I knew you would respond with both those points. Entirely predictable.
Civilisation doesn't hinge on cycling. Besides, does the law provide objectivity? Perhaps youve never had the unedifying experience of sitting on a jury.
Many of us rightly suspected Armstrong of being guilty of doping despite his innocence.
Flatus, no nastiness intended but what do you think would be necessary to convince you that Froome is clean? Since I have now come round to your point of view after a long while sitting on the fence with my legs dangling on the optimisyic side, I feel in need of one or two reference points. What has convinced me is that there are too many inconsistencies in this last Giro. I am starting to see similarities with Armstrong's performance curve (and mental attitude).
Is a belief that rules don't apply to them common to dopers? I have become convinced that drugs have a negative impact on the capacity to make logical decisions.
Unfortunately nothing would convince me, and that is because I'm not looking at a single event such as Stage 19 of the Giro but the whole context of Froome's place in cycling, and the conduct of his team, Sky.
If you look at the most vociferous pro-Froome posters on this thread, whether it be Samuel or Veloman and his sockpuppet 'A Cyclist', their entire argument rests on whether he has failed a drugs test (ditto Wiggins). Of course we know from prior experience that passing dope tests tells us little about the cleanliness of the rider in question. The biggest busts have come about from price actions and whistle-blowers, and careful athletes can beat the anti-doping system.
Riders cannot prove they are clean. and therefore benefit of the doubt can be accorded, or in other words a little suspension of disbelief.
However, what do you do when certain events are have no credible explanation? For me Froome stands out head and shoulders above everybody because prior to Vuelta 2011 he had no pedigree. No wins of note. Nothing. A few weeks before the Vuelta he was climbing with the gruppetto. He was a mediocre mountain domestique who's team were looking to pass him off to a pro-continental team when his contract was up at the end of the season.
And then he nearly won the Vuelta (2nd). The following year he was clearly the strongest rider in the TdF and would have likely won had he not been working for Wiggins. The rest is history. Of course, when questions started to be asked about this miracle transformation from low-grade nobody to the greatest tour rider of his generation we were fed the Bilharzia story, which poses more questions than it answers, for example why did he not show any signs of brilliance before he contracted bilharzia, and why didn't Team Sky, self-professed masters of detail, not pick it up until the final weeks of his contract?
In recent years we have been made aware that Team Sky used TUEs to win races. One of their key players, Shane Sutton, admitted that this self-proclaimed "whiter than white" team are unethical.
So here we have an unethical team, caught out lying on numerous occasions, caught abusing the TUE system for competitive advantage, freely using Tramadol, ordering Testosterone patches et etc etc employing a rider with the most astonishing of transformations.
Hmmm...Nothing to see here
So is he doping now? Who knows. It may well be that he did something 7 years ago that changed him forever. Something within him changed profoundly and for the life of me I can't find a precedent. Even transformations due to EPO (such as Ricco) were not as stark. He is on his way to becoming the greatest Grand Tour rider ever....from nothing.