FFS!

[romeo]

its a sad state of affairs isnt it - at least those two teams are profiling though. I think the fact that Cav and Wiggins are on Tmobile and genuinely seem to want to ride and stay clean is indicative that the team is moving in the right direction under its new management. CSC certainly would be a whole lot better without Riis or Kim Andersen (another one that used to rattle when he raced) but saying that, it does appear that the team have taken steps to clean up their act and Sastre was considered by many of his peers to be drug free winner of the tour this year (clean since his mates drug related death in a mental hospital supposedly [ i forget the guys name but he was a pro rider also])

apart from that its probably only Plowman Craven or Amore e Vita!!!!

 

[mondobongo]

Levi Leipheimer is alledgedly also considering a move to Astana, at this rate its going to be Discovery under a new name. Dissapointed to see Sean Yates a rider I was a fan of when I first started to follow cycling saying that Astana could be cleaned up.

Not granting a Pro Tour licence to Astana could kill the Team name off but will not solve the problem of where the riders of questionable ethics go.

 

[andy_wrx]

Put them all in one team, don't give that team a ProTour licence, ASO doesn't give them a wildcard to the Tour and gets Giro & Vuelta to do the same...end of problem ?

 

[Tetedelacourse]

It would be a very big team.

 

[Tim Bennet.]

Now Sean Yates is going to Astana

From the BBC

Yates follows Discovery manager Johan Bruyneel, Tour de France winner Alberto Contador and rider Levi Leipheimer to the scandal-hit Kazakh team.

"Of course Astana has had some bad press," said Yates. "But Johan Bruyneel has never had a positive test with a team he has been involved with.

"And I am confident that we will not have any problems in the future."

Why do they have to use this code? Why don't they say "Bruyneel is violently opposed to any form of illegal drug use and I am sure he will be ruthless in stamping out any transgressions of the anti doping laws in the new team".

Whilst they continue to use the 'never tested positive' terminology, I will continue to assume they mean exactly that and not that they don't use illegal drugs.

 

[andy_wrx]

Yes, interesting isn't it.

Astana is to be Disco rebranded.

Disco's win-at-all-costs mentality won them lots of titles (well, Tours) with LA, but left them all-adrift without LA, and despite their record of success they were unable to keep their sponsor or get another.

Whereas T-Mobile, CTC, etc are a bit less successful, have all sorts of public drug problems, but because they make a big point of now standing up against drugs, putting testing regimes in place, etc they keep theirs.

 

[romeo]

CTC are less successful because their beards provide them with an aerodynamic disadvantage.

But Johan Bruyneel has never had a positive test with a team he has been involved with.

Likewise... Pantani never tested positive.

 

[Leilei]

CTC are less successful because their beards provide them with an aerodynamic disadvantage.





Likewise... Pantani never tested positive.
[/b]

So why was he removed from the Giro when in pink?

 

[romeo]

health reasons - his haematocrit had risen above the 50% level considered safe by the UCI. No reason was ever investigated.

Interestingly Armstrong tested positive more often than Pantani - steroids in 98. (For which a Theraputic Usage Exemption was later provided)