Kloden is going down



Eldrack said:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2009/may09/may13news3

Ouch. Looks like T-Mobile was dirty all the way up to 2006. Didn't people round here claim they where clean for a while?
It is good. However the subsequent complexities of successfully prosecuting any of these recent cases is an indictment on both the UCI and the morality of each individual rider.

It is right to go after the German connection as it is right to remove all Spanish riders from pro tour licenses until Spain cooperates. I would offer Spain only tough love right now. They are still working feverishly to prop up Valervde.

However I still firmly believe the only answer is to destroy Lance Armstrong.

Completely and utterly.

His complete network both present and past. Not because I hate him but because his destruction offers the greatest potential to act as a catalyst for structural and philosophical change in pro cycling.

Its not personal its just war. Just like I would walk into any room and pick out the strongest and chop his head off first. So too must we do this to Armstrong. No racing, no pro tour team ownership, no management, no Cancer foundation associated with pro cycling.

We gave him a chance to leave. Now he wants to entrench his perception of reality on the sport. He needs to be banished to the corner of the room like an insubordinate 5yo child at an adults dinner party. If he needs perpetual attention then someone put on a wiggles DVD for him to repeatedly watch.

He has nothing to add of real worth for the sport long term.

I am not saying dont remember these men or to ignore their feats from a different era. By all means write books, interview them and let them speak and tell their stories with a sense of (albeit misguided) pride to their mind-numbingly loyal fans. Cycling is a big tent.

However we have to keep the pro tour separate from these characters.

It needs to be the financial driver for the sport - its success affects everything we do right down to the club scene. We have to find a sustainable base. We have to give these 16/17/18yo kids something they can genuinely build off. Lets just aim for 5 years of boring, clean, competition. Scale back salaries, pro team budgets, UCI fees and event organisers fees. Make potential licence holders jump through ridiculous hoops to ply their trade. Lets make it impossible for anyone to enter the pro tour scene without good intentions.

This is not a sport that can operate in the free market/ private licence 'purely for profit' realm right now.

Lets offer sponsors a compelling communication medium for their message in a consistent, clean and positive way. Sure there will be drug positives but lets end this reign of coordinated doping ******** from Armstrong, Bruyneel, Ullrich, Kloden, Vino, Schumaker, Valverde, Rico and Rasmussen et al.

These are all men of tremendous insignificance. So weak they couldn't stand to be the person they were born to be. All men who lacked the courage to accept their own average reality. Mitigating here is the very real sense they are all, to some extent at least, a victim of the sport they set out to love. The sport certainly provided them the immoral road upon which they dirty danced on their pedals to the absolute summit.

I am almost tempted to put the sport on suicide watch which amounts to fixed wages for all riders and fixed pro tour team budgets for all teams.

In conclusion I welcome a more collective downfall of the former Team Mobile group precisely because it further ostracises Armstrong and the absurdities of his own performances during that era.

It inches us closer to his head on a plate.
 
Rogers still not implicated yet but not out of the woods by any means.
 
When did Armstrong ride for t-mobile. I guess I missed those years.

Geoff Vadar said:
It is good. However the subsequent complexities of successfully prosecuting any of these recent cases is an indictment on both the UCI and the morality of each individual rider.

It is right to go after the German connection as it is right to remove all Spanish riders from pro tour licenses until Spain cooperates. I would offer Spain only tough love right now. They are still working feverishly to prop up Valervde.

However I still firmly believe the only answer is to destroy Lance Armstrong.

Completely and utterly.

His complete network both present and past. Not because I hate him but because his destruction offers the greatest potential to act as a catalyst for structural and philosophical change in pro cycling.

Its not personal its just war. Just like I would walk into any room and pick out the strongest and chop his head off first. So too must we do this to Armstrong. No racing, no pro tour team ownership, no management, no Cancer foundation associated with pro cycling.

