UCI / ASO spat : If nothing else

Kléber

ASO aren't anti Astana, they've just said something like "we think you're too lax, reform your ways and you'll be back next year". It's not like the team is banned forever.

Rabobank made a lot of soothing noises during the Tour, apparently senior bank management wooed ASO staff directly. Contrast this to the noises from the Kazakh capital who openly supported Vinokourov and his ever-changing reasons as to why he wasn't guilty.

Rabobank are certainly going to be watched very closely. If the Austrian rumours ever turn into something stronger, they can book beach holidays for July.

iainf72

Kléber wrote:

Rabobank made a lot of soothing noises during the Tour, apparently senior bank management wooed ASO staff directly.

Well yes, naturally. And ASO would think very hard before excluding the only big Dutch team. But if you considered they wooed them during the Tour and then look at how much evidence of the scale of the deception came out afterwards. Of course the team did a tactical sacking but the rest of the structure remains in place.

Arkibal

I agree, UCI needs some big changes, BUT the way the RCS and ASO are treating Astana, do you seriously think this will attract new sponsors??? Last year it was Unibet, this year Astana, which is one of the biggest teams-probably the biggest- for the big tours.
ASO dumping the defending champ and podium finishers team for something they had no control of, is not the best picture you can draw to your new possible sponsor...

I heard Riis was certain that CSC would continue (in february), so CSC's decision came as a surprise for him... I really hope he'll find a new sponsor, but that's going to be a though one....

Rabo being invited to all races is a joke, do they have anykind of anti-dope program? No. One man got fired and Chicken got kicked out during the tour, back into normal business :shock:

Kléber

ASO's treatment of Astana will not scare away sponsors.

Look at Team Slipstream. A more modest team with a slim budget, they will ride the Tour de France. Why? Because they're committed to racing clean, speak out against doping in public and spent time explaining their policy to ASO.

Compare this to Astana. Rocked by several doping scandals last year, their solution was to hire the man who flouted an agreement between team bosses and recruited the disgraced Ivan Basso. Arguably this move scared away Discovery Channel. Just look at today's news that the doping department of Freiburg university sent Andreas Kloeden a box of "vitamins". Why did a university need to send him some diet supplements, easily available in Klodi's local pharmacy or supermarket? Astana are still employing suspect riders who resort to near-comical denials.

Any sponsor who behaves right and goes the extra mile to end doping can ride the Tour.

iainf72

Kléber wrote:

ASO's treatment of Astana will not scare away sponsors.

Look at Team Slipstream. A more modest team with a slim budget, they will ride the Tour de France. Why? Because they're committed to racing clean, speak out against doping in public and spent time explaining their policy to ASO.

Ok, so they let one team ride because of those reasons, yet Rabo, Saunier, Caisse, Quick.Step, Silence Lotto etc are still there.

It's marketing / revenge. Nothing wrong with that, but lets not pretend it's some kind of grand example of morality.

And you mention Klodi being at Astana and getting vitamins. Cool - What about Tom Danielson being at Slipstream? He had the same coach as Vino - I don't believe Vaughters has ever addressed that one?

micron

So ASO cannot win - if they exclude a team with many doping positives, who have caused problem to their race not once but twice then they are just taking revenge. But if they were to exclude all these teams you mention only on rumour - because they do not have the positive tests Astana have had - then they will be wrong for acting on rumour and suspicion.

If they exclude all the teams on rumour then maybe the sponsors will think twice. But there is nothing fundamental different6 about Astana - they have the same sponsors and many of the same riders and other team personnel. If Bruyneel has his doctor's (from ONCE) with him then they are not exactly free of suspicion. And Prudhomme did not say 'I am taking the moral high ground' he said 'this team have disgraced our race twice - we will not take another chance on them as we must protect our race' - this is not morality but good business sense.

iainf72

micron wrote:

So ASO cannot win - if they exclude a team with many doping positives, who have caused problem to their race not once but twice then they are just taking revenge. But if they were to exclude all these teams you mention only on rumour - because they do not have the positive tests Astana have had - then they will be wrong for acting on rumour and suspicion.

