Yates to confess??

mercsport

In lieu of reading the whole thread here I note that no one appears to have picked up on Yate's extraordinary physical appearance during his Motorola/Discovery years. Aside from looking like a whippet and a wonderfully flat back on the bike, his most marked physical characteristic was that - to paraphrase one of Tyler's descriptions of Lance - 'he had veins like tramlines'. Additionally his legs also aped the appearance of Tashkent's Abdoujaporov, who, if i recall aright was ultimately banished for zealously playing with his chemistry set.

Yates, like almost everyone else of the time (in athletics, those exemplars of the sporting ethic; Linford Christie; Chambers; Johnson et al) they all shared extreme muscular definition with veins almost popping out of their skin. Pan y agua?

And here I'll limit myself to declare: it never looked natural. :roll:

PS: This should be asked on an Armstrong thread I know, but I wonder why very little of the commentary has not picked up on the notion that Armstrong may well have been the architect of his contracting cancer in the first place when he was feeding himself ped's during those years with Yates (and before?). :?

Pross

Both muscle definition and veins become more prominent in people with low body fat, it's not necessarily that athletes have them from drug abuse it could just be because their body fat levels can be down in the region that would be classed as dangerously low in 'normal' people. People will be claiming his uneven leg length and back problems are down to a dogy EPO batch soon.

Trev The Rev

Pross wrote:

Both muscle definition and veins become more prominent in people with low body fat, it's not necessarily that athletes have them from drug abuse it could just be because their body fat levels can be down in the region that would be classed as dangerously low in 'normal' people. People will be claiming his uneven leg length and back problems are down to a dogy EPO batch soon.

When you train with someone day in day out for years, then they suddenly get prominent veins it makes you wonder though.

bompington

mercsport wrote:

IPS: This should be asked on an Armstrong thread I know, but I wonder why very little of the commentary has not picked up on the notion that Armstrong may well have been the architect of his contracting cancer in the first place when he was feeding himself ped's during those years with Yates (and before?). :?

Right enough, I probably haven't seen this particular speculation repeated more than a couple of hundred times on BR :roll:
As to whether there's anything to it, the question I would ask is something like: is cancer more common among PED using sportsmen than a control group*? I'm genuinely asking, not trying to claim that it's not the case. You hear a few stories about sudden death being attributed to EPO & too-thick blood, but I personally can't think of any other stories linking cancer to PEDs.
But I have a strong suspicion that the "LA caused his own cancer" story has a lot more to do with IFP** who would prefer the story that way, who just can't control themselves at the thought of all that lovely schadenfreude if it turned out that the persona he has built for himself, which is really defined by his fight against cancer, was all his own fault.

In fact, it has just occurred to me that we need to take the conspiracy further. I think that he is so evil and cunning, he deliberately gave himself cancer so he could make himself look even more heroic! Especially since he could boost his performance at the same time. What a masterstroke!


*OK, you might struggle to recruit enough non-doping sportsmen to be statistically significant
** I don't know if this is a commonly used TLA, but we need one for Internet Forum People don't we?

Richmond Racer

Trev The Rev wrote:

Pross wrote:

Both muscle definition and veins become more prominent in people with low body fat, it's not necessarily that athletes have them from drug abuse it could just be because their body fat levels can be down in the region that would be classed as dangerously low in 'normal' people. People will be claiming his uneven leg length and back problems are down to a dogy EPO batch soon.

When you train with someone day in day out for years, then they suddenly get prominent veins it makes you wonder though.

At a Sky training camp in Jan, Cav tweeted that Luke Rowe had proudly showed him his first prominent vein in his leg. Think this is the first sign that Rowe's on the juice? Erm, perhaps not.

DeadCalm

bompington wrote:

mercsport wrote:

IPS: This should be asked on an Armstrong thread I know, but I wonder why very little of the commentary has not picked up on the notion that Armstrong may well have been the architect of his contracting cancer in the first place when he was feeding himself ped's during those years with Yates (and before?). :?

