LaFlorecita said:
Mr.38% said:
Somebody who saw it on "Vive le vélo" may confirm.
I just saw someone else mention it... he's becoming as much of a
bully as Lance..
Much was made about the stealing rabbits from toddlers to feed to snakes thing when that emerged. And it was shocking how proud Froome is about that,more than his TDF wins it seems, and how totally unmoved he was both by the squeals of the baby rabbits and to see the toddlers upset about losing their pets. Remember pythons don't eat dead prey so its not like you kill the poor thing and feed it, instead its more like the victims in the Minotaur story, you release them into the maze and watch their terror as they await what they can't escape. And Froome always watched.
I've no delusions about how cruel the natural world is and how powerless humans are to stop it, but I strongly feel at best we should not interfere and physically feed smaller powerless creatures, babies at that, to infinitely more powerful predators, for no real reason. If anything, humans should try to minimize the animals pain not maximise it.
Strangely enough, many froome fans on here at the time turned to be very anti animal rights when this story came out, ridiculing those pathetic conspiracy theorists for reacting to it. Personally I cringe when I hear about such a cold blooded sacrifice and this emotion is infinately more powerful than anything Froome can ever make me experience by his riding.
Of course that was just the tip of the iceberg since Froome spent much of his younger life seeking out prey for his snakes, particularly looking for nests of mice so he could feed the entire families to the pythons. Quite sad when one considers the pythons were incapable of showing him any affection anyway. They just existed to exist.
And searching and catching the prey wasn't always just Froome but a family activity.
His self confessed obsession in his early teens was "butterflies". This sounds nice, but what he means by this is running around all day trying to catch them and squish them so he could pin them up on his wall. This was his last "passion" before cycling became his passion.
But in The Climb he also claims that when he was young his brothers would shoot bb gun pellets at a big Turkey they had for a laugh and watch the Turkey attack Froome who at that age was the same size. Then Froome did the same when he was older, only his victim (other than the Turkey) would be the daughter of his au pair (yes, thats right, bullying behaviour directed towards a young girl who is a few years younger than him). He would also "get revenge" on the Turkey by running up to it and scaring it then laughing as it got terrified.
In some ways you can't fully blame a child for being like that, since they might not know better, and clearly the environment he grew up in played a part ( i mean if one of your first memories of your older brothers is them shooting at a poor turkey for laughs, you can see how your surroundings might play a part). But in that case the parents and guardians have a lot to answer for.
Maybe its just me though. There is nothing I feel more strongly about then that no human should ever be cruel towards animals. Its the exact same thing as bullying. Trying to get some small greater satisfaction in your own life by tormenting someone who was born weaker than you, who has no chance to defend themselves and has done you no wrong.
Maybe the adult Froome is a nicer guy. I hope he is. He came off nice to me at first in the 2011 Vuelta and he hasn't really done anything particularly bad re picking on others within the peloton as far as I remember. Not like Wiggins or Lance.
Still when I see the word "bully" mentioned about him I can't help but think back to these stories, especially considering the fact that many bullies in adulthood are known to take it out on animals in their childhood.
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