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So she's decided to enter Sea Otter Classic on her eBike, entered the none UCI sanctioned event and is/has been training for it too.
She seems upbeat about the race, open enough to explain the course and conditions and the suitability for the eBike in the event. As it's an eBike only race category anything goes, no holes barred open ride-what-you-bring event in amongst the whole Sea Otter jamboree.
I for one will be rooting for her, if this brings her some redemption or is an event she has talent in, it will not only be good for the sport but for her too.
BOL Femke.
Was that not an April fools story?! I started off thinking it was serious, but after the cxmagazine story had her saying the competitors would be fat Americans and she'd smoke them, and I saw it published on April first I figured a hoax
Only a lifetime ban and vigorous chase of all winnings will stop these bleating thieves. Why do they never shut up and just go? Miller included no matter how you square it away.
no holes barred
😯
So she's decided to enter Sea Otter Classic on her eBike, entered the none UCI sanctioned event and is/has been training for it too.....I for one will be rooting for her, if this brings her some redemption or is an event she has talent in, it will not only be good for the sport but for her too.BOL Femke.
Why do they never shut up and just go?
Oh dear.
In other news, GCN presenter Dan Lloyd returned to the professional peloton with Di-Data, and Thames Valley Police started a Police Cat Squad.
All reported yesterday.
And apparently John Tomac and Thomas Frisknecht are racing at Pembrey tomorrow. (At 10.45 if anyone wants to rush down there. Please let me know if it isn't an April Fool.... 😆 )
[url= http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/mechanical-doping-used-in-strade-bianche-and-coppi-e-bartali-claims-investigation/ ]MOAR MECHANICAL DOPING! [/url]
Riders not named?
Interesting theremal images there, makes you wonder why (if?) the UCI haven't been using the same tech for detection purposes if it works so well and reveals stuff that well.
Would be better than pre and post race checking too as there's obviously scope for sleight of hand swapouts there but video [i]during [/i]the race leaves no room for excuses.
The UCI don't actually want to catch the cheats as then it would be public just how many cheat.
They would rather be seen to be doing something to which in turn deters the cheaters.
Its pretty unlikely that those at the top of the sport/administration don't know about the cheating - they just don't want it to discredit the sport further.
The poachers end up becoming game keepers.
The UCI don't actually want to catch the cheats
Well then, [i]if[/i] that is true then things are going to get pretty interesting pretty quick if we are now at the stage where they can be identified remotely by 3rd parties mid-race with a thermal camera...
It's not true.
The issue is budgets.
Everyone of these initiatives to catch cheats cost money. They don't have unlimited budgets. I'd not be surprised to hear that many teams have bigger budgets than the entire UCI.
It's not true.
I tend to agree. No matter how widespread it is still in their best interests long term to identify and catch cheating.
But I don't think budget comes into it with thermal imaging, it's cheap and easy, even if only used as a 'pre' check to identify bikes for further in-depth physical scrutiny.
The camera is cheap.
You then need to have a bloke working it, a bloke riding a motorbike following the race. You need people/person to analyse the footage. You need to write a process, you need legal advice to make sure your process is robust.
You need legal support to ban the rider/team. etc etc.
If you don't, those teams with bigger budgets (and better lawyers) will tear you a new one.
I bet putting Femke van den Driessches legal stuff together, ready to ban her, would probably have cost the UCI going on €30 grand, and it didn't even go to court. Probably a net loss when all was done. If she ever pays the fine.
from :
http://fittish.deadspin.com/secret-thermal-camera-footage-allegedly-shows-seven-pro-1771492666
I get that there are operational costs, that much is obvious.
But the cameras [i]are[/i] cheap, and there are enough opportunities to have cameras pointed at bikes by people (or fixed), whether dedicated to that purpose or not that I can't see budget being a major factor, especially when it is so important to the sport.
I know thermal imaging is not that accurate, and alone could never been used as concrete proof, but used in conjunction with other technologies as a a warning/flagging system to highlight bikes for further checks it could work well, which is why I'm surprised it hasn't been used more widely.
<daydreaming mode>
As a side thought, given the disparity between UCI and team budgets that you highlight, and given how massively important it is to the sport to be doing something about it (and be seen to be), and how important it is to the teams to have a clean rep and also to out other teams who might be cheating, I wonder if either some sort of levy/investigation tax on the teams would ever be feasible, ie: make them pay for the resource to investigate.
It would be a brave team indeed if one of them would turn round and say, here you go, we believe this is so important to the sport, here is £XXXX we are putting forward to help fund impartial investigation.
</daydreaming mode>
<daydreaming mode>As a side thought, given the disparity between UCI and team budgets that you highlight, and given how massively important it is to the sport to be doing something about it (and be seen to be), and how important it is to the teams to have a clean rep and also to out other teams who might be cheating, I wonder if either some sort of levy/investigation tax on the teams would ever be feasible, ie: make them pay for the resource to investigate.
