armchairclimber said:
Just to echo and add emphasis to what Robert Moore said, the Brownlees have been very good athletes since they were kids. Not sure about their bike skills but they very good swimmers and, most crucially for Tri, top class distance runners (fell runners from a very early age). They didn't just arrive from nowhere. Given that they still turn up and run for their club at unglamorous and un-lucrative cross country events, as welll as fell races where malt loaf and chocolate are the only prizes, I'm not sure I buy that their profile is that of dopers. Could be wrong but it seems unlikely to me.
I don't mean this offensively, but from your posts I get the impression that you haven't really come across doping, stories about doping programmes, how they work etc very much.
I give you + points for qualifying that it is only your impression, and not like many fans do, present it as a pure fact. But after that it goes downhill.
I mean you are arguing they are clean based on character. This is something many people who post on here did in like the first week that they joined the forum, before they realized that's not how the world works. That's why I say you give the impression that you are new to reading about doping, because people use that kind of argument only right at the very beginning, before they know anything about how doping programmes work and who does it.
Its also an argument that has been used dozens of times to defend plenty of athletes who later turned out, doped.
Ultimately what does the fact that they run for their clubs at un lucrative events have to do with doping? Nothing. Absolutely zilch. Being nice does not mean you don't dope, no more than having gemini as your star sign means you don't dope. Some people who post on here actually met and knew guys who turned out doped. They were nice guys.
Here's a quote from a good article from 2 years ago.
And when did “nice people” not cheat when placed in the worst of circumstances possible for them? Given what we have learned about cycling and its culture, how can we continue to confuse superficial personality with doping decisions? Tyler Hamilton did seem a nice guy, and he still does. So do many who testified to USADA, and to other commissions. Their doping mistakes don’t change that. Are we still stuck in some kind of eastern European, iron-curtain clad generalization or stigma that dopers are ruthlessly seeking world domination driven by cold-war sporting philosophies? Or that dopers are sporting equivalent of Gordon Gekko, relentlessly pursuing greed as the driving force behind rampant doping (that’s a Wall Street reference, for the uninitiated)?
It has become abundantly clear that in cycling, some good people were caught up in a very bad culture, that they made bad choices, but were not necessarily bullies, evil-doers or criminals (ok, some were, granted). So where, in the words of one Twitter follower, does the “dreamy eyed pap” by some in the (UK, mostly) media about guys being too nice to dope originate? How short are our memories, that we consider ‘nice guys’ to be even close to an admissible characteristic of a non-doper?
Looking at the individual isn't the best way to deduce who is doping. Behaviour can be very telling of course, but a general outline of feel good stories really doesn't tell much, especially when being examined by people who are fans of the athlete (I am not saying you are biased, but 90% of the time that someone argues that they think someone is clean because of character, that person is also a fan of the athlete).
The far better way of looking at doping is the system, the sweet science. Not 100% fool proof, but far more telling.
At the end of the day in cycling in the mid 1990's, we now know EVERYONE at the top doped. The good guys doped. The bad guys doped. The guys like Pantani who were talented as kids, doped. The guys like Riis who were nobodies without EPO, doped.
That was because the advantage gained from doping was insurmountable. It doesn't matter how talent you were, you couldn't match someone who is getting 30% boost from EPO, not even close, not even 1 day out of 21. The same we now know was also true in the mid 2000's, and is becoming increasingly apparent in the late 2000's. Same was also, we now true, throughout the late 80's and 90's and early 2000's in the 100m sprint.
So what we know is that when doping isn't being significantly limited by a governing body, everybody at the top dopes. This is the simple reality.
So the first thing anyone who wants to argue someone is clean, needs to do, is expalain why they think in that particular sport, winning clean is actually possible.
Becuase If you want to make an argument that a rider from the 1990's was clean, at least in the clinic, it would do no good to look at their character or life story. What you would need to do is make an argument as to how it would be possible for someone to beat the system that only allowed people doping to succeed.
Now I am not saying 2010's triathlon has the same level of doping as 1990's cycling. I don't know as much about doping in 2010's triathlon as I do about doping in 1990's cycling. But in the same spirit, if you want to argue that Brownlees are clean, you should tell us about the system, not the individual. What you think the situation of doping is in triathlon atm and why you think clean athletes are able to dominate. Is there a very strong blood passport that is limiting the doping. Do you in general believe clean athletes can beat dopers through training. Is there not enough money in triathlon? Or do you think triathlon is very doped but that the Brownlees are once in a generation talents, helped by genes.
That is the important argument. On top of that you can then tell us what it is about the Brownlees personal lives that makes them best able to take advantage of the situation.
The guy who never was wins his first World Championship (and just his third ranking tournament in 20 years as pro) at age 39, when the competition is at its highest level ever (since Snooker spread over all continents in the last decade).
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