'98 retro testing...

mididoctors

ThomThom wrote:

Everytime Johan's name comes up it annoys me knowing how much money he has.

How about a class action suit for mental damages from everybody who had the sporting spectacle repeatedly ruined for years on end?

mididoctors

ddraver wrote:

dish_dash wrote:

It's a total shambles. Both O'Grady and Blijlevens (not to mention Jaja) highlight that there is no guarantee that anyone will tell the truth to any of these truth and reconciliation approaches being suggested... both lied very recently about their doping past. If I was running Dutch or Australian cycling I'd be fuming...

That's a very good point, one of the few things that drops out of all the handwringing is that T&R processes just won't work...yet still we have people bleating for them on twitter... :roll:

you have that completely backwards

T&R has worked hasn't it! just not in the one dimensional way myopic advocates or detractors argue it should or shouldn't.

RichN95.

mididoctors wrote:

Yes but this is why you combine approaches because you get to cross reference stories and see who has character and who hasn't

T and R has value even if people lie.

we now know

yes?

you piece it together from all the sources you can

Here are some things you really need to learn and understand:

1. In the late 90s more or less everyone was doping. Very few wanted to but they had the choice of dope or walk away from what they've worked long and hard to achieve. It's easy to judge when you have not been faced with that situation.

2. Everybody lies. You do, I do, everybody. We all have secrets that we never want revealed - you do, I do, everybody. So let's not take some moral high ground judging 'character'.

3. No matter what you do, the past cannot be changed. What happened happened.

4. Any T & R commision is going to cost a lot of money to tell you what I told you in point 1 for free. The money is best spent elsewhere.

5. If you focus too much on the past you are liable to lose sight of the present and future.

sherer

to be honest we don't need to know what riders did and didn't dope. WHat we need to know is how they were allowed to get away with doping for so long, how did they avoid detection, who helped them and facilittated in the doping ? Who is still involved in the sport that helped them.

frenchfighter

Tom Steels will keep his job with Omega Pharma-QuickStep, despite appearing on the “suspicious” list for having used EPO at the 1998 Tour de France. “We unreservedly support Tom,” said team boss Patrick Lefevere

-Check

RichN95.

sherer wrote:

to be honest we don't need to know what riders did and didn't dope. WHat we need to know is how they were allowed to get away with doping for so long, how did they avoid detection, who helped them and facilittated in the doping ? Who is still involved in the sport that helped them.

They got away with it in 1998 because there was no test. Trying to learn about modern day doping by examining the 90s is like trying to learn about modern day bank security by interviewing Bonnie and Clyde.

And just because someone went along with the system then, it certainly does not follow that they are still advocates of it. Many of those that doped back then resented it.

frenchfighter

Aussie backs Aussie:
http://cyclingtips.com.au/2013/07/ride- ... e-judging/

Well why dont people back many other dopers.

ddraver

sherer wrote:

to be honest we don't need to know what riders did and didn't dope. WHat we need to know is how they were allowed to get away with doping for so long, how did they avoid detection, who helped them and facilittated in the doping ? Who is still involved in the sport that helped them.

Easy

how they were allowed to get away with doping for so long, - There was no test and the UCI prefered (and still do prefer) a scandal free sport to an hones tone

how did they avoid detection - there was no test

who helped them and facilittated in the doping - team managers, doctors, soigneurs, other riders, everyone

Who is still involved in the sport that helped them - Everyone still involved in cycling or cycling team management who rode in the 90's and early 2000's. Ironically the only exception to that is the number 1 suspicious team, Team Sky. Make of that what you will

We need to move away from this "USPS ran the most sophisticated doping program in the world" line, becasue in reality it's "every cycling team ran the..."

salsiccia1

RichN95 wrote:

Here are some things you really need to learn and understand:

1. In the late 90s more or less everyone was doping. Very few wanted to but they had the choice of dope or walk away from what they've worked long and hard to achieve. It's easy to judge when you have not been faced with that situation.

2. Everybody lies. You do, I do, everybody. We all have secrets that we never want revealed - you do, I do, everybody. So let's not take some moral high ground judging 'character'.

