JTL

cougie

Brian Smith is vouching for him being clean at Endura. Maybe it is a health issue.

Turfle

It may be, but it took Brian until 2012 to consider that Armstrong may have been cheating.

Pross

sjmclean wrote:

I doubt he's on that much, I remember reading an interview with Luke Rowe and he was saying how as new pro's they don't earn that much in a salary.

To be fair I think JTL's position was slightly different to most neo pros but still can't see £400k being correct even over two years. I doubt riders like Roche, Moreno etc. who are top class domestiques /potential winners earn that much.

inseine

News of JLT are all over radio 4, including live reports from Florence, and hardly a mention of the race.

frenchfighter

Id strongly recommend reading Brians comments (Cnews). Seems v legit to me and respect to him for supporting JTL. He said what I said - the silly training messed with him.

r0bh

frenchfighter wrote:

Id strongly recommend reading Brians comments (Cnews). Seems v legit to me and respect to him for supporting JTL. He said what I said - the silly training messed with him.

I agree with FF (and not often I can say that!) - it's equally plausible IMHO that overtraining and/or illness have lowered his levels in 2013 cf. his natural levels in 2012, as 2013 are natural levels and 2012 were elevated by doping.

mechanism

Would "normal" followed by "suppressed" levels be enough to trigger a doping case though? Pure speculation and all that.

mike6

frenchfighter wrote:

Id strongly recommend reading Brians comments (Cnews). Seems v legit to me and respect to him for supporting JTL. He said what I said - the silly training messed with him.

Silly training? Get real, the riders at Sky get there own personal coach. Also, the methods they employ have won the toughest cycle race on the calendar two years running, plus lots of other titles. Silly training is it? I have a feeling most Pro Tour teams would settle for a bit of that.
Put your childish bigotry to bed and support the riders you like without feeling you have to bad mouth teams or races when things don't go the way you would like. Its called sport. :roll:

Pross

Surely a bio passport needs a few years data to establish 'normal'? It will be interesting to find out if his values from last year are considered high or if this year is just on the low side.

inseine

Pross wrote:

Surely a bio passport needs a few years data to establish 'normal'? It will be interesting to find out if his values from last year are considered high or if this year is just on the low side.

They say it only takes 6 months or so. I got the impression that they're looking for irregularities, relative to the baseline which is individual to each athlete, so there aren't general highs and lows as such.

skylla

frenchfighter wrote:

Id strongly recommend reading Brians comments (Cnews). Seems v legit to me and respect to him for supporting JTL. He said what I said - the silly training messed with him.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/former-endura-manager-defends-tiernan-locke

Gooner69

"For me, I don’t know how he’s going to explain this to the UCI but I don’t think he should have anything to worry about. I can put my hand up though and say 100 per cent that I don’t think he was doping at Endura Racing"

Taken from the link above, Its the very minimum I would expect for him to defend his former rider when suspicion is upon him.

I personally would be surprised if this amounts to much, but the previously doped/now shit scenario does kinda fit..

blazing_saddles

The Sunday (paywall) Times article:
http://pastebin.com/dhcgkep7

morstar

mike6 wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

Id strongly recommend reading Brians comments (Cnews). Seems v legit to me and respect to him for supporting JTL. He said what I said - the silly training messed with him.

Silly training? Get real, the riders at Sky get there own personal coach. Also, the methods they employ have won the toughest cycle race on the calendar two years running, plus lots of other titles. Silly training is it? I have a feeling most Pro Tour teams would settle for a bit of that.
Put your childish bigotry to bed and support the riders you like without feeling you have to bad mouth teams or races when things don't go the way you would like. Its called sport. :roll:

I think the choice of the word silly is poor but that aside, FF does seem to be the only one putting 2 and 2 together here. JTL's form has dipped massively. Prior to this recent development, it has been accepted that the Sky regime hasn't suited him.
It now transpires his blood values have dipped. That is either simply reflective of the training impact and loss of form or because they were artificially high last year. Most are assuming the latter.

tailwindhome

So....if he's innocent how does he prove it?

ad_snow

I think they dunk him in a pond, and if he drowns then he was innocent but if he lives he's a witch?

shinyhelmut

ad_snow wrote:

I think they dunk him in a pond, and if he drowns then he was innocent but if he lives he's a witch?

AKA the Vayer test.

narbs

morstar wrote:

I think the choice of the word silly is poor but that aside, FF does seem to be the only one putting 2 and 2 together here. JTL's form has dipped massively. Prior to this recent development, it has been accepted that the Sky regime hasn't suited him.
It now transpires his blood values have dipped. That is either simply reflective of the training impact and loss of form or because they were artificially high last year. Most are assuming the latter.

Taking all this into account, why did he sign for Sky and why did Sky sign him. It's seemed fairly clear that he feels that a certain way of training is what works best for him. It's also clear to everyone that Sky's training structure is pretty numbers-based and regimented.

