Last night, anti-doping campaigner and Sunday Independent journalist Paul Kimmage was on Off The Ball to give his take on Team Sky's decision to release some of Tour de France race leader's Chris Froome's performance data.
Kimmage was critical of Team Sky general manager David Brailsford as well as The Times newspaper, which he described as the "official organ of Team Sky", adding that they "just take the party line".
On tonight's show, The Sunday Times writer and fellow anti-doping advocate David Walsh joined us to discuss the scrutiny surrounding Froome and the sport at present.
Listen to the full interview with David Walsh right here via the podcast player:
But he also gave his opinion on Kimmage's comments and while he said he agreed with some of what the Dubliner had to say, he challenged one thing.
"I think it's unfair to say that The Times has become the mouth-piece for Team Sky. The piece that Paul referred to - the Matthew Syed piece on Roger Palfreeman - was a daft piece in fairness. I don't know what Matthew Syed was trying to say or what the piece was trying to do but it didn't make a lot of sense to me so criticism of that piece is totally justified," said Walsh.
Chris Froome on Mont Ventoux during Tour de France 2013 (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)
"But I'm on the race here now and for the last few days Dave Brailsford has not been talking to Matt Dickinson, whose covering the race for The Times, because he didn't like Matt Dickinson writing about Peter Verbeken, who was a former US Postal soigneur."
Walsh also said The Times has broken two stories which have been damaging to Team Sky in the past, namely ex-team doctor Geert Leinders and the Jonathan Tiernan-Locke case.
As for Froome data ending up in the public domain two weeks ago, Walsh feels it is unclear whether it is in fact a hack or a leak.
And says he "wouldn't have a clue about power wattage" and that the evidence used to build the picture about Lance Armstrong came from the key witnesses rather than being data-based.
Looking at the sport as a whole in the post-Armstrong exposé years, Walsh feels "things have improved".
"I tend to look at it now and I don't see anybody in this race pointing their finger at Chris Froome. I see French rider Thobaut Pinot has come up to Nicolas Roche on the race the other day, saying how he totally disagrees with Laurent Jalabert casting aspersions in Froome's direction," he said.
Walsh also feels that if future allegations of doping against any rider are proved to be true, that it will be journalists rather than scientists who will get to the bottom of it, and also feels Team Sky have been placed under more scrutiny than other teams.
"For whatever reason and I believe it's an interesting question, Sky are subjected to more rigorous scrutiny than most teams in the peloton," he said, also highlighting some of the reasons why the team is resented, in his view.
You can listen back to yesterday's interview with Kimmage here:
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