Sky TUE saga. Is it some sort of witch hunt?

I assumed this had already been brought up today but obviously not? I assumed it had as this is huge in its implications isn’t it??

the report is just saying what was obvious.  team sky used TUEs to gain a performance advantage

team sky use TUEs to gain a performance advantage

FIFY

 Professional cycling teams use TUEs to gain a performance advantage

Fify

Professional sportsmen use TUEs to gain a performance advantage

FIFY

and some amateurs 😉

Report from WADA or UKAD slamming Sky might be worth reading. Report from puffed up grandstanding MPs who listen to a few witnesses but don’t uncover anything new – not so much.

States the bleeding obvious, and you end up with headlines like ‘Bradley Wiggins Drugs Shame’ on the front of the Express.

Glad to see Mo Farah getting mentioned at the same time. Time to remove both his, Wiggins and Brailsford knighthood, or were they awarded for services to the drug industry?

The report is going a bit further than highlighting tues [edit as I am a slow typer].  It’s clearly stating they have good reason to believe jiffybaggate contained steroids. It’s clearly stating that team sky crossed an ethical line that team sky had set themselves. It re-emphasises the link between BC and Team Sky.

It doesn’t bring up anything new but it does bring it all in the public eye. the concern here for me is not about team sky but about how this report is going to affect perception of BC given the link between the two and  what that means for future funding.

Why do that?

Professional sports team in using everything they can legally to gain an advantage shocker.

You may as well splash every team in every level of professional sports up there, and every competitive cyclist here that uses caffiene, beetroot, salbutamol, and so on.  The principle is the same.   Whille they are working within the rules theres nothing wrong with what they are doing whether you believe its ethical or not.

Sky – alledgedly – found a way to use allowed meds with a side effect of performance gain.

Would you suggest  I stop having a pre race espresso?

Sky – alledgedly – found a way to use allowed meds with a side effect of performance gain.

But it’s not, found a way is it, it’s falsely applied for TUEs to allow administration of banned medication.

mixed feelings. Disappointed, but not surprised that marginal gains went to all levels (and I’m not looking into the eyes of the olympians either, I don’t necessarily want to see what’s behind them either) – but they were all just the width of a tyre the right side of legal. It was the constant professions that they would be doing it ‘cleaner than clean’ that haunts now.

One things for sure though – I’m not taking lessons in ethics from a group of people who lie for a living. Publish the report on a side of a bus and we’ll take it for what its worth.

Sky – alledgedly – found a way to use allowed meds with a side effect of performance gain.

Sky – allegedly – found a way to use PEDs and stay within the rules.

I don’t think the report says much more than that, apart from a couple of speculative comments.

I wonder how may Sky jerseys will be quietly tucked away in draws today.

One things for sure though – I’m not taking lessons in ethics from a group of people who lie for a living. Publish the report on a side of a bus and we’ll take it for what its worth

Exactly what I was thinking.  When MPs and the press start to talk about ethics I stop listening.

It’s clearly stating they have good reason to believe jiffybaggate contained steroids.

Erm, all i’ve seen/heard is that a disgruntled ex employee who got sacked and had his name dragged through the shit said it contained something more than claimed.

it’s falsely applied for TUEs to allow administration of banned medication.

That just means the TUE process is/was easily broken/short circuited, which we knew anyway. As is almost the entire PED classification process.

All this really boils down in newsworthy terms, is that Skys PR was a bit over zealous.

One things for sure though – I’m not taking lessons in ethics from a group of people who lie for a living.

So much this. I’d rather have Pat McQuaid giving his verdict – at least he’d have some idea of how the sport works.

This is just the equivalent of having a stage of the TdF with commentary from the Gogglebox families.

I’d rather have Pat McQuaid giving his verdict

“They paid the correct bribe. No further action. the failed test never happened.”

Erm, all i’ve seen/heard is that a disgruntled ex employee who got sacked and had his name dragged through the shit said it contained something more than claimed.

G’day Bruce… 😉

wonder if the sun is skating on thin ice there ?

Professional sports team in using everything they can legally to gain an advantage shocker.

Yeah but Sky are ethical, remember?

We know Sky applied for and got TUE’s but what is the evidence that it was for PE. That’s not clear to me.

The problem is that work of the committee is pretty superficial. It has no resources to investigate, just call a few witnesses, ask for information etc. This report tells us nothing new in terms of evidence of wrongdoing. So their findings are all grandstanding over ethics. The press love it because these reports tend to be pretty simplistic, speculative, full of criticism and generally support some headlines that would get them sued normally (see above).

