Gonchar busted! - Page 2

It still stinks. In another forum thread...

http://www.cyclingforums.com/t394622.html

I posted what I thought were the real reasons the teams were doing all of this testing - to mitigate potential disasters from dopers on their teams - and for the less moral teams to stay ahead of the UCI and WADA.

T-mobile's first story on Serhiy was this...

"T-Mobile travel to Italy without expected starter Serhiy Honchar. The veteran Ukrainian caught a cold at the Tour de Romandie last week, forcing him to retire from the Swiss race, and he has not yet fully recovered." (Daily Peloton)

I'm proud of T-mobile for publicly anouning it but we'll never know if they felt they had to or if they're truly taking the higher ground. What do you think the chances are that they new about the irregularities in testing before the 'caught a cold' story came out? If so, why post the cold story? Were they assessing if they could get away with it?

Whatever the truth of the Serhiy situation is, my point is that it demonstates the conflict of interest involved in placing any reliance on internal team testing to combat the doping problem in the pro peloton. So to me the added internal testing programs that CSC and T-mob have brandished so proudly are just marketing schemes.

Also, like Sarafino, I'd like to believe that Michael Barry is clean. I bought my first road bike from Barry Sr. and have ridden beside Michael when he occasionally makes it home to Toronto and graces a long standing local ride (the Donut). Even with doping appearing to be rampid in the pro peloton, I have to believe that not every rider has let go of their morals.

Gonchar's record in the Giro is superb.
Over the past decade or so, the man has been a top 10 Giro finisher, each and every time.

Must have been serious for TM to withdraw him from the race.

__________________
.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it" - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

LOL, didnt you know, "lance armstrong started all this".

What are you talking about. You don't see the irony in my comment. T-Mobile says that (now) if wants to race clean. To many here, USPS/DC is the dirtiest of the dirty. Yet, T-Mobile goes and signs Michael Barry. Which "must" mean he's clean, no? Therefore, at least a portion of DC is clean, no?

Or is T-Mobile's anti-doping campaign largely motivated by PR reasons. They weren't all that quick to suspend the doctors implicated in the Telekom accusations and who were hired to administer the (anti)-doping plan.

Funny that you think everyone dopes but you put credence in T-Mobile's or CSC's anti-doping crusades.

Its time to get to the roots of the problem. At that starts at the team management and only ends at the riders IMO.

I know, there were NO drugs in the peloton before Lance and US Postal...

I agree. Serihy/Sergei Gontchar/Hontchar has a real history going back a decade now. He seems to be one of the old guard. Of course, at one time Basso and Frigo were supposed to be the new generation of riders that learned from Festina and raced clean.

I hope Barry is clean because he seems like a good guy. Then again, Landis and Hamilton seemed like good guys. That is the problem with doping. You can't tell which riders are genuinely talented and which are rolling pharmacies. The system is so corrupt that even the good guys end up doping.

If I was a clean pro, I'd be naming names and calling people out. Then again, I'd probably end up being hooked or ostracized like Bassons, etc.

The story about Gontchar having a cold is stupid bull**** spin. These PR guys are so concerned about protecting reputations that they end up conjuring up stupid stories that utltimately make people doubt everything they say. This happened when USPS had the mysterious package of Actovegin dumped in the woods during the Tour. Instead of fessing up and saying the stuff wasn't banned at the time, they came up with a story that one of there staff members used it for diabetes. At that time, nobody outside of Serbia used that stuff for diabetes. Ever since then, I haven't believed a word Armstrong or his team have said.

Trek used the same spin when Rebellin showed up at one of the spring classics in 2002 with his own bike that he had labelled with Klein stickers. Cyclingnews posted a picture of the bike and a quote by Trek's PR person that it was a prototype. See story: http://www.cyclingnews.com/tech/?id=2002/news/may01. This "spin" by Trek really pissed me off because it was obvious that it wasn't a prototype because Rebellin used outdated decals on the bike. So, I emailed Trek pointing out that PR genuis Connie Ryland was full of ****. Turns out she actually called me the next day and appologized and admitted that she intentionally fabricated the story. I suggested to Ms. Ryland that she was full of **** and should immediatley tell cyclingnews that she fabricated the story. She declined.

This is a long winded way of saying that lying is usually not a good thing. It just makes you look as if you are full of ****. I will never believe anything Trek and Connie Ryland say. I will never believe anything Discovery says. Now, I will never believe anything T-Mobile says. They are all full of ****. T-Mobile should have just said that Gontchar's tests were funky and he has been suspended while they were trying to figure out if he was cheating. Instead, they've proven once again that there are still too many people in this sport that are full of ****.

BTW, I think cyclingnews should be ashamed of themselves for printing Trek's spin without pointing out that Trek is full of ****.

Thanks. Im going to take my medication now.