Vaughters on Xavier Tondo
by Drew Davis on Feb 21, 2011 9:06 AM EST
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PrintHopefully he'll follow up with a call as well. I applaud him for coming out and stating his mistake in such a public forum though. Good on him.
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I might have preferred the call to Tondo before the blog went up, I think.
Makes you wonder a bit what the Garmin-Cervelo roster discussions were like. I assume (I hope) Vroomen etc. stuck up for Tondo?
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
Agree with you on the call beforehand but
at least he did come out an apologize. I give him credit for that.
"Your not going won't unbreak her arm."
no, I do agree with that
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
the only problem is
that turning in one doping ring does not NECESSARILY mean
that one is not participating in another . . .
(typing from cynic-land)
that
is very cynical!
If cobble delusions are wrong, who wants to be right? -JFS PGH
by Chris Fontecchio on Feb 21, 2011 10:20 AM EST up reply actions
I was thinking this.
I really, really hope that it is the honorable thing that it appears to be.
But to be honest, JV’s diatribe about rushing to judgement is more emotional than rational.
Before, he had one circumstantial data point, but knew nothing really about the rest of this guy’s life.
Now he has two data points, and implies total certainty than he’s clean.
I’m certainly willing to give Tondo the benefit of the doubt, but let’s not canonize him just yet.
What I like about this
is the idea that one of the insider guys comes around on what we face: not really knowing who’s into what and having to make assumptions in order to protect our sanity. [Says the guy who was shocked when DiLuca was popped.]
If cobble delusions are wrong, who wants to be right? -JFS PGH
by Chris Fontecchio on Feb 21, 2011 10:21 AM EST reply actions
At least he apologized (sort of)
While I believe Xavi is clean and has been clean, doesn’t necessarily make it true but its another case of a clean rider on a dirty team just trying to make a living.
That was quite a bold move.
Not something one would expect to see. Thumbs up to JV.
Anyone who has every thought a working Photojournalist has a glam job needs to rethink...
by Christopher See on Feb 21, 2011 10:41 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
Nice sentiments but....
I’m not that fond of the canonization that is going on here. Common medialogic dictates that you raise someone up and assign him herostatus and then you take them down hard at the first sight of controvercy. That is what has happened to JV and he should be more aware of it than anyone.
As for Tondo I will not say anything negative about what he’s done here, I think it’s commendable but the fact remains that he has been on those teams that made JV shun him and maybe blowing the whistle on what went on there would have been a bigger contribution than turning in some amateur dope-ring that he stumbled upon?
My bags are guaranteed sand-free.
One might say that turning in US Postal would have been a bigger contribution than founding Slipstream, equally.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
by civetta on Feb 21, 2011 11:22 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
how?
He wasn’t on Postal. I don’t think the accusations of a Credit Ag rider about postal were going to get far.
If cobble delusions are wrong, who wants to be right? -JFS PGH
by Chris Fontecchio on Feb 21, 2011 4:59 PM EST up reply actions
Ah right
1999. Oh well.
If cobble delusions are wrong, who wants to be right? -JFS PGH
by Chris Fontecchio on Feb 22, 2011 1:58 AM EST up reply actions
(I guess I should reiterate at this point I'm largely in favour of Vaughters & Slipstream.)
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
Well... Tondo is Spanish... we should know he is cheating just by that.
I mean c’mon people.
I’ll type above what some people surely are thinking anyway. If this was someone from HTC, or from Garmin doing this, or Pinotti for example, people would be losing their shit over this issue, swooning about how great these new teams and riders are and furthering their confirmation bias that “my favorite riders are certainly clean”
This “canonization” talk is crap. Nobody is canonizing Tondo for this. Vaughters isn’t saying he’s a saint, or that he’s a new hero of the peloton.
He’s saying that he unfairly judged Tondo without any good reason to because he’s Spanish….. err…. because he rode for “Spanish-ish teams”
If people here are so critical about people there being “canonized”… why have we done it to Vaughters himself amongst others?
I mean seriously, I don’t know how people can comment on what Tondo has done with such obvious “between-the-lines” negativity.
You'll probably think I'm hypocritical
but I’m inclined to agree with most of that.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
"Hero" is the word used in most tweets
I’m not being down on people praising the guy. I can just see where this ends up. It’s the same BS as “the young clean” generation. Masses of fans and journos tun to one guy/team/group of riders hailing them as heroes and then when they turn out to be humans and not heroes they get slammed for that.
Can we just skip the whole hero-bs? It just ends in tears and the oh so tiresome “I really believed in that guy but now I find out he’s not pure I’ve lost all faith in the sport and I’m taking my toys and going home”
My bags are guaranteed sand-free.
I have no problem toning down the "hero" angle
I don’t think Tondo is a hero for this either. But it didn’t end there.
“maybe blowing the whistle on what went on there would have been a bigger contribution than turning in some amateur dope-ring that he stumbled upon?”
the only problem is that turning in one doping ring does not NECESSARILY mean that one is not participating in another . . .
I’m just saying, for all the praise other riders and DS’s get, there is no reason to DUMP on Tondo for this, or second guess it. He may not be a hero, and to me he’s not, but he’s not a criminal either just because he’s ___________ (a cyclist, a Spanish cyclist, has ridden with teams which had doping in them, etc. etc.)
“My perspective on all of this changed, radically, as of last Friday morning….He showed me that not only were his results real and his actions ethical, but that he is a truly courageous fighter of doping in a way few of us would be.”
Sound like canonization to me. What basis does he have to say that Tondo’s results were real? And it’s not prejudiced to be suspicious of any rider in Portugal, any more than it’s racist to cross the street if you see a bunch of guys dressed like gang members when you wouldn’t gross the street for a group of white guys in suits who look like accountants.
I agree with the sentiment of keeping an open mind, but I’m not sure his current opinion reflects an open mind any more than his prior opinion.
Coming from a rider who turned pro with a "shit-small Spanish team"
perhaps Vaughters’ dot-connecting exercise tells us more about his past than he’r really like to reveal.
And . . . if we’ve learned ANYTHING from following cycling, shouldn’t it be that double-dealing is certainly possible, and might even be normative behavior in some sectors of the sport (paging Dr. Conconi . . .)?
Tondo may very well be a great guy. He may very well be a “clean” rider. He could also be a great guy who’s not a ‘clean’ rider.
The possible implied assumption that gang members are not white also bears some rethinking.
Ditto that non-whites in suits vs. whites in suits would not be safe. Or, for that matter, that some of us (many or most of us?) would not be safer in a black neighborhood than a white one. Or that northern Europeans or American teams are intrinsically unlikely to dope.
I promise you, the most threatened I’ve felt in the last few years of going through all sorts of neighborhoods both involved white cops who didn’t like pedestrians or cyclists, not gang people. And that’s because the cops WERE, literally, threatening me and my spouse. Whereas the guys selling drugs on the corner and the little wannabe gang kids say “woah, that bike is hard” or “hey, be careful, this can be a rough neighborhood. Peace out.”
