Has this piece of gamesmanship tarnished his gold?

[sandyRoe]

http://uk.eurosport.y...ission-224907807.html

.

[NOX]

Yes obviously and he ought to have kept his flapping gob shut, can't see him being too popular with a lot of people.

[missnemesis]

For me sandy, yes it has but as with the politician's get out of jail free card it's within the rules so whilst it may be immoral it's not illegal.

Tis a great shame that athletes feel the need to resort to cheating in order to gain advantage especially when involved in a 'team'. It spoils it for the others too.

[EDDIE51]

From what he says this is all a normal part of the game in cycling , he should just have kept his mouth shut .

[HowardKennitby]

I haven't been making any special effort to watch any events. Given the badminton fiasco etc and now this it seems I haven't missed a lot.
Doesn't say much for his brain that he has openly admitted this.

[sandyRoe]

I agree. He clearly has feet of clay, and the space between his ears might be filled with the same material

[dennisb66]

Is he for real,what a complete idiot.

[Duncer]

When I watched him being interviewed last night I thought he had been misrepresented. He was asked "Did you pull a fast one?" and replied "Yes, I was trying to get a fast time" and, at the time, I attributed this to his not quite understanding the "pull a fast one" terminology due to his German background?

It seems not.

[Prudie]

If it's in the rules I don't see the problem. We might not have known about it but presumably everyone involved in the sport does, it must have happened lots of times.

[Duncer]

I suspect the rules are for accidental crashes and, while it may happen, I bet others don't announce on national telly that they meant it.

[ladybirder]

It's a regular occurrence and acceptable within the sport.

[jomifl]

If something goes wrong with the start they fall off deliberately so that the faulty start is obvious, at least so said the cycling expert in the BBC studio. As for 'pulling a fast one' that was an obvious misunderstanding

[doctordb]

I clearly recall Jaques rogge praising the british sense of 'fairplay' during his speech; another sporting myth.

[ladybirder]

It was a German what dun it.

[ladybirder]

Oops should have said German born. Soz.

[jake-the-peg]

Interesting to compare with certain Badminton players!

For me that was a worse case but not by much

[mickrog]

Once again we have a winner and some folk are out to gun them down.Lets suport losers...this country loves them...bring back Eddie the Eagle.
Who is next on the hit list?...now them 2 in the canoe, get digging on them.

[jake-the-peg]

We love winners mick

People like Redgrave have regularly been held up as Olympic ideals

It's just some of us don't turn a blind eye to bending the rules just because the athlete happens to be British

[AB Editor]

No. It's a normal part of the event.

[Duncer]

In that case I would suggest it needs looking at.

I wouldn't compare it to the badminton though, they were deliberately seeking to lose.

[jake-the-peg]

Well crashing deliberately isn't exactly using your best efforts to win is it?

You could say it's using your best efforts to win the actual round but then you could also also say the badminton players were using their best efforts to win the overall contest.

This seems to be a deliberate false start

I think nowadays you don't get a second chance on a false start in swimming and Athletics (is that right?)

Presumably that's for exactly this sort of reason

I wonder if the cycling authorities will adopt a similar policy soon