Sky are dopers - Oh no they're not

rayjay

I have been doing some research of my own. I have made some caculations using a ruler a telescope some sticky coloured dots stuck to my telly at various points and I wore my Sherlock Holmes hat. I also drank some very nice bourbon and came to no conclusions other than how do I get the stickers off my nice TV and Jupiter has gone missing and the Sky train is 2cm longer than the Movies star train and if I blur my eyes Chris froome looks like someone from nightmare before christmas. I am available for any serious scientific study.

RichN95.

rayjay wrote:

I have been doing some research of my own. I have made some caculations using a ruler a telescope some sticky coloured dots stuck to my telly at various points and I wore my Sherlock Holmes hat. I also drank some very nice bourbon and came to no conclusions other than how do I get the stickers off my nice TV and Jupiter has gone missing and the Sky train is 2cm longer than the Movies star train and if I blur my eyes Chris froome looks like someone from nightmare before christmas. I am available for any serious scientific study.

For full peer review of your methods I will have to try and replicate your methods to see I come to the same results. So, if you'd be so kind, I need you to send me that bourbon.

Macaloon

bompington wrote:

Pretty much what they have done - don't bother trying as nothing they do will satisfy, and just concentrate on winning the race.

That's the only explanation that makes sense for me. They obviously knew what Froome was going to do. Admirable not giving a tossery.

nic_77

RichN95 wrote:

Seriously though, I have previously suggested pledging Froome's cut of the prize money to WADA for the sole purpose of retroactive testing both now and in the future - but entirely at their discretion. Because that's actually got solid science behind it.

^This. To me this seems the best thing they can do. It's low cost and low impact for the teams as the samples are already being taken from the riders that matter. Any refusal to commit to the pledge would speak volumes.

I've tried a couple of times to suggest it on via twitter (I appreciate I'm p*ssing in the wind), but with no response.

https://twitter.com/paperboy_77/status/ ... 5912475649

@michellecound @franmillar @teamsky why not publicly invite & encourage all future retro-tests on ventoux samples? #nothingtofear

Anyone else want to try and raise the profile of this idea?

P.S. I knew it wasn't my idea, but had no idea where I'd read it previously - thanks Rich for surfacing it again!

Bo Duke

You're proposal places the emphasis on Sky proving they are clean. Its sad, mighty sad that sport has come to this.

rick_chasey

Bo Duke wrote:

You're proposal places the emphasis on Sky proving they are clean. Its sad, mighty sad that sport has come to this.

Who should if not sky?

Curious question, not an arsey one.

Bo Duke

OK, lets take out the hyper reaction to Lance Armstrong's one man destruction of cycling for a moment.

Why should Sky have to prove their riders are clean when they have stated for many years as British Cycling and Sky that is their policy, backed up by blood passports and pre/post race and randomn checks. Britain has lost the ability to demand respect from within its own borders and populous (a wider discussion, granted) however WADA, UCI and other OFFICIAL sports authority/ies are MANDATED to subject Sky to the same number and frequency of tests as any other team then pronounce them to be clean or otherwise. That's right, its not for Sky to fight these allegations every night, get the authorities to come in and state that OFFICIALLY they are clean and stand behind their own test results!

Oh no.... folks prefer to denigrate and snipe from the safety of behind computers.

Call the authorities in and demand they confirm their test status. That's all they have to do.

Plan B? Get Wiggo to make a guest appearance to tell them all to f'off.

Pross

Rick Chasey wrote:

Bo Duke wrote:

You're proposal places the emphasis on Sky proving they are clean. Its sad, mighty sad that sport has come to this.

Who should if not sky?

Curious question, not an arsey one.

Why should anyone have to prove they are clean? They never win, those who are keen to call them out as dopers now without a shred of evidence or even innuendo amongst their peers aren't going to accept retro testing as proof. They will just continue to say it is a new undetectable drug or that they are paying someone off.

iainf72

Bo Duke wrote:

Call the authorities in and demand they confirm their test status. That's all they have to do.

.

So you want the ADA's to confirm they've not failed a test?

Because that's all they can do.

Vino'sGhost

LeicesterLad wrote:

Who cares? I'm f*cking bored of it all. I'm bored of the race to be honest. Since the big time gap I've barely been arsed to watch the last 5 minutes of the chuckle brothers each day. My only remaining hope of real entertainment is the Alp. I'm bored of doping this, doping that, power data blah blah blah. F*ck all of them and all of it. Somebody make a f*cking race of it instead of riding for your sh*tty place in the top ten.

