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Dutch Olympic Skaters have to be doping

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Jan 20, 2013
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Ryo Hazuki said:
what are you talking about? speed skating is a huge sport in the netherlands. it's far behind footbalol but probably 2nd with muay thai/kickboxing and in front of cycling

I got that from the dutch poster. I'm certainly not making the claim. I said it was contradictory to what the tv commentators said which indeed was that skating is hugely popular.
 
Dec 7, 2010
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iejeecee said:
Your point being?

Not trying to be contentious here, maybe I'm missing the point that you were making?

I just don't follow the comparison between Dutch speed skating, and American basketball or Chinese ping-pong, as it applies to Olympic results. If there was something inherently "Dutch" about them winning at speed skating, wouldn't that show itself more prominently over the years?
 
Feb 3, 2013
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Granville57 said:
Not trying to be contentious here, maybe I'm missing the point that you were making?

I just don't follow the comparison between Dutch speed skating, and American basketball or Chinese ping-pong, as it applies to Olympic results. If there was something inherently "Dutch" about them winning at speed skating, wouldn't that show itself more prominently over the years?

The professionalization of speed skating only started in the late 90's. But even before that it has always been our nr1 winter sport. And while we obviously haven't dominated in previous Olympics like we did in this one, we have always done relatively well.

We used to be bad at the shorter sprint distances, and sometimes the women weren't on the same level as the men. But apparently both issues have been fixed. As I said earlier in this thread, these results have been a long time coming. Simply because we have all the advantages I listed before, and the rest of the world doesn't for various reasons.
 
Feb 10, 2013
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Without denying (Dutch) doping in speed skating, the Dutch dominance partly can be explained by the difference in professionalism between the Dutch and others. If I am not mistaken the Polish winner of the 1500 meter still is/was a part-time fireman whereas hs main Dutch competitors all have been full-time professional speed skaters for years.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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the germans invested 5.7 million euro's in three years (2011-2013) in speedskating preparation for the olympics.
results: zero medals.
would be interesting to see how much the dutch invested in that same period.
 
Aug 6, 2011
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sniper said:
the germans invested 5.7 million euro's in three years (2011-2013) in speedskating preparation for the olympics.
results: zero medals.
would be interesting to see how much the dutch invested in that same period.

I don't know the figures and I can't find them, but considering there are multiple professional teams (8 this year) as well as national support in the Netherlands, I would not be surprised if that figure would be much, much higher than 5.7 million.

That said, I'm not as naive or blissfully ignorant as most of my compatriots. While the figures have been questioned, mostly by Dutch critics, according to Gundersen, former member of the medical committee of the ISU, about 10-15% of the blood samples of Olympic medal winners in speedskating between 1998-2006 could be labeled as "suspicious". To give this number some context, the number of suspicious blood samples in cycling during that same period, according to an expert of the Belgium doping lab, was about 16%.

Nowadays, we all know what level of prevalence of doping in cycling that 16% represents. That the percentage is somewhat lower in speedskating is probably due to the fact that it is based on in-competition tests, during the Olympics, only. We all know that with a bit intelligence an athlete, or his doctor, plans to be as clean as possible during competition.

I would love to say things have changed, but there is little to no sign of improvement. The number of out-of-competition tests is low and was as low as zero only a couple of years ago. The Dutch doping authority claims they have "increased the number of ooc tests", but has failed to provide any evidence or actual numbers to back this up.

As doping is hardly an issue in Dutch media, let's not spoil the Dutch glory, most journalists that have some impact-factor fail to ask the right questions or do some investigative journalism. The Dutch commentators even sympathize with Claudia Pechstein for her 2-year absence due to a doping ban, during the live broadcasting of the Olympic speedskating events, almost suggesting her ban was wrong (without providing legitimate reasons why).

This saddens me as the same national broadcasting organisation, the NOS, discusses doping in cycling during almost every live broadcast. They discuss rumours, jump to conclusions, and rudely question about every cyclist they can find. About a year ago, they even spend their full season preview talking about doping, they never said a word about the upcoming season, at all. And of course, that preview was done by the same "presentor" (Dionne de Graaff) that smiles at speedskaters like they're gods, without ever even slightly touching the subject of doping in their presence. (Or at any other time, for that matter).

It wouldn't surprise me if the NOS has never even googled "schaatsen doping" (speedskating doping) to do some preliminary research.

However, discussing an issue like doping at this very moment would not be welcomed by the Dutch public as they're all still basking in reflective glory.
 
