Just say the d word

MrT
MrT Posts: 260
edited May 2009 in Pro race
Having watched the opening couple of stages and sky+ todays stage what is going on with the muppets at Eurosport....you keep getting talk of the "past problems" etc but it's as if no one dares mention drugs...classic comment from Kelly et al today.."Soler doesn't look as good as he did two years ago"...really Sherlock.
The pictures are great etc by why not actually get real when commentating,,,there was a brief mention of sera wrt to one of the riders and that was it. You can never get on top of the problem by sweeping it under the carpet...i

Comments

  • afx237vi
    afx237vi Posts: 12,630
    So you want Eurosport to say Soler is a doper when he's never failed a test, served a ban or even been linked to any kind of doping investigation?
  • MrT
    MrT Posts: 260
    Maybe a little harsh...but i was at the tour in 2007..when one of his teammates was kicked out...then it was the rasmussen malarcky...i realise he cracked his wrist in 2008..but from performances like that in 2007 to what...either way that isn't the thrustof my post...apologies to Soler fans
  • afx237vi
    afx237vi Posts: 12,630
    But they can hardly insinuate things about riders if they have no proof. Look at Ricco and Sella from last year. Everyone had their suspicions, but you can hardly say it on air.

    When riders have been caught, then they talk about it. They were talking about Petacchi and his salbutamol ban yesterday.
  • Oz Chief
    Oz Chief Posts: 176
    While we are on commentators;

    In Australia we only have daily updates at 7am. That's fine, but the commentator is Paddy Agnew. Never heard of him before, but my god he is boring. The updates only go for about 15 minutes, and it's silence for most of it. And when he is talking, he doesnt know which rider is which. Except Armstrong, he knew who he was.

    Do you guys get him? Do you feel like pulling your teeth out listening to him?
  • moray_gub
    moray_gub Posts: 3,328
    afx237vi wrote:
    But they can hardly insinuate things about riders if they have no proof. Look at Ricco and Sella from last year. Everyone had their suspicions, but you can hardly say it on air.

    When riders have been caught, then they talk about it. They were talking about Petacchi and his salbutamol ban yesterday.


    Depends on the rider really I often think Harmen thinks Cunego has a dodgy past ive heard him several times say Cunego isnt the same rider and there could be reasons for that etc. Indeed he said something about him the other day something about his up and down perfomances being an indication of certain things.
    Gasping - but somehow still alive !
  • disgruntledgoat
    disgruntledgoat Posts: 8,957
    Oooh libelamendous!

    I thought Cunego had a certified naturally high HCT count of above 50%, which (and I stand to be corrected by those on here who take a greater interest in matters pharmaceutical than I) would kind of limit what he could achieve by using PEDs and would also account for his "up and down" (read: Normal range of) performances.
    "In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"

    @gietvangent
  • markwalker
    markwalker Posts: 953
    Oooh libelamendous!

    I thought Cunego had a certified naturally high HCT count of above 50%, which (and I stand to be corrected by those on here who take a greater interest in matters pharmaceutical than I) would kind of limit what he could achieve by using PEDs and would also account for his "up and down" (read: Normal range of) performances.

    Yes I heard that comment, it went along with a comment that Cunego still considers himself a grand tour rider then the up and down bit. I got the impression he was saying maybe the reason hes up and down is that hes currently riding clean. I took it the comment could also mean that the others were not riding clean. Perhaps as well it meant Cunego is now clean.
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,722
    Soler has once again been in the wars, througout this race. He also had a nasty crash in the Giro del Toscana, on Sunday week.
    Bruised face, a right knee that has kissed the tarmac 3 times, to my knowledge and a slope that was really geared to him.
    Considering all of that, he was only beaten by the guys everybody forcast to win the stage.

    Tell you what Harmon is spouting that is getting up my noise.
    Why the Vendetta against PVC?
    He's called LPR a old doper's haven. Well that's one thing, but now he's gone after Savio's boys.
    Based upon what? Rebellin, who tested positive at Gerolsteiner, but was announced just prior to the Giro.
    How is that their fault?
    Michele Scarponi for his return, after being involved in OP.
    OK, he was, but he also made a pretty decent confession, by cycling standards.

