Guardian article – Wiggins hammers Armitstead

He’s not pulling any punches – are British Cycling trying to cut her adrift before the truth comes out?

A lot of folk on here seem to be ‘in the know’ about stuff like this – any opinions.

I read it before i saw the thread and all he seems to say is there’s no excuse to miss tests and its hard to do and he thinks it inevitable folk will slur UK cycling with a drugs smear and he says it’s impossible to cheat now due to blood tests.

I am not sure its a hatchet job personally just the usual open Wiggo

Which was/is a smokescreen….neither?

Cavendish said much the same thing. And pretty much ever pro I’ve seen give an opinion on this says much the same thing too.

Some 10 pages of discussion on it here.

…he says it’s impossible to cheat now due to blood tests.*

*Impossible to cheat with drugs that show up on drug tests and can’t be masked.

So it Armitstead a doper? In the opinion of the STW Collective, obviously?

I have a lot of sympathy with that position. The simple fact of the matter is that if you want to be a top level athlete then just being good at your chosen event isn’t enough, you need to make sure you comply with all the rules and regulations and part of that is drugs testing. Everyone has parts of their job that they don’t like and for athletes this is just one of those.

I think it confirms what many people thought, that her excuses were rather feeble and she was lucky to get away with it.

The level of support he reveals available is something new, I hope that is something available to all, and not just the “superstars”.

So it Armitstead a doper? In the opinion of the STW Collective, obviously?

Not again… 10 pages of it!!!!

An almost unthinkable lack of professionalism for someone in her position. But wouldn’t really influence my view on whether she was doping or not.

I don’t think he’s said anything that isn’t true!

he says it’s impossible to cheat now due to blood tests.

No he didn’t (at least not in that article.) He actually said…

The 36-year-old also said he believes blood doping is now “nigh on impossible”, adding: “I don’t think anyone could get away with it.”

Very very different to saying that doping is impossible.

Very very different to saying that doping is impossible.

I never said that i gave the context of [drug] cheating and said he thought it was impossible which is essentially what he said.

? 🙂

Anyway, it’s all been done to death already. All that’s new here is yet another in a long line of pro riders (albeit quite a high profile one) saying that the whole thing was ludicrous and unfathomable and that there should be no excuses.

no idea what a ? followed by a smiley means

I have a lot of sympathy with that position. The simple fact of the matter is that if you want to be a top level athlete then just being good at your chosen event isn’t enough, you need to make sure you comply with all the rules and regulations and part of that is drugs testing. Everyone has parts of their job that they don’t like and for athletes this is just one of those.

Which is nice when you’re a millionaire, have Sky waiting hand and foot on you, sort out stuff for you. I suspect (and I’m not defending her) that Armistead isn’t on such a lucrative professional contract as Wiggo.

Obviously that doesn’t excuse Rio Ferdinand so not sure where my argument is going, to be fair 🙂

. I suspect (and I’m not defending her) that Armistead isn’t on such a lucrative professional contract as Wiggo.

Probably not but then British Cycling aren’t exactly short of funds!

Wiggins isn’t a spokesman for BC, so I don’t see this as some sort of media strategy to distance Armistead. The journalist has obviously asked him a pretty direct question, and he just stated the facts.

Armistead’s situation was extraordinary, but her filing discrepancy and the test she missed were caught; the system worked. The testers apparently stuffed up the first test, but until and if more information is published, noone knows anything more about the circumstances of that incident.

I suspect (and I’m not defending her) that Armistead isn’t on such a lucrative professional contract as Wiggo.

If being on a modest contract presented a difficulty for drug testing, then we’d see lots of missed tests from lots of riders. Is that the case?

I think the point was its harder to miss test or easier to be organised if you are at wiggo levels of support/lacky/hanger ons

that is probably true

that said your point is also clearly true

The level of support he reveals available is something new, I hope that is something available to all, and not just the “superstars”.

Didn’t she claim that it was her designated ‘support’ that was partly to blame for one of the errors?. In so much as he was responsible for her whereabouts being spot on, but she hadn’t been informed that he’d left the job three weeks previous to a strike. Maybe UKSport/British Cycling provided the money and lawyers, because they felt partly responsible.

If being on a modest contract presented a difficulty for drug testing, then we’d see lots of missed tests from lots of riders. Is that the case?

Don’t really know, i suspect missed cases don’t come to light until you get to the magic three-and-out, or end up as World Champion. I’d guess the more modest riders on, say, Sky get quite a bit of help.

I don’t know. Part of me is trying be niaive, part of me is saying she only got off with a technicality

I think it simply highlights the point that top male riders get a lot more support because of the risk of reputational damage / sponsorship impact. People would probably be shocked how much the women earn / are supported in comparison. I don’t think BC would have supported Lizzie like they did if there was a whiff of suspicion.

I don’t think BC would have supported Lizzie like they did if there was a whiff of suspicion.

Lizzie was a hot medal prospect for Rio. BC lottery funding is based on number of medals won at Olympics.

OP writes ambiguous click-fodder thread title.

Turns out to be about nothing interesting.

I get increasingly tired of this practice by some on here 🙄

I think it simply highlights the point that top male riders get a lot more support because of the risk of reputational damage / sponsorship impact. People would probably be shocked how much the women earn / are supported in comparison. I don’t think BC would have supported Lizzie like they did if there was a whiff of suspicion.

Does it? I asked the question if the support is there only for the superstars, but no one has offered any evidence that is actually the case.

Don’t really know, i suspect missed cases don’t come to light until you get to the magic three-and-out, or end up as World Champion.

That was my point – lots of riders earning little, and/ or with little support would be missing three tests.

no_eyed_deer – Member
OP writes ambiguous click-fodder thread title.

Turns out to be about nothing interesting.