Only thing keeping me going right now is the bearded one and Bauke.


Right, were did I put my cup of tea?

+1

slim_boy_fat

Rick Chasey wrote:

Bo Duke wrote:

You're proposal places the emphasis on Sky proving they are clean. Its sad, mighty sad that sport has come to this.

Who should if not sky?

Curious question, not an arsey one.

Surely it's the job of the anti doping authorities and those that organise the sport to ensure people have trust in what they see? The job of the teams is to turn up and race within the rules.

On_What

Vino'sGhost wrote:

LeicesterLad wrote:

Who cares? I'm f*cking bored of it all. I'm bored of the race to be honest. Since the big time gap I've barely been arsed to watch the last 5 minutes of the chuckle brothers each day. My only remaining hope of real entertainment is the Alp. I'm bored of doping this, doping that, power data blah blah blah. F*ck all of them and all of it. Somebody make a f*cking race of it instead of riding for your sh*tty place in the top ten.

Only thing keeping me going right now is the bearded one and Bauke.


Right, were did I put my cup of tea?

+1

Thank god someone sees sense.

frenchfighter

Dave Dirks ‏@mkddirks 9h
@michellecound Please just tell me Chris is doing it clean. The sport needs a new ambassador to shadows and I hope Chris is it!
Expand Reply Retweet Favorite More
Michelle Cound ‏@michellecound 9h
@mkddirks I bet my career & life in South Africa with my friends & family on it. He has my complete faith, support & respect. So YES he is!

inseine

On_What wrote:

Vino'sGhost wrote:

LeicesterLad wrote:

Who cares? I'm f*cking bored of it all. I'm bored of the race to be honest. Since the big time gap I've barely been arsed to watch the last 5 minutes of the chuckle brothers each day. My only remaining hope of real entertainment is the Alp. I'm bored of doping this, doping that, power data blah blah blah. F*ck all of them and all of it. Somebody make a f*cking race of it instead of riding for your sh*tty place in the top ten.

Only thing keeping me going right now is the bearded one and Bauke.


Right, were did I put my cup of tea?

+1

Thank god someone sees sense.

Agree about the doping, but I think it's been a really good Tour to be honest.

Bo Duke

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Bo Duke wrote:

You're proposal places the emphasis on Sky proving they are clean. Its sad, mighty sad that sport has come to this.

Who should if not sky?

Curious question, not an arsey one.

Surely it's the job of the anti doping authorities and those that organise the sport to ensure people have trust in what they see? The job of the teams is to turn up and race within the rules.

Hallelujah!!!

Spiny_Norman

Pross wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Bo Duke wrote:

You're proposal places the emphasis on Sky proving they are clean. Its sad, mighty sad that sport has come to this.

Who should if not sky?

Curious question, not an arsey one.

Why should anyone have to prove they are clean? They never win, those who are keen to call them out as dopers now without a shred of evidence or even innuendo amongst their peers aren't going to accept retro testing as proof. They will just continue to say it is a new undetectable drug or that they are paying someone off.

Exactly. The problem is, there isn't a specific allegation, or even a vague one, just insinuations and "you're winning, prove to us that you're clean". David Walsh has been pretty good on this, I think. Whether they're clean or dirty, there's no way of adequately rebutting a charge that hasn't been specified, and asking someone "are you doping" is only ever going to get the same uninformative answer.

Lots of lazy journos have come along to this race with the angle that they're all doping (understandable given the events of the last year or so, but still lazy), and they're trying to treat Froome with the suspicion that Armstrong deserved. But there's no Betsy Andreu, no Emma O'Reilly, Christophe Bassons, Filippo Simeoni. There's no history of ex-Sky riders suddenly being busted for doping after leaving the team. There's no "I was in the shower" moment. There's not even a backdated TUE. If they think he's doping, do some proper investigation and turn up some genuine evidence. Talk to ex-team members, follow them in their training camps, dig around in their bins if necessary. Give us something to chew on apart from being quite fast.

I quite like Brailsford's approach the other day of turning the question around - tell us, what would satisfy you? Until there's a general consensus on that, anything Sky offer in evidence will end up being an expensive waste of time. It won't be good enough, or it'll be fiddled data, or they must be doing it some other way. And then the story becomes "Sky data not sufficient to prove innocence", and round we go again.

disgruntledgoat

Spiny Norman makes some good points... Remember the good old days of the fuzz raiding hotels and riders from about 5 teams all chucking their gear out the window? TV news guys finding sacks of medical waste at the side of the road?