Right enough, I probably haven't seen this particular speculation repeated more than a couple of hundred times on BR :roll:
As to whether there's anything to it, the question I would ask is something like: is cancer more common among PED using sportsmen than a control group*? I'm genuinely asking, not trying to claim that it's not the case. You hear a few stories about sudden death being attributed to EPO & too-thick blood, but I personally can't think of any other stories linking cancer to PEDs.
But I have a strong suspicion that the "LA caused his own cancer" story has a lot more to do with IFP** who would prefer the story that way, who just can't control themselves at the thought of all that lovely schadenfreude if it turned out that the persona he has built for himself, which is really defined by his fight against cancer, was all his own fault.

In fact, it has just occurred to me that we need to take the conspiracy further. I think that he is so evil and cunning, he deliberately gave himself cancer so he could make himself look even more heroic! Especially since he could boost his performance at the same time. What a masterstroke!


*OK, you might struggle to recruit enough non-doping sportsmen to be statistically significant
** I don't know if this is a commonly used TLA, but we need one for Internet Forum People don't we?

rob churchill

bompington wrote:

mercsport wrote:

IPS: This should be asked on an Armstrong thread I know, but I wonder why very little of the commentary has not picked up on the notion that Armstrong may well have been the architect of his contracting cancer in the first place when he was feeding himself ped's during those years with Yates (and before?). :?

Right enough, I probably haven't seen this particular speculation repeated more than a couple of hundred times on BR :roll:
As to whether there's anything to it, the question I would ask is something like: is cancer more common among PED using sportsmen than a control group*? I'm genuinely asking, not trying to claim that it's not the case. You hear a few stories about sudden death being attributed to EPO & too-thick blood, but I personally can't think of any other stories linking cancer to PEDs.
But I have a strong suspicion that the "LA caused his own cancer" story has a lot more to do with IFP** who would prefer the story that way, who just can't control themselves at the thought of all that lovely schadenfreude if it turned out that the persona he has built for himself, which is really defined by his fight against cancer, was all his own fault.

In fact, it has just occurred to me that we need to take the conspiracy further. I think that he is so evil and cunning, he deliberately gave himself cancer so he could make himself look even more heroic! Especially since he could boost his performance at the same time. What a masterstroke!


*OK, you might struggle to recruit enough non-doping sportsmen to be statistically significant
** I don't know if this is a commonly used TLA, but we need one for Internet Forum People don't we?

I looked into this a while back. I found a limited amount of animal studies showing a possible link between anabolic steroids and testicular cancer, and some in vitro work demonstrating a possible mechanism, but nothing looking at populations of sportsmen or body builders.

However, it's worth noting that according to Lance's book, his cancer was producing the tumour marker betaHCG at levels tens of thousands of times above normal when he was diagnosed. BetaHCG happens to be on the banned list (it's used to kickstart normal testosterone production at the end of a course of anabolics). Lance's cancer should have been picked up by the last couple of dope tests he took. Why wasn't it?

mercsport

Pross wrote:

Both muscle definition and veins become more prominent in people with low body fat, it's not necessarily that athletes have them from drug abuse it could just be because their body fat levels can be down in the region that would be classed as dangerously low in 'normal' people. People will be claiming his uneven leg length and back problems are down to a dogy EPO batch soon.

Off the top of my head I can not recall anyone before the ped's era displaying extreme muscle/vein definition. Perhaps I should not have borrowed Tyler's analogy which described Lance's 'veins like tramlines' (which run flush with the surrounding pavement) but something more akin to 'railway tracks' (which are raised above the surface). Also, I never saw a skinnier fella than Robert Millar, say, displaying anything remotely like the definition I'm talking about. Come to that, Wiggins and several others of the 'new school of whippets' are nowhere near that level. In fact, they're so poorly defined and skinny I wonder sometimes whether in fact there is blood within. They'd certainly be poor fodder for a dog seeking to gnaw some meat off a bone.

Pross

Yates had / has varicose veins though didn't he? I believe (but could be wrong) that these can be brought on by the pressure the veins come under during exercise. I'm not necessarily saying he wasn't doping (we know he at least did at one time) but I'm still not convinced that raised veins are proof of doping.

Richmond Racer

Pross wrote:

Yates had / has varicose veins though didn't he? I believe (but could be wrong) that these can be brought on by the pressure the veins come under during exercise. I'm not necessarily saying he wasn't doping (we know he at least did at one time) but I'm still not convinced that raised veins are proof of doping.