3. No matter what you do, the past cannot be changed. What happened happened.

4. Any T & R commision is going to cost a lot of money to tell you what I told you in point 1 for free. The money is best spent elsewhere.

5. If you focus too much on the past you are liable to lose sight of the present and future.

*standing ovation*

rick_chasey

I've said this before, but Rich would make a terrible historian.

And strictly speaking, as soon as something is in the past it is filtered through our individual anx collective memories which is where the past actually lies - so it's VERY changable.

mididoctors

RichN95 wrote:

mididoctors wrote:

Yes but this is why you combine approaches because you get to cross reference stories and see who has character and who hasn't

T and R has value even if people lie.

we now know

yes?

you piece it together from all the sources you can

Here are some things you really need to learn and understand:

1. In the late 90s more or less everyone was doping. Very few wanted to but they had the choice of dope or walk away from what they've worked long and hard to achieve. It's easy to judge when you have not been faced with that situation.

2. Everybody lies. You do, I do, everybody. We all have secrets that we never want revealed - you do, I do, everybody. So let's not take some moral high ground judging 'character'.

3. No matter what you do, the past cannot be changed. What happened happened.

4. Any T & R commision is going to cost a lot of money to tell you what I told you in point 1 for free. The money is best spent elsewhere.

5. If you focus too much on the past you are liable to lose sight of the present and future.

I keep hearing this and I can see some sense to logic behind it but the reality is the constant pressure being applied is producing results that are very meaningful in creating a clean sport moving forward. The moral highgound argument is a strawman, lets see if I can articulate this. bear with me.

the fact people lie both in the past and the present doesn't invalidate the process or make it at odds with any other measures put into place.

T & R in its current piecemeal form seems to be a good thing to me. Yes just because the bad guys want a etch-a-sketch start again solution doesn't mean they won't lie but it also doesn't mean that process will not reveal information of relevance now. which goes onto your point about easy to judge. Its got nothing to do with judgement I was a massive jaja fan at the time and was fully aware that once might have well been called swiss drug bionica. It's about understanding. How rife was it? you say nearly everyone. so do I but was it?

who started when?

The area of money and how it is spent is always going to be a factor..well the sport is going to have to pay and that means riders wages will effectively be taxed.

Its about getting to the truth as best we can and more information (even lies are information) the better. I am not per sae out to get everyone

I am also interested in this polarised argument of pro and con t and r because in of itself it is revealing. the process of arguing about the process creates meaning and insight! especially because we see "sides" stack up. what the bad guys[for want of a better term] don't get "yet" is that getting their own way is self defeating. Its about putting everything we know and can surmise into context and that context has a long history. And its bigger than just the sport IO.

for instance...

My gut feeling about all this and its a odd one and has relevance to the social history of humanity

The suspicion I have is that doping really is and was unnecessary for high level performance and that most of it is actually a traumatic overspill from WW1 and WW2 where most of the hardcore initiation (and the drugs) grew from, and thats a story bigger than the sport. the demands of the event were on par with the excesses of human endurance placed on people during the stress of warfare

Now that seems totally off kilter and 90 degrees to the plane of the subject at hand even to me but my point is understanding the issue may be somewhat a wider task than we first imagine and goes beyond some guys just trying to get a competitive edge, because there is a somewhat unique cultural "just to survive" element to doping in cycling compared to other sports.... I want this issue really understood and it baffles me that others don't

back to earth for a mo... Maybe I can understand why o'grady lied as late into this as he did (wanted one last good tour and with it and a shoe in to a cycle coaching role)...I even don't blame him that much tbh despite agreeing with the monkey that his attitude makes the lives of other later generation riders tougher(sins of the fathers). but the reason I can "get it" is because it is revealed by his lying not because we never found out.

