Sore loser

[pinkbikes]

So your argument is that sportspeople should only express an opinion that is not negative? Sounds like you're trying to rationalise self-censorship.

Cadel Evans is widely regarded as a whinger because he (rightly or wrongly) attributes his lack of wins to team members that didn't support him, mechanics who are incompetent etc etc. Is he also a bad sport? What if it's true that his teammates suck and the mechanics are bad?

How about prize fighters who trash talk each other before a fight? Is that poor sportsmanship? Or does the fact that they hug after the fight make it alright?

I think these guys are as entitled to express their opinions as anyone else. Of course some will disagree with their opinions. Some will think it unseemly (unsportsmanlike). Others will just say "meh". Guess I'm in the third camp

Max

Yep - I think I'm in that third camp with you. Perhaps it is the national "tell it like it is" ethos. But I must admit I even went a bit further down the list than "meh."

I actually couldn't see anything sore loser-ish, or even trash talking about it. To me it looked like a pretty straight forward response to some questions from a journo. There was no whinge that somebody else got treated better - in fact it really seemed to be a response to the fact that somebody else (perhaps Alberto?) who was doing the whinging that he didn't get the right wheels and that he got dropped...

I actually found very little to be offended by in any of the article other than the comment that LA admired AC as an athlete but it stopped there. And frankly, I've said pretty much the same about plenty of people in my life...ie "great engineer, terrific at their job, but that's where it stops." Or even better.."Really nice fellow, would do anything for you, but not really worth a crumpet as an engineer."

And I make the declaration that I find LA a pretty darned impressive athlete, a walking ego on legs, and a cancer survivor who seems pretty successful at wedding his fame to a charitable cause (whether or not very efficient) that does some good. So I am not really somebody who idolises him, but I don't really knock him either.

Like you said Maxxxie... "Meh!"

[ridebikeme]

I suppose we could argue this for quite some time. HOwever, I do have one question. What good does it do to complain about something that happened last year? IN reality, it seems that LA should be focused on this year and the changes that he can make. Once again, all he's asking for is the spotlight to once again shine on him.

Remember some of the great athletes from the past? They let their performance do their talking... what a nice thought!

[Zen]

^ perfect.

[ny biker]

I suppose we could argue this for quite some time. HOwever, I do have one question. What good does it do to complain about something that happened last year? IN reality, it seems that LA should be focused on this year and the changes that he can make. Once again, all he's asking for is the spotlight to once again shine on him.

Remember some of the great athletes from the past? They let their performance do their talking... what a nice thought!

Except the media love a feud. You could argue that he should decline to answer the question, but that won't stop them from asking it. I guarantee we'll be hearing about this in July, whether the main players have something new to say about it or not. They're trying to attract readers/viewers, and if this topic didn't do the job they'd stop talking about it.

BTW that particular article looks like it was a translation from one language to another and back again. Not the best source for understanding what someone is really saying. And cyclingnews excerpted it, so they chose the part that they wanted to highlight.

One thing that I found interesting this past year was the way Lance and Levi cut out the press completely and went straight to the fans during the Giro. They made their own videos and posted them on twitter and livestrong.com, and they did it because they got tired of the stupid questions the journalists were asking.

As for focusing on 2010, he's already posted his first video for Team Radio Shack. It was short, basically a happy-new-year-and-thanks-for-last-year's-support message, but now that the new year has started he's clearly moving forward with the new team. And he's training in Hawaii during the holidays, and was recently quoted as saying that he expects to be better this year than last but knows that Contador and Shleck will be hard to beat. Not exactly living in the past.

(Lest you think I'm a stalker, I can also tell you where Taylor Phinney and Ted King are training right now, that George Hincapie has new insoles, Christian Vande Velde's 2-year-old recently learned to say "oh ****," and that Brad Wiggins is proud of himself for not drinking on New Year's Eve. And that Jonathan Vaughters has a wild pair of plaid pants and Phil Liggett's plane had a rough landing when he flew to Australia the other day. It's all out there on twitter.)