Journalists vote athlete of the year 2010 - no cyclist makes it into the first 22!

[stainlessguy1]

i don't hate them(it's their job) but most of the these sport journalists are stupid wanccers.regarding cycling,the percentage of journalists wanccers is huge(just look at the german media,the queen of wanccersland).

I agree there , The German media can be brutal . One doesnt want to have them on a possee patrol while you are on the run . Gives new meaning to heading em off at da pass .

 

[stainlessguy1]

I usually call sports journalists fake journalists. When I see in this country how much respect money and power someone who watches football for a living gets over someone who goes to war zones to cover real issues it makes me puke.

I read their articles and their never special.

But anyone who needs convincing, should watch (if possible) videos from Real Madrid tv from 2009 from a show they had called extra time (i think). They invited the biggest football "journalists" from around europe every week and the pettiness and stupidity of these guys was mind boggling.

I remember once watching in shock as the 4 discussed whether Juan Carlos Valeron could make it into the Spain squad. One asked how old he was and they all came to the agreement that he was in his mid 20's as they remember he was young when he broke out (Valeron was in fact 34 years old).

At another point the French top football journalist, who spent most of the time bragging that he knew top footballers personally (duh) totaly snapped and started shouting angrily at the english after the english one suggested that Benzema (who had been playing very poorly) was not good enough for the 1st team. His claim was that they were all picking on Benzema because he is French.

It was watching these guys for a few weeks that i realised how amateur the proffesion of football journalism can be. Maybe not all sports are like that, though many from my experience just have ex pros having ghost written articles for them - like Rusedski and Mcenroe writing tennis articles.

_______________________________

So true Hitch .
that is why i cant see how they qualify for such a task .

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Can we get back on topic? There's been more biathlon going on, you know.

 

[The Hitch]

Can we get back on topic? There's been more biathlon going on, you know.

And ski jumping. Thats winter sport too. Tom Hilde who won one of the 4 hills did a pistolero salute. Thieving ****

 

[Libertine Seguros]

And ski jumping. Thats winter sport too. Tom Hilde who won one of the 4 hills did a pistolero salute. Thieving ****

The Tour de Ski's going on too at the moment (I'm much more about the endurance disciplines, though I quite like ski-jumping I prefer it as one half of the Nordic Combined) too, which will bring us around full-circle since it was inspired by cycling, runs on aggregate time with time bonuses at the line and at intermediate sprints, the organisers met with Zomegnan and the Giro organisation team to sort out how to set up stage races and the like, and it finishes with a mountaintop finish (and today they raced from Cortina d'Ampezzo to Tolbach, a route which has often been used, at least in part, in the Giro d'Italia). Dario Cologna is leading the men's event, Justyna Kowalczyk the women's.

But biathlon is what has been mentioned most in this thread, and is the one I like most of all, and we have had crazy weather and exciting racing in Oberhof so far.

 

[The Hitch]

Yeah i saw some of the Womens Tour de Ski. To be honest its harder to get into sports when you dont know the athletes, and thanks to Malysz and Kowalczyk i know a bit about those Womans XC and Ski jumping.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yeah i saw some of the Womens Tour de Ski. To be honest its harder to get into sports when you dont know the athletes, and thanks to Malysz and Kowalczyk i know a bit about those Womans XC and Ski jumping.

This is very much my argument with those who say women's cycling is boring - we tolerate some very boring men's racing because we know the characters involved and we still care enough about the outcome to let them get away with garbage racing, whereas if you don't know the athletes then their exploits don't move you.

In the ski jumping I find Gregor Schlierenzauer the most fun, he's usually good for something a bit spectacular but a bit ragged.

I suppose this is where patriotism comes in a little - in very niche sports that you don't know much about, you've gravitated towards the exploits of the Poles - I suppose in the absence of knowing about the sport when you first see it, you don't know any of the characters from Adam (Małysz) and so the patriotic link is the only thing you have to judge them on.

I don't know so much about ski-jumping, but I have to say I like Kowalczyk. I think she's a very good skier, good uphill, but she hasn't seemed as in control this year as last, despite looking like a very good bet for overall victory again.

 

[The Hitch]

This is very much my argument with those who say women's cycling is boring - we tolerate some very boring men's racing because we know the characters involved and we still care enough about the outcome to let them get away with garbage racing, whereas if you don't know the athletes then their exploits don't move you.

In the ski jumping I find Gregor Schlierenzauer the most fun, he's usually good for something a bit spectacular but a bit ragged.

I suppose this is where patriotism comes in a little - in very niche sports that you don't know much about, you've gravitated towards the exploits of the Poles - I suppose in the absence of knowing about the sport when you first see it, you don't know any of the characters from Adam (Małysz) and so the patriotic link is the only thing you have to judge them on.

