Lim Moves to Radioshack, A new opportunity to "innovate sports science"... Options

[Mark]

http://velonews.com/article/100297/sports-...to-join-the-new

Innovate sports science? That's an interesting way to phrase the reasoning behind why I put this thread in this forum.

I'd love to see the particulars of his contract!

[Kiwi]

Sounds like there was a problem fitting him in with a lower workload but with full salary.

Still, kudos for the article raising this:

Critics saw Lim’s involvement with America’s “clean team” as problematic, questioning how he could have missed potential signs of Landis using performance-enhancing drugs when analyzing his power data. However, Lim denied any knowledge, telling VeloNews in 2007: “Floyd’s testing positive was as much a surprise to me as it was to anyone in the cycling public. I can only draw my own conclusions about what really happened, and they are hypothetical, along with everyone else. If Floyd was part of a darker world, he kept me really protected from that world. That’s a really big if, and I don’t know if I should be thankful for that or angry for that.”

I'm sure Lim's eyes are a bit more wide open now, but will he have to squint them at the Shack? Time to re-read his Ed Coyle?

[D-Queued]

http://velonews.com/article/100297/sports-...to-join-the-new

Innovate sports science? That's an interesting way to phrase the reasoning behind why I put this thread in this forum.

I'd love to see the particulars of his contract!

Well stated.

Agree with the kudos offered by Kiwi:

...I don’t know if I should be thankful for that or angry for that.

Though not a master
of Floyd's disaster
Lim can twirl his eyes
In mock surprise .
To promote laughter
For what RS is after

It the real message that Radio Shack is simply thumbing its nose at doping control?

Dave.

[smug]

doping controls are an opportunity to take an advantage over the other guys

[Burkni]

This is wonderful:

Asked if it was Armstrong or Bruyneel who had expressed interest in signing him, Lim said it was “a combination of the two, I’m sure.” Lim added that the only time he’d previously spoken with Armstrong was nearly 10 years ago, when Armstrong called him asking “how to convert kilojoules to kilocalories.”

[Lister Farrar]

Ok, as the compulsive optimist, I guess it's my job to add:

Maybe Armstrong and Bruyneel want Lim to show them some ways to win that aren't doping. Maybe the passport is getting too close, and the many micro-infusions, 'drainage' ('forget the proper term), etc., are making the riders feel like pin cushions. Maybe those methods have less and less benefit under passport surveillance, approaching the benefits of other scientific, legal, performance enhancements.

[shag]

Maybe Armstrong and Bruyneel want Lim to show them some ways to win that aren't doping.

This post has been edited by shag: Dec 9 2009, 10:22 PM

[D-Queued]

Ok, as the compulsive optimist, I guess it's my job to add:

Maybe Armstrong and Bruyneel want Lim to show them some ways to win that aren't doping. Maybe the passport is getting too close, and the many micro-infusions, 'drainage' ('forget the proper term), etc., are making the riders feel like pin cushions. Maybe those methods have less and less benefit under passport surveillance, approaching the benefits of other scientific, legal, performance enhancements.

Thanks Lister!

You may also be getting an employment offer soon!

Tigers and stripes.

Dave.

[Kiwi]

...just to add some wild speculation:

I think Lim didn't know what Landis was doing, or at least he wasn't made privy to the program. As a sports scientist, he just crunched the numbers. He saw the gains but thought they were from training - and Landis's numbers weren't off the hook relative to others.

He seemed to be doing some pretty good work at Garmin, strictly by the book.

Perhaps - with a nod to Lister - that's what Shack wants. Plus, he's already demonstrated an ability (okay, not so optimistic) to work in a 'compartment'; if he's working more at home crunching numbers he won't get in the way of motorbikes with panniers or the garbage bags with the medical waste.

[Lister Farrar]

You may also be getting an employment offer soon!

Tigers and stripes.

Dave.

Hey, if it was as chief ethics officer, with power to make Lance and Johan admit their transgressions, and apologize to my kids for messing up their view of cycling, I'm there!

But I don't think the stripes will change that much...

I'd also need carte blanche to put Lance's cancer income towards cancer. That's going to be even harder.

