Knaven (aka, chickens coming home to roost)

iainf72

Oh dear me

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/others ... ssure.html

Someone on TVM doping? I refuse to believe it.

Sky statement

http://www.teamsky.com/teamsky/home/art ... KtRE3Ps.97

mm1

Time to drop the ridiculous zero tolerence policy? Knaven employed for his ability to read a race, so who really cares about the alleged less wholesome aspects of his past.

iainf72

mm1 wrote:

Time to drop the ridiculous zero tolerence policy? Knaven employed for his ability to read a race, so who really cares about the alleged less wholesome aspects of his past.

Yep. You need to be dishonest to keep your job. That can't be healthy.

JackPozzi

iainf72 wrote:

mm1 wrote:

Time to drop the ridiculous zero tolerence policy? Knaven employed for his ability to read a race, so who really cares about the alleged less wholesome aspects of his past.

Yep. You need to be dishonest to keep your job. That can't be healthy.

Don't most jobs in the real world involve a level of dishonesty? :twisted:

RichN95.

This is all old news anyway - there's nothing new in this. The proper cycling journalists looked into it three years ago and it wasn't very interesting then. And still no-one's interested. This will all be forgotten tomorrow.

All zero tolerance does is give lazy journalists and bloggers an excuse to get outraged. While Knaven is a scandal to them, the likes of Vino/Ekimov/Riis/Okowicz etc running teams is OK as those teams have never said they were clean. Sky's sin is to try to hire clean staff. As Homer Simpson says "You tried your best and failed. The moral is - don't try"

mm1

iainf72 wrote:

mm1 wrote:

Time to drop the ridiculous zero tolerence policy? Knaven employed for his ability to read a race, so who really cares about the alleged less wholesome aspects of his past.

Yep. You need to be dishonest to keep your job. That can't be healthy.

Well yes, but taken to its logical conclusion that would mean my club's go-ride coaches would be the only people fit to run a pro-tour team.

Macaloon

RichN95 wrote:

This is all old news anyway - there's nothing new in this. The proper cycling journalists looked into it three years ago and it wasn't very interesting then. And still no-one's interested. This will all be forgotten tomorrow.

All zero tolerance does is give lazy journalists and bloggers an excuse to get outraged. While Knaven is a scandal to them, the likes of Vino/Ekimov/Riis/Okowicz etc running teams is OK as those teams have never said they were clean. Sky's sin is to try to hire clean staff. As Homer Simpson says "You tried your best and failed. The moral is - don't try"

I'm afraid that's nonsense. When the founding father's constitution - articles of faith across the empire - is discovered (at autopsy) to be full of sh!t the entire shooting match is destined for the bin. The moral is don't lie dumb. [I'm not a DM clicker but there are some awesome images on that story]

RichN95.

Macaloon wrote:

I'm afraid that's nonsense. When the founding father's constitution - articles of faith across the empire - is discovered (at autopsy) to be full of sh!t the entire shooting match is destined for the bin. The moral is don't lie dumb.

First of all, your posts are generally incoherent these days. Try plain English rather than bizarre allusions and metaphors which only work in your brain.

Secondly, Sky's recruitment policies are solely internal. What they mean and how they are administered are entirely their business and not Daily Mail's and not Twitter's. They will have their own standards as to what they are happy with and what they aren't happy with and they are not going to get rid of staff on the balance of probabilities based on 17 year old news. People are attacking them for failing to meet their own criteria not Sky's. But it's not their policy.

All their policy amounts to is that they don't hire people who are known to have doped - and by known they mean admitted or found guilty. Then they have them sign a declaration so that the information changes they have grounds for dismissal. And that's it.

kfinlay

what gets me is, if there is so much to this then why have all those that continually suspect Team Sky only gone on about Geert Leinders for the last few years. Or now that it is in the main stream news is their 'duty' to now raise these questions (even though as Rich says it's been covered already by cycling journalists)? :roll:

The Daily Smell and lazy journalism - who'd have thought! :shock:

argyllflyer

RichN95 wrote:

Macaloon wrote:

I'm afraid that's nonsense. When the founding father's constitution - articles of faith across the empire - is discovered (at autopsy) to be full of sh!t the entire shooting match is destined for the bin. The moral is don't lie dumb.

First of all, your posts are generally incoherent these days. Try plain English rather than bizarre allusions and metaphors which only work in your brain.

Secondly, Sky's recruitment policies are solely internal. What they mean and how they are administered are entirely their business and not Daily Mail's and not Twitter's. They will have their own standards as to what they are happy with and what they aren't happy with and they are not going to get rid of staff on the balance of probabilities based on 17 year old news. People are attacking them for failing to meet their own criteria not Sky's. But it's not their policy.