I don't know so much about ski-jumping, but I have to say I like Kowalczyk. I think she's a very good skier, good uphill, but she hasn't seemed as in control this year as last, despite looking like a very good bet for overall victory again.

Its not that i gravitate to them. Its that since they are sporting polish successes i hear a lot about them. Malysz has been big in Poland for a decade and so when i watched some summer tournaments in 03 04 i payed attention as he was there and i learned about the others and now i know a lot of the guys there.

With Kowalczyk shes been Polands biggest athlete, for a year or 2. So there was hype regarding her in Vancouver and when Marit won 2 golds i cheered for her in the 30k as i usually cheer for whoever has won less. She has balls to so i like her, though would be nice for someone else to have their moment too.

Theres also Pudzianowski who introduced me to WSM big time. What a character. Over that time i got to know and really like a lot of the guys there. Now hes retired but i still watch the competition as i know and like a lot of the guys there.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

That makes sense. When I only hear about one or two athletes that tends to put me off them, but then it's probably different when it comes to reporting relatively niche sports; more or less all the sports I enjoy most are pretty niche so it's not much skin off my nose unless the name blows up bigger than the sport, which often then inspires antipathy when people who don't know anything about the sport expect you to be fans of them (which is the problem cycling has with Armstrong, so many times people will hear I'm into cycling and say something expecting me to idolise Lance Armstrong).

It's difficult to say how I choose favourites in a sport I've not seen before. I tend to become fascinated by how the competition works and then I'll root for somebody chasing down a leader, or a leader who's holding desperately on to a lead if the commentary suggests that they aren't as good as the person/team/group behind. If I find myself being gripped by something, and my interest is piqued, I have a tendency to then go ballistic trying to find more footage and learn more about the sport so I won't be so ill-informed next time I see it; this means I very quickly start learning the key names and players, and then you see more of what happens and make more informed decisions on who you like and don't.

Good win for Tarjei Bø today, have to say.

 

[The Hitch]

Libertine. Are you this excited about all those other sports or is cycling the blue ribbon for you?

I mean are you watching the equivalent of the presidential tour of turkey in xc skiing or talking up young angel madrazos in car racing or (knowing their full names as well) and debating what obscure climbs can be used in some other sport as well?

Are you posting 2000 posts a year on other sports forums as well.

Or is cycling the main one for you with an interest in others?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Cycling's the main one for me, but I also follow lots of other sports with enthusiasm. A lot of the more mainstream sports that I follow I don't comment on because the forums are often filled with partisan bile spewed by otherwise quite clever people. Quite a few of the more niche sports I like don't really have vibrant forum communities that are active enough to merit hundreds of posts. That's one advantage cycling has, the cast of thousands, it means there's always something going on. I used to use some motorsports forums, talking primarily about endurance sportscar racing, but nowadays I tend not to.

(oh, and in answer to your question about Ángel Madrazos of car racing, I nominate Estebán Gutiérrez, a young Mexican racer. He's 19, he won the Formula BMW series in '08 - he and Tiago Geronimi put on a better race around the Valencia circuit than the F1 cars managed anywhere all year - was the top rookie in F3 Euroseries in '09 and then dominated the GP3 series in 2010. He was 4th fastest at the Rookie Driver F1 test in November despite being in the Sauber, and is now their reserve driver, as well as doing GP2 Asia. I used to follow the sport much more closely than I do now, but I still keep my eyes peeled for the results of guys and girls I like)

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Well, Hitch, to tie this thread together, our friend Justyna Kowalczyk won the Tour de Ski today.

I LOVE the final stage of the Tour de Ski, a pursuit up the Alpine downhill course at Alpe Cermis. It reaches up to 35% at points, but you have fans lining the route like it's a Giro stage.

Therese Johaug was by far the star of the show, finishing in a time 2 minutes faster than Kowalczyk and overtaking 3 athletes to move from 5th overall to 2nd.

And in the biathlon, in a continuation of all of our talks of who had good 2010s and who didn't, Tarjei Bø won the men's mass start as Michael Greis hung to the back of the front group throughout (and Arnd Peiffer fought into a good position before crashing), while Emil Hegle Svendsen burned from the stern to finish 2nd while Bjørndalen had a disaster and finished 20th. In the women's events, Neuner skied herself back in to the top 10 after throwing it away in the shoot (the prone today - she shot clear in the standing) while Gößner threw it all away in the shoot, and Ekholm just outsprinted Henkel at the end of a very exciting three-way battle also including Sleptsova.

Been a great day of wintersports action.