"dumped for Greipel?!"
I could have stated my point more clearly, but the metaphor was this:
Where I have lived recently (urban U.S.) gang members are predominantly non-white, and non-whites are overrepresented in street crime. This is an objective reality, but association does not imply cause – a larger proportion of the social underclass in U.S. cities is non-white. If I avoid threatening crowds of young men on the street at night, it is because of my experience of the nature of their behaviour; the fact that in my own social environment most such threatening groups happen to be non-white does not make me a racist.
Similarly, the racing scene in Portugal is drug-ridden – there is a lot of objective evidence for this. I don’t think anyone would remotely think that this is due to some fundamental genetic flaw in all Portugese people – it’s just the way cycling culture has worked out there. If JV has limited resources, let’s say he can afford to give physiological tests to 10 of the 50 guys who want a job — I don’t think it is anti-Portugese racism if (with nothing else to go on) if 10 guys who race in Portugal are not at the top of his list.
And . . . in my neighborhood
White dudes driving pick-ups and mustangs are the major source of violence:
http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/feb/18/autopsy-results-david-released/?partner=popular
I believe you.
If you also believe me about my social environment, I think the metaphor about the difference between irrational prejudice and reasonable suspicion is valid, don’t you?
This obviously isn’t a thread about racism, and maybe it would have been better to make my point in a different way, it was a response the “he’s Spanish so you think he’s guilty” implication.
The problem isn't the point you were wanting to make.
It’s the idea that “people in general” should presume the context, without you needing to specify. The sense that non-white violent kids are somehow “normal” and therefore your situation doesn’t need explanation / back-story to make sense. ‘cause we all “know” that gangs are minority kids. (Except where they aren’t, but in those cases, explanation and back story are expected, I guess.) You’re far from the only one to make that assumption, natch. Which is exactly why it’s kinda dangerous.
Ditto about Portugal. Yeah, racing in Spain and Portugal has a lot of drugs. But ya know what? The big busts of idiot amateurs and masters and kids doping have been all over the place. Doing the nudge-nudge wink-wink over Spain and Portugal has been a way for a lot of other regions to ignore the possibility that their own problems are somewhere in the same ballpark.
It’s like talking about doping in East German women used to be—some of the countries talking trash were doing just as much doping, only with a bit more savoire faire.
Fair bet that anyone riding in Spain or Portugal has had several chances to get on drugs, and will know people who approve of the process and can help him (or her) do the deed. But there’s this little thing called the internet. By now, just about anyone riding just about anywhere has significant access to drugs. I suspect it might in fact be easier, and probably no harder, to get and hide a centrifuge in northern Europe (and after all, the giant PED distribution center that just got busted was in Germany).
In other words, the common wisdom may not be wrong, per se, but it may be so astigmatic as to give a highly warped picture. Being suspicious of a suspiciously good portuguese rider makes sense. Ditto any other suspiciously good rider. But cutting off any negotiation before it starts? Not so sensible.
"dumped for Greipel?!"
Re Spanish riders, there's also the issue of rates/numbers
So when you look at numbers of doping busts, yes, there are a lot of them, but when you look at that in the context of numbers of people riding, it is a different thing – on another forum we once did some maths about how many riders from each nation were in the TdF, & the proportions of riders who’d been caught doping. Britain and the USA did a hell of a lot worse than Spain and Italy – a quarter of all British riders had been busted. There are a huge number of Spanish riders in the peloton, it’s just madness to assume they’re all the same.
by Sarah Connolly on Feb 22, 2011 3:29 AM EST up reply actions
I’m feeling that somebody could make a nice spreadsheet on Google Docs to Track this.
The parameters would need to be tight – ex. The person added to the list must have been convicted, and not just apart of forum gossip.
Cover the last 10 years and cut it off there.
Only hold ten years in the data so that countries that have improved will show inprovment.
Something like that . . . .
It woiuld be interesting.
What would Deming do? (+8:00 GMT)
when you wouldn’t gross the street for a group of white guys in suits who look like accountants.
Where I grew up, any one looking like that would be assumed to be a Mafia hit man.
On what basis would you say, oh, Christian Vande Velde's results are real?
Or Dave Millar’s? Or Zabriskie’s? Just for starters, like.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
I haven’t personally seen any evidence.
A DS might have strong circumstantial evidence from physiological tests.
But the point is that Vaughters will have them on the team.
He never got as far as physiology with Tondo, did he?
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
With no physiolgical testing before, he assumed guilt.
With no phsiological testing now, he assumes innocence.
These both seem like equally closed-minded positions, don’t you think?
That's not what interests me.
It’s why certain assumptions should have been valid in Vaughters’ mind for Tondo but not for other riders who one might consider to have similarly dubious backgrounds.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
Especially given that he was on Cervélo...
I mean, Cervélo positioned themselves as a “clean team” too – so I’m confused. Does this mean Vaughters doesn’t believe that? Or knows something we don’t?
After all, GHH was on Gerolsteiner, and he’s in the club…
by Sarah Connolly on Feb 21, 2011 3:59 PM EST up reply actions
That's the most bizarre part for me
Vaughters was making a strategic alignment with CTT management and riders but was convinced that their Vuelta leader was doped.
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
Again,
If you go by what Vaughters said, his stated concern is that Tondo was only getting results because of doping. Vaughters has hired many ex-dopers.
Vaughters’ concern was, can Tondo get results riding clean? And Vaughters didn’t believe Tondo could.
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
but, as said, what does that say about getting results on Cervélo?
by Sarah Connolly on Feb 21, 2011 4:38 PM EST up reply actions
I am frankly shocked that Vaughters didn't belief his future business partner's rider was riding clean
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
Vroomen:
Very proud of Cervelo TestTeam alumnus Xavier Tondo this morning, one Spanish rider is not another: http://bit.ly/hnit0W
(via twitter)
Doubtless naively, I alway felt that being on Cervélo was a big thing in Tondo’s favour.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
I've always thought that the fact that he was Sastre's friend spoke volumes.
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
Yes, he did.
They shared a room too.
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
I guess the thing I find a bit odd is the degree of self-flagellation in Vaughters’ article. It hardly seems an unreasonable position to be more suspicious of guys competing in Portugal than elsewhere. If you’ve got a certain budget to spend on talent hunting, you want to spend it in most cost effective way. That’s a terrible tragedy for talented clean riders like (lets assume) Tondo, but it’s hardly JV’s fault that the racing scene is like that, and his prior assumptions were not irrational, unreasonable or unfair.
But there, you see, is where I disagree.
I don’t think it was reasonable to be more suspicious of riders competing in Portugal en masse.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
Am I’m mistaken about the extent of the evidence for the Portugese racing scence? Was Vaughters concerned a specific team or DS?
see Holdenmate below
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
Vaughters clearly stated that:
Xavier was part of a Portuguese team whose doctor was found with doping products. I connected the dots and assumed Xavier was a part of this doctor’s nefarious activity. When some of his friends came to me and said that Xavier had nothing to do with this doctor, I did not believe them.
