Author Topic: Sky - gaming the system?  (Read 188094 times)

Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1575 on: 23 October, 2021, 11:45:36 am »
I gather Brailsford and Sky are/were closely connected with British Cycling, to the extend they were/are the same organisation.

Therefore British Cycling track riders are also suspect, eg Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton etc. They probably used TUEs (which are secret) and doped but didn't fail any tests, just like Wiggins etc. The big difference is the Fancy Bears leak, without that no one would be any the wiser regarding the injections just before major races.

Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1576 on: 23 October, 2021, 02:15:58 pm »
The timeline matters for that.
Brailsford ran BC for a while before he started Sky in 2009, in the same building as BC sharing many of the same people. They sucked.
They were pretty good in 2011, and the dominating monsters they have been ever since in 2012.

People like Hoy, Pendleton etc were winning world and Olympic titles before Sky existed, much less before they hired the likes of Leinders (2011), these extra tests that were done, and the TUE stuff (both also 2011). In my view, it's perfectly reasonable to view them with the same suspicion that one views every exceptional performance in cycling, but I think adding the extra Sky baggage is unfair on those who were stars before pre-Sky.
Where that places track stars who came to prominence post-Sky is a different question...

Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1577 on: 23 October, 2021, 06:44:06 pm »
There is enough suspicion about Wiggins in particular that I switch off when he appears on the couch in GCN, etc.  I just can't bear listening to him.  That's my personal protest, meaningless as it may be .
The sound of one pannier flapping

Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1578 on: 23 October, 2021, 06:46:01 pm »
It's not the cheating I care about, that is just normal.

It's the gaslighting bullshit about marginal gains, whiter than white, higher standards bla bla bla.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1579 on: 23 October, 2021, 07:01:33 pm »
The same gaslighting every other team did until they were caught, you mean?
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1580 on: 23 October, 2021, 07:08:09 pm »
No.

Other teams didn't do it.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1581 on: 23 October, 2021, 07:11:07 pm »
Really? How many others protesting
- we just have the special one
- we just have the best tactics
...

You seem to be very selective in your interpretation.
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1582 on: 23 October, 2021, 07:11:41 pm »
ok

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1583 on: 23 October, 2021, 09:55:48 pm »
And I pre-emptively apologise for having an opinion you've not yet approved
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

LittleWheelsandBig

  • Whimsy Rider
Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1584 on: 23 October, 2021, 10:06:44 pm »
It's not the cheating I care about, that is just normal.

It's the gaslighting bullshit about marginal gains, whiter than white, higher standards bla bla bla.

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/team-sky-riders-sign-anti-doping-promise-10466821

“Team Sky, vehemently anti-doping anyway, have taken another step to cleaning up cycling in the wake of the Lance Armstrong scandal.

It goes without saying that you have to be cleaner than clean to ride for them - that has always been the team's stance - but now there can be no dopey skeletons in the closet either.”

Just the first result from a quick search.
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1585 on: 23 October, 2021, 11:50:19 pm »
Remember when Sky said they wouldn't join the MPCC because they held themselves to a higher standard?  ;D

Turns out it was all to do with their cortisone abuse.

Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1586 on: 24 October, 2021, 12:19:07 am »
On the gaslighting, it also enables a particularly unpleasant set of attitudes more widely. I’ve never forgotten a successful and very right wing businessman telling me about his trip to Rio and time spent with the British Olympic team - all the marginal gains nonsense - where they stay in the village, the pillows etc - and his complete buying in to the ideas. Mix that up with a few Randian or Hayekian views and you’ve a potent mixture to abuse people with. Matthew Said typifies this.

I thought then and I hope now that he has seen their fall and learnt something.

And that’s before I get to the use of sport in the UK, and England in particular, that looks very similar to East Germany before reunification.

Do I care about the cheating - not so much. It’s part of Cycling’s tradition and we all know it goes on. I do find it uneasy that one team is clearly so much better at it from time to time - USPS or Sky - but perhaps that’s the commitment thing.

TimC

  • Old blerk sometimes onabike.
Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1587 on: 25 October, 2021, 01:07:30 am »
Hmmm. I do kind of think it's much easier to accuse teams or individuals of cheating than it is to back up your accusations, and of course many teams and individuals over the years have been found guilty of gaming the system, as it's regarded as 'ok' to throw out accusations whether or not you have any substantive evidence to back your accusations up - and being part of a mob is sufficient defence to avoid having to justify yourself. I'm not convinced yet, because no one has given any understandable explanation for or against, why we should leap on a bandwagon of castigation of BC in this case, or what actually was done wrong (ie not what I might infer has been done wrong after reading half of the press releases and none of the background).

I simply do not believe BC are on the side of doping cyclists, and I don't read the press releases of the analysis of the errors of 2011 as saying that they are. That, on the other hand, does not suggest that I believe that professional teams, then or now, are not trying to subvert the rules.

Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1588 on: 25 October, 2021, 07:06:53 am »
I simply do not believe BC are on the side of doping cyclists,

Well I don't think BC had it in their mission statement, I agree. But this is where it gets interesting because BC is not a hivemind. It is made up of individuals who are BC.

And the fact is their doctor, Richard Freeman, ordered a box of banned substances (testosterone) and it probably wasn't for Shane Sutton's dick, despite what Freeman said and Sutton denied.

They've been caught. But, apart from Froome, they haven't been caught by the sporting authorities. Then again, neither was Lance. He didn't break any rules either.


slope

  • Inclined to distraction
    • Current pedalable joys
Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1589 on: 17 January, 2023, 12:03:32 pm »

Re: Sky - gaming the system?
« Reply #1590 on: 17 January, 2023, 03:32:37 pm »
We will probably never know which rider(s) on BC/Sky were doping.

But we do know they were.