The SKY is falling!

[Dazzricles]

Both links above would be fecking unbelievable If we hadn't got so used it by now.
Anyone see the obvious conflicts of interest here ? Brian Cookson, your a sneaky Wiesel :
.
Team Sky is owned by a company called Tour Racing Limited, which holds the team's UCI ProTour licence. TRL is a holding company owned by BSkyB and on the board of TRL are two senior Sky executives and Ian Drake and Brian Cookson, the chief executive and president of British Cycling.
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/...-team-sky.html

[stepdot]

History, and go check this out, has shown , in every decade , going back decades that the most dominant team has , with almost NO exception ( any one able to name one? ) been, ultimately to have not been clean.

La Vie Clare? (I hope). Yes, I know Hinault used cortisone (under medical direction for a knee injury) but LeMond seems to have a clean name from that time/team/era. (Again, I hope so!)

[orbeas]

Both links above would be fecking unbelievable If we hadn't got so used it by now.
Anyone see the obvious conflicts of interest here ? Brian Cookson, your a sneaky Wiesel :
.
Team Sky is owned by a company called Tour Racing Limited, which holds the team's UCI ProTour licence. TRL is a holding company owned by BSkyB and on the board of TRL are two senior Sky executives and Ian Drake and Brian Cookson, the chief executive and president of British Cycling.
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/...-team-sky.html

And Cookson is on the UCI board and a big fan of Fat Pat !!!!!!

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/...t-mcquaid.html

[PaulB]

Oh yes it is. Precisely because LA was not just a small cog. He was arguably one of the most powerful and influential figures in cycling. He used and abused his power to bully and browbeat anyone who questioned him, and I am sure the cycling authorities were co-conspirators.
(Allegedly) Motorola signed up to start doping after a season of getting their butts kicked in Europe. That team morphed into the LA teams that we know and now despise. They developed a professional system of doping, and their results show that they were damn good at it. A level playing field can never exist in a doped-up sport.

When Armstrong made is return to cycling after his cancer treatment and joined USPS, there was already a doping programme in place. This is according to Tyler Hamilton who has dropped Armstrong in the mire. The team employed the Spanish doping expert Dr. Pedro Celaya in 1977 before Bruyneel arrived there. Someone much higher up the food chain at USPS than Armstrong must have organised the doping and the hiring and firing. That Armstrong etc. accepted the situation and exploited it is not in question.

As for Armstrong bullying people into taking drugs, well I don't buy it. He is certainly not a nice bloke but we are dealing with self centered, egocentric, well paid alpha male sports people here. They would have had the same 'win at all costs' mentality as Armstrong - they could have said "no" but they wanted the fame and fortune. I suspect that the Spanish climbers they brought on board would have had plenty of doping experience to pass on! Anyway, who forced Landis to dope when he was riding for Phonak, and who forced Hamilton to dope after he left the Armstrong camp? This "Please sir, that nasty Armstrong man made me do it" is a feeble attempt to shift the blame. I think the riders who testified against Armstrong could name names about suppliers, doctors etc too.

I agree that a level playing field can never exist in a doped-up sport but then what is a 'level playing field'? Natural physical ability varies from person to person. Would you expect a top Premiership football club, containing millions of poundsworth of international players, to be level with a non-league football team or a first division squad? There will never be absolute parity in sport. If I turn up at a race on the best £500 bike I can afford from Halfords and you are riding the latest carbon fibre, featherlight thoroughbred, is that a level playing field? In professional sport money is the most effective drug.

Armstrong is guilty of doping - no doubt about it - but it looks like most other teams were playing the same game. My original point was to highlight the injustice of putting all the blame onto one person (whoever that may be) rather than punishing all the culprits. There is a chance that if more riders break their silence (as with the Rabobank team) people may begin to side with Armstrong because he has become the sacrificial lamb.

In my original post I (rather cheekily) compared the USPS/Rabobank fiasco to SKY. I have no evidence that SKY are doping and I really hope they are not. I did it to show that the arguments that many people on this forum made about Armstrong doping could also apply to SKY; i.e. a strong dominating team with connections to a dodgy doctor. The Armstrong critics were proven to be right.........