As an aside, the resources of the committee are not just focused on doping in professional sport, here’s their current workload.

<li id=”ctl00_ctl00_FormContent_SiteSpecificPlaceholder_PageContent_WhatsOnModulesNew_ctl00_rptSingle_ctl00_ctlPages_repLinks_ctl01_liItem”>BBC pay

<li id=”ctl00_ctl00_FormContent_SiteSpecificPlaceholder_PageContent_WhatsOnModulesNew_ctl00_rptSingle_ctl00_ctlPages_repLinks_ctl02_liItem”>Live music

<li id=”ctl00_ctl00_FormContent_SiteSpecificPlaceholder_PageContent_WhatsOnModulesNew_ctl00_rptSingle_ctl00_ctlPages_repLinks_ctl03_liItem”>Appointment of the Chair of the Charity Commission

<li id=”ctl00_ctl00_FormContent_SiteSpecificPlaceholder_PageContent_WhatsOnModulesNew_ctl00_rptSingle_ctl00_ctlPages_repLinks_ctl04_liItem”>Sport governance

<li id=”ctl00_ctl00_FormContent_SiteSpecificPlaceholder_PageContent_WhatsOnModulesNew_ctl00_rptSingle_ctl00_ctlPages_repLinks_ctl05_liItem”>The Social Impact of Participation in Culture and Sport

<li id=”ctl00_ctl00_FormContent_SiteSpecificPlaceholder_PageContent_WhatsOnModulesNew_ctl00_rptSingle_ctl00_ctlPages_repLinks_ctl06_liItem”>Impact of Brexit on UK Creative industries, tourism and The Single Digital Market

<li id=”ctl00_ctl00_FormContent_SiteSpecificPlaceholder_PageContent_WhatsOnModulesNew_ctl00_rptSingle_ctl00_ctlPages_repLinks_ctl07_liItem”>The work of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

<li id=”ctl00_ctl00_FormContent_SiteSpecificPlaceholder_PageContent_WhatsOnModulesNew_ctl00_rptSingle_ctl00_ctlPages_repLinks_ctl08_liItem”>Fake news

<li id=”ctl00_ctl00_FormContent_SiteSpecificPlaceholder_PageContent_WhatsOnModulesNew_ctl00_rptSingle_ctl00_ctlPages_repLinks_ctl09_liItem”>Combatting doping in sport

Jack of all Trades etc.

EDIT: We need a DCMS enquiry into website formatting – is the UK falling behind the rest of the world? 😉

Wow. The Sun will be holding an amnesty on its Wiggo-themed cut-out sideburns next.

Weedy asthmatics ‘most likely to win professional cycling events’

So their findings are all grandstanding over ethics.

At best, the team were/ are pushing the rules to their absolute limit, and their excuses were no better than “sorry sir, my dog ate my homework”, collective amnesia, and a convenient sudden onset of illness. While it hasn’t been proven beyond doubt that Sky have broken the rules, it seems entirely fair to challenge them over ethics when that was their self-proclaimed USP. It feels akin to Mr Loophole getting a motorist off a speeding charge.

It’s not “iwthin the rules” if you’re applying for a TUE to treat an illness/symptom that you don’t actualy have.

It’s flat out cheating.

It’s not “iwthin the rules” if you’re applying for a TUE to treat an illness/symptom that you don’t actualy have.

It’s flat out cheating.

I agree. All I’m saying is that hasn’t been proven beyond reasonable doubt. The whole thing stinks though.

Would you suggest  I stop having a pre race espresso?

As long as you don’t exceed eight of them, you should be okay… or at least you would have been back when it was a listed substance. It was being monitored last year as well. Maybe some sort of beetrootchino?

I’d rather finish last than drink that beetroot shit.  I tried it once ‘as an experiment’ and promptly set several PB’s on my commute home; some may say it was due to more efficient oxygen transport to my muscles, but the reality was i had to get home as fast as possible so i could clean my teeth and get the taste out of my mouth.

Without going into the report in depth, it sounds like a load of accusations have been made. No new evidence has come out – they don’t know either way what was in the mystery package. With other drugs / Tues it seems Sky were technically in the rules, but perhaps they were outside the spirit that Team sly themselves set as their aims.

Not a huge story here and the papers are very sensationalist on the back of this.

