Viewing 40 posts - 241 through 280 (of 448 total)
  • Sky TUE saga. Is it some sort of witch hunt?
  • scotroutes
    Full Member

    slowster
    Free Member

    He’d have to monstrously stupid to have a shipment of PEDs sent to him at the velodrome by BC and Team Sky’s regular pharmaceutical supplier.

    Managing the funding of purchasing PEDs and the medical know how to use them most effectively is probably a bigger difficulty for dopers and doping teams than avoiding failing a drug test.

    US Postal Service apparently used to sell many of the bikes supplied by Trek to provide ‘off the books’ funding for their doping.

    If we assumed for the sake of hypothesis that Sky were doping, it might be easier for them to get PEDs from their normal pharmaceutical supplier, especially if such purchases could be concealed within all their other purchases. So for every 10 packs of Triamcinolone bought, they get a free box of testosterone patches.

    As for monstrously stupid, if people get away with wrong doing for a lengthy period, I think they can start to think they’ll never get caught and become careless. Alternatively, the mistake might have been made by the supplier, who was supposed to send that particular package to Freeman at a different address.

    metalheart
    Free Member

    You can either believe Sky or not, some people don’t for their own reasons or agenda, but at this moment there isn’t any “evidence” to suggest this statement isn’t true.

    There really isn’t any evidence to prove it’s true either (no records and the dog ate my laptop). Which is kind of the point. And if this is true why all the lies about it being for Emma Pooley and SBW having left already. Quite frankly, it’s just not good enough.

    Keep drinking the Koolaid brother… 😉

    I find the lack of oversight of the medical ‘support’ for a team that claims to be whiter than white (bearing in mind this is where historically any doping happens) incredulous. They are taking the piss, this where you start FFS! Everything else fails if you **** this up.

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    slowster
    Free Member

    You can either believe Sky or not, some people don’t for their own reasons or agenda

    That cuts both ways doesn’t it? Lots of Armstrong fans could not bear to accept the evidence against him until he himself finally admitted he had doped.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    the longer this goes on the worse it looks for them

    I do not think we have a smoking gun but we do seem to be in no smoke without fire territory now and they no longer have my unswerving support as its just to much dodgy stuff and benefit of the doubt stuff

    It just all seems a bit to US postal

    Whether this is a legacy of lance that I am to suspicious or whether it’s because they are cheats I dnt know for sure

    brakes
    Free Member

    Whether this is a legacy of lance that I am to suspicious

    people have been waiting for years for something like this to happen to Sky. you only have to look at the comments sections on Cycling News to see the conjecture from the trolls and frothy-mouths to see that. look what they did to Lizzie Armistead with her missed tests.
    I personally think this is a witch-hunt.
    whether I’m right or wrong, either way it’s embarrasing for the sport and all that surrounds it. and that is the real shame because it is a magnificent sport with truly exceptional athletes.

    metalheart
    Free Member

    people have been waiting for years for something like this to happen to Sky.

    Yeah, because some of us don’t think cycling has really changed all that much and are fed up to the back teeth of the sky bullshit. Tell me, were you not pleased when Lance was exposed?

    chakaping
    Free Member

    Do you think Lance and Wiggo are on an equal level of cheatiness Metalheart?

    scaredypants
    Full Member

    I personally think this is a witch-hunt.

    Well, yeah, it is

    … the question is why everyone at sky seems to have a warty nose and a broomstick

    crashtestmonkey
    Free Member

    was legal with his TUE and that was correctly administered and every T crossed and dot doted

    Except there are no correctly dotted i”s or crossed t’s because they don’t have any records because the laptop was stolen (and they’d had 3 years to download it).

    Taxi25 you seem happy with their rebuttal. I have a couple of issues with it;

    It’s full of qualifiers “we understand” and “we believe” which completely undermine the associated statements.

    It again peddles explanations that are demonstrably BS. They had to fly the flumicil out as Freeman doesn’t have prescription rights in France. BZZT wrong again – prescriptions written in an EU member state are valid EU wide, it’s the first line on the relevant EU website FFS and a team that competes all over the world will know this.