[themadchemist]

When Armstrong made is return to cycling after his cancer treatment and joined USPS, there was already a doping programme in place. This is according to Tyler Hamilton who has dropped Armstrong in the mire. The team employed the Spanish doping expert Dr. Pedro Celaya in 1977 before Bruyneel arrived there. Someone much higher up the food chain at USPS than Armstrong must have organised the doping and the hiring and firing. That Armstrong etc. accepted the situation and exploited it is not in question.

As for Armstrong bullying people into taking drugs, well I don't buy it. He is certainly not a nice bloke but we are dealing with self centered, egocentric, well paid alpha male sports people here. They would have had the same 'win at all costs' mentality as Armstrong - they could have said "no" but they wanted the fame and fortune. I suspect that the Spanish climbers they brought on board would have had plenty of doping experience to pass on! Anyway, who forced Landis to dope when he was riding for Phonak, and who forced Hamilton to dope after he left the Armstrong camp? This "Please sir, that nasty Armstrong man made me do it" is a feeble attempt to shift the blame. I think the riders who testified against Armstrong could name names about suppliers, doctors etc too.

I agree that a level playing field can never exist in a doped-up sport but then what is a 'level playing field'? Natural physical ability varies from person to person. Would you expect a top Premiership football club, containing millions of poundsworth of international players, to be level with a non-league football team or a first division squad? There will never be absolute parity in sport. If I turn up at a race on the best £500 bike I can afford from Halfords and you are riding the latest carbon fibre, featherlight thoroughbred, is that a level playing field? In professional sport money is the most effective drug.

Armstrong is guilty of doping - no doubt about it - but it looks like most other teams were playing the same game. My original point was to highlight the injustice of putting all the blame onto one person (whoever that may be) rather than punishing all the culprits. There is a chance that if more riders break their silence (as with the Rabobank team) people may begin to side with Armstrong because he has become the sacrificial lamb.

In my original post I (rather cheekily) compared the USPS/Rabobank fiasco to SKY. I have no evidence that SKY are doping and I really hope they are not. I did it to show that the arguments that many people on this forum made about Armstrong doping could also apply to SKY; i.e. a strong dominating team with connections to a dodgy doctor. The Armstrong critics were proven to be right.........

Totally agree with you..people doped before Armstrong.. and after he'd gone/they'd left his team. It's easy for them to just blame him...anyway,this is getting to be very much like the post i started in the lounge! seems there are some of us that think alike..

I just hope Sky are riding clean.. it's been great to have a British winner of the TdeF,but not if it turns out he cheated..

[CrazyIvan]

Sorry but utterly ridiculous so suggest Armstrong was just like any other doper. After the Festina affair who was it that went up to Christope Bassons and esssentially told him to xxxx off if he did not like it? Who was it that chased down Simeoni's breakaway to teach Simeoni a lesson for his testimony against Ferrari?

The guy was the Alpha male in the whole doping affair and we have not seen the last of what he did either, that will come out soon enough too.

[buzz]

Interesting stuff, Dazz puts a new perspective on it for me - I hadn't really thought about the parallels between Sky/LA's gang.

As for the comments about Armstrong - Well, that's another thread if you ask me. lying through your back teeth, bribing the UCI, ruining peoples lives. All side-effects of him being exposed as the biggest sports cheat of all time.

[Tony Short]

When Armstrong made is return to cycling after his cancer treatment and joined USPS, there was already a doping programme in place. This is according to Tyler Hamilton who has dropped Armstrong in the mire. The team employed the Spanish doping expert Dr. Pedro Celaya in 1977 before Bruyneel arrived there. Someone much higher up the food chain at USPS than Armstrong must have organised the doping and the hiring and firing. That Armstrong etc. accepted the situation and exploited it is not in question.

As for Armstrong bullying people into taking drugs, well I don't buy it. He is certainly not a nice bloke but we are dealing with self centered, egocentric, well paid alpha male sports people here. They would have had the same 'win at all costs' mentality as Armstrong - they could have said "no" but they wanted the fame and fortune. I suspect that the Spanish climbers they brought on board would have had plenty of doping experience to pass on! Anyway, who forced Landis to dope when he was riding for Phonak, and who forced Hamilton to dope after he left the Armstrong camp? This "Please sir, that nasty Armstrong man made me do it" is a feeble attempt to shift the blame. I think the riders who testified against Armstrong could name names about suppliers, doctors etc too.

