Leinders Banned

blazing_saddles

TheBigBean wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

argyllflyer wrote:

Race Radio has done a fair enough job on tying some of the loose ends together...

http://theraceradio.com/leinders/

This

Despite a lot of publicly available evidence of Lienders active participation in Rabobank’s doping program he was hired by Team Sky in late 2010.

That's horse poop. The first anyone seemed to know about it was in 2012. I don't remember anyone moaning about it at all until then.

In the interests of presenting both sides, this is Race Radio's response

Yeah, “Public” may be too a broad term. I recall Leinders name being linked to the Human Plasma mess in 2009/10 when multiple Rabobank riders were linked to the lab. This resulted in an internal audit of the team and Leinders exit. There had also been a decade of reports of doping on Rabobank. It is surprising that Hayman or Flecha we not asked about it.

Add to this, I have heard that at least 2 people at Sky warned Brailsford about Leinders prior to him being hired but he ignored them.

It seems there was either incompetence or willful ignorance in his hiring.

2009/10?
All this is easy to check.
Not one mention of GL from RR in the Clinic until June 2012, when he had this to say:

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread ... ost1253045

Supposedly from a din dins meeting with Porte:

I absolutely brought up Leinders and he addressed it very directly. He did not toss him under the bus, pretend he did not know him, as is often the case with someone with something to hide. He said that Leinders was a good man, something I have heard often, and that he never suggested any doping.

I have always had the position that hiring Leinders was a mistake as it showed they had not done their due diligence.....But Leinders is not the guy you hire to run ultra-sophisticated modern doping program.

Perhaps RR should keep better track of what he writes and when.

dish_dash

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Perhaps RR should keep better track of what he writes and when.

Started a blog now... needs to drive traffic so why not go sensationalist/revisionist...

RichN95.

The irony of all of this is that the one bit of doping at Rabobank we did know about - Rasmussen in 2007 - he wasn't actually involved with.

salsiccia1

argyllflyer wrote:

I'm just a fan but looking at it from the outside, cycling seems a small world with a limited pool of people working in it. It seems pretty clear a lot of teams were dirty in the early / mid 2000s and the people involved in the sport then would have had a fair idea what various teams were up to even if the pathetic omerta stopped any public comment. Whether or not media outlets were printing at that time that Rabobank were more like a bloodbank would seem to me to be immaterial. Sky, by taking a doctor from a top European team a few years after Puerto, were also taking a massive gamble regarding his ethics.

Interesting points.

But setting up a cycling team post-Puerto was a massive gamble full stop. Sky had the balls to go big and try to do something different in a pretty toxic environment, and as you say there's only a limited pool of people available and there was always the risk of ending up with a few people who turn out to be ropy. But as others have said, there's no evidence it was a deliberate recruitment of someone with a dodgy past.

Would we all rather Sky hadn't bothered setting up the team because the high risk environment made some mistakes a big risk? As that's the only way they could guarantee not recruiting someone involved in the dirty past.

thomthom

RichN95 wrote:

The irony of all of this is that the one bit of doping at Rabobank we did know about - Rasmussen in 2007 - he wasn't actually involved with.

When did we know about it though? When he confessed, he confessed all the way down to his cycle cross career in 99, not only 2007, mentioning Leinders several times as taking part.

RichN95.

ThomThom wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

The irony of all of this is that the one bit of doping at Rabobank we did know about - Rasmussen in 2007 - he wasn't actually involved with.

When did we know about it though? When he confessed, he confessed all the way down to his cycle cross career in 99, not only 2007, mentioning Leinders several times as taking part.

All that was revealed later - 2012. I was referring to the 'knowledge' of Rasmussen being booted off the Tour (admittedly we didn't 'know' what doping he may or may not had done). That was the event that triggered all this - and Leinders wasn't involved in it - which is the irony.

blazing_saddles

ThomThom wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

The irony of all of this is that the one bit of doping at Rabobank we did know about - Rasmussen in 2007 - he wasn't actually involved with.

