Goodbye then .. Chris Froome

[Tangled Metal]

They do have a difference I believe. That is the sponsors supposedly had a reputational clause in the contract. IIRC sky had to sack or release anyone found guilty of historical or current doping.

Also there has been talk of sky considering to pull out of there's a major scandal. It's possibly why they'll spend more time and resources supporting riders than other teams.

If Froome only got minimal support he'd probably have not been able to n defend his corner. You could say that amounts to an innocent rider being unfairly sanctioned.

Whatever the case sky does seem to defend riders and the team strongly. That is a difference I think.

The clean racing bit is possibly hard to achieve if you stick your team's collective head above the parapet claiming to be different, to be clean. That's not because you're not clean necessarily but because you really can't prove your not doping to the satisfaction of all. You'll always get conspiracy and claims about doping. None can be defeated easily or indeed at all. I think despite the loud claims to the contrary sky riders are racing clean. Despite jiffygate, despite the commons select Committee (which practically admits their "evidence" isn't verified or worth much). Still an allegation is enough proof of guilt for some.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
"Britain's four-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome was jeered by crowds at a presentation event for the 2018 edition of the race."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/44733587

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Just dug up some dirt................well I didn't know of it
He was with sky then and Yates was manager too.....................
Froome was disqualified of course but many get away with it.
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/raci ... alia-60517
"Froome held on to a police motorbike, according to another UCI source. The UCI issued the communiqué after the stage, referring to article 12.1.040.18, which also said that it fined him 200 Swiss Francs (£120, €140).
Read more at https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/raci ... ErM5Xpz.99"

[LollyKat]

IIRC Froome was suffering knee problems and had already radioed to his team that he was quitting. The tow was to get him to the soigneur more quickly.

OTOH Quintana got away with it in the TdF 2016 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m61JRKTDdY8

[Brucey]

re ancestry; with only a few exceptions (mainly involving truly isolated populations) we are all quite closely related. This is very simply demonstrated by looking at how many parents, grandparents etc you must have had. The number of ancestors is twice as great in each preceding generation, so (say) taking 1000 years and about 25 years per generation, gives you 2^40 i.e. over one million million ancestors (10^12) in the generation 1000 years ago which IIRC is (or soon is, cumulatively) more than there have been people, ever. It is certainly more people than there have ever been in Europe, leave alone in a single generation. The implication of this is very clear; we must all share lots of ancestors with many others; to be unrelated to other Europeans (looking back just 40 generations) is in fact incredibly unlikely.

cheers

[Tangled Metal]

Froome was dropping out so that was the reason he wasn't sanctioned. No cheating involved if you've left the race and won't be getting back into it. No getting away with anything. Unless you think a retiring cyclist should suffer longer before getting help and dropping out?

Quintana case was obvious.

Then there was the TdF case when a rider hit a sanction for an infringement of the rules only to get it cancelled when clear video evidence of the great French hope doing it earlier on in the race. It's difficult to get done for infringements on the tour of a French contender does it first with evidence.

A part of me wishes Froome had domiciled as a Frenchman. I doubt a lot of this would have happened.