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News in March
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| lluuiiggii |
Posted on 23-03-2014 19:17
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Grand Tour Champion
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Warning: long post ahead 
The Hobbit wrote:
Aquarius wrote:
The Hobbit wrote:
I still highly doubt Sky are cheating.
Oh please, back up your stance with arguments.
Back up yours with evidence and maybe this will be a real discussion for once, instead of you lot mocking people who like Sky when they're the ones with evidence on their sides.
Well, I'm not going to tell you to read the full Sky Doping Thread, since it's already quite long and there's waaay too many unuseful posts (read = pure speculation against Sky without any real indication, or, mostly, biased fanboy posts in favor of Sky which are even worse in terms of lacking evidence). That said, there are also several well written posts, you just have to dig for them. Anyway, to complement on Aquarius' post, which states mostly recent facts, here are a few other ones:
Back when they were created, Sky signed by a list of principles. Here's a quote by Paul Kimmage on that:
Spoiler It must have weighed half a ton. As you would expect from Brailsford, every i was dotted and every t was crossed.
Their goal was to win the Tour de France with a clean British rider in the next five years. To achieve that goal, the team would employ only British doctors who had never worked in cycling before.
The team would not employ anyone who had been associated with doping. The team would have a zero tolerance of doping. Staff would be ‘enthusiastic and positive, fit and healthy and willing to try new things’.
Soon they'd start breaking most of those anti-doping principles. When they hired a new doctor in 2011, not only it wasn't a British one, nor one who had never worked in cycling before, and definitely not one who had never been associated with doping, much to the contrary - Geert Leinders. Somehow, Leinders entering the team staff came just a bit before Sky started to be a dominating force in the stage races, and eventually GTs. Not long after, they started working with another curious doctor (iirc as a replacement for Leinders), Fabio Bartalucci. Italian, had worked with cycling and, most importantly, another one linked to doping after the 2001 San Remo doping raids during the Giro.
Apart from that, they also had a huge change in transparency. Neither Leinders nor Bartalucci appeared among the staff on Sky's website; it took long for Brailsford to confirm that Leinders was working with them; they had claimed they would be releasing all useful data to try to confirm they are clean, but when they were asked to do so Brailsford came with an extremely lame excuse, to quote: "There is so much pseudo science out there right now. If you release the data, there are very few people who can properly interpret and understand that data. All you’re going to do is create is a lot of noise for people who are pseudo scientists."
And while still in the transparency topic, they've started to forbid journalists to ask questions related to doping; Wiggins went from being a guy who swears at dopers to swearing at journalists asking doping questions and who praises Armstrong for 'all the amazing things he has done to the sport'.
Then there's the riders. Once again the plan was to not hire suspicious riders, or riders with doping backgrounds - yet, when you look at UCI's doping suspicious list, you'll find several Sky riders in the "most likely doping" category (4 or above), and even other riders in the "overwhelming evidence of doping" (from 6 to 10). Also interesting to note that some riders in these categories were not with Sky at the time but would later be hired on the team, such as Michael Rogers (who also was part of T-Mobile's doping program in 2006) - going quite on the opposite direction of a "we won't be hiring suspicious riders" policy.
But of course it doesn't limit only to riders - there's their performances, of course. Or rather, their improvement. Wiggins - you certainly can't say he came from nowhere, but doing well on the track does absolutely not mean you'll do well on the road, and even more in the mountains - in fact, quite the contrary. However, in 2012, Wiggins not only improved in climbing - leaving everyone else except for Froome behind on the TdF - but also improved on time trials, not losing a single one of those that year!
Froome, however, truly comes from nowhere. I'm not even sure what his best result before 2011 would be, 2nd in the UCI B World Championships TT, being beaten by China's supreme time-trialist Ma Haijun? Or to put it this way: from 2006 to pre-Vuelta 2011, he scored a grand total of 860 CQ Ranking points. After that, in post-Vuelta 2011, 2012 and 2013, he's scored 4910 points. Now, there's the very badly told story of bilharzia and all, but:
a) it's believed he contracted it at 2010. Prior to 2010, he also had barely shown anything to even guarantee a contract with a WT team.
b) if anything, bilharzia would slow his development, not make him one of the world's best climbers weeks after he got rid of it.
