Kashechkin
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He must have got Vino's blood in the transfusion mix up...It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.0
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For some reason, the Team Astana website appears to be down.......
Did anyone notice on one of the sites today how the Astana team position is supported by the president of the Kazakh cycling federation - who also happens to be the Kazakh Minister for Defense. No wonder they got a wild-card entry to the Tour.'This week I 'ave been mostly been climbing like Basso - Shirley Basso.'0 -
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man-o-man astana are screwed... looks like another targeted surprise test0
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I notice he was in the hotbed of cycling in Turkey!
Definately Vino's blood.Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
Oh why oh why did you leave CA, Kash? I really liked him and tried (with unconvincing results) to believe he hadn't followed Vino's example.
With the two Kazakh stars down in the mud, Astana can't keep sponsoring the team, right?
On behalf of the "let's wait till they get caught" camp, I'd like to apologize to the "Astana stinks" camp. You guys were so right!0 -
Shame innit I had high hopes for him. Oh well, one more down.0
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I almost feel sorry for Team Evil. But it confirms what many of us suspected, i.e. that a leopard can't change it's spots.0
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Do you think the UCI look at Vino's blood and tested who might be compatible?
And was he up to no good at CA?Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
iainf72 wrote:
And was he up to no good at CA?
I'd say he may have been, but it would have been more limited. A patch to the scrote in a stage race say (a la Moreni). I doubt Credit Agricole wheeled in some doctors to shove packed cells up his arm.
I cheered him on in the Dauphine in 05 as a potentially clean up and coming rider to mix it with the big boys. But he has been performing at a level way above that since, so he's definitely doing something he wasn't before.It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.0 -
I'll tell you what disgusts me the most.
That Marc Biver, who claims to be SWISS, managed a team that couldn't organise the right riders to get the right blood. Next thing he'll be washing his car on a Sunday or something.Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
Are they the same blood type? If I remember my biology classes, they'd be in hospital if they weren't, right? That kind of fooling around is really dangerous, and not just when the riders turn 50.0
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I think Astana will have very few riders left unless it starts signing some French ones.....0
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I think Astana will have very few riders left unless it starts signing some French ones.....0
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I think Astana will have very few riders left unless it starts signing some French ones.....0
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So, does this mean that Astana will be booted from the Vuelta then? Then again probably not seeing as they invited Relax. :?Dave Van Der Thourenhout. Legend.
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuse ... apped=true0 -
It may say Kazakhstan Railways on their shorts, but you always had to suspect they were fuelled by a bit more than diesel.-- Dirk Hofman Motorhomes --0
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I think we can say that the UCI, in particular Anne Gripper, have got their act together this year. With further improvements over the next 12 - 18 months we might just find that the peleton is getting cleaner simply because the chances of getting caught have shot up by huge chunks of percentages. Anyone who survives the fallout of Puerto and doesn't otherwise get caught out will be heaving massive sighs of relief this time next year.
What does the panel think - are we seeing the first real signs that the UCI are taking their role seriously and that a turn-around in cyclings image might be possible in the long run? Are we likely to see some racing we can all believe in during 2008?0 -
skavanagh.bikeradar wrote:What does the panel think - are we seeing the first real signs that the UCI are taking their role seriously and that a turn-around in cyclings image might be possible in the long run? Are we likely to see some racing we can all believe in during 2008?
Ok, here's a question. Do you think Astana were clean in the Dauphine where they looked like a bunch of robots?
The answer would need to be no, and they didn't get caught there. They made a mistake and got caught. So it's not like the tests worked better or anything, they just got lucky.
The techniques for avoiding positives are still more advanced than the tests I feel. If you have a look at that link Andyp posted last night to the blood doping analysis of the last 10 years, it goes in a cycle - The numbers are dropping off now because people are not sure they can get away with it, but as soon as someone works out how to play the system, I bet the numbers will go back up again.
