What's Matt Cooke got to do with this?

It's a grand strategy to rebuild around Sagan next year /pink......sort of.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
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not cycling but Bernard Lagat was popped for epo and then the B sample came back and there was no nikEPO.

when Cooke retired last year, he wrote a piece (can't remember where) on his views on doping and how he felt cheated out of things. I think LA was either directly or indirectly named in this piece of writing

Brilliant. Do you ever refill it?

Fun fact, Ricardo Ricco's baby mama popped positive for EPO or testosterone, can't remember (she was italian nats champ for CX at the time), to which he dumped her for having no moral fortitude... only to be followed by being exonerated by the B-sample coming back as clean.

Yes, I remember the piece. It just seems odd that LA would call out Cooke just due to that. Maybe it's because they're both triathletes turned pro cyclists. Or, maybe it's because Cooke called out Danielson specifically in the piece.

http://www.crankpunk.com/...ver-taken-drugs.html

Excellent. I call this the "and" theory. I'm not not talking about the high burden of proof required in a court of law. I'm talking common sense approach to the truth: dominant runner AND dirtiest event AND joke testing policies in home country AND so many teammates who have been busted AND from a poor/backwards country with massive financial incentive for governing body to be corrupt and complicit in cheating

In my opinion, only a fool would not be very suspicious. Personally, I don't think he's clean. He is quite fast, however. That cannot be disputed. A marvel to see, juiced or not.

The only thing that gives me hope for triathlon being relatively clean is that the money in the sport for pros is pretty minimal. Offset against that is the knowledge that doping would be a massive advantage in a sport like ours, and that the testing regime is nothing like as rigorous as cycling, so a smart doper could be pretty confident about not getting caught. Would certainly like to see the PTU take a strong stance on it.

Suspect there's a big AGer doping problem - especially since triathlon seems to be the sport of choice for so many type A executives these days, who would have both the funds and the ambition to dope.

not during a race, but yes during training.

this is where the cold water bottles come in handy in a race as you have to resort to dousing yourself. i've heard of ice socks being handed out at feedzones, but it's awfully awkard to shove something down your back (with the helmet in the way) during a race.

effect of heat is cumulative, so the later you start suffering from it, the more advantage you have over others



thanks for the link; will need to re-read this in light of the doping positive

I don't know, I just remember Landis claiming that Lance was using some drug that was in clinical trials. Somehow something huge like that did not make it into the USADA report at the very least, let alone a criminal investigation on how he got his hands on it, especially since there would be very few sources it should be easy to narrow down how he got it.

Matt is still outspoken and somewhat un-polished about it. He calls out riders he thinks are clean if they are buddies with or promote riders that used to be or he still thinks are dirty.

Money in cycling is pretty minimal except for the top 100 guys in the world, but you still had dudes like Tommy D and Horner getting loaded to lap the field at Redlands in the 2000s.

This is a huge suck, both for the Tour of Utah and for Cannondale-Garmin. It threatens both of their futures.

New favorite at Utah? Uhhhmmm...Dombrowski, Schleck, Jani Brajkovic, Gaimon, Carpenter, Rosskopf. Not a lot of WT talent is there this year.

Such a class act. Good riddance.

Danielson wouldn't add much to that list. Might detract from it. I don't know what other guys Garmin-Cannondale was planning to bring, though, if the entire team pulls the plug.

I hope Vaughters resigns. Not because I don't like him, or because I think he has any role in Danielson's doping. Just because he says he would. He publicly hitched his wagon to Danielson and other known dopers, and the horse went off the reservation *. And Garmin has already cut a few corners in retaining people who almost certainly doped but didn't admit it. Time to stop cutting corners.

* Unless B sample, blah blah.....

What sports union has a real strong stance on doping? Most sports unions seem to be focused on protecting the athletes in the union and this includes from being punished for doping. Just look at unions for MLB and the NFL and how they deal with doping.

Second, just because there is not alot of money, does not mean people dope. Just look at age groupers doping for no money, just the pride of winning. Now imagine the draw of winning something like a world championship, that is enough to get people to dope even if there is not much money.

I love that TD's PR people decided they should remove the "It also appears he has doped... again" but didn't think it was a big deal that they announced he has a girl on the side. Clearly he has his shit straight.

Whole team is sticking around for the race.

I doubt you'll see Vaughters sailing into the sunset quite yet - there's quite a bit of spinning to be done! That said, it would be a massive loss for American cycling if Slipstream closed up shop because of Tommy Douchelord - and I completely agree on JV keeping guys around with dubious pasts and winter breaks. Total BS atmo.