Every pro has raised veins - just some are more extreme than others.

mercsport

bompington wrote:

mercsport wrote:

IPS: This should be asked on an Armstrong thread I know, but I wonder why very little of the commentary has not picked up on the notion that Armstrong may well have been the architect of his contracting cancer in the first place when he was feeding himself ped's during those years with Yates (and before?). :?

Right enough, I probably haven't seen this particular speculation repeated more than a couple of hundred times on BR :roll:

By 'commentary' I meant by the wider media that we have all been soaked by these past couple of days and weeks.

mercsport

Richmond Racer wrote:

Pross wrote:

Yates had / has varicose veins though didn't he? I believe (but could be wrong) that these can be brought on by the pressure the veins come under during exercise. I'm not necessarily saying he wasn't doping (we know he at least did at one time) but I'm still not convinced that raised veins are proof of doping.

Every pro has raised veins - just some are more extreme than others.

Even I - an age ago and breaking rocks - displayed raised veins and defined muscles. No, there came a time when what I am talking about seemed to happen almost overnight. Suddenly there were all these Linford and Johnson types strutting about as if they were fit to explode from all the pent-up excited blood within. As if they had a surplus of it. Their tanks brimming.

There was never anything like that before, Jesse Owens, Chataway, Bedford, Coe, Coppi, Fignon, Lemond even. Not even close.

Crawlinguphills

rob churchill wrote:

jibberjim wrote:

Richmond Racer wrote:

I do agree. I think there is a lot of attacking Sky from a moral ground that if it was any higher, would induce vertigo. But I do think that Brailsford needs to change the way in which he's addressing things, sharpish, or lose a lot of credibility - which is turn will start to reflect on his riders.

Surely Sky's problem is one of gross incompetence - atrocious media training of riders, atrocious management of stories, poor choices of staff etc. So how does such an incompetent organisation get so much success?

Damn, so that's why I'm crap on hills - not enough media training.

Thats totally correct. Just think if you had the correct media training you could convince yourself and everyone around you that you had powered to the summit, while actually only being 50% of the way there.

skylla

iainf72 wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Sky's only real crime was to naively set their standards too high at the start and not being omniscient when recruiting. I'm sure they'd do it like Garmin if they could start again. But they can't so some will criticise from their high horse even if they think they're clean. You're making them same mistake they made and being stupidly idealistic.

My issue is he's not changing his position. He knows Rogers has history, and I've got a shiny fiver says he knew about Barry. 10% of the riders on Sky in 2011 are mentioned in this whole mess.

As you say, Garmin got it right, but Sky continuing with the same position doesn't help them at all. For such a well financed team with people who do everything they're a walking PR disaster.

[So trying to think straight after a few glasses of vintage port] Does this mean Kimmage is somewhat vindicated when he criticised Sky to much chagrin of many the day Wiggins rode yellow into Paris. Surely he must have known a few names of the usada dossier from his sources.

Anonymous

mercsport - really interested in what you have said as I have mentioned the 'did the HGH cause cancer?' which bompington has been reading - I'm really interested to read your sources (not that I doubt you, just for my own info).

Also - what's your background, out of curiosity?

rob churchill

coriordan wrote:

mercsport - really interested in what you have said as I have mentioned the 'did the HGH cause cancer?' which bompington has been reading - I'm really interested to read your sources (not that I doubt you, just for my own info).

Also - what's your background, out of curiosity?

Did you mean me, instead of mercsport?
It's difficult to find stuff, I don't have access to academic search engines from here, and as you'll appreciate, searching with terms like anabolic+testicular+cancer on regular search engines returns all kinds of cr*p. But one reference I do still have is this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21769864. The abstract states 'To our knowledge this is the first report directly associating [Artificial Anabolic Steroids] and testicular cancer.'

As to my background, I'm an RGN/RMN, used to work on an oncology ward but that was many years ago. These days I nurse a desk.

gpreeves

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... olicy.html

Was hopeful when I saw the tagline for this story, having read it I can't see how it's any different from their previous policy - "confess and we'll sack you, lie and you can keep your job"

Brailsford's missed his big chance to admit the failings of their original policy, as previous posters have commented a Garmin-esque rehabilitation stance is what the sport really needs.