However, I think they helped their luck by targetting specific people so that might be a good tactic. See Mayo as well.Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
Damn you again Iain, I was starting to get optimistic for a second! Fair enough I probably agree with you anyway. Lets hope the tactic of turning up in Turkey (??!!??) unexpectedly keeps catching out the slow witted/desperate/slapdash. That at least is something.0
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skavanagh.bikeradar wrote:Damn you again Iain, I was starting to get optimistic for a second! Fair enough I probably agree with you anyway. Lets hope the tactic of turning up in Turkey (??!!??) unexpectedly keeps catching out the slow witted/desperate/slapdash. That at least is something.
heh - Nah, I think things are improving, slowly.
80% on EPO 10 years ago to probably around 25% now. Not bad.Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
Agreed. We should also give an honourable mention to sponsors who have insisted that the teams they put their name to clean up their act. Commercial pressures are a universal language and if the money coming into the sport is threatened then some people, and sadly it's not all, realise they need to change.iainf72 wrote:heh - Nah, I think things are improving, slowly.
80% on EPO 10 years ago to probably around 25% now. Not bad.0 -
So is Kashechkin claiming (like Vino) that he had too much blood in his knees? Or is it more a case of too little blood going to the brain causing him to turn into a complete dumb ass?
As for Astana being clean in the Dauphine? The evidence of the Tour would suggest not.
Hopefully the clearout will continue, but I don't think any of us can look forward to 2008 being a totally clean season. It's going to take a long time and the rate at which riders are being found out suggests that the problem is still a big one.0 -
iainf72 wrote:Ok, here's a question. Do you think Astana were clean in the Dauphine where they looked like a bunch of robots?
Not what I think but several teams and officials were shocked by what they saw at the Dauphine. The sight of Vino having to sit up at one point just to stop himself from winning everything too easily irked quite a few people, especially since the Kazakh had ridden little else before. I think the UCI were monitoring things closely.
Two big questions:
- Turkey? What was he doing there and did the UCI send detectives to roust him?
- Why would someone start blood doping out of competition?0 -
Turkey because they were hoping no-one would track them down there? (Anne Gripper did say in her recent interview on www.cyclingnews.com that the so called "men in black" were training in unusual places).Kléber wrote:Two big questions:
- Turkey? What was he doing there and did the UCI send detectives to roust him?
- Why would someone start blood doping out of competition?
I don't think you'd blood dope in competition without testing it out of competition first. That's one of the main rules of coaching, i.e. try things in training before doing it in competition.0 -
My thinking was that maybe he didn't get tested for blood doping during the Tour. Unless the checks they do before some stage starts are pretty extensive (rather than just things like haematocrit) it is possible that he got through the Tour without being tested. This would give good reason to give him an out of competition test soon after the Tour to see if he had been up to the same thing as his team leader.
Should his B-Test also be positive can him and Vino really claim to be innocent, or to not know about what the other might have been up to?
It does also interest me that we've now had two pairs of blood doping from cycling. Both pairs were fairly close, and riders in the same team. Makes you think that there was a mix up with the blood both times.0 -
A Kazakh walks into a pub: "I'll have a pint please, A positive."
Maybe they got the blood bags mixed up? Perhaps Vino and Kash have pets with identical names? On the serious side, mix-ups like this can be fatal and many people die or get severe complications. Even if the re-infused blood is from the same group, there is the risk of it being improperly stored - if people can't label if properly, would you trust them to store it right - and no one is screening the blood for HIV, Hepatitis and other viruses.
Surely we need on the start line blood testing? Even if riders don't get blood mixed up, this way their haematocrit and hormonal levels can be tested. The Benny Hill show of UCI vampires turning up at 6am to do a haematocrit test is stupid, the riders know how to hook themselves up to saline solutions to reduce their count and then they can spend the rest of the morning inside their team bus getting infused with their own blood, to emerge minutes before the start of a race.0 -
Out of interest, which lab conducted the test? I hope it's not Chatenay-Malabry just because then all the conspiracy theorists can quieten down a bit.
B text positive etc. I personally will believe any accredited lab, it's just I know the riders/lawyers who get caught don't seem to trust C-M.
I can't wait for the DNA test to show it was Kash in Vino and Vino in Kash so to speak.
Rule No.10 // It never gets easier, you just go faster0
