British Cycling and Sky

Weepsie

Weepsie wrote: »

Don't know if I'd trust that Dr McGrane chap to be honest.....

Why not?

Weepsie

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Why not?

Was only joking. He's a member of a club that some boards folk are in and would know.

koutoubia

Weepsie wrote: »

Don't know if I'd trust that Dr McGrane chap to be honest.....

Deleted User wrote: »

Why not?

Anyone who wears a rear entry tri suit to cyclocross just simply cannot be trusted

Beasty

koutoubia wrote: »

Anyone who wears a rear entry tri suit to cyclocross just simply cannot be trusted

Didn't realise you were into cyclocross koutoubia (although I had heard from that McGrane fella that rear entry lycra was something in your letter to Santa:pac:)

Eamonnator

Weepsie wrote: »

Don't know if I'd trust that Dr McGrane chap to be honest.....

Anybody, who likes black and red cycling gear, can't be all bad.

Beasty

Eamonnator wrote: »

Anybody, who likes black and red cycling gear, can't be all bad.

Think koutoubia decided on United's colours, while McGrane tried to convince himself it was something to do with Liverpool....

Both seem to have an unexplained aversion to blue and white (even with some orange thrown in)

koutoubia

Ha Thankfully nothing to do with pansy ball colour schematics.

Lusk_Doyle

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Why not?

He is a charlatan, plain and simple.

Beasty

Would never describe him as "plain" or "simple".....


:pac:

Lusk_Doyle

Beasty wrote: »

Would never describe him as "plain" or "simple".....


:pac:

You've never been out on one of our club spins so!

Mind you, neither have I for quite some time now!

pelevin

Interesting strong, angry article from Nicole Cooke on broadly this whole affair. Doesn't exactly like Sutton & Cope.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/dec/29/nicole-cooke-team-sky-british-cycling

pelevin

pelevin wrote: »

Brailsford hasn't gone because Sky are doing, have been doing, and are continuing to do things the right way, and if the right way has become as it were diverted to a tangent of a certain degree of angle to the direction it had been traversing, then this is in a sense, and a very real tangible sense, and you will of course agree with me here, a consequence of the evolution of our ongoing dynamic at Sky of upwards progression to a heightened realisation of what this right way of doing things can be in a more perfectly realised and ever-unfolding future. Noone is perfect, even us, and I never claimed we were, but what I do claim is perfection is the goal to which we are always striving, and we will never rest until this striving is as it were distilled and encased within tangible forms that one can touch in the real world, and as our knowledge grows, this will very much be the case. And you can quote me on that.

Those are of course Dave's own words.

Saw some actual words from Brailsford earlier when he met the press at Sky's Mallorca camp:

"People's perception of me is what their perception of me may be," he said. "I accept that totally, I know what I'm doing, I know in my own mind, in my own soul, if I'm doing this the right way or not, and I've been doing it the right way for a long time, and I know that. I'll continue to do that, so me - I'm focussing on the future, this year, and next year and that's what I'm going to do."

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/brailsford-dodges-questions-about-ukad-investigation-at-team-skys-mallorca-camp/

I'm getting mixed up now. Was I parodying him or is he parodying me?

Rambling Man

"The jiffy bag was about this size I think"

pelevin

Don't be flippant about the famed Brailsford Hands of Integrity. Whenever he does that manoeuvre, and it's not easy, it shows he's especially focusing in on both the efficiently right thing to do and ethically right thing to do at the same time.
To show how hard it can be, this was Oleg Tinkov's effort to make the same movement:

terrydel

pelevin wrote: »

Saw some actual words from Brailsford earlier when he met the press at Sky's Mallorca camp:

"People's perception of me is what their perception of me may be," he said. "I accept that totally, I know what I'm doing, I know in my own mind, in my own soul, if I'm doing this the right way or not, and I've been doing it the right way for a long time, and I know that. I'll continue to do that, so me - I'm focussing on the future, this year, and next year and that's what I'm going to do."

