Team Bosses

DavMartinR

Are they part of the problem?

Or are they the ones sat in the middle? Just like a father of a teenager daughter sat at home when she goes out with her skirt half way up her backside, hoping she doesn't come home with another one of those goth idiots?

They can't keep the riders in a hotel on Guantanamo bay and only let them out when there is a race?

Are there bosses you would trust?

timoid.

Most definitely.

The clean teams are run by people with a genuine commitment to dope free sport. The Kaazakh, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Belgian teams are not.

And as for CSC; how the fook di Birillo ever sneak those transfusions during the Festival of May without Riis knowing about it? Schumi could have hidden his CERA from Holzer. Blood transfusions are different.

hopper1

It is the Team Bosses that put pressure on their riders to do well.
They may not actually give a direct order to a rider to dope, but I'm sure that they can express their (Bosses) expectations, and the consequences (rider failure), in such a way that the riders understand what is required..... :roll:

Trev36

DavMartinR wrote:

Are they part of the problem?

Certainly, at least I think so.
So far the rider is a fall guy (so to speak), whilst the management just say they are shocked & dissapointed in said rider :roll: and carry on as per normal.

Teams should be penalised, particularly if (lets say) 2 or more riders (pick a time frame) test positive within the team. Suspend the team and make the management responsible for their riders.
It wouldn't take long before the "internal anti doping programs" to be real and throrough.
Riders will not want to ride on teams with suspect riders/management and it could well swing the peer group pressure around from the current (or former?) Omerta to we'll kick your ass if your doping.

iainf72

Timoid. wrote:

The clean teams are run by people with a genuine commitment to dope free sport. The Kaazakh, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Belgian teams are not.

Are there any teams commited to it aside from Garmin (the company also support Ivan Basso so they're hedging their bets a bit) and the French?

Oh, and those Italian fellows who are down with the Pope.

Kléber

On cyclingnews.com you have the Quick Step manager talking about Schumacher saying "there always had been rumours about him" but clearly this didn't stop him signing him, the precautionary principle doesn't bother him. So long as you can fly under the radar, it's cool for Patrick.

FJS

Timoid. wrote:

The clean teams are run by people with a genuine commitment to dope free sport. The Kaazakh, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Belgian teams are not.

iainf72 wrote:

Are there any teams commited to it aside from Garmin (the company also support Ivan Basso so they're hedging their bets a bit) and the French?
Oh, and those Italian fellows who are down with the Pope.

I tend to find that quite naive. That the French teams make a fuss about themselves being clean and the rest not does not mean they're actually clean. A couple of positives the last two years should be enough to dismiss that myth.
I agree that it's pretty unlikely Amore & Vita runs a team-organized doping programme (would be pretty interesting though), but does the pope run a watertight control scheme of all individual riders?

IMHO opinion teams can roughly be divided intothree categories: those who seem on face value committed to tackiling doping use, those who perhaps do not run an organized doping programme but leave their riders freedom and limit managment to PR damage control, and then the really dodgy teams.

Kléber

I disagree FJS, the fact that a couple of riders were caught in French teams shows the teams are clean but sadly a few riders are not.

It all changed a long time ago. I think it was back in 1997 when the gendarmes busted the Francaise des Jeux camper van and found Gianetti and Sciandri's stash of EPO. The sponsor sat down with Marc Madiot and was close to pulling out but they said "no, we'll stay if you do it clean, we don't want to win at all costs". Now this works for French teams as they don't have to win much but are guaranteed a ride in the Tour de France, so for a small budget they can get big publicity.

So in some ways the teams can be clean and not forced to dope because they just don't have to worry about results. An Italian or Dutch team doesn't have the same privilege.

andy_wrx

Are they part of the problem ?

When so many team principals and directeurs sportif are ex-riders from the last decade, when doping was (allegedly!) commonplace, what d'you think ?

DavMartinR

[/quote]When so many team principals and directeurs sportif are ex-riders from the last decade, when doping was (allegedly!) commonplace, what d'you think ?

