British Cycling and Sky

Macy0161

If we've come to the point that we're discussing "medicalisation" and legal/ non banned drugs, has cycling not come a long way?

The whole medicalisation is a pro sport issue, not just cycling. Given the testing, cycling is, imo, in a lot better position than most other sports. I think i heard the other day that one of the football federations has done zero testing this season due to some dispute with their anti doping!

RobFowl

Macy0161 wrote: »

If we've come to the point that we're discussing "medicalisation" and legal/ non banned drugs, has cycling not come a long way?

The whole medicalisation is a pro sport issue, not just cycling. Given the testing, cycling is, imo, in a lot better position than most other sports. I think i heard the other day that one of the football federations has done zero testing this season due to some dispute with their anti doping!

That football federation is Spain AFAIK.

I wouldn't agree that cycling is in any better position than other sports but is is certainly no worse unlike football and tennis.

Lumen

I love the Skoda/Wiggins ad on Eurosport.

"Make your own choices" indeed.

magicbastarder

don't think anyone has posted this article yet:
"Having sold themselves as the ultimate in professionalism, Team Sky and British Cycling are now asking us to accept a remarkable litany of basic mistakes as the anti-doping investigation rolls on "
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/mar/08/team-sky-are-hoist-on-their-own-petard-by-admissions-of-amateurism

velo.2010

If I ever find myself in South Africa and in need of a good workout and nutritional advice, I shall remember to check in with this personal trainer of many years experience. Amateur bodybuilder too apparently.

http://www.paulinecound.com/personal-gallery

magicbastarder

does she have a link with british cycling?

velo.2010

magicbastarder wrote: »

does she have a link with british cycling?

Mother in Law to Britain's greatest ever Tour rider.

pelevin

Emma Pooley not giving undying support for Brailsford.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/13/pooley-brailsford-british-cycling-fish-head

"A fish rots from the head. . . . The report is pretty shocking. But when people criticise, they need to think back to who is providing the leadership and not tar everyone with the same brush."

Maybe she's just angry cos Brailsford revealed that package thing with Wiggins could never have happened cos Simon Cope was actually on his way to meet her. Except . . . emm . . . it turned out to be total fabrication. But anyway, it ended up not mattering cos Wiggins couldn't have been on the bus when he was alleged to be in it being treated in it by Sky's doctor. Except . . . emm . . . it turned out to be total fabrication.

Weepsie

Froome has broken his silence and backed Sir Dave

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/13/chris-froome-team-sky-dave-brailsford

Thought his silence was a bit like a stroppy kid to be honest. There are rightly or wrongly clouds of doubt over Froome and always will be. The undiagnosed illness, the jump from middle of the pack to podium chaser, the weight loss. It was all down to a diet his partner gave him apparently, nothing to do with Sky.

Miklos

The more I learn about Dave B the less I think of him. Reading Charly Wegelius' autobiography at the moment and the way he treated Wegelius was disgraceful.

pelevin

Sorry in advance about how long or random this might be be but some thoughts of mine on Dave Braisford . . .

Obviously at the top levels of sport are people who tend to be extremely driven, regardless of the talent, but there's still huge variations within that field of personality. And so one can have a Martin Johnson in rugby, a natural leader of men but comes across as fundamentally scary, but then Paul O Connell also has that aura of leadership but seems very warm & naturally likeable. In cycling a word often used for Lance Armstrong is sociopathic, that his conscience hardly existed or applied as a brake mechanism for how he'd behave. He was I think, charismatic, pretty handsome, thrived in the limelight but quite gung-ho & crude in how he could behave with the full expectation of nothing coming back to bite him. So for example how he behaved with Simeone - clearly singling him out & bullying him for speaking out about doping. He simply didn't care how obvious this made his own guilt appear. Something of a character from the Wild West - & a fitting leading character for the no-holds barred dodgy world of cycling in his era.

Brailsford to me seems of similar character type in terms of the sporting sociopath, but a kind of New Labour version rather than Armstrong's Wild West one. Brailsford lacks the looks or charisma of Armstrong to appeal to the common man but thrives in the business world where as said in this piece: 'He has an “AA” rating on JLA, the “UK’s biggest specialist agency for keynote, motivational and after dinner speakers”, which means he has a minimum fee of £25,000. In between running British Cycling and Team Sky Brailsford has been busy peddling the lessons acquired from his life in pedaling, working the lecture circuit, pushing books about what we can all learn from the way he works.'