He is unlucky in the timing, well maybe he should have done something about it earlier and fire-walled that problem (millar garmin jv etc, looking remarkably like a sensible move now).

you don't have to dislike or like anybody. Do we just turn around to history and collectively agree to be selectively stupid about it?... we all say we already know and nothing is a surprise but I was 50/50 on o'grady and a fair few others as well. It's not all known. Its not common knowledge, as armstrong would argue.

a month ago

o'grady yea or neigh?... pretty imbedded into the i don't know camp if I am honest, obviously not going to shocked to find out yea given our perception of history.

disgruntledgoat

I watched the 4 hours worth of Ken Burns documentaries on doping in Baseball in the 1990s last night and the parallels to cycling in the same era were pretty striking, in fact there were a couple of points that really grabbed me.

Firstly, Chris Rock pointing out that if there was an, at the time undetecable, pill that allowed you to massively increase your earning power in your chosen profession, of course you would take it. More so if all your competitors were doing it.

Secondly, there was a consensus among some respected boradcasters that whilst MLB, the owners, players union, journos etc weren't actively encouraging cheating. They were al relishing the improved media profile of the sport from the home run records etc and that led to turning a blind eye. By the time things got out of hand and ridiculous there was no way to unpick the whole situation without getting their hands very, very dirty, looking like criminals and nearly destroying the sport. Again, nobody in any of those areas had any interest in doing so.

disgruntledgoat

The suspicion I have is that doping really is and was unnecessary for high level performance and that most of it is actually a traumatic overspill from WW1 and WW2 where most of the hardcore initiation (and the drugs) grew from, and thats a story bigger than the sport. the demands of the event were on par with the excesses of human endurance placed on people during the stress of warfare

Interestingly, this came up too... Players were taking amphetemines from the wartime stock in the 50s, the contact with the East German athletes, sports stars etc at various international tournaments led to steroids introduction into American sports in the 1960s, these were originally researched by the Nazis with a view to creating batallions of Aryan supermen.

iainf72

Ken Burns is a genius

I just thought I'd add that

Crankbrother

So, doping confirmed on a team that contained a British cycling 'legend' ... That's happened more than once now, a lot more than once ... Do we still assume that the Brits were immune to pressure and the quest for results?

salsiccia1

Crankbrother wrote:

So, doping confirmed on a team that contained a British cycling 'legend' ... That's happened more than once now, a lot more than once ... Do we still assume that the Brits were immune to pressure and the quest for results?

No. Some of us never did.

bockers

Crankbrother wrote:

So, doping confirmed on a team that contained a British cycling 'legend' ... That's happened more than once now, a lot more than once ... Do we still assume that the Brits were immune to pressure and the quest for results?

Oh dear :roll: Dare we ask for some evidence :?:

RichN95.

Rick Chasey wrote:

I've said this before, but Rich would make a terrible historian.

I would indeed. But to understand the Battle of Waterloo, you don't need to know the names of the soldiers.

sherer

with so many dopers out there you cab't avoid being on a team with other dopers and as Millar showed Brits aren't immune to the pressure either.

rick_chasey

RichN95 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

I've said this before, but Rich would make a terrible historian.

I would indeed. But to understand the Battle of Waterloo, you don't need to know the names of the soldiers.

Entirely depends on what history you are looking to do. ;-).

mididoctors

Crankbrother wrote:

So, doping confirmed on a team that contained a British cycling 'legend' ... That's happened more than once now, a lot more than once ... Do we still assume that the Brits were immune to pressure and the quest for results?

nationalistic bias

lot of it about

that said I still reckon chris is pure driven snow... the question I would ask of him and I wonder if we would really get a straight up answer is

Did you see or know of other riders at Gan/Credit ag on the gear?

I suppose "yeah I did but Its up to them to name themselves" is a pass. no one likes a grass

mike6

sherer wrote:

with so many dopers out there you cab't avoid being on a team with other dopers and as Millar showed Brits aren't immune to the pressure either.

No, lots of peer pressure, but Obree decided it was not for him, and got out. Boardman managed to avoid most of the pressure by training, mainly, in Britain, and doing what he was signed to do, winning TTs and prologues.

