Cycling/ Cheating etc

Re: Le Tour

Anyone else been following the hearings in the UK regarding Team Sky and the 'package' delivered to Wiggins?

Sky looking more and more dodgy as every day of getting nowhere continues. Everytime there is a scheduled hearing someone key either calls in sick or has a complete memory loss.

As one journalist I read this morning said, the longer it goes on the more it sounds like 'the dog ate my homework'

Sky are now claiming that their team doctor didn't record everything, didn't share or save his records with any central team repository and had his laptop stolen, but 'we will do better in the future'

regarding the delivered 'jiffy bag' it seems that every minor detail of the delivery, the who travelled where and when, the timings, the people involved and even the exact description of the bag can be recalled at great detail but no one knows what was in the bag or why the contents had to be rushed to Wiggins on the eve of the Criterium.

Not doing themselves any favours in the credibility stakes.

I really liked Wiggins and was a great fan of his achievements. If this proves to be as bad as it is beginning to look I shall be really pissed off.

Givem cycling and it's recent history this is going to stain no matter what.

How can the sport ever recover? Every year at the TdF (most people's entire cycling intake) we see Team Sky dominating the entire field the entire race. Just like US Postal used to. People mutter but are assured "those days" are behind us.

And now this (and motor powered bikes) how can anyone accept the sport as a real competition?

Having read about this extensively, they are all so ridiculously guilty it is a joke. Wiggins is a scumbag of the highest order. Look at how he and his lackeys treat a reporter on a public footpath outside his house yesterday:

Folling @digger_forum on Twitter links/comments on a lot of good stuff related to doping in cycling. This telegraph summary is worth a read as well.

It's almost worse than Armstrong / US Postal in my opinion, as both cheated, but only team Sky adopted the hypocritical holier-than-thou attitude and made a mockery of the TUE system.

This article also good summary reading

Even more shit coming out now..... The remainder of the team medical staff changed the password for the Team Sky log in for TUE applications as they were wary of Wiggin's doctor's applications and the use of corticosteroids.
Wiggins only ever seemed to need them around 4 days before a big race and the use is described as using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut in regard to his 'pollen allergy'.
When UKAD were investigating the 'jiffy bag' thing they also discovered a delivery of testosterone patches to the doctor which were hastily returned when someone else noted them and the supplier was forced to declare an 'ordering error'
Sounding more and more like this one doctor is the bad egg and it's going to be difficult to prove collusion with him from Wiggins and Brailsford

One doctor perhaps (out of four employed by Team Sky), but for how many other riders? Circumstantial it may be, but the case against Wiggins and Brailsford is overwhelming now IMO so the question is who else will get dragged into it. If there are clean riders in the set up I'd expect them to start protecting their own reputations. Need to keep in mind though that the "one bad apple" story would also be mightily convenient for a lot of people.

It looks like the press are starting to get their teeth into this now. It'll be interesting to see if they look into the Doctor's previous job at Bolton Wanderers too - where he worked under Sam Allardyce - and was "responsible for all pharmaceutical and supplement provision to players" per his own CV (http://www.drrichardfreeman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/CV2015.pdf).

Can you be stripped of a knighthood?

@Kirwan There is precedent.

@Kirwan said in Cycling/ Cheating etc:

Can you be stripped of a knighthood?

You certainly can. Happened to a corrupt police commissioner here in Qld.

@TeWaio I don't think that video proves anything. They are saying it's a private estate (which it may well be), in which case they are well within their powers to tell them to f off.

This doesn't look good for Wiggins though, granted.

@MajorRage said in Cycling/ Cheating etc:

@TeWaio I don't think that video proves anything. They are saying it's a private estate (which it may well be), in which case they are well within their powers to tell them to f off.

This doesn't look good for Wiggins though, granted.

It's a private estate that has a public right of way (footpath) running through it, as the reporter says at the end. Which means any member of the public can go down there, stop, film, have a picnic, etc. I have one running across my land in the UK.

Wiggins saying he'll "call the police" is moronic.

@TeWaio

Those reporters who think they have the god given right to make people talk on camera are moronic I reckon.

It's cheap and cowardly hounding someone with a camera (and the subsequent editing that takes place)

Fuck off TV piston wristed gibbons

BUT TW, not disagreeing with your assertion that Wiggins doesn't come out of this whole doping thing looking decidedly dodgy

I just hate TV badgering, and commercial TV in general

"Brailsford is like a child who claims the dog has eaten his homework and can't even prove he has a dog."

Gold.

Yeah, that clip is pretty tabloid stuff. You are never going to get serious answers and I doubt the 'journalist' would even have serious informed questions lined up. It is a tactic designed solely to make someone look bad.
On the other hand I'm sure there is a good counter tactic for someone in this position. Be prepared for when it happens with a clear statement that makes you look in control but not arrogant. As soon as you start to look defensive the sharks will circle.

It's hard to say if Wiggins was in on the plan or just going along with a loophole use advised by the team doctor. On the other hand he maintains it was to provide him a level playing field (think we've heard that one before somewhere? Armstrong?) but would have felt himself the physical benefits of kenalog.

I had a read up about triamcinolone and it looks like a rule bender's dream. You can use it legitimately as a preventative treatment for many things and could even get a prescription for it for athletes foot. As long as you apply for a TUE (and get it granted) you are 'legit' even though the beneficial side effects can last 3 weeks and those side effects can also be increased with the use of allowed drugs such as anti-biotics. Should you try and push the rules and use it in training (where you don't need a TUE) you can take other legit medicines that clear it from your system quite quickly.
You could get dosed on kenalog to train hard up to 4 days out from a competition start and effectively then remove it from your system.
It looks like the misuse of kenalog under TUEs has been going on for a long time and while is isn't breaking the rules if you follow the loopholes, the point is that Sky have endlessly claimed to be 'ethically' as well as legally clean. Wiggins himself has denied having any 'needles'.

This is a good read https://cyclingtips.com/2016/09/jaksche-on-skys-tue-controversy-we-used-the-same-excuse-in-my-era/

So, looks like Froome has some trouble... 100% over the accepted dosage for salbutamol (asthma drug)....

The last guy caught for this was apparently banned for 9 months.

It sounds like there are some pretty solid procedures to follow here, to try and replicate the result under similar circumstances and cover questions of dehydration etc.
the big hurdle will be explaining why, if he followed the same medication process on other days it was only this one that had a problem.
Could well have been an “innocent “ mistake but if it broke the rules it broke the rules.

Sky may have forgotten to factor in how much was left in the bag