Team Sky- position on doping

Turfle

EPC06 wrote:

Be interesting to see if Mr Kimmage is appeased by this, given his recent comments regarding Sky..

Still at least the forum is busy, normally this time of year its the odd post per day regards a Christmas drink

Of course he won't. If he is satisfied, then he is out of work.

Trev The Rev

mike6 wrote:

Not the responses I was expecting to read on this thread.

If we want a clean, believable sport, we have to draw a line in the sand and that is what Sky are doing, as far as I can see.
Some one even posted along the lines of "what if someone doped in the past, never tested positive and no one knows about it?" What the.....are Sky supposed to be psychic now?

It seems crystal clear to me. You sign the declaration stating no doping, past or present. If not, you are out. If you sign it and are later proven to be lying, you are out. Simple. How much clearer could it be.

Brailsford always seems to get a hard time from some people, but that is the way,I suppose. If someone or something is successful, or is trying to change things for the better, then they must be knocked down because how can anyone, especially someone fairly new to the sport, like Brailsford, be so arrogant as to think they could make a difference.

I for one think its the way to go and If the UCI had any b***s they would make all the teams have the same policy.

The reason I give Brailsford a hard time is because I had assumed that as Sky were launched as a 'Clean' team Brailsford would have made everyone sign such a declaration in the first place.

The UCI should make such a declaration a condition of a racing license. Why didn't they do this back in 1998?

rickyrider

I've been a fan of Sky from the start, but their handling of this doping scandal is very disappointing. Confess and lose your job? Great, doping problem solved - simple!! Sheesh.

Spiny_Norman

It's not a particularly good idea from either a cycling or a Sky PR point of view. It runs the risk of kicking out people who are riding clean now for their past sins, rather then anything they've done recently, which I don't think is in the sport's best interests. And it's going to guarantee either a night of the long knives as Sky get rid of past dopers, years of terrible PR with one person after another being found to have doped (or even just accused, whatever the evidence), or most likely both. Ironically, this high-minded policy will make it easy to view Sky as dirty.

I have some sympathy with them, though - I think they faced a problem when the team was set up, because they wanted to create a British team and generate support on that basis, but the public and the sponsors themselves wouldn't accept the sort of grubby compromises that we live with all the time. To establish a team in a sport that was almost universally a byword for doping, they had to make a clear statement, with no grey areas. If they'd taken the Garmin approach that it would be fine to employ ex-dopers as long as they really promised they were clean now, the team would probably never have got off the ground.

All the team's struggles in this area can be traced back to the initial need to make an absolute statement where such a statement was either naive or disingenuous, and their subsequent attempts to limit the PR damage from that founding mistake.

LeicesterLad

Turfle wrote:

LeicesterLad wrote:

Anybody who thinks Yates, who was with Armstrong, US Postal, Discovery etc through that era, didn't 'see or hear' anything as he proclaims is a complete idiot. He shouldn't be at Sky, why does he have so many bleedin apologists on here? The blokes dirty as feck. Even Rich, who is usually pretty staunch anti-doping (when it suits him) is playing the 'can't hold a few little pills against him' card. I mean for f*cks sake, look at the man, he got busted for pills, he hung out with the biggest bunch of dirty cheats in cycling - doesn't really matter if it was 'just pills', some would argue 'it was just coritcoids for sadle sores'. People need to get real. I don't think Brailsford can keep up the whole no dirt rider no dirty staff sharade, but I also don't think it wouldnt be right to keep people like Yates and Rogers on the books when there is so much doubt about them and they continue to pretend they know nothing. Dave B can't really win can he?

I have yet to see a single person or post suggest Yates' record is clean.

The question is, in the context of this policy is there enough evidence to fire a man? Using your list, we have a failed test (which isn't even a failed test), and the fact that he was on a dirty team (even though nobody named him as dirty). That is it! Unless he admits it I can't see they have any grounds at all to fire him.

