Brits don't dope?

[buckle]

Re: Re:

If you want to see the joke which is the Anglo-Saxon diaspora in sport check out Rugby. The French have been on the receiving end for a century from crooked refs. The famous '99 semi-final France v New Zealand was hilarious when a Welsh ref thought he was reading from the anti-French script only to be informed by an English assistant that the script was not being used and it was ok to stop penalising them. All this was inadvertently relayed by the ITV commentator John Taylor who could hear the miked up officials. The second half witnessed a bizarre transformation

Calling B.S. France are the most successful nation in the 6 nations post WWII.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_national_rugby_union_team#Six_Nations

They have also reach the final of the World Cup 3 times, as many as Australia, New Zealand and England and more than South Africa.

It's because they are good in spite of the refs. When they were thrown out of the old 5 nations many of their players turned to rugby league and started beating up Australia after the War. I recall Claude Spanghero interviewed on French TV regarded the refs in the 5 nations and he was not bitter but realistic in his assessment (unlike you). Lawrence Dallaglio admitted (live on ITV) that the French did not stand a chance in the final 4 years ago because of the South African ref.

Rubbish, there have been just as many incidences of allegation of ref bias against other teams, just look at Steve Walsh. I have little regard for two peoples' opinions, I've quoted results showing that France have arguably been the most successful post-war international Northern Hemisphere rugby union team and certainly would be had they won a World Cup. Are you claiming they would have been even more successful, outstripping NZ? I highly doubt that. The stats don't lie, France have been incredibly successful (even at a club level they have won more Heiniken Cups than any other nation and have more runners up medals). You've taken two people's opinions that go completely against the quoted statistics but believed them because they support your position.

The 2011 final was won by one point by a team who had not lost a game. In contrast the French had lost 2 pool games, including one against the eventual winners New Zealand, and had experienced a player revolt against their coach. It's hardly surprising France lost. Yes, Joubert was criticised but many came to the conclusion NZ still took their chances and France lost through lack of a decent kicker. He also left Rougerie on the field who should have been sent off.

And post, not poster or we're done here.

The point is that the French are much the best team in Europe so it's no surprise their record is good. Spanghero is no ordinary reference point but a legend. It is delusional to think that in a sport dominated by WASPS (no pun intended) that there is no bias against the French.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I'm not sure what the point is here but from what I can tell so far - "Brits don't dope" the thread topic is false in my opinion.

To be very fair Most Merikans who might have a clue who David Walsh is would suspect he was British and they would not have a clue he is Irish.

 

[thehog]

Re:

The preme f the last few pages is that the Brits loss over dopng, whereas the Latins accept/embit.

Clearly, this is nonsense! But hey, its been fun

I agree, much fun! The Welsh dope, the Irish dope, the Scots dope (even though they won’t spend a penny) but the Brits don’t dope! That is a movie starring Mel Gibson right there! Jimmy tells a good yarn.

 

[Irondan]

Re:

I'm not sure what the point is here but from what I can tell so far - "Brits don't dope" the thread topic is false in my opinion.

To be very fair Most Merikans who might have a clue who David Walsh is would suspect he was British and they would not have a clue he is Irish.

It's called 'Brits don't dope?' with a question mark. I think the question mark makes the difference in that it's not a statement that 'Brits don't dope', but a facetious question.

 

[wendybnt]

And of course, we've had some great examples some of which have been posted by me, of the lengths to which other nations(usa, spain, to name 2) have gone to cover up doping by their own people. There is no indication that the Brits are any more upstanding, and none to suggest that the general public of all these nations differ in their outlook.

I find the obsession with Sky a little odd. I guess all these anti-Sky bots are new to cycling and don't realise that doping was invented by Astana.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

If you want to see the joke which is the Anglo-Saxon diaspora in sport check out Rugby. The French have been on the receiving end for a century from crooked refs. The famous '99 semi-final France v New Zealand was hilarious when a Welsh ref thought he was reading from the anti-French script only to be informed by an English assistant that the script was not being used and it was ok to stop penalising them. All this was inadvertently relayed by the ITV commentator John Taylor who could hear the miked up officials. The second half witnessed a bizarre transformation

Calling B.S. France are the most successful nation in the 6 nations post WWII.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_national_rugby_union_team#Six_Nations

They have also reach the final of the World Cup 3 times, as many as Australia, New Zealand and England and more than South Africa.

It's because they are good in spite of the refs. When they were thrown out of the old 5 nations many of their players turned to rugby league and started beating up Australia after the War. I recall Claude Spanghero interviewed on French TV regarded the refs in the 5 nations and he was not bitter but realistic in his assessment (unlike you). Lawrence Dallaglio admitted (live on ITV) that the French did not stand a chance in the final 4 years ago because of the South African ref.