I agree that a level playing field can never exist in a doped-up sport but then what is a 'level playing field'? Natural physical ability varies from person to person. Would you expect a top Premiership football club, containing millions of poundsworth of international players, to be level with a non-league football team or a first division squad? There will never be absolute parity in sport. If I turn up at a race on the best £500 bike I can afford from Halfords and you are riding the latest carbon fibre, featherlight thoroughbred, is that a level playing field? In professional sport money is the most effective drug.

Armstrong is guilty of doping - no doubt about it - but it looks like most other teams were playing the same game. My original point was to highlight the injustice of putting all the blame onto one person (whoever that may be) rather than punishing all the culprits. There is a chance that if more riders break their silence (as with the Rabobank team) people may begin to side with Armstrong because he has become the sacrificial lamb.

In my original post I (rather cheekily) compared the USPS/Rabobank fiasco to SKY. I have no evidence that SKY are doping and I really hope they are not. I did it to show that the arguments that many people on this forum made about Armstrong doping could also apply to SKY; i.e. a strong dominating team with connections to a dodgy doctor. The Armstrong critics were proven to be right.........

Paul I have to take issue with some of what you're saying here. Firstly, did Armstrong lean on others to dope? Well according to ex team mates like Tyler Hamilton yes and according to Lance no. I think we can take a pretty good educated guess that the most successful Tour rider of all time and self procaimed bully is going to expect the guys supporting him to do whatever it takes to help him win or face the sack at the end of the season. Should the guys on the team have refused to dope? Absolutely. Were they weak? Absolutely. However, it was their livelihood, their dream, they were racing with the best guy in the world at the time and he expected them to dope and well, every other team was at it too and the UCI seemed pretty adept at looking the other way. In short, the whole culture of cycling was rotten to the core and had been for decades. It's a little bit like the Greek economy. The government didn't expect anybody to pay any tax and so nobody did. The people weren't so much corrupt as corrupted by the system. Who would voluntarily pay tax when the guy next door wasn't paying any? Who would ride clean when nobody else did and the UCI wasn't checking? From a moral standpoint everyone involved has been weak and behaved shamefully but given the prevailing culture we can at least understand the motivation without justifying it.

To USADA's credit they saw something going on that was patently wrong and set out to expose it. This had to happen some time and Lance and his supporters can't hold up their hands and say "Why me, why not everyone else going back to Fausto Coppi and beyond?" Lance not only doped, he doped big time, he lied about it, he destroyed the reputations and livelihoods of those who tried to blow the whistle, he allegedly bought people off, he pressurized others to dope and he hid it all behind a cancer charity. It's for someone else to decide to do about previous cheats and tainted wins from history. That isn't USADA's remit but I say thank God that they at least exposed that POS.

On Sky, I'm sure we all hope that they're a clean operation but given the history of the sport they should expect close scrutiny. Also, given their pledge of transparency it starts to look very flaky when they have guys like Leinders working for them and they conveniently forget to mention it.

On creating a level playing field in sport. There's no such thing, that's the beauty of it. It's about being able to enjoy the battle between the natural talent against the master technician, the brute force against the skilful proponent of the art, the plucky underdogs against the rich and powerful. It's about how each individual or team makes the best of whatever riches and talents they have and how those with very little overcome the odds and win. Drugs subvert all that and cheats both the clean sportsmen and the people paying to watch. It creates monsters like Armstrong and the environment in which they thrive. It corrupts anyone entering sport who fast comes to realise that they also have to cheat in order to compete at the highest level. I don't happen to think that cycling is an isolated case. I think pretty much every high profile sport both professional and amateur is riddled with drugs and some like Boxing, Tennis and Football have governing bodies that make the UCI look like the Spanish Inquisition so lax are their drug testing and enforcement practices. We should at least thank USADA for exposing what has gone on in cycling and we shouldn't shed a single tear for Lance Armstrong.

[stepdot]

Well said Tony

[Mostyn]

Anyone looking forward to this seasons racing? I'm really looking forward to some clean exciting racing; because with all the media attention and speculation about drugs in cycling, surely no-one would dare use any enhancing subtance to boost their energy level? Or would they?