Team Sky, Wiggins, Brailsford, TUE's, etc

Maybe an anti doping stance isn’t enough. Pretty much how the uci were in the late 90s. A quarter of athletes banned by UKAD are union players. I’d argue there’s a big problem there. Then look over to France and the investigations into Toulon and whistlblowing from laurent benezech about the doping culture in rugby.

in cycling and athletics it’s so much easier to believe in the power of drugs to improve performance and there’s more appetite from the public for players to get banned

it seems fairly obvious that if drugs can get your 100m time down by 0.1 seconds, drugs could win you medals, similarly if you can improve your stamina by 1% your ability to win cycling races might be pushed just over the line

whereas in football i don’t think that’s the case - there’s too many other variables

also, if a sprinter gets banned for drugs the average fan’s enjoyment of the sport won’t change that much (bolt the only exception to this rule in the whole of athletics)

if a couple of high profile footballers got 2 year bands for drugs that would definitely have a bigger commercial impact on the sport overall

2 year bands for drugs

Sergio Aguero’s post-punk cocaine acquisition project

Probably the fact that he can never give a straight answer to any given question.

Journalist: “What did you have for breakfast today Dave?”

Brailsford: “Look, I made a mistake and I hold my hands up and admit that. The thing you have to understand about breakfast is that everybody eats breakfast, the whole team eat breakfast, everybody at Team Sky eats breakfast as do the other teams, so what we need to do is to set up an independent committee to look at who is eating breakfast, what they’re having, how long they’re eating for across a whole spectrum of breakfast eaters and only then, once you look at the data and analyse it will we actually have an answer regarding the whole breakfast conundrum. I’ve spoken about this with Brian Cookson and he completely agrees with me”

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Nah, I don’t think that’s the case. There are thousands of variables in football, not least individual skill and team interplay, but that’s why teams will concentrate on manipulating the ones which they definitely can affect. Diet, training, conditioning, mental state. All of these things can affect a player’s performance and clubs spend millions trying to maximise the benefit. To suggest that they’d draw the line at using PED, despite the money involved and lack of scrutiny, when it’s endemic in every other sport in the world, seems naive.

To put it one way: you can’t guarantee that your winger will have a chance to get a cross into the box every game, but you can make sure your striker has the best possible chance of running onto it if he does.

i just really hope vardy’s not on drugs, if he’s a cheat AND a racist… :frowning:

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I’d think in football it’s not just about improving performance but reducing recovery time between games/injuries and ability to last a season of intensity that is just pretty incredible/extraordinary.

The difference is that footballers don’t design their entire training and race schedule for the season etc around achieving peak performance for one or two specific fixtures (to the best of my knowledge) in the same way that athletes or cyclists aim to peak at a few target meets or races. Consequently they probably rarely, if ever actually achieve peak performance - rather they consistently perform at (for example) 90% of what they could really manage in a single match that they’ve trained towards.

The shit is about to massively hit the fan. :poop:

How utterly apt this is

The entirety of Team Sky’s credibility is falling around them as of this afternoon

They were still credible after Brailsford and Sutton’s hearing?

Not as far as i was concerned, but there have been sections of the sports media and fans that tried to sweep it under the carpet and silence the accusations. But yesterday saw a tipping point with Team Sky as far as I can see

The drips keep on coming. Drip, drip, drip…

How do you order Testosterone in error?

I’ll just leave this here… (Not sky or cycling related, but can’t think of anywhere to leave this)

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this is just mind-boggling

The pressure must have got to him. It’s so easy for a young athlete to go off the rails.

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Nicotine
Valium
Vicodin
Marijuana
Ecstacy
and Alcohol
C, C, C, C, C, Canine

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Shitstorm coming at midnight, appaza.

Looking at the language used, though - ‘abused the rules’, etc. Is that just a legal thing the media use to protect themselves…or is it still the case that Sky bent every rule they could without technically breaking them?