Wiggins' team is gone, too!

Pherekydes

Cofidis are out, and with them Bradley Wiggins.

With whole teams pulling out is this making a statement about their own "work practices"?

If not, why are they taking guys like Wiggins out? He could have won Saturday's TT.

AndyP

It's an agreement that all Pro-Tour teams have with the ASO who run the Tour - if a rider is found guilty of doping during the Tour they'll "voluntarily" withdraw.

cyclopath2001

It's a tough policy, I guess the idea is to encourage the riders to keep an eye on each other and keep each other honest or they all suffer.

The first move has to be to drive the doping practices out of the team management and hopefully, as now, to flush out rogue riders who are chancing it.

Hundreds of tests have been done, so far, just two positives.

Vinocourov is protesting his innocence and pointing to his crash injury as a possible source of the red-cell irregularity. When someone suggested maybe he'd had a transfusion from his father, he responded that if that had happened, he'd be testing positive for Vodka!

Hermy

Vino's excuses are nearly as pathetic as Landis when he tested positive. What an unbelievable mess Tour 2007 has become, as if last year wasn't bad enough.

Wibbs

cyclopath2001 wrote:

It's a tough policy, I guess the idea is to encourage the riders to keep an eye on each other and keep each other honest or they all suffer.

Which is a good start as one of the biggest problems with the sport is the veil of silence that has surrounded the drug issue.

The first move has to be to drive the doping practices out of the team management and hopefully, as now, to flush out rogue riders who are chancing it.

The thing is the "rogue" riders are not doing this in isolation. It's a big chain involving managers, other riders, doctors, team directors and organisers either directly being involved or turning a blind eye. It's a sport that has since it's inception that has had a tacit acceptance of drug use, from bottles of brandy in the very early days of the tour, through the endemic amphetamine use through the 50s/60s/70s/80s all the way to the serious sophistication of today.

Hundreds of tests have been done, so far, just two positives.

Which looks good on the surface, but when you look at the sophistication of doping nowadays there is still the strong suspicion that dopers are being missed. In fact I would reckon that they're missing loads of them. Lance Armstrong regularly saying he was the most tested athlete in sport raises a fair few eyebrows in many quarters. Some of these tests can be beaten, some of them quite easily. There are enough sites on the web that can tell you how to avoid testing positive. A google search throws up a surprising amount of info on the subject. The bodybuilding sites alone make for interesting reading on the whole dope test avoidance issue. Look at Vinocourov, he got tagged as his blood results suggested he was carrying around someone else's red cells. Using your own red cells is very very hard to prove. If he had done that, his result would still stand. It's the same with naturally occurring hormones. If you play your cards right it's very hard to prove you don't have naturally high levels of same as most of the top riders would have genetically higher levels than the also rans. Being greedy, lazy and over cooking the boost is what gets most of them.

1bryan

seems the most appropriate thread to bump

Team wiggins were overlooked for a spot in the Tour of Yorkshire and there's a lot of griping on social media about the decision. Probably, justifiably so. It's hard to imagine they wouldn't have been invited if the team disassociated themselves with Sir Bradley. Like it or not, it's still a vehicle for nurturing young British talent. Odd decision in some ways. Not that surprising in others.

Seems the past choices of some of the so-called stars of British cycling are starting to have their knock-on impacts felt.

Shame, didn't they take on some of the riders from the An Post team ?

Plastik

"He that lieth down with dogs ..."

at1withmyself

Was the same with the tour of Britain last year that also didn't include them so nothing new.

I'm glad to see consequences for those that broke the rules but in fairness to him nothing has yet been proved yet or has it?

1bryan wrote: »

seems the most appropriate thread to bump

Team wiggins were overlooked for a spot in the Tour of Yorkshire and there's a lot of griping on social media about the decision. Probably, justifiably so. It's hard to imagine they wouldn't have been invited if the team disassociated themselves with Sir Bradley. Like it or not, it's still a vehicle for nurturing young British talent. Odd decision in some ways. Not that surprising in others.

Seems the past choices of some of the so-called stars of British cycling are starting to have their knock-on impacts felt.

1bryan

at1withmyself wrote: »

Was the same with the tour of Britain last year that also didn't include them so nothing new.

I'm glad to see consequences for those that broke the rules but in fairness to him nothing has yet been proved yet or has it?

enough to create a stink, and enough for decisions like this to be made.

I think Sky part-fund this team too, do they not? Really, British Cycling have a hell of a job on their hands trying to mend their image. The first part of that should be the end of team Sky and to refocus on developing youth.

Thud

surely if they were to stop inviting teams with past dopers/suspected dopers in their management team nearly all teams would be excluded...
Vinokourov, Vaughters, Madiot, Levenu etc etc...

average_runner

Weepsie wrote: »

Wiggins, though I don't condone anything he has done, has been thrown under the bus by Sky and British Cycling to protect Froome at all costs. That's what it comes across to me.

Rather than hold the hands up and just have a proper clean out, it's easier to circle the wagons and distract and blame.

Isn't that what Armstrong did also?