We gave him a chance to leave. Now he wants to entrench his perception of reality on the sport. He needs to be banished to the corner of the room like an insubordinate 5yo child at an adults dinner party. If he needs perpetual attention then someone put on a wiggles DVD for him to repeatedly watch.

He has nothing to add of real worth for the sport long term.

I am not saying dont remember these men or to ignore their feats from a different era. By all means write books, interview them and let them speak and tell their stories with a sense of (albeit misguided) pride to their mind-numbingly loyal fans. Cycling is a big tent.

However we have to keep the pro tour separate from these characters.

It needs to be the financial driver for the sport - its success affects everything we do right down to the club scene. We have to find a sustainable base. We have to give these 16/17/18yo kids something they can genuinely build off. Lets just aim for 5 years of boring, clean, competition. Scale back salaries, pro team budgets, UCI fees and event organisers fees. Make potential licence holders jump through ridiculous hoops to ply their trade. Lets make it impossible for anyone to enter the pro tour scene without good intentions.

This is not a sport that can operate in the free market/ private licence 'purely for profit' realm right now.

Lets offer sponsors a compelling communication medium for their message in a consistent, clean and positive way. Sure there will be drug positives but lets end this reign of coordinated doping ******** from Armstrong, Bruyneel, Ullrich, Kloden, Vino, Schumaker, Valverde, Rico and Rasmussen et al.

These are all men of tremendous insignificance. So weak they couldn't stand to be the person they were born to be. All men who lacked the courage to accept their own average reality. Mitigating here is the very real sense they are all, to some extent at least, a victim of the sport they set out to love. The sport certainly provided them the immoral road upon which they dirty danced on their pedals to the absolute summit.

I am almost tempted to put the sport on suicide watch which amounts to fixed wages for all riders and fixed pro tour team budgets for all teams.

In conclusion I welcome a more collective downfall of the former Team Mobile group precisely because it further ostracises Armstrong and the absurdities of his own performances during that era.

It inches us closer to his head on a plate.
 
"Systematic doping" at Telekom/T-Mobile from 1995-2006? Nobody is really surprised. But does this also mean Evans is as dirty as the next doper? Cadel did spend two years with Telekom in '03 and '04. The majority of these riders were never caught by any controls.
 
Tech72 said:
"Systematic doping" at Telekom/T-Mobile from 1995-2006? Nobody is really surprised. But does this also mean Evans is as dirty as the next doper? Cadel did spend two years with Telekom in '03 and '04. The majority of these riders were never caught by any controls.
ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
 
Both Riis and Zabel admitted their guilt concerning EPO usage during the 1996
TDF.
At least they have confronted their guilt, unlike others.

Neither ever failed dope tests for EPO in their career.


I still hold to the amnesty concept.

Riders/teams admit their guilt - and they're allowed back in to the sport contingent upon the following :

1.that they sign a statement pledging not to dope after re-instatement.
2.that if they are caught doping, that all prizemoney earned will be returned
3.that they will be banned for life with no chance of reinstatement.
4.that all their records/wins will be scrubbed from the record books.
 
limerickman said:
Both Riis and Zabel admitted their guilt concerning EPO usage during the 1996
TDF.
At least they have confronted their guilt, unlike others.

Neither ever failed dope tests for EPO in their career.


I still hold to the amnesty concept.

Riders/teams admit their guilt - and they're allowed back in to the sport contingent upon the following :

1.that they sign a statement pledging not to dope after re-instatement.
2.that if they are caught doping, that all prizemoney earned will be returned
3.that they will be banned for life with no chance of reinstatement.
4.that all their records/wins will be scrubbed from the record books.
ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
 
Geoff Vadar said:
It is good. However the subsequent complexities of successfully prosecuting any of these recent cases is an indictment on both the UCI and the morality of each individual rider.

It is right to go after the German connection as it is right to remove all Spanish riders from pro tour licenses until Spain cooperates. I would offer Spain only tough love right now. They are still working feverishly to prop up Valervde.

However I still firmly believe the only answer is to destroy Lance Armstrong.

Completely and utterly.