Brailsford is clearly obsessive in many ways about being in control - from the marginal gains stuff to the public image of the team & to even the suffocating style of the team where ideally nothing can interfere with the plan - lots of top climbers suffocating all the life out of the mountain stages in the Tour for example. Listening to him speak like in the interview a few months back where he spoke forever to British cycling journos, Richard Moore & Lionel Birnie waffling on & on in depressing unreal business or political speak, shamelessly avoiding ever answering a direct question. Can't be exaggerated how unreal listening to Brailsford in something like that. I think like Armstrong there's a total ruthlessness but it's a kind of opposite using a very careful scientific methodology where everything possible is done for gain, but nothing done will lead to calamitous downfall. However the Wiggins triamcinolone injections revealed clearly imo that ethics were not remotely at the forefront of how he operates despite all the choreographed PR down the years to suggest otherwise. And exposes the basic lies behind why Sky wouldn't join something like the MPCC where such injections were a no-go area if in competition.

It's a different world now in cycling where it's not necessary for everyone in a team to be doping so I think that's where someone like Kimmage jumps to crude conclusions - like Nico Roche could reveal all. It's no longer the 90s or 2000s & for Brailsford to act like that would be to inevitably lead to calamity & such truths coming out. Various voices, mainly female, from the British Cycling set-up, show how fundamentally ruthless was the focus on winning. What do you expect, you might say, but again Brailsford was getting away for a long time the idea ethics were the primary thing & then winning could hopefully come along in tandem with this. I think that myth has been well shown up. Winning has been the main thing, and not doing things you will get caught for is in tandem.

Sorry about all that but in short, I don't think Brailsford has any credibility left, or as Will Fotheringham put it, ghost-author of Brad Wiggins' autobiography & the opposite of a natural critic of British cycling's successes, "Brailsford doesn't have a leg to stand on." To keep in mind when the words come out from Brailsford, Froome, etc about 'learning from our mistakes' & 'restoring credibility' etc. Too late for that.

dragratchet

https://cyclingtips.com/2017/03/wednesday-daily-news-digest-5/

Team Sky had previously bought Fluimucil at nearby pharmacy.....

yet another question mark around their bullsh1t excuses.

lissard

Funny how they have plenty of records when it suits them, but when it's something incriminating the same records have invariably disappeared. I was one of the eejits who bought the Sky line when they won in 2012. Everything about this story now reminds me of the implausible excuses rolled out by various teams in the late 90s and early 00s.

Leroy42

lissard wrote: »

Funny how they have plenty of records when it suits them, but when it's something incriminating the same records have invariably disappeared. I was one of the eejits who bought the Sky line when they won in 2012. Everything about this story now reminds me of the implausible excuses rolled out by various teams the late 90s and early 00s.

Ah now, no need to feel like that.

As 7 time TdF champion Lance Armstrong said;

Finally, the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics: I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. But this is one hell of a race. This is a great sporting event and you should stand around and believe it. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets — this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it. So Vive le Tour forever!

Farewell speech at the Champs-Élysées podium, after winning his seventh Tour de France

Somedude9

But it was such a thrilling win from Wiggo though, full of drama & attacking verve! I now wish Froome had told him to go **** himself and pegged it off up the mountain.

check_six

Somedude9 wrote: »

But it was such a thrilling win from Wiggo though, full of drama & attacking verve! I now wish Froome had told him to go **** himself and pegged it off up the mountain.

I think Froome delivered a non-verbal version of that through all his track-standing antics while waiting just up the road on the side of the big climbs. Couldn't have been more embarrassing for Wiggins. You didn't have to be a mind reader to see the enmity developing between them.

Macy0161

check_six wrote: »

I think Froome delivered a non-verbal version of that through all his track-standing antics while waiting just up the road on the side of the big climbs. Couldn't have been more embarrassing for Wiggins. You didn't have to be a mind reader to see the enmity developing between them.

Disgrace from Froome imo. Easy to say in hindsight the team should've backed him, but he was barely two years out from getting chucked off the Giro for taking a tow on the Mortirolo...

check_six

Macy0161 wrote: »

Disgrace from Froome imo. Easy to say in hindsight the team should've backed him, but he was barely two years out from getting chucked off the Giro for taking a tow on the Mortirolo...

Agreed. Made both of them look bad.

PeadarCo

Macy0161 wrote:

Disgrace from Froome imo. Easy to say in hindsight the team should've backed him, but he was barely two years out from getting chucked off the Giro for taking a tow on the Mortirolo...

That's bike racing its cut throat at that level. Given the situation Froome was fairly well behaved. 30 years ago Stephen Roche won the Giro after attacking his team mate who was leading. You also had Le Mond and Hinault go at each other. Contador Armstrong more recently.

Macy0161

PeadarCo wrote: »

That's bike racing its cut throat at that level. Given the situation Froome was fairly well behaved. 30 years ago Stephen Roche won the Giro after attacking his team mate who was leading. You also had Le Mond and Hinault go at each other. Contador Armstrong more recently.

