[Closed] Le Tour doping/speculation/rumour/conjecture thread

I don't think Froome's doping. I think he's using weight loss medication to control weight, using inhalers at the bottom of climbs, has TUEs for other medication. Some fruity goings on with that weird illness he had. I don't think Sky have a doping programme in place although their reputation is not as pure as they imply - plenty of association with shady individuals in the past not to mention people like JTL and even Sergio Henao, that was odd too.

In conclusion, probably not doping but doing everything possible but.

Interestingly, a professional footballer got busted this week and there has barely been a ripple of acknowledgement...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33523681

A lower league player getting busted for a recreational drug, got about the same coverage as a cyclist busted for a recreational drug at the premier cycling grand tour http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/cycling/33489804

not to mention people like JTL

But JTL came to them and couldn't replicate the form he had previously - when juiced, surely that's exculpatory?

plenty of association with shady individuals in the past not to mention people like JTL and even Sergio Henao, that was odd too.

Ditching Yates and others who couldn't sign the "I have never" contracts also showed a low tolerance, finding team guys of an era who have not been involved in something limits your choices and you could imagine for a team that puts itself up there anyone with a decent story about their riders would be off to the papers.

LTD posted an avg 354 watts on that climb with a peak of 671!

I remain cynical but hope that it was a clean ride by Froome. His season has clearly been limited & well planned to lead into the TdF especially avoiding the Giro which many have said was brutal this year. There have been signs that he's been riding with some in reserve & that the 'kick' was back (the Dauphine) so I wasn't particularly surprised when he went - more that the other main contenders (mostly) had no response to it.

I also doubt Porte would have been there if his Giro hadn't been cut short.

Last year there was [url= http://www.teamsky.com/teamsky/home/article/7332#33d10pBittWsuvIR.97 ]this article[/url] which, looking back, they've since followed everything that was said - could have been the start of a smokescreen but I'm not so sure.

I take the points about Sky and their low tolerance. They must have known JTL was juiced pretty quickly and got rid, fair one.

I do think they push it to the limit with what he is taking, weight-loss, inhalers and the steroids in the past, but I'm sure all the others do too. Maybe Froome is the perfect formula - a bigger guy who can put out higher power than the climbers, and then just make him lose weight to dangerous levels and you have the perfect TDF machine.

They must have known JTL was juiced pretty quickly and got rid, fair one.

a bigger guy who can put out higher power than the climbers, and then just make him lose weight to dangerous levels and you have the perfect TDF machine.

it was the weight i lost due to cancer m'lud

OK, getting away from the topic a bit (since when has that ever stopped things?) but there's a lot of bluff and double bluff from Dave Brailsford - he got advice from Alex Ferguson after all - "it's up to the others to attack" then attacking yourself now means that the other contenders now have to attack really hard and probably over several days to claw back the time they lost yesterday.

Sky are effectively back seat drivers now.

LTD posted an avg 354 watts on that climb with a peak of 671!

See that where I think that people are over extrapolating. The digital number has 3 lovely figures which you beleive. But that number might be out by 50W. That's the difference between good and extra ordinnary

Why would it be out by 50W? The power reading is from his bike, not a strava estimate.

Reminded me of the landis attack from years back

Why would it be out by 50W?

That was the error quoted by Boardman on power meters

Oh and a question for the doubters. I'm genuinely interested

If Froome and Porte et all are all winning due to dopping does that mean that the whole Brailsford error is a lie. That all the gains in British cycling and those olympic gold medals where part of a wave of doping. Or is the idea that Dave does dope for sky but not for Britain?

SkillWill - Member
I don't think Froome's doping. I think he's using weight loss medication to control weight, using inhalers at the bottom of climbs, has TUEs for other medication. Some fruity goings on with that weird illness he had. I don't think Sky have a doping programme in place although their reputation is not as pure as they imply...

...In conclusion, probably not doping but doing everything possible but.

I think that's where I am too at the moment though I still hope I'm wrong. There's been enough out there for me to think that Sky play to the rules rather than the spirit and the TUE system is ripe for abuse/bending.

Mind you, I also believe that Sky are probably cleaner than most (not all - I reckon Garmin are proper clean) and I'm pretty sure there's still micro-dosing and other drugs still being used (particularly now it's been shown that the bio passport can be managed by dopers) but in much less effective ways than in the past, hence many of the past superstars aren't performing to the level they used to.