When did we know about it though? When he confessed, he confessed all the way down to his cycle cross career in 99, not only 2007, mentioning Leinders several times as taking part.

And when was that?

andyp

Salsiccia1 wrote:

Interesting points.

But setting up a cycling team post-Puerto was a massive gamble full stop. Sky had the balls to go big and try to do something different in a pretty toxic environment, and as you say there's only a limited pool of people available and there was always the risk of ending up with a few people who turn out to be ropy. But as others have said, there's no evidence it was a deliberate recruitment of someone with a dodgy past.

Would we all rather Sky hadn't bothered setting up the team because the high risk environment made some mistakes a big risk? As that's the only way they could guarantee not recruiting someone involved in the dirty past.

Let's not forget that Sky set up a team without any of the medical staff having a background in professional cycling. The untimely death of Txema Gonzalez at the Vuelta in 2010 led to the decision to employ a doctor with more experience in the milieu of pro cycling. That's when Leinders was employed.

RichN95.

With regard to the idea that Leinders's reputation was well know throughout cycling, I remember these two tweets from someone who knows a thing or two, back in 2012.


...........

argyllflyer

I personally don't think Sky recruited the Rabo 'doping doc' knowingly and Brailsford told Walsh in his book that he offered to resign as a result of it. What's really unfortunate is that either the ex-Rabo guys spoke up and were ignored or they didn't speak up at all.

The Vaughters tweets are interesting, though I suppose with Leinders leaving Rabo not that long after Slipstream's formation, their paths may not have crossed and he may not have got into deep discussions with Dekker about specific names of who doped him as about 3 years had passed since he left them. I haven't looked enough into this to know how connected Dekker was to Leinders but this week's report puts him in the thick of it all does it not?

joelsim

andyp wrote:

Salsiccia1 wrote:

Interesting points.

But setting up a cycling team post-Puerto was a massive gamble full stop. Sky had the balls to go big and try to do something different in a pretty toxic environment, and as you say there's only a limited pool of people available and there was always the risk of ending up with a few people who turn out to be ropy. But as others have said, there's no evidence it was a deliberate recruitment of someone with a dodgy past.

Would we all rather Sky hadn't bothered setting up the team because the high risk environment made some mistakes a big risk? As that's the only way they could guarantee not recruiting someone involved in the dirty past.

Let's not forget that Sky set up a team without any of the medical staff having a background in professional cycling. The untimely death of Txema Gonzalez at the Vuelta in 2010 led to the decision to employ a doctor with more experience in the milieu of pro cycling. That's when Leinders was employed.

Was there a doctor who didn't partake between the early 90s and now except for Prentice?

CCalculus

Yellow Peril wrote:

He must be doing the walk of shame as a doping doctor as, with the exception of everyone's favourite Mexican Dane,(and only then with mixed results) Rabo were gash.

Menchov won the 09' Giro and 07' Vuelta whilst Leinders was at Rabobank.

Arkibal

iainf72 wrote:

argyllflyer wrote:

Race Radio has done a fair enough job on tying some of the loose ends together...

http://theraceradio.com/leinders/

This

Despite a lot of publicly available evidence of Lienders active participation in Rabobank’s doping program he was hired by Team Sky in late 2010.

That's horse poop. The first anyone seemed to know about it was in 2012. I don't remember anyone moaning about it at all until then.

Not quite so...
https://soundcloud.com/secondcaptains-i ... -belichick

blazing_saddles

Arkibal wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

argyllflyer wrote:

Race Radio has done a fair enough job on tying some of the loose ends together...

http://theraceradio.com/leinders/

This

Despite a lot of publicly available evidence of Lienders active participation in Rabobank’s doping program he was hired by Team Sky in late 2010.

That's horse poop. The first anyone seemed to know about it was in 2012. I don't remember anyone moaning about it at all until then.

