Difference between American and European fans

[RightWingNutJob]

Luke, come to the dark side!

I can feel the hate swelling in you!

 

[mambo#5]

Where is Joe Papp when you need him.

 

[Nobody you know]

I can feel the hate swelling in you!

HUH? I was joking about someone's darkside comment. Must not take forum talk toooo seriously.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Americans generally have no interest in cheating on others. These young riders come over to Europe, see what's going on, and after a long and hard-fought battle are finally pulled into the world of doping. This is just a very sad thing to happen, and I ask all young and hopeful American riders to please stay in this great country and not let themselves get corrupted on European turf. We can have a harder and more beautiful race than the TdF, generate genuine interest among American consumers, and simply block out the rest of the world, where nobody gives a d... about clean, fair sport.

As a European living & working in the US I can confirm that the above is absolutley corrrect.
I will happily invest in your 'American Tour' - I have some Enron share's from years ago and I am sure they are worth a lot now.

 

[davidw]

Damn. I was hoping to read about people painting 'dirty' body parts on roads and ringing cowbells and pushing riders up the hills.

Doping? Homer Simpson voice: BOOOORING

 

[hfer07]

americans generally have no interest in cheating on others.

does marion jones ring the bell for you?

 

[BroDeal]

I find it funny how many people Alex99 is still sucking in.

 

[Wasilij]

I haven't read all the above posts, so perhaps this has been said already, but:
Given the author's knowledgeability it can only be assumed that he is wilfully concealing doping in US sports (which is too obvious to require documentation here). And his generalizations about the attitudes of "Europeans" are so broad as to be meaningless. The author obviously has no inkling of the vituperation directed at anything even resembling pro cycling by the general public in Germany. Despite - or rather precisely because of - Jan Ullrich's former idolization. TV coverage on the public (i.e. non-commercial) channels in Germany has been reduced to 1 hour daily, and about half of that is devoted to hypocritically (in my opinion) villainizing all those horrible dopers, LA above all.

 

[The Falcon]

Actually I think they were mostly agnostics.

@Doug: I certainly wanted to punch those flag waving imbeciles in the face yesterday. I think I saw Pellizoti actually get whipped with a flag by one of the orange-clad Basque fans. I think so far, though, the most obnoxious fans award might go to those Aussies with the bright wigs and flag capes who run along next to the riders with cameras, apparently filming them and often almost falling in front of them. (Not knocking Australians in general, just this particular group.)

The Borat swimsuit thing is getting old, too.

I dont think so, its commonly known that a significant proportion of early American settlers fled religious persecution in their homelands.
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html

I will agree that my countrymen are putting on a stirling display of drunken loutishness, not quite up at the level of the Ullrich era Germans, but they are working on it

 

[BroDeal]

I haven't read all the above posts, so perhaps this has been said already, but:
Given the author's knowledgeability it can only be assumed that he is wilfully concealing doping in US sports (which is too obvious to require documentation here). And his generalizations about the attitudes of "Europeans" are so broad as to be meaningless. The author obviously has no inkling of the vituperation directed at anything even resembling pro cycling by the general public in Germany. Despite - or rather precisely because of - Jan Ullrich's former idolization. TV coverage on the public (i.e. non-commercial) channels in Germany has been reduced to 1 hour daily, and about half of that is devoted to hypocritically (in my opinion) villainizing all those horrible dopers, LA above all.

Maybe the situation in Germany supports the author's point if you assume that by Europe he meant the centers of cycling like Belgium, Spain, France, and Italy. Why would the Germans be so upset if they were not as naive in the same way the author ascribes to the U.S.?

The author is obviously writing for an American audience, and, as I said above, Americans do not do nuance very well. Differences between European countries that seem obvious to Europeans are not so obvious to Americans, who are more likely to see a monolithic "place" called Europe. On this last point, American political rhetoric often refers to Europe almost as though it were one country.

 

[RigelKent]

I dont think so, its commonly known that a significant proportion of early American settlers fled religious persecution in their homelands.
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html

I will agree that my countrymen are putting on a stirling display of drunken loutishness, not quite up at the level of the Ullrich era Germans, but they are working on it

The colonists that came here originally were often quite religious. But when we use the term "founding fathers" we're talking about the founders of the country, not the colonies. Very few fundamentalists there. Jefferson rewrote the bible to eliminate any reference to Jesus' divinity. Washington was a Deist at most, and was rarely if ever seen in a church. Adams talked about the blindness of the masses following religious beliefs. They had views very similar to many European intellectuals of the time. They were men of the Enlightenment and showed it.

I'm still impressed by "vituperation".

 

[biker77]

I found this an interesting article. I am a european living in the us and found a bit of the "we are innocent young americans corrupted by euro cycling" a bit too much. I work for a us corporation and there are plenty of rings being kissed every day.

However, most of the article is quite damning of cycling in general. I am not sure what to think about that, but unfortunately most of it is well supported.

If LA is clean expect a huge law suit and SI to be bankrupt, as the allegation is pretty clear.

The author could take the same sharp pen to baseball and the nfl. The only problem is that no-one is interested for longer than 60 days.

 

[RigelKent]

I found this an interesting article. I am a european living in the us and found a bit of the "we are innocent young americans corrupted by euro cycling" a bit too much. I work for a us corporation and there are plenty of rings being kissed every day.

However, most of the article is quite damning of cycling in general. I am not sure what to think about that, but unfortunately most of it is well supported.

If LA is clean expect a huge law suit and SI to be bankrupt, as the allegation is pretty clear.

