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

 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.

A perfect summary aracer

I think the conclusions are ones that had already been reached by many.  You’d have to be a die hard Sky fan to refuse to accept some breach of morality in all this.  However, like many above it annoys me that MPS feel that they can abuse their parliamentary privilige and make accusations that might get them sued if they were in other jobs…

I haven’t looked into the committee make-up but I wonder how many ‘volunteered’ to pay back expenses that they thought they were morally and ethically entitled to?  Or how many took the huge pay rise that they ‘deserved’ whilst all other public sector workers suffered? Or how many failed to take on big businesses that pay no tax or that rape pension funds for their own bonus pots, whilst sitting on protected and well funded pension provision of their own.

Sky and Wiggo are easy targets (and perhaps deserve to be) and headline grabbers.

metalheart wrote:

but, yeah, its all grandstanding politicians…

Well today’s “news” certainly is – that was all I was pointing out. Everything in terms of facts is already in the public domain, today’s report is no better than an opinion piece in a newspaper. The rest of your post is kind of strawmanny given I don’t see anybody making those suggestions since the thread has been revived.

 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.

Sounds very much like this thread.

“Do I think this was a train crash waiting to happen? Yes, clearly it was. What we are seeing now is the unravelling of a system that thrived in the shadows”

Ironically this was a quote by Nick Clegg about the MPs expenses scandal, but it holds up equally well here.

What we are seeing is a broken system that allowed people to uphold the letter of the law whilst breaking the spirit of the law. The biggest problem for Sky is that they have been completely pious in public whilst adopting the same murky tactics in private.   It is their duck house moment.

Sky had a very public “no needles policy”, and other proven intra-nasal corticosteroid treatments are available for allergic rhinitis. They didn’t have a “no inhalers” or a “no nasal pump” policy. Whilst they have done nothing wrong, other treatment options were available to maintain their moral high ground, and hence the Wiggins case sits uneasily with me. As for reports of the performance effects of triamcinalone, I’m skeptical, particularly of n=1 open-label trials.

Absence of medical records and details of the “package” contents is an inexcusable failing. The contents were most likely just N-acetyl cysteine (flumucil active ingredient), which is also the paracetamol antidote. I have no doubt they would want a secure supply, because most decongestants, flu remedies etc, have additives of all varieties, plus possible contaminants at low levels, and it is a risk Sky would not want to take with OTC medicines. Just a little more openness was needed.

The Froome case is entirely different and unrelated.

BadlyWiredDog wrote:

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.

It seems likely he wanted to avoid a TUE given the controversy over them – I think that point has already been made by people who know more about it than me (hasn’t Chris himself said he doesn’t like TUEs?)

His case does seem strange – given the circumstances and that he knows a breach will be picked up, the most plausible explanation does seem to be that he unintentionally went over the limit due to unusual factors. Certainly the suggested reason of him taking it other than in a puffer (because that’s the only way to get any benefit other than getting rid of asthma symptoms) seems implausible on that basis – they must have known it would result in an abnormal test reading. Yes I know that’s the sort of excuse all druggies through sporting history have used, but I’m just applying Occam’s Razor here – an unintentional breach does seem the most likely explanation, and that doesn’t require any Kool Aid at all, the same conclusion would be reached if it was an Astana rider.

“today’s report is no better than an opinion piece in a newspaper”

Cycling and Athletics are huge recipients of (and largely dependent on) lottery money and state funding. This money is awarded by UK Sport at Elite level, with Sport England doing the equivalent at non-Elite/mass participation level.

Both of which sit under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

So politician-bashing aside, they are investigating whether they are spending our money wisely and the report could have huge implications on the funding British Cycling (already criticised for being too entangled with Sky) get.

Press releases in the days leading up to the sale of Sky to an American Conglomerate..

Good time for Sky to ditch the cycling team IMO.

As for the MPs findings, all they’ve done effectively is lay the blame on one person as a scapegoat whilst on the other hand asking for a donation/fee to uKAD/WADA to enable them to perform the tests.. and since UKAD is government funded it’s likely the funding will be pulled and superseded by the Participants in that sport. A good model to use across all sports and the government pulls funding..