Saunier did have a positive during the Tour (Mayo) And if you take the season as a whole, all the teams I mentioned (aside from Quick.Step I think) had positives

deejay

iainf72 wrote:

aurelio wrote:

Arkibal wrote:

ASO's decision to leave Astana out was a very bad one, IMO, imagine what kind of signal that sends to the sponsors that so many teams are looking for after this season?

Hopefully the message that the ASO will no longer tolerate institutionalised doping!

Aurerlio - What would you say the reasoning behind inviting Rabobank to the races would be?

Institutionalised doping rumours : Check.
Caused hugely embarrassing incident during TdF : Check

Rumours around the high profile members of the team using a blood clinic in Austria, high profile rider who's coached by Ceccho etc etc.

Don't you think it's a bit inconsistant?

Well you keep Nit Picking, so what would demand they do.

aurelio has already given you the answer

The ASO money Machine will invite who they want.
No matter what this forum or the UCI decides.
They will protect their interest and if someone costs them "Money" they will deal with them in their own way.
You might not like it but thats "Business" and if you don't want to watch then you don't have to, but millions of us will be there. Plus the Sponsors and the media (stirring the sh...it for you people)

The Paris-Nice this year was a great race and last years winner (or the one before) was not invited.

Your latest problem for you to suck on is Kloden, so you still think the UCI are correct.
Any more jokes?????

iainf72

deejay wrote:

Your latest problem for you to suck on is Kloden, so you still think the UCI are correct.
Any more jokes?????

I think both the ASO and the UCI are wrong.

I'm down with ASO inviting who they like to their races, I just don't like it being dressed up as some kind of victory for anti-doping.

micron

but this is not what ASO are saying - they are saying that Astana embarassed their race and are not welcome because they hurt the image. Prudhomme has said nothing about this being an anti doping crusade. And if people make it so in a forum, like deejay says, what does that matter? It's only a forum.

iainf72

micron wrote:

And if people make it so in a forum, like deejay says, what does that matter? It's only a forum.

You say that because you've never managed to call anyone out :P

Witness how many time my thread has been mentioned in the mainstream press

Kléber

"it's only a forum", true but many traditional cycling media outlets are just in the PR game. Look at cyclingnews.com, they give McQuaid soft interviews, most products get nice reviews and they daren't ask riders tough questions or investigate rumours. It isn't journalism.

Today I prefer the likes of http://cyclingfansanonymous.blogspot.com/ to cyclingnews.com

micron

Kleber, the worse is the Daily Peloton...but I agree that most rteportage is very poor and that the opinions of bloggers are more interesting because at least they give opinions.

Sorry iain, I guess you didn't get my sarcasm! Congratulations on having your thread mentioned

Climber_Andy

Ah, I always thought the Daily Peloton was at least impartial-ish?

Kléber

Today's cyclingfansanonymous has an interesting link. In the article, published in the serious Scientific American magazine, it tells of Jalabert's organised doping program at ONCE, and makes strong hints about why Lemond's former team mate Phillipe Casado died when he left Gan to join the Italian Jolly team.

micron

do you have the link for that, please? That sounds very interesting

Kléber

Yes, go here:
http://cyclingfansanonymous.blogspot.co ... te_26.html

and click on the "fascintating article" link at the start of the text.

dave_1

Kléber wrote:

Today's cyclingfansanonymous has an interesting link. In the article, published in the serious Scientific American magazine, it tells of Jalabert's organised doping program at ONCE, and makes strong hints about why Lemond's former team mate Phillipe Casado died when he left Gan to join the Italian Jolly team.

The Casado bit is something I put on here a year ago based on looking at who was on lemond's team in 1993 and who moved to Italy and died, based on what Lemond had said. So, cycling fans anonymous is not breaking news there re Casado...if anything, he reads bikeradar and my research...I've mentioned the poor Casado guy twice in a year infact. He won stages in the Mill Race. As for Jalabert, ONCE team...need we dream on any further about what everyone did there?

dave_1

Kléber wrote:

Yes, go here:
http://cyclingfansanonymous.blogspot.co ... te_26.html

and click on the "fascintating article" link at the start of the text.