Anonymous

Sorry, yeah I meant you rob, sorry!
Thanks for the link. Just had a quick google search and also found this, a more recent piece:
http://thinksteroids.com/forum/steroid- ... 06033.html

Take Lance Armstrong, 7-time Tour de France winner. He had CANCER... “I didn’t dope.” But he ALSO was saying, “The drugs saved my life”, and mentioned steroids and EPO that he took as a cancer patient. Obviously Armstrong DID take the drugs that WOULD normally be banned but because of his cancer treatments, before at least his first Tour de France victory, he may well have had a TUE because obviously he needed the drugs to save his life. That’s in my view probably why he tested positive before his first tour victory, a result which L’Equipe Magazine leaked without pointing to a likely TUE. Why didn’t Armstrong just say this, tie the two facts together, and instead of being considered a goat all over the world with suspicion of cheating, he’d be a hero to the cancer community about the drugs saving his life. Be OPEN about it. I can’t think of anyone denying a cancer survivor the opportunity to compete. Also, AFTER that first improperly released positive, which does not count if you have a TUE, he never again tested positive. So he did truly save his life and then won six more Tours de France. But it may not be that simple… why did he get testicular cancer in the first place at that young age… that’s also a symptom of steroid abuse. So I leave the questions there.

sorry its quite long

thomthom

There was no chance that his positive test could be from his cancer medicin. No chance.

dave_1

Richmond Racer wrote:

But the Forum and Twitter and Media moral majority want heads...the flaming torches and pitchforks are on the march... :roll:

it pains me to be harsh on Yatesy and no doubt many will remind of this..so have to admit I admired Yates as a rider..a great role model he was, as always put other riders first....however for Bradley Wiggins cred, it's probably best Sean Yates, ( and Julich and Michael Rogers) are not kept on beyond the end of the year. Sky are so compromised at the moment.

iainf72

gpreeves wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/lancearmstrong/9605632/Sean-Yates-and-all-Team-Sky-employees-will-be-asked-to-confirm-they-have-not-breached-drug-free-policy.html

Was hopeful when I saw the tagline for this story, having read it I can't see how it's any different from their previous policy - "confess and we'll sack you, lie and you can keep your job"

Brailsford's missed his big chance to admit the failings of their original policy, as previous posters have commented a Garmin-esque rehabilitation stance is what the sport really needs.

Jesus wept, how can they get it wrong OVER AND OVER AND OVER again

Surely the chimp man can explain to DB that humans respond to incentives. There is the square root of fook all in there by way of an incentive.

Richmond Racer

iainf72 wrote:

gpreeves wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/lancearmstrong/9605632/Sean-Yates-and-all-Team-Sky-employees-will-be-asked-to-confirm-they-have-not-breached-drug-free-policy.html

Was hopeful when I saw the tagline for this story, having read it I can't see how it's any different from their previous policy - "confess and we'll sack you, lie and you can keep your job"

Brailsford's missed his big chance to admit the failings of their original policy, as previous posters have commented a Garmin-esque rehabilitation stance is what the sport really needs.

Jesus wept, how can they get it wrong OVER AND OVER AND OVER again

Surely the chimp man can explain to DB that humans respond to incentives. There is the square root of fook all in there by way of an incentive.

Banging my head on my keyboard repeatedly. Painted themselves into a corner and think this is the only way out of it. Big problem with Yates is that ridiculous radio interview - comes out now that he's been lying, he lied over radio 'to the public' etc...

My favourite bit: 'While anyone confessing to a doping past is likely to lose their job they can expect to treated with respect. Anyone concealing misdemeanours can expect a more harsh experience should they come to light at a later stage'

Harsher than losing their jobs??? What, you mean there might not be a whip-round for a farewell gift?

oh FFS

And what hacks me off even more is that sod all will happen at other teams. Ekimov and Vino will still take up their new roles, Matt White will remain at OGE (I expect), there will be no action at other teams. Nada. But because Sky continue down this blind path, their guys get thrown over the cliff, and alone in that.

finchy

^^^

This is, so far, just a newspaper story with no direct quotes from Sky on the subject. If it is true, we don't know quite what they have in mind. Maybe a confession will mean losing their job with the contract fully paid up, or maybe new clauses will be written into their contracts including fines if they are later found to have lied.

While I agree with other posters that Sky would have been better "doing a Garmin", there's no point in getting worked up over a sourceless newspaper article written by a non-specialist journalist in the Daily Telegraph.

r0bh

So, what should Sky do? OK so we can all agree that their stated aim of not employing anyone with any doping history was too high a bar but what were the alternatives?