Feb 3, 2013
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Ofcourse doping is a factor, but to think it's the only factor would be just as naive as thinking that it's no factor. And the nos is not going ask such questions,( eventhough to be fair they did cover the Norwegian doping accusations) because they are the biggest ringleaders when it comes to skating. They own all the broadcasting rights and shove every competition down our throat however unimportant. It's not in their intrest to kill their own darlings.

It would be the same as asking why skysport never talks about doping in the premier league, when they have invested 1bn pound to obtain the exclusive broadcasting rights. Well duh, ofcourse they are not actively going to try and damage their own product.
 
iejeecee said:
Ofcourse doping is a factor, but to think it's the only factor would be just as naive as thinking that it's no factor. And the nos is not going ask such questions,( eventhough to be fair they did cover the Norwegian doping accusations) because they are the biggest ringleaders when it comes to skating. They own all the broadcasting rights and shove every competition down our throat however unimportant. It's not in their intrest to kill their own darlings.

It would be the same as asking why skysport never talks about doping in the premier league, when they have invested 1bn pound to obtain the exclusive broadcasting rights. Well duh, ofcourse they are not actively going to try and damage their own product.
Commercial speed skating team competing over coaches and skaters, and sponsors. The perfect environment in which everyone helps each other stay clean :)
 
Dec 30, 2010
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spalco said:
It's strange, I think for some participants, Austria especially, but surely also Switzerland, maybe France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia to some extent, winning medals is at least as much about tourism PR as about patriotic prestige. I remember years when Austria dominated Alpine skiing to such an extent that there were concerns that other countries might lose interest (which sounds incredibly arrogant now, but is an opinion that was voiced; Switzerland had similar periods of extreme dominance too), which in turn was implied to possibly leading to less relevant commercials about how awesome Austrian mountains are.

That matters less to the Netherlands, and if the Skating Federation is as powerful as Ryo says, it's not a concern in the short term, and great for the Netherlands to have such a successful Olympics, but if this happens in 2018 again and then 2022?
Not sure what the Dutch could do about that though reasonably, lend coaches to other countries? Actually I don't know where I'm going with this at all. but now that I've written it I don't just want to cancel it. ;)

Can anyone think of examples where a sport's prestige significantly diminished due to a single country's dominance?

Yes , I can think of one sport , that led too several sports .
The Canadians sold Samboni ice machines to the Chinese , and showed them how to make good ice .
The rest is History , figure skaters and speed skaters appeared to winning form like out of nowhere in a short period .
Good Contenders before , became challengers and later medal winners and today are in the mix of short and long track . Especially short track .
The technology leveled the playing field instantly and of course migrated to Korea and other countries .
Not sure of the dates , but that is how it goes , hockey will be next as the growing sport in Asian countries . ( Have Ice will shoot , will score) .

Of course we sold a lot of other stuff to the Chinese and are now out of manufacturing jobs and spinoff jobs to those manufacturing jobs and everything else that goes along with that demise . So for most of us to old to regroup as we sit at home watching ever increasing priced cable TV and other nations overtake us at our own game , we just sigh and wait .
 
Dec 30, 2010
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sniper said:
the germans invested 5.7 million euro's in three years (2011-2013) in speedskating preparation for the olympics.
results: zero medals.
would be interesting to see how much the dutch invested in that same period.

Why is it interesting to see how much the Dutch invested in speed skating for the same period ? Is the investment amount some sort of barometer that says it all?
 
Dec 30, 2010
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Neworld said:
This may be the best post yet.

For example, most would agree that Canada is a "winter" nation. Yet we only have 2 indoor Long tracks (Montreal and Calgary). The 2010 Olympics Indoor Long track facility has been converted to office space, FFS. 1/3 of Canadian popln is in Ontario, geographically very dense within 300Kms, and yet NO covered SS Track. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo02a-eng.htm

We could easily go toe to toe with Holland if we had even 10% of our hockey players, that never made it past Junior B, convert to SS8ing.

Hey, I'm off to call some bureaucrats...

NW

Agreed , this is our problem exactly we could easily be closer to the medal times , but we need too get to Olympic sized ice . period .
( OR WIN THE LOTERY SO WE CAN QUIT OUR JOBS AND MOVE THERE AND TRAIN . second period)
Sorry , the last part in brackets is for those that have jobs to quit. LOL .
 
Mar 31, 2010
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iejeecee said:
It's the same with any nation dominating in any sport. Having a combination of knowledge, money, large talent pool, competition and of-course the latest and greatest in doping products while knowing how to use them without getting caught.

