Article on Wiggins' blood in l'Equipe - feel like replying?

finchy

L'Equipe has done an article on Wiggins releasing his blood values.

http://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme/breves20 ... rence.html

Of course a load of French readers, who have come to the conclusion that foreigner+success=doping, have started the abuse.

I've put in a reply, pointing out that they don't in fact have a clue what they're talking about and don't have a scrap of evidence. I don't know if l'Equipe'll publish my comment though.

Anyone else feel like defending our Wiggo?

Echo et les Boniments

Actually, a load of French readers have long come to the conclusion that cycling+racing=doping. I think you should just ignore their comments.

BikingBernie

Echo et les Boniments wrote:

Actually, a load of French readers have long come to the conclusion that cycling+racing=doping. I think you should just ignore their comments.

Or perhaps 'Actually, a load of French readers have long come to the conclusion that suddenly doing very well at bike racing, especially when the rider previously showed no signs of being a Tour contender = doping. '

iainf72

BikingBernie wrote:

Or perhaps 'Actually, a load of French readers have long come to the conclusion that suddenly doing very well at bike racing, especially when the rider previously showed no signs of being a Tour contender = doping. '

You mean like Le Mevel's fantastic 10'th place?

DaveyL

No, no, no, iain. He's said he's clean. And he's French, so he must be telling the truth.

bikerZA

DaveyL wrote:

No, no, no, iain. He's said he's clean. And he's French, so he must be telling the truth.

You're right. It's completely ridiculous.

Bugly

DaveyL wrote:

No, no, no, iain. He's said he's clean. And he's French, so he must be telling the truth.

Whereas He's English so he cant be doping?

Not saying he is, but lets face all we have are opinions based on prejudice an cultural bias, that goes in both directions.

Personally I see any 'fantastic' ride in race and I automatically assume the rider is doped to the gills. I personally and fatalistically think that only a minority of pro riders are clean

Echo et les Boniments

Oh well, Le Mevel's got his share of shite on French forums. Something like "he's got himself a new Italian doctor. That's what European Union is about..." But then as a French rider, he's likely to have more supporters on a French forum than, say, Wiggo or Van de Velde.

You people don't seem to understand that in my dear country, for the average Tour de France fan, every pro cyclist dopes. Every pro rider takes small stuff, pre-event stuff, recovery stuff, untraceable stuff... Admittedly, the French fan tends to be very agressive with foreign riders because he's come to believe the French riders dope less than the foreign ones and could compete with big teams if only the French officials would alllow them to do the same things as, say, the Spaniards, the Italians... everybody else actually. I'm not saying this is true (might have been true -to some extent- a few years ago... only my opinion...) I'm saying this is the way the average L'Equipe reader thinks when he glances at the Tour general classification... then quickly goes back to the Football pages... He usually stopped caring about cycling in 1998.

Generally speaking there's an incredible amount of bitterness around pro cycling in France (the WWF comparison is a media favourite) and I don't see why Wiggo (or people who like Wiggo for that matter) should take that bitterness personnally.

takethehighroad

Bugly wrote:

Personally I see any 'fantastic' ride in race and I automatically assume the rider is doped to the gills. I personally and fatalistically think that only a minority of pro riders are clean

What about Hushovd in Paris Roubaix? Or Fuglsang in the Dauphine? What did yoiu think of those?

iainf72

The thing with Wiggins is it's not his nationality that makes you think he's not doping. It's a lot of other things.

Of course we look at good performances with raised eye brows but Wiggins has got a big engine, actually did lose weight and had a different mind set. I suspect if you got his power numbers it would be what someone with a VO2Max of 88 would produce.

I was never much of a Wiggins fan as most people who've been here for a while would know. Woo, you can ride around a wooden circle fast, big deal. But now he's proved what he can do on the road when he concentrates on it and attempts to be as open as possible about his performances.

The question is could he do anymore to prove he's on bread and water?

dulldave

To be fair you can hardly be appalled at the French for thinking French=clean whilst blatantly thinking the same for British riders.

I think Wiggo's clean, don't get me wrong. But you've got to note the hypocrisy in some of these posts.

carbotanium

Of course a load of French readers, who have come to the conclusion that foreigner+success=doping, have started the abuse.

