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  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,241
    Timoid. wrote:
    RichN95 wrote:
    gabriel959 wrote:

    Seems like this forum was all well and good when it came to point out the ridiculous performances of foreign riders but when it comes to speaking about your own, all the possible eyebrow-raising performances get hidden under the carpet of "management wizards" or "altitude training in the Canary Islands" or other crap created by the propaganda machine. And to top it all up references to the biggest hypocrite in the sport, David Syringe Millar.
    But this forum doesn't point out doping in 'ridiculous' (or just unexpected) performances by foreigners. We tend to give riders the benefit of the doubt. Where are accusations against Sagan or Hesjedal or De Gendt or Gilbert or Voeckler? If it's someone with a past then maybe something may be said.


    [devil's advocate]
    - Sagan has been great straight off the blocks, so no magical improvement there
    - Hesjedal rides for a genuinely transparant team (and still had a few things slung at him after the Giro)
    - De Gent was a once off stage. If he monsters people around next season, tongues may start wagging
    - Gilbert has always been a vocal advocate of clean cycling and there has been a natural progression to his career
    - Voeckler DID raise a few eybrows with his performance last year. Not the same TV that yo-yo off the back in 2004.
    [/devil's advocate]

    That wasn't my point. I was saying that this forum rarely points the finger at foreigners for good performances, as suggested. We prefer to give the the benefit of the doubt. I picked five examples that drew accusations on another forum, but not here, just like Wiggins.

    (I personally have faith in all five I mentioned).
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • DeadCalm
    DeadCalm Posts: 4,243
    BikingBernie wrote:
    Rabobank's former doping doctor a part of the team. :lol:
    You keep harping on about this. Please provide one substantiated link which says he provided illegal treatments to his riders.
  • BikingBernie
    BikingBernie Posts: 2,163
    DeadCalm wrote:
    BikingBernie wrote:
    Rabobank's former doping doctor a part of the team. :lol:
    You keep harping on about this. Please provide one substantiated link which says he provided illegal treatments to his riders.
    Did you see the link that I posted earlier? This relates to an interview given by Theo de Rooy who was Rabobank's team manager from 2003 to 2007 and who
    did not deny that there was doping on the team. “If it happened, it was a deliberate decision by the medical staff,”
    http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/raboban ... ooy-claims

    Geert Leinders was the team doctor from the team's inception right through to 2009. There are plenty of other links, mainly in Dutch, about Leinders role. According to Theo de Rooy the team doctor did not 'provide illegal treatments' as such, rather 'The riders could select their own products, but the team medical staff made sure that they did not hurt their health'. I hardly think that aiding riders to dope in such a way is any less immoral than actually providing them with the stuff in the first place. It would certainly demand an intimate knowledge of how to manage a doping programme.

    You will probably say that non of the above has been 'substantiated' to your satisfaction. Of course, much the same could be said about Ferrari, and surely no one seriously thinks that he was not involved in doping. Similarly, I think that there is enough suspicion surrounding Leinders to mean that his selection by Brailsford was highly suspect, or at the very least constituted a very poor decision.
  • DeadCalm
    DeadCalm Posts: 4,243
    BikingBernie wrote:
    Did you see the link that I posted earlier? This relates to an interview given by Theo de Rooy who was Rabobank's team manager from 2003 to 2007 and who
    did not deny that there was doping on the team. “If it happened, it was a deliberate decision by the medical staff,”
    http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/raboban ... ooy-claims

    Geert Leinders was the team doctor from the team's inception right through to 2009. There are plenty of other links, mainly in Dutch, about Leinders role. According to Theo de Rooy the team doctor did not 'provide illegal treatments' as such, rather 'The riders could select their own products, but the team medical staff made sure that they did not hurt their health'. I hardly think that aiding riders to dope in such a way is any less immoral than actually providing them with the stuff in the first place. It would certainly demand an intimate knowledge of how to manage a doping programme.

