Another Gianetti rider bites the dust

iainf72

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/lat ... r-epo.html

andyp

Have you seen the quote from Matxin in the paper edition of CW this week, in relation to them signing this Tom Faiers chap?

He claims the team have a strong anti-doping policy. :shock:

I genuinely lol'd.

dave_1

got to admit Saunier/Fuji are building up a hell of a doping palmares there..not to mention the boss has previous, though he's like most DSs I imagine...so picking on him is perhaps a little unfair?..hope fuji stay in and in the Pro Tour...were you in this "Faiers chap" you'd be hoping the team goes ahead, we'd all jump at the chance of a place in fuji if we were that age...even if they're dodgy as they seem to be...a step up

andyp

How many positives is that in the past 18 months? Six? Mayo, Ricco, Peipoli, Serrano, Lobato and now Fernandez.

Once or twice is unfortunate, but 25% of your roster suggests a program. A badly administered program at that.

Noodley

David Millar 'must' have known about what SD were upto when he was there.

dave_1

Noodley wrote:

David Millar 'must' have known about what SD were upto when he was there.

that's speculative...he may not have wanted to know...which is not good... but when one needs a job.

Rodrego Hernandez

Who knows that he didn't do something about it?

Looks like the UCI are targeting their riders so someone is on the ball for once.

dennisn

andyp wrote:

How many positives is that in the past 18 months? Six? Mayo, Ricco, Peipoli, Serrano, Lobato and now Fernandez.

Once or twice is unfortunate, but 25% of your roster suggests a program. A badly administered program at that.

Call me a skeptic or naive, if you must, but I just can't buy into the notion that there are "bad teams", so to speak. I'm sticking with the "bad individuals" idea. In this day and age it's just to risky for team members to let other members know about their "regimen"(or whatever you want to call it). I sort of put myself in their position and I sure as h*ll wouldn't be discussing my "illegal activities" with anyone other that my "supplier". Maybe in the not so distant past teams had "drug dealers" on the payroll, but these days.....????

iainf72

So what would you say accounts for a huge number of positives from one team

They either

- Have a program
- Tell the riders to get "help" externally
- Have poor medical controls
- Hire riders they know are dodgy
- Just don't care

The environment of the team must be one where doping is not really frowned upon.

dave_1

andyp wrote:

How many positives is that in the past 18 months? Six? Mayo, Ricco, Peipoli, Serrano, Lobato and now Fernandez.

Once or twice is unfortunate, but 25% of your roster suggests a program. A badly administered program at that.

I think roughly only 12 of 26 riders from 2008 continued with the team in 2009, and for 2009 they have 24 riders...12 of whom are from the 2008 team...so it isn't 25% of the team + in 18 months, but nearer half of that approx......more like 13%..basically they've had 38 riders in the past 18 months and five +s? (Mayo was 2007)..5+ (not 10+) out of 38 riders. Doesn't not suggest a program but it is still debatable. Half the team is new each season so we tar them all?

Raúl Alarcón
- Raivis Belohvosciks
- José Alberto Benítez
- Rubens Bertogliati
- Iker Camaño
- David Cañada
- Eros Capecchi
- Ermanno Capelli
- Juanjo Cobo
- David de la Fuente
- Jesús Del Nero
- Arkaitz Durán
- Alberto Fernández
- Denis Flahaut
- Ángel ‘Litu’ Gómez
- J.A. Gómez Marchante
- Héctor González
- Beñat Intxausti
- Josep Jufré
- Rubén Lobato
- Javier Megías
- Manuele Mori
- Luciano Pagliarini
- Aurélien Passeron
- Leonardo Piepoli
- Riccardo Riccò