Everyone lauds Garmin but let's face it they have been knowingly employing ex-dopers without asking them to do anything to address their past transgressions. Vande Velde, as an example, was hailed for his 4th in the 2008 Tour as a victory for clean cycling but in reality he'd been doping until Apr 2006. If Landis hadn't spoken out the likelihood is that VdV, Zabriskie, Danielson would have reached the end of their careers without serving any punishment. An interesting tweet from their ex-teammate Danny Pate a few minutes ago "6 month suspension is the deal of a #LiveTime 4 some. Couple guys will serve less then 12 hours 4 every time they used drugs".

And Garmin may go on about giving people second chances but for every Thomas Dekker they employ there's a Dan Lloyd without a contract, or indeed a neo-pro not even getting a first chance. At the end of the day it is Vaughter's PR that is better than Brailsford's, not his ethics.

iainf72

r0bh wrote:

So, what should Sky do? OK so we can all agree that their stated aim of not employing anyone with any doping history was too high a bar but what were the alternatives?

They should have said they'd only employ people who wanted to do the right thing while accepting the reality that they may have history.

What they've created is a situation where the riders need to lie, which means Brailsford needs to lie and everyone ends up looking stupid. So someone like Rogers is on the team, and the balance of probability says that he probably shouldn't be there based on their initial hiring criteria. And he's a guy who was instrumental in Wiggins tour team.

r0bh

iainf72 wrote:

r0bh wrote:

So, what should Sky do? OK so we can all agree that their stated aim of not employing anyone with any doping history was too high a bar but what were the alternatives?

They should have said they'd only employ people who wanted to do the right thing while accepting the reality that they may have history.

What they've created is a situation where the riders need to lie, which means Brailsford needs to lie and everyone ends up looking stupid. So someone like Rogers is on the team, and the balance of probability says that he probably shouldn't be there based on their initial hiring criteria. And he's a guy who was instrumental in Wiggins tour team.

So the only difference with riders at Garmin is that they just have to keep quiet rather than lie. How is that better for the sport?

Richmond Racer

Thinking about this some more, there is a big factor that DB has to deal with, that Vaughters doesnt - the Sky board. Would the Sky as sponsor have been happy with a different policy from the outset? Cant see it. TBH cant see them being happy with a mid-way change of policy either (Richard Moore's just tweeted that DB admitted to him after the 2010 Tour that he now realised the likelihood of any rider over 30 being tainted).

Vaughters has and still has Doug Ellis to deal with - TOTALLY different proposition.

R0bh is certainly right in that Vaughers' PR is a lot better than DB's. Vaughters, the team and even to a certain extent TD, CVV and DZ, are going to come out of this smelling of roses - which in turn doesnt seem right.

Very interested in Danny Pate's attitude. For a long time his distaste for dopers, particularly unrepentent ones, has been clear from his Twitter feed. For all Vaughters 'open and take it on the chin' image, he reacted pretty aggressively to Pate when Pate showed his distaste for sanctioned riders getting selected (it was either relating to Olys or Worlds). Wouldnt be surprised if Vaughters bites back re Pate's tweet about the very light 6 month winter bans.

RichN95.

r0bh wrote:

So the only difference with riders at Garmin is that they just have to keep quiet rather than lie. How is that better for the sport?

There are several differences:

1. At Garmin, the past is the past. All that matters is the present. Riders can be truthful about the past to Vaughters, they can't with Brailsford.
2. No-one at Garmin is expected to publically confess, but they must co-operating fully and truthly with any anti-doping authorities when requested to do so.

Richmond Racer

take it back about Matt White...just announced that he's 'fessed and resigned from OGE and CA

r0bh

RichN95 wrote:

There are several differences:

1. At Garmin, the past is the past. All that matters is the present. Riders can be truthful about the past to Vaughters, they can't with Brailsford.
2. No-one at Garmin is expected to publically confess, but they must co-operating fully and truthly with any anti-doping authorities when requested to do so.

Exactly, so they are just keeping the Omerta going until someone like Landis implicates them. The fact that people within the team know their past is irrelevant as it's still firewalled.

I really fail to see what Garmin are doing that is so progressive and seems to make them immune from criticism by IFP (Internet Forum People