You just don't get that anymore.

jswba

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Spiny Norman makes some good points... Remember the good old days of the fuzz raiding hotels and riders from about 5 teams all chucking their gear out the window? TV news guys finding sacks of medical waste at the side of the road?

You just don't get that anymore.

Although Jeremy Whittle noticed that a Sky gopher dumped a black bin bag in a city-centre rubbish bin at a Swiss race. The official race bin was far nearer and bigger, so the question Whittle raised was, why go to the trouble of finding a municipal bin? Unfortunately, he chose not to do a Walsh and investigate further.

It's all recounted in Whittle's article in The Cycling Anthology Vol. 1.

Daz555

jswba wrote:

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Spiny Norman makes some good points... Remember the good old days of the fuzz raiding hotels and riders from about 5 teams all chucking their gear out the window? TV news guys finding sacks of medical waste at the side of the road?

You just don't get that anymore.

Although Jeremy Whittle noticed that a Sky gopher dumped a black bin bag in a city-centre rubbish bin at a Swiss race. The official race bin was far nearer and bigger, so the question Whittle raised was, why go to the trouble of finding a municipal bin? Unfortunately, he chose not to do a Walsh and investigate further.

It's all recounted in Whittle's article in The Cycling Anthology Vol. 1.

Why on earth did Whittle even mention that? For all he knows the guy could have been dumping his collection of donkey porn.

bockers

Spiny_Norman wrote:

Exactly. The problem is, there isn't a specific allegation, or even a vague one, just insinuations and "you're winning, prove to us that you're clean". David Walsh has been pretty good on this, I think. Whether they're clean or dirty, there's no way of adequately rebutting a charge that hasn't been specified, and asking someone "are you doping" is only ever going to get the same uninformative answer.

Lots of lazy journos have come along to this race with the angle that they're all doping (understandable given the events of the last year or so, but still lazy), and they're trying to treat Froome with the suspicion that Armstrong deserved. But there's no Betsy Andreu, no Emma O'Reilly, Christophe Bassons, Filippo Simeoni. There's no history of ex-Sky riders suddenly being busted for doping after leaving the team. There's no "I was in the shower" moment. There's not even a backdated TUE. If they think he's doping, do some proper investigation and turn up some genuine evidence. Talk to ex-team members, follow them in their training camps, dig around in their bins if necessary. Give us something to chew on apart from being quite fast.

I quite like Brailsford's approach the other day of turning the question around - tell us, what would satisfy you? Until there's a general consensus on that, anything Sky offer in evidence will end up being an expensive waste of time. It won't be good enough, or it'll be fiddled data, or they must be doing it some other way. And then the story becomes "Sky data not sufficient to prove innocence", and round we go again.

+1

One key thing still not addressed is the fact that the public have no trust in the UCI. This is the body that is supposed to look after the cyclists health and wellbeing. They are the ones that should be ensuring that teams are not encouraging doping and that there are safeguards in place to prevent doping. However their cosiness with Armstrong showed they are not an impartial trustworthy body. Going back further and the treatment of Obree at the world champs was an example of victimisation against the very riders they should be protecting. Armstrong has some blame in this mess but he, his DS and other teams DSs were all allowed to carry on, and many still are, as if the Festina affair and other doping busts never happened. And don't even start me on the fact that Pat Mcquaid (sp) is still around :shock:

Bo Duke

jswba wrote:

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Spiny Norman makes some good points... Remember the good old days of the fuzz raiding hotels and riders from about 5 teams all chucking their gear out the window? TV news guys finding sacks of medical waste at the side of the road?

You just don't get that anymore.

Although Jeremy Whittle noticed that a Sky gopher dumped a black bin bag in a city-centre rubbish bin at a Swiss race. The official race bin was far nearer and bigger, so the question Whittle raised was, why go to the trouble of finding a municipal bin? Unfortunately, he chose not to do a Walsh and investigate further.

It's all recounted in Whittle's article in The Cycling Anthology Vol. 1.

Because it was fish and chip papers and Kentucky fried chicken boxes that stink and Davie Brailsford said 'take that shite as far away as possible will you G'.

For g*ds sake is that how low we've stooped?

LutherB

Daz555 wrote:

jswba wrote:

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Spiny Norman makes some good points... Remember the good old days of the fuzz raiding hotels and riders from about 5 teams all chucking their gear out the window? TV news guys finding sacks of medical waste at the side of the road?

You just don't get that anymore.

