it fits into Hamilton's criteria, but that could just be sheer coincidence.
Sky didn't stand out to me - quite simply, their main competitors weren't racing in this year's tour.

Sagan, however, did stand out.

DJRC

23,563 posts

235 months

Wednesday 10th October 2012
quotequote all
Froome and Sagan stood out for me.

Wiggo and Cav for example performed at their top levels which they have been capable of for yours. Same as Bernie E up front for Sky and EBH is turning early promise into sustained good work. Froome and Sagan were the nowhere men.