“As the 2 brothers on Astana took itself out of the Tour of Beijing on
Monday, electing to “self-suspend” in light of two recent positive tests for the banned blood-booster EPO that ensnared two brothers on the team"Velo News”
Oh Vino so this ok ! Sure go ahead help Nibali win the tour and now pretend to "do the right thing"Now let’s wait for Fabio Aru to somehow explain his stellar TDF
How does the team have the balls to belong to the Movement for Creditable Cycling
“As the 2 brothers on Astana took itself out of the Tour of Beijing on
Monday, electing to “self-suspend” in light of two recent positive tests for the banned blood-booster EPO that ensnared two brothers on the team"Velo News”
Oh Vino so this ok ! Sure go ahead help Nibali win the tour and now pretend to "do the right thing"Now let’s wait for Fabio Aru to somehow explain his stellar TDF
How does the team have the balls to belong to the Movement for Creditable Cycling
The movement is an ideal.
How does the movement have the balls to let teams join run by dopers?
Vino gets rightly reviled, but if notably doping precludes somebody from credibly DSing, me thinks there are far more teams with issues than Astana. Would Vino’s credibility be in the same tatters if he stopped cycling in '99?
Garmin, BMC, Tinko
none of those teams should be part of the movement.
I’m sure there are more those just come to mind
Vino gets rightly reviled, but if notably doping precludes somebody from credibly DSing, me thinks there are far more teams with issues than Astana. Would Vino’s credibility be in the same tatters if he stopped cycling in '99?
“As the 2 brothers on Astana took itself out of the Tour of Beijing on
Monday, electing to “self-suspend” in light of two recent positive tests for the banned blood-booster EPO that ensnared two brothers on the team"Velo News”
Oh Vino so this ok ! Sure go ahead help Nibali win the tour and now pretend to "do the right thing"Now let’s wait for Fabio Aru to somehow explain his stellar TDF
How does the team have the balls to belong to the Movement for Creditable Cycling
We’re talking about the guy who wears a jersey with his own picture on it.
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2658/3810988469_b63543f359.jpg
It is a movement for credible cycling, not humble cycling.
Been a movement for INcredible cycling lately…
Astana have all the hallmarks of a good movement tho… ie full of shit…
Been a movement for INcredible cycling lately…
Please provide spreadsheets or charts when making accusations along performance lines, thank you.
=)
i am coloring them in now, but my crayons snapped… give me a minute…
I am seriously considering a jersey with my picture on it…front and back. I just need to find 10 or so friends to buy in to the minimum print run.
I am seriously considering a jersey with my picture on it…front and back. I just need to find 10 or so friends to buy in to the minimum print run.
These guys do no min order jerseys: http://www.purplemooncustom.com
$30 gets whatever you want on a jersey.
Astana have all the hallmarks of a good movement tho… ie full of shit…
Hahaha, that’s brilliant.
“As the 2 brothers on Astana took itself out of the Tour of Beijing on
Monday, electing to “self-suspend” in light of two recent positive tests for the banned blood-booster EPO that ensnared two brothers on the team"Velo News”
Oh Vino so this ok ! Sure go ahead help Nibali win the tour and now pretend to "do the right thing"Now let’s wait for Fabio Aru to somehow explain his stellar TDF
How does the team have the balls to belong to the Movement for Creditable Cycling
We’re talking about the guy who wears a jersey with his own picture on it.
Maybe Vino should have been wearing a jersey like that during the London Olympics. How the heck did the ENTIRE peloton, let Vino of all people escape just before Hyde Park/The Mall in London. Of anyone to watch you figure they would NEVER let Vino go…doped or not…surely an entire group of guys could gang up on him and keep him in check. Maybe that’s why he put that picture on the jersey, “If you guys are too stupid to let me get away for the Gold, maybe I need to print my picture on it too so you have the brains to mark me…”
Sorry, I could not resist. That Olympic Road race had Cavendish written all over it from the start and team GB let Vino escape! I understand that national teams are smaller than trade teams…but still letting Vino get away ???