This was Vaughters’ (stated) rationale for thinking Tondo was a doper.
And LA-MSS were pretty appalling, even by dopers standards
Police raids found bucketfuls of stuff after Bruno Neves died
But only 4 riders were found to be involved...all Portuguese.
I might be extremely naive but Tondo might not have even know about what was going on. And if he was, nothing to blow a whistle about.
by Vlaanderen90 on Feb 21, 2011 6:58 PM EST up reply actions
And this from the man who would happily have signed Thomas Dekker?
by blackswangreen on Feb 21, 2011 11:31 AM EST reply actions
But didn't.
& we only have Dekker’s side of that story.
As Frinking said on twitter, the head being turned by Contador would be the real exhibit A…
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
But my point of view..
I agree with Vaughters say,, Isn’t he only not just a little bit hypocrit.. He was obvious flirting with Contador. Contador, the rider who rode at Liberty Seguros.. One of the most obscure Spanish teams there is… So.. Why the flirting with Contador.. And not speak with Tondo? Maybe there is agood explanation. Like.. he didn’t trust Contador so he gave him the bang.. But till than.. I would say.. He has principals.. till he see a Tour victory..
Yes.
I’m still totally mystified by the Contador-Garmin thing & I’ve never heard Vaughters give a decent account of it.
& like Frinking I can’t understand why Vaughters would look at Conta (Puerto, Liberty Seguros) but but not Tondo, or rather, why he seems to have had a different set of assumptions about each of them.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
Yep
I’d agree on the Contador thingy. I wonder how far, in reality, that thing actually went. But yes, it is mighty perplexing. I mean, Saíz. The fat man with the bag of money in the cafe with Fuente? Gah.
With apologese to Little Feat
Spotcheck Dicky got down on his hands and knees
He said “Hey Manolo, hey let me check your oil all right?”
he said “No, no honey, not tonight.
Come back Monday, come back Tuesday, and then I might”
I said ‘Berto, my sweet ‘Berto, what are you up to?
My ‘Berto
I said ‘Berto, my sweet chiquita, what are you up to?
My ‘Berto
Don’t want nobody who won’t dive for dimes
Don’t want no speedballs ‘cause I might die trying
Throw me a line, throw me a line
’Cause there’s a fat man in the team car with the blues
I hear you moan, I hear you moan, I hear you moan
"Berto got so sad, dejected, put on his hat and start to run
[ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/fat-man-in-the-bathtub-lyrics-little-feat.html ]
Runnin’ down the street yelling at the top of his lungs
“All I want in this life of mine is some good clean fun”
“All I want in this life and time is some hit and run”
I said "Alberto, my sweet Alberto, what are you up to?
My Alberto
I said Alberto, my sweet chiquita, what are you up to?
My Alberto
Put my money in your meter baby so it won’t run down
But you caught me in the squeeze play on the cheesy side of town
Throw me a dime, throw me a line
‘Cause there’s a fat man in the team car with the blues
I hear you moan, I hear you moan, I hear you moan
by Chief42 on Feb 21, 2011 10:24 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Maybe, just maybe [warning: speculation below this warning]
JV figured both Tondo and Contador were dopers but considered the four year younger Contador the superior talent, a talent that would thrive even in the (supposedly) “clean” environment at Garmin, a talent who could prove useful. Who can say without a shadow of a doubt that he was wrong? Maybe Conta was clean and Tondo was not? There is a lot we don’t know, there are a lot of maybe’s in the cycling world and a lot of connect-the-dots.
This is part of what he said:
Even if he had doped, Slipstream has always said "we cannot change the past, we can only change the present."
So then, why did this not apply to Xavier? Because I was convinced there was no way he could perform at a high level without doping.
economics/resources?
Whatever a guy has done before, your most pressing concern is making sure he doesn’t dope while on your team. This takes a lot of resources, because your’e trying to prove a negative. It may hardly be fair, but you can see the economic logic that if Contador and Tondo have equally suspicious pasts, it’s worth spending much greater resources on having a clean Contador on your team, and doing the monitoring to make sure he stays that way.
He says he only worries about the future, not the past
He didn’t refuse Tondo because he may have doped – he refused Tondo because he didn’t think Tondo’d get results san doping.
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
http://www.cyclesportmag.com/features/xavier-tondo-interview-passport-to-freedom/
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
Sorry, didn't know titles weren't clickable
http://www.cyclesportmag.com/features/xavier-tondo-interview-passport-to-freedom/
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
The blog was more about JV than Tondo. It's about an important lesson in life.
JV writes about how it makes him feel sorry for himself the way he’s been misinterpreted and dissected by the ifp types. People using very little fact or logic to reach their conclusions. JV went around thinking all this time he was above that type of thinking and then the Tondo story comes out. This news forced JV to look in the mirror and see himself, he’s really no different even though he thought he was above it. JV goes on to say he hopes Tondo does well every time he races, just to remind him of how he can be small minded, and how big a fool he was.
The skills really do go away if not practiced, and I don't mean to brag but I was getting very mediocre. - Tejay Van Garderen
That's the way I read it too
Dude learned a simple life lesson, and good for him to mention it. While there may be some logic to playing connect the dots in this or any arena, it’s not a fair game to play on the individual.
"It's a lovely thing, feeling that momentum. If you're lucky, it's also about grace." Tim Winton
That's fine, I guess
But it also reminds me of the self-serving way of answering “What’s your main weakness?” with “I work too hard” during a job interview. Golly, JV just hates doping so much, and his team is so darned squeaky clean, that it sometimes clouds his judgment.
"It's just a bike race" - Frank Schleck
I read it that way as well
There was a cynical MST3k commentary track running in my head as I read the first part about it being unfair for fans to speculate about an individual doping because of past acquaintances. And then he followed up his tirade with an anecdote where one case involving his own prejudice somehow justified a broad point.
I give him credit for writing the article and think he was truthful and sincere to a large degree, but he definitely took care to present the story in a way that best served his interests. I found the tone moralizing and even condescending towards fans, as if we were children being read a fable as a bedtime story. This new attitude held by the cycling establishment that ‘cycling gets too much unwarranted negative press over doping and people should stop speculating or talking about it unless it is a UCI-approved press release with an official test or sentencing result’ seems to me to be the natural evolution of ‘cycling does not have a doping problem and I feel sorry for you if you think that it does’.
by Nomer on Feb 21, 2011 3:42 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Heh, yeah, we're all bastards who are killing the sport!
by Sarah Connolly on Feb 21, 2011 4:00 PM EST up reply actions
Take Will for instance
Pat McQ was planning to use the “talk to the Hahn” line to deal with reporters and now Will stole it.
My bags are guaranteed sand-free.