My point is Brailsford created this policy of 'nobody, staff or rider, tainted with drugs', if he wants that to be the case he has to get rid of Yates et al, in fact how did Yates even get on at a team with a suppossedly rigorous 'anti-doping' policy in the first place? If you f*ck up and lie then you should face the consequences therefore I couldn't give an a*se about Yates job. Didn't hear people crying for Levi or the Orica guy...so why Yates? He's dirty, Skys policy says nobody dirty, Sky get rid. The real issue is guys like "I didn't see or hear nuffin" Yates shouldn't be given another opportunity to lie through their teeth to holy Dave like Barry did the first time round, they should just be shown the exit.

dougzz

Jez mon wrote:

As far as I can see, at least with Garmin followed a policy which would allow them to keep a team together, with a mix of experienced and young riders and also tell the truth. Everyone was able to read between the lines of what Vaughters was saying in the years up to this.

I'm confused, was he telling the truth, or did I have to read between the lines for it. They told the truth when there was no other option, prior to that they played a game, little hint here, little hint there, that is not the truth, it's politics. Either Garmin's policy was to allow them a competitive team, or it was about ethics, essentially isn't what we're all pretty much saying here that sometimes one has to be compromised for the other, that's fine. It's just that I'm sick to death of reading stuff that paints Vaughters as the 'Gold Standard' for anti-doping.

r0bh

dougzz wrote:

I'm confused, was he telling the truth, or did I have to read between the lines for it. They told the truth when there was no other option, prior to that they played a game, little hint here, little hint there, that is not the truth, it's politics. Either Garmin's policy was to allow them a competitive team, or it was about ethics, essentially isn't what we're all pretty much saying here that sometimes one has to be compromised for the other, that's fine. It's just that I'm sick to death of reading stuff that paints Vaughters as the 'Gold Standard' for anti-doping.

+1. You have to have some respect for Garmin/Vaughter's PR, but that's all it is, PR and spin.

dougzz

LeicesterLad wrote:

My point is Brailsford created this policy of 'nobody, staff or rider, tainted with drugs', if he wants that to be the case he has to get rid of Yates et al, in fact how did Yates even get on at a team with a suppossedly rigorous 'anti-doping' policy in the first place? If you f*ck up and lie then you should face the consequences therefore I couldn't give an a*se about Yates job. Didn't hear people crying for Levi or the Orica guy...so why Yates? He's dirty, Skys policy says nobody dirty, Sky get rid. The real issue is guys like "I didn't see or hear nuffin" Yates shouldn't be given another opportunity to lie through their teeth to holy Dave like Barry did the first time round, they should just be shown the exit.

Yep, because the Sky policy is the problem. Pretty much the whole sport was dirty for a long time. So you can't have this policy and employ people with experience. Because experience means dodgy background. If you want to shout a policy from the rooftop be prepared to have some difficult questions when practical matters mean being 'flexible' with that policy.

Turfle

Yep, Garmin gave them a safe place to ride clean, but it also gave them a safe place not to admit their past sins. If the Armstrong case never came along we still wouldn't know about Vaughters, VDV, Zabriskie, Danielson.


Regarding Sky again, I don't know that I buy the "bad PR" argument.

Had Sky decided to fold their zero tolerance policy, and allow lying ex-dopers to keep their jobs, there would have been uproar. Articles about how arrogant Sky were, how it's a tacit admission that they turned a blind eye (how did so and so get hired in the first place), how they knew all along, and in the darkest corners of the internet it would be paraded as an admission that the team were dirty. And how did they not fire Froome and Wiggins? Protecting the Brits!

This is not a PR battle they could win either way. And it's not one I'm all that concerned about them fighting.

Richmond Racer

LL, I know that you dont trust Brailsford. Fair enough, that's your view.

But like others have said, I think this is the Sky board's policy, their conditions for sponsoring and continuing to sponsor. I recently asked Richard Moore whether back in 2010 when Landis accused Barry and Brailsford acknowledged the realisation of how many over 30s were tainted, the Sky board would have let Brailsford implement a changed policy. Moore's answer was simply 'No'.

Brailsford has to front the zero tolerance stand of Sky and implement it. Doesnt mean to say that I agree the way they're handling this process now - I've made that very clear with other posts.

Tbh if these are Sky's conditions, on balance I'd still rather have Sky in the game (yes, even with the Murdochs along for the ride) than give the entire shooting match over to more Tinkoffs and Markovs.