    So that’s now 3 ‘alternative fact’ explanations for the jiffy bag (Pooley, Wiggins not there to receive it).

    Also, why are Sky/BC buying and storing prescription drugs for Freeman to use in his private practice?

    taxi25
    Free Member

    Except there are no correctly dotted i”s or crossed t’s because they don’t have any records because the laptop was stolen (and they’d had 3 years to download it).

    I think you’ll find Wiggins TUE’s are all above board and documented. The missing laptop refers to other issues.
    Yes I do accept Sky’s statement “at this point”. But I’m not going to far out on a limb. Where obsessed highly motivated people are concerned nothing suprises me.

    ransos
    Free Member

    Individually, none of the incidents in this saga are particularly heinous. A missing record here, a stolen laptop there etc. The problem for me is that we are being asked to believe the best of Sky in a whole series of events – which are starting to look like a pattern IMO.

    Richie_B
    Full Member

    You could easily argue the reverse, if they were truly dodgy their ‘record keeping’ would be a lot better for a ready made alibi (or even to throw the pet doctor to the wolves)

    metalheart
    Free Member

    Do you think Lance and Wiggo are on an equal level of cheatiness Metalheart?

    Nope, thems was different days. After all, US Postal was apparently the most sophisticated fraud in sporting history… 😆

    Blood profile does reign in excesses plus LA was a total vindictive arsehole. And LA ‘won’ 7 TDF’s…

    metalheart
    Free Member

    You could easily argue the reverse, if they were truly dodgy their ‘record keeping’ would be a lot better for a ready made alibi (or even to throw the pet doctor to the wolves)

    Or, you could just not record anything and then get a third party as drug mule… But then that would be a sophisticated doping regime… 😉

    Remember, nobody was expecting to be quizzed on this. Its a retrospective enquiry years after the event. Why leave a trail for someone to unpick later? Problem is that the details crawling out of the woodwork are uncomfortable and there’s nothing concrete to refute them with… Strange that, for a team dedicated to being clean, a complete lack of medical records… Astounding in fact.

    It’s almost as if it was all a façade and they only wanted to appear to be doing the ‘right’ thing… saying one thing and doing another.

    slowster
    Free Member

    Remember, nobody was expecting to be quizzed on this. Its a retrospective enquiry years after the event. Why leave a trail for someone to unpick later?

    Indeed. Remember that the Sky team were formed, Wiggins joined them, and Freeman and Geert Leinders were employed all before Armstrong was finally busted by USADA.

    At that time, it probably seemed to most people involved in professional cycling that you still had to dope to compete/win and that the risks of getting caught were low, despite changes such as the introduction of blood passports.

    A Tour win for Sky and Wiggins at that stage was still only a dream, and they could never have imagined the level of success and financial rewards that they and Sky would go on to achieve, and the subsequent levels of scrutiny they would later come under.

    So at that stage, they would not have been thinking about faking records etc. as a precaution against the day several years later when a House of Commons committee and the media started asking awkward questions about a jiffy bag sent many years ago.

    The trick to any conspiracy is to keep the numbers involved as small as possible*, rather than engage in a major effort to create false records, which is itself highly dangerous because those records are then another thing which will be closely scrutinised for any error or evidence of fraud: better to have no records than fake records which can be proven to be fake.

    (* It’s interesting that Freeman had responsibility for all pharmaceutical purchases by Sky, as well as being Wiggins’ personal doctor in the team.)

    ransos
    Free Member

    You could easily argue the reverse, if they were truly dodgy their ‘record keeping’ would be a lot better for a ready made alibi (or even to throw the pet doctor to the wolves)

    Between the “truly corrupt” and the saintly are about fifty shades of grey. At best that’s where Sky are operating, which is not what they claim to be about.

    crashtestmonkey
    Free Member

    I think you’ll find Wiggins TUE’s are all above board and documented. The missing laptop refers to other issues.

    fair enough, but I’m deliberately conflating the issues because, thanks to the lack of records, we only have their word for it that the contents of the jiffy bag, administered to Wiggins on a race day, were Flumicil covered by a (above board and documented) TUE. Sapstead has raised the suspicion it was triamcinolone, and as The Cycling Podcast pointed out that would be an outright doping offence, with a 2 year ban which would annul the next 2 years results, which includes the Tour win and Olympic TT gold.