All their policy amounts to is that they don't hire people who are known to have doped - and by known they mean admitted or found guilty. Then they have them sign a declaration so that the information changes they have grounds for dismissal. And that's it.

Where does Sean "I only drove the car" Yates fit in though? Never publically admitted anything, his only positive test was reversed because of problems with the B-sample yet left at a point in time that looked highly suspicious, retiring suddenly but within a year was back DSing at Continental level and is now of course at Tinkoff, alongside the other two coaches fired for manning up.

Pross

Saw Darryl Webster ranting on about this on Facebook. What is his major issue with historic doping and / or Sky? Does he think he somehow missed out as a result? I remember him being a decent but not outstanding domestic rider but I really don't see why he gets so worked up about doping.

mm1

Pross wrote:

Saw Darryl Webster ranting on about this on Facebook. What is his major issue with historic doping and / or Sky? Does he think he somehow missed out as a result? I remember him being a decent but not outstanding domestic rider but I really don't see why he gets so worked up about doping.

Darryl does seem to have a bee in his bonnet about this, but he did ride for Teka in 1989 has probably seen and been affected by more than most of us can imagine. He has spoken about witnessing doping on both the domestic pro scene and in Spain, at a time when such testimony was usually dismissed.

tim000

it amazes me that a team that is at least trying to make a break with the doping past gets so muck stick , whilst other teams , astana , tinkof ? welcome dopers with open arms .

Der Kaiser

Hypothetical questions.

(1) If you were running a bank would you employ somebody who had been banned for 2 years because of involvement in fixing Libor rates?

(2) If you employed somebody and they said they had never been involved in fixing Libor rates but you subsequently found out they had, would you allow them to remain working for you?

(3) Would you support a bank that answered yes to those questions?

TheBigBean

First sentence of Sky's statement.

Team Sky's policy on zero tolerance is well known.

RichN95 wrote:

Secondly, Sky's recruitment policies are solely internal.

They are not solely internal when they are published (see above) and used for marketing purposes. Marketing is why Sky is in cycling.

RichN95 wrote:

What they mean and how they are administered are entirely their business and not Daily Mail's and not Twitter's.

As above, as much as I dislike the Daily Mail, criticising a media organisation's public policy is fair game and in the public interest.

RichN95 wrote:

They will have their own standards as to what they are happy with and what they aren't happy with and they are not going to get rid of staff on the balance of probabilities based on 17 year old news.

But they basically did that a few years ago due to fear of negative publicity.

RichN95 wrote:

People are attacking them for failing to meet their own criteria not Sky's. But it's not their policy.
.

People are attacking Sky when they believe that Sky fails to meet its policy. Most of this is because people are attacking the policy and the marketing that goes with it. The mistake is to confuse this with concern about former dopers working on cycling teams.

Macaloon

RichN95 wrote:

First of all, your posts are generally incoherent these days. Try plain English rather than bizarre allusions and metaphors which only work in your brain..

Fair enough. I still love your posts.

Macaloon

TheBigBean wrote:

First sentence of Sky's statement.

+1

Le Commentateur

JackPozzi wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

mm1 wrote:

Time to drop the ridiculous zero tolerence policy? Knaven employed for his ability to read a race, so who really cares about the alleged less wholesome aspects of his past.

Yep. You need to be dishonest to keep your job. That can't be healthy.

Don't most jobs in the real world involve a level of dishonesty? :twisted:

You mean people idling their time away here when they should be working?

ocdupalais

Le Commentateur wrote:

JackPozzi wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

mm1 wrote:

Time to drop the ridiculous zero tolerence policy? Knaven employed for his ability to read a race, so who really cares about the alleged less wholesome aspects of his past.

Yep. You need to be dishonest to keep your job. That can't be healthy.

Don't most jobs in the real world involve a level of dishonesty? :twisted:

You mean people idling their time away here when they should be working?

That's different.

And anyway - it's all fine as long as
a) everyone does it
b) everyone is sure that everyone else does it
c) no one talks about it openly.

It's when you get some principled berk stick their head above the parapet with some ball-achingly righteous workplace decree that makes out that there is some lack of integrity going on: that's what gets up people's noses - way more than any artistic interpretation of employment contract.
When did a little bit of dishonesty hurt anyone?

Rodrego Hernandez

tim000 wrote:

it amazes me that a team that is at least trying to make a break with the doping past gets so muck stick , whilst other teams , astana , tinkof ? welcome dopers with open arms .

By recruiting Knaven, Yates, Julich, Barry, Rogers, Lenders they haven't tried to make a break from the past. They have retained it and pushed things even further forward (see CIRC section on cortisone assisted weight loss).

mididoctors

hire them till there's dirt then sack em....untill a generation of DS candidates turn up who have a cleaner cv


the end

Pross

Rodrego Hernandez wrote:

tim000 wrote:

it amazes me that a team that is at least trying to make a break with the doping past gets so muck stick , whilst other teams , astana , tinkof ? welcome dopers with open arms .

