Gonchar busted!

very strange though. What is really the issue here?

tonyzackery said:

Per Cyclingpost, Gonchar has been suspended for 30 days by T-Mobile - no Giro for him.

tonyzackery said:

Per Cyclingpost, Gonchar has been suspended for 30 days by T-Mobile - no Giro for him.

He'd already been withdrawn from the squad because he was feeling ill or something and wasn't going to recover in time for the Giro.

Cyclingnews coverage of the suspension: cyclingnews.comnews.phpOpen ↗

Got some pretty good spin doctors at T-Mobile. Suspended even though all his tests were within UCI limits???!!!! Come on, who are they trying to fool here...

tonyzackery said:

Got some pretty good spin doctors at T-Mobile. Suspended even though all his tests were within UCI limits???!!!! Come on, who are they trying to fool here...

No one... the T-Mobile internal tests picked up some irregularities so they have suspended him until further detail becomes available.... that’s a good thing... not spin but truth..... remember only T-Mobile and CSC are doing these tests...

tonyzackery said:

Got some pretty good spin doctors at T-Mobile. Suspended even though all his tests were within UCI limits???!!!! Come on, who are they trying to fool here...

Not necessarily. Probably Gonchar's results were within UCI limits but still showed something fishy, like Hamilton's blood at LBL and Romandie prior to his Vuelta bust.

tonyzackery said:

Got some pretty good spin doctors at T-Mobile. Suspended even though all his tests were within UCI limits???!!!! Come on, who are they trying to fool here...

"Got busted" seems too dramatic a statement, T-Mobile established a team of independent doctors at the university of Bayreuth who survey the cyclists. Honchar´s hemotocrit levels seem to have been a bit too volatile. Perhaps they´re a bit too anxious at the moment at T-Mobile after all the revelations by Jef d´Hont.

It appears there is a majority in this thread willing to give Honchar the benefit of the doubt on this one, but I'm not buying it. You don't get suspended for 30 days for nothing. Obviously he was cheating or attempting to cheat the UCI rules. If it walks and quacks like a duck...

This would be his third suspension over the year if I remember correctly.

It'll be interesting to see how the facts make their way to the public, but, as per Tony, this reeks of a preemptive strike.

Weren't the reasons offered for his non-Giro participation somewhat fishy? They claimed he had a "cold" while he claimed something else.

On another note, its nice to see a USPS and Discovery alumni (Michael Barry) starting the Giro for T-Mobile. I assume that they did their due diligence when they signed him. Having known him (through his father) since he was a little lad I hope and trust that he's always raced clean. In that case, and given T-Mobile's signing, what does that say to those who claim that USPS / Discovery is dirty to the man.

People only buy excuses when they aren't from Disco or a Lance x-teammate. LOL this board cracks me up.

Serafino said:

On another note, its nice to see a USPS and Discovery alumni (Michael Barry) starting the Giro for T-Mobile. I assume that they did their due diligence when they signed him. Having known him (through his father) since he was a little lad I hope and trust that he's always raced clean.

Yeah, he's probably the one or two riders who aren't apart of OP.

You know, I thought OP would open people's eyes about doping in the pro peloton and pro sports in general, but there's always a fan base out there who think their guy isn't doping.

Tous dope, dude. I mean, do I even need to say it at this point?

I don't see what the problem is. It looks like T-Mob is doing exactly what they said they would do: Monitor riders to detect patterns that would indicate doping. Is there anyone surprised that Gonchar tripped the tests? He won the two Tour ITTs last year. He is like sixty years old, pushes a gear more suitable for use when drafting behind a car, and was caught up in a previous doping scandal.

Serafino said:

On another note, its nice to see a USPS and Discovery alumni (Michael Barry) starting the Giro for T-Mobile. I assume that they did their due diligence when they signed him. Having known him (through his father) since he was a little lad I hope and trust that he's always raced clean. In that case, and given T-Mobile's signing, what does that say to those who claim that USPS / Discovery is dirty to the man.

It's not 1996 anymore. The teams that still run doping programs seem to have a team within a team. The information that came out about Quickstep said that the lower riders were not doped. OP did not involve all twenty-five Liberty Seguros riders. We have an eye witness account of Bruyneel discussing the Tour team's hematocrits right before the Tour and then shutting up when he realized he was being overheard. Does anyone think Beppu is getting the same program as Hincapie? Maybe Barry was not in the inner circle.

whiteboytrash said:

No one... the T-Mobile internal tests picked up some irregularities so they have suspended him until further detail becomes available.... that’s a good thing... not spin but truth..... remember only T-Mobile and CSC are doing these tests...

It still stinks. In another forum thread...

cyclingforums.comt394622.htmlOpen ↗

I posted what I thought were the real reasons the teams were doing all of this testing - to mitigate potential disasters from dopers on their teams - and for the less moral teams to stay ahead of the UCI and WADA.

T-mobile's first story on Serhiy was this...

"T-Mobile travel to Italy without expected starter Serhiy Honchar. The veteran Ukrainian caught a cold at the Tour de Romandie last week, forcing him to retire from the Swiss race, and he has not yet fully recovered." (Daily Peloton)

I'm proud of T-mobile for publicly anouning it but we'll never know if they felt they had to or if they're truly taking the higher ground. What do you think the chances are that they new about the irregularities in testing before the 'caught a cold' story came out? If so, why post the cold story? Were they assessing if they could get away with it?

Whatever the truth of the Serhiy situation is, my point is that it demonstates the conflict of interest involved in placing any reliance on internal team testing to combat the doping problem in the pro peloton. So to me the added internal testing programs that CSC and T-mob have brandished so proudly are just marketing schemes.

Also, like Sarafino, I'd like to believe that Michael Barry is clean. I bought my first road bike from Barry Sr. and have ridden beside Michael when he occasionally makes it home to Toronto and graces a long standing local ride (the Donut). Even with doping appearing to be rampid in the pro peloton, I have to believe that not every rider has let go of their morals.

Gonchar's record in the Giro is superb.
Over the past decade or so, the man has been a top 10 Giro finisher, each and every time.

Must have been serious for TM to withdraw him from the race.

azdroptop said:

People only buy excuses when they aren't from Disco or a Lance x-teammate. LOL this board cracks me up.

LOL, didnt you know, "lance armstrong started all this".

helmutRoole2 said:

Yeah, he's probably the one or two riders who aren't apart of OP.

You know, I thought OP would open people's eyes about doping in the pro peloton and pro sports in general, but there's always a fan base out there who think their guy isn't doping.

Tous dope, dude. I mean, do I even need to say it at this point?

What are you talking about. You don't see the irony in my comment. T-Mobile says that (now) if wants to race clean. To many here, USPS/DC is the dirtiest of the dirty. Yet, T-Mobile goes and signs Michael Barry. Which "must" mean he's clean, no? Therefore, at least a portion of DC is clean, no?

Or is T-Mobile's anti-doping campaign largely motivated by PR reasons. They weren't all that quick to suspend the doctors implicated in the Telekom accusations and who were hired to administer the (anti)-doping plan.

Funny that you think everyone dopes but you put credence in T-Mobile's or CSC's anti-doping crusades.

Its time to get to the roots of the problem. At that starts at the team management and only ends at the riders IMO.

thebluetrain said:

LOL, didnt you know, "lance armstrong started all this".

I know, there were NO drugs in the peloton before Lance and US Postal...