More Rasmussen accussations

lucretius

Interesting that he poured it down the sink and told Velonews rather than calling the local customs or police as I certainly would have if somebody did that to me.

Also it would be very easy for the chicken to say he didn't know as it wasn't him who passed the shoebox.

SeamusD

Last year I would have been jumping up and down on the sofa to see a pure climber who looked like they were going to win the tour. Now I just sit there feeling numb.

A chicken injected with beef products - now doesn't that sound just like one of those things they stock in supermarkets that I've avoided buying for the last 10 years?

When Rio Ferdinand was banned for missing an out of competition test I remember thinking it was absolutely the right decision and about time that cycling's anti doping stance was applied in another sport. Whether innocent or guilty, Rasmussen is and has been a very high profile athlete for the last few years. He has no excuse for missing two out of competition tests - or was that 2+2=4? When I watch the race today the only thing I will be hoping is that Rasmussen doesn't win and I'll be wondering if I wouldn't be better off spending my time doing something else.

andyp

SeamusD - who are you rooting for then? I doubt there is anyone in the race whom we can't link to a drugs scandal either explicitly or by association.

It's all good and well the UCI and the Danish federation giving warnings but the (poor) state of the system they are using does make this case look like a storm in a tea cup.

bigdawg

andyp wrote:

SeamusD - who are you rooting for then? I doubt there is anyone in the race whom we can't link to a drugs scandal either explicitly or by association.
quote]

Cadel Evans?? Never seen him under suspicion or any rumours, and hes always been very upfront and vocal about dopers.

He even used to live in a log cabin...so he must be clean :?

andyp

Cadel Evans?? Never seen him under suspicion or any rumours, and hes always been very upfront and vocal about dopers.

He even used to live in a log cabin...so he must be clean :?

Used to ride for Mapei and recent allegations suggest there was a systematic doping program in place in the team when he rode for them.

Next.

SeamusD

Well maybe I'm just naive, but what's the point of watching 189 men cheating? Perhaps I should just take up online video gaming - but then I'm told that people cheat there too.

If you look back at all of the smoking guns surrounding Armstrong, never once has anyone come out and categorically said anything like what has recently been said about Rasmussen - and with an independent witness to boot. It's this amazing lack of any concrete evidence that let's you think maybe - just maybe.

I haven't followed every last story on every rider this time either, but I've been a fan of Cadel Evans ever since he was a mountain biker. I pleased that at least one other person believes he's clean too.

bigdawg

if youre gonna just brush a whole team with the same brush then youre pretty much accusing the likes of boardman and wiggins as well due to the teams they rode/ride for.

Still not seen anything that leads me to doubt evans in any way shape or form.

andyp

SeamusD wrote:

If you look back at all of the smoking guns surrounding Armstrong, never once has anyone come out and categorically said anything like what has recently been said about Rasmussen - and with an independent witness to boot. It's this amazing lack of any concrete evidence that let's you think maybe - just maybe.

Not wanting to kick this off again but the accusations made in LA Confidential were pretty clear about team mates, i.e. Stephen Swart, and team helpers, i.e. Emma O'Reilly, making statements about drug activity within US Postal. One could also ask why the team wanted to dump Activogen packaging in a rubbish bin in a layby well away from the Tour de France route in 2001.

The point is that pretty much everyone, Jorg Jascke refers today to the 3% or riders who weren't doping in the 1990s, has a dodgy past because doping was pandemic in the peleton. What needs to happen now, before the sport runs out of sponsors, is that credible steps are made to clean up the sport.

aba2005

I know Vino is injured but isn't it weird that Vino was burnt out after the time trial and Rasmussen who was all out was relatively fresh?

bigdawg

but at the end of the day there was no proof... If LA confidential was so accurate and there was irefutable proof, why was it not published in the UK?? IF the people in the book were so honest and want to clean up cycling why did they need paying $20k to do it??

And if we all love cycling & racing so much why are we all so eager to convict everyone of doping???

bigdawg

aba2005 wrote:

I know Vino is injured but isn't it weird that Vino was burnt out after the time trial and Rasmussen who was all out was relatively fresh?

