What about Vino?

[barn yard]

Funny, I always thought the job of a commentator was to describe the race, not to cheerlead for their favourites.

i agree with you, and this is why he is a poor commentator

 

[luckyboy]

he has no problems with other suspected dopers. It is just that Vino has the wrong passport.

This racist stuff is bs. He called out Schumacher + Di Luca, and he regularly criticises Di Luca.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

No, if anything it supports the suggestion that Harmon is racist. There are good dopers and bad dopers in his eyes. Good dopers have the correct passports, bad dopers don't.

Schumacher's greatest crime is being ugly, German and looking like the Mekon. If he were a nice anglo-phone doper like Millar, or 'Levi' (as Harmon likes to call him) - then he'd be fine.

 

[greatking88]

Sean 'King' Kelly makes up for Harmon's commentating..

 

[VeloCity]

Par for the course though unfortunately. Harmon is at least far less biased than people like Sherwin and Liggett

One could argue that the difference there is that Sherwin and Liggett are paid to be biased, at least if you're meaning their Versus commentary and when it comes to Armstrong and other American riders, ie it may not be their own personal views but is what they're expected to say by their American employers to an American audience. It's irritating but I can at least understand why they'd be playing it down for Armstrong etc. But Harmon's biases don't seem to have much rhyme or reason other than it just seems to be his own personal likes and dislikes.

 

[TERMINATOR]

Because Millar did come "clean", unlike Vino. Although it could be argued that if you're not going to come clean but "clean" a la Millar or Thomas Dekker, you might as well keep saying it's all a conspiracy.

Did Millar really come clean? He called the people who implicated him "nutters" and then only admitted to taking EPO once. Originally he denied he even used the EPO.

So if you call that a "coming clean" then so be it. I don't.

 

[Hugh Januss]

One could argue that the difference there is that Sherwin and Liggett are paid to be biased, at least if you're meaning their Versus commentary and when it comes to Armstrong and other American riders, ie it may not be their own personal views but is what they're expected to say by their American employers to an American audience. It's irritating but I can at least understand why they'd be playing it down for Armstrong etc. But Harmon's biases don't seem to have much rhyme or reason other than it just seems to be his own personal likes and dislikes.

I'm not sure that is an important distinction however. Crappy commentary is still crappy commentary, whether it has any rhyme or reason or doesn't.

 

[Frosty]

Did Millar really come clean? He called the people who implicated him "nutters" and then only admitted to taking EPO once. Originally he denied he even used the EPO.

So if you call that a "coming clean" then so be it. I don't.

Admitted using it more than once. Not saying that was the whole truth or not, maybe they had evidence that he had used it at those times.

http://sport.scotsman.com/tourdefrance/Millars-confession-casts-shadow-over.2542823.jp

 

[hrotha]

Did Millar really come clean? He called the people who implicated him "nutters" and then only admitted to taking EPO once. Originally he denied he even used the EPO.

So if you call that a "coming clean" then so be it. I don't.

Sigh.

Did you notice the quotation marks and the opposition between coming clean and coming "clean"?

 

[movingtarget]

Harmon is there to call the race which I think he does quite well compared to others. Even better with Kelly beside him. His personal comments about doping etc don't concern me because it is the race I am interested in, not who is saying what on Twitter etc............Every commentator has favourites and prefererred riders. How can he be called a rascist when he dislikes Ricco but barely mentions Basso ? We can't expect commentators to be entirely unbiased with their opinions when just about everyone else does the same.

 

[bianchigirl]

Listen to Magnus Backstedt - concise, knowledgeable, funny and always enlightening - reads a race excellently and doesn't play favourites, perhaps because he actually knows many riders rather than wishing he did like Harmon. Harmon wants to be friends with Levi and Cadel and Lance - all those nice white English speaking first name terms dopers he so idolises.

Seriously, the first name thing is interesting - the assumed intimicacy of 'Lance' 'Cadel' building the regular guy, almost like you know them narrative as opposed to the impersonal Ricco and the 'can't be bothered to even try saying your stupid foreign name' Vino.

