Yannick Noah today launched an astonishing attack on Spanish tennis and sport in general, accusing the leading Spanish sportsmen and teams of taking “the magic potion”. The former French Open champion wrote on his column in Le Monde, eventually suggesting that doping should simply be accepted and all players free to do it.
Take a look at what he had to say under the cut.
“Today, sport is a bit like Cycling at the Olympic Games: If you don’t have the magic potion, it is difficult to win. And here it seems they were the lucky ones who fell in the pot,” he wrote. “How can a nation dominate the sport both overnight?”.
On the Eufemiano Fuentes case: ” In Spain there was the ‘index case’, the biggest doping scandal in the history, and became ‘shhh’. Most doctor’s Spanish customers were saved. Maybe because, there, sport plays an important role and its heroes are more protected than in other places.”
Noah insists that can not be coincidence that the Spanish sporting success, “Have you discovered training techniques or training and training facilities than anyone had previously imagined? I searched and found recorded or documented any of these innovations.” There is only one possible explanation: “The magic potion”.
His grand solution to doping: “Let’s stop the hypocrisy. The best policy is to accept doping. And everyone has the magic potion. Of course we must respect the presumption of innocence, but that no one be fooled,” said Contador on the case .
(badly translated from Marca.com)
Now, it’s one thing not to bury your head in the sand, believing that tennis and all sports are clean of doping and drugs in 2011. But this? The only explanation for this ludicrous ramble is that Noah himself was high on weed when he wrote it. For one, putting the domination of the Spanish in football down to doping makes absolutely no sense as many from the Spanish national team are based abroard, while the domestic La Liga is dominated by players
And as for tennis, only one Spaniard has won a slam for years. There may be many in the top 100, but the rest of them are either too small, too stupid (*coughdasco*) or too busy looking at themselves in the mirror to do anything noteworthy. Thus, if these inane accusations from Noah are true and the Spanish authorities are behind some doping conspiracy, they’re not really doing a good job of it, are they?
I think it’s time for Noah to put down the pipe, the paranoia and probably the pen also, as he has embarrassed himself enough.
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You think 20 top 100 players for a medium sized country like Spain is a coincidence ? The same medium sized country also dominates football, cycling, was world champion in basketball and is about the only European country that continuously has ‘world class’ long distance runners.
Everyone who follows the doping issue a little bit knows there is, and has been for a long time, a big problem with Spain.
This is from less than a year ago
http://iberosphere.com/2010/12/spain-news-spains-doping-habit-threatens-to-sully-golden-year/1792
you alll are wastemans get a life in the world
u all are lunitics get a life
I see you aren´t well updated about Marta Rodriguez´s case, coss she´s been released of all accusations by a judge around a month ago.
And if you really think players like nadal, ferrer, verdasco, almagro, feliciano lopez,and so on have taken drugs I guess it´s because you havent been watching much tennis over the last years.
Tennis is not mainly a matter of phisical qualities. Concentration and tecnical skills are much more important.
In football and basketball it´s more of the same. Just watch the spanish players. They are by far not the best phisically skilled players at all. Look at xavi, iniesta silva, villa j.c.navarro, gasol (skinny) r.fernandez, etc, they´re not the fastest, the ones who run faster or jump higher; they are simply the best players tecnically, and that´s why they´ve won so many things lately.
I do agree about cyclism, but not only with spanish cyclists. Cyclism is a sport in which ALL runner have taken drugs during the last years, including americans (armstrong, landis, t. hamilton…) italians (pantani), french (virenque), danish (v. riis), etc. Many spanish runners aswell, but if contador were really guilty he would have been sentenced more than one and a half year ago.
I guess that success leads to jealousy among those who don´t know how to accept that their country hasn´t had those many sport highlights, specially when those who are succeeding are from their neighbour country.
Yannik Noah is as smart as handsome, and as jealous of Spaniards as most french people are. Im sure he didnt and will not say anything when France succeeds in some sport.