Makes ya fink.

Did Sky ever explain why they ordered far more triamcinolone than was ever used for their TUEs?

Probably supplying Rupert for his grotesque rumpy pumpy sessions with Jerry Hall!

Have to admit I’m with Metalheart on this. Sky (& DB) set themselves up as paragons of virtue, with the aggregation of marginal gains, backed up by an infinitesimal attention to detail, being their slight edge. They will know for sure that the very public nature of their stance means that they are going to be the focus of much attention. Not to mention their very quickly achieved astounding success.

So the idea that they could “lose” All the required medical evidence that would back up SBW’s TUE claims, because it was all stored on one laptop which was “stolen” is laughable. Particularly as Sky must have known that questions would be asked, and even more particularly because there own clearly established procedure was for all medical records to be backed up to a secure dropbox account in the cloud. Were all the other riders’ records kept on individual laptops or where they backed up?

Then there is the non-testifying doctor. Really? Too I’ll my arse. Not to mention their employment of a Dr known to be dodgy by all of the peloton.

Then there is the fact that they lied twice about said Jiffy bag. Why do that when you’ve nothing to hide?

I know it’s all circumstantial and nothing’s been proven. But you can be convicted in a court of law on circumstantial evidence and frankly if I was a juror presented with the evidence as it stands I’d be arguing for a conviction..

As an aside, those laying into the MPs should be ashamed of themselves. Saying all 650 odd MPs are corrupt because of the actions of a few is playing into the hands of “fake news” and those who seek to undermine the foundations of our democratic society. The majority are hard working, decent people who sacrifice a lot to try and do some good. Flawed? Of course, they are human after all.

When this all started with the Fancy Bears hack it all seemed like a media witch hunt (and the classic years of building something up then taking great delight in bringing it down) but I think it’s gotten to the point BC & Team Sky have definitely had more than just a blemish and Brailsford needs to go.

This is more than just about ethics, if a corticosteroid was given to Wiggins on the final day of the 2011 Dauphine that’s a doping violation, not a misuse of TUEs as he didn’t have a TUE to cover that. But we’ll never know what was in the package as the guy responsible ‘had his laptop stolen’ and had no other records. I hope Freeman is struck off but I don’t think that’s an option. Refusing to answer questions about it on legal advice is another red flag for me, what’s there to hide?

The committee didn’t have powers to investigate this properly so relied on cooperation of the parties involved and they didn’t get it. Not from BC, not from Team Sky and not from individuals mentioned – I don’t blame them one bit for some of speculation in the report – it’s there because they didn’t receive cooperation not because they like a good bit of gossip.

Is there proof Team Sky did anything more than seek maximum advantage from a weak set of rules? No (but even that for me is bad enough to warrant change given the recent history surrounding cycling). But there’s enough questions that should have been answered easily by those in the know and put to rest but they refused to or gave vague answers – that’s unacceptable, especially in the case of BC which receives Lottery funding

I still think Froome is likely innocent of any deliberate doping but if Team Sky were pushing the boundaries of dosage and didn’t factor in dehydration etc. then he and Team Sky have to take the blame, being over the limit is being over the limit, WADA doesn’t generally make exceptions for excuses. Given this report I don’t think he should still be riding until everything is cleared up, if he loses a season then he has Team Sky to thank for it.

funkrodent wrote:

I know it’s all circumstantial and nothing’s been proven. But you can be convicted in a court of law on circumstantial evidence and frankly if I was a juror presented with the evidence as it stands I’d be arguing for a conviction..

You can be convicted based just on circumstantial evidence – but I’m not sure you understand what that means in the context of a court case. A lot of the “evidence” here is hearsay, and I doubt much would be admissible in a court case, and there’s also the concept of “proven beyond reasonable doubt”.

I’m certainly not suggesting it doesn’t seem dodgy and I certainly agree with the points you make above – for an organisation which prides itself on attention to detail to supposedly have trouble like this with record keeping verges on the implausible.

