‘Over zealous hotel staff’.
Why didn’t Lance Armstrong ever think of that? Perhaps it would have played better than his constant aggressive denials.
Last week, it emerged that British Olympic hero Mo Farah missed two drugs tests in the build-up to the 2012 games in London and he gave a pretty feeble excuse. All you need to know about it is there is now a Twitter parody account called ‘Mo Farah’s doorbell’, since the long distance runner apparently couldn’t hear the testers ringing it when outside his house.
According to the Guardian, 2013 Tour de France winner Chris Froome missed a test this year, and judging by his explanation, we are expecting a parody account called ‘over zealous Italian hoteliers’ to debut in the near future.
“I had a couple of recovery days and I took my wife down to quite an exclusive hotel in Italy,” said Froome.
“On the first morning the authorities pitched up at seven and the hotel staff actually wouldn’t give them access to our room and also refused to let them call up. So when we came down for breakfast at 8.30, they basically just said to us: ‘OK, the anti-doping guys were here to test you this morning but it’s our hotel policy not to let them disturb our clients or let anyone disturb our clients’. So that was a hugely frustrating situation for me.”
The World Anti-Doping Agency operates a three strike policy – if you miss three tests in one year you are banned for two years – so Froome isn’t in trouble for his mistake. In fact, he probably only brought up the story so he could brag about staying in an ‘exclusive’ hotel in Italy.
Some people are reading more into it than others though, with many accusing the media of double standards when it comes to the coverage of Froome (who also admitted to missing a test in 2010 when he was out training when the testers called) and other people who have made similar errors.
If this story would of been Nibali or Contador missing a test they would of been ripped to pieces by the Sky fan boys.
— Phil White (@Thundergusset) June 25, 2015
@vayerism Froome is campaigning for 24hr testing! He can't even take a test when on holidays between 6am-11pm!! @Digger_forum
— pogmothoin (@pogmothoin0) June 25, 2015
https://twitter.com/Digger_forum/status/613834351483224064
https://twitter.com/Digger_forum/status/613831276118822912