Id be more concerned about how a rider who could barely turn a pedal suddenly won a hilly time trial... :?

Damn now youve got me at it... :x

dave_1

iainf72 wrote:

andyp wrote:

David Millar makes some very salient points in his Bicycling Tour dairy;

http://www.bicycling.com/tourdefrance/a ... -1,00.html

Wait a minute here, Millar isn't suggesting that the UCI are a bunch of half witted clowns, is he?

Did we all read that Prudhomme gave McQuaid the hairdryer treatment down the phone over Rasmussen?

Interesting comment from Millar. The SMS instant updates seems the only logical way forward. Rassumssen says "you can trust me"...we can yes, but I don't choose to

iainf72

bigdawg wrote:

but at the end of the day there was no proof... If LA confidential was so accurate and there was irefutable proof, why was it not published in the UK?? IF the people in the book were so honest and want to clean up cycling why did they need paying $20k to do it??

And if we all love cycling & racing so much why are we all so eager to convict everyone of doping???

The same proof has been published in the UK in "From Lance to Landis" - If you've not read LA Confidential it's worth a read.

My brief review : Walsh is a good writer and has done some good investigation. The initial part of the book is fairly sympathetic towards the guys on Postal etc. He explains what it was like in the mid 90's and how guys got into taking stuff. I question some of the stuff he's got in there but it's a good read. Sure, no smoking gun, but I would say some B samples from 99 having EPO in them could be considered a smoking gun.

But what do I know...

dave_1

iainf72 wrote:

bigdawg wrote:

but at the end of the day there was no proof... If LA confidential was so accurate and there was irefutable proof, why was it not published in the UK?? IF the people in the book were so honest and want to clean up cycling why did they need paying $20k to do it??

And if we all love cycling & racing so much why are we all so eager to convict everyone of doping???

The same proof has been published in the UK in "From Lance to Landis" - If you've not read LA Confidential it's worth a read.

My brief review : Walsh is a good writer and has done some good investigation. The initial part of the book is fairly sympathetic towards the guys on Postal etc. He explains what it was like in the mid 90's and how guys got into taking stuff. I question some of the stuff he's got in there but it's a good read. Sure, no smoking gun, but I would say some B samples from 99 having EPO in them could be considered a smoking gun.

But what do I know...

zero % isoforms in the samples grabbed by French authorities as part of the investigation into USPS in 2001...nobody has 0% isoforms unless they nuked their sample with persil enzyme or some such thing. I still think Armstrong was the best of his era

bigdawg

If these are the tests Im thinking about i was under the impression that these were samples from anonymous samples (ie didnt know who the riders were), it was only some pretty imaginitive journalism that put names to them.

I really dont have time for walsh, he professes to be on a mission to clean the sport up yet its plain to see hes just doing it for publicity and money (ie releasing books on the eve of a tour!)

aba2005

bigdawg wrote:

aba2005 wrote:

I know Vino is injured but isn't it weird that Vino was burnt out after the time trial and Rasmussen who was all out was relatively fresh?

Id be more concerned about how a rider who could barely turn a pedal suddenly won a hilly time trial... :?

Damn now youve got me at it... :x

But if it was drugs he wouldn't have blown that bad also his time was good but Kloden and Kash would have beaten it if they hadn't fallen. Rasmussen looked like he was on the ragged edge. Oh well we will never know!!!

Cyclo2000

I gotta take issue with your "Walsh is a good writer" bit Iain. He's awfull. What investigations are you refering too? The lies he made up about LA that got him
A temporarily sacked
B the hell outta the country till the heat died down?
or the invective, spleen and general bullsh*t that comprised his article yesterday?
The odious Walsh is what's wrong with the sport mate, not the cyclists or the UCI or ASO. This pariah is glowering over the peleton, rubbing his stinking hands with undisguised glee as he manages to smear another soul with his filth.

I'm not penning an apologia for dopers here, so don't try and have a go at me on that respect. If Rasmussen is guilty then I'll damn him along with the rest of you but for god's sake, lets have some common sense here! He is within the rules. The Danish Federation are publicity seeking blazered burocrats who've waited till now to speak - right in the middle of the greatest race on earth. Wonder why, eh? Ho! Ho! As Millar says in his article, the reporting system is antiquated - there's no need for that.

