šŸš“ā˜  The Death of a Dream? The Team Sky Drugs stories

My biggest issue is that these politicos make statements hiding behind parliamentary priviledge. I would like to see Damien Colliins come out and state that Sky and Wiggins cheated without this shield in place. Surely the evidence he has and his anonymous source is strong enought to do so.

Somehow I doubt it.

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ā€œā€¦If they are going to publically attck the organsations and riders then surely there should be full disclosure which enables Wiggins and Sky to defend thmselves. Otherwise it is tantamount to guilty without trialā€¦ā€

Well, @cb-saint that seems to be the case for most things these days so why should cycling be treated any differently? Weinstein? Alleged kiddy fiddlers? Where do you draw the line?

I had the privelege of working within professional cycling for a couple of years. One of my colleagues was a French professional of some reputation who had himself in the past been ā€˜doneā€™ for doping.

He was adamant at the time (this was at the height of Wiggins winning the Tour etc.) that the Brits were doping and had just found new ways round the laws, to quote him fully ā€˜Of course they are doping, everyone is doping, ask yourself how a man dominates a sport where eveyrone is doping without doping himself?ā€™

This gentleman in question has since been ā€˜doneā€™ again, but this time for mechanically doping.

In summary, cycling is a poisoned sport, and as cynical as it makes me I donā€™t doubt for a second Wiggins (or at least Team Sky) have been up to no good.

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A full transcript of the BBC interview with Wiggins below. If you have 10-15 minutes, it is a very good read. Certainly adds perspective as far I am concerned.

Best extract? On our favourite media outlet:

"Iā€™ve not been able to get my head round some things. I was asked certain questions by a certain journalist for a certain newspaper and back in the end of 2016 I was asked whether Iā€™d missed a test or not. And I freely volunteered the information and said Iā€™d never missed a test in all the yearsā€¦

"I had a filing failure. I didnā€™t even have a strike, I had a filing failure - for not putting the right details in on a long-haul flight from California back in 2016. And that was just lack of information, I was on a long-haul flight. I didnā€™t have a test, miss a test or anything like that.

ā€œThe story that came out from that information was ā€˜Wiggins in missed test blunder just three months beforeā€¦ā€™ What equates to a missed test doping blunder? I mean, just that, that choice of language. How do you get a story like that from that?ā€

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Good article that

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Out of interest, how many weekend cyclists also take performance enhancing substances?

Not trying to be provocative but genuinely interested as I live on the Olympic cycle route in Surrey and the roads are packed each weekend with cyclists following that route.

I guess itā€™s not something people would want to admit to but I do wonderā€¦

A lot of cyclists taking Viagra in large quantities.

Allows them to ride all over the place.

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Most of us know that shifting 20 pounds would give more gains performance wise than any amount of doping would. Bet there is some the decent club racing level.

True about the weight.

Looking at some of the competitive"behaviour" Iā€™ve seen for want of a better word Iā€™d suspect it goes far wider than club racing level. But as Iā€™m not in it who am I to say.

I have no knowledge of what Sky did or did not do, but it highlights a difficult question. We all use medicines to get better or relieve symptoms.

If you train and race hard you will suffer more injury and with sports such as cycling 'performance induced asthma is quite common and an accepted medical diagnosis. The question is when does drugs taken to speed up recovery or reduce pain- things we would do normally, become cheating ? cortico steroids are prescribed for a variety of conditions - I was given Prednisone For a bad alllergic reaction to a facial wasp sting- which rapidly reduced the swelling and elevated me from 485th to 8th on a 8mile Strava segment I try to do several times a week!

So should athletes just not be allowed to take anything if injured? Heal naturally, or instead of a TUE be given a mandatory 3 months off competition for certain Therapeutic uses ?

there is loads of sad fuckers doping in amateur racing though - because they have small cocks - real arseholes but possibly driven to it by much of the macho bullshit culture that many cycling club members suffer from - for many they are obsessed about performance , pain, all that shit as opppsed to just enjoying riding the bike.

Lots of cunts in cycling clubs and why I left the one I was in- too much ego and not enough social

My banter mate commented on FB that doping is rife amongst Mamilā€™s

I had to Google that.

But what is not performance enhancing?

Drinking isotopic on a hot day in a village cricket match may give you an advantage over someone getting dehydrated.

Luckily my bits have always been too big for cycling so it isnā€™t a world I know about

Still people from Sky emerge to question Wiggins full and open interview and challenge his facts.

What a mess

This is the Shane Sutton who quit after allegations of discrimination, sexism and derogatory remarks about disabled athletes.

