Manolo Saiz is back...

[FlashUNC]

Really, what's it going to take to get rid of these clowns? Was Once and Liberty Seguros and Operation Puerto not enough?

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2014/10/controversy-as-former-once-manager-saiz-returns-to-cycling/

[1centaur]

Venga, venga, venga back into history, Manolo.

[CunegoFan]

Everyone involved in the sport for the last thirty years is not going to disappear, and people with no history in cycling fill are not going to fill the newly empty positions. Saiz is no different than anyone else else. Unlike most others, he just happened to (sort of) get caught. The best course forward is for cycling to collectively acknowledge its past instead of trying to pin the blame on a handful of individuals.

[FlashUNC]

Everyone involved in the sport for the last thirty years is not going to disappear, and people with no history in cycling fill are not going to fill the newly empty positions. Saiz is no different than anyone else else. Unlike most others, he just happened to (sort of) get caught. The best course forward is for cycling to collectively acknowledge its past instead of trying to pin the blame on a handful of individuals.

I certainly agree for a large number of folks who've been involved with the sport, but Saiz was a special breed of idiot who seems to have learned nothing from his exile.

To be caught as stupidly as he was, some folks just shouldn't get second chances.

[1centaur]

The best course forward is for cycling to collectively acknowledge its past instead of trying to pin the blame on a handful of individuals.

Cycling doesn't acknowledge; people acknowledge. The nature of the acknowledgment is kind of important to the best course forward. "People did stuff but it made sense they did stuff; nuff said" to paraphrase Saiz is not the same kind of acknowledgment we have heard from Vaughters or Millar, for example. "I am pleased that the sport no longer requires doping for success and I embrace my chance to further that trend" would be a nice acknowledgment of something. It does no good for US to do the acknowledging if a doping champion with the same old mentality is back with his omerta posse. And I don't suppose either hoping or assuming Saiz has changed will work out too well, so maybe we can rely on fear of the Spanish legal system?

[54ny77]

the bigger boneheads in this matter are the backers behind him.

i mean, really. how friggin' dumb can one be to put money behind this guy? it's like hiring oj as a spokesman for life alert.

[bikingshearer]

Even ignoring his doping stupidity - and it's a lot to ignore - he wasn't very good at his job. That is what makes this a real head-scratcher. There has to be somebody younger with a possible upside who deserves a shot.

Saiz knows a lot about the sport, and sometimes gets lucky enough to have really good talent who can win some races without anything but routine management, but does not elevate the performance of the riders at all.

Compared to the Cyrille Guimards, Peter Posts and, yes, Johan Bruyneels of the world (whatever else you may think of them, all three of these guys got the most out of their riders, and not just by doping, although that was a significant part of it with at least wo and probably all three of them), Saiz is just another guy. In baseball terms, he is John McNamara at best. He certainly is no Bruce Bochy or Jim Leyland.

[bluesea]

What a bullsh*ter with his biological support.

[CunegoFan]

Cycling doesn't acknowledge; people acknowledge.

Cookson could have acknowledged the sins of the sport's past. Instead he continues the party line of villainizing a few riders. He is promising to root them out, as though 95% were not doing the same thing and the staffs of every team are not filled with ex-riders who doped. Who would want to come forward to acknowledge their past when they will be used as a scapegoat by the UCI as well as rabid fans? He had the opportunity to set up a T&R process that could have honestly charted a path away from a past of endemic doping. Instead his CIRC looks to be nothing more than a CYA exercise for the UCI.

The nature of the acknowledgment is kind of important to the best course forward. "People did stuff but it made sense they did stuff; nuff said" to paraphrase Saiz is not the same kind of acknowledgment we have heard from Vaughters or Millar, for example. "I am pleased that the sport no longer requires doping for success and I embrace my chance to further that trend" would be a nice acknowledgment of something.

Millar? He and his sister (who now works for Team Sky's propaganda unit) spent their time trashing Phillipe Gaumont as a crazy person right up to the time Millar was frogmarched to a French cell. He then told an unbelievable story that limited his admission to the known facts. The most important loss to him was the loss of his golden boy image in the British media. For him anti-doping is just self promotion and a way to climb back into the limelight. He would sell his own mother if was required for the next transformation of his public image. The only difference between Millar and other dopers is that Millar figured out a way to profit from his doping outside of racing.

The newfound self-abasement and piety of those who attended Vaughters' School of Doping Admissions sets off my BS meter. It is all about crocodile tears, pretending to be sorry, blaming someone else for "forcing them to dope", and regretting giving into temptation. I much prefer the Landis approach, which is to just straight up tell it like it was: "Doping was required to ride at that level, I did it, I'm not sorry about it, and in the same situation I would do it again." The key is to focus on the situation and the implications it had for everyone who wanted to compete instead of treating doping as a moral failure by those who had few other options than to continue racing.

It does no good for US to do the acknowledging if a doping champion with the same old mentality is back with his omerta posse. And I don't suppose either hoping or assuming Saiz has changed will work out too well, so maybe we can rely on fear of the Spanish legal system?

How do you know Saiz is any different that Patrick Lefevre or Jim Ochowicz or Marc Sergeant or Bjarne Riis or Andy Rihs or Oleg Tinkoff? People do learn from the past. Even if they have no moral qualms about doping, it might be a matter of what was used before is no longer practical now. If you believe Vaughters' then we are in a new era because of the effectiveness of the bio passport. If so then it is not unreasonable to think that these guys will find it in their best interest to discontinue what they were doing, and if they don't continue then the problem with them is solved so what is the point of kicking them out to bring in someone else?

[1centaur]

There's too much in there to parse everything. We'd have to be in person to hash it all out. I concur in suspicion of Millar, but if all acknowledgment is probably false (other than Landis, whose acknowledgment advances nothing) then acknowledgment is not a good goal - maybe practice is the only desirable goal. No fan of those other guys either.

Perhaps it is simplest this way: when an icon of doping "comes back" and says, pretty much, screw you on the doping question, it's pretty easy to believe he is not on the bandwagon we'd like people to be on for the sake of the sport. If you can't even pretend, you probably don't understand the situation. Saiz is failing the character version of the bio-passport and will therefore merit extra scrutiny. But he can't keep doing that in the current climate. Someone will rein him in.

[harlond]

Cookson could have acknowledged the sins of the sport's past. Instead he continues the party line of villainizing a few riders.Exactly, and it's disgusting.

[earlfoss]

I liked reading Manolo's comments about not saving the racing to the last 2k of a stage.

I'm interested to see how this turns out.


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