Pross

This really is a no-win situation for Sky. If they go the Garmin route people will just say they have given up on their anti-doping policy and are now a resting place for self-confessed dopers and it will also fuel the fires of suspicion when they have strong performances like they did this year (even without any self-confessed dopers the very fact they were winning was evidence that the whole team were doping in some people's eyes). The best policy seems to be to have no policy - Garmin gets criticised, Sky gets criticised but no-one seems bothered by all those teams who never even mention the issue. What is the answer? I certainly don't know but the only thing I can think of is a slightly harsher version of the Garmin model - have a amnesty where any riders / staff can admit to past doping and keep their job but after the amenesty ends they are out on their ear if anything comes up (possibly with financial penalties built into their contract).

Of the 'Sky 4' I think only Yates is an issue. I suspect they won't worry too much about losing Jullich, Leinders is gone and Rogers seems to be in limbo regarding his contract at present (maybe Sky are holding off to see how he reacts to the doping issue?).

Richmond Racer

Pross wrote:

This really is a no-win situation for Sky. If they go the Garmin route people will just say they have given up on their anti-doping policy and are now a resting place for self-confessed dopers and it will also fuel the fires of suspicion when they have strong performances like they did this year (even without any self-confessed dopers the very fact they were winning was evidence that the whole team were doping in some people's eyes). The best policy seems to be to have no policy - Garmin gets criticised, Sky gets criticised but no-one seems bothered by all those teams who never even mention the issue. What is the answer? I certainly don't know but the only thing I can think of is a slightly harsher version of the Garmin model - have a amnesty where any riders / staff can admit to past doping and keep their job but after the amenesty ends they are out on their ear if anything comes up (possibly with financial penalties built into their contract).

Of the 'Sky 4' I think only Yates is an issue. I suspect they won't worry too much about losing Jullich, Leinders is gone and Rogers seems to be in limbo regarding his contract at present (maybe Sky are holding off to see how he reacts to the doping issue?).

Actually in terms of impact on the team, Jullich will be a pretty big loss. He's a TT specialist whose made a massive difference to several riders' TTing since he came on board (no wisecracks!)

Turfle

He's also had Dombrowski and Boswell entrusted to his care. That would be a big loss to them.

disgruntledgoat

dougzz wrote:

Jez mon wrote:

As far as I can see, at least with Garmin followed a policy which would allow them to keep a team together, with a mix of experienced and young riders and also tell the truth. Everyone was able to read between the lines of what Vaughters was saying in the years up to this.

I'm confused, was he telling the truth, or did I have to read between the lines for it. They told the truth when there was no other option, prior to that they played a game, little hint here, little hint there, that is not the truth, it's politics. Either Garmin's policy was to allow them a competitive team, or it was about ethics, essentially isn't what we're all pretty much saying here that sometimes one has to be compromised for the other, that's fine. It's just that I'm sick to death of reading stuff that paints Vaughters as the 'Gold Standard' for anti-doping.

Except it is the gold standard, because as a team, in 4 years, they've gone for maximum transparency, run an internal testing programme open to scrutiny, been the first team to implement "no needles", fired a guy over a mix up with his whereabouts forms and won the Giro off the back of it all.

Who is the gold standard?

LeicesterLad

Richmond Racer wrote:

LL, I know that you dont trust Brailsford. Fair enough, that's your view.

But like others have said, I think this is the Sky board's policy, their conditions for sponsoring and continuing to sponsor. I recently asked Richard Moore whether back in 2010 when Landis accused Barry and Brailsford acknowledged the realisation of how many over 30s were tainted, the Sky board would have let Brailsford implement a changed policy. Moore's answer was simply 'No'.

Brailsford has to front the zero tolerance stand of Sky and implement it. Doesnt mean to say that I agree the way they're handling this process now - I've made that very clear with other posts.

Tbh if these are Sky's conditions, on balance I'd still rather have Sky in the game (yes, even with the Murdochs along for the ride) than give the entire shooting match over to more Tinkoffs and Markovs.

