BMC Tour wildcard in jeopardy?
bar
Cadel should be calling Lotto or Lefevre looking for a July ride ...
Scott
>
> Cadel should be calling Lotto or Lefevre looking for a July ride ...
If you're going to DQ every team who has some low level rider trying
to dope his way to the top, you'll end up with the first ever masters-
fatties TdF, and even then it'll be hard to find 20 teams with no one
doping.
Fred on a stick
The solution isn't hard. Sporting penalties for sporting violations.
bar
agreed. but how many other teams on the TdF start list have 3 riders
under a cloud right now? I'm asking ... I really don't know ...
1. AG2R La Mondiale
2. Astana --> Vino
3. Bbox Bouygues Telecom
4. Caisse d'Epargne --> Valverde
5. Cofidis
6. HTC Columbia
7. Euskaltel-Euskadi
8. Francaise des Jeux
9. Footon Servetto (formerly Fuji)
10. Lampre
11. Liquigas
12. Milram
13. Quick Step
14. Rabobank
15. Saxo Bank
16. Omega Pharma-Lotto
6 wild cards:
17. RadioShack --> Li Fuyu
18. Sky
19. Garmin --> Zirbel
20. Katusha
21. Cervelo
22. BMC --> Santambrogio, Ballan, Frei
Scott
Ah, but it is hard, grasshopper. They have sporting penalties, and
they don't seem to work. Even criminal penalties for sporting
violations don't seem to work.
Fredmaster of Brainerd
We don't really have sporting penalties. We have suspensions,
which are not the same thing, and involve a long drawn out
process that is too similar to a legal process. Fredchung's point
(I think) is that we treat doping like a moral violation, as opposed
to treating it like an ordinary sporting foul.
Suppose we just did the equivalent of awarding penalty kicks.
Rather than have the whole expensive apparatus of A and B samples,
legal appeals, excuses and arguments about contaminated
supplements and so on, when somebody gets popped, kick
them out of the race and dock all their teammates 5 minutes
(or some similar penalty). But let them race again (maybe
let them sit for two weeks, as is done with 50% HCT violations).
You don't need appeals because the penalty is less severe
(note that hardly anyone appeals penalty kicks or 50% HCT "rests").
Use the money that is saved by doing away with the quasi-judicial
sporting apparatus to run more tests. You deter behavior
by making the chance of getting caught greater, not by making
the penalty more severe.
This is the opposite of the idea that we should ban dopers
for life. Everybody who thinks that is a great idea fails to
realize that because the penalty is so severe, it will be subject
to so many appeals that it will be useless, athletes will get
cleared by national feds on questionable grounds, and so on.
Fredmaster Ben
Fred Flintstein
Dumbasses,
Summary execution. These people have it coming. They're screwing
with our hobby.
Fred Flintstein
Fred Flintstein
> This is the opposite of the idea that we should ban dopers
> for life. Everybody who thinks that is a great idea fails to
> realize that because the penalty is so severe, it will be subject
> to so many appeals that it will be useless, athletes will get
> cleared by national feds on questionable grounds, and so on.
Summary execution avoids the problem of endless appeals. I
take my hobbies seriously.
Fred Flintstein
semi-ambivalent
wrote:
> Summary execution
You should consider using this for your sig.
sa
Ryan Cousineau
<926d228d-5c22-4b8d...@r21g2000prr.googlegroups.com>,
The penalty isn't useless. The proportion of riders who fail their A-B
samples and serve a long suspension is very high. I think we can still
number the amount of on-appeal victories that stuck on one hand. Appeals
have mostly served to enrich legal counsel. How many riders have even
appealed the process beyond the first level, more or less? Tyler and the
lapsarian Mennonite were prominent English-language examples, but I
don't there were a lot of lesser lights who went the whole nine yards,
complete with "I'm innocent" books and legal-fundraising tours. But I
hope those two don't miss a trick, and do treat us to "If I did it"
books shortly. (Okay, Heras did appeal, but did he do a speaking tour?)
a lot of the people we rubbish as having gotten away with it here have
served "only" 6-18 months* due to "lenient" treatment. Unless you think
WADA and the other vampires are not nailing highly probable dopers that
they have the goods on. Do you?
There is the other class, which is broadly the Operation Puertists and
whatnot, where you get this long, ugly investigation, lots of "Valv.
Pitti" suggestions, riders getting uninvited to Le Tour, and
then...nothing.
I don't think sporting violations are likely to help. The obvious reason
for strict penalties is that the chance of getting popped is very much
less than 100%. Therefore, the UCI and WADA and all the other alphabet
soups are fairly rationally trying to re-balance the game-theoretical
Expected Value of doping.
Team-wide penalties, whether you call them "sporting" or not, are
virtually part of the landscape now. Since your Tour invitation partly
hinges on not having too many riders popped by WADA, there is a
substantial incentive for teams to police their own riders, or at least
to dissuade them from easily-caught methods.
I think there might be a differential effect on the kind of riders who
choose to dope in the present system, but I haven't thought it through
yet.