    BadlyWiredDog
    Full Member

    The bit about the BC Board basically rewriting the grievance complaint outcome on Jess Varnish is gob-smacking, And Sutton being paid more than his salary to be on ‘gardening leave’… car crash stuff. VERY UNFAIR, erm, not.

    Who the hell are the British Cycling board members? Who appoints them? Surely they’ve all got to go after this?

    Also listened to the Cycling Podcast last night and thought it was a fair take on the Sky scenario without any of the odd spitefulness that’s characterised a lot of the media coverage. I find Richard Moore’s voice oddly soothing. 😳

    BadlyWiredDog
    Full Member

    Also, if you dig deeper, it’s apparent that the grievance officer who compiled the Varnish report is a woman. Her findings were then reversed by a -mostly – male board. Classy.

    chakaping
    Free Member

    Also listened to the Cycling Podcast last night and thought it was a fair take on the Sky scenario without any of the odd spitefulness that’s characterised a lot of the media coverage. I find Richard Moore’s voice oddly soothing.

    I listened to this last night too. Tellingly these extremely well-connected journos don’t seem to have any more clue than the rest of us as to what’s actually happened.

    I think it was my man crush Lionel Birnie who voiced my own thoughts better than I have here: It’s not a question of Sky being totally morally in the black or white – it’s how far into the grey they went.

    And if some of the explanations really were that simple why are they only saying now?

    Still sticking with my initial hunch that Wiggo did bend the rules with his corticosteroids and they were a bit cheeky with the tramadol – but I doubt it goes much further than that.

    mrlebowski
    Free Member

    Well, without a whistleblower this will come to nothing.

    Wiggo will retain his titles, SDB will probably leave Sky after the TDF & Froome possibly too.

    Sky will continue under new leadership & I imagine G will probably become the principal rider.

    deepreddave
    Free Member

    Reading this Kimmage makes me realise that a year back I’d have expected DB to meet this head on and be very public in doing so. I’m no longer harbouring that expectation….

    crashtestmonkey
    Free Member

    your link breaks the internet.

    deepreddave
    Free Member

    Drat, tried again. Won’t be news to those following the saga but I just stumbled across it.
    Kimmage

    crashtestmonkey
    Free Member

    Froome’s new statement being widely reported as “speaks out in support of Dave B”, except he doesn’t.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/39254063

    allthegear
    Free Member

    Sounds to me like he’s failed to get team captains seat at another team so decided to speak in support of Brailsford.

    Rachel

    crashtestmonkey
    Free Member

    Rachel, I read between the lines in the same way Dan Roan did, and Froome doesn’t actually come out supporting him. He says DB is crucial to TS, which may be true given Murdoch has backed DB, he thanks DB for his previous support, and then it’s all waffle about winning back trust blah blah. None of the “he has my full support” “I’m 110% behind him” that the other riders have come out with. It all seems a bit carefully worded – at first glance he’s finally stepped up to support him, except not really.

    BadlyWiredDog
    Full Member

    It all seems a bit carefully worded

    I dunno, if his real intention is not to support Brailsford, then it seems to have backfired on him because most of the media thinks he has… 😉

    chakaping
    Free Member

    He’s probably recognising that they have to work together.

    Though it’s not Davey B who’s gonna get cups of wee thrown at him, probably.

    peteimpreza
    Full Member

    Why is the press not giving Wiggins a hard time ?