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/brailsford-dodges-questions-about-ukad-investigation-at-team-skys-mallorca-camp/

I'm getting mixed up now. Was I parodying him or is he parodying me?

That man hasnt got a soul. Hes the most souless, corporate, pr-spun robot in sport. And that's saying something these days.

pelevin

Sky, Brailsford & the gang not coming out too shiny with all this stuff:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ukad-launch-damning-attack-on-team-sky-and-british-cycling-over-medical-practices/

'Clean' team without medical records of who gets given what by a doctor who is too sick to talk to this hearing.

A couple of Twitter quotes from former Sky PR man David Walsh:

"According to Sapstead,
BC/TS ordered supplies Triamcinolone/Kenalog. Few months ago Dave Brailsford said he didn't know what Kenalog was."

"Team Sky ordered large quantity of Triamcinolone if for one rider, small amount if for entire squad. Team has to specify who got it."

Shane Stokes article on CylingTips well worth a read:

https://cyclingtips.com/2017/03/no-proof-provided-support-british-cycling-team-sky-accounts-wiggins-mystery-package/

godtabh

The question though is have they done anything illegal? Clearly there marginal gain/clean principals are a load of crap but will the wiggin out of this? They seem to go through a couple of news cycles, the issues dies down only for the next wave.

Team Sky support is now 50/50 between Fan Boys and the likes of Digger.

pelevin

I doubt anyone finds the Fulimicil story credible so it looks very,very probable they did do something in cycling terms illegal. Surely that won't be ever proven presumably apart from a confession by the elusive doctor, so whilst the team's reputation is now very tarnished, they'll carry on as the biggest team I'd imagine.

CramCycle

They broke their own rules and presumably are borderline on official rules. But alot like speeding on a motorway with no Garda about, unless they confess, nothing will happen here as most of it is unprovable.

Interesting to see what is in the Jess Varnish files that were not handed over though.

TheBlaaMan

You'd have to wonder how much sh1t has to hit the fan, or just negative publicity of any form, before Sky pull out of sponsorship of the team. Does anyone know if the title sponsorship contract is due for renewal - I know that Froome has a contract thru to the end of 2018, so presumably that reflects the minimum that Sky have committed to...

pelevin

No idea of the legalities but Tinkov pulled out of his team even though I think Sagan still had a year on his contract. Sky/the Murdochs are at least on a par with Nike I'd imagine though who were the last rats to leave the good ship Lance a few years ago even after his titles had been stripped from him.

pelevin

15 minutes Podcast from CyclingNews. They title it "A catastrophic day for Team Sky"!

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/a-catastrophic-day-for-team-sky-podcast/

Just started listening & they seem to be ripping Sky's credibility apart completely. Headlines like "Team Sky and British Cycling's reputation 'in tatters' after bruising parliamentary hearing" in Telegraph. Seems like the UK press hasn't gone easy on them.

Will Fotheringham who co-wrote or ghost wrote Brad Wiggins' autobiography says in The Guardian " . . . men such as Brailsford, who for six years have stated that people should believe in their ways of working and who will be repeating that this summer, no longer have a leg to stand on."

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/02/british-cycling-team-sky-dave-brailsford-credibility-tatters?CMP=share_btn_tw

Macy0161

I don't think Sky will pull out early - while the fan boys remain they're still getting something out of it, and has that cohort ever really diminished? The fan boys will run with "they've done nothing wrong", and the lots of us that were always a bit suss or just long in the tooth, just see it as confirmation that they're no better (or worse) than any other team.

Laptop being stolen must be the modern dog ate my homework though!

Junior

godtabh wrote: »

The question though is have they done anything illegal? Clearly there marginal gain/clean principals are a load of crap but will the wiggin out of this? They seem to go through a couple of news cycles, the issues dies down only for the next wave.

Team Sky support is now 50/50 between Fan Boys and the likes of Digger.

Again it depends on how you define illegal.

So from a Cycling point of view, the only thing I think we could call illegal is obtaining the TUE under false circumstances - i.e. Brad wasn't sick, but they knew what they were giving him and how it would help him performance wise. But with no data to back this up, to the good, or to the bad side of that argument we can never know.

