Grand Tour time...doping stories begin

iainf72

Someone give Ridgerider a stiff drink, it's about Rabo

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/raboban ... ooy-claims

There are also rumours of an impending positive

calvjones

yeeaawwnnn.

blazing_saddles

iainf72 wrote:

Someone give Ridgerider a stiff drink, it's about Rabo

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/raboban ... ooy-claims

There are also rumours of an impending positive

Blimey. That's a weak one in Grand Tour turmoil stakes.
A bit of very old stinky cheese.
The only obvious connection is with that Matt Rendell podcast name dropping.
Anyone for Denis?

iainf72

http://twitter.com/#!/tomsoutham/status ... 8097172481

Thing with stories like this is they tend to turn into something else.

off the back

The Rabo story is old. Very disappointing to see it linked to giro start! Typical sloppy journalism ... Oh giro on, let's splash a doping story on the pages (cycling n doping are synomonis ye know). If they even investigated new doping story but too lazy for that and won't print success stories
Bet we won't see similar splash at euro's or Olympics digging up 5/6 yr old stories.

I think the rumour on big bust coming fromg this. But Thayer could be any sport ....
http://www.ukad.org.uk/news/article/ath ... -violation

RichN95.

off the back wrote:

I think the rumour on big bust coming fromg this. But Thayer could be any sport ....
http://www.ukad.org.uk/news/article/ath ... -violation

That's a wrestler: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/17935720

iainf72

Genius. One of the Rabo docs from that time period is now a doctor for....

Yes, Sky!

LULZ.

No_Ta_Doctor

iainf72 wrote:

Genius. One of the Rabo docs from that time period is now a doctor for....

Yes, Sky!

LULZ.

Slightly embarrassing for them.

inkyfingers

No tA Doctor wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Genius. One of the Rabo docs from that time period is now a doctor for....

Yes, Sky!

LULZ.

Slightly embarrassing for them.

Yes, but name a team with no riders/staff/doctors that have been the subject of a doping story.

No_Ta_Doctor

inkyfingers wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Genius. One of the Rabo docs from that time period is now a doctor for....

Yes, Sky!

LULZ.

Slightly embarrassing for them.

Yes, but name a team with no riders/staff/doctors that have been the subject of a doping story.

It's the ever present conundrum of clean cycling. How to break with a dirty past when pretty much everyone has some degree of taint?

To be fair, having a doctor that knows his dirt but now practices clean medicine could be a great advantage in doing that. If he's trustworthy.

iainf72

No tA Doctor wrote:

It's the ever present conundrum of clean cycling. How to break with a dirty past when pretty much everyone has some degree of taint?

To be fair, having a doctor that knows his dirt but now practices clean medicine could be a great advantage in doing that. If he's trustworthy.

It's all a bit like High Horse and the Freiberg doctors, isn't it?

Did they ask the doctor about doping in his interview? What level of due diligence was done? Sky seem to have a level of rigor about looking at riders which doesn't apply to their backroom staff.

RichN95.

iainf72 wrote:

Did they ask the doctor about doping in his interview? What level of due diligence was done? Sky seem to have a level of rigor about looking at riders which doesn't apply to their backroom staff.

Is there anything to directly link him to this though? Other than being involved with the team. Even the dirtiest teams employed proper doctors to do proper doctor things and not be involved in the doping.

No_Ta_Doctor

iainf72 wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

It's the ever present conundrum of clean cycling. How to break with a dirty past when pretty much everyone has some degree of taint?

To be fair, having a doctor that knows his dirt but now practices clean medicine could be a great advantage in doing that. If he's trustworthy.

It's all a bit like High Horse and the Freiberg doctors, isn't it?

Did they ask the doctor about doping in his interview? What level of due diligence was done? Sky seem to have a level of rigor about looking at riders which doesn't apply to their backroom staff.

To be fair, that rigour is a lot easier with a rider. You know if he's been sanctioned. You can check his blood values. You can test his VO2max etc.

What can you do with a team doctor? Does the UCI even have a procedure for sanctioning doctors?

iainf72

RichN95 wrote:

Is there anything to directly link him to this though? Other than being involved with the team. Even the dirtiest teams employed proper doctors to do proper doctor things and not be involved in the doping.

Aside from him being their doctor at the time and the team manager saying the medical staff turned a blind eye / made sure the riders didn't kill themselves, not much.

In all seriousness, if you interviewed someone for a doctor position on a team, and that doctor happened to have been on the team during the Chickens time and Dekker, you'd certainly want to ask some tough questions, no?

RichN95.

iainf72 wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Is there anything to directly link him to this though? Other than being involved with the team. Even the dirtiest teams employed proper doctors to do proper doctor things and not be involved in the doping.

Aside from him being their doctor at the time and the team manager saying the medical staff turned a blind eye / made sure the riders didn't kill themselves, not much.

In all seriousness, if you interviewed someone for a doctor position on a team, and that doctor happened to have been on the team during the Chickens time and Dekker, you'd certainly want to ask some tough questions, no?

Maybe they did and got satisfactory answers. Who knows?
It's harsh though to denounce a man who has not been named as doing anything wrong based on a short report very low on details and without knowing what he actually did on the team. You can demonise anyone for anything if you try hard enough.
One thing I do know is that if I was DS overseeing a doping program, then the people running it will not be listed as official employees and they won't be on the official pay roll. No-one I've officially hired to be involved. All outsourced to maintain plausible deniabilty.

BikingBernie

off the back wrote:

The Rabo story is old.

Isn't it a more of a new story about doping that happened a few years ago, or has Theo de Rooy talked about this before?

iainf72

Isn't that kind of the point here. The doctors knew what they were doing but they didn't discourage it. It was broadly accepted on the time, which kind of ties in with what happened on the Tour when Rass was binned and one of the riders abandoned in disgust at the hypocrisy of it all.

I didn't put the team on an ethical podium. They did that themselves.

ridgerider

Well whatever they were, they sure weren't performing enhancing drugs!

rick_chasey

Ridgerider wrote:

Well whatever they were, they sure weren't performing enhancing drugs!