Rubbish, there have been just as many incidences of allegation of ref bias against other teams, just look at Steve Walsh. I have little regard for two peoples' opinions, I've quoted results showing that France have arguably been the most successful post-war international Northern Hemisphere rugby union team and certainly would be had they won a World Cup. Are you claiming they would have been even more successful, outstripping NZ? I highly doubt that. The stats don't lie, France have been incredibly successful (even at a club level they have won more Heiniken Cups than any other nation and have more runners up medals). You've taken two people's opinions that go completely against the quoted statistics but believed them because they support your position.

The 2011 final was won by one point by a team who had not lost a game. In contrast the French had lost 2 pool games, including one against the eventual winners New Zealand, and had experienced a player revolt against their coach. It's hardly surprising France lost. Yes, Joubert was criticised but many came to the conclusion NZ still took their chances and France lost through lack of a decent kicker. He also left Rougerie on the field who should have been sent off.

And post, not poster or we're done here.

The point is that the French are much the best team in Europe so it's no surprise their record is good. Spanghero is no ordinary reference point but a legend. It is delusional to think that in a sport dominated by WASPS (no pun intended) that there is no bias against the French.

Legend? 22 caps over 4 years? You have a very different definition of legend to me and he still has an obvious bias. You can provide no objective data to show bias towards the French, all the stats point to there being no bias. Rugby union is possibly the easiest game for a referee to have an influence yet France have been allowed to be one of the most successful teams ever and have the most success in Europe's premier club competition (and also top with English clubs in the Challenge Cup).

I have no idea what WASPS is, googling it and rugby comes up with the club.

 

[wendybnt]

White Anglo-Saxon Protestants

 

[King Boonen]

Re:

White Anglo-Saxon Protestants

Oh. Someone obviously forgot to give the Maoris the memo.

 

[wendybnt]

And the Irish....

 

[JimmyFingers]

Re: Re:

I'm not sure what the point is here but from what I can tell so far - "Brits don't dope" the thread topic is false in my opinion.

To be very fair Most Merikans who might have a clue who David Walsh is would suspect he was British and they would not have a clue he is Irish.

It's called 'Brits don't dope?' with a question mark. I think the question mark makes the difference in that it's not a statement that 'Brits don't dope', but a facetious question.

This. The thread should just be called 'British Dope' but instead the title of the thread sets the mocking tone. Clearly Brits do dope, so instead it sets up a debate of the minutae of doping i.e. trying to set up a sliding scale of doping, making some dopers worse than others, some countries worse than others. You can see this from the last few pages, which started out debating more media treatment and coverage of sport and doping and differences between countries. My point which has been washed away through a bazooka blast of strawmen, was saying that as an English speaking website a lot of British media coverage is absorbed by the people here so their opinion of it becomes skewed, because we don't see other country's media portrayals of their sporting stars. My argument would be that is probably exactly the same.

An addendum to that would that it is a British newspaper that is going after Paula Radcliffe, someone cited as being part of a media cover-up, and a British parliamentary committee that indicated it was her after her injunction had prevented her being named in the press. None of that looks like a cover up to me.

I think there is a sustained effort in the clinic to create a narrative that somehow the traditional cycling countries are old school dopers, and as such better dopers, more 'honest' dopers (which is a contradiction in terms). I see it in discussions about say Sky compared to Astana and you can see it in the posts in this thread comparing Britain to Italy and Spain. Somehow its a British sense of fair play that is at fault, because in Italy and Spain they just shrug their shoulders, to paraphrase what has been said.

So somehow we are worse dopers than other nationalities, because we like to think our athletes are clean, because our media portrays our athletes as clean, and because as the Empire crew we sit around in our Pith helmets espousing British superiority. My point is we're no better or worse than any other country, and that if people were exposed to more of other country's media and sports coverage then this skewed opinion wouldn't be so prevalent. Except it probably would still be there in a different form.

 

[JimmyFingers]

Re: Re:

White Anglo-Saxon Protestants

Oh. Someone obviously forgot to give the Maoris the memo.

Its also an American term and doesn't fit well at all in the terms of rugby. I think we can all agree the powerhouses are the three Southern Hemisphere teams. As for the French, in rugby they have always made their own luck.

 

[Benotti69]

Of course, Brits dope! We invented every known thing to man during our Empire building days. Why else could we have dominated so strongly for a long time? Our entire navy was on PEDs all the time so as to stay alert and ready to fight at a starting gun's notice. We also invented sarcasm and the ability to take the piss out of oneself.

