The Armitstead doping thread.

[gillan1969]

Re:

Oh, so 'grabbing a press pass' is now 'beating someone up'.

A new day, a new myth is born.

Ellingworth has taken to ripping apart his...eh....articles

 

[hondated]

LS Am I correct in thinking that her team mates didn't want to work for her because it looked like that to me.

Were we watching the same race? Harris buried herself for LA, ditto Pooley.

Pooley attacked on an early climb when LA had a mechanical, Harris dithered over whether to drop back for Lizzie and leave Pooley on her own, or to stay up there and trust Lizzie to come back, after which Armitstead gave her the hairdryer treatment. After that, though, they did their jobs fine. Nikki Harris is specifically in the team because she gets on well with Lizzie and is a strong reliable worker for her - however, she's a former cyclocrosser in her first full road season (she's done road racing at times in the past, but this has been the first full on season) and it seems to be taking a toll; while she did her job of managing things on the cobbles, she was struggling to keep contact on the climbs on the first circuit so once the pack was safely together after the first circuit was over, ahead of the final ascent and Lizzie was safely tucked in the bunch, she climbed off. When the Bronzini/van Dijk/Plichta move got away, most of the other strong teams (Germany, USA) managed to get people across to it which put the onus on Great Britain as the team with the biggest favourite without representation in the group. Pooley managed the gap for some time on her own, particularly on the climbs, and when nobody else was willing to take up the slack, attacked herself to make others chase. Again, once it was all settled up ahead of the final climb, Pooley had used up far too much energy to be a player in the finale herself, so once she'd done her bit for Lizzie she climbed off ready for the time trial. Despite her disagreements with BC over the years, Emma P is absolutely a team player and I think after the racing she's done this season she knew she wasn't going to win a medal individually in the RR.

Thanks again LS great analysis and I've learnt something so that cannot be bad. Fink fair comment I suppose I reached my opinion by seeing Nikki so far ahead of LA when she was in trouble and without assistance but I never have been a great tactician myself so perhaps that's why I formed the opinion that I did.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

Oh, so 'grabbing a press pass' is now 'beating someone up'.

A new day, a new myth is born.

Confusing, isn't it? To beat up on someone might just mean colloquially "to blame or criticize someone" but the terminology is easily misunderstood. Journalists should be more careful in how they use English.

Nice one Wrinkley, shoot the messengers, but ignore the aggressors.

 

[wrinklyvet]

Re: Re:

Oh, so 'grabbing a press pass' is now 'beating someone up'.

A new day, a new myth is born.

Confusing, isn't it? To beat up on someone might just mean colloquially "to blame or criticize someone" but the terminology is easily misunderstood. Journalists should be more careful in how they use English.

Nice one Wrinkley, shoot the messengers, but ignore the aggressors.

Don't know what you mean. Just helping with the meaning here. Why do you want to put words into my mouth?

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Oh, so 'grabbing a press pass' is now 'beating someone up'.

A new day, a new myth is born.

Ellingworth has taken to ripping apart his...eh....articles

They might need to bring back Sutton to be the Team GB bouncer, to beat "up" on journalist who write negative articles?

 

[carton]

Just goes to show, again, that you know nothing about a person from interviews, save for how charming they are when they want to be. Also, how willing the press is to sugar-coat and photoshop away flaws in order to get access.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

This is just one disgruntled family member, I'd hate to think what Brailsford has planned for Holt in blacklisting him from other races.

Lawton. I know, facts, inconsequential, inferior to opinions and suppositories. But it's Holt's colleague Lawton is the guy who broke the story he got from the whistleblower. Not Holt.

 

[thehog]

Re:

Just goes to show, again, that you know nothing about a person from interviews, save for how charming they are when they want to be. Also, how willing the press is to sugar-coat and photoshop away flaws in order to get access.

Its very true, we've seen the ugly side this year. from Sutton to Yates to Armistead. Hasn't been pretty.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

Oh, so 'grabbing a press pass' is now 'beating someone up'.

A new day, a new myth is born.

And you'll note how being berated by family and friends quickly escalates into being vilified by his fellow professionals. I mean, JA Tweets. Tweeting is publishing. QED JA is a journalist. It therefore follows this is a perfect example of other journalists turning on the whistleblower, contrary to Syed's argument that they'd actually be applauded. Well, not the whistleblower, we don't know who blew the whistle here - someone in BC or UKAD? - so we have to settle on the surrogate whistleblower, the journalist who reported the story he was given. I mean, Syed's whole argument was so strong to begin with that you have no choice but to exaggerate incidents like this in order to prove it wrong, right?

 

[sniper]

Worse is to trivialize incidents like this.

 

[sniper]

John should be attacking doped athletes who steal victories from his daughter. Or the UKAD tester who *** up.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

Oh, so 'grabbing a press pass' is now 'beating someone up'.

A new day, a new myth is born.