I'm not convinced. It showed Wiggins to be weak as a cyclist. It showed Froome to be weak as an individual imo (gutless in a way) as he attempted to give the impression he was stronger, but didn't have the balls to follow through. This is the difference compared to Roche, Bert, Hinault.

Maybe Wiggins would've dug deep enough to retain his lead? We don't know, which is why it was pathetic by Froome. Wiggins did beat him in the time trials, where presumably Froome could've made the point, if he really was the strongest.

Notwithstanding what we know now about what went on to the lead up in the Tour.

Everyone seems to be assuming that Froome is being relatively quiet as he doesn't support Brailsford - maybe he just doesn't want to give any hostages to fortune. After all, what Wiggins got a TUE for, only actually needed a TUE in competition....

Weepsie

There's also the whole parasitic illness thing and skin rash that was identified by his girlfriend who is also the reason for his weight loss.

There's many a question over Froome, he must've realised this when he finally spoke up.

Somedude9

I thought Froome was a **** for doing what he did at the time, but now with what we've learned about Wiggins I wish Froome had stuck it to him.

Macy0161

Somedude9 wrote: »

I thought Froome was a **** for doing what he did at the time, but now with what we've learned about Wiggins I wish Froome had stuck it to him.

As I said earlier, either do it or not, in terms of the "attack". What he did was just for show.

Anyone not seriously reserving judgement on Froome is nuts imo. We know he has used TUE's in races he's won before, we know the injections Wiggins took only required TUE's in races, and we know Sky never joined MPCC because they wanted to stick to the UCI/ WADA rules and not a higher bar (which included cortisol testing for out of competition use).

RobFowl

Yeah, Froomes attack was fairly pathetic. As was said earlier either do it or don't...

oconnpad

the story that just keeps on giving

http://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/39293763

PeadarCo

Macy0161 wrote:

I'm not convinced. It showed Wiggins to be weak as a cyclist. It showed Froome to be weak as an individual imo (gutless in a way) as he attempted to give the impression he was stronger, but didn't have the balls to follow through. This is the difference compared to Roche, Bert, Hinault.

It showed Froome was a competitor which everyone at that level is. Criticising Froome over that instance shows a complete lack of understanding of how things work at that level. Its nothing. Hinault promised to help le mond to win the tour and then constantly attack le mond. He ultimately failed to win his 6th tour. Le Mond that to beat his own teammate. Froomes little dig is nothing in comparison and was to be expected given his place in the GC. He also would have been looking at leading the team the next year. Of course he's going to try make Wiggins look weak as part of that.

There's plenty of room to criticise both Froome and Sky. Froome acting like a professional cyclist and 2nd placed in the GC in the biggest race in the world isn't one of them.

Macy0161

Are you really trying to say froome wouldn't have got a contract IF he was strong enough to win that tour? He already had another year at sky.

PeadarCo

Macy0161 wrote:

Are you really trying to say froome wouldn't have got a contract IF he was strong enough to win that tour? He already had another year at sky.

No I'm saying Froome was looking to win the Tour. His 2nd place guaranteed him a contract with Sky or another big team. Anybody who gets to had level even domestiques all want to win first and foremost. If they didn't they wouldn't have got there the competition is too cut throat.

He wasn't team leader that year and wasn't guaranteed to be the next year. Given the amount of time trialling and Wiggins superiority over Froome Sky made the right call that year. But Froome had to show he was capable of being leader and that meant showing he was strong enough to attack Wiggins. You have to remember before Wiggins collapse at the Giro the following year there was talk of Wiggins trying to the Giro Tour double.

As others have pointed out it was a really half hearted attack. Personally as a person watching the Tour that year I found it a shame Froome didn't properly race Wiggins. Wiggins would have beaten him given the route. But its no fun having 1st and 2nd in the same team and not really racing each other at least from a spectators point of view Sky as a team would beg to differ though I'd say.

What you saw was normal bike racing and happens at nearly every competitive level of the sport. Sky have a huge amount of questions to answer and by extension the people to worked with them over the relevant time period. Froomes attack on Wiggins isn't one of the incidents that should be questioned. It was normal bike racing and something every top level racer would be guilty of at some point in their careers.

velo.2010

Team Wiggins not invited to Tour de Yorkshire.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/39357541

A certain former Team Sky courier is their Sports Director!

Beasty

Don't think they should be expressing surprise, and given the background would have thought that team should probably be disbanded (or possibly re-branded). There seems to me to be little point in seeking publicity in the Cycling world on the back of Wiggins name nowadays