Lizzie Armitstead says Nicole Cooke wrong to focus on doping in Monday's parting shot

So Armitstead is a no show for 3 drugs tests, but is worried about the image of cycling.

She'll be feeling some vindication, deservedly. Nicole was maligned somewhat by the cycling world for being vocal about doping.

http://nicolecooke.com/news/

Hmmm...perhaps LA should've focussed more on not missing doping tests?

Armistead's wrong to suggest that Cooke's piece harms cycling. She needs to wake up. There is no such thing as old news with doping. It's always evolving and it's always going to be there.

Armistead's not naive. I think she's just afraid to step outside her cocoon and contemplate the fact that doping is still with us.

Unfortunately she'll learn.

Armistead's an idiot, Nicole has every right to comment about other riders particularly cheating dopers like LA. Good on yer Nicole .....

That be the difference between a woman (Nicole) and a girl (Lizzie) purely from the standpoint of emotional and intellectual maturity. Lizzie clearly is still absorbed by her own career and her thoughts on its possible failings, mainly not getting the Beijing gold. Whilst Nicole sees the bigger picture. I just wish some of male pro's Nicole's bollox to say it how it is.

@Simon E:

"mattsccm wrote:
If everyone dropped it the so called bad image wouldn't be there.
Utter bollocks. Look up Omertà."

Couldn't agree more. This isn't about PR, mattsccm, it's about how sport actually functions and why it can be so good, so valuable and so intriguing.

I thought Cooke's interview was one of the most forceful to have come out post-USADA and really hit the nail on the head about the real damage that the likes of Armstrong have done. Forget f#cking Nike and Trek etc, so many actual people have had their livelihoods taken away or denied them by what Armstrong perpetrated. Armistead is just making herself look silly with the 'time to move on, it's as clean and pure as driven snow, my boyfriend blah blah blah' mantra. Get out of your bubble, girl.

Funny. BC may be able to insulate their riders against people injecting stuff into them, but they might want to invest in a teeny bit more PR training.

Cooke - like Millar and Wiggo - fought their way to the top in the dark times. Armitstead has come to the top in lighter times, and perhaps she hasn't had the same exposure. If you're clean yourself, and you haven't seen evidence of your competitors doing 'superhuman' things, the simplest thing to do is assume that everyone's clean. But it doesn't make it so.

Also - if she's training every day with Blythe, is she as good as a male rider, or is he only as good as a female one?

It's a sign of the higher profile cycling now enjoys that there is more reporting of it in the mainstream press and more attention given to riders at all levels. Press coverage is good for the sport BUT,BUT,BUT it has to be handled well. The days when cyclists in the public eye could sound off, confident that no one gave a toss are over. I'd prescribe media training all-round for Britain's cycling super-stars and better media advice generally. Cav might need tranquilisters as well!

I read the interview in the Guardian and think Nicole Cooke's comments were justified. Her point about her having thrown out all the drugs she found in the fridge and how nobody was prepared to own up is rather enlightening.

I think she felt obliged to say something by the press and against Cooke. Hard to see cycling becoming dope free but I do see it becoming a very small piece of the sport from this point on. Current events are impossible to ignore nor drive change, we shall see after tomorrow anyway.

Sorry Lizzie, you're deluded. Just look at last years Vuelta....

Seems to me that any "answer" to any "question" about doping is the "wrong" answer to someone.

I have to agree with Lizzie.
If everyone dropped it the so called bad image wouldn't be there.
Just who has made the public ( who don't care a toss anyway) aware of doping?
The press.
The anti doping movement is there anyway. Why keep dragging things to the top of the heap. Personally I regarded Cooke's rant as a cheap way to go out with a bang. A star like she is should go with dignity not sour grapes.

Armitstead raises some very valid points. The doping stuff that is in the news at the moment *is* in the past. It is being sorted out finally, but it is news from the past. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that it's a much cleaner sport nowadays. There will be some going on, for sure, just as in any sport. I'd wager that cycling is cleaner than football, for starters.

Slightly naive wording/timing, but absolutely correct.

Armitstead's comments on doping lack any wit or wisdom.
I suppose there's no reason to think cyclists would be any brighter than others pro sports people when asked for a comment.

Oh dear.

I like Lizzie, but she's really made a fool of herself here.

The doping issue is all over the news (for obvious reasons) at the moment, so it's not exactly consigned to history now is it?

This comes across as exactly what it is - any excuse to counter whatever Nicole said. Problem is - Nicole is spot on. Lizzie is not.

Cycling as an Olympic sport is under threat. Sponsors harder and harder to find due to doping fallout. Plenty of names still being thrown up in doping investigations and tests (though granted, less than before).

But sure - doping's not an issue anymore. Idiot.

I agree Jackh. Couldn't have put it better myself.

At best she is naive, at worst a cheat herself.

Rarely has a cyclist (that has never been caught doping) readily admitted the drug use in the sport in an open and frank manner. So Armitstead is in no way being reassuring. It saddens me that she has said this at all.

I think people would on there own have discounted Cooke's views as it is not like she is standing up and accusing any current cyclist of cheating. Just that cheats hurt cycling....and they do.

I also think that Cooke's parting shot was also spineless. She criticised Hamilton (Hamilton is not proud of what he did, but I think there is a lot of value in him coming clean, like Miller). But yet she has not actually come out and pointed the finger at any current rider. Is she not protecting the Omerta if she believes cheating to have continued?

The conspiricist in me wonders if the issue isn't a particularly personal parting shot between Armitstead and Cooke - that Cooke walks away 'clean' and leaves the insinuation over her 'much loved' team mate, with the nagging doubt of the truth. Armitstead knows this and rises to the bait.

Chances are that journos have just pestered Armitstead until she snapped back in a slightly foolish way.

Cleaner, yes, but clean? Very unlikely.

Ironically, saying that doping "is in the past" probably does more to lower the sport of cycling in the public's eyes than anything else.

As for...

"Well that's not true because I train with my boyfriend [BMC Racing’s Adam Blythe] every single day. I know that he's 100% clean and he wins men's bike races."

The logic behind this statement is completely lost on me...

It seems that British Cycling really do insulate their development riders from the drugs issue, but I really think it's to their detriment, as at best you could say they really don't seem to appreciate the way most outsiders and cycle sports enthusiasts regard the issue.

The sport's not clean; it's not the only one, but saying "these issues are in the past'" simply won't wash. It makes them seem naive, evasive and agressive. Which in turn starts to cast suspicion, warranted or not.

Is this because they spend most of their time on the track, and in a track environment? Do they not see what goes on in road racing?