Still in terms of riders' improvements, you'll notice that, mainly since 2012, some Sky riders have shown tremendous improvements - however, coincidentally enough, these riders nearly always happened to be part of the select 'mountain train' of Sky. F.e., Michael Rogers, claiming in 2012 he was putting out even better numbers than 2006; Richie Porte, going from a 7th (9th without monster breakaway) in 2010's Giro to nothing in 2011 to pulling the pack everyday in the 2012's Tour to dropping literally the whole field at some points of last year's Tour, among others. However, you mainly wouldn't see this sort of improvement that their new "training methods" and "marginal gains" offered being applied to the non-climbers, like Hagen and Flecha. I don't remember Sky dominating the classics as they did in the GTs.
But what if Froome, Wiggins weren't really riding that well and simply it was the rest of the competition that would have gone down a lot? Well, for that there's a useful analysis of watts, climbing times and all! I don't have the exact numbers by head, but in 2012, Froome/Wiggo were pulling out numbers that weren't impossible - but would require them to be pretty much the ultimate human beings adapted to cycling to do it clean. In 2013, Froome went even worse, usually staying a few % above the "threshold of credibility" line (iirc, he did ~410 normalized watts on Ventoux, whereas the threshold for a 1-hour effort would be ~390). Equally, you could take Froome's times in the records and take a look at the ones surrounding him.. not exactly riders who were never linked to doping, right? (though watts is better since it also involves factors such as wind)
There's probably more, but the post is long enough to make my point. To conclude, surely there isn't concrete evidence that would put Sky as 'guilty' in a court room, but this is cycling, a sport whose history has proven the doping 'accusations' in these type of situations to be correct nearly always. In fact, considering that usually a single doping link is enough to confirm, with quite some confidence, that someone might or not be doping (that's what the sport's history has shown), it's hard to believe that upon so many links Sky is truly as clean as we wish they could be. Unfortunately, in the end it's the same story over and over.
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| wackojackohighcliffe |
Posted on 23-03-2014 19:34
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7681
Joined: 19-02-2008
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Hopefully that'll do it. Golden post 'member of the year' . |
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| deek12345 |
Posted on 23-03-2014 19:39
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2761
Joined: 13-06-2009
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wow lluuiiggii cracking post |
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| issoisso |
Posted on 23-03-2014 19:42
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 22918
Joined: 08-02-2007
PCM$: 200.00
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I was going to dig up a post I made on another forum about Sky recently, but I see no need now
Edited by issoisso on 23-03-2014 19:42
The preceding post is ISSO 9001 certified
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
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| Aquarius |
Posted on 23-03-2014 19:58
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 5220
Joined: 29-11-2006
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@luigi :
@Shonak : erm, how about 5k in 19'11 tonight, divide by two and I'm more than 4 minutes beyond the world record 
That'd definitely deserve a flag. |
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| Ian Butler |
Posted on 23-03-2014 20:00
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 21854
Joined: 01-05-2012
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I've never read the Sky Doping Thead properly so this helps a lot 
I wonder: can anyone be bothered to write up a similar post on Cancellara's probabilty of doping? There's someone I'm trying to convince but he won't believe me and I don't quite know the arguments to be honest |
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| wackojackohighcliffe |
Posted on 23-03-2014 20:04
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7681
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Ian Butler wrote:
I've never read the Sky Doping Thead properly so this helps a lot
I wonder: can anyone be bothered to write up a similar post on Cancellara's probabilty of doping? There's someone I'm trying to convince but he won't believe me and I don't quite know the arguments to be honest
If you don't know the arguments, why are you trying to convince him? |
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| issoisso |
Posted on 23-03-2014 20:11
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 22918
Joined: 08-02-2007
PCM$: 200.00
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wackojackohighcliffe wrote:
If you don't know the arguments, why are you trying to convince him?