The author could take the same sharp pen to baseball and the nfl. The only problem is that no-one is interested for longer than 60 days.

I agree the part about the innocent Americans just doesn't play. I'm also not sure if the author wants us to maintain our American naiveté or grow up and become jaded realists like he portrays the Europeans.

 

[The Falcon]

RigelKent - i referred to forefathers, not founding fathers, however i have no argument with your point at all. My point is that American puritanical thinking descends from the puritan settlers and religious refugees that settled the colonies....this often manifests itself in a love/hate , black/white, with us/against us mentality fuelled with constant references to "God". It is something quite foreign to us, given our roots

now, back to Cycling banter.

 

[RigelKent]

RigelKent - i referred to forefathers, not founding fathers, however i have no argument with your point at all. My point is that American puritanical thinking descends from the puritan settlers and religious refugees that settled the colonies....this often manifests itself in a love/hate , black/white, with us/against us mentality fuelled with constant references to "God". It is something quite foreign to us, given our roots

now, back to Cycling banter.

Don't forget the Scots-Irish effect.

That said, how do we last until Andy has a chance to attack again?

 

[180mmCrank]

Couldn't resist...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4tDP-yMwXI

Pre-House: Before he was the guy with the limp and the bad attitude

 

[Oldman]

"puritanical & Naive"

Let's be clear. America really couldn't give a s**t about cycling because most of them can and do give it up for a vehicle. It is generally middle and upper class Americans involved in the sport. I'm one of them and didn't start until my mid-thirties. Having run track and playing US football I harbored no illusions about the sport being clean. We did, however, take the clean road as the "right" road not as puritans but as a definition of the playing field. I raced with young riders whom eventually became US World team members who totally disallusioned after competitive trips through Europe. The stories of Italian, Russian, Dutch and German junior teams with more "doctors" than riders openned their eyes completely and they quit the sport. I'm talking about riders that rode Levi and Lance off their wheels and knew Tyler as a cheat early on.
There are plenty of talented clean riders in both continents and a share of dirty ones. It is getting tiresome reading some the derogatory terms: fanboys, village idiots, etc. related to some "sophisticated knowledge" of the sport. You can't disparage a lover of the sport for wanting it to be an ideal of fairness while claiming to know everything. As I've said before-unless you've ridden with each man you don't know what he's capable of or whether he's clean. Stereotyping and catagorizing those that disagree with your view is the ultimate idiocy and mindless conceit. Go ride your bike as hard as you can until this stuff doesn't bother you and you'll make at least on cyclist better.

 

[biker77]

Oldman, I agree with the spirit of what you are saying. Please name the Italian, Russian, Dutch and German junior teams that had more doctors than riders. Also, please name the riders who could ride Lance and Levi off their wheels and knew that Tyler was a cheat.

 

[Oldman]

biker77

First post didn't go through but message the same: is this discussion an Inquistion with you the Judge? Not going to name someone who doesn't care anymore but you can look at National junior team members, senior team members and Olympian during those rider's careers and there are plenty strong enough to do it. I did it too.

 

[lean mean &green]

We did, however, take the clean road as the "right" road not as puritans but as a definition of the playing field. There are plenty of talented clean riders in both continents and a share of dirty ones..

Solid reasoning from Oldman again. I've been racing bikes for about a decade. Puritans never entered my thoughts. It's 2009. If any of you making these arguments have history or sociology degrees please return them to the institutions where you got them.

Go ride your bike as hard as you can until this stuff doesn't bother you and you'll make at least one cyclist better.

I already rode today and it's 9pm in Philadelphia, but you can bet your *** I will again tomorrow!

 

[BikeCentric]

Go ride your bike as hard as you can until this stuff doesn't bother you and you'll make at least on cyclist better.

Been doing that for 10 years but doping in cycling still bothers me. I'll keep trying to ride the angst out of my system though I can assure you (and me) of that.

 

[knewcleardaze]

Professional sports is NOTHING else than entertainment!

Ditto that!

 

[knewcleardaze]

Americans in general are just too big a bunch of douchebags to appreciate this wonderful sport, so f 'em.[/QUOTE]

I forgive em. Stupid people don't know they're stupid.

 

[Alex99]

does marion jones ring the bell for you?

Ok, now here's another expert.
I'll still solve it myself (even though the discussion is evolving and going into another direction) and tell you explicitly that my original post in this thread was NOT serious.
Instead, I was trying to imply that in my humble opinion, it is very hypocritical (to say the least, and to keep this message short) of Americans to pretend their own athletes were/are clean (again, at least, initially - like in the 80s...) and never met performance enhancing products before they went over to Europe.
And yes, I was thinking about American track and field athletes, among them Marion Jones, CJ Hunter, Tim Montgomery, Kelly White, maybe the Santa Monica Track Club in general, just to name a few (and who seriously believes a guy like Michael Johnson was clean?). Not to mention your professional league sports.
Does this mean that I think doping is - and always has been - as prevalent in US sports than in "Europe" (nice posts about how Americans perceive this "country", by the way)? - You bet.
Uh, another thing - do I believe that doping can be eliminated from professional sports? No, not a chance. Simple reason: As I wrote before, (professional) sports is nothing else than entertainment in the end, with big money being paid to the best entertainers. In that system, the rewards of doping will always be much higher than its downside.

 

[BikeCentric]

the rewards of doping will always be much higher than its downside.

Agree that as long as that is the case doping will always exist. Economics 101. Basically it's up to our own society whether we want to change the incentive structure or not.