We should all stop giving these rumours and sighs credence until such times as they deserve credence IE upon the production of real, testable evidence, not the dreary headshaking of the Odious Walsh and his unbelievabley bitter sidekick Paul "tried it once and didn't like it" Kimmage

iainf72

bigdawg wrote:

If these are the tests Im thinking about i was under the impression that these were samples from anonymous samples (ie didnt know who the riders were), it was only some pretty imaginitive journalism that put names to them.

Good journalism, rather than imaginative. He got the control sheets and could work out which samples belonged to which rider. Exactly how you would if you got a real A and B sample positive.

SeamusD

This sport isn't so much being kicked when it's down as worked over with a sledgehammer. Soon there will be no sponsors left at all and no race to worry about. Even if you ignore the latest revelations and assume that Rasmussen is clean and is simply disorganised or careless, he is guilty of adding another completely avoidable slur on the sport and giving headline writers the world over all the ammunition they need to damage the standing of cycling still further.

andyp

SeamusD wrote:

This sport isn't so much being kicked when it's down as worked over with a sledgehammer. Soon there will be no sponsors left at all and no race to worry about.

I've been thinking about this recently and actually think the sport will continue regardless of what happens with the fight against doping. If the current clean up succeeds then large, multi-national companes such as CSC and T-Mobile will continue to sponsor teams. However, should these attempts fail and the larger companies decide to invest in sports where there are less doping scandals then it'll go back to the old days of sponsorship where medium sized companies run by cycling enthusiasts, think Mapei, Quick-Step, Davitamon etc, continue to sponsor the sport because it gets them good publicity which is unaffected by doping scandals.

Which means the ProTour would probably die, and it's teetering on the brink at the moment anyway, and cycling will go back to being a small-ish sport popular in the traditional heartlands, i.e. Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and France.

Discuss.

Ste_S

Cyclo2000 wrote:

I gotta take issue with your "Walsh is a good writer" bit Iain. He's awfull. What investigations are you refering too? The lies he made up about LA that got him
A temporarily sacked
B the hell outta the country till the heat died down?
or the invective, spleen and general bullsh*t that comprised his article yesterday?
The odious Walsh is what's wrong with the sport mate, not the cyclists or the UCI or ASO. This pariah is glowering over the peleton, rubbing his stinking hands with undisguised glee as he manages to smear another soul with his filth.

I'm not penning an apologia for dopers here, so don't try and have a go at me on that respect. If Rasmussen is guilty then I'll damn him along with the rest of you but for god's sake, lets have some common sense here! He is within the rules. The Danish Federation are publicity seeking blazered burocrats who've waited till now to speak - right in the middle of the greatest race on earth. Wonder why, eh? Ho! Ho! As Millar says in his article, the reporting system is antiquated - there's no need for that.

We should all stop giving these rumours and sighs credence until such times as they deserve credence IE upon the production of real, testable evidence, not the dreary headshaking of the Odious Walsh and his unbelievabley bitter sidekick Paul "tried it once and didn't like it" Kimmage

Walsh isn't awfull. He's an award winning journalist.
I like Kimmage, sometimes. Some of the stuff he gets for "spitting in the soup" is just silly though. Omerta eh ?

method

andyp wrote:

SeamusD wrote:

This sport isn't so much being kicked when it's down as worked over with a sledgehammer. Soon there will be no sponsors left at all and no race to worry about.

I've been thinking about this recently and actually think the sport will continue regardless of what happens with the fight against doping. If the current clean up succeeds then large, multi-national companes such as CSC and T-Mobile will continue to sponsor teams. However, should these attempts fail and the larger companies decide to invest in sports where there are less doping scandals then it'll go back to the old days of sponsorship where medium sized companies run by cycling enthusiasts, think Mapei, Quick-Step, Davitamon etc, continue to sponsor the sport because it gets them good publicity which is unaffected by doping scandals.

Which means the ProTour would probably die, and it's teetering on the brink at the moment anyway, and cycling will go back to being a small-ish sport popular in the traditional heartlands, i.e. Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and France.