Wiggins rightly asks why he did not raise this when he spoke to Parliament, only later. To his credit, Wiggins has not otherwise said a word about SSā€™s motivations.

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This is a bit more of the transcript -

ā€œI cannot say I know a lot about Bradā€™s use of it in or out of competition,ā€ said Sutton, who was also a former technical director for British Cycling.

"I am told by the doctor he needs a TUE for this event etcetera etcetera. Outside of the event, you have to sit down and ask them.

"I call for the doctor and Brad to come forward and answer these questions, they are not for me.

"I am calling for him and the doctor to come forward and tell the truth.

"He is a sufferer, I have seen him suffer and gasping for breath after effort, I saw what he was going though, I cannot answer how often he used it. Only the doctor and him can tell us.

ā€œThey need to explain it all to everybody and everyone knows the word cheat needs to be taken out of the equation. The report says he did not cheat, so come forward and tell everyone what you administered, when, and let us put it to bed.ā€

Sutton, who gave evidence to the committee last year, was also asked about a treatment administered to Wiggins on the team bus after winning the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine. Freeman and Wiggins say the cyclist was treated some hours later at a training camp - a point Freeman reiterated to Sky Sports following Suttonā€™s interview.

However, Sutton said: ā€œI understand he was treated on the bus, I thought it was public knowledge. This goes back to 12 months ago, when I was interviewed, that is the statement I made, that is what the doctor told me.ā€

Sutton did, though, question the evidence of an anonymous ā€œwell-placedā€ source who told the committee that Team Sky used triamcinolone to prepare Wiggins and a smaller group of riders for the 2012 Tour.

ā€œI totally refute that,ā€ Sutton said. "What you have to remember is that Brad and I worked in isolation, when the source says this happened. I would like to know when. I have no recollection of training with that group, when they were all together.

ā€œI know what training camps I was on and for me that is a total lie from someone that has very much an axe to grind with Team Sky.ā€

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This is actually a cracking article.

In some ways a confession (that much of this mess is ā€œour ownā€ and that of the media for wanting to believe the ā€œDreamā€)

Wiggins the dethroned Mod king, Brailsford the zany Frankenstein who created one monster too many, the baying masses, the infamous and mysterious Jiffy Bag, which of course now has its own parody Twitter account (itā€™s yet to tweet, which you have to say is entirely in character).

Was it all worth it, then? Did we all, ultimately, get what we came for? Skyā€™s beaten opponents may have something to say about that; although frankly, given the recent history of pro cycling, he who is without sin generally carries the lanterne rouge. And so really, this whole affair, like so much of what we charitably describe as sport, is as much a parable of our own wretched nature as anything else.

Not been watching it, but been following via Matt Slater on Twitter and the Beeb Web site.

Have to feel sorry for Yates that time trial must have killed him, and then to lose +30 minutes on a stage must break your spirit.

And after his wonky start, fair play to Froome for staying in the mix.

And then the section yesterday. Outstanding and to be fair it was a leg that many believed would ā€œshake up the GCā€

But even the lovers of cycling are tempering their responses because so many called his performance ā€œdoing a Landisā€

IF he is clean then it is a shame his peformance is tainted. For those sceptics like me, itā€™s a shame I have to read it all with a meh.

(Equally over the past 2 days seen completely conflicting reports on t he effects of Salbutamol, testing techniques and even the impact of doping on elite athletes.)

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Watched it yesterday - it was an incredible ride.

Drug rumours aside, one thing Sky are exceptional at is sports science and planning athletes training schedules so they peak at the right time. They did this with British Cycling - they suck for three years and then all peak on Olympic year.

Froomes plan has been to win the Giro and the Tour this year. They know delivering him to the Giro in peak performance would blow his Tour, so the plan has always been to build up during the first two weeks for the third week - in essence training up. The stage profile of the Giro this year also assisted with three brutal stages at the end.

he got off to a crap start thanks to a couple of crashes that set him back and he was hanging on for dear life. I suspect in the original plan he was meant to get pink in the time trial and they get his team to tempo up the mountains to defend it.

Yesterday he had to go for it and did it brilliantly. Question now is what has he got left in the tank. He blew up the day after his last stage win.

Got to feel for Yates - the time trial and Thursdays mountain stage wrecked him. But 38 minutes - that has got to be damaging from a psychological POV Still he is young and has plenty of time

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How Chris Froome won Giro dā€™Italia thanks to ā€˜spectacularā€™ stage 19 victory

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One of the best docuā€™s iā€™ve seen around this subject. Starts as a generic first person documentary about drugs and cycling, then shifts, after the narrator meets someone and becomes quite amazing. Iā€™m generalizing because I wouldnā€™t like to spoil it.