Wrong about tennis!!- Needing recovery time , extended hours of playing, massive physicality, length of rallies- doping will help all of the above problems! I’ll never forget how Nadal played a 4 or 5 hour Australia semi final match and immediately came back the next day for another 4 or 5 hour match and won. Please he’s not a god — though Spaniards would like to say he is etc
It was not the next day he had one day of rest, and played Federer in the final and won in 5 set, or should I say Federer gave up in the 5th set. Maybe Noah has a point, maybe everyone is taking drugs. I can’t say but just like people accuse Rafa, of being gay, You are assusmed to be straight until you say you are gay. So you are suppose to do the same with drugs?
and the same that he won that year (with one day of rest at least, like in all grand slams), the year before he lost against tsonga in th final of australia, and the year before in quarterfinals, and this year he had to stop in quarterfinals aswell because of an injury.
Some times he wins, and others he loses, like all top players (only that he´s one of the best of all times, and a Spaniard, which many people don´t like as much as if he were american english, french, etc).
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Trust me, I’m 100% sure I have been watching more tennis in the past years than you have.
You are right that tennis is not like cycling where physical qualities are almost the only deciding factor in the outcome of the competition. But you will agree with me that in a sport like tennis where matches can last several hours the use of endurance enhancing doping can have a clear effect on the outcome. One player is doped and the other isn’t, I know who I’m gonna back if the match goes to a fifth set.
Success surely leads to jealousy, but let me ask you where the enormous seucces of Spanish sports comes from? If you say hard work, you are also saying that people in most other countries are lazy and the Spanish aren’t. No other country has this kind of succes in that many high level sports. It’s been going on for years and you have to credit Noah for being one of the first to finally have the balls to speak up.
Well then you mean that if nadal wins a tournament winning the last two or three matches in 5 sets and 4 or 5 hours it´s because he has doped, but if it had been pete sampras, agassi, federer, tsonga or djokovic it´s because they´re great players jajaja. C´mon let´s be serious!! It´s true that he´s a very physical player compared to other top players, but the other player also has to play and suffer those 5 set matches, and I remind you that nadal has also lost many of those matches against federer or djokovic lately, and I also remind you that nadal has had sereral difficult injuries in his career, some lasting more than half a year because of playing to many tournaments in a row. Would you explain in the same way djokovic´s year winning most tournaments??
So don´t try to teach me lessons of tennis. Maybe other sports, but not this one
Spanish success in sports has appeared in sports where Spain has always had importance, and has had luck because theay have their best generation ever, that´s all!!
In football they´ve always been good, and now they´ve been lucky to have this great players (like frence for example when they won the world cup in 1998), not precisely very physical players.
In basketball more of the same (France nowadays has more nba players nowadays I remind you,l and much stronger and physical).
In tennis, if nadal had really doped, i´m sure the atp and specially french people from roland garros (who hate him for being a spaniard and winning so much in france) would have caught him like they did with mariano puerta some years ago after losing the final of r. garros against nadal precisely.
France has had more success in sports along history than spain, and I dont see anybody saying anything. If I were like you, who critisizes sportmen without no proves, I´d claim that the french selection of 1998 all doped (look at makelele vieira, anelka, etc, who run like mad), aswell as the one of plattini, or nowadays´ french basketball team (look at the size and strength of boris diaw, joakim noah, michel pietrus, florent pietrus, turiaf etc), or the french swimmer alain bernard, or the french cycling team europcar with thomas voeckler ahead, and a long etc.
Accusing spotmen of doping without proves is very easy, but the same can be done to other successfull sportmen from other places.
Lol. You’re not making much sense are you. You are basically admitting that they are doped, as long as I admit that there are others who are. Ok, I admit. There. Discussion closed.
lol
Btw it’s no secret that some of the French players were doped in 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1794075.stm
I agree! There are a lot of dopers- At least people write & talk -that is good!
http://tennishasasteroidproblem.blogspot.com/ A lot of proof here
jajajaja where have I admited that they are all doped? I said it´s easy to accuse everyone for doping once they´ve won something as a reason of their success, but for that you need evidencces that prove it. And that´s what the news is about (“Yannick Noah Accuses ALL Spanish Tennis Players and Sportsmen of Doping”) and what you say is true.
you´ve given evidence of french players that doped. OK.
But you haven´t given any evidence of spanish tennis, football, basketball, fernando alonso, spanish motorcycling, carlos sainz, spanish hanball… So what the hell are you telling me? I think it´s YOU who´s not making any sence.
Operación Puerto is proof enough for me.
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and of course with operacion puerto you can say that all spanish sprtmen are dopping (ironic, so that you understand me).
very well, no comments :S
End of discussion
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