atbman

No, a pro cyclist who gives excellent reasons why he wouldn't dope. Please put forward countervailing arguments to his.

atbman

No, but BC are the only national governing body behind their own team and they have been developing their whole programme for over a decade and a half. They're probably the best funded of them all (Sport England hands out National Lottery funds according to perfomance in Olympic events and, for some strange reason, Beijing's medals seemed to persuade SE that BC was on the right track).

Their long-term plan was to use track cycling as the launch pad because it is the most controllable form of racing and so would reap the best financial reward in terms of funding. Training methods could be honed, with feedback from pretty much daily tests on power against heartrate against speed, input from sports scientists like Peter Keen (Boardman's coach), onsite gyms, masseurs, nutritionists, stationary and track testing, a top sports psychologist based at one of the newest and best velodromes (weather could not play havoc with training).

Funding for warm weather training, not just in the Balearics and Tenerife, but Australia. The setting up of Olympic and Talent team squads, including regional groups; massive growth of well-funded coaching system (my own small club has 7 coaches available to it, including those who have taken road/TT and track coaching modules plus senior regional sessions from national coaches); constantly evolving talent search methods; regional management and coaching set-ups.

Development groups live in Manchester and are taught how to look after themselves, including proper diet from their own cooking, dealing with the media, being responsible for following their own training programmes, going abroad for longish periods to practice all that. So if you want to know how that produced superior results, perhaps you might consider the Beijing results - unless of course, you simply respond that it was all doping - by a national sports governing body - yeah, right. Presumably those results had nothing to do with their superior methods.

They don't suffer from the Not Invented Here syndrome and will learn from anyone (Australian Institute of Sport, anyone?). Dave Braislford's constantly repeated mantra of small incremental improvements in all areas was nicked from Japanese industry (Kaizen -Japanese for "improvement", or "change for the better" refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, and business management. When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all functions, and involves all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers)

The long-term aim was always to use the experience gained from all this to move into road racing. They made mistakes, freely admitted, in the early days, and changed things, including how the management of the team related to BC's management. They learned from Wiggins' rather disappointing performance the year after his fourth place, resulting in his changed progrmme last year when he went into the Tour in superb condition, until his broken collarbone intervened and changed it again this year, including his new, Australian, coach (from a swimming background) and tweaking his training and racing strategy this year still further.

When an organisation with that philosophy and success declares that they wanted to produce a British TdF winner within 5 years, do you think that they decided to do it with drugs???

Yes, there are excellent and knowledgeable coaches and sport scientists in those countries but how many of them have the funding and coherent strategy and management that BC has? I suspect that the nearest is Australia, from whom BC nicked quite a few ideas and approaches, who've always punched above their weight.

Or are you still insisting that BC's methods and experience have nothing to do with Wiggins and Frome's results and they could only have come from drugs? If so, detailed circumstantial evidence, please.

And yes, I'm biased because I'm English, but I've met quite a few of the regional and national coaches and they are impressive people who've improved my own coaching knowledge and skills (for working with children, not top riders). We have regular regional and national coaching workshops where they pass on the latest thinking, the most recent one being on Long-Term Athletic Development where a clear progression path is carefully laid out, with our own roles fully laid out and advice how we can develop our own clubs and riders, so that when the Hoys and the Pendletons retire, newcomers will be ready to take their places.

But none of this matters, 'cos it can only be drugs, innit.

Shimagnolo

So I should be convinced because he wrote an article?
It would be more convincing if he wrote a whole book.
Oh, wait...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positively_False

Bacciagalupe

Sky allegedly has a budget of £10m (or €12m). Contador reputedly gets €5m per year, so I wouldn't be surprised of Saxo has a similar size budget. RSN and Quickstep are probably on similar budget terms. (Nor is a big budget guaranteed to produce a win, as RSN almost certainly demonstrates this year.)

At least 12 of the 28 riders on Sky are not Brits -- including Boasson Hagen, Flecha, Uran and Eisel.

Plenty of teams train in warm climates, have top-notch trainers and coaches, back up their teams, use new training techniques and keep an eye on nutrition.

The reality is that Sky is on top right now because a) they didn't put any resources at all behind Cav this year (and it shows), b) they chose a good team who are working together, c) BMC did not get enough top-notch climbers, and d) because Contador is barred, and Schleck was way off form this year.

I seriously doubt they're involved in Festina-style doping. But it doesn't look to me like they're reaping the benefits of a local farm system, or using a different training program than anyone else.