Not quite so...
https://soundcloud.com/secondcaptains-i ... -belichick

Could you give us the time on the recording where the folks knew that Leinders was involved in Rabo's doping programme are named? In other words, the men Sky should have asked, but didn't.
I listened to a few minutes and all I heard was that Froome knew about Rasmussen and Dekker, but not that Leinders was specifically involved.
Other than that, the discussion sounds a lot like those in the Clinic: Riders were talking, everybody knew etc.
No argument that everyone (inc Sky) agrees that the signing was a mistake.

ocdupalais

How ironic that sanctimonious journalists are now making this one of the dullest stories in cycling right now.
The only person on the planet who might still quibble that the Leinders appointment at Sky was a massive mistake is possibly Leinders.

Was it a mistake to employ him? Yes.
Why? (See posts above) It demonstrated a lack of diligence on behalf of Sky - and specifically Brailsford - and a failure to properly vet doctors who might have doctored performances. I know I was banging on about it in 2011 as we're thousands of others including my mum. Did they listen? Nope."Geertcha Geert!" the placards read... There was Dave, sat at his ivory desk, picking the fleas off of Steve Peters' inner chimp, doing nothing about this sorry mess...

If I were a journalist I would keep this turd of a story current by luzzing it at Brailsford's pure white smock until he inevitably makes another mistake. "Ooh look at me! I'm a jammy baldy who's managed to wing his way into a lead role in a team that's made a fuss about being clean!". He'd definitely be on my hit-list. Team Sky stories seem to have so much mileage. Obviously, I'd be nervous of ever making a mistake in my own writing in case that showed that I too was ever anything other than diligent in my job...

sherer

can someone re-cap where we are with this.

Are Sky the dirtiest team in history ?

Is the Devil riding for them this season ?

Macaloon

argyllflyer wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

Does that not just reflect public interest in a search term?

It does. But it shows it was on nobodies radar.

You can also do a search and limit it to a period of time. Guess what happens then? Yep, that one Telegraaf article which says he was leaving the team as he didn't like the direction it was taking.

I'm just a fan but looking at it from the outside, cycling seems a small world with a limited pool of people working in it. It seems pretty clear a lot of teams were dirty in the early / mid 2000s and the people involved in the sport then would have had a fair idea what various teams were up to even if the pathetic omerta stopped any public comment. Whether or not media outlets were printing at that time that Rabobank were more like a bloodbank would seem to me to be immaterial. Sky, by taking a doctor from a top European team a few years after Puerto, were also taking a massive gamble regarding his ethics.

Don't worry. Rick will be along in a minute to reassure us about the wizard integrity of financiers.

Eufemiano Fuentes, a Spanish doctor, later to be convicted of sports doping, whose offshore funds came from illegal doping of racing cyclists, withdrew a total of €265,000 in cash in the course of the year, claiming it was to buy a boat and to pay hospital bills for his daughter.

[Fubar your search is]

rick_chasey

Ha, was just about to post that.

Fuentes grabbing €265,000 in cash in Switzerland.

Makes sense.

If you're getting paid for services which are illegal, makes sense to try and hide the income.

rick_chasey

Probably pays to be a mugger in Geneva I suspect.

Rodrego Hernandez

andyp wrote:

Salsiccia1 wrote:

Interesting points.

But setting up a cycling team post-Puerto was a massive gamble full stop. Sky had the balls to go big and try to do something different in a pretty toxic environment, and as you say there's only a limited pool of people available and there was always the risk of ending up with a few people who turn out to be ropy. But as others have said, there's no evidence it was a deliberate recruitment of someone with a dodgy past.

Would we all rather Sky hadn't bothered setting up the team because the high risk environment made some mistakes a big risk? As that's the only way they could guarantee not recruiting someone involved in the dirty past.

