End of another Tour de France and Sky/Brailsford. Clean?

[Noel]

So Froome gets his 4th victory. Is he clean? Are Sky clean? I know Brailsford is a total jerk at times but is he hiding something, is his marginal gains strategy a little more than just marginal?
Not necessarily PEDs, but has been my view for some years that they are maybe just crossing the line, jiffy bags and TUEs don't help on that opinion.

Thought I'd started a thread some years ago on this, canny find it.

 

[novocaine]

clean as any of them and impossible to prove otherwise. This year is the first time I'd suggest a fairly clean race, he won without taking a stage, his rivals fell or DNF and the "unwritten rules" were pretty much ignored. a lot of the stages were taken by riders who weren't in the running for the GC which helped him tremendously too. Really it all fell to him being on the right side of the break in stage 17 (maybe 16 they all blur) and his closest being on the wrong side of it. I wouldn't say he won this one as much as everyone else lost it.

 

[JohnPW]

Well of course Wiggins, Froome, Team Sky etc haven't failed any dope tests (nor did Lance Armstrong!) but they certainly took PEDs that were allowed under the secret TUE (therapeutic use exemption) rules.

Armstrong was able win his first Tour de France because of TUE and a cover up by the UCI (cycle sport governing body).

 

[beech1948]

I'm surprised that anyone has raised this. I expect Froome, and the rest of the Sky Team to be tested around 80 times in any 12 month period. Nothing from any tests. You may be suspicious but to accuse someone like this is to simply betray the effort of winning.

I know nothing of drugs, nor will I pretend to understand PEDS and the effect they can have etc.

I will simply celebrate Froomes achievements. Large scotch and cuban cigar this evening with a big smile at the losers in France/the French.

 

[skipdiver]

The French and Italians etc win the Tour de France and they are cycling heroes. The British win 5 years out of 6 and they are suspected of being cheats and roundly booed and attacked by cycle fans.

Froome's achievements are incredible, yet he hardly gets any recognition for it. Despite a great day for Britain on Sunday with Froome, the ladies cricket success and the ladies football team beating Spain, most of the sports headlines were about the Open Golf, which i find an extremely tedious game.

 

[worn thumbs]

I lost all interest in the event years ago.I suspect it will be years before all doubt can be removed,just as with the Olympic "medallists" whose samples were analysed years after the event with more sophisticated techniques and found not to conform.My sympathy lies with the clean competitors who have to live with the inference that they may not be innocent and who may never be recognised as such.In the greater scheme of things,is pedalling a bicycle quickly really that important?

 

[stuartpaul]

It's a shame that rather than celebrating another win for what must surely be the toughest sporting event on the planet the qustion is about doping. I suppose that's just a reflection of cyclings past.

I heard Skys approach called 'sterile' and to an extent it probably was, -but they won so does that matter?

 

[whiskywill]

Large scotch and cuban cigar this evening with a big smile at the losers in France/the French.

You apparently have no problem with the Scottish or Cubans, or at least with their produce, so what specifically is your problem with the French?

 

[Jacob]

I've been on bike rides where the only thing that's kept me going is a couple of paracetamols, a pint of beer and a pickled egg. Would that be against the rules?
Watch the tour most years but it seems to get noisier, more frantic, more money involved.

PS worst breakfast ever - cycle touring, got benighted, rough camped and woke to find nothing but half a bottle of whisky and a tin of sardines. Could have been worse!
The end of a long day and you start making bad moves like forgetting to stop at a shop, a campsite, or fill up with water.

 

[Noel]

Jiffy bag gate, results just in:

“From the evidence that has been received by the committee, we believe that this powerful corticosteroid [triamcinolone] was being used to prepare Bradley Wiggins, and possibly other riders supporting him, for the Tour de France,” the report reads. “The purpose of this was not to treat medical need, but to improve his power-to-weight ratio ahead of the race. The application for the TUE for the triamcinolone for Bradley Wiggins, ahead of the 2012 Tour de France, also meant that he benefited from the performance-enhancing properties of this drug during the race.