    You will probably say that non of the above has been 'substantiated' to your satisfaction. Of course, much the same could be said about Ferrari, and surely no one seriously thinks that he was not involved in doping. Similarly, I think that there is enough suspicion surrounding Leinders to mean that his selection by Brailsford was highly suspect, or at the very least constituted a very poor decision.

    I saw the Cyclingnews article which is clearly based on a poor google translation of a summary of the article (as far as I can see the full article hasn't been posted online) and is worthless. Looking at the various Dutch articles I was able to find (and I too am relying on google translate here) I can see the allegation that he knew the riders were doping (he'd have to have been a fool if he didn't) but nothing to suggest that Leinders provided anything other than genuine medical care to the riders, certainly nothing that would justify any sort of comparison to Ferrari. Please can you link me to the ones you are referring to? Thanks.
  • Jez mon
    Jez mon Posts: 3,809
    The thing is, I get the impression that if you were running a team, and were looking to get a team doctor, with plenty of experience at the top level of cycling, you would struggle to get anyone who didn't (at the very least) have knowledge that certain riders were doping. Perhaps, if you got a doctor from a French team, they won't have come into contact with any dopers. Or if you get an incompetent doctor, they won't have noticed doping.

    Otherwise, it seems practically unavoidable to build a back room team who don't have skeletons in their closets.
    You live and learn. At any rate, you live
  • mididoctors
    mididoctors Posts: 18,793
    Jez mon wrote:
    The thing is, I get the impression that if you were running a team, and were looking to get a team doctor, with plenty of experience at the top level of cycling, you would struggle to get anyone who didn't (at the very least) have knowledge that certain riders were doping. Perhaps, if you got a doctor from a French team, they won't have come into contact with any dopers. Or if you get an incompetent doctor, they won't have noticed doping.

    Otherwise, it seems practically unavoidable to build a back room team who don't have skeletons in their closets.

    That is a safe bet given the sports history

    ..... I think if you wanted to avoid doping in your squad you may well want a few guys who knew the ins and outs of that even if its just the psychology involved so you could detect dodgy behaviour.

    you could demand a tabula rasa and start from year zero but I dont see that getting far
    "If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm
  • VerwoodAsh
    VerwoodAsh Posts: 196
    Jez mon wrote:
    Perhaps, if you got a doctor from a French team, they won't have come into contact with any dopers.

    :lol:
  • DeadCalm
    DeadCalm Posts: 4,243
    Jez mon wrote:
    The thing is, I get the impression that if you were running a team, and were looking to get a team doctor, with plenty of experience at the top level of cycling, you would struggle to get anyone who didn't (at the very least) have knowledge that certain riders were doping. Perhaps, if you got a doctor from a French team, they won't have come into contact with any dopers. Or if you get an incompetent doctor, they won't have noticed doping.

    Otherwise, it seems practically unavoidable to build a back room team who don't have skeletons in their closets.

    Just to be clear, there ought to be no stigma attached to a doctor who knew that riders were doping unless that doctor actively facilitated the doping in some way.

    If I tell my physician that I am taking illegal drugs, heroin say, and he continues to treat me and does not inform the police, that does not make him the equivalent of a pusher or someone to be condemned but a doctor who has acted ethically in accordance with the Hippocratic Oath.
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,241
    Leinders isn't even Sky's main doctor. Their main doctor (Richard something) used to work for Bolton Wanderers so I image the only blood manipulation he's done is wiping it off Kevin Davies's elbows.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • BikingBernie
    BikingBernie Posts: 2,163
    DeadCalm wrote:
    Just to be clear, there ought to be no stigma attached to a doctor who knew that riders were doping unless that doctor actively facilitated the doping in some way.
    What, you mean like ensuring that a riders Epo dosage does doesn't take their haemocrit levels too high so that they risk failing the UCI 50% limit, or dropping down dead of a heart attack? By all accounts that is the number one task of a doctor on a team that is doping and as such certainly does constitute 'active facilitation'.
  • BikingBernie
    BikingBernie Posts: 2,163
    RichN95 wrote:
    Leinders isn't even Sky's main doctor. Their main doctor (Richard something) used to work for Bolton Wanderers so I image the only blood manipulation he's done is wiping it off Kevin Davies's elbows.

