heart_attack_man said:
I think I kind of get where you're going with this. Apologies, as I appear to have misunderstood YOUR point.
You're basing the argument around "context" - ie. 1999 vs 2013 doping "cultures". It's a fair, and reasonable point.
Avoriaz made the point that there is no Swart, O'reilly etc. - but there also wasn't after Sestriere, which is when he became convinced.
The counter to that though, is that context can be applied in more than one way - ie. Froome vs other competitors in the same era is also "context". I've got eyes - I watched Aix-3 etc. and Froome (and Porte for that matter) in the context of the current peloton does not seem credible. To blindly accept that, and even slightly worse, actually become a cheerleader for it is not good, and certainly not good JOURNALISM.
And again, in the absence of actual evidence we are thrown back to personal feelings.
Tell me, HAM, in all gentleness. Do you think Gooner has eyes? JimmyFingers? The Doc?
Does Walsh have eyes?
Is there any particular, logical, reason we should favour what goes through your eyes, as to what goes through theirs?
It just seems to be the "well, I know what I saw" fallacy. AKA "i don't need no stinking facts". We've been down this cul de sac umpteen times. It becomes no more convincing.
During the tour, the way Walsh was going on and sounding like a giddy school-girl, he sounded more like Liggett than he did a credible journalist. Which, to be honest, upset me a bit. Kimmage's reaction to Sky has been much more level-headed.
1. Your impression of Walsh may well be honest and genuine, but it's meaningless. It still boils down to "walsh didn't say what i wanted him to. Under the bus with him!". No value beyond a good vent, which admittedly we all enjoy from time to time.
2. If you think Kimmage was level headed, after the bizarre Boassen Hagan confrontation BEFORE FROOME TURNED A PEDAL at the tour, you need to lay off the backy. I repeat, before Froome turned a pedal.
Kimmage is very honest, very genuine and very anti-doping. He may well be right about Sky. I repeat, he may well be right. But let's be honest folks, Kimmage's mind was all but made up before the tour began. Indeed, there's a very interesting and pointed video where he starts to get visibly upset when his friend Frankie Andreau does not agree with Kimmage about the suspiciousness of Froome.
Pesumably Frankie has eyes too.
I would note only this other point. On the infamous Ventoux stage, Walsh's eyes were right there at the Ventoux - maybe clouded by bias, maybe not. But they were there, close up.
Kimmage's eyes, like the rest of him, was at L'Alpe d'Huez.
Now Kimmage emphatically isn't the point of the thread so we'll take it no further, and i apologise for the detail i've already gone into, but a very direct comparison
was made, it had to be addressed.
I repeat, Kimmage is very honest, very genuine and very anti-doping. He's an admirable man in many ways. But he wasn't the devil when the world was siding with Armstrong. and he's not a saint now. He's a human, fallible,
like Walsh, like us all. But to hold Kimmage out as an example of objectivity to Walsh, which you did, is risible. The idea that Walsh was 'out there' on bias compared to others, notably Kimmage, doesn't stack up to examination.
He has applied inconsistency and double-standards, and IMO has gone into this with a perception-bias of "clean".
no-one on this thread is unbiased. No-one. And very few journos are either. Everyone starts with instincts and feelings and thoughts and suspicions. The good journalist isn't bias free. the good journo knows how to set aside the bias and look for the evidence. And if we don't have enough yet, if ther is an absence of facts, the correct answer is not to make some up, or despense with the need - the answer is to start trying to get more facts - and reserving judgement till you do.
And that takes patience, and self control, and knowing the difference between scepticism and cynicism.
Which, to be honest, is hard to find here sometimes. and that's not good thing.