Although Jeremy Whittle noticed that a Sky gopher dumped a black bin bag in a city-centre rubbish bin at a Swiss race. The official race bin was far nearer and bigger, so the question Whittle raised was, why go to the trouble of finding a municipal bin? Unfortunately, he chose not to do a Walsh and investigate further.

It's all recounted in Whittle's article in The Cycling Anthology Vol. 1.

Why on earth did Whittle even mention that? For all he knows the guy could have been dumping his collection of donkey porn.

How do we know it was just his donkey porn? Maybe Richie Porte smiles like he does as he knows there'll be a special black bag waiting for him in his hotel room?

RichN95.

jswba wrote:

Although Jeremy Whittle noticed that a Sky gopher dumped a black bin bag in a city-centre rubbish bin at a Swiss race. The official race bin was far nearer and bigger, so the question Whittle raised was, why go to the trouble of finding a municipal bin? Unfortunately, he chose not to do a Walsh and investigate further.

It's all recounted in Whittle's article in The Cycling Anthology Vol. 1.

I think you have completely missed the point of the story. It is to illustrate how Whittle's mindset has been distorted by all the doping in cycling. He says that even a mundane act such as this has become suspicious to him when a 'normal' person would most likely and with good reason conclude that he just hadn't seen the other bin.

above_the_cows

LutherB wrote:

Daz555 wrote:

jswba wrote:

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Spiny Norman makes some good points... Remember the good old days of the fuzz raiding hotels and riders from about 5 teams all chucking their gear out the window? TV news guys finding sacks of medical waste at the side of the road?

You just don't get that anymore.

Although Jeremy Whittle noticed that a Sky gopher dumped a black bin bag in a city-centre rubbish bin at a Swiss race. The official race bin was far nearer and bigger, so the question Whittle raised was, why go to the trouble of finding a municipal bin? Unfortunately, he chose not to do a Walsh and investigate further.

It's all recounted in Whittle's article in The Cycling Anthology Vol. 1.

Why on earth did Whittle even mention that? For all he knows the guy could have been dumping his collection of donkey porn.

How do we know it was just his donkey porn? Maybe Richie Porte smiles like he does as he knows there'll be a special black bag waiting for him in his hotel room?

This thread has now officially jumped the shark. Donkey porn? We're talking about donkey porn. There is no way back from this.

LutherB

Above The Cows wrote:

LutherB wrote:

Daz555 wrote:

jswba wrote:

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Spiny Norman makes some good points... Remember the good old days of the fuzz raiding hotels and riders from about 5 teams all chucking their gear out the window? TV news guys finding sacks of medical waste at the side of the road?

You just don't get that anymore.

Although Jeremy Whittle noticed that a Sky gopher dumped a black bin bag in a city-centre rubbish bin at a Swiss race. The official race bin was far nearer and bigger, so the question Whittle raised was, why go to the trouble of finding a municipal bin? Unfortunately, he chose not to do a Walsh and investigate further.

It's all recounted in Whittle's article in The Cycling Anthology Vol. 1.

Why on earth did Whittle even mention that? For all he knows the guy could have been dumping his collection of donkey porn.

How do we know it was just his donkey porn? Maybe Richie Porte smiles like he does as he knows there'll be a special black bag waiting for him in his hotel room?

This thread has now officially jumped the shark. Donkey porn? We're talking about donkey porn. There is no way back from this.

We're way past jumping the shark, AtC, we're now nuking the fridge!

jswba

RichN95 wrote:

I think you have completely missed the point of the story. It is to illustrate how Whittle's mindset has been distorted by all the doping in cycling. He says that even a mundane act such as this has become suspicious to him when a 'normal' person would most likely and with good reason conclude that he just hadn't seen the other bin.

Oh aye, I did understand that the story was more about Whittle than Sky. FWIW, his point would have been better served had he acted on his journalistic impulses in the first instance (especially if he found nothing -- or even better, some donkey-lycra porn) rather than waiting until later to see if the bag was still there.

disgruntledgoat

Would you go bin dipping in broad daylight?

RichN95.

LutherB wrote:

We're way past jumping the shark, AtC, we're now nuking the fridge!

Don't mention "nuking the fridge". Ever. I really need to pretend that never happened.

jswba

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Would you go bin dipping in broad daylight?

A scoop?

LutherB

RichN95 wrote:

LutherB wrote:

We're way past jumping the shark, AtC, we're now nuking the fridge!

Don't mention "nuking the fridge". Ever. I really need to pretend that never happened.

I know what you mean When i heard about it i vowed never to watch it so as to not taint the greatness of the first