    Er...

    Criterium du Dauphine guide
    Last updated: 8th June 2012

    Team Sky line-up:
    1. Bradley Wiggins
    2. Chris Froome
    3. Edvald Boasson Hagen
    4. Christian Knees
    5. Danny Pate
    6. Richie Porte
    7. Michael Rogers
    8. Kanstantsin Siutsou

    DS: Sean Yates
    2nd DS: Servais Knaven
    Doctor: Geert Leinders
    Physio: Dan Guillemette
    Mechanic: Filip Tisma
    Mechanic: Gary Blem
    Mechanic: Alan Williams
    Mechanic: Aldis Cirulis
    Carer: David Rozman
    Carer: Mario Pafundi
    Carer: Stefan Szrek
    Driver: Chris Slark
    Chef: Soren Kristiansen
    Press officer: Nick Howes

    http://www.teamsky.com/article/0,27290, ... 70,00.html
  • DeadCalm
    DeadCalm Posts: 4,243
    BikingBernie wrote:
    DeadCalm wrote:
    Just to be clear, there ought to be no stigma attached to a doctor who knew that riders were doping unless that doctor actively facilitated the doping in some way.
    What, you mean like ensuring that a riders Epo dosage does doesn't take their haemocrit levels too high so that they risk failing the UCI 50% limit, or dropping down dead of a heart attack? By all accounts that is the number one task of a doctor on a team that is doping and as such certainly does constitute 'active facilitation'.
    You say 'by all accounts'. What does that mean? I'm still waiting for the links to the substantiated articles regarding this particular doctor. Do they actually exist?
  • BikingBernie
    BikingBernie Posts: 2,163
    mididoctors wrote:
    I think if you wanted to avoid doping in your squad you may well want a few guys who knew the ins and outs of that even if its just the psychology involved so you could detect dodgy behaviour.
    You'd want them even more if you had taken the decision to 'get on a programme' and wanted to do it without risking the health of your riders.
  • BikingBernie
    BikingBernie Posts: 2,163
    DeadCalm wrote:
    You say 'by all accounts'. What does that mean?
    Haven't you read the 1001 articles from riders, doping experts and so forth that have been published over the last few years detailing how a modern blood doping /Epo 'programme' is run? If not 2 minutes on Google should furnish you with the information you seek.
    DeadCalm wrote:
    I'm still waiting for the links to the substantiated articles regarding this particular doctor. Do they actually exist?
    I have already replied to this point. :roll:

    Bottom line is, no team trying to promote a 'cleaner than clean' image like Sky should be having any truck with doctors who have been implicated in managing a team's doping programme by non other then the team's manager!
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,241
    edited June 2012
    So he gets to do the Dauphine.

    The main doctor does the Grand Tours:

    Giro 2012: Richard Freeman - http://www1.skysports.com/cycling/news/ ... t-by-crash
    Tour 2011: Richard Freeman - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... -Tour.html

    Whenever there's an injury report from Sky, be it Froome's african illness to Dowsett's collarbone, Freeman is the one quoted. That suggests he's the boss. Plus in Richard Moore's book it's made very clear he's in charge.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • DeadCalm
    DeadCalm Posts: 4,243
    BikingBernie wrote:
    DeadCalm wrote:
    You say 'by all accounts'. What does that mean?
    Haven't you read the 1001 articles from riders, doping experts and so forth that have been published over the last few years detailing how a modern blood doping /Epo 'programme' is run? If not 2 minutes on Google should furnish you with the information you seek.
    DeadCalm wrote:
    I'm still waiting for the links to the substantiated articles regarding this particular doctor. Do they actually exist?
    I have already replied to this point. :roll:

    Bottom line is, no team trying to promote a 'cleaner than clean' image like Sky should be having any truck with doctors who have been implicated in managing a team's doping programme by non other then the team's manager!