2009 Team


Paolo Bailetti (ITA)
José Alberto Benítez (ESP)
Iker Camaño (ESP)
David Cañada (ESP)
Eros Capecchi (ITA)
Ermanno Capelli (ITA)
Hilton Clarke (AUS)
Juan José Cobo (ESP)
David de la Fuente (ESP)
Jesús Del Nero (ESP)
Arkaitz Durán (ESP)
Alberto Fernández (ESP)
Héctor González (ESP)
Ángel Gómez (ESP)
Beñat Intxausti (ESP)
Josep Jufré (ESP) August 5,
Fredrik Kessiakoff (SWE)
Robert Kiserlovski (CRO)
Javier Mejías (ESP)
Fabrice Piemontesi (ITA)
Boris Shpilevsky (RUS)
Andrea Tonti (ITA)
Davide Viganò (ITA)
William Walker (AUS)

dennisn

iainf72 wrote:

So what would you say accounts for a huge number of positives from one team

They either

- Have a program
- Tell the riders to get "help" externally
- Have poor medical controls
- Hire riders they know are dodgy
- Just don't care

The environment of the team must be one where doping is not really frowned upon.

You could be right. Anything is possible. I just don't see the "conspiracy" aspect of all this.
Seems to be more of an individual(every man for himself) thing. I could be wrong, but
that's the way I look at it.

andyp

Come on, the team is run by Mauro Gianetti! As far as team directors are concerned there's none dodgier. Does anyone seriously think he doesn't know what's going on? A man who, should we forget, nearly died at the roadside at the Tour of Romandie in 1998 after taking PFC;

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/18/sport ... oping.html

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

RichN95.

The ASO will be happy. Tour de France entry this year is pretty competative and I'm sure they'd like to exclude this no stars team again. They need a decent excuse that will hold up at the CAS again, due to the 'guaranteed entry' ProTour scheme that FS are a part of.

dave_1

andyp wrote:

Come on, the team is run by Mauro Gianetti! As far as team directors are concerned there's none dodgier. Does anyone seriously think he doesn't know what's going on? A man who, should we forget, nearly died at the roadside at the Tour of Romandie in 1998 after taking PFC;

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/18/sport ... oping.html

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

..your 25% claim is out by half...you invented 4 + that didn't happen to fit your arguement as the numbers above show...... We all know Gianetti has previous...doesn't mean he is making all his riders do the same....

jerry3571

Willly Voet was a soigneur for Festina. He used to administer the drugs to the riders and he got his orders from the Team Doc. He also got caught with a boot load of drugs. I'm sure the programme is mostly Team based as the Team Doc would be in charge of the doping programme. The top guys would then get special instructions from one of the "Mythical" Doctors (Procycling Manager reference - Dr Fuentes maybe??) to further their progress.

I do laugh at some Teams doping programmes as if they test their riders for being dope free but I'm sure that it's more to do with testing to ensure they are not caught. A bit like checking yor breathe and smelling your armpits before heading out on a hot date.

There are Teams that get caught and Columbia and Astana who don't. The big budget Teams have the brains and know how to keep ahead of the system. Smaller Teams are trying to keep up on the limited resources and keep dropping the ball.
What I find amazing is that these small Teams are using EPO and still not winning much which makes me wonder what the top guys are using. I will admit that the cream rises to the top but it makes the mind boggle to what the lower divisions are using.

Uk riders used to stay at home so they could hold down a job and ride dope free instead of living the life a Continental Pro (doping problems). That bubble seems top have burst.

Cheers Jerry

andyp

Dave_1 wrote:

..your 25% claim is out by half...you invented 4 + that didn't happen to fit your arguement as the numbers above show...... We all know Gianetti has previous...doesn't mean he is making all his riders do the same....

I'm so sorry, my quick maths didn't quite work out to be exactly accurate. I just thought that having 6 riders out of a roster of 26 test positive was close to a quarter of the team.

If you really believe that last statement then you're very naive. It would be easy for Gianetti to change the culture in his team but he doesn't. Which begs the question, why not? My view is the one touched upon by Iain, namely that Gianetti doesn't care, he just wants wins at any cost. This approach is turning out to be self destructive now though, as the team is getting invited to less and less races due to their indifferent stance on doping.

blazing_saddles

How well is the passport working?
It's seems to be able to identify probable targets.
However, so far, they've all come up trumps for the same PED.

It's starting to resemble a red flag warning, whereby, only the stupid, or poor get caught.
Gianetti's bunch probably fall into both catagories.