His complete network both present and past. Not because I hate him but because his destruction offers the greatest potential to act as a catalyst for structural and philosophical change in pro cycling.

Its not personal its just war. Just like I would walk into any room and pick out the strongest and chop his head off first. So too must we do this to Armstrong. No racing, no pro tour team ownership, no management, no Cancer foundation associated with pro cycling.

We gave him a chance to leave. Now he wants to entrench his perception of reality on the sport. He needs to be banished to the corner of the room like an insubordinate 5yo child at an adults dinner party. If he needs perpetual attention then someone put on a wiggles DVD for him to repeatedly watch.

He has nothing to add of real worth for the sport long term.

I am not saying dont remember these men or to ignore their feats from a different era. By all means write books, interview them and let them speak and tell their stories with a sense of (albeit misguided) pride to their mind-numbingly loyal fans. Cycling is a big tent.

However we have to keep the pro tour separate from these characters.

It needs to be the financial driver for the sport - its success affects everything we do right down to the club scene. We have to find a sustainable base. We have to give these 16/17/18yo kids something they can genuinely build off. Lets just aim for 5 years of boring, clean, competition. Scale back salaries, pro team budgets, UCI fees and event organisers fees. Make potential licence holders jump through ridiculous hoops to ply their trade. Lets make it impossible for anyone to enter the pro tour scene without good intentions.

This is not a sport that can operate in the free market/ private licence 'purely for profit' realm right now.

Lets offer sponsors a compelling communication medium for their message in a consistent, clean and positive way. Sure there will be drug positives but lets end this reign of coordinated doping ******** from Armstrong, Bruyneel, Ullrich, Kloden, Vino, Schumaker, Valverde, Rico and Rasmussen et al.

These are all men of tremendous insignificance. So weak they couldn't stand to be the person they were born to be. All men who lacked the courage to accept their own average reality. Mitigating here is the very real sense they are all, to some extent at least, a victim of the sport they set out to love. The sport certainly provided them the immoral road upon which they dirty danced on their pedals to the absolute summit.

I am almost tempted to put the sport on suicide watch which amounts to fixed wages for all riders and fixed pro tour team budgets for all teams.

In conclusion I welcome a more collective downfall of the former Team Mobile group precisely because it further ostracises Armstrong and the absurdities of his own performances during that era.

It inches us closer to his head on a plate.
I approve of this post.
 
Geoff Vadar said:
However I still firmly believe the only answer is to destroy Lance Armstrong.

Completely and utterly.
Even though you are right about Armstrong not having much to give to cycling anymore I think you greatly overestimate his impact on doping in the peloton. Festina and T-Mobile both had a team wide doping program before Armstrong made his comeback after cancer and I bet that the "doping culture" was born already in the 90's well before a certain Lance Armstrong. US Postal surely had a team wide doping program and I believe the riders who told that Armstrong pressured them to dope while on the team. I however don't find it very probable that Armstrong would have been the only one pressuring the riders nor that US Postal was the only team to have ateam wide dope program. This is demonstrated pretty well by the Freiburg case.

This doesn't mean that I would be defending US Postal by saying "it's ok since all the others did it too". No. What I mean is that Armstrong and his team were just one team out of (probably all the ProTour teams) to use PEDs and I simply can't believe that Armstrong would be responsible for all that.

I would lay the blame on the directeur sportifs and the famous doping doctors. After all, I don't think anyone believes Lance to be so smart as to know all about the best doping methods by himself :) And that's why he used Ferrari. Then we have Mr. Fuentes with who Armstrong apparently had nothing to do with, as well as Mr. Cecchini. Both infamous doping doctors. Then we can very well assume that there are hundreds or even thousands of other doctors who have supplied and injected riders with PEDs. Not all doctors are so stupid as to make statements about doping, or get busted. I think it really undermines for example the Italians, Spanish and French if one thinks that Armstrong is the major reason for dope use in the peloton.
 