In short, I think we're relatively close to a collective, sporting
penalties outcome, though of course biased to extra-punish the actual
doper. We also may be too early in the Bio-passport era to know if it
will effectively inhibit doping.
*in perspective, Todd Bertuzzi got 20 games (though nearly 18 months,
due to the coinciding 04-05 NHL lockout) for his career-ending** hit on
Steve Moore, an act that got him convicted of assault***.
**That said, Moore was always a marginal NHLer. Non-asshole commenters
have suggested that he would hardly have lasted beyond the season's end
regardless.
***It was hockey. Assault is pretty much regarded as a sporting
violation.
--
Ryan Cousineau rcou...@gmail.com http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."
Mike Jacoubowsky
"bar" <barba...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:3d7ac4f5-4b35-4fbb...@w3g2000vbd.googlegroups.com...
> It damn well should be ...
>
> http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/sport/Third_BMC_cyclist_suspended_for_doping.html?cid=8731070&pos=7&type=NewsDigest
>
> Cadel should be calling Lotto or Lefevre looking for a July ride ...
This is about a whole lot more than some random young guy trying too
hard. Didn't you see this quote in the article?
==========
Frei said that he had been doping since the summer of 2008, and that his
inner circle was aware of it. "I am not a hardcore liar, I had to talk
about it." Frei rode for Astana in 2007 and 2008, before joining BMC in
2009.
============
The guy says people KNEW about it. This wasn't just him, doing something
quietly on his own. WHO knew about it? Was BMC team management within
that "inner circle?"
I don't understand how something like this can be "reported" and not
looked at more closely by Cyclingnews (or any other "news"
organization). We could be looking at a smoking gun. Or not.
--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com
Fredmaster of Brainerd
> In article
> <926d228d-5c22-4b8d-8ed9-d779c75d5...@r21g2000prr.googlegroups.com>,
Is the point of the strong penalty vengeance, or deterrence?
If it's vengeance, than the penalty isn't useless.
However, I took it that the point of the penalty is deterrence,
since that's what everybody involved in the anti-doping
enterprise says (while thinking of the children).
In that case, it's useless. Do you seriously think there are
any pro cyclists out there who think to themselves, "I was
going to dope, but now that the penalty is _two_ years
instead of one I better not?" Only Lafferty actually thinks
we've got the dopers on the run.
(I think HCT and the EPO tests have mitigated the competitive
advantage of doping by making it less effective, in a
Mr. 49% vs. Mr. 60% sort of way, but I don't have any reason
to think the percentage of riders who partake of some sort
of dope is lower.)
I think you're missing the point. Multiplying chance of getting
popped by penalty to get a game-theoretical Expected Value of
doping is Lehman-Brothers math, because human beings
have demonstrated a non-linear perception of risk. AFAIK,
criminology research generally shows that deterrence is
achieved by increasing the chance of getting caught, not by
increasing the penalty. (It was BART who brought this up
in rbr as relevant to anti-doping policy.)
This is why I think we should junk the current expensive
boondoggle quasi-judicial system and spend the money
on running more tests - perhaps especially more out of
competition tests. Junking the system means no appeals.
As you noted, hardly anybody wins appeals, but having a
no appeal system with severe penalties offends many
sensibilities, which is another reason to have more small
penalties than few large ones.
The current system where Tour invitations may or may not
depend on freedom from doping infractions and the ASO's
need for publicity and star value, is only marginally set up
to make teams police riders. It's actually set up for teams
to value plausible deniability more than anything, so they
can tell the riders they need results but cut them loose as
soon as possible if necessary. So the riders contract with
Dr. Fuentes on their own rather than having Manolo Saiz
set it up for them. And people say there is no such thing
as progress!
Fredmaster Ben
AKA riding-dirty.com
Ted van de Weteringe
> We don't really have sporting penalties. We have suspensions,
> which are not the same thing, and involve a long drawn out
> process that is too similar to a legal process. Fredchung's point
> (I think) is that we treat doping like a moral violation, as opposed
> to treating it like an ordinary sporting foul.
>
> Suppose we just did the equivalent of awarding penalty kicks.
> Rather than have the whole expensive apparatus of A and B samples,
> legal appeals, excuses and arguments about contaminated
> supplements and so on, when somebody gets popped, kick
> them out of the race and dock all their teammates 5 minutes
> (or some similar penalty). But let them race again (maybe
> let them sit for two weeks, as is done with 50% HCT violations).
>
> You don't need appeals because the penalty is less severe
> (note that hardly anyone appeals penalty kicks or 50% HCT "rests").
> Use the money that is saved by doing away with the quasi-judicial
> sporting apparatus to run more tests. You deter behavior
> by making the chance of getting caught greater, not by making
> the penalty more severe.
>
> This is the opposite of the idea that we should ban dopers
> for life. Everybody who thinks that is a great idea fails to
> realize that because the penalty is so severe, it will be subject
> to so many appeals that it will be useless, athletes will get
> cleared by national feds on questionable grounds, and so on.