Not busting any riders on his vds team until 2012?
by Sarah Connolly on Feb 21, 2011 4:39 PM EST up reply actions
It's fair to have the suspicions, it's not fair to therefore refuse to check out the reality.
"dumped for Greipel?!"
it's not fair, but it's human nature
I picked Riccardo Ricco for my 2011 VDS team, and submitted said team well before the submission deadline. I fully understand the error of my ways, and plead with the VDS Gods to allow me to resubmit my team.
well, yeah. And I didn't put him on my VDS either.
But I’m not being paid to check out good prospects to build the best possible clean team for the money.
"dumped for Greipel?!"
My feelings are mixed
While the admission was a good one, I think it was a little narcissistic – the focus was a little to much ‘all about me’ – instead of concentrating on Tondo and his reactions towards him, he wallows in self-pity about the internet bullies. It was a little unnecessary.
well . . . one could argue
that Vaughters was going the over-kill route there to parody that type of discourse from people (cough . . . Verbruggen . . . cough McQuaid) in something akin to Vaughters’ position.
Couldn't agree more...
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
I just went back and reread the article, you had me convinced that they changed it. They didn't.
He taught me a very big lesson. He made me realise: Before I rant on in self pity of how I’ve been unfairly judged at times or other athletes have been unfairly judged, perhaps I should consider the objectivity of my own judgments.
That doesn’t sound like he’s wallowing in self pity.
The skills really do go away if not practiced, and I don't mean to brag but I was getting very mediocre. - Tejay Van Garderen
wallows in self-pity
I dunno, I thought he was being honest about his taking things personally that he reads online. I suspect this happens quite a lot. The difference is that we (generally) have some communication with Vaughters, either in his blogs or the odd direct connection.
One message I heard was that people might want to say only those things you would say to a person’s face, because that’s what is actually happening.
If cobble delusions are wrong, who wants to be right? -JFS PGH
by Chris Fontecchio on Feb 22, 2011 2:03 AM EST up reply actions
My point is that he could have started the article with 'While checking the news'
And his argument would have been more powerful. Instead we get the semi-parody preamble, lapsing as it does somewhere between (cogent) navel gazing, self-pity and self deprecation.
Don’t get me wrong – the second half of the article was great. The first part I found narcisisstic, even in its parodic self deprecation. YMMV.
Love it runitout...
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
You seem to miss the point that the blog post is about a personal lesson learned.
The blog post is a personal account, just like any of the other blogs that CN sponsors. It would be phony to not write about himself or his experiences.
The skills really do go away if not practiced, and I don't mean to brag but I was getting very mediocre. - Tejay Van Garderen
You seem to miss the point that it sounds a little phony (to some of us) anyway...
I would suggest it’s cultural.
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
Well you could say all those blogs are contrived and/or phony and I wouldn't argue.
Grunts, moans and primal screams are very real but they don’t transcribe well into print. As far as I know JV is not an accomplished writer of fiction or non fiction. I doubt the point was to impress with his writing skills or win a pulitzer prize, he was just relaying a story, a lesson learned.
He didn’t just blurt out at the start, “Oh what a pompous ass I’ve been”, he chose to explain how he felt and why etc.. His words do end up painting himself as that ass before he goes on to explain his impressions of Tondo and how he feels he got them all wrong because he was basing his judgments on the aforementioned flawed reasoning.
He taught me a very big lesson. He made me realise: Before I rant on in self pity of how I’ve been unfairly judged at times or other athletes have been unfairly judged, perhaps I should consider the objectivity of my own judgments.
Those aren’t the most eloquent words but they are the central theme of the blog. JV didn’t have to write a word about Tondo or how he feels like an ass and no one would have thought a thing. But now because he did write something he is being phony, I don’t see it that way. I see it as a man publicly owning up to a mistake he been making, if that is a cultural difference, I side with the man owning up to his mistakes.
The skills really do go away if not practiced, and I don't mean to brag but I was getting very mediocre. - Tejay Van Garderen
Why?
Just curious.
If cobble delusions are wrong, who wants to be right? -JFS PGH
by Chris Fontecchio on Feb 22, 2011 4:13 PM EST up reply actions
Have a look at who here is a little uncomfortable with Vaughters mea culpa...
It’s a bit like the ‘He should fall to his knees and apologise before we allow him back’. The opinions were split in much the same way. The Australians and Brits…and I am massively generalising…. are uncomfortable with such things. OTOH Americans appear to appreciate it more. Our disgraced politicians rarely have to do a public purging with wife in tow. When they do, it’s a form of jumping the shark.
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
Actually
I have a profound dislike for sobbing politicos dragging their wives in front of the television cameras.
But I also didn’t read this story in that vein, so maybe I’m missing something.
No, not at all...just different contexts.
i spend my life teaching students that age, gender, cultural context etc., will all affect how we read something…not right or wrong, just different.
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
I was objecting
to the national generalizations there. I don’t think they are especially useful.
But carry on.
i spend my life teaching students that age, gender, cultural context etc., will all affect how we read something…
If everyone’s background affects the way they read something, then how can an entire nation’s experience be the same?
I like tinkering with the boys.
- majope
there can still be, and are,
cultural (and subcultural) norms, against which personal experience play out…
"dumped for Greipel?!"
an entire nation’s experience is never the same
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway
And please all take note of the fact I said 'massive generalisation'...
That said, I like what JFS said.
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
I’d agree with you on exp altering reading. Look at Joyce on the Wake. He said the only way to really get that bk was to have read everythng he read and experienced everything he experienced. Rather a conceited way of saying his book was gibbersh.
Is the notion of a an entire nation’s experiences being the same I have a prob with.
The generalisation of Americans buying the touchy-feely welcome-to-the-Waltons valuable-life-lessons crap and the Aussies and Brits not, generally speaking, I buy.
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway
the touchy-feely welcome-to-the-Waltons valuable-life-lessons crap
The more we fall into this category the less likely we are to judge others harshly, and given our history that change can’t happen soon enough. And given the size of our nuclear arsenal (and in many cases our personal arsenals) it’s really a necessity that we think things through and communicate much better than we otherwise might. We still have quite a ways to go in my opinion, maybe we’ve made more progress than I thought.
The skills really do go away if not practiced, and I don't mean to brag but I was getting very mediocre. - Tejay Van Garderen
Much more I suspect than those of us with a Union Jack on our flags...
so pity our buttoned ‘upness’ but know that it’s not a lack of comprehension on the parts of some of us, rather a discomfort with a different way of doing things. Vive la difference i hope. it would be bloody boring if we all agreed. Sort of a giant blancmange… which is much the way I view Vaughters’ epiphany.
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
depends whether you think talking about something
in certain folksy, confessional and / or portentious tones is more likely to make whatever’s said more likely to be true. Or whether one should automatically look for the man behind the curtain. Elmer Gantry, anyone?