If Froome and Porte et all are all winning due to doping does that mean that the whole Brailsford era is a lie?

Genuinely don't know. But:

A is probable
If A is true, then B is likely
B being true would give me a very big sad

=> A is false

... is dire reasoning which shouldn't really be indulged. 🙂

Brailsford/Sky project created and heavily funded to win clean.

If they hadn't managed to deliver wins clean would they a) have abandoned the project or b) done it dirty?

I would like to believe that Sky & Brailsford/UK Cycling would have had far too great loss of reputation at stake to chose b).

The hiring of Leinders was a very strange decision for a team who pride themselves on being clean, given his reputation and history. As per US Postal, if you ignore the PR & spin being produced by Sky, and actually focus on the evidence, they're no better than any other team when it comes to hiring questionable individuals.

FWIW, it's the power per kg figures which really concern me. When AC and Andy Schleck's figures dropped significantly one year to the next (IIRC from 6.3 or so to 5.8ish) also coinciding with bio passport and other more stringent doping tests, I saw that as clear evidence that there had been a change in the sport - at a minimum that they were doping to a much lower level than before.

The figures are now appearing to push the mid 6s. That has to be a concern.

As with many, I think we're hoping that Sky's marginal gains really are making the difference but suspension of doubt is difficult when it has so many parallels with the past.

I would like to believe that Sky & Brailsford/UK Cycling would have had far too great loss of reputation at stake to chose b).

Me too but as BD pointed out that's not a particularly great logical argument...

I think that there is too much made of the microdosing, if you look at something like clenbuterol (Contador steak) it is pointless microdosing, you need a course at the full dose to make any impact. EPO you may be able to play the passport by microdosing, but you are going to have to use it consistently over a period of time to get a benefit, and that means you will likely fail a blood test.

IMO most likely current cheating would be from substances unknown, and abuse of the medical exemption rules.

O.K. yesterday was spectacular, but if you give sky the benefit of the doubt and assume Sky are 'clean' the tactics of the all out attack yesterday make sense and here's how:

As stated before, the tour is largely won on recovery and a rider's ability to come back day after day and take the beating. I'm sure team Sky are using every unsanctioned trick in the book (i.e. the motorhome) to help their riders recover but if they're racing clean they can't resort to the old method of a big fat enriched blood bag at bedtime so withstanding concurrent days of attacks by different teams may be beyond them and they know it.

So, they're going into the mountains in yellow but know that they need to do something to avoid this war of attrition, what better way than going all out on the first big day and smashing huge time into everyone, putting the GC 'to bed' and dissuading the competition from attacking them all day every day for the next week and a bit.

They did this in 2013, Froome won on stage 8, going into Yellow, but the next day his team was in tatters, he was isolated, repeatedly attacked and had to fight tooth and nail all day, he looked in agony and was probably one strong dig away from cracking and freefalling down the GC.

I suspect that yesterday may have been a result of Brailsford applying the lessons of 2013 in an all or nothing gamble to demoralize the rest of the teams and prevent a week long war of attrition that Sky can't win because they can't use the illicit recovery boosting techniques that have been used in the past.

Watch Porte and Thomas today in particular, if they spend most of the day in the pack looking knackered then it'll be a good sign that the team are racing clean, if not well....

MSP - it's been shown that you can microdose and not fail tests or the bio passport - that's why Froome's suggestion about night time testing is (and all credit to him for suggesting it, unless of course it's just PR because he knows it'll never get approved) so important.

Hatter - good theory - credible but I'm not sure that the big gamble is so much Sky's way of thinking even though there's some logic to it.

Night time testing is happening already iirc.

is there a live link for the video anywhere?

The papers have given up on Froome already, he's now 'Kenyan born' or 'African' rather than British.

His attack yesterday was probably to put the nail in the coffin for Contador and Nibali. If you see them in trouble, maximise the time gaps now to take them out of the GC race.

For me the most worrying aspect of yesterday's stage is the fact that two Sky domestiques Porte and Thomas were out climbing Quintana, Contador, Nibali, Valverde, Rodriguez, Gesink, Kreuziger, Uran etc - the best climbers in the world, many of whom are or have been under suspicion of doping themselves.