FriendlyFred

We've all heard this same sort of 'why I would never dope' stuff before. The more voracious the argument, it seems the more likely to be doping. There are still people who are defending LA, AC, and all of the others in the long line of dopers. Back in the day, we used to hear about how advanced the East German training methods were, then, lo and behold, we found out they were doping. Same with the Russians. Very advanced and scientific training methods = code for doping. I love the Brits and if I could be from any other country than the USofA, it would Great Britain. That said, I believe riders on Sky may be doping, and may have been for several years. As has been pointed out by others, this year isn't the year to look at, look a few years back and that's where you see the performance differences, the big gains. There's a reason they hired a team doctor who had experience in the past with doping, going against everything they'd said they stood for. You figure out what that reason might be.

Shimagnolo

Exactly.
Just as all political-leaders/religious-leaders/political-commentators who loudly condemn marital-infidelity/*****exuality/pedophilia/drugs/child-porn/etc, they are always the ones most likely to get exposed for doing the very things they condemn.

Bacciagalupe

Unfortunately, that does put any professional athlete in an untenable position.

If they deny it, that qualifies as "proof." If they refuse to comment, they have "something to hide."

Seems to me that while skepticism is justified, one should not levy accusations until there's evidence.

Shimagnolo

Answering a question with a simple "No" is not the same as going to the effort of writing an article or book denying it.

fly:yes/land:no

i am not sure that i would characterize anyone here as accusatory in their tone. however, given the recent history of the sport, i think suspicion about any rider winning a grand tour is perfectly reasonable. veracity of doping renunciation doesn't really do much for those of us who have seen the same song and dance over and over again.

seypat

They might be doping. But what I am seeing is a lot better team execution than the rest of the teams. They have had some luck. Some of the other teams have been decimated by crashes, injuries, etc. But bottom line, they have a game plan and are executing it to perfection on every stage. Look at today's stage. Wiggins could have went for the stage win and most of the GC contenders would have in his position. Instead, he becomes a leadout man and puts his team first. Every person on that team is doing that, and we are seeing the results. I'm not rooting for them, but you have to respect and admire the team effort.

HardyWeinberg

Or even the same effort as paying your PR hack to write it for you!

HardyWeinberg

I think it's code for "doping so subtle we know (hope) we're beating testing for a while into the future".

I remember reading about baseball players' off-season "training" regimens to lose fat here and add muscle there. That was actually really coarse doping, it turned out. Still accompanied by hours and hours and hours of working out of course.

reef58

I am not accusing Wiggins of doping, but the Sky fans boys can't have it both ways. For instance you can't say other gc riders are doping when your water boys are riding them off of their wheels.

UGASkiDawg

Correct...nobody is claiming that they are using EPO like the 90's and early 2000's...they would be of course but the testing has caught up with that. So they are using micro dosing of EPO particularly in the off season and accompanied by HGH and blood transfusions. All monitored very carefully by doctors with knowledge of the testing protocols to make sure they stay just within biological passport ranges.

letitsnow

In all forms of racing - you push everything to the limit as long as you can pass the rules that are in place on race day.

If Nascar tested cars from 10 years ago, using todays testing methods - some "legends" would be labeled as cheats also. Just an example...

If Wiggins can put minutes on people while pushing those sideburns through the wind (and passing todays dope tests), than he deserves to win!

atbman

And your evidence for this is? By reasonably logical extension, according to your argument, they must have been doping on the track as well. Which brings us back to the point: if they were so dominant on the track (and other nations are now catching up because they've taken on board some of BC' approach) and were not using drugs, why is it so unacceptable that they could extend their proven methods to the road and succeed? It would also mean that cycling's governing body in our country has been deliberately complicit in doping.

Has anyone the slightest evidence for this astonishing idea?

As for training methods, I don't suppose that there are major differences between any of the best riders. But I return to the BC's mantra of small and continuous improvements across the board. The difference between Wiggins time and Cadel Evans' is 0.09%, in other words, marginal in the extreme. The difference between his and Millar's is 2.6% and Millar doesn't have the assistance of a well-organised team behind him.

I agree that scepticism and even cycnicism is understandable, given cycling's chequered history, but the culture has changed. Temptation will always be there when pride, reputation and money are involved and there will always be riders who dope. But I repeat and will keep on doing so - what is the likelihood of the sports governing body involving itself in drugs or turning a blind eye? A governing body which is putting huge resources into youth cycling, from U8s upwards, to develop the next couple of generations, would be courting complete and utter disaster if it did so, because the likelihood, in this day and age, of getting away with it, is vanishingly, maybe infinitessimally remote.

