If you're really honest with yourself--and I'm talking about absolutely everyone here, not just you--there's no doubt that things are said that aren't realistic, that cannot really be followed up on when the time might come to take action. We're creatures whose words are often significantly colored by ideals and emotions, impacting the logic behind our words.
JV has absolutely said that one doping case would mean the end of the team, but it's not realistic. No organization can control every action of its employees and associates, especially those done off the watch of the organization. Is it really fair to the entire organization and its people to lay down and fold if TommyD acted on his own, especially considering the dire consequences to all of those innocent? The situation should be different if it's found that there was something systematic within the team as a whole, but that doesn't appear to be the case with the evidence we have. It appears doping is endemic at Astana with five cases between the WT and development teams, but, at least as of now, Garmin-Cannondale's situation appears to be one known idiot acting on his own. If it's found to be more than that, the team ought to fold. If it's found to be only that, JV will obviously terminate Danielson's employment and should be the first to tear him apart publicly, as should TD's teammates; they can't really do anything more than they've already done without confirmed results from the investigation on the off-chance that it's found to be a false positive.
Until then, it's a rhetoric of false superiority to claim that JV is being a hypocrite. His language has been pretty much what it would have been if anyone else were in his position.
mcycle wrote:
Power13 wrote:
NO one can be surprised by Vaughters' statement....
1) His "one positive and we walk away" declarations always rang as PR statements, not actual promises (to me, at least)
2) There are a lot of jobs, careers and families that he is responsible for now. Pretty hard to just fold your tent and walk away.
3) It is not his money that is making the decision. Cannondale, Garmin and his investor angel all have input on the decision (and more input than Vaughters in all likelihood).
It's not really, is one positive, and we walk away/team ends- (it's obvious lots of jobs are at stake) but this is a statement that JV has said in dozens and dozens of (marketing) interviews over the years. So the next question- if this statement doesn't actually have teeth behind it, what else about the team is marketing or a facade? Is TD a team outlier, or is Garmin just been a solid marketing machine to get sponsors and not a lot of results? He's been the team captain at previous TdF- such as 2011.
Nov 27, 2014
When you’ve got a situation like Astana has experienced, with two of its WorldTour guys [Maxim and Valentin Iglinskiy] testing positive for EPO, in a normal team that would spell the end of the team, right? Take a team like ours, if we had two people doping, and it comes out or not, you know, it is the end of the organization because there really is no way around it. The sponsors contractually don’t have to stand by that. I don’t think they would stand by that. The way our organization is set up, we’ve always said this is the way we’re doing things, and we’ve stuck by that from the beginning. We’ve never had a positive test in the organization, in a decade, nor a hint of anyone doping inside the team, ever. And that’s what our sponsors have been promised. They haven’t been promised 50 race wins a year. They’ve been promised, this is the way we’re gonna do it. We might win some races, who knows? And if we don’t live up to our promise the organization is done