As an aside, those laying into the MPs should be ashamed of themselves. Saying all 650 odd MPs are corrupt because of the actions of a few is playing into the hands of “fake news”

Accusing other people of saying all 650 are corrupt is fake news if you want to put it that way! However “a few” is rather downplaying the issue – 6 were convicted, 20 or 30 were dodgy enough that they resigned from their posts, were deselected or retired and those were the tip of the iceberg who actually broke the rules. The suggestion here is that Sky were ethically dodgy which falls short of breaking the rules – dozens of MPs could be accused of the same failing.

+1 to aracer and I’ll repeat it; I’m not taking lessons in ethics from that lot.

I wonder how many ‘volunteered’ to pay back expenses that they thought they were morally and ethically entitled to?  Or how many took the huge pay rise that they ‘deserved’ whilst all other public sector workers suffered? Or how many failed to take on big businesses that pay no tax or that rape pension funds for their own bonus pots, whilst sitting on protected and well funded pension provision of their own.

But they were all within the rules…..etc.

They probably didn’t even know the rules.

Much like they have no idea on the rules around TUEs, doping and cycling in general.

Did Sky ever explain why they ordered far more triamcinolone than was ever used for their TUEs?

Iirc, a Tue is only needed for in competition use. The whole team could have been on it in training and they wouldn’t be breaking any rules.

wait, I’m being accused of straw man? Take a look at yourself. Sky treated the committee with contempt with lies and obscurations. No evidence (docs ill, laptop stolen) lies (take yer pick). But yeah all politicians are list so we can just ignore it all wtf?

shoot the messenger is what im seeing.

the reason there’s no ‘scandal’ about Astana is that everyone knows they’re cheating ****. Now we know sky aren’t really any different.

Did Sky ever explain why they ordered far more triamcinolone than was ever used for their TUEs?

or the mysterious case (sic) of testosterone that no-one ordered? 😂

The whole team could have been on it in training and they wouldn’t be breaking any rules

I know, all Sky need to do is grab their medical records and show who was taking what dose  and when, and all this will be cleared up… Maybe even in a jiffy

I’m extending the current logic:

all cyclists are dopers. Always have, always will. Dont see them handing back their illicit “winnings”

hth.

Its disappointing, that’s for sure!  Ever since the story came out about the guy who drove a package all the way from the UK to a stage of the TDF….and no one knew what was in it, anybody with a brain could see all was not right!

There’s bending the rules and there’s making up illnesses to take a treatment that gives you an advantage….which is clearly cheating.

I wonder where it will end for our knighted pair?

BBC Sport editor Dan Roan with a slightly sanctimonious appraisal of the situation for Sky…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/43281807

Like many mainstream journos he seems to be trying to play to some sense of betrayal among the public at large, one which I’m not sure exists in the way they seem to think.

The MPs conclude the report by saying that their long inquiry “highlights the failure of sports bodies in their governance and policing of anti-doping rules”. For years we have been told that British sporting success is down purely to world-class preparation, wise investment choices and raw talent.

This is a sobering reminder that when it comes to standing up for clean sport, Britain is far from perfect.

Or maybe… cycling has been very dirty and is now hyper-sensitive to doping issues and leading the way in testing, while other sports seem to escape the spotlight.

These MPs are taking a similar self-flagellating approach, which is perfectly valid for the reasons outlined by crashtestmonkey above, but a bit of cultural context about what the rest of the peloton were up to might have been useful.

Anyway, as I’ve said before in these threads, Wiggo’s reputation is toast. Froome’s is in the balance and the big question is whether Davey B can hang on now. If he goes it’ll be this week.

metalheart wrote:

wait, I’m being accused of straw man?

Yeah, because you made one. Unless you want to point out where anybody made the claims you suggested in your previous post?

But yeah all politicians are list so we can just ignore it all wtf?

and there we go again – well played to add that at the end of a paragraph complaining about being accused of using a strawman.

Just to borrow your argument (but make it accurate, because it’s based on something which actually happened), just because Sky did dodgy stuff doesn’t entitle you to misrepresent people’s comments.

shoot the messenger is what im seeing.

