Do you think Sky is cheating?

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by bicycletricycle

(Title edited to cut down on confusion, sorry about that, now the answer to the title question and poll question align.)

Well, listening to the stages podcast and watching the tour after a couple year break has got me wondering. What do people think about doping these days?

I guess I might be starting some **** with this thread, I swear I am not trying to troll or anything. I am genuinely curious about everyone's opinion. What do you guys think about team sky and doping, specifically do you think Froome and Wiggins doped/dope.

I personally assume that it is likely but have not spent a lot of time investigating the topic, I guess I am just not too worried about it. I would like it if the sport was clean but it just seems unlikely.

hopefully I can figure out this poll feature.

Define 'doping'? Every team has doctors, Sky has a BIG BUDGET so can get great doctors, have Great testing so can participate in that gray area of 'stuff' where yes, this limit of this stuff is legal, this much more and it's not. Do I think they use outright illegal stuff, and then use masking agents or techniques to keep from getting caught, like EPO? No, I don't.

But do they dance around the gray area will suppleaze(sp?) and aplomb, using their gigantic funds and budget? Sure they do.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by Joachim

I would like to see anyone that says that Sky is doping, come forward with which substances they are 'allegedly' using and how they are avoiding the tests for said substances. Come with scientific facts. Otherwise it's just bar talk and letting subjective feelings about a team determine your opinion on doping. Might as well change this thread to 'Cyclingnews - Clinic' then and add to their crazy talk..

Whatever was in that nebulous courier packet is a good start.

But you don't hire the dope doctor from Rabobank if you want to to compete clean.

[earlfoss]

I'm sure that in the 15-20 years after Froome retires, someone will start talking.

[weiwentg]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Define 'doping'? Every team has doctors, Sky has a BIG BUDGET so can get great doctors, have Great testing so can participate in that gray area of 'stuff' where yes, this limit of this stuff is legal, this much more and it's not. Do I think they use outright illegal stuff, and then use masking agents or techniques to keep from getting caught, like EPO? No, I don't.

But do they dance around the gray area will suppleaze(sp?) and aplomb, using their gigantic funds and budget? Sure they do.

There's this issue. There's also the issue of whether Team Sky maintained an organized doping program a la USPS or ONCE, or whether rides on Team Sky are or were doping freelance, like CSC. If the latter, were riders freelancing with management's approval, or were they freelancing under the radar like Danilo Di Luca?

Right now, I suspect that Sky either had an organized program of pushing the rules as far as they could get away with, or that Sky's management suborned or allowed such action for or by some of their medical staff and riders.

I don't yet think that Sky administered any game changers, which I define as EPO, blood transfusions, and testosterone. It was probably more that they pushed the rules for corticosteroids as far as they could. Those, by themselves, haven't got clear evidence of being game changers for athletic performance. We have testimonies by athletes - but those guys were likely on other stuff at the time, user testimonies by themselves aren't reliable evidence, etc. Edit: that said, I do consider this to be cheating as well. It's lesser in magnitude than USPS/ONCE, but it's still fundamentally cheating.

That said, we also haven't heard the full story. It may never fully come to light, thus leaving an unsatisfactory cloud of suspicion over their heads - which Brailsford, Freeman, Wiggins, and others brought on themselves. I will remind readers that there was the package of testosterone packages sent by accident to a doctor at British Cycling, who was (iirc) working for BC and Sky. A strange arrangement, given that BC should be Sky's regulator, including for anti-doping purposes. Also, how is it that you get a box of testosterone patches delivered by accident? Was it supposed to be a box of kenacort vials, and the supplier goofed (they are both steroids, after all ....)? Curious. But no hard evidence yet that it wasn't an accident.

I don't like to just drop innuendo, so let me make one last point explicitly. There was a strange relationship between Sky and its nominal regulator, plus the shady TUEs, plus the mystery box to Wiggins and the mystery testosterone packages. These by themselves don't prove a case. But they do undermine Sky's credibility in my mind, and I believe that I'm entirely justified in this regard.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by weiwentg

There's this issue. There's also the issue of whether Team Sky maintained an organized doping program a la USPS or ONCE, or whether rides on Team Sky are or were doping freelance, like CSC. If the latter, were riders freelancing with management's approval, or were they freelancing under the radar like Danilo Di Luca?

Right now, I suspect that Sky either had an organized program of pushing the rules as far as they could get away with, or that Sky's management suborned or allowed such action for or by some of their medical staff and riders.

I don't yet think that Sky administered any game changers, which I define as EPO, blood transfusions, and testosterone. It was probably more that they pushed the rules for corticosteroids as far as they could. Those, by themselves, haven't got clear evidence of being game changers for athletic performance. We have testimonies by athletes - but those guys were likely on other stuff at the time, user testimonies by themselves aren't reliable evidence, etc.

That said, we also haven't heard the full story. It may never fully come to light, thus leaving an unsatisfactory cloud of suspicion over their heads - which Brailsford, Freeman, Wiggins, and others brought on themselves. I will remind readers that there was the package of testosterone packages sent by accident to a doctor at British Cycling, who was (iirc) working for BC and Sky. A strange arrangement, given that BC should be Sky's regulator, including for anti-doping purposes. Also, how is it that you get a box of testosterone patches delivered by accident? Was it supposed to be a box of kenacort vials, and the supplier goofed (they are both steroids, after all ....)? Curious. But no hard evidence yet that it wasn't an accident.