Confusing, isn't it? To beat up on someone might just mean colloquially "to blame or criticize someone" but the terminology is easily misunderstood. Journalists should be more careful in how they use English.

You'll find three reports of the incident up thread and I don't recall any one of them saying beating up. Ronay (Guardian) says "bearded and berated". Lawton (Mail) himself makes no reference to anything physical. Rayner (Telegraph) also uses berate. If people imagine that pulling a lanyard is beating up I can only imagine they had sheltered childhoods and have only wonderful memories of the schoolyard.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

Just goes to show, again, that you know nothing about a person from interviews, save for how charming they are when they want to be. Also, how willing the press is to sugar-coat and photoshop away flaws in order to get access.

Are you imagining it was LA herself "beating up" the journalist?

 

[wrinklyvet]

Re: Re:

Oh, so 'grabbing a press pass' is now 'beating someone up'.

A new day, a new myth is born.

Confusing, isn't it? To beat up on someone might just mean colloquially "to blame or criticize someone" but the terminology is easily misunderstood. Journalists should be more careful in how they use English.

You'll find three reports of the incident up thread and I don't recall any one of them saying beating up. Ronay (Guardian) says "bearded and berated". Lawton (Mail) himself makes no reference to anything physical. Rayner (Telegraph) also uses berate. If people imagine that pulling a lanyard is beating up I can only imagine they had sheltered childhoods and have only wonderful memories of the schoolyard.

Yes, "beating up someone" and "beating up on someone" have two different meanings and the milder one was meant but should be avoided. The other words you found used in reports are so much clearer.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

Worse is to trivialize incidents like this.

Who's trivialising it? If I was trivialising it I'd be noting how it's unusual for for a GB journo be beaten up over a cycling story when they're normally beating off over them. But I'm not doing that. I'm pointing out the lies we have to tell to make ourselves feel brilliant about these things.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

John should be attacking doped athletes who steal victories from his daughter. Or the UKAD tester who **** up.

Few would disagree with that. Doesn't excuse those exaggerating this incident for their own ends though, now does it?

 

[carton]

Re: Re:

Just goes to show, again, that you know nothing about a person from interviews, save for how charming they are when they want to be. Also, how willing the press is to sugar-coat and photoshop away flaws in order to get access.

Are you imagining it was LA herself "beating up" the journalist?

Nah, it's all of the other things that have come up, with Cooke, Poole, Harris, what Vaughter volunteered, a few other whispers here and there. But mostly the way she's framed her own statements. And yes, her father and her husband have not done her proud either. But then again I'm but a twitter soldier that needs to find more time to ride his bike. She's definitely got me on that last one.

If people imagine that pulling a lanyard is beating up I can only imagine they had sheltered childhoods and have only wonderful memories of the schoolyard.

Yes, life was much better when we used to pound the other kids for fun, wasn't it? Yes, people are way too sensitive nowadays, but yanking someone's lanyard still seems to me somewhat untoward for an adult. And complaining about people over-emphasizing one event seems like being awfully sensitive when it suits.

Its very true, we've seen the ugly side this year. from Sutton to Yates to Armistead. Hasn't been pretty.

In the sporting press they're not homicidally ruthless, maniacally selfish, callously misanthropic lunatics; but heroically competitive, stirringly driven, magnificently focused role models. At least at first. But then the thing that sells more copy than a hero is a fallen hero. But then again what sells more than a fallen hero is an anti-hero who's gotten back on the right path. So don't burn to many bridges on your way down, or you might not get your chance to Millar yourself back.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

Nah, its all of the other things that have come up, with Cooke, Poole, Harris, what Vaughter volunteered, a few other whispers here and there.

I probably came late to the realisation that she was a pain in the hole with a sense of entitlement, but I came to it in 2014, after PFP won the worlds and LA moaned and whined about not getting help from the others to bridge up to PFP.

Yes, life was much better when we used to pound the other kids for fun, wasn't it?

Wouldn't know, never got to do it. Receive it, of course, but didn't we all?

And complaining about people over-emphasizing one event seems like being awfully sensitive when it suits.

The manner of the over emphasis matters. JA - or someone else in the family/circle of friends - pulling Lawton's lanyard does not equate to Lawton being vilified by his fellow professionals, which is what some would like to claim.

 

[carton]

Re: Re:

I probably came late to the realisation that she was a pain in the hole with a sense of entitlement, but I came to it in 2014, after PFP won the worlds and LA moaned and whined about not getting help from the others to bridge up to PFP.