Unless all this is wrong I'm struggling to see why they signed him/why he signed.

morstar

TailWindHome wrote:

So....if he's innocent how does he prove it?

Good question! What is the procedure (duckings aside)? Presumably at this stage it's an opportunity to provide a clear explanation if there is one (say medical issue) but in the absence of that simply facing the fact that rider and testers are going to be very cosy over the coming months.

morstar

narbs wrote:

morstar wrote:

I think the choice of the word silly is poor but that aside, FF does seem to be the only one putting 2 and 2 together here. JTL's form has dipped massively. Prior to this recent development, it has been accepted that the Sky regime hasn't suited him.
It now transpires his blood values have dipped. That is either simply reflective of the training impact and loss of form or because they were artificially high last year. Most are assuming the latter.

Taking all this into account, why did he sign for Sky and why did Sky sign him. It's seemed fairly clear that he feels that a certain way of training is what works best for him. It's also clear to everyone that Sky's training structure is pretty numbers-based and regimented.

Unless all this is wrong I'm struggling to see why they signed him/why he signed.

They worked together extensively at the end of 2012 so presumably both parties were aware of the necessary changes but were making an informed decision. I suppose it's no different from anybody else earning a promotion on merit and subsequently finding they've bitten off more than they can chew or the new employer isn't the right fit.

dortmunder

Blazing Saddles wrote:

The Sunday (paywall) Times article:
http://pastebin.com/dhcgkep7

Thanks for posting that.

LeicesterLad

Sky were blood testing JTL from April last year, if he'd been doping surely they would know about it?

islwyn

I'll be sitting back and watching this develop. As a fellow Born-Devonian I hope it's not true, I like the guy - it's true he's had a dreadful 2013 season and it's easy to make a judgement that he was 'great' last season because he was doping, this year he's not and he's not doing anything - but that would be just too easy to call...

markwb79

I am shocked that it has taken irregular blood values to raise an eyebrow.

lostboysaint

LeicesterLad wrote:

Sky were blood testing JTL from April last year, if he'd been doping surely they would know about it?

That brings us back to the whole "establishing a baseline" situation. Whilst they may have been blood testing him from April until December it would have only been to establish that baseline so that they can then get his passport information together. It would only be from January that the numbers produced would reflect on different preparation (and I use the word very carefully) and produce different results thereby calling his "lack of form" into question.

markwb79

If true, then Sky have continued for 9 months like this? (With questions about the baseline)?

Richmond Racer

Sky didn't 'blood test' him from Apr to Dec last year. That's not true.

When they were interested in him last year they reviewed blood tests etc, just as Garmin had a battery of tests run on him last Apr.

Both teams' analysis of his values last spring revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

The UCI started testing him in Sep - its results from then that are out of kilter with the baseline they've built up for him since he's been with Sky and tested regularly.

Teams don't run continuous batteries of tests in-house. If you listen to the latest Humans Invent podcast released last night, Richard Moore and Daniel Friebe discuss this. Teams rely on the UCI BP system.

negativelycra

As much as I hate cheaters, what has happened to innocent until proven guilty? JTL has not tested positive for drugs, yet everyone is already talking about him as if he's been necking tainted steak for years.

Obvioulsy, if he has been cheating, I'll be very much in the anti camp. I'm not sure this board will be though - as a group we seem to have one attitude towards any Brit being sucessful (terrible, must be a cheater), and another attitude towards e.g spaniards that have been cought cheating (we'll let them off, they're still cool).

In other news, Minardi has decided that Vettel sounds like he has traction control at Singapore. Should the world now decide that Vettel's dominance over the last 4 seasons is dodgy, or is it better to wait till the FIA have had a shuftie at his ECU?

Yellow Peril

Negativelycra wrote:

As much as I hate cheaters, what has happened to innocent until proven guilty? JTL has not tested positive for drugs, yet everyone is already talking about him as if he's been necking tainted steak for years.

Obvioulsy, if he has been cheating, I'll be very much in the anti camp. I'm not sure this board will be though - as a group we seem to have one attitude towards any Brit being sucessful (terrible, must be a cheater), and another attitude towards e.g spaniards that have been cought cheating (we'll let them off, they're still cool).

In other news, Minardi has decided that Vettel sounds like he has traction control at Singapore. Should the world now decide that Vettel's dominance over the last 4 seasons is dodgy, or is it better to wait till the FIA have had a shuftie at his ECU?[/quote]

If his car weighs less than the UCI permitted 6.8kg ban him

greasedscotsman

Negativelycra wrote:

In other news, Minardi has decided that Vettel sounds like he has traction control at Singapore. Should the world now decide that Vettel's dominance over the last 4 seasons is dodgy, or is it better to wait till the FIA have had a shuftie at his ECU?

Are you sure about this? Minardi haven't raced in F1 since 2005. They were bought out by Red Bull in 2006 and have raced as Toro Rosso since. Vettel's first F1 race was in 2007, for Toro Rosso, don't think it's going to be them complaining.