From a medical point of view and I bow to others knowledge in these areas, they didn't keep prescriptions or records for controlled substances like they should have, so that could lead to a medical tribunal case being heard against the doctor.

After that it's just a matter of ethics, and ethically, this is all wrong.

pelevin

Macy0161 wrote: »

Laptop being stolen must be the modern dog ate my homework though!

Twas a good one all right. Along with "I can't come to the parliamentary hearing cos I'm after getting very sick."

Think of that though - all his medical records with Sky on that laptop, this huge team with the biggest budget in cycling. Doctor's laptop, genuinely or not, goes missing & that's it. End of relevant medical records. The team famous for being infinitely professional & thorough.

TheBlaaMan

Freeman is a medical doctor; he risks career-ending sanctions if he has been behaving unethically, this was already stated by Sapstead in the meetings yesterday, this is way, way above any sanction or loss-of-face that might come his way from the world of cycling. If he is lying low now, it is likely to be on the basis that he trusts Brailsford/TS/BC to absolve him of blame by finding some other solution. If they fail to do so, I'd fully expect him to surface in due course and spill the beans - whatever they contain - and throw the others under the bus if needs be. He has a lot more at stake than almost, if not everybody, else.

lissard

Remember the Bloodgate capsule story when Leinster played Wasps 8 years ago. It all unraveled when the doctor looked like he could be struck off.<snip>. If Freeman sings the whole edifice will come crashing down.

RobFowl

TheBlaaMan wrote: »

Freeman is a medical doctor; he risks career-ending sanctions if he has been behaving unethically, this was already stated by Sapstead in the meetings yesterday, this is way, way above any sanction or loss-of-face that might come his way from the world of cycling. If he is lying low now, it is likely to be on the basis that he trusts Brailsford/TS/BC to absolve him of blame by finding some other solution. If they fail to do so, I'd fully expect him to surface in due course and spill the beans - whatever they contain - and throw the others under the bus if needs be. He has a lot more at stake than almost, if not everybody, else.

Disagree, I believe he has got advice from his indemnity body (medical insurers) not to give evidence on the basis that he will not come out of it well. They cannot force him to attend.
It sounds like he will have a fitness to practice case in the GMC so that takes precedence.
This will not end well for him and it will end his career in cycling no matter what.
His career in top level sport is probably over too.

RobFowl

In fact this will not end well for many of the protagonists ..

Darth Brailsford will try to brazen it out by deflecting and pinning the blame on others, Sky will not renew sponsorship even if they don't pull out early. He will struggle to get new sponsor ship and the team will finish. I can't see any sporting body in the UK rushing to employ him anytime soon.

Brian Cookson has so far kept quiet, he was BC president during this whole period. He will either have to claim he didn't know what was going on and appear clueless, or that he did but allowed it anyway and appear unethical.

The riders at Sky will all have to find new teams.

Eventually Chris Froome will come under scrutiny and even if nothing comes of it will always have this shadow hanging over him.

dermabrasion

Bleak. The whole lot of it. My take is that they didn't break the rules, but they seriously and knowingly bent them.
The n-acetylcisteine (NAC) should be a PED on WADA list, as the data is there. (speculation spoiler alert)I suspect the whole jiffy bag nasal formulation is a cover for a larger perhaps dose of NAC. If Wiggo's blood was (retrospectively) tested positive for NAC, they'd have a cover story for his blocked nose.
But, this is what bugs me. Cycling was the lead story on Off-the-ball last night only because of this. Not because of Sam, Dan, Nico, Ryan or any of our elite athletes. In the grand scheme of cheating in sport, this is small beer. But, it is also low hanging fruit (sorry for mixed metaphors). Who taken into perspective of some of the recent news from athletics, Russia and so on. Very small beer.
Now we're navel gazing and explaining it to non-cyclists about the sport being rotten, when in reality we have moved from the premier division to the Division 2 in terms of cheating.
But I'm biased.