    I've read plenty of articles and despite what you are saying not in a single one of them can I find any accusation by anyone in the know regarding this particular doctor. Your singular failure to point me to one leads me to believe that not one actually exists.

    You seem to have a sloppy approach to facts for some one who posted the following up thread:
    BikingBernie wrote:
    Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!

    Homer Simpson.
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 14,550
    BikingBernie wrote:
    ratsbeyfus wrote:
    Brailsford appears to be the real deal - i.e. a top class coach/manager.
    A rare breed then. Almost every manager I have ever encountered has been autocratic, self-serving and frequently incompetent. The only real skills many of them seemed to have was the ability to suck up to those in more senior positions and fluency in 'management speak' and 'double think' :lol:

    This is largely just easy lowest common denominator cynicism on your part Bernie. It's just a handy stereotype that everyone that's had a shit day at work falls back on from time to time, but true cynics end up believing wholeheartedly.

    I've met plenty of crap managers in my time, some have even been autocratic, self-serving and incompetent. And yes, some are also suck-ups and management-speak freaks.

    By and large though, most are merely trying to deliver whatever goals have been specified to them by their management, on time and on budget. They usually have a load of other factors to take into account, the sort of things you probably aren't interested in - or you'd be looking for a management position as well. And of course, they will end up in conflict with workers who are set in their ways, or think they know everything there is to know about the business and thus end up thinking that when a manager disagrees with them it's because he's a clueless idiot that only exists to take credit where it isn't due and to make their job harder. And that worker then spreads his dissatisfaction, building a culture of blame and cynicism, turning the whole team sour, so the manager cant deliver what he's promised and the workers original prophesies of doom are self-fullfilled.

    So if I were a manager the first thing I'd do would be to root out all the cynics right from the off and fire the lot of them.
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  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 14,550
    BikingBernie wrote:
    mididoctors wrote:
    I think if you wanted to avoid doping in your squad you may well want a few guys who knew the ins and outs of that even if its just the psychology involved so you could detect dodgy behaviour.
    You'd want them even more if you had taken the decision to 'get on a programme' and wanted to do it without risking the health of your riders.

    Right, so if he floats you burn him as a witch, if he drowns then at least you know he went to his grave innocent of witchcraft.

    BTW - preventing riders killing themselves with EPO: this could be as basic as monitoring their blood values and telling them "you've had enough". That's hardly what I'd call a doping doctor, though you're free to disagree.

    The analogy here could just as easily be with a doctor that ran a "fixing room" for junkies, providing a safe and clean environment and clean syringes for them to shoot up, rather than them using dirty needles in a public toilet. If that were the case then I'd be looking at the team management rather than the doctor for where the blame lies.
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  • finchy
    finchy Posts: 6,686
    I think that we can probably all agree that Brailsford's idea of not employing anyone with previous links to doping was naive at best and cynical PR bollox at worst. Has any well-established team from the last 20 years been completely free of doping? I honestly can't think of a single one which has escaped problems in this department.
  • BikingBernie
    BikingBernie Posts: 2,163
    RichN95 wrote:
    So he gets to do the Dauphine.

    The main doctor does the Grand Tours:

    Giro 2012: Richard Freeman - http://www1.skysports.com/cycling/news/ ... t-by-crash
    Tour 2011: Richard Freeman - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... -Tour.html
    It is odd that Richard Freeman is named as being team doctor in that link to the Giro story when in the roster for the race the doctor is said to be Alan Farrell. Perhaps there was a change. Perhaps not all members of staff travelling with the team are named? Whatever, don't they have a lot of doctors? It's a pity that non of the team doctors have a profile in the main team listings, only the psychiatrist.