Our lads in 1944 must have been blood doping as how else did they single handedly take out the Wehrmacht

I think you'll find that they didn't do it singlehandedly. There were Americans, Canadians, French, Belgians, Irish, Australians, New Zealanders, Italians (not all Italians were fascists)Dutch, Polish and Russians to a name a few

 

[red_flanders]

Of course, Brits dope! We invented every known thing to man during our Empire building days. Why else could we have dominated so strongly for a long time? Our entire navy was on PEDs all the time so as to stay alert and ready to fight at a starting gun's notice. We also invented sarcasm and the ability to take the piss out of oneself.

Our lads in 1944 must have been blood doping as how else did they single handedly take out the Wehrmacht

I think you'll find that they didn't do it singlehandedly. There were Americans, Canadians, French, Belgians, Irish, Australians, New Zealanders, Italians (not all Italians were fascists)Dutch, Polish and Russians to a name a few

The Soviets might have had something to do with it, occupying 2/3 of the Axis armies for several years before the allies even landed. Possibly.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

I'm not sure what the point is here but from what I can tell so far - "Brits don't dope" the thread topic is false in my opinion.

To be very fair Most Merikans who might have a clue who David Walsh is would suspect he was British and they would not have a clue he is Irish.

It's called 'Brits don't dope?' with a question mark. I think the question mark makes the difference in that it's not a statement that 'Brits don't dope', but a facetious question.

This. The thread should just be called 'British Dope' but instead the title of the thread sets the mocking tone. Clearly Brits do dope, so instead it sets up a debate of the minutae of doping i.e. trying to set up a sliding scale of doping, making some dopers worse than others, some countries worse than others. You can see this from the last few pages, which started out debating more media treatment and coverage of sport and doping and differences between countries. My point which has been washed away through a bazooka blast of strawmen, was saying that as an English speaking website a lot of British media coverage is absorbed by the people here so their opinion of it becomes skewed, because we don't see other country's media portrayals of their sporting stars. My argument would be that is probably exactly the same.

An addendum to that would that it is a British newspaper that is going after Paula Radcliffe, someone cited as being part of a media cover-up, and a British parliamentary committee that indicated it was her after her injunction had prevented her being named in the press. None of that looks like a cover up to me.

I think there is a sustained effort in the clinic to create a narrative that somehow the traditional cycling countries are old school dopers, and as such better dopers, more 'honest' dopers (which is a contradiction in terms). I see it in discussions about say Sky compared to Astana and you can see it in the posts in this thread comparing Britain to Italy and Spain. Somehow its a British sense of fair play that is at fault, because in Italy and Spain they just shrug their shoulders, to paraphrase what has been said.

So somehow we are worse dopers than other nationalities, because we like to think our athletes are clean, because our media portrays our athletes as clean, and because as the Empire crew we sit around in our Pith helmets espousing British superiority. My point is we're no better or worse than any other country, and that if people were exposed to more of other country's media and sports coverage then this skewed opinion wouldn't be so prevalent. Except it probably would still be there in a different form.

Radcliffe used the legal system to protect her name being released to the media. Only under Parliamentary privilege could she be named. Yet somehow the Spanish are not allowed to use similar protocol with dealing blood bags 10 years old. No country is better or worse at it. For the moment the British are enjoying great success in cycling whilst pretending they are clean and "ZTP". That's why its easy to make fun.

 

[JimmyFingers]

I take it you guys get the sarcasm in those posts?

 

[wendybnt]

Bollox. It was the New Zealanders that won the war, when we invaded France in 1944.

I thought everyone knew that?

 

[wendybnt]

Re: Re:

For the moment the British are enjoying great success in cycling whilst pretending they are clean and "ZTP". That's why its easy to make fun.

And that is certainly a good point, and one which I agree with.

Where we differ (I think) is that I think everyone else is pretending to be clean too. Astana are much more successful than Sky, they even joined MPCC. If that isn't pretending to be clean, I don't know what is...and then they were kicked out.

Sky never even made the pretence of joining.

 

[JimmyFingers]

And I think you'll find the greatest sense of British pride comes not from winning that war, more the fact we weren't defeated. Never has so much been owed to so few yadadada

 

[JimmyFingers]

Re: Re:

Radcliffe used the legal system to protect her name being released to the media. Only under Parliamentary privilege could she be named. Yet somehow the Spanish are not allowed to use similar protocol with dealing blood bags 10 years old. No country is better or worse at it. For the moment the British are enjoying great success in cycling whilst pretending they are clean and "ZTP". That's why its easy to make fun.

I think the two are completely incomparable. Was it legal challenges from the individuals involved that made those blood bags be destroyed? If so why couldn't the cyclists manage it too, rather than be the tethered goat?

