DirtyDennis said:
100% Top post Blackcat
USPS is a classic example....Mixed nationality team, doping provided by Spanish and Italians, managed by a Belgian , and paid for by US taxpayers
But yes, your salient point is that the mentality that drives these types of people does not recognise borders. Nationality is a red-herring in this respect.
Where it is salient is in respect of the attitude of national federations (I'm thinking here of the frankly risible attempt by the Spanish to torpedo Contador's drug positive, with the help of the Spanish prime minister), and also the law..Some countries have been quicker than others to criminalise doping.
Quite where the UK stands in this is interesting. The British Olympic committee did their utmost to prevent convicted dopers like Millar representing the country in the Olympics, but of course once the legal impediment was removed Team GB welcomed him with open arms
The British character is outwardly puritanical, or publically puritanical perhaps. Which is of no relevance whatsoever as to whether or not Brits dope (they do), only to how the media treats them when they are caught. And how certain feds and organsiations assume they are supposed to behave.
The BOA attempt to maintain the life ban was quixotic, and WADA wanted it gone - but the idea of maintaining that sense of purity was very very popular in GB, and in the GB media. Both Chambers, and expecially Miller have long track records of repentance, however disingenuous you might find that. And still, the bulk of opinion was, keep them out.
Gatlin's return was viewed with little less than revulsion. But more important the BOA felt it was SUPPOSED to behave like this, to fight for the ban, even if it was pointless.
Interesting case in point, do some twitter investigations around Veronica Campbell-Brown, (or VCB) bona fide Jamaican sprint legend, always had reasonably good rep, certainly compared to Shelley Anne and Pharma Jeter...until two days ago,when she got busted for a masking agent. The sixth jamaican sprinter to be busted in about a year - only one day before Dominique Blaze got a six year ban for a second offence, and most of us still remember both Shelley anne and Yohan Blake being VERY lucky not to pick up serious bans.
Anyway, do some VCB searches on twitter, and you'll find a SERIOUS amount of defensiveness from Jamaicans, annoyance that it gives the USA something to point at, hopes and prayers that it's all a terrible mistake, and about a dozen other things.
What there's less of is a media or public witchunt against VCB herself. It's a reaction, oddly, I recognise...we did much the same with Michelle Smyth, to begin with. The little country with a broken superstar.
Compare with how the UK media treated Dwain Chambers, it's instructive. The Brit still cheated, just as bad, if not worse, but the media reaction, the cultural reaction, was different. Maybe more noble, maybe more hypocritical, maybe more naive, maybe more cynical. I'm not sure.
There's no gene for doping, nor a passport for it either; but it is also willful blindness not to accept that there are cultural idiosyncrasies that affect it. And it's not necessarily some ridiculous nationalistic chest thumping to say so.
If I was to hazard a guess, I'd say Aus and GB both share a cultural trait - a cynical media, serving a public reared on scandal, that loves nothing more than the downfall of the celebrated, even when the downfall is nothing to do with the reason for their fame - what in Oz might be termed tall poppy syndrome. The 'weak-wille' doper might think twice because of that, I'm not sure. The determined one, of course, won't.
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