"dumped for Greipel?!"
given the size of our nuclear arsenal
what’s with this ‘our’ crap kemosabi? i’m from a neutral nation.
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway
I was speaking for this American, I was assuming you would have figured that out. Perhaps I should have been more detailed in my explanation so that there would have been no confusion. . . no, wait that’s how this whole thing started. -John Reid
The skills really do go away if not practiced, and I don't mean to brag but I was getting very mediocre. - Tejay Van Garderen
Ha...I rather doubt most Americans here buy the touchy feely crap
except when it’s the number one Gar-man ;)
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
cf Swift's narrator in "Tale of a Tub"
“Whatever Reader desires to have a thorow Comprehension of an Author’s Thoughts, cannot take a better Method, than by putting himself into the Circumstances and Postures of Life, that the Writer was in, upon every important Passage as it flow’d from his Pen” ("The Preface)
Jeeze, Joyce knicked it off Dean Swift? The cheating bastard.
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway
the rest of the passage is even better:
“Now to assist the diligent Reader in so delicate an Affair, as far as brevity will permit, I have recollected, that the shrewdest Pieces of this Treatise, were conceived in Bed, in a Garret: At other times (for a Reason best known to myself) I thought fit to sharpen my Invention with Hunger, and in general, the whole Work was begun, continued, and ended, under a long Course of Physick, and a great want of Money” (Tale).
Which, sadly, also, if Ellmann is to be believed, also describes most of Joyce’s career.
Didn't say "same"...
Take an slice of historical time, like England in WWII. Yes there were any number of outliers, from strict pacifists to Nazi sympathizers. There were people in the London air raids, and people in the country who took in kids to protect them from the air raids. But that said, one can speak of the English experience of WWII, as distinct from, say, the Polish or the Italian or the French experience. Similarly, in France, you had Vichy french and resistance french and huge pre-existing cultural differences in north and south…but that does not preclude speaking of a French experience (and then describing how, “of course it was a bit different for our family / village / neighborhood.”) And that experience will be quite different from, say, the same period in, say, Surinam. Where again, multiple different ethnic and regional stories were played out, but none of them really even remotely similar to what was going on, at that time, in Canada.
"dumped for Greipel?!"
I'm finding Vaughters' hypocrisy hilarious
So now the DDIFP are picking on him they’re all bad. But when him and Frankie were gossiping about LA and Bruyneel flushing Flandis’ blood down the bog it was all a-okay?
What goes around comes around Jonathan.
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway
In their defense
The Andreu-Vaughters exchanges did start out as private IMs, not public forum posts.
Interesting article on Tondo last year in CycleSport on his frustrations about being seen as dirty
http://www.cyclesportmag.com/features/xavier-tondo-interview-passport-to-freedom/
It’s also interesting because Vroomen posted it…. I’m definitely thinking he’s a bit grumpy with Vaughters, just the way he’s responding…
Every time Vaughters opens his mouth nowadays I like him less. Everything seems to be about his ‘vision’, which has some positives and negatives (pun on doping not intended), or at least implied.
Given that a lot of people on Garmin-Cervélo have been on some shady teams (Haussler – 4 years at Gerolsteiner; Millar – for all his white knight act – returned from his ban at Saunier Duval, of all places) and that he pursued Contador, people have pointed out his hypocrisy in applying his criteria rather arbitrarily in that Tondó was excluded and others weren’t.
This may have been a heartfelt apology. But it sounded like a carefully considered press soundbite. Vaughters reminds me of Bono. Everything’s carefully calculated to make sure you think he’s at the forefront of a sea change.
He isn’t.
by UrlaubinPolen on Feb 22, 2011 1:59 PM EST up reply actions
I found this a little/heavily(?) short sighted.
He wrote something in a column. Nothing was wrong with that column. You have to agree with that. It only caused to some wuestions. Til he he answers those question you can not judge him. Or you can.. But than you are the Vaughters and Vaughters Tondo. Which is a little ironic by itself..
Good post.
Again.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
I'm slightly alarmed
by Frinking’s streak of agreeable comments.
Badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger...
by TheFigurehead on Feb 22, 2011 2:39 PM EST up reply actions
Apologies.
The “Again” was really rubbing it in.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
Viewed by itself, nothing wrong with the column. But this is off the back of a whole bunch of slightly off-kilter Vaughters stuff, from the Matt White/Trent Lowe saga to the suggestion of locking the top level of the sport, stopping people from building from the ground up the way he himself did.
Vaughters is not at the front of a revolution. He wants to be at one, but there needs to be both a want for a revolution, and a want for the revolution that he’s selling, for it to work.
I think we’d all like to see an anti-doping revolution, but I’m not buying Vaughters’ one.
by UrlaubinPolen on Feb 22, 2011 2:27 PM EST up reply actions
based on the recent criticism of the uci
it seems people have a want for revolution. based on the (seemingly yearly) unhappiness about TdF team selection, it seems people want a revolution. based on the fleeting nature of sponsorship lately (maybe no more than usual, yet still discussed), it seems some people would like to see some changes, if not a revolution.
basically, there are a bunch of problems with the sport right now, and JV is bringing them up, discussing them, and presenting answers. i don’t think the guy’s perfect, and neither are his ideas. i’m sure he doesn’t view himself as a saint. that’s not the standard to judge him by. compare him to other DSs. where does he come up short now? is he too vocal about doping? does his internal testing thing make other teams look bad? is his willingness to discuss things like PT licenses a little too rock-the-boat? does his following the rules he set for the team a little too rigid (compared to let’s say basso getting a pt team coming out of suspension as opposed to 2 years later as was agreed)? is his willingness to discuss things like PT licenses a little too rock-the-boat? (and by the way, i don’t believe it would stop anyone from building from the ground up, as you say. it might keep people from just buying a pt license from the get go though, a la leopard)
can you name something that’s been done for this anti-doping revolution you’d like to see that you like? what other DS is doing something about it that you like? or anything for that matter. seems to me JV is the only DS to address the problems i have with the system. if there’s a revolution going on, i don’t see anyone else at the front of it, unless you include us DDIFPs. until someone else decides they want to throw their hat in the ring, he’s all we have. you can either get behind him, throw your hat in the ring, or be happy with the status quo. sounds to me like you’re in the third group, based on your apparent lack of desire for a revolution.
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
But didn't Cervélo do the anti-doping thing too? And HTC?
I mean, Vroomen seems to be disregarding everything about Cervélo, even for 5 or 6 of their male riders and 4 of their women are now riding for him. He’s saying that riding for certain teams = irredeemably tainted, despite the fact they go on to ride for clean teams, despite the fact he’s in business with Millar.
by Sarah Connolly on Feb 22, 2011 4:09 PM EST up reply actions
He never said Tondo was irredeemably tainted.
He said Tondo was not talented.