Let's not forget that Sky set up a team without any of the medical staff having a background in professional cycling. The untimely death of Txema Gonzalez at the Vuelta in 2010 led to the decision to employ a doctor with more experience in the milieu of pro cycling. That's when Leinders was employed.

Playing the dead soigneur card. Some might say his death was actually timely as it enabled Dave B to recruit someone with experience of managing a doping program under the pretence of it being the only choice available to him. As if the medical and sporting world is so small that he was the only option. The fact that Sky employed doctors that didn't want to be away on stage races for 3 weeks was the bigger issue there.

Dave B spent a year on the pro tour circuit and knew as much as there was to know about everyone. He knew Ballan was going to be caught up in a scandal. He also told people at Sky that he recruited Leinders because he knew what was going on behind the scenes.

Face facts boys, the clean team is just as bad as the rest of them.

ddraver

Again...anything that we didnt hear, investigate and dismiss 3 years ago?

Macaloon

ddraver wrote:

Again...anything that we didnt hear, investigate and dismiss 3 years ago?

3 more years of "No stone unturned - our riders so clean we don't need to even looked at their passports - etc" Brailsford horseshit.

ddraver

but no actual....evidence...

ok

Macaloon

Plenty of examples of eyebrow-raising conduct for a "clean" team supposedly run on the best science and management money can buy:

- JTL and his ludicrous blood, riding for a season, undetected by the team cos they didn't review his passport (aye, right)
- "surprising" discovery of the effects of altitude on Henao's blood parameters
- miraculous immaculate transformation of Froome from out of contract to franchise rider. How can the team know how he did it without testing?
- "incompetent" hire of a doping doc

Poor naive Dave. How could he possibly be expected to know what goes on in his team? Plausible deniability? Not buying it.

Anonymous

But still zero evidence that they are doping?

RichN95.

Macaloon wrote:

Plenty of examples of eyebrow-raising conduct for a "clean" team supposedly run on the best science and management money can buy:

- JTL and his ludicrous blood, riding for a season, undetected by the team cos they didn't review his passport (aye, right)
- "surprising" discovery of the effects of altitude on Henao's blood parameters
- miraculous immaculate transformation of Froome from out of contract to franchise rider. How can the team know how he did it without testing?
- "incompetent" hire of a doping doc

Poor naive Dave. How could he possibly be expected to know what goes on in his team? Plausible deniability? Not buying it.

But if they are a team that is OK with doping then these are even more stupid descisions.

They paid the top market rate only for his form to collapse, and top market rate for Froome when they could have got him cheap. And they made an issue with Henao when no-one else had mentioned anything having him miss half the season. And they hired a doctor with no particular skills, put him on the pay roll and didn't use him for training. These would be moronic decisions for a non-clean team rather than just bad ones for a clean one.

You need to understand that everyone makes mistakes no matter how much attention the pay to detail.

bompington

RichN95 wrote:

You need to understand that everyone makes mistakes no matter how much attention the pay to detail.

No, you need to understand that Sky are evil, that much was set in tablets of stone the very day the team was announced, and therefore everything they do must be seen in the light of this knowledge, in fact it all proves their guilt. Win a race? Doped. Lose a race? Stopped doping. Hire a doctor? Fire a doctor? Equally evidence of conspiracy.

argyllflyer

Macaloon wrote:

- JTL and his ludicrous blood, riding for a season, undetected by the team cos they didn't review his passport (aye, right)

JTL was not on the passport as a 3rd tier rider. Any tests done on him ahead of him being part of it (such as those carried out by Garmin) would only be useful to a certain degree.

As JTL was not on the passport, the anomalous reading that led to his ban was taken at the 2012 World Championships - as far as I know. All tests done once an official Team Sky rider showed his 'normal' level which made the WC reading standout like the Ventoux in Provence. \___

If anything, JTL is evidence that Sky don't dope as his bio-passport recorded nothing untoward in his time there. A lone wolf buying EPO online to get a better contract.