+1
That said, I do understand it. When you start to follow cycling thoroughly and really pay attention to the personalities of the riders, Cancellara comes across as one of the most supremely unlikeable, so it's easy to want him to fall
The preceding post is ISSO 9001 certified
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 22-11-2024 06:45
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| kirtley9 |
Posted on 23-03-2014 20:42
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I don't know much about doping, but i suspect sky are doping. I have a question though, why is there so much attention on sky are others teams considered clean or are they doping as well? |
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| issoisso |
Posted on 23-03-2014 20:52
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 22918
Joined: 08-02-2007
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kirtley9 wrote:
I don't know much about doping, but i suspect sky are doping. I have a question though, why is there so much attention on sky are others teams considered clean or are they doping as well?
Combination of 3 factors:
1. They're winning so that brings more attention to them
2. Most other teams have been talked to death
And the most important
3. Sky make a point of announcing to the world at every opportunity that they're so much smarter and more advanced than everyone else. That was annoying at first, but became outright enraging when it became clear it's entirely bullshit
(Not to mention the 'we win because we train harder and are more scientific' excuse has been done to death before and in every single case it turned out the team was just taking more risks with doping than others were. It was Armstrong's go-to excuse for instance)
Edited by issoisso on 23-03-2014 20:53
The preceding post is ISSO 9001 certified
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
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| cactus-jack |
Posted on 23-03-2014 21:02
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3936
Joined: 31-07-2009
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kirtley9 wrote:
I don't know much about doping, but i suspect sky are doping. I have a question though, why is there so much attention on sky are others teams considered clean or are they doping as well?
There is a lot of focus on Sky due to a combination of (sudden) results, the history of certain staff/riders and their die hard stance on how they are as clean as a whistle and they are simply better when it comes to "technology".
Being hypocritical has never done any cause any good.
And don't forget this is cycling, a sport in which most results are treated with a bit of scrutiny.
Edited by cactus-jack on 23-03-2014 21:03
There's a fine line between "psychotherapist" and "psycho the rapist"
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| kirtley9 |
Posted on 23-03-2014 21:05
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Junior Rider
Posts: 49
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issoisso wrote:
kirtley9 wrote:
I don't know much about doping, but i suspect sky are doping. I have a question though, why is there so much attention on sky are others teams considered clean or are they doping as well?
Combination of 3 factors:
1. They're winning so that brings more attention to them
2. Most other teams have been talked to death
And the most important
3. Sky make a point of announcing to the world at every opportunity that they're so much smarter and more advanced than everyone else. That was annoying at first, but became outright enraging when it became clear it's entirely bullshit
(Not to mention the 'we win because we train harder and are more scientific' excuse has been done to death before and in every single case it turned out the team was just taking more risks with doping than others were. It was Armstrong's go-to excuse for instance)
yeah it sounds as if they just brought it on themselves. Did they actually say 'we win because we train harder' if so they are dumber than i thought. |
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| Guido Mukk |
Posted on 23-03-2014 21:26
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 15830
Joined: 08-02-2007
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Ofcorse it is wrong thread already still..my question will be how mr. Nobody-Froome can change into dominant raider.
I understand doping can help you train harder and recover better. Stlll my logic says you have to be great rider even without a doping to take out of it such advantage.
Same question also with Wiggins. How the fuck doping can turn trek cyclist into top climber? How doping can change 1996 Armtrong into 1999 Armstrong.
for me doping has been more like real champions extra kick and helper. Ulle..well he was to lazy to focus 100% for cycling. Dope helped him to get ready for tour.
Pantani..he just never knew is there possibility to race and train without it. |
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| Aquarius |
Posted on 23-03-2014 21:52
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 5220
Joined: 29-11-2006
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Wiggins makes more sense than Froome.
With dope (let's assume he was mostly climb when he was a top pursuiter) he managed to lose a dozen of kg and still maintain the same power outputs, which made him lethal at climbing and an even better TT rider.