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
Well, and getting his results through doping....
by Sarah Connolly on Feb 22, 2011 4:50 PM EST up reply actions
Well, sure
“…. thought Tondo was not talented because he was getting his results through doping”
Corrected
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
zactly--
he’d give anyone a second chance to ride clean, if he thought they could do a decent ride, clean. Because he assumed Tondo was doping to the gills, and thereby pulling in 5th place, he figured an undoped Tondo would be, say, 25th to 40th, and not much use to man or beast. Now he’s doing the “i coulda had” facepalm move.
"dumped for Greipel?!"
they did
after JV started it. he was the leader in that revolution.
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
really? Madiot and Fanini have both been around longer in the DS game than Vaughters. Amore e Vita as a team are older than Slipstream Sports.
by UrlaubinPolen on Feb 22, 2011 5:32 PM EST up reply actions
are you saying madiot and fanini started internal doping programs before JV?
i don’t see what the age of teams has to with my statement. If you’re referring to the anti-doping revolution in general, then sure, they might have been part of it for longer. i’m not naive enough to thinke JV started the anti-doping revolution. hopefully no one is. but when it comes to leading it, i would argue that JV has a better claim to that title these days.
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
I don't think it really matters who came first.
Fanini, well. Some of his behaviour’s also been dubious at various points, though possibly in a slightly different way. & as for Madiot, it might be worth re-reading the Christophe Bassons stuff, maybe?
No one’s totally pure in all this.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
oh yea, Fanini’s a bit of a loose cannon.
Madiot has shady past? Yea? So has Vaughters. As you say, nobody’s totally pure in all this.
And I trust FDJ to be a clean team more than I trust Garmin, as I said above. But I don’t think there are any whole teams out there that I feel like I can be absolutely certain about. There are riders I’d stake a lot on, but not teams.
by UrlaubinPolen on Feb 22, 2011 6:00 PM EST up reply actions
But again, I'm not sure how it's relevant whether I trust Garmin "more" than I trust FDJ.
I trust both of them more than I trust, say, Katusha, I guess.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
I guess we’re all biased and we’re all hypocrites, cos we’re all doing what Vaughters tells us he did and we shouldn’t do.
I can’t help but feel that, just maybe, we’re the target of his thoughts more than Tondó. Maybe he recognises that a lot of his ideas and ideology gets criticised, or not taken as seriously as he hoped, just as he didn’t take Tondó seriously as a rider.
I think in talking about how he felt about XT, Vaughters just made it clear what kind of esteem he holds BikePure in, anyway – Tondó’s a member of that group.
by UrlaubinPolen on Feb 22, 2011 6:13 PM EST up reply actions
By the same bass-ackwards logic,
FdJ had a long enough string of miserable results to make people believe they must be clean, because how could dopers not ride better. No, I’m not saying this is actual logic. But I’m betting most of us do a little bit of that pseudo-calculus.
"dumped for Greipel?!"
When Madiot launched FDJ
He had lined up two stars to sign but the deal fell through. The stars were Rolf Sörensen and Bjarne Riis.
My bags are guaranteed sand-free.
Huh
I didn’t read Vaughters as generalizing to this degree, ie, that riding for certain teams always means irredeemably tainted. I read it as, well, I didn’t want to hire this specific rider because of his background and because I really just didn’t think he’d be able to make results without doping.
Now, he’s realized he’s wrong about that particular rider. In the case of Haussler or Millar, I’d guess Vaughters learned more about those riders than their pasts, and for whatever reason, he had more confidence that they’d race clean and get results. Maybe he was wrong, and they’re doping, he can’t know that for sure. But with Tondo, he is saying, hey, I misjudged this rider, because I only saw his past teams, and couldn’t look past that, and I was wrong in that view.
I just don’t think this is a story that is easily generalized. In fact, it seemed to me that Vaughters’s point in writing it was to point out the problems with jumping to conclusions and trying to generalize. But well, Frinky already made that point better than I am ;)
oh, it was definitely a “mea culpa”. But opinions appear to vary on how much of it was about “mea”.
by UrlaubinPolen on Feb 22, 2011 5:52 PM EST up reply actions
The problem is, which way should the revolution be, top-down or bottom-up? Why must I have no desire for a revolution because I don’t believe in one of the candidates for the leadership of it?
Ivano Fanini, for example, is a DS who has done a lot for anti-doping, but is working in small teams (and has also spat a lot of feathers that have been counterproductive too). Will the sport be helped more by one or two clean guys at the top showcasing how it CAN be done, or by several clean guys at the bottom bringing a bunch of young talents into the sport? I don’t have an answer to this, it’s probably a case of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. Or how about Marc Madiot? He’s a perennial thorn in the side of the egos and the nasty characters of the sport, and to be perfectly honest I have more faith that FDJ are being run as a clean team than I do Garmin. But that’s just a gut reaction, just like the one Vaughters had about Tondó, and could prove to be way wide of the mark.
Vaughters, to be fair to him, would probably like to do more but has his hands tied by his own past and the need to have experienced riders and DSes in order to actually be successful, and that’s going to entail having people who are at least partially tainted by the bad old days (as Sky have found out with their backtracking from their ‘nobody with a dubious past, ever’ policy, finding it to be almost untenable when searching for experienced DSes). And isn’t he rather arbitrary in what he considers to be irredeemable considering that he openly courted Contador, who spent more years at Saíz’ Liberty Seguros team than Tondó spent with LA-MSS? Now LA-MSS are one of the dodgiest teams to ever walk the planet… but Saíz’ Liberty Seguros are right up there with them. But as you say, he’s fallible. He’s made a call based on a gut reaction, and it seems that he’s been wrong (or maybe he hasn’t – but even if Tondó’s just a reformed character like Cunego rather than a Moncoutié or Fedrigo, it’s not something I’ll begrudge him since we fans need all we can get). Why was taking Tondó from Cervélo not acceptable, but taking Haussler.
The problem is, because of certain things that have happened before, and certain ways in which he’s acted, mean I struggle to believe Vaughters a lot of the time. Which is a shame, because as you say, he’s one of the most high-profile people we have that we can, or at least would like to, believe in.
I think his heart’s in the right place, I just disagree with some of the conclusions he comes to. And even when he’s being humble, if you’re sceptical of somebody you can read things into it. I certainly read a certain statement of “I’m building a clean team and the flaw that I’m admitting is being TOO clean by not letting in people that maybe I should have done”.
by UrlaubinPolen on Feb 22, 2011 4:25 PM EST up reply actions
"Why was taking Tondó from Cervélo not acceptable, but taking Haussler."
Because he thought Tondo wouldn’t get results riding clean. He explicitly says in his column that’s why he wasn’t interested.