It's not even so much that I don't trust Brailsford - to be fair on him he can't really win either way. But the man of course should come under fire, as it was he who laid out these best placed plans for an anti-doping team so when it gets tricky he has to answer questions. But Sky either need to take a very hard line or just give up the ghost, Brailsford tried asking people 'have you doped?' before, they lied, said 'no' and that was enough to enforce his 'anti-doping' policy - the new sky statement basically says the same, 'lie to me and you can stay' message. If he wants a team without tainted men then it should be a simple case of just dropping Yates, Jilich etc - but on the flipside people are saying on here 'can't really get rid of yates' without proof, but proof isn't needed, he IS tainted and has been for as long as everybody knew US Postal were scum.

There's also arguments on here like 'it was only a few pills' or 'he ain't the wealthiest guy, he needs the job' - I mean FFS, the bloke cheated and now lies through his teeth, we should be saying 'pay the price' not 'poor Sean, let him off' and thats the policy Brailsford should be enforcing, otherwise he shouldn't be enforcing one at all because it just makes the man look a fool.

r0bh

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Except it is the gold standard, because as a team, in 4 years, they've gone for maximum transparency, run an internal testing programme open to scrutiny, been the first team to implement "no needles", fired a guy over a mix up with his whereabouts forms and won the Giro off the back of it all.

Who is the gold standard?

Not sure I can reconcile maximum transparency with knowing about the past doping of VdV, Danielson and Zabriskie but keeping it a secret until it was impossible not to.

mroli

And if Yates looks Brailsford in the eye and says "I never doped", signs his bit of paper and swears on the bible. Brailsford sacks him anyway because a load of "cnuts and wnakers" on the internet don't believe him. Yates takes him to a tribunal.

If anyone thinks this is just a bit of PR puff for papers and fans - I know that the staff and riders have had the message delivered to them in no uncertain terms and the interviews will happen.

I genuinely can't believe people are having a go at Sky/DB for trying to run as clean a ship as possible. Find it incredible really.

Turfle

LeicesterLad wrote:

Richmond Racer wrote:

LL, I know that you dont trust Brailsford. Fair enough, that's your view.

But like others have said, I think this is the Sky board's policy, their conditions for sponsoring and continuing to sponsor. I recently asked Richard Moore whether back in 2010 when Landis accused Barry and Brailsford acknowledged the realisation of how many over 30s were tainted, the Sky board would have let Brailsford implement a changed policy. Moore's answer was simply 'No'.

Brailsford has to front the zero tolerance stand of Sky and implement it. Doesnt mean to say that I agree the way they're handling this process now - I've made that very clear with other posts.

Tbh if these are Sky's conditions, on balance I'd still rather have Sky in the game (yes, even with the Murdochs along for the ride) than give the entire shooting match over to more Tinkoffs and Markovs.

It's not even so much that I don't trust Brailsford - to be fair on him he can't really win either way. But the man of course should come under fire, as it was he who laid out these best placed plans for an anti-doping team so when it gets tricky he has to answer questions. But Sky either need to take a very hard line or just give up the ghost, Brailsford tried asking people 'have you doped?' before, they lied, said 'no' and that was enough to enforce his 'anti-doping' policy - the new sky statement basically says the same, 'lie to me and you can stay' message. If he wants a team without tainted men then it should be a simple case of just dropping Yates, Jilich etc - but on the flipside people are saying on here 'can't really get rid of yates' without proof, but proof isn't needed, he IS tainted and has been for as long as everybody knew US Postal were scum.

There's also arguments on here like 'it was only a few pills' or 'he ain't the wealthiest guy, he needs the job' - I mean FFS, the bloke cheated and now lies through his teeth, we should be saying 'pay the price' not 'poor Sean, let him off' and thats the policy Brailsford should be enforcing, otherwise he shouldn't be enforcing one at all because it just makes the man look a fool.

And again, in the real world you can't fire someone and say "proof isn't needed, he IS tainted". Capital is doesn't cut it.

disgruntledgoat

r0bh wrote:

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Except it is the gold standard, because as a team, in 4 years, they've gone for maximum transparency, run an internal testing programme open to scrutiny, been the first team to implement "no needles", fired a guy over a mix up with his whereabouts forms and won the Giro off the back of it all.

Who is the gold standard?

Not sure I can reconcile maximum transparency with knowing about the past doping of VdV, Danielson and Zabriskie but keeping it a secret until it was impossible not to.

From the public utterings of all of the above, Vaughters, Millar etc etc etc. who couldn't have figured that out?