Not a huge story here and the papers are very sensationalist on the back of this.

Hence my primary concern being the perception of BC in general as Sky is so strongly linked to them. If it ends up affecting funding it will be a shame.

The did he, didnt he etc. will never be acertained so it will just be dug up every now and again to suit peoples agendas.

It’s not “iwthin the rules” if you’re applying for a TUE to treat an illness/symptom that you don’t actualy have.

It’s flat out cheating.

Nothing in the report said that. Just suggested by a credible but “anonymous soure !!

I’d rather finish last than drink that beetroot shit.

Was that the concentrated stuff? On the grounds I like beetroot thought I would try some.

Struggled even finishing it which considering it was a just about a shot says something.

joebristol wrote:

No new evidence has come out

All the hearings and evidence presented were already in the public domain. All that’s happened today is that a load of people who don’t know much about the subject and have a somewhat dubious grasp on the concept of ethics have issued a report giving their opinions on the evidence.

It’s a strange one, i think Sky are their own worst enemy, they stated at the started they wanted to be placed on a pedestal, they stated they would race clean and race to win so when something like this happens it backfires on them badly and is a PR nightmare.

Yet a team like Astana, who have had rider after rider banned, can only be read about on page 9 of Cycling Weekly.

I think Brailsford thinks he was going right up to the ethical line, whereas everyone else thinks he has gone over it.

What i don’t understand is Froome, he knows when he is in the lead of a grand tour, there is no way he is not being tested at the end of the say, he knows that as he has asthma and prior TUE for the condition, there is no way they are not testing the levels of his asthma medication, surely the gain from it cannot be worth the massive risk knowing he’d be tested and why only that day, he was fine the days before and after? Not saying it was right just that risk seems to much higher than reward?

In any sport where actual skill is a distant second to the ability and will to destroy yourself over an extended period of time, drugs and doping are bound to be prevalent. I’m not saying there is no skill in road racing, but it is a long way behind endurance in importance. As such, I am not a fan of endurance events as a spectacle because they are almost all boring to watch and the ever-present doubt is there.

Team Sky are going to be hoist by their own petard, I’m afraid. Had all this been Astana (I’m sure they would be using the TUE system as well), then no one would be anywhere near as animated as they are. It’s similar to the Tiger Woods fall from grace as he’d always marketed himself as Mr Clean and was hypocritical and aloof about his fellow competitors when they turned out to have feet of clay. Pride coming before a fall and all that. Admittedly a lot of people in the golf ‘establishment’ wanted Woods to fail for even less honourable reasons.

So, by my reckoning, if OJ Simpson played darts professionally, that would be about the most ‘honest’ sport going.

Ha – I hadn’t read the post above mine about Astana when I wrote it!

he knows that as he has asthma and prior TUE for the condition, there is no way they are not testing the levels of his asthma medication,

Froome didn’t have a TUE for Salbutamol, because he didn’t need one. An Italian (I think) ex-Sky doctor cited in a Cycling News piece conjectured that if Salbutamol wasn’t effective in treating his condition, he should have been prescribed a stronger drug for which he would have needed a TUE rather than upping the dose of Salbutamol and potentially going over the limit.

You’re correct that he’d have known he would have been tested though, he was in the leader’s jersey and the race leader is tested as a matter of course. So either he screwed up and took mammoth quantities of Salbutamol. Or there’s a weird physiological explanation. Or you get into tin foil hat conspiracy stuff where Salbutamol is a power performance enhancer and was ingested by a different method despite him knowing he’d be tested.

he knows that as he has asthma and prior TUE for the condition, there is no way they are not testing the levels of his asthma medication, surely the gain from it cannot be worth the massive risk knowing he’d be tested and why only that day, he was fine the days before and after

Which is why I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume there is a genuine reason for the suspicious test result.

I am not naïve and don’t think for a second that everyone in the peleton won’t be trying to take what they can to increase their performance levels. But I have a hard time using the word ‘cheat’ for every infraction detected when the scope for industrial-sized cheating has largely been negated today, and is therefore bound to be quite limited.

glad to see the koolaid supplies weren’t interrupted by the bad weather.. 😉

sky could have cleared everything up if only they kept medical records of their star rider and used their own employees instead of BC ones. Oh, and not lie at least twice over the bagmans contents. And retire the doctor (who refused to testify on legal grounds). Nothing dosgy at all. All cleanz.

but, yeah, its all grandstanding politicians… Looks like liars can spot other liars… 😂