The point of his story wasn’t “I’ll never hire a rider who doped, oops I was wrong about Tondo”. It was “I’ll never hire a rider who only gets results because they’re dirty, oops I was wrong about Tondo – I shouldn’t have assumed he was dirty”
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
But part of what drew him to make that conclusion about Tondó, which he admits, was that he rode for a particularly dodgy team. Which then raises the question, why did he draw that conclusion (ie that he only got results cos he was dirty) about Tondó but not about Contador or Haussler or anybody else with a dubious team association on the roster?
by UrlaubinPolen on Feb 22, 2011 5:02 PM EST up reply actions
The answer should be "results while with a more reputable team"
but actually, that doesn’t fit so well. So, then it comes down to, why did he think Tondo was continuing his evil ways (to account for his ongoing decent rides, post MSS) and the answer he’s giving us, only a little between the lines, is, basically, “bias.” Do you want him to cause a real incident by coming out and saying “I guess I had a little tape of a jose jimenez character playing in my head” or something like that? I’m not trying to put words in his mouth. But on some level, he was ready to see HH as a guy who had decided to get serious, HTFU, and ride clean, and he was not ready to see Tondo that way.
"dumped for Greipel?!"
when you said there needed to be a want for a revolution, i took that as meaning there isn’t currently a want, and extrapolated that to read that you didn’t want a revolution. it had nothing to do with not believe in a candidate.
regarding fanini – great. i wish there were more DSs like him. i don’t think it has any impact on my previous post though. and i think the sport will be helped more by having both top down and bottom up action. but again, just because some folks are doing work in a more grassroots way does not mean that JV is not leading a revolution, or that a revolution is not going on.
i disagree with the past tying JV’s hands. what could he do right now if he had never doped (and let’s say he would have had as much success without dope as he did with, so that he may still be in his current position in our little thought experiment)? seems to me, his unwillingness to talk about his past in the detail demanded of him by some is completely irrelevant. it’s just a convenient way to ignore what he’s saying. regarding the experienced DSs, or riders for that matter, JV has said the past is the past. matt white was not fired for his past, but rather for his actions while employed by slipstream. when you say he’s arbitrary in what he considers irredeemable, i would counter that it looks arbitrary from where we stand. and based on what he said about tondo (perceived inability to produce results without peds), i’m pretty sure contador could do pretty well clean (assuming he’s doping). regarding tondo v haussler, not sure. maybe they knew stuff about GHH that they didn’t know about tondo (vo2 max, for example)
feel free to not believe him, or follow his sugggestions. i don’t have a problem with that. i was mostly arguing that he was leading the charge to reform the sport.
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
When I said there needed to be a want, I wasn’t meaning in me, or you, or the fans. I was meaning from within – the UCI and the riders/teams. They are the ones that Vaughters needs to be buying what he’s selling, not us.
We need both top down and bottom up action. I think Vaughters is very sincere about what he wants to do, but the self-serving nature of some of his ideas (see the franchises thing which slams the door shut behind him) and the fact that he is trying to word things so as not to alienate people while us internet fans are dissecting every perceived tone of voice in the statements, mean that I simply cannot see much altruism in what he says – he sincerely wants change, but he also really, really wants to be seen to be the one to affect it.
That’s how it looks to me, maybe he’s a really altruistic guy in real life. But I’m just judging him on stuff I’ve seen without ever actually meeting the guy. Just like he did to Tondó. C’est la vie.
by UrlaubinPolen on Feb 22, 2011 5:51 PM EST up reply actions
yeah
no clue on his altruism. i don’t think we have enough info to judge one way or the other. i, for one, don’t really see the self serving nature of his ideas. i don’t think the franchise thing slams any doors in anyone’s face. i take it more like a longer pt license, 10 years instead of 4. teams would still come and go, for various reasons. as far as him wanting to be seen as the one to affect change goes, i disagree. not saying that’s not something he wants, i just haven’t seen any evidence of it (or haven’t interpreted the evidence as such). i think he wants to see some changes in the sport and is willing to put in his time, money, and effort to have that change happen. i think that’s a good thing. we need more people like him in the sport. i’m not willing to dismiss him because he hasn’t been perfect, or because i don’t like the reasons driving him. same goes with flandis’ statements, or anyone else.
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
The problem was, JV’s franchise idea was too inflexible, with so many licences that it would have killed off a lot of second tier teams; in America with a relatively weak national calendar it would have been little change, but in countries like Italy, Spain, France and Belgium with ProConti and Continental teams acting out a strong national calendar, it would have damaged a lot of teams and races.
I think it’s a difficult balance to strike.
Let’s consider that JV is for clean cycling. I think this is a safe enough assumption.
Do you, then, work with other groups? People like BikePure are for clean cycling as well. Xavier Tondó is a member. Yet Vaughters is happy to go on record and say that, until this last week, he thought Tondó was doping as he didn’t think he could get results clean. That tells BikePure implicitly that JV doesn’t trust them. That could then alienate some of the people who he could have relied on for support for his vision; you then get different competing visions for how progress should be made, and neither of them gain enough support to be decisively victorious.
(this is something of an exaggerated unrealistic scenario here).
Because of his past and because of his high profile position (and his obvious personal interests, both moral and financial), JV is in a position to make statements about clean cycling that few others can – but he’s also in the position to receive more scrutiny. And because he’s so clearly financially and economically intertwined in it, he also has the problem of the bottom line.
by UrlaubinPolen on Feb 22, 2011 6:20 PM EST up reply actions
regarding the franchise idea – it was just an idea, a framework of sorts to get discussions going on something he felt was keeping sponsors away. by definition it was highly flexible. nothing was set in stone. i don’t see how too many licenses kills off small teams. or how the system would have damaged small races. let’s say it does. i think the next step would be to find ways around that by refining the idea.
i’m sure JV has worked with other groups. he may even have worked with bike pure. but don’t you think someone willing to spend team money on an internal testing program to insure his riders are riding clean is going to need a little more than ’i’m a member of bike pure’ to believe in a rider’s cleanliness? and didn’t one of their riders test positive a little while back? maybe bike pure feels alienated, but i doubt it. i’m sure they realize the limitations of their project, and i doubt they would ever think that being a member of bike pure was a guarantee of purity.
i can’t disagree with your last paragraph. but if one has to be financially and economically separate from cycling to not have a bottom line problem, DDIFPs are our only hope.
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
I’d say judging by the vitriol that greeted Rui Costa’s positive, then some of the members at BP feel like it should be even if the people that run it aren’t themselves that naïve.
My problem with the franchise system was that it was NOT flexible – you’re starting up a new team and you want to get sponsors on board – but 18 teams have got 10 year licences. How can you sell big sponsors on it when you’ve got to wait a decade to get to races like the Tour? Very difficult. It prevents people from slow-building a team just like JV himself did. It creates greater security for the haves (and the transience of many teams means that is a concern) but the have nots find their opportunities to become ‘haves’ far more limited. In which case, though there may still be an incentive to ride for the small teams for some riders, they may not be able to afford them because, why sponsor somebody who can’t get to the big events for half a decade? The teams that win and are successful are rewarded by greater stability anyway, why give more of it to them and take it away from teams like Farnese Vini or Ceramica Flaminia who are on the outside? JV, as one of the guys who has staked a lot in the sport personally, may feel more inclined to insist on enormously overlong licences in order to protect his own investment, and I respect and understand that – but not everybody is in the position that JV is in, and also as long as Pat McQuaid is in charge of who gets licences – I don’t want his bad decisions to still be affecting the sport a decade after he’s gone, you know? Too many licences means too few wildcard spots, means less variety and fewer opportunities for young guys to race with the top names and ‘make it’. That’s why when we discussed the idea one of the ideas was to cut the number of licences down to 13-15, allowing more flexibility of wildcard teams.