By recruiting Knaven, Yates, Julich, Barry, Rogers, Lenders they haven't tried to make a break from the past. They have retained it and pushed things even further forward (see CIRC section on cortisone assisted weight loss).

Does the CIRC report name Sky then regarding the weight loss methods? I was under the impression from the thread on the report that it just said a team at the top level had used the technique in winning major races but didn't mention any names?

joelsim

Correct Pross.

disgruntledgoat

Pross wrote:

Rodrego Hernandez wrote:

tim000 wrote:

it amazes me that a team that is at least trying to make a break with the doping past gets so muck stick , whilst other teams , astana , tinkof ? welcome dopers with open arms .

By recruiting Knaven, Yates, Julich, Barry, Rogers, Lenders they haven't tried to make a break from the past. They have retained it and pushed things even further forward (see CIRC section on cortisone assisted weight loss).

Dobe CIRC report name Sky then regarding the weight loss methods? I was under the impression from the thread on the report that it just said a team at the top level had used the technique in winning major races but didn't mention any names?

I believe what Rodrigo did there is what fancy, big city lawyers like to refer to as "libel"

frenchfighter

Well they got rid of Jullich and Yates (the fomer was probably one of their best staff members) so hopefully they will be consistent and get rid of Knaven.

Not that I agree with the rule.

shazzz

It's worth listening to Brailsford talking about this on the cycling podcast interview that was released today. He isn't particularly convincing in his defence of Knaven but is clear that he keeps his job as long as there is some reasonable doubt that he doped (in the opinion of independent experts) and he continues to maintain his innocence.
Also interesting to hear his defence of the zero tolerance policy notwithstanding its challenges.

timoid.

shazzz wrote:

It's worth listening to Brailsford talking about this on the cycling podcast interview that was released today. He isn't particularly convincing in his defence of Knaven but is clear that he keeps his job as long as there is some reasonable doubt that he doped (in the opinion of independent experts) and he continues to maintain his innocence.
Also interesting to hear his defence of the zero tolerance policy notwithstanding its challenges.

So if he lies he keeps his job, if he tells the truth he's out?

Brilliant.

This is like the don't ask don't tell policy the US adopted for gays in the military.

slim_boy_fat

Timoid. wrote:

shazzz wrote:

It's worth listening to Brailsford talking about this on the cycling podcast interview that was released today. He isn't particularly convincing in his defence of Knaven but is clear that he keeps his job as long as there is some reasonable doubt that he doped (in the opinion of independent experts) and he continues to maintain his innocence.
Also interesting to hear his defence of the zero tolerance policy notwithstanding its challenges.

So if he lies he keeps his job, if he tells the truth he's out?

Brilliant.

This is like the don't ask don't tell policy the US adopted for gays in the military.

I don't read it like that. Without conclusive proof they have to believe what he is telling them. That doesn't mean he's lying.

RichN95.

Timoid. wrote:

shazzz wrote:

It's worth listening to Brailsford talking about this on the cycling podcast interview that was released today. He isn't particularly convincing in his defence of Knaven but is clear that he keeps his job as long as there is some reasonable doubt that he doped (in the opinion of independent experts) and he continues to maintain his innocence.
Also interesting to hear his defence of the zero tolerance policy notwithstanding its challenges.

So if he lies he keeps his job, if he tells the truth he's out?

Brilliant.

This is like the don't ask don't tell policy the US adopted for gays in the military.

The two that told the truth when they had the oppportunity both did very well out of it. They had their contracts paid up and walked straight into other jobs with a clean conscience.

The jist of Brailsford's interview was that Sky's policy deals with certainties not probabilities. So while it is probable that Knaven doped it is not certain, and therefore they don't have grounds to remove him.

(Note: saying it is probable Knaven doped is me, not Brailsford)

mididoctors

Timoid. wrote:

shazzz wrote:

It's worth listening to Brailsford talking about this on the cycling podcast interview that was released today. He isn't particularly convincing in his defence of Knaven but is clear that he keeps his job as long as there is some reasonable doubt that he doped (in the opinion of independent experts) and he continues to maintain his innocence.
Also interesting to hear his defence of the zero tolerance policy notwithstanding its challenges.

So if he lies he keeps his job, if he tells the truth he's out?

Brilliant.

This is like the don't ask don't tell policy the US adopted for gays in the military.

he is going they wont hang on to him is my bet

argyllflyer

They do not have the legal back-up to fire Knaven and that's the beginning and end of it. What the DM presented to Sky was analysed and the team were told there were not sufficient grounds to take it forward. They fire him and they have a wrongful dismissal case on their hands.