    Giro d'Italia route guide
    Preview of the 95th edition

    Last updated: 27th May 2012

    Team Sky line-up:
    Doctor: Alan Farrell

    http://www.teamsky.com/article/0,27290,25247,00.html

    Anyhow, why employ a dodgy doctor all all when it seems that other doctors who appear to have no link with doping appear to be capable of doing the job? Then again I guess it only needs one 'expert' on the team who can pass their knowledge on, be this about 'inner chimps' or whatever...
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,241
    Leinders & Farrell: Day to day race doctors - they stick on plasters
    Freeman : Chief doctor - he's their boss
    It's not hard to understand.

    Do you really think that these days a team is going to hire someone to run a doping programme and have them as an official member of staff, listed on their website? No-one's that stupid.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • finchy
    finchy Posts: 6,686
    BikingBernie wrote:
    Anyhow, why employ a dodgy doctor all all when it seems that other doctors who appear to have no link with doping appear to be capable of doing the job?

    Which doctors in cycling do you trust? How do you know that they were available? Maybe Brailsford asked them first and they didn't fancy moving with their families to Manchester.
  • BikingBernie
    BikingBernie Posts: 2,163
    edited June 2012
    No tA Doctor wrote:
    So if I were a manager the first thing I'd do would be to root out all the cynics right from the off and fire the lot of them.
    As I said, managers are natural autocrats, and are often tyrannical to boot...

    In my experience on of the biggest failings of managers is that they are often totally unwilling to actually admit what the goals are that have been set for them. This is often because the real goal is the opposite, or runs counter to, the goal that they have been told to tell staff is the goal. To give just one example from personal experience.

    The 'real goal' is to retain as many foreign students as is possible, even if they plagiarise most of their work and generally are not up to degree level study. After all, they pay big fees and education is nothing but a business these days.

    Of course 'management' would never admit that this was the real goal, so instead they tell staff that the goal is to 'maintain academic standards and eradicate plagiarism'. Members of staff are supposed to interpret this as meaning 'whatever you do ignore plagiarism from the foreign students, or at least never bring it to the attention of management, dumb down your courses and keep bums on seats'.

    Staff members are supposed to have an unconscious ability to deduce the real goal without ever been told what it is, and the very last thing they should do is actually implement the goal they have been given. Pointing out any incongruities between the real goal and the set goal is a sackable offence. However most managers, due to their supreme abilities in 'double think', will never actually be able to see the incongruity for themselves and will just see the member of staff trying to reconcile two irreconcilable aims as being a 'problem'.

    I think that the moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre is right in arguing that the whole 'management expertise' thing, along with its MBA's and all the rest, is effectively a scam, created simply in order to justify autocratic power. Teaching in a private management college for 3 years only reinforced my belief!
  • BikingBernie
    BikingBernie Posts: 2,163
    RichN95 wrote:
    Do you really think that these days a team is going to hire someone to run a doping programme and have them as an official member of staff, listed on their website? No-one's that stupid.
    Not as stupid as not listing them, only for someone to ask 'who is that guy carrying the coolbox'. :wink:
  • BikingBernie
    BikingBernie Posts: 2,163
    No tA Doctor wrote:
    I've met plenty of crap managers in my time, some have even been autocratic, self-serving and incompetent. And yes, some are also suck-ups and management-speak freaks.

    By and large though, most are merely trying to deliver whatever goals have been specified to them by their management, on time and on budget...
    Yes, every regime needs its loyal 'kapos'...

    (Especially those who are willing to 'eliminate undesirables and malcontents' for the 'greater good' of the hierarchy and its goals.)
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 14,550
    BikingBernie wrote:
    No tA Doctor wrote:
    So if I were a manager the first thing I'd do would be to root out all the cynics right from the off and fire the lot of them.
    As I said, managers are natural autocrats, and are often tyrannical to boot...

    In my experience on of the biggest failings of managers is that they are often totally unwilling to actually admit what the goals are that have been set for them. This is often because the real goal is the opposite, or runs counter to, the goal that they have been told to tell staff is the goal. To give just one example from personal experience.

    The 'real goal' is to retain as many foreign students as is possible, even if they plagiarise most of their work and generally are not up to degree level study. After all, they pay big fees and education is nothing but a business these days.