“This does not constitute a violation of the World Anti-Doping Agency code, but it does cross the ethical line that David Brailsford says he himself drew for Team Sky. In this case, and contrary to the testimony of David Brailsford in front of the committee, we believe that drugs were being used by Team Sky, within the Wada rules, to enhance the performance of riders, and not just to treat medical need.”

Wiggins said: “I find it so sad that accusations can be made, where people can be accused of things they have never done which are then regarded as facts. I strongly refute the claim that any drug was used without medical need.I hope to have my say in the next few days and put to my side across.”

 

[Sheffield Tony]

This sounds to me comparable to the tax avoidance scandals. They seem to be saying that they did not break rules, but somehow crossed ethical or moral boundaries. I don't get this idea. There is no universal code of ethics or morals with hard boundaries. Either on how much tax you should pay, or when something is medication for a condition/injury or helping performance beyond that. You can't leave it to ethical or moral judgement if you want the same conditions for everyone - either shut up unless rules are broken, or change the rules.

 

[Brandlin]

Remember that this report was written by a group of MPs having concluded interviews as part of a select committee. It wasn't written by one of the sports governing bodies, nor was it written by medical experts. The expertise of those undertaking the review to be qualified to do so is unclear. Whilst it is true that they have interviewed a number of experts in the field of sport and medicine the report itself states that is has not attempted to understand the medical or perfomance implications of the alleged moral breaches.

The report clearly concludes that no rules were broken but it disagrees with the moral stance of the teams and people involved without any definition of what that moral position should have been prior to the events in question.

The very fact that the committee was created suggests that the review expected to find something. It didn't, but chose words to suggest that there was something wrong. The report itself is entitled "Combating Doping in Sport" yet it didn't interview anyone or investigate any confirmed case of doping in sport as a benchmark. It only concerned itself with cases such as Wiggin's where they already perceived there to be some irregularity (presumably from journalistic materials?) Nor has it reviewed cases where the morality of teams has been without question as a benchmark. That's observational bias and its pretty damning on the committee itself. It wouldn't stand up to peer review in any kind of technical manner.

Given the public view and general reaction to government funded committees it would have been politically charged for those involved to have concluded "We spent several months and a couple of million pounds reviewing this issue that has already been addressed and cleared by the governing bodies and medical experts and found nothing wrong." This was not an unbiased review, those involved have a vested interest in the results.

At no point have any efforts been made to establish how the behaviour of the people investigated has differed from any of the people/nations/teams in similar sports against who they were competing. The report even concludes that it is likely that similar behaviours (or worse) were/are present within those sports and are accepted by the relevant governing bodies world wide.

The report is a nonsense designed to do little other than further the self aggrandisement of those involved in its writing.

 

[doctor Bob]

Each to their own, you can read it anyway you want, but to me and the majority of the general public, it seems this sport is rotten to the core. Defend it to the hilt, call it what u want but don't call it clean as we all know that's crepe.................... looks like there is a potential for 14 non winners in 18 years. Why on earth should I be interested in such a sport!

 

[rafezetter]

I can see both sides - I was gutted when I heard about Lance Armstrong as I was really inspired by his story to overcome incredible odds. I know he still did a great deal and you can't take that away, but the story is still tarnished by the drug abuse.

If the riders (or any sport) have no rules to say they cannot use performance enhancers during training for a sport, but are clean for testing during the event, then while it might leave a bad taste in the mouth for some people, fact is they've only looked at Team Sky in this instance, who's to say the other teams were not doing the same; in which case almost no "advantage" was gained at all, except from the natural abilites of the riders to perform better, and get greater / or lesser gains under those conditions.

Between the ages of 9 to 18 I was heavily into martial arts, I carry two belts, Judo and Shotokan Karate, anyway, no matter how much I tried to bulk up my arms, I couldn't. My legs were almost like riders legs, from that and a lot of cycling, but my biceps and triceps just wouldn't gain noticable muscle mass.

