JimmyFingers said:
While it's refreshing to hear you say it, it does bring your long sermons about Sky riders sharply into focus.
I think this is a healthy thread. For me there has always been far too much conflict in the clinic for a place that is to discuss doping, and where the vast majority of us are here because we want a cleaner sport. So the arguments come from partisan elements here.
But the thing was, I thought Valverde's suspension was a bunch of crap. So was Contador's. These backdated pretend-they-weren't-there-at-races-they-were-there-at suspensions are a nonsense. I thought it was fair that they were banned. I thought it was right that they were banned. But do it for two years and let them keep the results CAS said were fair results. But I still missed Valverde when he was gone, because I liked him. As I say, I wish I didn't. It would save me a lot of cognitive dissonance.
And this wouldn't be the first time, and I bet it won't be the last, that I will leave the inference that Sky being dull, dominant, arrogant and self-righteous (while being evasive and hypocritical) are a key factor in why I go after them more than, say, Катюша.
And it's more nuanced that simply anti-Froome, pro-Contador or Valverde. Should we ever forgive cheats? I say yes, people make mistakes, there are human, they deserve second chances. In Valverde we have a convicted, unrepentant doper that many fans dislike him intensely, yet like Contador and Pantani he gets more of a free pass because of his riding style.
Does Valverde get more of a free pass? From me yes, but generally I see his successes creating as much if not more anger than most other convicted dopers bar the kind where they were repulsive characters long before they were banned and that garner more or less universal condemnation, like for example Danilo di Luca.
Froome on the other hand is a convicted doper, yet despite that to many he is as guilty as valverde. And in fact many he's worse, because he talks of being clean, his team talks of being clean, so he's a massive hypocrite. Factor in his horrible riding style, jarring personality, attention-seeking girlfriend and its easy to see why the knives come out for him. I dislike Froome too, however that does not mean I have decided he is a doper.
The problem is, at this point in time, the level of ridiculousness that he has been at for so long (far more dominant than many of the most doped names of recent times) now makes it that many simply are not able to believe that somebody could possibly believe in Froome without being a fan. When Mikel Astarloza said it would be way too stupid to use first-gen EPO in 2009 because it was so obviously detectable, I wanted to believe him, because I was a fan. Did I believe him? No. But I wanted to. I believe the majority of cynics are unable to even consider people believing Froome to be clean for anything other than partisan reasons, simply because there are so many leaps of faith that have to be made to proclaim him clean at this point in time that you almost have to
want to make those leaps to be able to make them.
And equally so I enjoy watching Contador ride, his style and attacking flair. But he has a ban, he talks about being clean, racing clean, denies he has ever doped but he doesn't attract the same level of venom as Froome does, in general anyway. I give him the same benefit of the doubt as I do to Froome.
Probably because as he has been banned, nobody believes him when he talks about being clean and racing clean. A victory for Contador is impossible to spin as a victory for clean cycling, and so while Alberto may give us the schtick about his cleanliness, we get spared the sermons from all quarters about how cycling has changed. The sanctimonious garbage gets very tiring when you're seeing very little real progress. A previously banned rider can never be spun as a victory for clean cycling. Even Millar. Valverde got a lot more venom in 2009-10 than he does now. Why? Because everybody felt he was a cheat, but he had never been brought to justice.
In one sense, Dave Brailsford was right; once you cheat, you are forever a cheat. It doesn't mean that once you dope, you will never race clean again, and it doesn't mean that people cannot reform. But once you've been busted for doping, that will always be with you. Dopers who've never been brought to justice - especially those who wave in your face that they've never been brought to justice - will always attract the most venom. To the majority in the Clinic, Froome has passed the reasonable doubt stage, and they now see him as an almost certain doper who is winning, mocking the competition and waving his almost certain doping in our faces, but has never been brought to justice. And of course, this is an Anglophone, UK-based website where the Anglophone, UK-based team gets a disproportionate amount of coverage even before they start dominating the calendar, and familiarity breeds contempt. It's no surprise they get the lion's share of the vitriol, now that Armstrong has fallen.
Why? Because they are human beings at the end of the day, I will not sit in judgement on them when I simply do not have the full set of facts at my disposal. The internet provides a platform for some of our worst personality traits to come out, as the bile projected here towards riders demonstrate, and the bile towards other fans who don't agree with the bile you are spouting. Too often the debate here is simply made up of character assassination, demonising the riders you don't like to make them 'worse' dopers, or worse hypocrites that the riders you do like.
The fact Sky alone causes such polemic debate here is because they have a fairly equal number of supporters as detractors, not the usual tired excuse that the bots keep saying the same things on the threads. Whatever the opposite of a bot is, you guys create the endless debate and threads on Sky as much if not more that the 'bots'.
Sure, there have also been some absolutely garbage excuses to level further accusations at Sky. And those of us that feel we have come to our conclusions based on relatively sound suspicions certainly don't need the tinfoil hat brigade jumping on the shape of lettering on a bike frame or the wording of an interview answer to a loaded question done when a rider's just crashed out of a race, any more than those who think Sky are clean need the nationalistic BS about superior British moral fibre or the likes of Joachim.
But as well as the number of supporters/detractors, do not underestimate the fact that they are dominating the calendar, getting the biggest share of coverage, and please don't underestimate the fact that they are doing so with riders that next to nobody could have reasonably expected to turn into even peripheral contenders for any major race. It makes it harder to accept, and it polarises people more than a rider like Nibali or Sagan.
And when debate gets polarised, views become progressively entrenched, people tend towards the extremes on both ends of the spectrum (and even self-proclaimed moderates - that's you and me both, Jimmy - are not as close to the middle as they may want to think), and reconciliation becomes harder.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram