I thought that wasn’t half bad, I had pretty low expectations but the writer seems to know his stuff. He could have gone a bit harder at the Armstrong ‘99 stuff, or viewed Europeans as a bit less cynical (it’s not as though the French and Germans, for example, are just turning a blind eye to doping), but an interesting article nonetheless I thought, thanks for posting.

where I got about a third of the way through & thought ‘I am really not the intended audience for this article’. I was just waiting for him to say ‘this is like a Henry James novel’ & lo! I wasn’t disappointed.

but i find the whole "innocent american" notion a bit odd. I mean our olympic athletes are doped up and the usoc has always turned a blind eye. Then there’s baseball. I mean! What’s that got to do with europeans – and oddly enough, baseball is still quite popular in the u.s., despite the widespread doping.

Then too people here are not quite as acceptive of doping as he says – so many times i’ve heard people express their disappointment about all the doping in cycling. And i think anti-doping efforts in europe are way ahead of what’s going on in the u.s.

At the same time there really is much more of the shoulder-shrug here. People know it – and well, what can you do? Shrug your shoulders is about all. I think americans are more into total denial. They can’t stand the cynicism of the shoulder shrug, so they refuse to see what’s going on. And when they’re forced to see it, they express outrage and make a big fuss, and then go back to covering their eyes.

I think european culture is just a bit older and bit less idealistic, is all.

(have to agree with some of the other criticisms posted here too)