There is no messenger. As I pointed out a couple of times, the factual information being conveyed is already in the public domain, the only thing the report adds is the opinions of the MPs.

As I pointed out a couple of times, the factual information being conveyed is already in the public domain, the only thing the report adds is the opinions of the MPs.

to be fair, I’m happy to concede that point. Still, we can’t have people making reports eh?

and the straw man accusation was wrongly levelled at you (reading on a phone doesn’t help). That was others 🤣

carry on ignoring sky’s dodgy practices though. 🙈

Seen the BBC interview?  Never mind doubts about TUE’s, Wiggins new hairstyle is a crime against mankind.

This^ also he has pube hair so that hairdo has been ironed! In the name of God, he has a step at the back!

Wiggins has been saying “I’m going to have my say in a few weeks” as if he has new information. It seems as though he feels hard done to by Sky. I wonder what’s preventing him saying this before? Probably the threat of legal action from Sky. Large corporations funding hugely expensive and highly competent lawyers can be intimidating if you stand to lose your livelihood, house etc

Just one point here … politicians are not exactly known for staying out of the limelight.  Also they are well versed in getting on a bandwagon for publicity.

I am sure there are questions that Sky don’t want to answer … but it would seem that thus committee has made some statements which are on the very grey side of liable … definitely guilty until proved innocent as far as they are concerned.  Which is against the laws of this country ….

Have Sky broken any laws/ rules?

Who are the MPs on the committee?

I bet he’s writing a book, hence the vagueness.

The Committee stuff is covered by Parliamentary privilege.  What will be interesting is how far the MPs on it go when speaking outside Parliament.  Watch for them saying things like “well, the Committee report found that….”.  As long as they are simply reporting what is in the report, they are OK, but I imagine they will be quite careful in what they say and how they say it.

A book could be in the offing yeah. We know Wiggo’s reputation is very important to him, particularly with the general public beyond cycling fans.

I think the only way he can turn this round is to cop to it and say: “Yeah I knew there was a possible performance advantage with that jab but I did have a medical need as well. Sky encouraged me and everyone else was at it anyway”.

Since he didn’t break the rules he’d keep the TdF win and can air Sky’s miscellaneous dirty laundry in a bestselling book, doing the chat show circuit etc.

I dunno if he’s willing to admit any fault though.

President of the UCI’s not best pleased with team sky either:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/mar/07/uci-president-david-lappartient-pressure-dave-brailsford

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09tybwj

The plot thickens as ASO reportedly plan to bar Froome from the TdF…

Tour de France organisers plot to stop Chris Froome from racing if salbutamol case isn’t resolved

Don’t blame them at all and – from a fan’s POV – it could make a much better race.

Does anyone know what the usual timescale for these hearings is, and who is causing any delay (if there is any)?  One would think the hearing would take place by the summer.

It’s not a ‘usual’ process, both sides are lawyered up and they’ll be batting stuff backwards and forwards between them. Plus it’s not like contesting a parking ticket, there’ll likely be medical evidence and/or a physiological study involved. And if it goes against Froome initially, there’s every chance it could end up in the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport).

Bottom line: no-one likely knows, including Froome himself. And he hasn’t posted on here for ages 😉

Don’t blame them at all and – from a fan’s POV – it could make a much better race.

Dunno, wouldn’t you want to see if Dumoulin can beat Froome? And Landa and/or Quintana? Take Froome out of the equation and you’d always be wondering what would have happened if he had been there.

Bottom line: no-one likely knows, including Froome himself. And he hasn’t posted on here for ages 😉

You say that, but have you ever seen him and SaxonRider in the same place?

Dunno, wouldn’t you want to see if Dumoulin can beat Froome? And Landa and/or Quintana? Take Froome out of the equation and you’d always be wondering what would have happened if he had been there.

Swings and roundabouts. Yeah it’s a nice idea but Froome will probably get a decent lead and the rest of them will ride defensively for the remaining podium places. Again.

Bottom line: no-one likely knows, including Froome himself. And he hasn’t posted on here for ages

Are you sure?