But seriously, like Catlin, it is a possibility that something is making them want to appear to be clean. Didn't work with Catlin, but if Lim has to quit after a few months, it will be even clearer, will it not?

[Lister Farrar]

Good stuff about Lim here, and in the linked interviews, including an admirable position on doping, but also hard questions from NYVelocity. (Damn, I wish other journalists asked questions like that.)

http://nyvelocity.com/content/features/200...lim-radio-shack

[frenchfry]

Ok, as the compulsive optimist, I guess it's my job to add:

Maybe Armstrong and Bruyneel want Lim to show them some ways to win that aren't doping. Maybe the passport is getting too close, and the many micro-infusions, 'drainage' ('forget the proper term), etc., are making the riders feel like pin cushions. Maybe those methods have less and less benefit under passport surveillance, approaching the benefits of other scientific, legal, performance enhancements.

But they already have Ferrari, that famous "doctor" who shuns doping in favor of super training plans and orange juice.

[D-Queued]

...just to add some wild speculation:

I think Lim didn't know what Landis was doing, or at least he wasn't made privy to the program. As a sports scientist, he just crunched the numbers. He saw the gains but thought they were from training - and Landis's numbers weren't off the hook relative to others.

He seemed to be doing some pretty good work at Garmin, strictly by the book.

Perhaps - with a nod to Lister - that's what Shack wants. Plus, he's already demonstrated an ability (okay, not so optimistic) to work in a 'compartment'; if he's working more at home crunching numbers he won't get in the way of motorbikes with panniers or the garbage bags with the medical waste.

(I respect your posts, so don't take this negatively)

If Lim had *ANY* experience as a sports scientist, he would have been *F'g AMAZED* at Landis' gains.

It is hard to believe that he could not have found Landis' numbers out of this world, unless all of his other experiences had been with similar 'programmed' athletes.

Dave.

[Burkni]

(I respect your posts, so don't take this negatively)

If Lim had *ANY* experience as a sports scientist, he would have been *F'g AMAZED* at Landis' gains.

It is hard to believe that he could not have found Landis' numbers out of this world, unless all of his other experiences had been with similar 'programmed' athletes.

Dave.

+1
IMO, there is absolutely no way to be intricately involved with the training (or any intimate matter) of pro cyclists and not be in the know.

[Strategy]

Sadly, there seems to be no way for a sports scientist to be involved in Cycling and keep their reputation. Many have tried ... success rate: 0.

[Kiwi]

(I respect your posts, so don't take this negatively)

If Lim had *ANY* experience as a sports scientist, he would have been *F'g AMAZED* at Landis' gains.

It is hard to believe that he could not have found Landis' numbers out of this world, unless all of his other experiences had been with similar 'programmed' athletes.

Dave.

Let me throw some more speculation at this one...

I'm just reading the interview with Lim and found it interesting that he was just out of grad school and was really not employed fulltime by Landis. Then he commented: "I knew it was consistent with what I'd seen him do in training, the power values I had for him both for training and racing."

Which makes me wonder if Lim really had much experience at all with 'real world' coaching to be able to see that something was wrong, and whether Landis was on some sort of program that rolled over from Postal. Perhaps Lim really was just naive and had very little with which to make comparisons. If I recall correctly, Landis' absolute numbers weren't off the scale - impressive, but not Armstrong-esque.

For some reason, I'm inclined to give Lim the benefit of the doubt. How the conversation with Armstrong about 6.7 w/kg will go would be just fascinating to hear, though!

[floridacyclist]

Let me throw some more speculation at this one...

I'm just reading the interview with Lim and found it interesting that he was just out of grad school and was really not employed fulltime by Landis. Then he commented: "I knew it was consistent with what I'd seen him do in training, the power values I had for him both for training and racing."

Which makes me wonder if Lim really had much experience at all with 'real world' coaching to be able to see that something was wrong, and whether Landis was on some sort of program that rolled over from Postal. Perhaps Lim really was just naive and had very little with which to make comparisons. If I recall correctly, Landis' absolute numbers weren't off the scale - impressive, but not Armstrong-esque.

For some reason, I'm inclined to give Lim the benefit of the doubt. How the conversation with Armstrong about 6.7 w/kg will go would be just fascinating to hear, though!

