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..."sponsored by Murdoch..."
I think this idea of Sky being able to buy their success is more to the point. I once asked a French gentleman from Marseilles what the French thought of Bradley Wiggins:
‘Oh, yes, we like him very much.’
Did he think Bradley took drugs to enhance his performance?
‘But of course.’
He didn't care whether Wiggins doped or not; I don't think the French take the same puritanical view that English speaking Protestants do (same with football and the attitude towards diving).
The fact that the French seemed to quite like Wiggins implies that being British isn't so much of a big deal either. What they object to, I think, is being rich and boring and successful.
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What they object to, I think, is being rich and boring.
Very much this. Comments on L'Equipe actually seem to focus more on whether Froome is using a hidden motor-that's to say they don't believe he's a 'doper' but a cheat all the same and one that hides behind technology and a team of super domestiques. Capitulating time with the moto incident would have made him the underdog and endeared him more to people perhaps, but he'd still be fucking dull and on Brailsford's leash.
It's unromantic, and eeking out a 20 second lead on a descent leaves no room for waxing lyrical about Pantani-esque solo escapes, jumpers for goalposts and smashing it up the climbs, bike disintegrating under the epic watts getting teased out gurning thighs.
Contador got caught doping but he rides with panache. Wiggins rode for Sky but he had sideburns, got angry and stuck his finger up at people. Cadel Evans had a small dog, a face like a Marseille hotelier's arse and a squeeky voice, and spent most of his career doggedly trying but not winning. When the French look at Froome and the Sky apparatus behind him, fair or not all they see is a bike riding robot backed up a corporate behemoth that excuses their own team's (with not dissimilar budgets) poor performances, team roster additions and out of date training regimens...
He's a dickhead. In 2012 he basically endorsed Sky as a clean team, then has steadily back-pedaled. He was challenged about this on Twitter recently, and threw up some guff about speeds increasing. I think he enjoys the attention on Twitter criticising Sky gets him, and so has thrown his lot in with the clinic trolls like digger, and also professional troll Antoine Vayer.
He also made some claim that his scepticism was due to talking to 'insiders' but ignored my request to elaborate on who they may be.
The evidence against Lance was there early on, he just spent his time using the courts to suppress it, but Kimmage and Walsh were investigating and there were a lot of people willing to talk. Is there the same about Sky? There is nada. There's Leinders and that is about it. No-one that has left the team has made any insinuations, and the one 'positive' they have had in JTL wasn't when he was racing for the team, and you would have thought he might have said something considering how bitter he was. But silence, just a brief association with the Rabobank doping doctor and the fact they win races, that is all the accusers have.
And the reason Sky get shouted about loudest is because people don't like them, they don't like them because they are British, rich, sponsored by Murdoch and they win races. So even though many believe all cyclists are doping, you get good dopers and bad dopers. The good dopers are teams like Astana, because apparently they don't pretend they are clean. Bad dopers are any anglos, i.e. from non-traditional cycling countries, and ones that maintain they are clean, so Sky with its ZTP and marginal gains really pisses them off.
There is a thread in the clinic titled 'More lame Russia bashing' with perfectly illustrates this, supposedly anti-doping people bemoaning Russia's current treatment by the IOC and others. Because Russia are good dopers, while the Brits and Aussies are bad dopers.