    G and Froome have nothing to answer for .

    andylaightscat
    Free Member

    because other than to cycling geeks Wiggins is old news, history….

    chakaping
    Free Member

    They were.

    But Froome’s just held a press conference.

    BadlyWiredDog
    Full Member

    But Froome’s just held a press conference.

    Didn’t he merely release a 200-word statement I suspect the last thing he’d do is open himself up to unpredictable questioning. Mostly he just wants to win races no?

    Professional sport’s just an entertainment anyway, other than for the people directly involved in it – competitors, journalists, support staff – It’s something of a conceit that it actually matters unless you think it’s some sort of low brow moral pantomime and a litmus test for societal ethics rather than just a promotional vehicle for satellite television, sports brands and financial institutions.

    From the wonderful people who brought you Brexit: sackloads of medals, Tour de France wins and the continuation of the British Empire by other means.

    And as for BC, why are we promoting elite level cycling with public money that could be spent on something useful like cycling-friendly infrastructure or the NHS. Why are we setting criteria for funding based around medal winning then being surprised that our elite sports programmes become ruthlessly fixated on winning medals at all costs?

    Roll-up, roll-up, and watch evil, skulking, Sir Dave B in his shadowy marginal gains cloak as he works hard to make sure that people who are good at riding bikes don’t have to do a proper job.

    Do we just want elite sport to somehow encapsulate a better, fairer world than the real one, and is that why so many people seem so angry about it.

    colournoise
    Full Member

    Over the counter cocktails of vitamins. ‘Illegal’ use of needles. Not reported by Sky due to the perceived fragile mental state of the rider.

    The knives are definitely out…

    vinnyeh
    Full Member

    And the circle widens…

    UK Sport told governance unit to ‘go easy’ on British Cycling, says source

    Considering the loss of funding for other sports not considered to be Olympic medal certainties, this could get rather messy.

    chakaping
    Free Member

    Didn’t he merely release a 200-word statement

    Yes, my mistake.

    Over the counter cocktails of vitamins. ‘Illegal’ use of needles. Not reported by Sky due to the perceived fragile mental state of the rider.

    Can’t see that Sky deserve a kicking over Josh Edmondson’s case, unless they were supplying the tramadol.

    Very sad for him though, he was such a promising rider and it shows how high the pressure is at that level.

    colournoise
    Full Member

    Chapaking. Personally agree, but suspect that the fact Sky didn’t report him to WADA/UKADA will be picked on – from the ‘how many more did they cover up?’ angle.

    andylc
    Free Member

    Coming super late into the argument without having bothered to read everything already said…but going back to the Triamcilone thing with Wiggo: as a medical person I cannot see how a corticosteroid would in any way be performance enhancing. Corticosteroids are quite different to anabolic steroids. Apart from reducing inflammation (hence use in asthma, although this is a pretty potent drug for that) they also cause muscle breakdown, increased drinking, increased appetite and laying down of fat (not muscle), tiredness, sometimes shortness of breath – in short nothing that would enhance athletic performance. Although it’s possible overkill for Wiggo’s apparent condition I fail to see how it would enhance performance.

    BadlyWiredDog
    Full Member

    I think mostly the ‘evidence’ that corticosteroids are PEDs are based on anecdotal stuff, notably David Millar who was using it at the same time as gawd knows what else and other ex-riders in particular. But I don’t think there are many credible scientific studies.

    There was a good article recently on Cycling Weekly that looked at cycling and asthma:

    http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/the-truth-about-cycling-and-asthma-317941

    It suggests that potentially some asthma treatments are performance enhancers, but also quotes an expert in the field as saying: ‘there is not much research in this area. For instance, compared to blood doping, where there is maybe 100 studies [on the performance effects], there is only a handful of studies on glucocorticoids.’

    So in evidential terms, a grey area. ‘Felt’ isn’t the same as ‘was’, in the same way that drunk drivers ‘feel’ they are driving well and in control. The UCI (I think) is talking about banning corticosteroids, but it would make sense if they commissioned a proper scientific study into them first.

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