Yeah, whoever Dimspace is on wikipedia has been busy this morning it looks like removing any reference to this round of doping.

True, but even if it's only 100 guys, that's about 10x the number making good money from triathlon, the money is a lot steadier, and the guys at the top are making serious big bucks. The likes of Cavendish or Sagan are making more than any triathlete could even dream of.

I'm not deluding myself, chances are there's a lot more doping in our sport than we'd like to think, but I also think there's reason to hope that it's not as completely pervasive as it was (is?!) in cycling. Some of that is the scant rewards/glory on offer, some of that is not having the team culture and therefore the pressure to dope, some of it is that triathletes generally seem to be better educated than cyclists (possibly because they know they're unlikely to be living off their winnings for the rest of their lives) and have more options in life for making money. A lot of them have actually sacrificed more lucrative careers in order to be pro triathletes, it would seem an odd decision to do that and then dope.

Ok, silver lining time.
When LA got popped, we picked up a $2500 Livestrong treadmill for $750. It can go 5 min pace and is bombproof!
TD's contribution to things is smaller, but I bet the sales price will be under $2 by COB today.

I am sure there is doping in triathlon. Unfortunately, it does not take much to get people to look for any advantage. Last week we had some lady purposely drafting at a small sprint triathlon and the award was a selfie stick. If she did it enough over the course of the season, she may win a windvest for the being the series age group winner.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people aren't doping, just that I believe there is hope that doping isn't as pervasive as it has been at times in cycling and in sports like track and field sprinting, where pretty much everybody in the top 10 at the big races later turns out to have been dirty.

I think the hypocrisy level is very high. It's just like drafting. As Andrew Messick said to Babbitt last year in Kona, "drafting is always somebody else's problem." You can see it on the forum regularly. I can think of several examples where photos have gotten passed around via email after races showing egregious drafting by some of the most blatant "anti-drafters" on this forum. Drafting is always something somebody else does. Just like doping. I am certain that some of the most outspoken athletes about doping are guilty as sin. I can think of at least a couple examples of athletes who speak quite forcefully on it who I'd put pretty high on my "high probability of doping" scale.

This, for me, was the real revelation in the Lance Armstrong case. Thankfully, in my life, I've been privileged to be surrounded by people that pretty much tell the truth. What the Lance case showed was just how egregiously people will lie. I wasn't really prepared for that. The degree to which people will lie. I'd never experienced that personally. I thought that sort of deceit was essentially limited to bankers and politicians. But it's all around us. Lying - big lying - is something that happens all the time.

Ironically, this actually made it easier to forgive Lance as a person. I mean, I'm not saying that I'm a 100% truth teller, but I always felt like telling the truth was pretty standard. Realizing that Lance wasn't necessarily exceptional in his willingness to lie made it easier to just sort of accept that as part of who he was (or is).

But, especially with the internet, and especially with some of the big leaks that have come out lately, I realized that lying is more normal than telling the truth in the public sphere. Someone pointed out on Twitter that the most astounding thing about Donald Trump is how *REAL* he is, and how fake he makes every other politician seem. I mean, he's a total lunatic, but he's pretty damn genuine. He's clearly not speaking soundbites fabricated in focus groups to appeal to his target demographic. And it's basically blowing everyone's mind. I mean, the idea of Trump as president makes me physically ill. But by no means do I want him out of the race...

Circling back, I'd say there are a significant number of pro triathletes - and AG triathletes - that are simply speaking what they know to be the popular soundbite on doping. I bet you there are some people who were typing stuff blasting cycling for being dirty on twitter with one hand while they shot EPO into their veins with the other.

As far as the shoe dropping, I don't think it's likely. The tests are all - understandably - biased towards preventing a false positive. And while there's actually a pretty "normal" amount of testing done - as compared with other sports - that's really just not that much testing in the grand scheme of things.

But it's not all bad. I think that too often the whole anti-doping thing is about catching cheaters. And if you only look at in that way, it is - admittedly - pretty depressing. But I don't think that it's carte blanche the way it used to be. For example, I am massively suspicious of Froome and SKY. But I think there were probably some guys who did well - really well - in the TdF this year that were clean. I feel like you can win Kona clean. And, to that extent, I think WADA - and associated supporters - are doing a pretty good job.

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It's hard for me to believe there is enough incentive for an age grouper to dope. Maybe a few super elite guys that are pro-hopeful, but that can't be that many people. What's the point of doing that when you have a regular job and family? There is no money. And how much glory is there in being first of ten guys in the 41-43 age group. Whoopdedo!

On the other hand, anybody on a pro podium in any sport is considered guilty in my opinion.