Fair enough, I agree with the public perception part. It is clear that the major broadcaster ain't gonna shoot themselves in the face and be suspicious of Pogacar - no matter how bad a race was, they tell us how great it was. Nothing more boring than long solo's etc.I'm talking mainly about public perception.
Frankly we don't really know enough to say much about the level of corruption that is ongoing, and if that is at levels equivalent to Armstrong or worse.
Similarly, we don't really know if journalists being so uncritical of Pogacar is a passive or active process - i.e. there's active pressure being applied to not ask the wrong questions - or if journo's just really only go where the clicks and views go so that "sure Pogacar being 4 minutes faster than Pantani" is an emergent narrative simply only existing because fans are huffing the Kool-Aid of the TikTok Armstrong cult already.
For the rest, small riders are on unsophisticated doping that's easier to catch. And popular athletes getting away with more *** has been well described in scientific literature.
There really is a free for all in the cycling media - any idiot can make a site and report cycling "news" and his personal takes. There is certaintly no active pressure on the cycling media to don't ask questions of performances. I see no evidence for that and how can anyone assert such pressures? You don't invite the dude to the next press conference? It makes no difference. Most cycling media is micro-level and have little accountability to anyone.
Also, when credible newssources run doping questions as their focus they receive enourmous attention - clickbaiting should drive an increase not decrease in this type of reporting. However, you have to back up the stories with evidence of some sort to not get sued. They don't have that. Completely open question for why they don't have evidence. Little interest or competence in looking for it or little out there to be found?
Why assume UCI is corrupt at any large scale rather than small scale? What evidence do we have for this after the Armstrong - Verbruggen case?
Finally, I obviously agree that big fish gets away with more stuff. Tens of cyclist received bans for salbutamol levels exceeding the threshold marginally, but the big Froomie could double the threshold and get off. Porbably because SKY could play a tougher legal game than Diego Ulissi could. No need to infer corruption.
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