Harmon's inconsistency about doping issues is at best laughable and at worst enables that very culture by playing fast and loose with the information he decides to impart. But then he banned me for daring to suggest that his attitude to a rider who had served his time winning a race (Vino at L-B-L) was somewhat hypocritical and that, under the current system, riders must be allowed to comeback or else be banned for life for any offence. I was blocked, which says a great deal for his mature approach to criticism and debate, I think

 

[CatsNK]

Sean 'King' Kelly makes up for Harmon's commentating..

I've heard Kelly bashing Vino as well.

I find the Universal Sports commentators the least biased. They actually call the race without lots of extra opinions about this or that rider. I don't know how people stand to watch Vs.

 

[roundabout]

Even the "joking" inferences of any racism are ****ing stupid.

Millar is a **** but he sure as hell aint podiuming the Dauphine now.

Vinokourov on the other hand doesn't even pretend to be riding clean so all that is left for fanboys/apologists is to decry the double standards from commentators and somehow pretend that he is the victim or a more upstanding guy than Ricco.

 

[therealtimshady]

you can even hear harmon jumping up and down whenever evans is near the front

 

[bianchigirl]

think he does a little more than jump up and down...

@roundabout that's quite a bold statement - why is Vino obviously not even pretending to be clean when many others with damning ties to doping doctors, pay offs to suppress investigations etc etc not equally worthy of comment? Not a word about Frank Schleck's expensive training plans or Kloeden's fine does Harmon speak and likewise, your condemnation seems happy to target one 'bogeyman' whose continued guilt is based on...? Your own gut feeling? Does that kind of opinion have any place in race commentary? Harmon doesn't speak for many fans because of the purely arbitrary and subjective nature of his arguments. But then if he had to be consistent he might have to raise question marks over his real big favourites and I don't think we'll ever hear Dave do that.

 

[roundabout]

he is a hypocrite but he is not wrong about Vino nor any less of a hypocrite than the people who follow Klöden's every successful pedal stroke with a post in the clinic. I could be wrong, but Vinokourov's "successful" return from whatever the eck he was doing between 2007 and 2009 (since it's apparently a crime now to mention his doping without mentioning the others) didn't warrant a lot of clinic coverage. Nor did "bianchigirl" rush in there to defend vinokourov's doping comrade from the horrible baseless accusations. Ironic, eh?

oh, and a bit more effort into making your posts won't go amiss instead of making baseless assumptions about me and my bogeymen. Infact I'd like you to look up my posts relating to Scarponi (to speak of a doper who's better than ever now) and then read the news from last week or read my first post in this topic.

But that would take more time than simply assuming that i have some kind of irrational dislike for the subject of this thread. Also while my dislike is supposedly based on "gut feeling" any explanation why you called Evans a doper?

 

[bianchigirl]

I post here once in a blue moon and don't really make a habit of ensuring that I either jump on every doping bandwagon or check every poster's history before I do so - I was addressing directly the contention that Harmon is some kind of 'upholder of the faith' because he chooses to condemn Vino. You and I are individuals on a forum expressing a personal, subjective opinion. I believe that Harmon can and should be held to a higher standard of objectivity professionalism and that there is a case to be made that, if a professional commentator plays favourites he is a) a hypocrite and b) shouldn't be getting paid for spouting an opinion when I can get that for free here and in the other cycling forums

 

[La Pandera]

I've heard Kelly bashing Vino as well.

I find the Universal Sports commentators the least biased. They actually call the race without lots of extra opinions about this or that rider. I don't know how people stand to watch Vs.

+1. I had my first chance to listen to their commentary in 2009 when they offered their channel for free on satellite and they covered a range of races that Versus either never covered (Pays Basque) or have decided aren't worth their time (the Vuelta). Insightful, enthusiastic and unbiased commentary.

 

[La Pandera]

Even the "joking" inferences of any racism are ****ing stupid.

Millar is a **** but he sure as hell aint podiuming the Dauphine now.

Vinokourov on the other hand doesn't even pretend to be riding clean so all that is left for fanboys/apologists is to decry the double standards from commentators and somehow pretend that he is the victim or a more upstanding guy than Ricco.

There is an obvious but somewhat understandable partisan support of the anglo riders. Still the fact that Versus allows Roll to spout his ridiculously ignorant anti-French nonsense and criticize Contador (2009) at every turn primarily because he made a stand versus his bud LA is really insulting to anyone with any knowledge of the sport and to those that are simply following it as a curiousity.