My cousin on the other hand is huge and did hardly any of the stuff I did. It's a known fact that people have different genetic dispositions for things like bodyweight and musclemass, so a lot of it is down to a persons innate physical attributes or in some cases having to do extra to overcome those limitations.

One can argue that in previous times this was sorted out naturally, those that could, did, and those that couldn't... argued about it down the tavern, but with advances in pharmaceuticals it now allows those who may not be naturally gifted for athletic endeavours, to still pursue a passion, and maybe even do it competitively.

I think the only real answer to this is once a person makes known he will be competing professionally in a sport, then becomes subject to regular drug testing, and by regular I mean 3 - 4 times a year (or more if it's just a simple urine sample), and with only a short notification.

The issue of being given an extra pint of blood before event however is a whole different ballgame - no idea how to tackle that one.

Under this "finding" of substance use during training, it can call into question pretty much every sport, not just cycling... for example do we know if footballers are using this training regime?

 

[RogerP]

It's not just cycling, far from it, just check out "sports doping" on a search engine. Rugby is one of the worst and most sports/games have their problems even snooker!
Check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_d ... n_sport_(H)

 

[rafezetter]

Oh I do understand that - when the question is "how far are you willing to go to win?" when winning can be worth millions,
it's not hard to see why so many succumb.

The sports themselves have a lot to answer for too though, the pressure for the athletes to "perform" by the sponsors and team bosses etc is enormous; many would even say harmful to the athletes and the sport itself, for purely selfish reasons; the athlete bruns out and they get another one for the grinder....

 

[novocaine]

I do like that cycling is getting so strict that the doping agents are over the counter meds that anyone can buy instead of the more nefarious of drugs or methods used in the past.

I've started using the Armstrong line as way to test the length of time someone has been riding for. if you feel betrayed by him, because he lied about it and trashed a sport you watched then you've been riding over 20 years but under 40, if you don't care, the sport went downhill when he started you're over the 40 mark and if you think they were all at it, he was just better at it than the others so why does it matter, you're under 20.

as to this latest "report", it's only news to those out of the sport and I want to know what else is happening for them to release it when they did, because it's a great "scandal" that really isn't one at all but involves names people might have heard of.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I don't mean, by what I said, that there isn't a problem. But in my view, just like the tax loopholes that let Starbucks get away with paying trivial amounts of tax, the problem is not with Starbucks, their accountants or team Sky and their athletes. The rules have to be right, so it's the same for all competitors. You can't rely on moral or ethical boundaries which can be whatever a team sets for themselves, or those with the lowest morals / ethics will always win. Which isn't a great message.

 

[Brandlin]

Doctor Bob - At no point have i suggested that cycling, or any other sport is 'clean'. Do i think it has taken steps in the right direction over the last few years - yes. Is there more to be done - certainly. There will always be a challenge for governance and oversight to keep up with those wishing to cheat - sadly because the rewards are so great.

My objection to this particular report is the fact it is subjecting people to standards that they have plucked from thin air and are not part of the regime of the governing body.

Tighten up the rules, be clear about the standards expected, invest in support and enforcement and hold people to account.

Don't make up spurious rules about "crossing an ethical" line (that isn't even defined in the report!) make no recommendations and use it to justify your own existance.

 

[Kieran62]

To be honest, the day any group of MP's are credible when taking the moral high ground, is the day I become world featherweight champion (16 stone and a bit), get reincarnated as the Dali Lama, create a piece of furniture as good as Custard's and beat Stephen Hawking at chess.
The utter delight on the faces of the reporters on the One o'clock news, when they could rubbish another sporting champion with spurious claims of cheating and innuendos about lack of morals, was sickening to say the least.
Nothing has been proven; the charges of lack of ethics are at best opinion and at worst a slippery justification for wasting our money on a parliamentary investigation.