Well in that case are we just treating the illness? Catching the riders,but not treating the cause the old school bosses?

This may make you laugh, but what about centrally contracting the bosses with the UCI? ( I know with there track record :roll: ). But wouldn't be easier to get rid of these old school bosses and bring in the next generation. Plus the UCI could move the bosses around to different teams so riders that are on the watch list get a different boss?

FJS

Sorry, but a clean team with riders that are not clean is only halfway, in these times. Just not good enough.
I'm not 100% convinced for instance that Guimard didn't had his doubts about Moreni or Legeay could not have had more suspicions about Fofonov.
I agree that the French teams are not amongst those most suspiscious of a team-organized doping scheme, but I wouldn't say for instance Lotto is, or even teams like Quick Step and Rabobank that seem to be of the sort that leave their riders way too much freedom, without necessarily running a team-managed doping scheme themselves.
I completely agree Patrick Levefre is dodgy, of the 'see no evil hear no evil, safe my own butt and keep the omerta alive' type.

timoid.

iainf72 wrote:

Timoid. wrote:

The clean teams are run by people with a genuine commitment to dope free sport. The Kaazakh, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Belgian teams are not.

Are there any teams commited to it aside from Garmin (the company also support Ivan Basso so they're hedging their bets a bit) and the French?

Oh, and those Italian fellows who are down with the Pope.

CA, BT, and FdJ of the pro peleton. I think Gerolsteiner wanted to be clean, but had no means of controlling their riders.

skavanagh.bikeradar

The Pope doesn't need to keep his eye on the Italian lads as, being Catholic, their God is permanently everywhere at all times and knows what they are doing and thinking. Those that cheat and lie were found out immediately by this higher power. Of course if you don't believe in all that and just do it for show as it's a cultural thing then it won't bother you in the slightest. Eh Brillo?

disgruntledgoat

DavMartinR wrote:

When so many team principals and directeurs sportif are ex-riders from the last decade, when doping was (allegedly!) commonplace, what d'you think ?

Well in that case are we just treating the illness? Catching the riders,but not treating the cause the old school bosses?

This may make you laugh, but what about centrally contracting the bosses with the UCI? ( I know with there track record :roll: ). But wouldn't be easier to get rid of these old school bosses and bring in the next generation. Plus the UCI could move the bosses around to different teams so riders that are on the watch list get a different boss?

Maybe if the UCI licensed them on some sort of "fit and proper" test... As for contracting them, in a sport that already has so many problems with unbelievable results and accompanying Omerta that's just an accident wating to happen.

DavMartinR

I know it wouldn't be easy, but if they were centrally contracted to the UCI people like Riis would of had his cards the day he confessed?

Now he is sitting there with yea Frank was a little bit naughty we have suspended him,but my job is safe??

LangerDan

DavMartinR wrote:

I know it wouldn't be easy, but if they were centrally contracted to the UCI people like Riis would of had his cards the day he confessed?

As would Rolf Aldag and Brian Holm of Columbia, David Millar (and probably JV, allegedly) of Garmin, Christian Henn of Gerolsteiner and all the other former dopers who had the good fortune to land jobs with "acceptable" teams.

squired

I think it depends on the individuals. Enough people in the real world manage to have affairs behind their partner's back either without that person realising or maybe with a few suspicions raised, but nothing definite. I think its important to compare it with something like that. A friend of mine is married, with two kids, but is off with all sorts of women. From what I understand his wife isn't aware that anything is going on.

Take that and compare it to a team DS. With more than one group from the same team racing at any time he may only see some of the riders a handful of times a year. Interaction may be a few words during races, team meals and strategy sessions. Apart from that at races he is off doing his job and the rider will be in his hotel room. If he thinks a rider may be doing something dodgy what does he do? Have a word with the rider maybe? Well, Sebastien Lang said they did that with SS, and he flat out denied that he'd done anything wrong.

