Tour de France 2016

It's very peculiar all round really. Double standards and all the rest.
Often brought up is Froome's supposed 'transformation' aged 26 into a world class rider, ignoring the fact that until incredibly recently it's been nigh on impossible for a rider to come out of Africa aged 18 and join a euro/world pro team. Often this is accompanied by a mocking picture of a young Froome looking chunky, as if this backs up their statement rather than giving a huge reason for why he went from a rider getting dropped on climbs to one leading up them. The Bilharzia thing is dismissed out of hand as a lie.
I can understand the scepticism - there's been past cases where athletes have transformed with doping. Lance, Michelle Smith, even Landlord Christie (i'm leaving that autocorrect in) becoming the best sprinter in the world when he was 32 - but all of those were either exposed as cheats fairly soon after, or had huge simmering evidence to suggest they were cheating.
The only thing used to beat Sky with are power numbers, the limits of which seem to be set either by doctors who doped athletes heavily (Ferrari) or 'Coaches,' using that term incredibly loosely, like Antoine Vayer who last worked with top riders in, what, the 90s, at Festina? Who would also have been doped. Some of it seems to come from ego - "I never made an athlete that good, so whoever else can is obviously cheating". What else? Attention? Tucker always comes back on the 'i'm a really good scientist' argument, but one could push back on that - if he's so good, why is he shouting and blogging instead of coaching the world's best? Since he's so great, obviously the world's best are using doping doctors.
Ad infinitum.

..."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.

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...

What they object to, I think, is being rich and boring and successful.

Sky 3/3
BMC 2/3
Katusha 2/3

I wasn't meaning so much the French, just the general attitude of many cycling 'fans' who seem to be more interesting in berating the cyclists on Twitter than actually watching cycling.

I think if you want to push back at Tucker use AndyP's confirmation bias accusation. I had to look it up but it's compelling.

I've seen him accused of that before, but he just backs himself up with the 'i'm a scientist argument, I'm not biased and how dare you accuse me of such a thing' argument. I've pulled him up on how you can prove a negative, and also on the question of why Froome blossomed at age 26, but he's not very interested in answering those.
He's far more engaging on subjects he's not entirely made his mind up on, but I fear once he's decided he's right, he's decided it for good.

Side note - Tucker has bemoaned Sky's PR so much in the past couple of seasons. Apparently having fluff pieces about their riders is a doping indicator, as if fluff pieces about any high profile athlete have never existed before Sky came along. the ST's David Walsh, who helped expose Armstrong as a doper, has come in for repeated and vicious criticism for a while, and not just from Tucker, but from all the trolls. It's again a case of if x=y, then y=dope for them all. Again, I may be wrong, but I'd put money on Walsh, who risked his job to expose Armstrong, on being honest and having integrity enough not to promote a Sky lie. Anonymous tweeters adamant there's a lie to uncover, not so much.

But you did imply that the criticism tends to come from abroad?

"...they don't like them because they are British."

Unless, of course, you were implying that British cycling fans are afflicted with a great self-loathing regarding their nationality?

British people have a general sense of self-loathing.

Well the internet really, characters like Digger, Ross Tucker and Vayer, and the cesspool that is the clinic. I can't comment on the forrins en masse, just the comments I have seen online. Just go a see the various Sky/Froome/Brits/Cookson threads in the clinic and you'll see what I mean.

I'd assume since there is a large anti-Brit bias the majority are not of the country. You should have seen the crescendo that occured during the London Olympics and the hysterical doping accusations towards us, equating us with East Germany etc etc.

The second massive factor is Lance. He came from a non-traditional cycling country, doped and bullied his way to 7 TdF wins, only really focussed on the TdF, and won it in a similar manner to Sky. I think many cycling fans around the world take that anger and betrayal and misdirect back onto Sky, thinkling they are seeing history repeating itself. A great deal of what goes on in Twitter and the clinic is less debating evidence and more dedicated character assassination. Froome, Brailsford, Cookson, Wiggins, Thomas are all really loathed and anything they can dredge up to portray them in a bad light is used, not to prove they are doping, but to make them look like bad dopers like Lance, rather than good dopers like Pantani.