    So, if PVC is a dopers haven for having one rider implicated in OP, what of a certain team that he loves, that had 4 of the little darlings on their books, at one time, including Basso.
    Went out of their way to sign them, in fact.
    The DS in question still retains the big one, but of course, since he's Spanish, it doesn't count.

    Fair play for the minnows!
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • disgruntledgoat
    disgruntledgoat Posts: 8,957
    Soler has once again been in the wars, througout this race. He also had a nasty crash in the Giro del Toscana, on Sunday week.
    Bruised face, a right knee that has kissed the tarmac 3 times, to my knowledge and a slope that was really geared to him.
    Considering all of that, he was only beaten by the guys everybody forcast to win the stage.

    Tell you what Harmon is spouting that is getting up my noise.
    Why the Vendetta against PVC?
    He's called LPR a old doper's haven. Well that's one thing, but now he's gone after Savio's boys.
    Based upon what? Rebellin, who tested positive at Gerolsteiner, but was announced just prior to the Giro.
    How is that their fault?
    Michele Scarponi for his return, after being involved in OP.
    OK, he was, but he also made a pretty decent confession, by cycling standards.

    So, if PVC is a dopers haven for having one rider implicated in OP, what of a certain team that he loves, that had 4 of the little darlings on their books, at one time, including Basso.
    Went out of their way to sign them, in fact.
    The DS in question still retains the big one, but of course, since he's Spanish, it doesn't count.

    Fair play for the minnows!


    Pees me off that too.

    The thing about Diquigiovanni is that they are full of young riders singed from south america who are being given a big chance with some great experienced riders and promising Italians too. I shouldn't imagine that there are enormously sophisticated blood doping rings in teh Venezualan amateur scene, likewise (his "i can't watch my riders 24 hours a day" spiel aside) Savio always seems to talk a good line against doping in his column each month. I am presuming that, given he relies on the goodwill of major race organisers to get into decent races, any bad publicity is a serious blow for a team like that and it must get passed onto the riders /naievity.

    I guess i'm just a big Gibo fan!
    "In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"

    @gietvangent
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    When Rebellin was suspended by the team, Savio didn't bring in a young rider from the squad, he signed Ferrari client Leonardo Bertagnolli for a month. Savio doesn't even write the column in Pro Cycling, that's ghost written by the magazine's Daniel Friebe. The team is hardly Garmin, is it?
  • moray_gub
    moray_gub Posts: 3,328
    Soler has once again been in the wars, througout this race. He also had a nasty crash in the Giro del Toscana, on Sunday week.
    Bruised face, a right knee that has kissed the tarmac 3 times, to my knowledge and a slope that was really geared to him.
    Considering all of that, he was only beaten by the guys everybody forcast to win the stage.

    Tell you what Harmon is spouting that is getting up my noise.
    Why the Vendetta against PVC?
    He's called LPR a old doper's haven. Well that's one thing, but now he's gone after Savio's boys.
    Based upon what? Rebellin, who tested positive at Gerolsteiner, but was announced just prior to the Giro.
    How is that their fault?
    Michele Scarponi for his return, after being involved in OP.
    OK, he was, but he also made a pretty decent confession, by cycling standards.

    So, if PVC is a dopers haven for having one rider implicated in OP, what of a certain team that he loves, that had 4 of the little darlings on their books, at one time, including Basso.
    Went out of their way to sign them, in fact.
    The DS in question still retains the big one, but of course, since he's Spanish, it doesn't count.

    Fair play for the minnows!

    On the subject of Savio If you will recall he had a laughable Pro Cycling rant about internet forums and certain posters questioning the signing of Rebellin .Indeed he was talking about going to court etc etc, i think he has a bit of egg on his chin now because lets face it Rebellin was one of the more iffy characters in the Peleton and Savio knew this when he signed him. Savio cant have his cake and eat it , he is not responsible for the doping just the naivety in signing him.