Thus I believe the teams are in a difficult situation. Which rumours do you believe and which don't you believe? If the health tests are there to help you make up your mind about a rider, then you put your faith in science, as Quick Step did with SS. Unfortunately the science clearly isn't up to scratch yet and the so called new generation of clean cyclists aren't what they were made out to be.

disgruntledgoat

I disagree... Surely the idea that you will be hounded out of cycling never to return should you ever get caught or, more pertinently, your mates ever get caught is even less of an incentive to break the omerta.

Conversely the idea of racing for your contract would be gone forever as, barring the top races, every race would be fixed to ensure a nice cosy carve up amongst the teams and riders, as no element of competition would need to exist any more.

DavMartinR

disgruntledgoat wrote:

I disagree... Surely the idea that you will be hounded out of cycling never to return should you ever get caught or, more pertinently, your mates ever get caught is even less of an incentive to break the omerta.

Conversely the idea of racing for your contract would be gone forever as, barring the top races, every race would be fixed to ensure a nice cosy carve up amongst the teams and riders, as no element of competition would need to exist any more.

But isn't pressure of a new contract driving riders to dope? Look a Schumacher in the tour with Gerolstein pulling out he was pushing himself into the shop window.

disgruntledgoat

Obviously there's some middle ground here. If team bosses are employed by the governing body they are there for life. They can't be sacked for poor performance, as how do you define it in an evironment where all the teams are employed by the mandrins of the sport?

Surely to goodness you leave yourself open to races being fixed between teams who now have a no lose situation, nobody wnats to take bread out of their rivals mouths and the reason sponsors leave is poor results. So the results are no longer poor. For anybody. Either that or the UCI gets to decide who wins. Hey, just like the WWF.

"good god... thats... thats Tom Boonen's music!"

leguape

LangerDan wrote:

DavMartinR wrote:

I know it wouldn't be easy, but if they were centrally contracted to the UCI people like Riis would of had his cards the day he confessed?

As would Rolf Aldag and Brian Holm of Columbia, David Millar (and probably JV, allegedly) of Garmin, Christian Henn of Gerolsteiner and all the other former dopers who had the good fortune to land jobs with "acceptable" teams.

Centrally controlled sport is a bad thing I think, it's how you end up with corruption because it is in the interest of the controlling party to avoid scandal.

With JV, I'm starting to have a real problem with his inability to properly 'fess up. If it's so important to his whole Garmin mission then he really needs to clear that one down once and for all. He's the son of a lawyer, his dad can probably explain the advantages of full disclosure to him.

skavanagh.bikeradar

I suspect it's not implicating himself that's the issue for JV.

Kléber

JV has admitted the past but only through weasel language. But surely if he opened is trap, it would only confirm industrialised practices under Bruyneel and he'd be flamed by the Postal fanboys, half the US bike industry would be looking for him to trip up.

DavMartinR

I don't see many team bosses getting the sack for poor results now?

As for race fixing and corruption they've been going on as long as there was a bike?

If they were centrally contracted and issued a team that the UCI and the sponsors were happy with but the UCI as the employer not the sponsor how much worse would it be that now?

skavanagh.bikeradar

I'm guessing that's pretty much his thinking. Hmmm. Nice day for a bike ride!

richard wants a baum

JV not stupid enough to make claims he cant prove and get dragged through court and eventually sued for nothing. Yes if he came out and said i doped LA doped it was the whole team everyone in the cycling world would have proof of what been long suspected but it would amount to nothing other than JV losing his team ( a team thats doing the right thing and getting good results) LA still being defended by those who cant accept anything else. And forums being full of nothing but the LA haters posting threads full of 'i told you so' for the rest of time. DS's have a resoponsibilty to do there jobs (ie manage riders to do well which does include putting a bit of pressure on) but make it abundently clear that doping is unacceptable. Like the riders there good ones and bad ones. The UCI doesnt need any more power over anything else, they have a hard enough time just doing what they suppose to now.