Re:
You are right about most things in this post.
However, this point about 'everyone knowing Astana' is doped to the gills isn't quite such an easy one to accept primarily because it isn't frequently voiced publicly, at least apart from social media. I really cannot believe that the road side fans who hurled abuse, spit, and urine at anything Sky did so because they were annoyed at Sky's PR machine's hypocrisy. It was because they thought they were cheating.
So which is it? Were they annoyed because they thought Sky were cheating too much or because they thought Sky were cheating clean athletes (probably French ).
It has to be the latter.
For the record, I agree with you that Sky's clean stance is likely bogus.
The Hegelian said:Nope, the ambivalence about Astana compared with Sky is simply this: Sky have destroyed all comers - including Astana which everyone knows are doped to the gills. They have dominated (utterly) the dirtiest teams, with the dirtiest histories, year after year.
No one else is riding like that. They have crushed the opposition. When Nibali won, it wasn't Astana crushing the opposition, it was the opposition literally falling over. The Giro is a very different story. Astana in 2015 were probably more full on than Sky in any tdf - but the Giro does not attract mainstream interest. Sky are the only ones doing this, year in year out, in front of the global media circus that is the tdf.
So the most logical question in the world is this: how do you utterly destroy the dirtiest teams, whilst being clean as a whistle yourself? You don't, hence the questions.
Where there is hypocrisy - and of course there is - I think it is aesthetic not nationalistic. People liked Cadel because he was a fighter, they liked Wiggins because he was an interesting mod - but Froome is damn ugly on the bike, and his polite bourgeois manner does not appeal.
You are right about most things in this post.
However, this point about 'everyone knowing Astana' is doped to the gills isn't quite such an easy one to accept primarily because it isn't frequently voiced publicly, at least apart from social media. I really cannot believe that the road side fans who hurled abuse, spit, and urine at anything Sky did so because they were annoyed at Sky's PR machine's hypocrisy. It was because they thought they were cheating.
So which is it? Were they annoyed because they thought Sky were cheating too much or because they thought Sky were cheating clean athletes (probably French ).
It has to be the latter.
For the record, I agree with you that Sky's clean stance is likely bogus.