D-Queued said:What does that prove? Their cheaters are better than our cheaters? Or, that our cheaters are idiots because they can't win even with cheating?
How about the size of the cycling community in either country?
My point is that it is no wonder that there are many doping cases in cycling in Spain, since there are plenty of cyclists. I am sure Canada has more dopers in ice hockey.
I do not know what is "the cycling community", but whatever it is for you has nothing to do with a bunch of dopers at the proffesional level.
D-Queued said:There is a point that the Spanish language uses a reflexive case that in a literal sense puts the action on the object, rather than the subject. In Spanish, the plate broke itself. In English, the plate broke.
Sorry to say that you are not correct. In particular your example is not at all a reflexive, it is a special construction that is called in Spanish a "pronominal media". If you can speak Spanish you can get more information from the Instituto Cervantes in this article http://cvc.cervantes.es/ensenanza/biblioteca_ele/asele/pdf/09/09_0554.pdf
We say in Spanish "El (subject) rompió el plato" (he broke the plate), and therefore romper (break) is a transitive verb. The "pronominal media" is widely used when the subject is not important for the case that is being communicated. For example it is normal to say in Spanish "mi padre se mató en un accidente de trafico" (my father died in a car accident), and it does not translate like my father killed himself in a car accident (implying that he suicided or was not cautious while driving)
In your example the plate did not broke itself, it is just a construction when the person speaking does not mind about who or how the plate was broken.
You can also get info about this in the wikipedia, it is explained quite well http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbo_pronominal
Incidentally I do not know what does it have with cycling or doping how we speak in Spanish. But anyway, you was wrong about your point. If you need more info about the use of pronominal media in Spanish just let me know.