CCalculus

argyllflyer wrote:

As JTL was not on the passport, the anomalous reading that led to his ban was taken at the 2012 World Championships - as far as I know. All tests done once an official Team Sky rider showed his 'normal' level which made the WC reading standout like the Ventoux in Provence. \___

If anything, JTL is evidence that Sky don't dope as his bio-passport recorded nothing untoward in his time there. A lone wolf buying EPO online to get a better contract.

Sky knew about Tiernan-Locke's blood values before they signed him in early October 2012:

Tiernan-Locke’s suspicious biological passport test on September 22 2012 showed a haemoglobin concentration of 17.9 g/dL, with the percentage of reticulocytes, or immature blood cells, at just 0.15%. [Editor’s note: the former reading equates to a haematocrit reading of approximately 53.7%, while standard reticulocyte levels are approximately 1%.]

Those two values combine to produce a calculated measurement called OFF-score. According to UKAD, Tiernan-Locke’s figures led to a ‘highly abnormal’ OFF-score value of 155.8.

In addition to that, the medical test carried out by Team Sky two days later was also unusual. His OFF-score value then was 127.8; according to anti-doping expert Robin Parisotto, who is one of the UCI’s biological passport experts but who was speaking to CyclingTips separate to that capacity, both values would raise red flags in his book.

“An OFF-score of 155.8 is ‘off the scale’,” stated Parisotto. “I cannot ever recall such a high value and I have reviewed many profiles from many athletes from other sports.”

With a reference [i.e. ‘normal’] range for male athletes lying between 55.4 -110.6, Tiernan-Locke’s two values were far higher. According to Parisotto, the September 22 value of 155.8 results in a probability of a false positive of between one to 100,000 and one to one million.

As for the September 24 reading from Sky’s own blood test, the level of 127.8 had the risk of a false positive of between one to 1,000 and one to 10,000.

“As an OFF-score of 129.2 is the 1:10,000 cut-off. I would be very concerned about this score,” he said.

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2014/09/biolo ... ocke-case/

Tiernan-Locke didn't need to be in the biological passport testing pool in order for Sky to realise that his blood values were extremely suspicious.

Given that Sky is renowned for its attention to detail, it seems safe to assume that Sky management were aware of the above OFF-scores. Yet why would a team that has zero tolerance policy with respect to doping sign a rider with highly suspicious blood values?

Macaloon

argyllflyer wrote:

Macaloon wrote:

- JTL and his ludicrous blood, riding for a season, undetected by the team cos they didn't review his passport (aye, right)

JTL was not on the passport as a 3rd tier rider. Any tests done on him ahead of him being part of it (such as those carried out by Garmin) would only be useful to a certain degree.

As JTL was not on the passport, the anomalous reading that led to his ban was taken at the 2012 World Championships - as far as I know. All tests done once an official Team Sky rider showed his 'normal' level which made the WC reading standout like the Ventoux in Provence. \___

If anything, JTL is evidence that Sky don't dope as his bio-passport recorded nothing untoward in his time there. A lone wolf buying EPO online to get a better contract.

I think you have it right. I'm just pointing out that "Team Details" apparently didn't bother looking at rider passport data until JTL's case arose - after a year of riding for them. They're lucky he won nowt. As for the lone wolf, in search of a contract, looks like Sky was the perfect setup:

- clueless, isolated management, purged of anyone with history in the sport and proudly innocent of all wrong-doing.
- a 'purity pledge' - effectively a 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' policy
- no pesky internal tests to evade
- an apparent willingness to overlook remarkable performances: "Don't worry, Dave, Froome was putting out those numbers all the time". "Dave, JTL is just a late developer who had a bout of sickness"

Well done, Dave. Clever.

Edit to acknowledge that the big downside of Sky for your lone wolf is Kerrison, who's program would likely blunt the edge of any illicit preparation.