I don't like to just drop innuendo, so let me make one last point explicitly. There was a strange relationship between Sky and its nominal regulator, plus the shady TUEs, plus the mystery box to Wiggins and the mystery testosterone packages. These by themselves don't prove a case. But they do undermine Sky's credibility in my mind, and I believe that I'm entirely justified in this regard.

Good point about TUEs...approved by the UCI, if any guy asks for and gets a legal TUE, he will use it...another 'gray' part of this whole gig.

[weiwentg]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Good point about TUEs...approved by the UCI, if any guy asks for and gets a legal TUE, he will use it...another 'gray' part of this whole gig.

About that gray area ... I think of what they did with Wiggins as cheating, but reasonable people can disagree on that incident.

My read of the UK clinical guidelines for treatment of allergies is that they don't favor systemic corticosteroids for non-emergencies. I wrote some stuff on this earlier on Reddit (and yes, that is my pseudonym there ... very long story). It definitely seems like going to kenacort was aggressive, and he perhaps should have got oral corticosteroids (which i believe are less potent, or are less potent in usual doses). That said, it may well have been common medical practice at the time, at least among some clinicians. Clinical guidelines aren't written in stone (hence their name, guidelines). Moreover, Wiggins' TUEs do say that he was on maximal topical treatments; there are some additional things he could have tried, but they may not have been as available in the U.K. at the time (e.g. Immunotherapy, aka getting allergy shots).

https://www.reddit.com/r/peloton/com..._for_systemic/

Bottom line, Freeman's and Wiggins' state of mind could be relevant. If they were thinking of going for the most aggressive treatment that could be administered because it could help enhance performance in healthy athletes as a side benefit (e.g. By helping him drop some weight), then that's wrong. But it will be hard to determine their state of mind. So, the kenacort thing on its own could be let go. For me, this is where Sky's general credibility comes in, and I don't believe they have it.

[Joachim]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

Whatever was in that nebulous courier packet is a good start.

But you don't hire the dope doctor from Rabobank if you want to to compete clean.

So what was it then? And how do they avoid detecting?

[weiwentg]

Originally Posted by Joachim

So what was it then? And how do they avoid detecting?

Regardless of what it was, it was easy enough to avoid individual tests for banned substances back in the Armstrong era, and it should still be possible to do so now. You may have to be more careful with dose and timing, of course.

The Passport isn't infallible. The UCI currently seem to be flagging cases very conservatively. See, for example, the article below on Chris Horner and LA. Both were in the passport system, but neither were flagged.

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/15...#ixzz2iJ2z5SIi

Hence, it seems likely to me that you could outright cheat, but keep the doses small enough to skate under the radar. As to pushing the TUE system, the Wiggins case illustrates how it was pretty easy to manipulate it for systemic corticosteroids.

[bicycletricycle]

I assume every team is pushing gray areas.

The question is more about crossing the (fuzzy?) line into the known illegal activities

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Define 'doping'? Every team has doctors, Sky has a BIG BUDGET so can get great doctors, have Great testing so can participate in that gray area of 'stuff' where yes, this limit of this stuff is legal, this much more and it's not. Do I think they use outright illegal stuff, and then use masking agents or techniques to keep from getting caught, like EPO? No, I don't.

But do they dance around the gray area will suppleaze(sp?) and aplomb, using their gigantic funds and budget? Sure they do.

[holliscx]

Joachim fwiw Lance said in response to why Froome was getting booed roadside in France that it was partly not doping suspicion but rather incidents of proof the team has doped. I don't claim to be an expert on this subject but I suspect Armstrong has a good pulse on doping in the peloton

[William]

If you go back and look at threads in the archives about similar questions concerning LA/Discovery/Postal and doping during their run they pretty much run as this thread is. Some say yes, some say no, some throw out the no proof card, etc... At this point in time (the present) no one can say definitively unless someone gets popped in the Tour. That said, history has tended to show otherwise.

I'm in the "most likely" camp. We'll find out at some point in the future...most likely.








William

[MattTuck]

exploiting the TUE system is extremely sketchy.

That said, they're under a microscope this year, and I see the risks as just too high for the team to try something that could jeopardize their sponsorship/record. If anything, (and we're talking relativism here), I'd suspect that Sky is cleaner than a lot of other teams because of this.

[bobswire]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

exploiting the TUE system is extremely sketchy.

That said, they're under a microscope this year, and I see the risks as just too high for the team to try something that could jeopardize their sponsorship/record. If anything, (and we're talking relativism here), I'd suspect that Sky is cleaner than a lot of other teams because of this.

I agree and tactically they are a lot smarter, today being an example.

[54ny77]

Yes, I believe that Sky riders are all getting SKY tv and broadband access and not paying for it.

[Joachim]

Originally Posted by holliscx

Joachim fwiw Lance said in response to why Froome was getting booed roadside in France that it was partly not doping suspicion but rather incidents of proof the team has doped. I don't claim to be an expert on this subject but I suspect Armstrong has a good pulse on doping in the peloton

I don't believe anything Armstrong says. He is an attention seeker.