Are you publicisng your own website? I've learned nothing new yet on this website but lots of conjecture and gloating at riders caught doping it seems...and reheated internet news mostly

Kléber

It's not my site :roll: I waste enough time posting here to run a blog!

I like it, it doesn't have fawning interviews and cuts through a lot of the public relations bull that's all over cycling. Don't read it as your only source of information but it's a nice addition to my daily reading material.

No dreams about ONCE here, we know full well what was going on there. But I can't think of anyone who's actually come out and said on the record what was going on at ONCE since Zuelle's court room testimony during the Festina trial.

The Casado story is quite tragic and upsetting. He was an average domestique who left GAN in search of more, joined the Jolly Componibili team, with Simoni, and died. No doubt the team doctor, soigneur or who ever sold him the illicit products made a tidy profit and has never been investigated.

andyp

Dave_1 wrote:

The Casado bit is something I put on here a year ago based on looking at who was on lemond's team in 1993 and who moved to Italy and died, based on wat Lemond ahd said. So, cycling fans anonymous is not breaking news there re Casado...if anything, he reads bikeradar...I've mentioned the poor Casado guy twice in a year infact. He won stages in the Mill Race. As for Jalabert, ONCE team...need we dream on any further about what everyone did there?

Follow the link Dave. It's not cfa who makes the comments about Casado but the author of the article he links to.

LangerDan

Re: "Fascinating article"

The use of the graph of "average speeds" is a bit of fudge. He uses "bites" of 13 years and then compares them with the results of individual years since 2005. If you delve a little deeper, the data tells a different story. For instance, the average speed for 1991 - 2004 is shown as around 24.5 mph. However Lances winning average for 2003 is 25.5 mph. For 2004 its 25.2 mph. So the speeds don't magically hop-up in Lances final year - they were high for several years before that.



PS - I thought it was ironic that while reading about the gaming theory approach, the pop-up add was for an online casino

micron

I found the game theory analysis very interesting - it was also very interesting that such a publication mentioned the systematic doping at ONCE. It is common knowledge to all fans not in denial but probably a big revelation to the readers of this journal. And from ONCE we can find a way to Bruyneel and Manolo Saiz and Liberty Seguros and Contador. I don't wish to suggest that these general readers will see this but it is still surprising that these things are becoming printed more openly.

DaveyL

The Steven Levitt "Freakonomics" book details his investigations into cheating in Sumo wrestling and I'm sure in that chapter he makes reference to looking into doping in cycling.

And yes, the graph is a total fudge - no way can you take individual data points and combine them with ranges. In posted something to that extent on the cfa blog, but oddly enough it hasn't appeared yet.

Kléber

Levitt was called as an expert witness in the trial between Armstrong and the insurance company that was used to run a bonus scheme to pay the Texan if he won the Tour de France. Levitt's view was apparently that Armstrong's performances were statistically suggestive of doping. Hardly proof but the theories are interesting.

DaveyL

Thanks, I didn't know that. Can't be often Michael Ashenden and Steven Levitt get called as expert witnesses to the same case!

dave_1

andyp wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

The Casado bit is something I put on here a year ago based on looking at who was on lemond's team in 1993 and who moved to Italy and died, based on wat Lemond ahd said. So, cycling fans anonymous is not breaking news there re Casado...if anything, he reads bikeradar...I've mentioned the poor Casado guy twice in a year infact. He won stages in the Mill Race. As for Jalabert, ONCE team...need we dream on any further about what everyone did there?

Follow the link Dave. It's not cfa who makes the comments about Casado but the author of the article he links to.

:oops: fair enough. And to Kleber and other long termers on here. I think the quality of comments on here varies but in many cases quite good anaylisis is presented by many members of these forums and is probably lifted and used as an idea for an article elsewhere. Remember all the in depth discussions of the Pantani times on Alpe Du Huez, which then show up, I think, as Lionel Birnie or another writer's article in Cycle Sport. Certainly it is not plagarism...but definitely these forums provide ideas for journalistic articles. The person behind anonymous website is that I think.