I believe Brailsford would like to have trust in all his riders from Sky and team GB are now clean but If a rider drifts to the dark side he can't control that can he?
Yes, he can - and he does. Garmin and Sky have very strong internal controls, with constant monitoring of their riders, so any suspicious changes in their blood values or performance should be quickly picked up.
David Millar talks about this in his book. One of his problems while at Cofidis was a lack of pastoral care by the team - they basically gave him a bike and some kit and told him when and where to turn up to race. When he got involved in setting up Garmin, they decided the team needed a central base, which they established in Girona. This has benefits for both team and riders - they train together, all their needs as riders are catered for, they aren't as exposed to dangerous external influences. Sky have taken this approach even further.
Then you get a team like AG2R, whose director Vincent Lavenu makes all the right antidoping noises, but doesn't provide the same level of pastoral care, so it's sad but hardly surprising when one of his riders (Steve Houanard) succumbs to the pressure to perform and does turn to the dark side.
Of course, the kind of closely controlled setup that Sky operate costs an awful lot of money to run...
d.