If you were "late" to it, I only came to it just now, so it stings a bit more, I guess. I always rooted for Vos, and needed a rooting interest while she was on hiatus (and Niewiadoma seems to be developing a bit more slowly than I had anticipated). Loved the way she raced Richmond, but entertaining athlete does not equal good person. If anything the correlation, if it exists, seems to be generally inverse. Ironically, I always took PFP for the entitled one after the "how dare they not recognize my dad" thing.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

At Ponferrada it was actually that PFP was one of the group that bridged up to the quartet Vos-Johansson-Armitstead-Longo Borghini. ELB had Ratto and Bronzini in the group behind and can't sprint, so didn't want to work, Vos was doing minimal work, and Johansson had been away solo and had less team protection early in the race, so Armitstead berated Emma during the race when the group was closing them down, mocked her for her tendency to get 2nd place in the press afterward and left the heavy implication that PFP couldn't have won the race if others had been willing to help Lizzie. She was already showing signs of this kind of entitlement back in 2010-11 when, twice in a row, she threw a strop about the British team prioritizing Nicole Cooke in the World Championships RR. The thing with the Commonwealths (a few weeks before Ponferrada) was also that, not only had she attacked her own teammate when Pooley was off the front, but she didn't work with her (didn't even look at her as she passed), didn't thank her afterwards after Emma had spent the whole day making attacks to thin the pack, pulling back others' moves and generally slaving away for Lizzie despite it - at the time - being her career swansong, which left a bad taste in people's mouths that, even though Lizzie's move was one she was entitled to make (best spot on the course for the move) and the result justified it (England 1-2, although Pooley staying away was by no means assured at the time Lizzie went past her).

However, while in most cases Lizzie contributes to her own difficult relationships with other members of the péloton, certainly I wouldn't be surprised if there's an element of frustration on the parts of Cooke and Pooley about the way their achievements were basically swept aside by British Cycling and Armitstead put forward as a kind of poster girl, especially after London, to the point where a BC spokesman publicly called Armitstead's win in Richmond a "breakthrough moment for women's cycling in the UK" - remarkable given that less than seven years earlier, the UK had the reigning World AND Olympic champion, begging cap in hand for a ride after sponsors dumped her team at the 11th hour. I wouldn't blame them if so - certainly I harbour a level of bitterness about that myself, while the attempts to present her as a lovable hard-working Yorkshire lass (always lass, never woman) felt heavy-handed, forced and ran counter to my - and clearly many others' - perception of her. However, as we've learnt in the last week or so, it's certainly not an internal thing, the fact that she rubs people up the wrong way - a lot of people from a lot of different teams have expressed very negative opinions towards her that suggests it isn't just a matter of perception.

Ironically Lizzie's own relationship with British Cycling has been fairly turbulent of late regardless of this latest turn of events; she was pretty scathing about them in the wake of the Sutton fallout.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

At Ponferrada it was actually that PFP was one of the group that bridged up to the quartet Vos-Johansson-Armitstead-Longo Borghini.

My apologies. I remembered there was a bridge and that LA couldn't get over it. Should have checked.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

I wouldn't be surprised if there's an element of frustration on the parts of Cooke and Pooley about the way their achievements were basically swept aside by British Cycling and Armitstead put forward as a kind of poster girl, especially after London, to the point where a BC spokesman publicly called Armitstead's win in Richmond a "breakthrough moment for women's cycling in the UK" - remarkable given that less than seven years earlier, the UK had the reigning World AND Olympic champion, begging cap in hand for a ride after sponsors dumped her team at the 11th hour.

The media reaction after Ponferada struck me at the time. You could very much see how she'd become the golden girl and few were willing to criticise her. And yes, the response by BC to Richmond was galling and sometimes it's hard not to let that reflect back on the rider and put that in the box as a mark against her.

 

[mr61%]

Re:

deleted (duplicate post)

 

[mr61%]

Re: Re:

The thing with the Commonwealths (a few weeks before Ponferrada) was also that, not only had she attacked her own teammate when Pooley was off the front, but she didn't work with her (didn't even look at her as she passed), didn't thank her afterwards after Emma had spent the whole day making attacks to thin the pack, pulling back others' moves and generally slaving away for Lizzie despite it - at the time - being her career swansong, which left a bad taste in people's mouths

It was Armitstead's ungracious actions that day, both on and off the bike, which made me change my mind about her. As you say, Pooley had worked her butt off for Armitstead all day and if anyone deserved the win it was her, particularly as she had announced it would be her last race, but in her post race interview Armitstead barely acknowledged Pooley, instead claiming all the credit herself. As you also say, once Armitstead caught Pooley she rode straight past her without even a thought to work with her to guarantee the one-two. I think it was not only highly selfish and unsporting for Armitstead to chase Pooley down, but also tactically dumb as she could have easily brought the select group of riders she was with back up with her.

Hardly surprising she has so few friends in the peloton.

 

[noddy69]

Re:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/07/lizzie-armitsteads-home-town-rides-rio-with-her

“She doesn’t need to take drugs – she’s got Yorkshire grit.”

That's me convinced then.

We had the same sort of bile in the papers for Michelle Smith- sure not our Michelle.....and further back when Kimmage wrote rough ride he was given a grilling on live TV and basically called a liar because Kelly and Roche were still cycling. Its an altogether familiar reaction from the all knowing completely clueless public.