Discuss.

Is there evidence to suggest some of the smaller sponsers are pulling out, or is this usual end of contract stuff.

bigdawg

adidas have already confirmed, due to sinkiwitch (among others) they will not be sonsoring cycling any longer.

T-Mobile are still here by the skin of their teeth.

SteveR_100Milers

At the very least Ras is guilty of being a prize pratt for letting the situation occur, which is mighty frustrating. Like another poster, I get no excitement from watcihng him ride, and secretly want Contadpor to paste him on Wednesday and then Klodi and Evans to smash him in the TT. Irrational maybe, but thats how damn annoyed I am at his carelessness (lets give him the benefit of the doubt) which has resulted in yet another slur on the sport. In any other profession he would have been sacked for gross negligence.

Tom Butcher

These TV companies and sponsors pulling out can be terrible hypocrites. OK if they say it's bad for their image then you have to accept that. But when they rant on about it as if they are making some moral judgement you do wonder. I mean didn't they realise cycling was full of drugs before - if anything the sport is probably the cleanest now it has ever been - yet this is the moment they choose to make their moral stand.

jimmythecuckoo

SeamusD wrote:

Well maybe I'm just naive, but what's the point of watching 189 men cheating? Perhaps I should just take up online video gaming - but then I'm told that people cheat there too.

Well, my theory for still tuning is to the Tour is that if they are all cheating the strongest ride most likely still wins.

iainf72

jimmythecuckoo wrote:

SeamusD wrote:

Well maybe I'm just naive, but what's the point of watching 189 men cheating? Perhaps I should just take up online video gaming - but then I'm told that people cheat there too.

Well, my theory for still tuning is to the Tour is that if they are all cheating the strongest ride most likely still wins.

Not true really. The rider who responds the best to the treatment wins.

Look at Zabel, he tried EPO but it disagreed with him. Some people respond to the drugs a lot better than others.

The long and short of it is, you don't know if the most talented person won. The drugs may help or may not, we will just never know. And that is the tragedy.

The same holds true for other sports. Talking to someone at work yesterday about it and mentioned Gary Players comment about golf to which I got the usual "ahhh, but golf is a skill based sport" That may be true but if someone is using HGH etc how do we know that's not why they're winning?

Doping doesn't make me not enjoy cycling - I'm a tough old boot. I have to say, the Rasmussen thing has really annoyed me though because basically there is no case to answer AND both Boonen and Millar have said the UCI's whereabouts program is pathetic yet no one seems to be addressing this.

And then we've got that raving moron McQuaid saying it would be better for the sport if someone else won - I agree 100% but for god sakes man, what kind of message does that send when the guy in charge of cycing say that? "Well, he did nothing wrong according to the rules but I hope he loses" Why is he in charge again? Is it because he's a no spine Hein yes man?

Ste_S

iainf72 wrote:

Not true really. The rider who responds the best to the treatment wins.

Look at Zabel, he tried EPO but it disagreed with him. Some people respond to the drugs a lot better than others.

*Waves to Bjarne Riis*

pat1cp

"We issued him a warning that if he missed another test it would amount to a doping violation. But there's no evidence of doping,” McQuaid said yesterday, adding the UCI had no power to prevent him racing.

Am I missing something ????? I think I read that he's been tested about twenty times in the last two months. Yet again the press are turning the knife. I don't think I needed to be made aware of this. If this is made public then the UCI should print a complete list of all the riders with all of this years tests.

It should not have been made public (McQuaid has said there is no case to answer) especially when he's wearing Yellow half way through the tour. Journalistic hype, and a bit of sour grapes (yet again) on the part of ASO.

[/b]

andyp

pat1cp wrote:

it should not have been made public (McQuaid has said there is no case to answer) especially when he's wearing Yellow half way through the tour. Journalistic hype, and a bit of sour grapes (yet again) on the part of ASO.
[/b]

Exactly how is it sour grapes on the part of ASO? The UCI are the ones standing accused of leaking this during the Tour, despite both them and the Danish federation knowing about the situation at least a week before the Tour started.