At least they form a nice antidote to the thoughtless, little England, plastic flag waving support of all things 'British'. And the ridiculous assumption of many that brits don't dope.

Supporting anyone or anything on the basis of nationality is dumb in my mind. I liked Wiggo because he was cool. I dislike Froome because he is boring. What does their being Belgium, Aussie or Kenyan have to do with it?

The fact that Bradley Wiggins is "the cool cyclist" says a lot about cycling.

I take your point, although I don't think Wiggins is 'loathed' at all; as uber_gruber said," he had sideburns, got angry and stuck his finger up at people," so gets filed as some sort of British eccentric.

Indeed, I'm not sure any of those guys are 'loathed' the way Armstrong was/is. Bear in mind that the reason the French disliked Armstrong so much had nothing to do with the fact that he doped and everything to do with that fact that he was a brash American who affected a total disinterest in the heritage of the tour, and Europe in general.

So much this. I wish professional cycling would stop reporting nationality of riders in results. It's irrelevant and should go the way of the podium girl.

(Go Ryder!... Ummm... Michael Woods had a good start to the season...)

Really? I quite like the differentiation where sport is concerned. Not sure I want to live in a world where culture is homogenised; vive la différence and all that.

Agree about the podium girls, however.

Where's the attack on culture or the desire to homogenize it? I think that's a bit of an over statement. I just think it should be irrelevant. What's the logic to it in terms of displaying results when we're watching trade teams race?

It's hugely relevant in terms of getting spectators involved, especially the casual ones who appear during the GTs. It's even more relevant when it comes to the sponsors - Sky and Sky Italy, for example, want to engage the UK and Italy fan base in particular, FDJ and AG2R want French people to look at their riders because they're French companies, etc etc

I get people like rooting for "their own", but the little flag or three-letter representation of nationality is necessary for sponsorship money? Maybe. Marginal gains in attracting cash.

I think now more than ever we should be fighting back against that kind of crap though. Look at the shit that was going down in France during the Euros.

Anyway, ignore me.

I do agree with this, however the pendulum swings in exactly the opposite way, that all British athletes dope, that is organised from the top down, that Cookson is protecting Sky like VB and fat Pat protected Lance, and that because we are British and have a strong anti-doping rhetoric those involved are horrible liars and manipulators. Those that firmly believe Sky dope, and dope to the gills, get incensed by the ZTP, marginal gains PR and all the puff pieces in papers about their revolutionary methods, which makes them far worse hypocrites than teams from traditional cycling countries that dope but don't have all the PR denying they do. It's a bizarre logic.

I definitely agree, when I was younger I was a fairly rabid England supporter but now that mentality disgusts me, I laughed when England exited the Euros, karma for the behaviour of our fans and the Brexit vote. I do support the British riders in the main, I'm still very lukewarm towards Froome however. But I also support a whole load of other riders from other countries, which is why I find the partisanship around cycling surprising. Apart from the Worlds and the Olympics the riders are in trade teams that end and change and merge and change sponsors constantly, and the majority have riders from all over the world.

I didn't allude to there being an attack on differing culture, just an aspect of denying it.

In any case, 'rooting for your own' has nothing to do with it; I 'follow' Caja Rural, not Team Sky.

I had an interesting interaction on Twitter with Tucker when the Hajo Seppelt story about widespread Kenyan doping stories came out.

I asked him if this might have an effect on the findings of his study that proposed a gene/performance link that suddenly made itself apparent in the early 1990's in East African marathon running. But didn't consider they may have all just started doping.

"I couldn't consider governance issues"

@Fox @T-V

Being a helpful chap I have updated Pozzato's Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Pozzato#Personal_life

I was careful to keep it totally factual. Obviously it's not up to me to interpret someone else's sexuality.

Ha!