TheBigBean

For me, the single most compelling reason to expose past dopers is to discourage the modern generation from doping.

mididoctors

TheBigBean wrote:

For me, the single most compelling reason to expose past dopers is to discourage the modern generation from doping.

there is that just because you got away with it for the last 10 years don't assume you are never going to get caught factor

Yellow Peril

mididoctors wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

For me, the single most compelling reason to expose past dopers is to discourage the modern generation from doping.

there is that just because you got away with it for the last 10 years don't assume you are never going to get caught factor

I think the Bean uis right on this. even 10 years ago there was reasonable money in cycling and a lot of other sports. Because it is sport we still talk about "cheating" when really we should be using more criminal terminology such as deception and fraud. Part of me wants to ensure the full story comes out in which case you have to go down the T &R route but I also want people to be held accountable so that the message is clear going forward.

mike6

Yellow Peril wrote:

mididoctors wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

For me, the single most compelling reason to expose past dopers is to discourage the modern generation from doping.

there is that just because you got away with it for the last 10 years don't assume you are never going to get caught factor

I think the Bean uis right on this. even 10 years ago there was reasonable money in cycling and a lot of other sports. Because it is sport we still talk about "cheating" when really we should be using more criminal terminology such as deception and fraud. Part of me wants to ensure the full story comes out in which case you have to go down the T &R route but I also want people to be held accountable so that the message is clear going forward.

Quite agree. It should be sporting fraud. If the new pro's thought that any money that came from doped performances had to be repaid. Said results removed from the records, and a court appearance, ANY time in the future, you bet they would think long and hard before taking that route.

Crankbrother

bockers wrote:

Crankbrother wrote:

So, doping confirmed on a team that contained a British cycling 'legend' ... That's happened more than once now, a lot more than once ... Do we still assume that the Brits were immune to pressure and the quest for results?

Oh dear :roll: Dare we ask for some evidence :?:

As expected, knee jerk 'of course we didn't we're British' type response ... Nothing can be assured, hence putting forward discussion on the topic ...

The ceremonial car journey for Froome on Sunday was very interesting as I expect every one of those envolved had to smile through the knowledge of indescretion ... LA had to cheat to win in the era he cycled ... What made Greg, Bernard and Miguel so special? History has proven doping works ...

knedlicky

dimspace wrote:

knedlicky wrote:

Well done initially for the chart and now for being prepared to have a go at an explanation, but I think your memory about O’Grady’s value is faulty.
As I wrote above to Rick, it was 83.1%.

O'Grady 26.7.98 - lab ref 064 415
...

So it was 61.3%.
Sorry about that, my mistake, my apologies to Stuart O'Grady and anyone else who briefly believed me :oops:
My info (taken from a French source) is less detailed than yours and evidently has the results for O'Grady and Calcaterra the wrong way round.

mike6

Crankbrother wrote:

bockers wrote:

Crankbrother wrote:

So, doping confirmed on a team that contained a British cycling 'legend' ... That's happened more than once now, a lot more than once ... Do we still assume that the Brits were immune to pressure and the quest for results?

Oh dear :roll: Dare we ask for some evidence :?:

As expected, knee jerk 'of course we didn't we're British' type response ... Nothing can be assured, hence putting forward discussion on the topic ...

The ceremonial car journey for Froome on Sunday was very interesting as I expect every one of those envolved had to smile through the knowledge of indescretion ... LA had to cheat to win in the era he cycled ... What made Greg, Bernard and Miguel so special? History has proven doping works ...

Why is it "Knee jerk" to ask for evidence? Its not right to say to someone "you have to prove you are not cheating" How can they do that? Boardman ASKED for samples to be taken so they could be tested when the procedures caught up with the doping. What more do you want?

Armstrong has a LOT to answer for. Because he got away with it for years, for whatever reason, be it clever doctors or having the UCI in his pocket (allegedly) anyone who wins any race now is tarred with the same brush. "Must be a doper then".

wombly_knees

frenchfighter wrote:

Aussie backs Aussie:
http://cyclingtips.com.au/2013/07/ride- ... e-judging/

Well why dont people back many other dopers.

The author really needs some tissues or a sock.

He could've fessed up like Hodge or White in October.