Libertine Seguros said:
...I dare say that your doe-eyed devotion has helped cause some of that antipathy towards Evans.
I agree with the entire post you made about an OTT comment.
I think there is some special truth in this bit, as it's certainly true for me. I do like folk rooting for folk, it is what makes sport fora such a great outlet for sporting tribalism.
But like totem riders create an impression that reflects on the tribe, through results and behaviour, the tribe itself also rubs off on how the totem is perceived. Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but it certainly works like that for me.
There is a fine line between devoted jesting and rooting, with a fair give and take, and blind devotion in which people lose the ability to take as well as they give. At that point
they become a big factor that affects how people react when that totem is waved in folk's faces.
Auscyclingfan, you obviously weren't happy about people wishing Evans to crash hard, whenever it was levelled at you. Yet, despite that, you
still wrie exactly the same.
Somehow that "heart on my sleeve" feels that when you write exactly the same, it suddenly is "obviously" a joke. Or somehow better if it was a joke. Like "I wish he would get into a situation where he would have a good chance at real real harm (joke)" reads any better.
Either you totally deal with this in a joke realm that doesn't exist in my head, but are then unable to react likewise when it concerns your guy. Or you are trying to make a case that because no-one responded to someone driving a car too fast past a school, all parents worldwide are having double standards for getting outraged when they witness it themselves. You've become an offender who goes all victimey on us.... "but last week someone drove past my kid and no-one....".
This is an argument for what exactly? Double-standards by parents, or an indication that the driver who really should know better then, has instead lost the real plot and perspective?
I'll give you that Evans certainly isn't liked as much here as you do, and I get that over time you get sensitive. But he certainly isn't disliked as much as you claim either. For most folk I think he is just "meh". For some it is starting to become "meh-blind(ish)fanbehaviour", and your post like these contribute to that. If you had said "man, some folk here want my guy to fail, but I would have laughed my **** iff if someone closed the door on Valverde and got away with cheating him out of a win", most of us would probably chimed right in with you on that one.
Root for your rider, but don't become so blindly biased and uneven-handed that people start to care less about the repeat-offender, or get so annoyed that they evcen start to care less about the kid of a repeat-offender. Or that of an extensive-excuse-maker-in-an-actually-really-accusing-others-way. You are skirting the thin line between "fun, biased and enthused" and "mean, way-ott and blind" more than once, in my book.
I'm writing this because I do like the vast majority of your contributions, and 2010 would lose some appeal if we couldn't point out how many Spanish riders were ahead of him to you.
But I have seen you slip into some real grudges with pretty tempered people here lately. Deep breath, think of rainbows, and how nice the TdF will be when the Schlecks aren't fit, and Contador isn't quite on form either, and Evans is finally in a TdF with a team that is racing fully for him. In a rainbow jersey!
That he still will have to kiss Spanish and Luxembourgh ****, well... it's not that we haven't told you so. And let's hope he has learned the importance of staying ahead of Gesink in the Tour too.
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