    But i digress i really like Harmen as a commentator i think his rider recognition and reading of a race is excellent but he is starting to get on my goat with his doping innuendos and castigagting certain teams and his reluctance to call it what it is .
    Gasping - but somehow still alive !
  • moray_gub
    moray_gub Posts: 3,328
    Kléber wrote:
    doesn't even write the column in Pro Cycling, that's ghost written by the magazine's Daniel Friebe.

    I think he wrote it when he let rip over the Rebellin signing.
    Gasping - but somehow still alive !
  • calvjones
    calvjones Posts: 3,850
    Kléber wrote:
    When Rebellin was suspended by the team, Savio didn't bring in a young rider from the squad, he signed Ferrari client Leonardo Bertagnolli for a month. Savio doesn't even write the column in Pro Cycling, that's ghost written by the magazine's Daniel Friebe. The team is hardly Garmin, is it?

    But neither are they Leakygas.

    Who was di Luca riding for when he had baby's wee?
    ___________________

    Strava is not Zen.
  • disgruntledgoat
    disgruntledgoat Posts: 8,957
    Kléber wrote:
    When Rebellin was suspended by the team, Savio didn't bring in a young rider from the squad, he signed Ferrari client Leonardo Bertagnolli for a month. Savio doesn't even write the column in Pro Cycling, that's ghost written by the magazine's Daniel Friebe. The team is hardly Garmin, is it?

    Firstly, having your magazine column ghostwritten is hardly a breach of sporting ethics is it? Little unfair that.

    Secondly, isn't Bertagnolli Simoni's best mate?
    "In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"

    @gietvangent
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    All I meant was that what ever Savio says in the magazine, he's not writing it so don't take the copy to be gospel direct from the pulpit of Saint Gianni :wink:
  • moray_gub
    moray_gub Posts: 3,328
    markwalker wrote:
    [comment could also mean that the others were not riding clean. Perhaps as well it meant Cunego is now clean.

    Thats how i took it, ive heard him say it a few times about The Little Prince in the last few years.
    Gasping - but somehow still alive !
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    I've been listening to the Italian coverage. Is Harmon making the same distinction about Armstrong, referring to his past allegations?
  • moray_gub
    moray_gub Posts: 3,328
    Kléber wrote:
    All I meant was that what ever Savio says in the magazine, he's not writing it so don't take the copy to be gospel direct from the pulpit of Saint Gianni :wink:

    so he doesnt write any of it then , not even his diatribe about internet forums ? anyway how do you know he doesnt write any of it ?.....
    Gasping - but somehow still alive !
  • moray_gub
    moray_gub Posts: 3,328
    Kléber wrote:
    I've been listening to the Italian coverage. Is Harmon making the same distinction about Armstrong, referring to his past allegations?

    No
    Gasping - but somehow still alive !
  • leguape
    leguape Posts: 986
    Kléber wrote:
    When Rebellin was suspended by the team, Savio didn't bring in a young rider from the squad, he signed Ferrari client Leonardo Bertagnolli for a month. Savio doesn't even write the column in Pro Cycling, that's ghost written by the magazine's Daniel Friebe. The team is hardly Garmin, is it?

    Firstly, having your magazine column ghostwritten is hardly a breach of sporting ethics is it? Little unfair that.

    Secondly, isn't Bertagnolli Simoni's best mate?

    Gibo's hardly got the cleanest record book in the peloton either (aunty's sweets from Peru has to be one of the great excuses for being at the bugle). Remember him with Ricco as his protege at Saunier Duval, in an interview in procycling taking potshots at Basso, riding to wins with the support of Piepoli?
  • disgruntledgoat
    disgruntledgoat Posts: 8,957
    Recognising i'm now sounding like the Armstrong fan boys... CONI tested the sweets i believe and found that yes, they were made with coca. Dashed stupid though, i'll concede.

    The point i was making was that Bertognalli was probably drafted in at Gibo's behest when the space opened up rather than some shadowy plot.

    You're all just "haters" and "trolls" anyway. :P Go Gibo!
    "In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"

    @gietvangent
  • takethehighroad
    takethehighroad Posts: 6,819
    Is the D word Duffield?
  • DaveyL
    DaveyL Posts: 5,167
    Got to love the concluding paragraph of Savio's April Procycling column:

    "Take it from me, readers, there wasn't a rider or team boss outside Saunier-Duval who didn't watch Riccardo Ricco or Leonardo Piepoli not just attack but ride clean away from a peloton of the best riders in the world in the Pyrenees during the Tour last year without a smidgen of scetpicism. If my riders started doing likewise, believe me, I'd be the first to smell a rat."