    Of course 'management' would never admit that this was the real goal, so instead they tell staff that the goal is to 'maintain academic standards and eradicate plagiarism'. Members of staff are supposed to interpret this as meaning 'whatever you do ignore plagiarism from the foreign students, or at least never bring it to the attention of management, dumb down your courses and keep bums on seats'.

    Staff members are supposed to have an unconscious ability to deduce the real goal without ever been told what it is, and the very last thing they should do is actually implement the goal they have been given. Pointing out any incongruities between the real goal and the set goal is a sackable offence. However most managers, due to their supreme abilities in 'double think', will never actually be able to see the incongruity for themselves and will just see the member of staff trying to reconcile two irreconcilable aims as being a 'problem'.

    I think that the moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre is right in arguing that the whole 'management expertise' thing, along with its MBA's and all the rest, is effectively a scam, created simply in order to justify autocratic power. Teaching in a private management college for 3 years only reinforced my belief!

    I find cynicism to be such an ugly character trait. It's a petty, small minded "thinking the worst" that extrapolates from the cynic's own impotence and weaknesses and attributes them to everyone else.

    As for being autocratic, I didn't say I'd fire people who questioned me. I have virtually no respect for arguments from authority whatsoever, in any field, including my workplace. You can ask my team leader and my manager that, I challenge them on everything.

    There is no place for cynicism in the workplace, it's pure poison. I'm not a manager, so I don't get to make those decisions anyway. If, as a non-manager, I was in a workplace that was full of cynics I'd look for another job. Either they're right and the company is f****** or they're wrong and just spreading their bitterness.

    I'd like MacIntyre to back up his position by reference to the internal and external goods of the practice of management. I haven't read him on management, but I've read him on ethics so I'd expect there to be a logical consistency.
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  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 14,550
    BikingBernie wrote:
    No tA Doctor wrote:
    I've met plenty of crap managers in my time, some have even been autocratic, self-serving and incompetent. And yes, some are also suck-ups and management-speak freaks.

    By and large though, most are merely trying to deliver whatever goals have been specified to them by their management, on time and on budget...
    Yes, every regime needs its loyal 'kapos'...

    (Especially those who are willing to 'eliminate undesirables and malcontents' for the 'greater good' of the hierarchy and its goals.)

    I call Godwin's law.

    You lose.
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  • BikingBernie
    BikingBernie Posts: 2,163
    No tA Doctor wrote:
    I find cynicism to be such an ugly character trait.
    I wasn't been cynical, just giving a fair and accurate description of just one situation I have experienced that highlighted the failings of management to actually manage effectively. From other things I have read it is also a pretty common situation in modern higher 'education'.
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 14,550
    BikingBernie wrote:
    No tA Doctor wrote:
    I find cynicism to be such an ugly character trait.
    I wasn't been cynical, just giving a fair and accurate description of just one situation I have experienced that highlighted the failings of management to actually manage effectively. From other things I have read it is also a pretty common situation in modern higher 'education'.

    Cynics always say they're realists. Your apostrophes around education give the game away though.
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  • BikingBernie
    BikingBernie Posts: 2,163
    No tA Doctor wrote:
    BikingBernie wrote:
    No tA Doctor wrote:
    I find cynicism to be such an ugly character trait.
    I wasn't been cynical, just giving a fair and accurate description of just one situation I have experienced that highlighted the failings of management to actually manage effectively. From other things I have read it is also a pretty common situation in modern higher 'education'.
    Cynics always say they're realists. Your apostrophes around education give the game away though.
    Is it possible to be a cynical realist? Whatever, what I understood to mean 'education' twenty odd years ago is certainly not what is sold under the same name today. Its goals have changed and any 'old fashioned' notions of encouraging free thinking and developing the ideals established in the Enlightenment have been junked in the name of 'training' people to serve the narrow needs of business. I still believe that true education is what I understood it to be 20 years ago, so my use of 'scare quotes' around the term in relation to its current usage is, to my mind, entirely valid.
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