Pretty much every employee would be tarred with the drug brush; BC would be demolished and every senior member of staff would be barred for life; all government/lottery funding would be removed and cycling's public reputation in British eyes would be destroyed for decades.

I don't say it's totally impossible that individuals might still take the risk, but Wiggins is one of the awkward squad and from a country where drug use is not an inherent part of our cycling culture. I've no doubt that some of our riders who went over to the continent to make their way into pro cycling back in the 60s and later fell into that culture, because everyone did it and they felt they had to to succeed, but now? All it requires is for one slip, or one disgruntled fellow rider or employee and a balloon that would make the Hindenburg look like a back porch barbecue would go up

I don't think so.

FriendlyFred

atbman....you keep insisting that it is impossible that Wiggins and SKY could be doping, but you aren't addressing why they chose to turn their back on their vow never to hire a doctor who had been involved in doping and turned their back on that complete openness they vowed to have in all things. Personally, having heard other teams and individual riders rabidly protest that THEY couldn't possibly be doping, only to find out later they WERE, I find those two things concerning. I understand it's hard to take when people are questioning your heros or your country's riders / team, that's understandable. But, given the recent history of pro cycling, you have to understand why people may question Wiggins and SKY's results, particularly in light of their violent protestations, their recent decision to be less open, and their decision to hire a doping doctor.

cheers-

atbman

Hi Friendly Fred. I entirely take your point about previous riders and teams who've rabidly denied doping, only for it to turn out that they were lying in their teeth and I, too don't like their choice of doctor, altho' if pro cycling rejected everyone who's ever been involved in dodgy behaviour. And yes, I am biased in favour of my country's best/second best (sorry, Froomey) rider and I really don't want it to be true.

If nothing had really changed in recent years, then I'd be much more dubious than I am (which is as near zero as possible). However, altho' riders are still being kicked out of teams and/or off teams, the numbers are hugely reduced, so there seems less incentive to dope to reach the top. So that's the first thing I've taken into account. But the most important factor is the involvement of British Cycling for the reasons I've alread written about at probably tedious length.

For example, I met Ian Drake, CEO of BC years ago, when his school were winning everything in the British Schools Cycling Association championships, both regionally and nationally and he had already written a good bit about exercises and games for kids - of which there was very little available in the mid to late 90s - and emailed me a sizeable file of what he did. Let's just say that, altho' people in any walk of life can be crooked or hypocritical, I don't think that was the case with him - I'm not saying that my bs detector is infallible.

I also know that Sky want results for the money they're pumping in, but they're also putting in sizeable wodges of wonga in a thing called Skyride of which several of our members are qualified leaders see https://www.goskyride.com/. I put this commitment to encouraging people to take up cycling as a part of their lives, taken together with their close links with BC as a serious obstacle to any even slight collusion on their part with drug use. Which leaves the question of Wiggins' improvements and its origin and any possible links with an unwisely chosen team doctor, since BC's proven expertise in training and organisation is, in my opinion, a given.

In this discussion I think we have to balance pro cycling's history, more recently than any of us would like, I suspect and the impetus that provides towards cycnicism and doubt, with all the other factors I've raised in the other direction. I freely admit that I may well be putting more weight on the latter than may be wise, because of my national bias, but I have tried to balance out the various reasons as fairly as possible and I believe that Sky is racing (and training/preparing clean)

But I also understand and accept that others may take the opposite view for reasons that seem good to them. The tragedy is that even if all tests are fine, everything is in line with their blood passports etc., there will always be people who are firmly convinced that doping has, is and will be taking place.

In the meantime, we'll be having our Olympic Torch mini relay round our circuit next Saturday as a belated celebration of our 5th June '98 birthday - yep, an actual torch which I had the privilege of carrying on the 25th June and which will be awarded as an annual trophy, purpose yet to be decided - and encourage our kids to ride the dream, however far they get.

KiddSisko

KiddSisko

I yi yi! The sheer volume of words! We surrender!

Jed19

If Sky is or is not doping, I don't know. It does taint their present accomplishments though that they went ahead and hired a discredited doping doctor.

Personally though, I have a nagging feeling something is a little bit rotten somewhere. I just can't put my hands on it. Just a hunch!

atbman

Because it's not as emabarassing for him as it would have been for Lance to be called Lancelot

FriendlyFred

I wouldn't have guessed Frank Schleck was doping. At this point, I seriously wonder if anyone in cycling is clean.

reef58

Regardless of your opinion of Frank he is a world class climber, doping, being dropped by Team Sky's bottle fetchers.