Freeman Medical Practitioner Tribunal .Manchester

Pross

andyp said:

twotoebenny said:

reading that Bahrain hotel raid has given some postives for 3 cyclists... Tizanidine "found" in hair tests

How can you construe that as a positive, given that Tizanidine isn't prohibited by WADA?

Article was a bit Clinic-like. I wonder if the "unnamed doping specialist" was one of our usual suspects?

I'm actually wondering where I can get this stuff, not banned and tight muscles are the bane of my very lowly running career. Sounds the perfect product!

rick_chasey

I I think the reaction is fairly predictable from fans - for those who are complaining there are people looking for a scandal.

You've got a fan base that had two full generations of "doped-up to the eyeballs" that only just finished (arguably).

Then they see a country go from having no-riders in the Tour (2005 i think) to producing a world beating team which included three different Tour winners, winning 6 of the 7 Tours, plus the sport's greatest ever sprinter.

That's quite a shift. For the previous 20 years, those shifts tended to correlate with doping, right?

So I think it's understandable, even if it's hard to get excited about a doping scandal without any decent drugs.

pblakeney

Is it not possible that Britain's lack of results were because everyone else was doping?
Once the doping stopped, Britain's results improved. Just a thought.
Exception to prove the rule, Tom Simpson.

RichN95.

pblakeney said:

Is it not possible that Britain's lack of results were because everyone else was doping?
Once the doping stopped, Britain's results improved. Just a thought.
Exception to prove the rule, Tom Simpson.

I think this is it. GB success didn't happen overnight. It started in 1992. They got a big chunk of money from 1996 and spent on track which was basically amateur elsewhere, building up a great deal of expertise. When doping fell away in the late 2000s thanks largely to the biological passport they had the attitudes to coaching and other aspects which was ready to fill the gap while the old guard floundered. Plus the dumb luck of stumbling on Froome.

Meanwhile journalists who had missed the biggest story in sport in Armstrong scrambled to recreate him with ever more desperate 'grey areas' (basically making up their own rules) combined with the rise of social media.

rick_chasey

pblakeney said:

Is it not possible that Britain's lack of results were because everyone else was doping?
Once the doping stopped, Britain's results improved. Just a thought.
Exception to prove the rule, Tom Simpson.

Meh, I suspect there is a level of parochialism in that view.

It's probably chance to be honest, as Froome wasn't a trackie and didn't go through the British system, and the cohort of wiggns, cav, thomas etc, are just fairly freakish.

A bit like Man Utd's golden generation.

But for a nation who has a terrible history with road cycling going into 2010, it is remarkable, and like I said, fans had been conditioned from the last 20 years to see anything remarkable like that as a sign of doping.

Furthermore, from roughly 1990 to the late 00s, they would have also been right, had they followed that thought process.

I think some Brit fans (not pointing fingers here necessarily) forget how much the doping stuff shaped the peloton and the results, presumably because they started watching in 2012.

TheBigBean

pblakeney said:

Is it not possible that Britain's lack of results were because everyone else was doping?
Once the doping stopped, Britain's results improved. Just a thought.
Exception to prove the rule, Tom Simpson.

It is certainly is in BR fantasy land.

No_Ta_Doctor

Doping shaping the peloton is the really interesting bit. There's an assumption that any performances that exceed those of the EPO years are suspect "how could he beat their times up..."
But in reality, that peloton was self selecting on willingness to dope, which narrowed the natural talent pool available. The pool is far wider now.

blazing_saddles

TheBigBean said:

pblakeney said:

Is it not possible that Britain's lack of results were because everyone else was doping?
Once the doping stopped, Britain's results improved. Just a thought.
Exception to prove the rule, Tom Simpson.

It is certainly is in BR fantasy land.

Or certainly not, in conspiracy fantasy land.

At least it means there's a nice, wide fence to sit on.

RichN95.

rick_chasey said:

But for a nation who has a terrible history with road cycling going into 2010, it is remarkable, and like I said, fans had been conditioned from the last 20 years to see anything remarkable like that as a sign of doping.

A lot of the problem was getting the opportunity. There wasn't a well trodden route into the top pro teams. Riders had to move abroad with little to pay for it. And team owners weren't looking at the UK domestic scene.

Also note that Colombia were a big emerging force in the 1980s. But in the 90s basically fell out of view with only only really Botero of any note. Until the new wave came along starting with Uran and Soler in 2007.

davebradswmb

rick_chasey said:

pblakeney said:

It's probably chance to be honest, as Froome wasn't a trackie and didn't go through the British system, and the cohort of wiggns, cav, thomas etc, are just fairly freakish.

I would argue that most of the riders that came through the BC system since the injection of lottery money are not freakish, just the inevitable result of investing in sport at the top level. The same thing has happened in pretty much all of the Olympic sports who suddenly got a level of funding that allowed for full time professional athletes for the first time in this country. Cav is obviously very special and he may have found a route into the pro peloton anyway, but the odds would have been very much against him without the funding.

rick_chasey

Lads, you don't need to convince me why the brits are doing well.

I am saying it is not far fetched to see why your average cycling fan is sceptical of the rise of the Brits, following 20 years of doping.

If ya can't see that, then fair enough.

webboo

Just read that a Paralympic hopeful cyclist has just been banned for 3 years for testing positive for a PED. However they have previously competed as track sprinter and won medals.
To me this highlights how far cycling has moved on in its testing. I believe they are trying catch the drug cheats where as other sports pretend there’s not a problem.

RichN95.

rick_chasey said:

Lads, you don't need to convince me why the brits are doing well.

I am saying it is not far fetched to see why your average cycling fan is sceptical of the rise of the Brits, following 20 years of doping.

If ya can't see that, then fair enough.

Fair enough I can see that. I'm not sure it's the average fan though. I think they are in the minority. I think most don't even think about it.

There's a very vocal small minority, which are desperate for a scandal though. And they are very noisy and include a couple of journalists.

salsiccia1

I totally get why many long-term fans are sceptical, but I find it disheartening all the same. There's a vocal group who 'won't be fooled again', but in reality they've been so radicalised that they start off with the conclusion of shenanigans and then work backwards. But that's not to say some parochial fans don't do the same but starting with the conclusion of 'nothing to see here'.

I suppose stuff like this is a Rorschach test of what you choose to believe about the sport, or about a particular rider/team/nation. I just don't see the recent stuff being particularly troublesome (Freeman & Jiffygate excepted).

hanshotfirst

rick_chasey said:

Then they see a country go from having no-riders in the Tour (2005 i think) to producing a world beating team which included three different Tour winners, winning 6 of the 7 Tours, plus the sport's greatest ever sprinter.

Totally get your point here, but, does this not just follow on from the British Olympic success? Single gold medal in Atlanta 96 prompted a huge investment in British sport. FFWD to Beijing 12 years later, 4th in the medal table with 51 medals and 19 gold.

So cycling obviously saw a lot of that investment and Brailsford was the talisman wasn't he? Probably a shorter time scale but the no British riders in 05 to first winner in 2012 is 7 years.

Maybe a blinkered view on my part, I dunno.