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The Dutch - are they doped?

drc

Sep 2, 2015
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There is an Austrian thread at the top of the Clinic forum. If Austrians deserve their own topic why there is no a Dutch doping thread yet? Come on: Jumbo Visma (with Roglic, WvA), MvdP, Annemiek van Vleuten !!! (oh! she trains together with male pros. how cool!), van der Breggen, Blaak, M. Vos - just in cycling. Note there is also the speed skating which became a Dutch internal affair over the last few years (like Norwegians is cross country skiing). No shame. I fear we are talking industrial like, hard core, doping here. Are the Dutch the new Americans, Russians or British in cycling? Or they are just lucky and they’ve just entered a golden era of their physical abilities as a nation? Just asking.
 
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There is an Austrian thread at the top of the Clinic forum. If Austrians deserve their own topic why there is no a Dutch doping thread yet? Come on: Jumbo Visma (with Roglic, WvA), MvdP, Annemiek van Vleuten !!! (oh! she trains together with male pros. how cool!), van der Breggen, Blaak, M. Vos - just in cycling. Note there is also the speed skating which became a Dutch internal affair over the last few years (like Norwegians is cross country skiing). No shame. I fear we are talking industrial like, hard core, doping here. Are the Dutch the new Americans, Russians or British in cycling? Or they are just lucky and they’ve just entered a golden era of their physical abilities as a nation? Just asking.
The point of that thread was not to single out Austrians as the most notorius dopers—thread was about Operation Aderlass, a doping scheme conducted under a doc in Erfurt, Germany, which hit the news when Austrian police busted several skiers at the world XC ski championships in Seefeld, Austria that year. Both German and Austrian skiers and cyclists were implicated.
 

Skele

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Aug 27, 2018
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I think their secret is 'pindakaas'

Really speed skating??
The Netherlands is probably the only country in the world that has serious competition and training from an early age on.
The rest of the competitors just end up in that sport through some olympic program i assume.
 
Don't really consider speed skating that dodgy. That said, I do think we have a big Omerta thing going on, where doping is always subconciously some other countries do.

The lack of questions about Sifan Hassan's sudden rise was *** ridiculous
 
Nearly all Dutch speed skaters are from a single province (Friesland) in the Netherlands with just 600k inhabitants. That's where the facilities are and where it is a popular amateur sport. With global warming, countries where speed skating was more of a thing to do outside during winter, but who don't have that many advanced facilities like the Dutch, lost a lot of ground (Scandinavia, Russia, Germany). Speed skating that exists in other countries is often more focused on short track skating, which is not that popular in The Netherlands.

The American Shani Davis had very good results. But the reason why he started skating is because he has parents who were very much into speed skating and who pushed him into it, not because his peers pushed him into it, like what you would see in Friesland. Another American, Chad Hendrick, switched from inline skating to ice skating. He was competitive very quickly, but I bet that a lot of people will have a lot of trouble learning the different techniques.

So the pipeline to professional ice skating is very lean in the US, where a lot of stars have to align, where it is very wide (and competitive) in The Netherlands. If a skater can beat the Dutch competition, (s)he can often beat the international competition.

There is actually a worry that long track speed skating will be reduced in scope at the winter Olympics and the Dutch speed skating union has given help to foreign competitors.

It's easy to look like you have a doping advantage when others simply do poorly. I'm not saying that Dutch ice skaters don't dope, but I don't think a special advanced doping program explains their success.
 
As I said in the Worlds road race thread, this is getting quite similar to what Norwegian Xc skiing dominance in ladies has been for the past 10 or so years. Yes, the Norwegians probably have the best institutions, funding, and the like, and yes, xc skiing is a very very well respected sport in Norway, which taken together could explain some of their continued success. The situation is probably not too dissimilar in comparison to the resource advantage that the NL riders have.

And yet there have been pops in Norwegian xc skiing, even amongst the biggest stars. So If I had to make a bet about NL, "not legit" would be my choice.
 

Skele

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Legit or not i think he dutch are just very proffesional in a very weak field overall.
There are only a couple of non-dutch riders in the peloton that actually commit to the sport like they do, if they even get close.
 
  • Haha
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