How exactly did it have “Cav” written all over it? Box Hill was always a gamble for Cav, and there sprinters who are far better than him on this type of puncheur’s course. Why Germany (via Degenkolb) and Australia (via Gerrans) didn’t do more chasing, that’s the bigger question. It wasn’t just Vino escaping, it was a bunch of 30 or so riders…
How exactly did it have “Cav” written all over it? Box Hill was always a gamble for Cav, and there sprinters who are far better than him on this type of puncheur’s course. Why Germany (via Degenkolb) and Australia (via Gerrans) didn’t do more chasing, that’s the bigger question. It wasn’t just Vino escaping, it was a bunch of 30 or so riders…
…does not really matter what is said now…the bottom line is a lot of countries let Vino escape. They cumulatively had much more firepower to neutralize. Racing is more than watts per kilo and EPO/blood bags…while everyone was playing poker and watching each other Vino seized the day and slipped away, never to be seen again. THEY (collectively) should have known if anyone was going to try this prank AGAIN it would be Vino. How many times in his career did he have to do something like this for these guys to wake up and realize if that the finish line is in smelling distance, and Vino is in the field, he’s gonna take a shot at it. Kind of like Jacky Durand, but Jacky Durand would do it with 120K to go knowing full well that his only chance is everyone sitting up for 3 more hours.
Anyway, personally I get a kick out of Vino. He’s from another culture, and to him, a doping violation is like a foul in soccer. You take your yellow card, or red card and move on…no remorse, no apologies…to him they are just rules of engagement to be competitive. He served his time and slipped away with a gold medal to close off his career and doesn’t give a shit that we all think he is a low life doper. I’d prefer if guys were more like that actually. It’s not like he did a ton of denial and cover up. He just went away for 2 years, did his time and came back. Kind of like, “yeah, I got a red card, so I am sitting out as I am required to, but when I am back in the match, I’ll do whatever I can to be competitive”.
If cycling wants to change its culture, they have to ban guys like Vino running teams…if not, just accept that that his team will do anything possible up to but excluding getting the red card and getting sanctioned. Does his team have credibility? Not here in North America. But if you go to Almaty, I bet they love the team and to him that’s all that matters…he does not give a shit about what any of us think…and in the mean time, plenty of prominent western brands still sponsor his team so what do we all know?
My main point is that instead of hating Vino, we should hate the guys who continue to allow him to play and exploit the systems. Like I said elsewhere, don’t hate the gladiators…hate the Caesars for the rigged show you watch in the Coloseum. The UCI and all the layers around it are the big problem…guys like Vino will keep exploiting a flawed/rigged/crooked system. While he may not have credibility, his continued participation in the show shines a bright light more on those running the show than the guys like himself playing in the show.
Interesting point.
This being a predominantly US-based forum, I’d be interested to hear how you guys feel about Justin Gatlin. He seems to be the Vinokourov of the current crop of track athletes, an unrepentant serial-doper that’s seemingly not not welcomed in the sport by his colleagues. His case has been thrust back in to the limelight over here in Europe recently, what with his exploits in Brussels last month and the media seizing on some recent research from Oslo suggesting that ex-dopers can still be benefiting from their cheating decades later. This BBC article published today has a good background, if from a somewhat British standpoint:
tru dat
while a lot of winners have said a prayer of gratitude and Sagan has given us the gorilla and the jogger, Vino just wins and gives the world the virtual finger as a victory salute. riding off on his own terms, sun setting, gold medal around his neck, middle fingers raised.
and we keep inviting him back. perhaps that says more about us than him.
tru dat
while a lot of winners have said a prayer of gratitude and Sagan has given us the gorilla and the jogger, Vino just wins and gives the world the virtual finger as a victory salute. riding off on his own terms, sun setting, gold medal around his neck, middle fingers raised.
and we keep inviting him back. perhaps that says more about us than him.
I think you summed it up more efficiently than I did…and the “us” includes those who have national federation cycling licenses who vote for their country leadership who then vote the UCI in…and those of us who buy from his sponsors…that’s pretty well most of us.
I think you summed it up more efficiently than I did…and the “us” includes those who have national federation cycling licenses who vote for their country leadership who then vote the UCI in…and those of us who buy from his sponsors…that’s pretty well most of us.
Sorry, but that’s complete nonsense. You’re going to lay the burden of responsibility for cleaning up cycling’s doping policies on anyone who buys from Specialized, Campagnolo, FSA, SRM or Tacx?! Using extrapolation like that, you may as well blame the farmers that produce that food that allow us to carry on living and continue to be morally outraged at the presence of Vino in the sport. Nonsense.
Half the people riding around on their Specialized Allez probably don’t even know who Astana or Vino are. I agree, if they were my companies I wouldn’t be sponsoring a team like Astana. But at the end of the day, the responsibility for regulation lies with the UCI.