I think because many American sports fans are not aware of the extent of drug use in US sports. One of my friends who plays hockey and was a 2:23 marathon naively thinks that hockey does not have a doping culture.....I had to say, "are you out of your mind have you seen the kids in junior hockey, which is obviously driven by the drug use at the pro level....no way that's natural". As cycling is a Euro sport, fans there have been exposed to Simpson dying while doped, they have been exposed to Merckx doping, so it's not such an outrage. North American sports have swept doping under the rug with the philosophy of, "Keep the masses ignorant, the show must go on, the more awesome the better"

I THINK in Europe all that Bjarne Riis/Miguel Indurain/Rominger/Pantani 60 percent-ish doping was fine as the show was awesome. Then the Festina Affair really was a bit much and the PR fallout was bad. Enter this cancer survivor and he wins the TdF. The UCI/ASO were saved by Armstrong just like Major League Baseball were saved by Sosa-McGuire-Bonds and their ultimately juiced home run derbies after the MLB strike. In both cases, TV eyeballs were gained back. Armstrong was awesome for the ASO, until an American figured out how to dope and execute more efficiently than the Euros (oh by the way, with the help of a Belgian who spent his pro career at the peak of the EPO Era at ONCE .....Abraham Olano/Alex Zulle etc).

Armstrong was good for the TdF until he won too much. The American public loved it and they loved him winning 4/5/6/7. Maybe the Euro public less enamoured by a foreigner dominating the prize.

After the 2012 Armstrong fallout Sky really built up their run. Now you have a non Euro team taking over the TdF. Its a replica of the same scenario and they do it exactly the same way minus the Turbo Dope, but they are probably getting away with everything they can, just like Postal/Disco did.

If Postal perfected the Lemond focus on the TdF win, then Sky has taken it up 4-5 levels. To credit Sky they are trying to win other stage races like the Giro, Vuelta, Tour of California, Dauphine, Paris Nice and the ITT at Worlds. They don't care about classics and are focused on stage races. Postal only cared about the TdF

Interesting perspective, thank you.

Over here, whilst not condoned, it is very much understood that it does happen and you'd be naive to think otherwise.

The thing I really "hate" is how people who make reasonable accusations against someone, or who make comments others disagree with, are branded as haters.

I think a lot of people have become cynical in relation to sports and cycling in particular because of the number of high profile cases where other sports just seem better at keeping it quiet (MLB, NFL, NHL). It's not hate, it's cynicism and that is justified given the history.

I have also stopped following the race but still love to watch the highlight clips of the mountain stages.