But, as you say, these are things that would need to be fleshed out over a long period of time. To tell the truth, I don’t think it’s necessary. The problems at the moment come from the upheaval of cycling at an economically weak time when sponsors are looking to get out. At a better economic time and once we turn the corner on doping (if that’s possible) then stability will return anyway.
Either way, the franchise thing is irrelevant to the present discussion, just another example of where JV has tried to be helpful but also come across as self-serving, depending on which view you see it from.
by UrlaubinPolen on Feb 22, 2011 7:19 PM EST up reply actions
Did you get a chance to read the interview that Gav and Chris did with Vaughters?
He talks about the “franchise system” here
The skills really do go away if not practiced, and I don't mean to brag but I was getting very mediocre. - Tejay Van Garderen
So, we got him explaining why it’s a good idea.
Not one word on how it would combat the criticisms that the idea had. Like, how you would get Crest involved if you WEREN’T one of the big teams, or how teams outside of those safe licences would attract sponsors.
Anyway, suffice to say I had my say on why I think the franchise idea is deeply flawed, at least in its mooted form, and Vaughters’ explanation of it there doesn’t assuage any of my problems with it because it doesn’t address them – only the benefits, many of which I was already willing to concede. We needn’t go through it all yet again, as I obviously already did above and did repetitively at the time.
by UrlaubinPolen on Feb 22, 2011 7:49 PM EST up reply actions
You were saying he wasn't flexible.
I think that the “plan” is a potential starting point for discussion and is very flexible if there was a desire by the players to start talking.
The skills really do go away if not practiced, and I don't mean to brag but I was getting very mediocre. - Tejay Van Garderen
last I heard, he wasn't running a charity, nor for the Jesus understudy role.
Do you ask all the business people in your life to exhibit their altruism? Yes, he’s got anti-doping as his hobby horse, and he’s riding it hard. So he should have to do a kick-ass job on that one issue. But taking an anti-doping stance doesn’t sign someone up for a subscription to “altruism quarterly,” or require him to open an altruism-R-us stand. Guy’s allowed to be as profit-focused, hard-assed and/or small minded as the next guy, without being branded some sort of hypocrite.
"dumped for Greipel?!"
Well, I know I'm in the JV sceptics' corner of late, so here's my tuppence
I think the past does compromise his present. I (speculating) think that while JV would love his team to win and win clean, his past makes that harder to achieve, and the Matt White thing is an example.
I have no reason to think other than that he is trying to move beyond his past, but it ain’t easy. That doesn’t necessarily cause any problems unless others are affected by the conflict, or potential conflict.
I also think that how he is perceived is important to him, and that’s why he takes the trouble to post on forums and write these blogs. The navel-gazing intro to his piece essentially says just that. So, while I’ve no doubt he was sincere in this piece, he’s no doubt conscious of how it will play amongst people like us. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you. It’s understandable, indeed smart.
But to join the dots (so to speak) I think what he’s also saying here is, ’Don’t judge me or my team/DSs/riders I hire because of their past associations. I made a mistake to do so about Tondo; you shouldn’t make that mistake about my team’.
There does seem to be a conflict, however, between refusing to consider Tondo and yet courting Contador or even Haussler. Especially in the case of Contador, there was a lot more to link him with doping than appears to be the case for Tondo. If the defence is along the lines of, ‘Well, he’s really good, so even if he stops doping, he’ll still do well; I can’t say that about Tondo’, it makes no sense. If the defence was (as JV said it was at the time) ‘I assume that everyone is clean until I see the blood numbers’, then he’s not done that with Tondo.
For what it’s worth, I have made and continue to make assumptions about some people because of the company they keep or have kept. It’s true that some people will be unfairly tarnished by that. Many will not. For those innocents who are upset by whatever I wrongly think (!) I suppose I should apologise. But their identities are, as Rumsfeld might say, a known unknown. C’est la vie.
well, yeah.
That’s the point of the piece. He’s agreeing with you:
If the defence was (as JV said it was at the time) ‘I assume that everyone is clean until I see the blood numbers’, then he’s not done that with Tondo.
That’s what he’s self-flagellating about—not living up to his own oft-stated rules.
"dumped for Greipel?!"
It's the self-flagellation that is problematic...
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
It wouldn’t be a prob if he’d provide pix :)
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway
I can taste a little bit of vomit ...
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
Maybe this is all just being overanalyzed
He mad a mistake and admitted it, that’s what I get from it. He generalized based on past experience which is the norm when that is all you have to go on and it didn’t work out this time. I don’t think that equals racism at all.
If I just had one more gear, I...
Analysis - Not Bad for Pre-Season
Wow!
Darth Vaughters pulled two posts and over 140 comments; on this re-hash site alone!
I’d say he’s coming into form nicely for a tremendous spring campaign.
Lefevre really better step it up . . . . .
What would Deming do? (+8:00 GMT)
by Ryan_Liles on Feb 22, 2011 7:06 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
darth vaughters and the evil sideburns
needs to be a PdC tribute band . . .
by R Mc on Feb 22, 2011 8:59 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Ahem . . .
. . . R Mc, the proper way to rever to the Dark Lord is as follows -
In Print –
::Darth Vaughters::
::DV::, or if there are children reading ::JV:: (as we all know he is the commander of the evil that is within us all; for second place.)
* Not “the Darth Vaughters”
* Not “Garmin Slipstream’s Darth Vaughters”
* Not “Darth Vaughters presented by Garmin Slipstream”
ect . . .
In public speaking referring to Darth Vaughters in third person –
::Darth Vaughters::
::the Dark Lord::
::His Darkness::
:: El Dartherino . . . if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.::
* Not = Generally, the same as in print.
In public speaking to Darth Vaughters in person –
> You must, at all times, not make eye contact; he will eternally own your soul and you shall never achieve anything beyond second place in shit small races.
Just ask Millar about that . . .
::Darth Vaughters::
::Your Darkness::
::My Lord:: (This is preferred only in private as he likes to seem humble in public)
. . . and so on . . .
What would Deming do? (+8:00 GMT)
by Ryan_Liles on Feb 22, 2011 9:36 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Sorry for the misspellings.
One too many espresso shots this morning.
What would Deming do? (+8:00 GMT)
Yes!
That would be damn funny.
And yes, I would have to agree that Lefevre is slacking off so far this season. Dude’s got work to do.
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