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

For the moment the British are enjoying great success in cycling whilst pretending they are clean and "ZTP". That's why its easy to make fun.

And that is certainly a good point, and one which I agree with.

Where we differ (I think) is that I think everyone else is pretending to be clean too. Astana are much more successful than Sky, they even joined MPCC. If that isn't pretending to be clean, I don't know what is...and then they were kicked out.

Sky never even made the pretence of joining.

Froome was part of BikePure until he became SuperDawg

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

So somehow we are worse dopers than other nationalities, because we like to think our athletes are clean, because our media portrays our athletes as clean, and because as the Empire crew we sit around in our Pith helmets espousing British superiority. My point is we're no better or worse than any other country, and that if people were exposed to more of other country's media and sports coverage then this skewed opinion wouldn't be so prevalent. Except it probably would still be there in a different form.

Or, each nation that has had their time to shine has protected their own via attempting to control the narrative, whether it be protectionist in the form of direct intervention (Spain 90s-early 00s), politically charged persecution narratives (East Germany and the USSR 70s-80s), shouting down dissenting voices that challenge the feelgood narrative (Germany 90s), deliberately straying away from testing (Jamaica) or a combination of all of the above (USA 80s-90s-early 00s). Success breeds resentment, and domination breeds antipathy. People who are extremely successful will always divide the audience, and the more successful they are the more polarized that response will be. Especially when the narrative that is chosen to justify it comes across to many as arrogant and - if it turns out the Emperor is, as everybody suspects, naked - hypocritical, which means people want that narrative to be shown up as the BS they suspect it is. That's why Armstrong being brought down was so much bigger than bringing down so many other sportsmen, and it's why Radcliffe is a bigger story than many of the other potential British doping names being pointed at.

Oh, and you have the issue that people's constant bashing at the populist British and tabloid media "holier than thou" defence has led to a second line of defence in the form of the persecution complex, which also breeds antipathy from a different direction. At this point they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. They're also hurt by being the first of these real national wave of success stories to take place after the real takeoff of social media, because it's so much harder to control the story now, as we found in the Tour, when the fans' refusal to believe in Froome became a story in and of itself.

 

[wendybnt]

Re: Re:

For the moment the British are enjoying great success in cycling whilst pretending they are clean and "ZTP". That's why its easy to make fun.

And that is certainly a good point, and one which I agree with.

Where we differ (I think) is that I think everyone else is pretending to be clean too. Astana are much more successful than Sky, they even joined MPCC. If that isn't pretending to be clean, I don't know what is...and then they were kicked out.

Sky never even made the pretence of joining.

Froome was part of BikePure until he became SuperDawg

So no difference to the pretence of Astana then.

Glad we got there in the end

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

For the moment the British are enjoying great success in cycling whilst pretending they are clean and "ZTP". That's why its easy to make fun.

And that is certainly a good point, and one which I agree with.

Where we differ (I think) is that I think everyone else is pretending to be clean too. Astana are much more successful than Sky, they even joined MPCC. If that isn't pretending to be clean, I don't know what is...and then they were kicked out.

Sky never even made the pretence of joining.

Froome was part of BikePure until he became SuperDawg

So no difference to the pretence of Astana then.

Glad we got there in the end

So Froome and Astana two sides of the same coin. Wonder did that help with the Landa signing.......

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re:

I'm not sure what the point is here but from what I can tell so far - "Brits don't dope" the thread topic is false in my opinion.

To be very fair Most Merikans who might have a clue who David Walsh is would suspect he was British and they would not have a clue he is Irish.

Agreed. He's white and speaks with a non-US accent, therefore he's a Brit. To expect everyone to know a journo's country of origin based on their accent or bio is petty.

 

[wendybnt]

Re: Re:

For the moment the British are enjoying great success in cycling whilst pretending they are clean and "ZTP". That's why its easy to make fun.

And that is certainly a good point, and one which I agree with.

Where we differ (I think) is that I think everyone else is pretending to be clean too. Astana are much more successful than Sky, they even joined MPCC. If that isn't pretending to be clean, I don't know what is...and then they were kicked out.

Sky never even made the pretence of joining.

Froome was part of BikePure until he became SuperDawg

So no difference to the pretence of Astana then.

Glad we got there in the end

So Froome and Astana two sides of the same coin. Wonder did that help with the Landa signing.......

Of course they are two sides of the same coin. Top riders, top teams, same ***. Are you surprised?

By the way, have you managed to find any evidence from Italian and Spanish media sources to back up your claim that their reporting of doping issues is markedly different to that of the British media?

Or are you letting it drop?