I get increasingly tired of this practice by some on here

That’s a bit of a tosser-ish response. I actually did think it was interesting for a few reasons and I don’t normally think anything about drop handlebar racing is remotely interesting.

The usual code is omertà, certainly within the team. I find this intra-team commenting interesting as it is not the norm. I think Wiggo is probably more pissed off about the potential tarring with the same brush that may go on after someone misses a load of tests, than outright accusing her of doping.

Personally speaking (my opinion, obviously) I think she probably was covering something up, got ‘caught’ then let off on a technicality. I didn’t find her particularly convincing at the time and don’t now. If it mattered that much to her, she wouldn’t have ballsed up her tests and put herself in that situation. Something stinks and has done since the start of this.

He’s protesting too much?

The number of athletes with at least one missed test is pretty high, think it was one of the things that got overlooked in the Armistead witch hunt.

One test was botched by the tester, one she properly cocked up on, one she cocked up on due to a family crisis. It’s not clever, it’s not professional, but I’d say it was perfectly plausible and I wouldn’t assume she was doping because of it.

You know all those knobbish drivers that keep getting caught speeding despite needing their licenses for work? Its a variation on the same theme.

You know all those knobbish drivers that keep getting caught speeding despite needing their licenses for work? Its a variation on the same theme.

Poor example. In this case the speeding is the crime. Or are you inferring that doping is necessary for professional cycling ‘work’?

Not sure wiggo fires bullets for British Cycling, I suspect there’s no love lost there because of what happened to Shane Sutton. That said British Cycling want rid because they don’t want her tainting the carefully crafted image.

That said British Cycling want rid because they don’t want her tainting the carefully crafted image.

This.

Interesting article. A few points:
– Wiggo is being direct and open in his comments
– Armitstead has chosen to operate outside of the British Cycling set-up, i think(?), so she’s not seen as ‘one of us’
– Wiggo has commented positively about Shane Sutton and Jo Rowsell-Shand has been supportive of Sutton (as a coach rather than head of/director); don’t think that’s relevant but maybe it’s closing ranks to ‘outsiders’
– elite female cyclists get nothing approaching the support the chaps enjoy; Wiggo’s comments about support from BC can only be based on his personal experience as the best of the best, BC’s poster boy and national hero. Nothing wrong in that but Armitstead would never get the same level of support.
– it has been suggested, but not proven, that the unspecified ‘family crisis’ which Armitstead was dealing with was actually her finalising arrangements for the band at her forthcoming wedding.

Miss one test – I guess that can happen. Miss a second and you should know you’re on thin ice. Miss a third one – everything you have worked for is on the point of disappearing down the pan unless you’re very lucky.

One thing is for sure, the truth will never be known about this.

Or are you inferring that doping is necessary for professional cycling ‘work’?

No, I was inferring that turning up for drugs tests was.

However, if that doesn’t fit in with your “nudge, nudge, wink, wink she must be a doper” agenda, feel free to infer what ever you like. As others have said, Wiggins hasn’t said or inferred anything that wasn’t said at the time.

I did this a few times on the previous thread, but it’s worth repeating. The missed test for which she has no excuses was post season, when she wasn’t competing and wasn’t training. The first “missed test” wasn’t a missed test according to CAS (who have lots more information than we do) – she was exactly where she said she would be and didn’t try and avoid the testers. She might have been “covering something up” for the third one, but then plenty of people apparently have one strike.

If you’re going to do the innuendo, at least make the effort to look properly at the circumstances we do know.

I think it simply highlights the point that top male riders get a lot more support because of the risk of reputational damage / sponsorship impact. People would probably be shocked how much the women earn / are supported in comparison. I don’t think BC would have supported Lizzie like they did if there was a whiff of suspicion.
Does it? I asked the question if the support is there only for the superstars, but no one has offered any evidence that is actually the case.

Sky will have someone full-time managing whereabouts and making sure riders keep their details accurate. A friend races at UK elite women’s level – they are lucky to get a bike, jersey and loan of a car to turn up at races. There’s a huge disparity in support / money between men’s and women’s racing.

Systems fail, people are crap, a very small oumber of people know this AND are motivated to exploit it, purely instinctively I don’t reckon Armistead is the latter. Though I was 100% wrong about Lance. But she’s not him.

One test was botched by the tester, one she properly cocked up on, one she cocked up on due to a family crisis. It’s not clever, it’s not professional, but I’d say it was perfectly plausible and I wouldn’t assume she was doping because of it.

This keeps getting repeated, but strike 2 was not a missed test. It was a whereabouts filing failure, which means Armistead filed incomplete or incorrect information about her whereabouts for the day in question. The authorities audit the whereabouts record so dopers can’t play the system by intentionally entering incorrect information. Things that don’t match up, or patterns of suspicious behaviour (like repeatedly changing your whereabouts 5 minutes before testing time) will also get flagged and investigated.

Armitstead has chosen to operate outside of the British Cycling set-up, i think(?), so she’s not seen as ‘one of us’…Armitstead would never get the same level of support [as Wiggins]

Armistead is employed by a pro road team, in the same way as Wiggins, Cavendish and the other UK professional road riders. They are all “operating outside BC” in the same way, because BC doesn’t pay them for their day job, but they work with BC for national squad events, like the Olympics.

I haven’t seen any suggestion that Armistead was not receiving the same support as other athletes with regards to avoiding anti-doping rule violations. UKAD make it clear that they go out of their way to provide athletes with personal support to help them stay out of trouble. After the first two infringements, BC and UKAD met with Armistead to agree a plan to avoid further problems and a support worker was assigned to help keep her straight. As mentioned above, she claims she wasn’t informed that the support worker had left his job, and his absence contributed to strike 3 (the missed test).