Nobody questions why the American basketball team wins the gold at (nearly) every Olympics. Or why the Chinese win every medal at ping-pong. It's the same for the Dutch and speedskating.

thank you. I nearly ****ed my pants laughing at all the stuff in your post.
 
Mar 31, 2010
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sniper said:
the germans invested 5.7 million euro's in three years (2011-2013) in speedskating preparation for the olympics.
results: zero medals.
would be interesting to see how much the dutch invested in that same period.

in salary of riders alone more than triple that
 
Mar 31, 2010
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Cloxxki said:
Commercial speed skating team competing over coaches and skaters, and sponsors. The perfect environment in which everyone helps each other stay clean :)

what kind of bs is this. many skaters don't like each other and same for teams. arguably the most impressive result of the speed skating was the 10 km bij bergsma. bergsma is part of bam marathon team that are just semi pro and they barely make enough money to train full time and he beat kramer.
 
Aug 6, 2011
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Ryo Hazuki said:
what kind of bs is this. many skaters don't like each other and same for teams. arguably the most impressive result of the speed skating was the 10 km bij bergsma. bergsma is part of bam marathon team that are just semi pro and they barely make enough money to train full time and he beat kramer.

However, athletes who are categorized as "topsporter" (among the best athletes in the Netherlands) can apply for financial support to be able to focus on training in stead of working if they don't earn enough as a professional. Granted, the support is not much, somewhere around the "bare minimum income" (politically set value), but it's not the case that Bergsma can't focus on skating.

I can imagine that his current pro-contract provides him with more income than that "bare minimum" threshold, thus rendering him more or less independent, on a personal level, from the Dutch NOC.

So, I don't think he trains less than Kramer and if he does, it's probably not because of a demanding, physical job that influences his training efforts, but rather a decision based on a training or medical/physical philosophy.
 
It's well-documented that some of the marathon runner legends of The Netherlands were in fact having full-time professional careers outside of sports.
They did greater mileage and especially more races than the current crop, and their running times, in the pre-EPO era were at least equal to the best of the best from the next generation.
Having a day job indeed doesn't prevent sports excellence. Some even need it to stay sane and motivated.

I was saying, the competition between the sponsor teams looks a bit like cycling. And it promotes doping.
 
Mar 31, 2010
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WillemS said:
However, athletes who are categorized as "topsporter" (among the best athletes in the Netherlands) can apply for financial support to be able to focus on training in stead of working if they don't earn enough as a professional. Granted, the support is not much, somewhere around the "bare minimum income" (politically set value), but it's not the case that Bergsma can't focus on skating.

I can imagine that his current pro-contract provides him with more income than that "bare minimum" threshold, thus rendering him more or less independent, on a personal level, from the Dutch NOC.

So, I don't think he trains less than Kramer and if he does, it's probably not because of a demanding, physical job that influences his training efforts, but rather a decision based on a training or medical/physical philosophy.

I didn't say he couldn't train as much as kramer. I said he could barely make enough money to be a full time athlete in this sport. which is true
 
Female football players don't even make money, when their male counterparts are the richest athletes in the world.

You telling me that a female speed skater in a country where females are still considered second rate citizens by many is a millionaire? Maybe if she is super good looking and can get money from fashion deals or make-up ads...


They broadcast speed skating here live on tv. Every time when there's a match outside of the Netherlands, the venue is completely empty. I just checked wikipedia, and pages are only in Dutch and English, and there has never been a match in S Korea. If the venue would be completely packed, why didn't they host a match there?
 
Mar 31, 2010
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Almeisan said:
Female football players don't even make money, when their male counterparts are the richest athletes in the world.

You telling me that a female speed skater in a country where females are still considered second rate citizens by many is a millionaire? Maybe if she is super good looking and can get money from fashion deals or make-up ads...


They broadcast speed skating here live on tv. Every time when there's a match outside of the Netherlands, the venue is completely empty. I just checked wikipedia, and pages are only in Dutch and English, and there has never been a match in S Korea. If the venue would be completely packed, why didn't they host a match there?

in south korea sang hwa lee is a national star, she's on tv everywhere and will never have to work another day after her career. you have no idea botu korea but's it;s conpletely isolated in many ways and your compariosn with woman football is the most hilarious ridiuclous thing I read all day. ever wonder why brazilian woman in football as **** poor as well and volleyball players are not? womans football is a joke everywhere
 

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