Must be very reassuring for riders on better programmes to realise since they aren't using old EPO variants, they won't be caught.

Easy to see why DDLF and Cobo jumped ship. My only surprise is it took them so long.

dave_1

andyp wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

..your 25% claim is out by half...you invented 4 + that didn't happen to fit your arguement as the numbers above show...... We all know Gianetti has previous...doesn't mean he is making all his riders do the same....

I'm so sorry, my quick maths didn't quite work out to be exactly accurate. I just thought that having 6 riders out of a roster of 26 test positive was close to a quarter of the team.

If you really believe that last statement then you're very naive. It would be easy for Gianetti to change the culture in his team but he doesn't. Which begs the question, why not? My view is the one touched upon by Iain, namely that Gianetti doesn't care, he just wants wins at any cost. This approach is turning out to be self destructive now though, as the team is getting invited to less and less races due to their indifferent stance on doping.

I don't think it's fair to call me naive for thinking that we should not tar all 38 riders as dopers cause of 5 cases of doping in the past 18 months. Festina even had some non dopers ...festina's doping seemed like it was happening in a team within the team.

andyp

Dave_1 wrote:

I don't think it's fair to call me naive for thinking that we should not tar all 38 riders as dopers cause of 5 cases of doping in the past 18 months. Festina even had some non dopers ...festina's doping seemed like it was happening in a team within the team.

It's well publicised that Festina had one non-doper in the team, Christophe Bassons. Everyone else signed up. At the trial, Thomas Davy stated under oath that four other teams that he was aware of (Banesto, Castorama, Francaise des Jeux and Telecom) ran team wide doping programs. There is evidence to suggest that other teams, i.e. Gewiss and Carrera in the 1990s, and USPS, Telekom and Cofidis in this decade, have also run team wide doping programs.

It's also clear from Puerto that Spanish teams ran team wide doping programs, i.e. both ONCE and Kelme were implicated.

That's why I think it's fair to suggest you might be naive in this case.

dave_1

andyp wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

I don't think it's fair to call me naive for thinking that we should not tar all 38 riders as dopers cause of 5 cases of doping in the past 18 months. Festina even had some non dopers ...festina's doping seemed like it was happening in a team within the team.

It's well publicised that Festina had one non-doper in the team, Christophe Bassons. Everyone else signed up. At the trial, Thomas Davy stated under oath that four other teams that he was aware of (Banesto, Castorama, Francaise des Jeux and Telecom) ran team wide doping programs. There is evidence to suggest that other teams, i.e. Gewiss and Carrera in the 1990s, and USPS, Telekom and Cofidis in this decade, have also run team wide doping programs.

It's also clear from Puerto that Spanish teams ran team wide doping programs, i.e. both ONCE and Kelme were implicated.

That's why I think it's fair to suggest you might be naive in this case.

So you think team wide doping-everyone at it within the team with DSs help? My apologies for giving some of them the benefit of the doubt...on the average some of 38 athletes will be honest.

From what we read Millar went to an Euskatel Dr for EPO, Ricco and Piepoli to their own Dr....these are examples of riders going outwith teams to dope......hardly team wide doping. Your theory leads to the conclusion that whole teams sit together and inject EPO or other stuff? I believe riders can opt out of doping if they wish, you don't....

andyp

Dave_1 wrote:

So you think team wide doping-everyone at it within the team with DSs help? My apologies for giving some of them the benefit of the doubt...on the average some of 38 athletes will be honest.

From what we read Millar went to an Euskatel Dr for EPO, Ricco and Piepoli to their own Dr....these are examples of riders going outwith teams to dope......hardly team wide doping. Your theory leads to the conclusion that whole teams sit together and inject EPO or other stuff? I believe riders can opt out of doping if they wish, you don't....

Yes I believe there is team wide doping and of course the DSs know what's going on. They need to decide race strategies and knowing who is in form, who isn't, the strengths and weakness of each rider, who's doped, who isn't, etc. is essential to this. I don't think every team does this anymore like the 1990s but it's clear some still are.

