armchairclimber said:
del1962 said:
Cramps said:
Saw both your allowed comment and the "removed by the moderators" placeholder. This is nuts. Obviously the possibility that Bolt could dope conflicts with the headline, which is literally "1. Bolt vs Gatlin - the greatest miracle of all". puh-leeEEZZZE!
OK, now I've been upvoting the comments that ask for more impartial analysis than Steve Cram seems capable of.
Cram's hyberbole is painful for me, mainly because I like Cram, always have. I remember first seeing him in a youth road race at Berwick in the 1970s, I was running in the age group lower than him. I was gutted when he got beat by Coe in 1984 Olympics, used to watch his races in the 80s and I have a friend who finished top 100 in the great north run in the 80s, has met both him and Brendon Foster and he thinks Cram is a nice chap while he doesn't think much of Foster.
I too like Cram, for similar reasons. I did have to turn him off this year though...just too painful to listen to. However, I don't think he is some evil PR merchant with a brief to sell the "clean bolt dirty Gatlin" narrative, nor do I think he has a similar brief with regards to Farah. He just doesn't have a clinic mind-set. I just don't think he has seen enough to vocally "dis-believe". He may not even be sceptical at all. I don't think that's hypocrisy...I just think it's genuinely his position.
He was vocal about Makhloufi... and clinic regulars chide him for it. It obviously has nowt to do with Makhloufi's north African origin. All he said was something along the lines of "I don't know what I'm seeing here". Fair enough, I would have thought.
This kind of defense of sports.commentators reminds me of when some mobster or ex dictator finally gets caught by authorities and to avoid humiliation the lawyers dress him up in a wheelchair and gas mask and plead - he's to ill to stand trial.
It's so predictable and weak. Just like when fans make up the - oh he doesn't know excuse for commentators they like.
First of all, your account of what cram said about makhloufi is totally false. They had about 5 minutes of broadcasting left after makhloufi won and it was all taken up by cram making the single most clear accusation of doping without using the d word in human history. They never commented on the race or the tactics or the other finisher, just how sad the result made cram feel.
And with such a blatant accusation of.doping at makhloufi, his behaviour thereafter with bolt and farah is nothing short of extreme hypocrisy.
Also you say it has nothing to do with tm being north African. I find that difficult to believe. No one is saying he's a racist who would not treat a north African with respect if he met them. But as far as the media goes it's clear there's subconscious distrust of "the other" and i don't think it's a coincidence that an unknown athlete from north Africa is his target over a British or a European or an American. (Bolt transcends this paradigm because a) he's Anglophone and b) he's a celebrity)
But the real piece de resistance of your post is - he just doesn't have a clinic mentality. Get real. This is athletics. We aren't talking about a sport like say darts where commentators might not know what doping is. We aren't even talking about sports like tennis or football where there is very minor plausible deniability left over from a lack of drug scandals.
It's athletics which has been rocked by doping positives and scandals since cram was born and he's what 50 now(?).
What's more he's an insider and he was an insider when Johnson doped and could only run 9.79. He was an insider when elements of the ddr programme were revealed. He was an insider when Lewis and the US basically admitted they had their own doping programmes. He was an insider when Balco happened. And all the other positives since. The revelations that the Sydney games had so many retrospective positives it should have been canceled. All the 100 m champs who've fallen. And just last year's seppelts first revelations. And just 2 months ago Salazar. And just last month the whole new massive scandal.
And cram "doesn't have a clinic mindset"?
Sorry that don't fly. He can't possibly after those last 3 decades, be ignorant of the fact that his sport is rife with doping.