Yes. Also, peer pressure (to not dope) is an important objective of
team-wide sporting penalties.
Bounty Bob
Of course not. Coincident with the Armstrongs return
was a change in management of the TDF.
Now the management know doping is only done by lone
lame wolves so hopelessly uncompetitive that they only
barely hang on even after doping.
cur...@the-md-russells.org
<bob.sc...@sbcREMOVEglobal.net> wrote:
>Summary execution avoids the problem of endless appeals. I
>take my hobbies seriously.
>
>Fred Flintstein
And this could be done in a sporting and entertaining way.
Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...
bar
wrote:
> =="bar" <barbari...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:3d7ac4f5-4b35-4fbb...@w3g2000vbd.googlegroups.com...
>
> > It damn well should be ...
>
>
> > Cadel should be calling Lotto or Lefevre looking for a July ride ...
>
> This is about a whole lot more than some random young guy trying too
> hard. Didn't you see this quote in the article?
>
> ==========
> Frei said that he had been doping since the summer of 2008, and that his
> inner circle was aware of it. "I am not a hardcore liar, I had to talk
> about it." Frei rode for Astana in 2007 and 2008, before joining BMC in
> 2009.
> ============
>
> The guy says people KNEW about it. This wasn't just him, doing something
> quietly on his own. WHO knew about it? Was BMC team management within
> that "inner circle?"
>
> I don't understand how something like this can be "reported" and not
> looked at more closely by Cyclingnews (or any other "news"
> organization). We could be looking at a smoking gun. Or not.
>
totally agree. someone should be asking about who knew what and when.
the CN article implies that he was doping while at Astana in 2008
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/frei-confesses-to-epo-usage-and-is-released-by-bmc
also, is it really true that just drinking a lot of water afterwards
is enough to mask micro-dosing with EPO?
Betty Munro
>> Summary execution avoids the problem of endless appeals. I
>> take my hobbies seriously.
cur...@the-md-russells.org wrote:
> And this could be done in a sporting and entertaining way.
Fred on a stick
> Yes. Also, peer pressure (to not dope) is an important objective of
> team-wide sporting penalties.
Half of it. The other half is to get team management to be vested in members
of their team not doping.
Fred on a stick
> The current system where Tour invitations may or may not
> depend on freedom from doping infractions and the ASO's
> need for publicity and star value, is only marginally set up
> to make teams police riders. It's actually set up for teams
> to value plausible deniability more than anything, so they
> can tell the riders they need results but cut them loose as
> soon as possible if necessary.
Yup. This is why it makes sense to apply time penalties to the entire team.
Maybe enforced at the first feed zone.
Mike Jacoubowsky
news:ru9gt5lku60ordrr4...@4ax.com...
In Soccer, LaCross, Hockey and other sports, when there's an infraction,
you're penalized by playing with a man out. In the Amazing Race, you get
time penalties. But neither of those are entertaining enough.
Force offenders to ride 'Tour stages in a fixed gear. Any gear, their
choice. But fixed. Heck, maybe just force the old rules on them, where
they have to carry their own spares, fix their own bike, that sort of
thing. Wouldn't that be sufficiently entertaining?
dave a
I like the time penalty for everyone on the team, but it would have to
be for all future races, not just one. In any case, time penalties
would really add to the virtual winner list; "I would have won except I
had to take a five minute penalty". Plus, it would add some excitement
to the lanterne rouge contest.
- dave a
Frederick the Great
<rcousine-26ADB1.20071127042010@[74.223.185.199.nw.nuvox.net]>,
Ryan Cousineau <rcou...@gmail.com> wrote:
Eliminate dope testing entirely. Problem solved.
--
Old Fritz
cur...@the-md-russells.org
<Mi...@ChainReaction.com> wrote:
>In Soccer, LaCross, Hockey and other sports, when there's an infraction,
>you're penalized by playing with a man out. In the Amazing Race, you get
>time penalties. But neither of those are entertaining enough.
>
>Force offenders to ride 'Tour stages in a fixed gear. Any gear, their
>choice. But fixed. Heck, maybe just force the old rules on them, where
>they have to carry their own spares, fix their own bike, that sort of
>thing. Wouldn't that be sufficiently entertaining?
I always thought that if you want to make the Tour more entertaining,
in a malignant sort of way, is to have severe infractions result in a
negative time 'bonus' for every remaining stage. This way, the famous
rider remains, but knows he has to be x number of seconds in front of
his competitors to win a stage or keep pace in GC.
Several good riders with differing time sanctions, and it would take a
computer to track when and why riders go off the front. Phil would
have to take a pill.
And THEN you take away the radios...
Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...
PS: I also think that they should add a foul shot to additional fouls
beyond 5 in basketball, rather than the bogus, fall over themselves to
not foul out Kobie or Barkley in his day. Then the team has a choice -
play someone else in a tight situation, or realize someone could go to
the line with a lot of shots on a foul.