There should be some level of standards that shouldn't be compromised and with Roll and Versus they have fallen far below it. Their extremely cold response to Vino's win was a sad day in broadcasting. It's not like the rules dictate that a rider returning from suspension must not win any important races for a determined amount of time. Based on their perspective, they should simply ride in the back of peloton until the secret probationary period is up and maybe throw them into a couple of serious crashes to really appease those unhappy with the current set of rules.

 

[c&cfan]

The best illustration of Harmon's double standards and racism was last year during LBL.

While Vino was riding clear Harmon was screaming for Piti Valv to catch him.

It wasn't 'oh there is a doper beating a clean rider so I am going to cheer on the clean rider'. No, he was cheering Piti ****ing Valverde to beat the evil Vino.

Harmon is the best illustration that having no talent or brains but a monstrous ego and the ability to cheerlead is all you need to get ahead in cycling journalism.

or to post in the clinic.

do you watch the sport? do you cheer for some top cyclist? you are worse than him then.

if you dont cheer for a top rider, then you dont like\enjoy the sport. if that is the case, what are you doing here?

bang bang.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

I post here once in a blue moon and don't really make a habit of ensuring that I either jump on every doping bandwagon or check every poster's history before I do so - I was addressing directly the contention that Harmon is some kind of 'upholder of the faith' because he chooses to condemn Vino. You and I are individuals on a forum expressing a personal, subjective opinion. I believe that Harmon can and should be held to a higher standard of objectivity professionalism and that there is a case to be made that, if a professional commentator plays favourites he is a) a hypocrite and b) shouldn't be getting paid for spouting an opinion when I can get that for free here and in the other cycling forums

The point is this - either Harmon should call out all dopers, treat all dopers, suspected dopers etc equally, irrespective of nationality, or STFU, if he chooses to play favourites then he can't turn around and get upset when people call him for his racism and double standard.

Let's say tomorrow that Dertie Cont is busy taking the **** tomorrow - now will Harmon call him out in the the same way he calls out Vino or will he sweep it all under the carpet?

The best defence I think we can give to Harmon is that he the product of journalistic culture which has learnt that it is better to cheerlead than it is to ask tough questions.

 

[Anonymous]

That is because Harmon is a racist and a hypocrite.

This is the man who will cheer on Contador, Piti Valv, LL, Millar, Frodo, Armstrong, Kloden etc but will happily slag off the likes of Vino.

It's not Vino being a doper or unrepentant that is the problem for Harmon but rather where Vino comes from.

+16347643782648732648723

Harmon is an oaf, and rightfully took an absolute bashing for his comments.

 

[gatete]

One could argue that the difference there is that Sherwin and Liggett are paid to be biased, at least if you're meaning their Versus commentary and when it comes to Armstrong and other American riders, ie it may not be their own personal views but is what they're expected to say by their American employers to an American audience. It's irritating but I can at least understand why they'd be playing it down for Armstrong etc. But Harmon's biases don't seem to have much rhyme or reason other than it just seems to be his own personal likes and dislikes.

But then again someone could argue that is better to be real than being a sellout, where does it end?

 

[bianchigirl]

or to post in the clinic.

do you watch the sport? do you cheer for some top cyclist? you are worse than him then.

if you dont cheer for a top rider, then you dont like\enjoy the sport. if that is the case, what are you doing here?

bang bang.

You know, there's so much more to enjoy in the sport than cheering for a top rider - if that's you're idea of enjoying the sport, I'll continue to enjoy the stories of all the riders, the hisrtory of the races and the beauty of the parcours. Following cycling so you can say 'rah rah rah' for one rider is, in my opinion, a terribly limited way of doing so and misses so much of the beauty the sport has to offer.

MJM thought I was clear on that - otherwise agreed, as ever

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

You know, there's so much more to enjoy in the sport than cheering for a top rider - if that's you're idea of enjoying the sport, I'll continue to enjoy the stories of all the riders, the hisrtory of the races and the beauty of the parcours. Following cycling so you can say 'rah rah rah' for one rider is, in my opinion, a terribly limited way of doing so and misses so much of the beauty the sport has to offer.

MJM thought I was clear on that - otherwise agreed, as ever

I was concurring with you

Harmon might not be the sharpest tool in the box but he is certainly the biggest.