RdBiker said:
Even though you are right about Armstrong not having much to give to cycling anymore I think you greatly overestimate his impact on doping in the peloton. Festina and T-Mobile both had a team wide doping program before Armstrong made his comeback after cancer and I bet that the "doping culture" was born already in the 90's well before a certain Lance Armstrong. US Postal surely had a team wide doping program and I believe the riders who told that Armstrong pressured them to dope while on the team. I however don't find it very probable that Armstrong would have been the only one pressuring the riders nor that US Postal was the only team to have ateam wide dope program. This is demonstrated pretty well by the Freiburg case.
Ostensibly you have missed my point which is likely a reflection on my inept ability rather than your comprehension of the previous post. I am, by nature, incredibly tangential. lol.

The purpose of an aggressive pursuit of Armstrong right now is not to prosecute all evil equally.

The pursuit of Armstrong is the pursuit of a circuit breaker in the culture (I understand and acknowledge your contention of this point and its effectiveness). Right now as a sport we are like a dog walking around with the residuum of a turd swinging from our **** that just keeps hanging on. Its sight - ungainly, its smell - lingers.

The most powerful message I could carry right now to all present dopers is this:

"I will destroy your networks. I took the 7 time tour champion and totally destroyed his legacy. Exposed his network. Prosecuted all parties involved right up the chain. Coordinated with Interpol. Confiscated assets. Revoked his history. Destroyed his cancer foundation. Banished him from involvement in the sport.....

....If I can do this to Armstrong I can get to you too. And I will and I will destroy you. And you will have nothing. If you want to dance then lets dance. When the music stops and my gun is in your face remember to stand tall be a man and take the bullet....

....I wont hesitate to pull the trigger."

Destroying Armstrong carries the most weight right now from the sport's cultural perspective.

The other critical factor in focusing on Armstrong is that he personifies the very real nexus between what is happening right now, this instant, in the peloton and what took place earlier in this decade.

The window of opportunity exists, by virtue of his comeback, to tie it all (this decade) together.

The opportunity to go after and deliver piece meal justice against the likes of Festina or earlier has passed. Even if we tried the impact on the current peloton would be marginal at best. It would likely upset the public in an unacceptable manner also.


****tinfoilhat****

The probability that organised crime is involved was quite high from the beginning (not necessarily with regard to Armstrong but I speak in far broader terms of systematic doping structures).

When you see 7-8 months hold over on IOC test results then that is a fairly good indication that Interpol has cross over somewhere on casework and likely flagged those results to be held silent for some time.

That would be my assessment. It could of course be a myriad of other factors coming to bear on those tests also.

****tinfoilhat****
 
It is kind of frustrating. I do believe that Lance is a full fledged doper, and needs to be exposed. I don't feel that there is some huge conspiracy (but one must exist to a certain degree), but the Armstrong camp is so damn crafty, and that just disgusts me. They put forth this massive and subversive program to cheat.

I always tell myself that I cannot be 100% sure, as there are no official sanctions on Armstrong, but his guilt in my eyes is 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999%

This doping exposure coming years later is a very good sign.
 
Erzulis Boat said:
It is kind of frustrating. I do believe that Lance is a full fledged doper, and needs to be exposed.
eh, they always think they can get away with it and it always comes out in the end. Who'd a thunk that ten years after winning the Tour Riis and T-Mob would be exposed by some little-known team trainer? It'll be the same for Bruyneel and Armstrong. They've been both extremely careful and extraordinarily lucky - and it doesn't hurt to have the UCI on your side either - but it's still just a matter of time.Can't control everything and everybody forever.
 
x
Leafer said:
eh, they always think they can get away with it and it always comes out in the end. Who'd a thunk that ten years after winning the Tour Riis and T-Mob would be exposed by some little-known team trainer? It'll be the same for Bruyneel and Armstrong. They've been both extremely careful and extraordinarily lucky - and it doesn't hurt to have the UCI on your side either - but it's still just a matter of time.Can't control everything and everybody forever.
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