Froome was said to have a big engine, but then again all/most pros have one, so it's hard to figure what this actually meant.
Last but not least : not all riders react the same to doping, like we don't all react the same to a given medicine or drug. Maybe Froome is some sort of super responder.
One thing I haven't really figured out yet though : Froome was going to get out of contract for 2012, then he suddenly became the second best GT rider in the world (after JJ Cobo  ). I assume Sky have a high end doping program, but they'd never include Froome into that one in 2011, so how did he become that good then ?
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| Ian Butler |
Posted on 23-03-2014 22:12
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 21854
Joined: 01-05-2012
PCM$: 400.00
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wackojackohighcliffe wrote:
Ian Butler wrote:
I've never read the Sky Doping Thead properly so this helps a lot
I wonder: can anyone be bothered to write up a similar post on Cancellara's probabilty of doping? There's someone I'm trying to convince but he won't believe me and I don't quite know the arguments to be honest
If you don't know the arguments, why are you trying to convince him?
Because I've read them before, but I didn't remember what it was
It's like I want to convince someone Darth Vader is evil but I forgot what he did in the movie, I just know he was evil. See? |
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| Aquarius |
Posted on 23-03-2014 22:13
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 5220
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Clasicomano Luigi rides motorbikes for evil teams, I guess that sums it up.
I forgot to add that in 2008, during and after the TDF, there was a recurrent rumour about his positive due to be announced soon, but that never came out, gotta know if that was just a rumour or if some Irish or Dutch guy swept it under the rug
Edited by Aquarius on 23-03-2014 22:14
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| SSJ2Luigi |
Posted on 23-03-2014 22:15
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World Champion
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Ian Butler wrote:
It's like I want to convince someone Darth Vader is evil but I forgot what he did in the movie, I just know he was evil. See?
wait he isn't evil *mind blows*
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| wackojackohighcliffe |
Posted on 23-03-2014 22:32
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7681
Joined: 19-02-2008
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Ian Butler wrote:
wackojackohighcliffe wrote:
Ian Butler wrote:
I've never read the Sky Doping Thead properly so this helps a lot
I wonder: can anyone be bothered to write up a similar post on Cancellara's probabilty of doping? There's someone I'm trying to convince but he won't believe me and I don't quite know the arguments to be honest
If you don't know the arguments, why are you trying to convince him?
Because I've read them before, but I didn't remember what it was
It's like I want to convince someone Darth Vader is evil but I forgot what he did in the movie, I just know he was evil. See?
Yeah, just some minor trolling on my part. |
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| cactus-jack |
Posted on 23-03-2014 23:21
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3936
Joined: 31-07-2009
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Ian Butler wrote:
wackojackohighcliffe wrote:
Ian Butler wrote:
I've never read the Sky Doping Thead properly so this helps a lot
I wonder: can anyone be bothered to write up a similar post on Cancellara's probabilty of doping? There's someone I'm trying to convince but he won't believe me and I don't quite know the arguments to be honest
If you don't know the arguments, why are you trying to convince him?
Because I've read them before, but I didn't remember what it was
It's like I want to convince someone Darth Vader is evil but I forgot what he did in the movie, I just know he was evil. See?
"You must decidet to go to rule the galaxy with me. Father and son. Togather. Comet with me"
Spoiler My attempt at Fabianese
Edited by cactus-jack on 23-03-2014 23:21
There's a fine line between "psychotherapist" and "psycho the rapist"
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| ShortsNL |
Posted on 24-03-2014 09:46
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Looks like isso and Aquarius just got schooled by lluuiiggii on how to have a real discussion.
Thumbs up with gifs all you want guys, no matter how much knowledge on the doping matter you think you have, you need to properly demonstrate that knowledge if you are on a discussion forum and not just instigate anybody with an opposing point of view.
That is, if you really ever want to have Sky fans enlightened and not just want impose your superior intelligence on the crowd.
+1 vote on lluuiiggii for newly to-be created PCMDaily Award as best debater of the year.
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