Anyway, lets say they all stand up five years ago and fess up, outside of the framework of USADA, Novitsky etc. What good would that do? Unless it's done under oath, they get sued and lose their livlihoods. For me, most riders who cheated in those years were victims of a broken system, how can putting them in penury for bad choices made under duress be construed as progress?

If they do that, Garmin folds and you lose a pioneering programme that produces results the right way. From a lot of these responses, teams like Garmin and Sky seem to be in a no win situation. Results= suspicion so what you want is a load of clean no hopers with green support staff getting tonked at every race so you can be 100% certain of their credentials.

Trev The Rev

mroli wrote:

And if Yates looks Brailsford in the eye and says "I never doped", signs his bit of paper and swears on the bible. Brailsford sacks him anyway because a load of "cnuts and wnakers" on the internet don't believe him. Yates takes him to a tribunal.

If anyone thinks this is just a bit of PR puff for papers and fans - I know that the staff and riders have had the message delivered to them in no uncertain terms and the interviews will happen.

I genuinely can't believe people are having a go at Sky/DB for trying to run as clean a ship as possible. Find it incredible really.

The fact is Brailsford said he was running a clean ship not trying to. Now Armstrong has been discredited Brailsford suddenly decides to wash the filthy deck.

inkyfingers

There wouldn't be any employment tribunals involved as I don't think many of the Sky riders or coaches are "employees".

I would imagine that as well as tax advantages it probably makes it far easier to terminate their contracts if or when a negative story like this cropped up. It would be pretty hard to sack an "employee" for something they may have done 20 years ago whilst working for somebody else.

Sky are just copping the flack because they are the big fish currently, there are plenty more questionable teams, but a UK paper isn't going to get much interest in the goings on at Farnese Vini or Katusha.

disgruntledgoat

Trev The Rev wrote:

mroli wrote:

And if Yates looks Brailsford in the eye and says "I never doped", signs his bit of paper and swears on the bible. Brailsford sacks him anyway because a load of "cnuts and wnakers" on the internet don't believe him. Yates takes him to a tribunal.

If anyone thinks this is just a bit of PR puff for papers and fans - I know that the staff and riders have had the message delivered to them in no uncertain terms and the interviews will happen.

I genuinely can't believe people are having a go at Sky/DB for trying to run as clean a ship as possible. Find it incredible really.

The fact is Brailsford said he was running a clean ship not trying to. Now Armstrong has been discredited Brailsford suddenly decides to wash the filthy deck.

Do you not think you might be overreacting just a teensy bit?

smithy21

Are we not all getting ahead of ourselves here?

We don't know who is going as they have not had the interviews yet?

If one of the prime suspects says "No" to the "did you dope?" question then I can't see how Sky can get rid as the person will be protected by a contract/employment law.

I would rather back a team that aims to have high principles than some of the ones who do the bare minimum.

If we accept that racing is cleaner now than it has been and the process continues to improve things then surely over time it becomes easier to achieve the aim of employing clean staff and riders. The first steps are the hardest.

Richmond Racer

It's OK, DB's passed the interview! 1 down, 79 to go

Trev The Rev

I was asked that when I said Armstrong was a cheat back in 1999.

Turfle

Oh, Trev.

Richmond Racer

But Trev, according to a thread you've started, you think everyone might as well be on PEDs to create 'an even playing field'...so how could anyone including Armstrong be a cheat?

Confused of SW London

disgruntledgoat

Trev The Rev wrote:

I was asked that when I said Armstrong was a cheat back in 1999.

SO your genuine belief is that Sky are exactly as bad as USPS? If so, why bother watching pro cycling and who do you think is worthy of trust?

Anonymous

Garmin and Sky are essentially 2 ways of bridging the gap to a cleaner sport.

As people said, you cant have experience without a slightly dodgy past
Garmin - ok, but we'll keep you if you are an anti-doping advocate
Sky - 100% clean or else or we don't get the sponsors.

Why are people blaming DB for this? Surely SKY choose where they place their money are perhaps a bit naive, whereas Garmin-Sharp know whats been going on so have adjusted their team policy accordingly.

One day, Garmin/Sky riders will be the future DS's etc of the sport, and that's what we are paving the way for, surely?

Anonymous

Surely?