That Lim would peddle that garbage even today, is nothing but self-serving spin. Nobody starts doping when they show up at the Tour. And he damned well knows that. So to set up the bogus argument that he had no reason to suspect anything was amiss, had no signs, no clues, because Floyd's performance was roughly constant while he was with him, is flat out disingenuous. It's intellectually dishonest. Seriously, it'd be like a doped-up body-builder's coach saying "well, gee, I had no inkling the guy was doping -- I mean he lifted just as much in the gym in the days before the competition as he had when I started working with him 9 months earlier, he weighed the same thing, give or take, had just as many bulging muscles". That line of reasoning, of course, is a J-O-K-E. It's just a self-serving way of trying to establish innocence.

Yes, Lim was young and inexperienced. But that doesn't wash as cover either. You don't get a graduate degree in sports physiology and and live in that kind of world -- even if it is only the academic side -- without knowing what the lay of the land is generally. No you might not know the full extent or all the specifics, but to not know the various ways in which basic performance enhancement is achieved, not know the full set of alternatives in which injuries can be rapidly healed, recovery aided, etc., and to fail to know those same methods can be used to increase performance ... it's not possible. Either that or you'd have to be the most deliberately clueless guy on the planet.

Lim is trying to have it both ways here, or trying to con people into believing there really is a way he can be inside and do what he does, while having no association with what goes on inside.

And yes, the final insult is him claiming Floyd's numbers weren't other-worldly. He can't have it both ways. Either he plays the naive and inexperienced card -- in which case, he hasn't worked with world-class athletes before, in which case, Floyd's numbers would have been so far off the charts compared to anything else he'd ever seen before, he'd be blown away. Hell, Floyd's number were off the charts relative to the other guys he rode off the mountain the day of "The Ride" ... including just riding his breakaway partner off his wheel like some sort of Cat 5 local racer.

If Lim wanted any credibility, he could be HONEST instead of this disingenuous B.S. He could step up and say, "there was really no way for me to know with any certainty one way or the other. Some guys get that rare gift to perform at the top of the world while clean, where even other super-talented pros would require dope to get to. You can give me the data from those two guys, and it will be identical. And I literally can't tell you which is which. My job wasn't to start out doubting Floyd, it was to take the measurements, do the science, relay the results. The results were relatively consistent. I'm not an idiot, and I'm not clueless, and I don't wish to be disingenuous here. So I'll say this: I knew all along, that it was theoretically possible that he doped. I also knew from the relative consistency of his performance metrics, that if he doped, he doped "professionally" -- meaning he doped systematically, according to a long-term program, in secret, in a way that kept anyone who didn't need to know, in the dark and clean, with full plausible deniability. I can assure you, I never saw a needle, and Floyd never said a word. That being the case, I don't feel like it's on me to go around doubting and trying to dig for things out of my view. But I can also tell you I was aware that in my position, I would never know one way or the other. That is the nature of the business. So either I was going to turn down the job with Floyd and turn down every other job I'm ever offered in elite sports where success is a function of maximizing human physiological performance, or I'm going to accept that I can only control my job, and then rely on the testing, and the institutional governing bodies to police the sport. And to go about doing my job in a way where I step up to the plate any time my scientific results indicate doping. That's it. That's all I can do. That's all anyone in my position can do."



This post has been edited by floridacyclist: Dec 11 2009, 05:24 PM

[D-Queued]

Good PR options florida, but the more likely truth is that he simply knew what was going on.

In that case, looking for gray areas becomes pretty hard.

Floyd doped right after OP and BALCO hit the fan. OP broke that May and was headline news during that Tour. Presuming that he isn't an idiot, then either:

1. He simply turned his head the other way.
2. He knew that his work would assist the fine-tuning of the program.

Dave.

[Steve in ATL]

I see the whitewash bucket is back out, looking for targets of opportunity.

Good job, guys.

[Burkni]

@kiwi: I really don't think FL took anything with him from Postal to Phonak in terms of doping. He was visibly worse in 2005 than 2004 in the Tour (there is of course the thing with being a leader for the first time and all that) but in 2006 he was simply a new rider, with an extra-relaxed riding style, noted by many commentators.

@florida: good post