Re: Re:
Tienus said:
This story confirms that the UCI could not sweep this one under the carpet:
http://www.1limburg.nl/stultiens-ontving-foto-van-verdacht-frame-met-motortje?context=section-2
A dutch rider was shown a photo of Femke her motorized bike a day before the race. The downtube was larger than on her other bikes.
The question would then be, why was Sabrina Stultiens being shown the photos of others' bikes if something wasn't suspicious enough that other riders wanted to take a look?
Robert21 said:
Of course that can happen. (Just as men can be the victims of abusive women.) However, in this day and age, I thought that the default position was that the vast majority of women are quite capable of making their own choices, and in turn taking responsibility for their own actions.
(Until, I guess, they feel that it to their advantage to 'turn on the waterworks' and play the role of the 'weak and feeble woman', helplessly under the control of some fiendish male, leering and twisting the ends of his waxed moustache.
)
Seriously though, what many are effectively assuming (and saying in public) is that the father here was in an abusive relationship with his daughter. Now this is a very serious allegation and not one that should be made lightly, and so far there no proof that such an abusive relationship existed. Even the fact that he appeared in public to defend her is being held against him. Someone on the team might have been the driving force here, or the rider herself, or some third party. OK, so the father might have also had a role, but no one should be effectively throwing a charge of 'child abuser' at him until some solid evidence of this emerges.
I don't think people are meaning 'child abuser' in the very loaded sense that is being implied. You don't have to abuse somebody to exert undue influence over them either, of course, especially from a psychologically loaded position such as a parent. With the other background knowledge we have now been given on the family, and the way the situation has developed, it is readily believable that he could be the type of father who desperately wants his children to succeed to the extent he puts incredible burdens of pressure on their shoulders, and also that he could be the type of father whose determination that his children succeed leads him to interfere and do so immorally. With that in mind, his appearing with her in public, without demonstrating any kind of emotional connection or support doesn't seem so helpful. It's clear that this was not the kind of cheating that could be demonstrated by her alone without others being in on it (as pointed out, the mechanic should really notice when one bike is 1,5kg heavier than another for the same rider in the same race, and Stultiens was able to tell the two bikes were not alike with the naked eye).
The fact that such an offence is unprecedented is also reflected in the wild differences in the projected punishments. Some point out the minimum 6 months and €20k for "technological cheating" but that seems ludicrously light; other sources have suggested potential for a life ban and a fine of up to €1m. I think realistically we must be talking about four years here, if bringing to light a brand new form of cheating (not in the literal sense as motorized bikes have been talked about for years of course, but in terms of the sport needing to confront the rumours head-on rather than wave them off as fanciful) and with at least one accomplice in on the ruse, before coming up with a complex and fanciful excuse doesn't count as "aggravating circumstances" I don't know.
And you may criticize those who feel a bit for Femke for "turning on the waterworks", the fact is that hrotha is on the money on this one, just like they were when Santambrogio was down; she is old enough to face up to responsibility for what she has done, but young enough for the enormity of the implications of getting caught to only catch up with her now that it's become a reality. I can buy that; while she knew what she was doing and she knows she can only blame herself either for putting forward or for allowing herself to be caught up in the ruse (after all, as the rider, she's the one that gets the brunt of it), and she knew getting caught would be bad, now she's realised just HOW bad it is it's overwhelming. Plenty of us will have done something that was our own fault and only realised afterwards just how far-reaching the implications were, just not on Femke's scale. And many of us will have been older and not had to do it in public either. And she's a deer in the headlights; she's a U23 women's cyclocross rider. But she's not been busted for doping, the kind where you get advised of an AAF and a few posts get put in the General Doping thread, then she disappears for a couple of years. It's, compared to the usual coverage she would have been getting, a terrifyingly large media fuss, with her shame and disgrace being paraded around for the whole world to see. As hrotha put it, most of us aren't sociopaths, and so while we don't believe her labyrinthine excuses, think a precedent-setting ban for her sins is not just justified but NEEDED, we can still feel pity for seeing somebody in that position, in that state.
To take things away from Femke for a minute though, one thing that will be very interesting now of course will be to see who starts underperforming now that the lid is off the pot.
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