It would be a brave team indeed if one of them would turn round and say, here you go, we believe this is so important to the sport, here is £XXXX we are putting forward to help fund impartial investigation.
</daydreaming mode>
That's not really a team thing though, more likely a single sponsor? Might work for an events company though. So tagline like--- Le Tour sponsored by Redbull 'making racing fair' ---or something?
WANT! 😀
It's the UCI, no need to attribute to malice what can easily be explained by their incompetence
That thermal imaging camera may put an end to things though, loads of people will be out with them I reckon! If only they had it when Cancellara was at it.
That's not really a team thing though, more likely a single sponsor? Might work for an events company though. So tagline like--- Le Tour sponsored by Redbull 'making racing fair' ---or something?
Yeah, I was kinda thinking of two different ideas there, one whereby the teams all had to contribute to a central fund to pay for investigative resource, the other was more as you describe whereby a 'sponsor' team/organisation would front the cash.
I think the central fund already exists, its UCI membership. I suppose you could make a new group but there are already team groups, rider groups, bike manufacturer groups etc.
its UCI membership
and therein lies the problem I guess, either they don't have enough funds, or as some hint, there's a more sinister problem of them either not putting enough effort in (deliberate or otherwise), or being incapable of it.
That's what was making em think that perhaps it's a case for needing a genuinely impartial organisation (if such a thing exists!) to administer and execute the scrutineering checks and such.
hey ho, just idle ideamongering on my part, I'm sure far cleverer people than me have thought this through 😉
I kind of wish they'd not done the FLIR camera thing until a really big race like the TdF, just to see if could claim any of the big scalps.
Did anyone clock the price for those electromagnetic wheels?......
50,000 euros........!
So the sentence is announced.....
6 year ban & 18K euro fine (+ UCI legal costs)
And prize money and medals returned.
Are they targeting it all at her or at the team/mechanics as well?
prize money & medals is backdated only to October 11 last year>
It is her with the licence so she is the one fined.....
Can she raise the 18k??
The ban should be fine, since she seems to have accepted the retirement from competition in UCI events already. Doesn't mean she can't compete in non UCI events, but that may mean more prize money and with that she could pay that 18k back quickly..
Better than a lifetime ban though.. 😕
who enforces the 18k? If shes retired can't she just say 'stuff you'?
Probably equates to all the prize money she's won whilst in competition..
Better than a lifetime ban though..
It effectively is though, or call it a career ban. She'll be 25 when it expires, not exactly old and past it, but old enough that there'll be plenty of younger talent competing for team places.
who enforces the 18k? If shes retired can't she just say 'stuff you'?
I suspect this may be why she's retired.
UCI statement on testing:
[url= http://www.uci.ch/pressreleases/uci-statement-technological-fraud-tests/?utm_content=buffere8445&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer ]http://www.uci.ch/pressreleases/uci-statement-technological-fraud-tests[/url]
They claim in the UCI statement that 'The heat patterns shown on a recent documentary which deployed thermal imaging at a bike race are consistent with normal heat from moving parts'. I've skimmed the 20 min documentary, and to be fair, the only thermal image they show of pro races are nowhere near as clearcut as the thermal image of the 'bottom of the downtube, driving the BB' shot that they ran their 'calibration' tests on. That's also the shot seen in nearly all the articles, but it's not a pro nor in a race...
I think someone would have to show that you can get similar looking images from an electric motor system using their thermal equipment before you could start accusing riders. And also definitively rule out the patterns they see of 'about as warm as a tyre' BBs and rear hubs. The motors they are hypothesising, other than the rim magnet one, are all theoretical designs, most of which would definitely need high level engineering integration in to the bike so would have to be known about by the team (i.e. hidden batteries in chain stays (though these are now pencil thin on most road carbon frames), connectors hidden inside dropouts (so wheels couldn't be swapped without spotting them) etc.
It also looks really, really hard to image a peloton coming though! And as noted, unless it's on you don't see anything - and it might only be used for 10 minutes of a 4-8 hour race/stage, just at that vital breakaway/sharp hill/ecisive point. I can see that logistically, to get images of nearly every bike in the race while moving is going to be much more difficult than scanning them all before and/or after...
For me, the UCI actually is mostly doing the sensible thing with their scanners, especially if they have tested the thermal cams themselves. I'm not sure heat shielding is any easier to add than electromagnetic shielding, so I'd say they should be doing some random, unannounced/hidden thermal cams at a few obvious difficult/break points of a race, when a field has split and it's easier to image most or all of the group likely to include the winner. Then anything suspicious can be further checked with their scanners and/or stripped down.
So - I'd want more systematic and scientific testing of the thermal cams be it from UCI, the documentary dudes or someone else, and then it could maybe be used to complement the scanner testing they are clearly starting to do in large numbers (not yet every bike of every team, but 200-300 bikes per race which is quite impressive). Maybe more money and a more formal system for that would cover every bike, with a 'checked' tag/mark before it can go on a car roof for swapping down the road would help that, but I think they are on the right track generally...