My theory doesn't lead to the conclusion you've drawn, rather there will a well co-ordinated program in place. Matt Rendell describes how in Mercatone Uno one rider was always clean so he could be sent down first to the 'vampires' when they were tested to give the rest of the team time to get their haematocrit levels done below 50%.

I'm sure riders can opt out, but in some teams they'll be the ones looking for new employment at the end of the year.

dave_1

andyp wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

So you think team wide doping-everyone at it within the team with DSs help? My apologies for giving some of them the benefit of the doubt...on the average some of 38 athletes will be honest.

From what we read Millar went to an Euskatel Dr for EPO, Ricco and Piepoli to their own Dr....these are examples of riders going outwith teams to dope......hardly team wide doping. Your theory leads to the conclusion that whole teams sit together and inject EPO or other stuff? I believe riders can opt out of doping if they wish, you don't....

Yes I believe there is team wide doping and of course the DSs know what's going on. They need to decide race strategies and knowing who is in form, who isn't, the strengths and weakness of each rider, who's doped, who isn't, etc. is essential to this. I don't think every team does this anymore like the 1990s but it's clear some still are.

My theory doesn't lead to the conclusion you've drawn, rather there will a well co-ordinated program in place. Matt Rendell describes how in Mercatone Uno one rider was always clean so he could be sent down first to the 'vampires' when they were tested to give the rest of the team time to get their haematocrit levels done below 50%.

I'm sure riders can opt out, but in some teams they'll be the ones looking for new employment at the end of the year.

I see the Gianetti team have a very high turnover 12 of 24 leaving in 08 let's see how many in 09...I'd say a high turnover says something negative about the team....one issue...David Millar had very few offers in 05/06 I guess...remember all the DSs who wouldn't touch him..they were all interviewed in 2005 late in the year. To be fair, maybe Millar had very few choices at that point so we can't declare him + for joing Gianetti's team..I don't believe he did EPO after the ban or he'd have won more than he has.

andyp

A cynic might say that Gianetti signed Millar as a PR gesture, i.e. we're a team who support riders who are vocal in their anti-doping stance.

I seem to recall Millar being pretty damning about the practices of certain riders in the team after he'd left?

LangerDan

andyp wrote:

A cynic might say that Gianetti signed Millar as a PR gesture, i.e. we're a team who support riders who are vocal in their anti-doping stance.

I seem to recall Millar being pretty damning about the practices of certain riders in the team after he'd left?

"There's none so pure
As the reformed hoor"

jerry3571

I think the top riders can have their own specialised drug programme; a bit like Ullrich getting his fat burning pills around the time of the Tour of Switzerland. I think he once did the Giro and was very chunky, won the Tour of Switzerland and was soft looking and unlike what Armstrong thought, Ullrich was ripped for the Tour.
Ullrich, I guess, would get his instructions from Dr Fuentes and then his information passed on to the Telekom Doctors to implement. It's a bit like a GP defering to a Consultant when more specialised treatment is needed. Of course Ullrich would be putting up the £35 000 cash. Team discussions would sort this all out with Manager, Team Docs and Fuentes and the rider.
The trick is that the Team and the rider want to win at all costs so they find, as a Team, the best methods to do so. A rider on his own would not be able to carry out this complex medical treatment especially the dopey ones and remembering some of Ullrich's tactics in the past...well...I wouldn't want to put a needle in his hand.

-Jerry

Ps- I do agree that if a rider wants to go dope free then he/she must be a huge talent to be a able to do their job. Also, the pay would be less as the doping makes you go faster and the faster and longer you go the more use to a Team you are. If you want to get dropped on the first mountain and abandon races, not sprint or stay at the front for long or be too tired to fetch water bootles all day at 50 kmph then there is no place on professional Team.

dennisn

LangerDan wrote:

andyp wrote:

A cynic might say that Gianetti signed Millar as a PR gesture, i.e. we're a team who support riders who are vocal in their anti-doping stance.

I seem to recall Millar being pretty damning about the practices of certain riders in the team after he'd left?

"There's none so pure
As the reformed hoor"

+1 or the reformed smoker