    You mean like when Jose Rujano and Ivan Parra were tearing up the mountain stages of the 2005 Giro, Gianni?
    Le Blaireau (1)
  • markwalker
    markwalker Posts: 953
    Moray Gub wrote:
    markwalker wrote:
    [comment could also mean that the others were not riding clean. Perhaps as well it meant Cunego is now clean.

    Thats how i took it, ive heard him say it a few times about The Little Prince in the last few years.

    On the positive side yesterdays scenery alone made it worth watching. Voight, as always, great to watch and Solers dig after the previous days hooha a superb bonus.
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,722
    Moray Gub wrote:
    But i digress i really like Harmen as a commentator i think his rider recognition and reading of a race is excellent but he is starting to get on my goat with his doping innuendos and castigagting certain teams and his reluctance to call it what it is .

    We seem to have found something upon which, we have an identical opinion.
    Excellent race commentator, who seems to be spending a fair bit of time, during this race, speculating upon doping within certain teams only.
    It's almost as if he can't wait for the next doping scandal to explode in the peloton.

    Gibo? Well at least he's got a cleaner record than Boonan, who's getting a fair amount of sympathy at the mo.
    If the distiction is going to made between a recreational drug and proper PEDs, then he's got no record.
    Especially as he was eventually cleared, regardless of what anyone might think.
    Very low on the doping totem pole, unless all are guilty by association.
    Which brings David Millar into the frame, again.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • disgruntledgoat
    disgruntledgoat Posts: 8,957
    His habit of never achieving anything at the Tour despite years of big talk (on the other hand, file under Roberto Heras) as well as never doing anything one wouldn't expect from a 60kg climber always made me think he was either a pretty poor responder to the kind of treatment being meted out in the late 1990s (when he was very quiet) and early-mid 2000s, had some sort of Zabel like allergic reaction or was a genuine and quiet "conchie" (witness him trying to get Simeoni a job).

    I could just be incredibly naive though, as Phil Ligget tells me he can get up to 60kph in the little ring without breaking a sweat!
    "In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"

    @gietvangent
  • I
    could just be incredibly naive though, as Phil Ligget tells me he can get up to 60kph in the little ring without breaking a sweat!
    [/quote]

    School boy error, you know that it is a legal requirement that you have to refer to him as Phil "the voice of cycling" Ligget!
  • Birillo
    Birillo Posts: 417
    Who would be a cycling commentator? There is a fine line between candour and slander. He knows that a large proportion of his audience is wise to the ways of the pro peloton, but that there are limits on what he can say, for legal and commercial reasons.

    So what does he do? Keep to the facts in those cases that are on public record, and use subtle language to hint at things that haven't (yet) been proven.

    There are plenty of clues for those who can read between the lines eg a certain commentator referred to a certain classics winner this season as having "ridden with the strength of two men". Read into that what you will, but I thought it was spot on.
  • Oz Chief wrote:
    While we are on commentators;

    In Australia we only have daily updates at 7am. That's fine, but the commentator is Paddy Agnew. Never heard of him before, but my god he is boring. The updates only go for about 15 minutes, and it's silence for most of it. And when he is talking, he doesnt know which rider is which. Except Armstrong, he knew who he was.

    Do you guys get him? Do you feel like pulling your teeth out listening to him?

    Dunno if this has been said, but Paddy Agnew is a football journalist who writes for world soccer as their man in italy. he also wrote a book about italian football. Great book, but I aint sure how much he knows about cycling.
  • Unsheath
    Unsheath Posts: 49
    Paddy speaks with the same Irish monotone as the better credentialled Sean Kelly. The distinction is that Kelly knows what the hell is is talking about.

    Makes me think whether it's worth any of the bike the Bike Radar crew getting the commentary gig. I'm sure many would love the chance to discredit 90% of the peloton with cryptic and incessant doping talk. Me included...