Substitute French for British when on a Brit website , American when on a US website , Spanish when on a ................. , etc

Of course the average person worldwide thinks everyone who tries to cycle fast takes drugs , it's what you do , there's no training needed just a pharmacy nearby will do.

DaveyL

Bugly wrote:

DaveyL wrote:

No, no, no, iain. He's said he's clean. And he's French, so he must be telling the truth.

Whereas He's English so he cant be doping?

No, nothing to do with his nationality - it's because he rides for a team who have a strong anti-doping culture, who invite sceptical journalists to live with them during the Tour, and who are happy to publish riders' blood values and power meter data.

Do try to keep up, rather than resot to lazy cliche.

My point is that thr French teams seem to be able to get away wth just saying they are clean, and everyone takes them at face value. Publishing these values is not just a PR stunt, why don't they do something like that as well?

finchy

carbotanium wrote:

Of course a load of French readers, who have come to the conclusion that foreigner+success=doping, have started the abuse.

Substitute French for British when on a Brit website , American when on a US website , Spanish when on a ................. , etc

Of course the average person worldwide thinks everyone who tries to cycle fast takes drugs , it's what you do , there's no training needed just a pharmacy nearby will do.

I think that most of the posters on this website would not just condemn a rider based on not being British.

Generally speaking, people on these forums give the benefit of doubt to, for example, Gilbert, Voeckler, Hushovd to name but a few. I'm not saying that it's right for people to believe that we can give any meaningful insight into who does and doesn't dope, but when bikeradar users do talk about the subject, any discussion tends to be based on evidence (the validity of which is, of course, open to personal interpretation).

Echo - I've spent a lot of time in France, and I know that amongst many cycling fans the assumption was that all cyclists dope. It's just a pity really that many tend to view ALL success as being due to doping. I've posted on their before, asking people where the evidence is that rider x, y or z dopes, and the reply I've had is that I'm just being naive for presuming innocence until proven guilty. :roll:

BikingBernie

DaveyL wrote:

[Mevel's] said he's clean. And he's French, so he must be telling the truth.

Anyone coming in the top 10 of a grand Tour has to be 'suspect', whatever their nationality. This is unfortunate, and may not always be fair, but given the history of bike racing it is entirely understandable.

dulldave wrote:

To be fair you can hardly be appalled at the French for thinking French=clean whilst blatantly thinking the same for British riders.

I take it that you meant to say 'otherwise for British riders', rather than 'the same'. If so I think that you must have missed this earlier post.

Echo et les Boniments wrote:

Le Mevel's got his share of shite on French forums. Something like "he's got himself a new Italian doctor...

BikingBernie

johnfinch wrote:

I've spent a lot of time in France, and I know that amongst many cycling fans the assumption was that all cyclists dope. It's just a pity really that many tend to view ALL success as being due to doping. I've posted on their before, asking people where the evidence is that rider x, y or z dopes, and the reply I've had is that I'm just being naive for presuming innocence until proven guilty.

I live there now and that is also my experience. French cynicism is also encouraged by their press, whose dedication to old-fashioned investigative journalism puts the uncritical fan-boy hero-worship and lazy press-release regurgitation of much of the English speaking media to shame.

Unlike say, Brits or (especially) Americans, the French seem to be just as ready to throw accusations of doping at riders of their own nationality as they are riders of 'foreign' nationalities. It's probably part of the same outlook that Greg Lemond talked about when he spoke at the 'Play The Game' conference and said that he had found the French to be the most sporting and fair-minded people in Europe, with the nationality of a rider being far less important that seeing 'the best man' win.

It's a pity that because of doping most people in France don't actually give a monkey's about pro bike racing any more.

mididoctors

johnfinch wrote:

L'Equipe has done an article on Wiggins releasing his blood values.

http://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme/breves20 ... rence.html

Of course a load of French readers, who have come to the conclusion that foreigner+success=doping, have started the abuse.

I've put in a reply, pointing out that they don't in fact have a clue what they're talking about and don't have a scrap of evidence. I don't know if l'Equipe'll publish my comment though.

Anyone else feel like defending our Wiggo?

does the piece actually attack wiggins?

seems no more skeptical than any other piece?