A clean rider who's never really shown any real climbing prowess shouldn't be able to beat so many world class climbers IMO, especially when he weighs 10kg more.

I'd love it if they were all clean, but I've seen this situation too many times before to be convinced..

A question to the sceptics (the real ones, not the folks like me that can't see a decent performance without being jaded by the past, the ones that are utterly convinced that Sky are cheating)

What would it take to convince you? Is there any point trying to convince you; or is the 'evidence' of performance and results outweighing anything offered as counter?

If one of the others attacks in the next few days, and does a Froome back to Froome himself, is that because he's clean and overstretched himself, or are the others now juiced up as well?

I know it's very hard to prove a negative, and i know to just accept everything at face value is difficult. But that's because of what went before, and if we don't draw a line under it then we'll always be tainted by Lance and co.

Innocent until proven guilty, for me, but with a healthy dose of 'proving' innocence as well. Otherwise I might as well not watch.

It's no surprise that Porte was up there, especially as he was the main man for the Giro for sky and will be off for a top seat next year. Are those riders the best climbers or were they?

chakaping - Member
Night time testing is happening already iirc.

Nope. That's the window for microdosing, etc. and it's still there.

Currently there is a “no-testing window” from 11pm to 6am

Why would it be out by 50W?
That was the error quoted by Boardman on power meters

Power meters are nowhere near that inaccurate - 3% at worst, and you'd hope that Pro teams have them all calibrated properly!

What would it take to convince you?

Well for a start, a wholesale change to Therapeutic Use Exemption. Sure, if you're really ill, you can take what you need to get better, and you won't get busted for that drug. However, let's say withdrawal from competition from the date of the first prescription to three months after the end of treatment.

Porte is hardly a shit climber. Thomas is not just a classics specialist but one of the of best allrounders in the sport.

I'm not a fan boy of sky or froome (though I am of gee), but really struggling to see the smoking gun here.

Comment above about the next few days being the real test is spot on.

Nemesis - old article. It has now happened.
Google it. Can't post link from this phone sorry

There's night time testing been done this year, the UCI reported that 4 (?) tests had been carried out but wouldn't say who was tested or which team.

MSP - it's been shown that you can microdose and not fail tests or the bio passport

Hmmm, not really, it was "proven" it could beat the bio passport for a short amount of time, about 6 months, but that doesn't prove that you could keep on beating it forever. Blood values are monitored over years now, I'm not sure anyone could realistically keep their blood values perfect through micro dosing all year long every year through 120 days of racing every year.

Hatter - good theory - credible but I'm not sure that the big gamble is so much Sky's way of thinking even though there's some logic to it.

A: Thanks

B: Considering how strong and stacked with superb climbers the team is and how they've managed to come out of the first week largely unscathed it was not a huge gamble to think that they could smash it yesterday, the gamble comes from whether they've managed to smash the other teams hard enough that they won't have their bluff called.

If one of the teams that did relatively little yesterday (i.e. BMC) hits today's stage hard and turn the screws on Sky then yesterday's fireworks could still backfire badly.

That's the 'gamble' element of Brailsford's calculations IMHO, but so far it seems to have paid off, Astana and Saxo-Tinkoff have pretty much been knocked out of the GC race, that's two of the strongest dangers gone in one fell swoop.

Again all this makes sense only if you're assuming that the team are racing clean and didn't spend all last night being pumped full of every banned variety of recovery juice going.

Ah, had missed that. Good news.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tour-de-france-night-time-doping-tests-done-before-the-race/

Maybe that's why AC's struggling... What are the odds that lots of riders got tested on the rest day night.

As Hatter and myself have said, Sky's tactics seem to have been to put the effort in early so that others have to make even more effort from now on.

The comment about TUEs is valid: if you are ill enough to require medical treatment then why are you racing? A bit tough if you develop something on the eve of a race but substitutions should be allowed (if they aren't already) up to the signing on point.

However, let's say withdrawal from competition from the date of the first prescription to three months after the end of treatment

So if you have Any condition that requires treatment every day, like asthma, you career is over

yesterdays stage was an obvious one for Froome. Snap the elastic on the climb. Pull away on the flatter bit where your faster than Quintana

The big problem (for me) with taking Froome seriously as a clean athlete will always be his ascent without trace at the beginning of his career, not the performances he's laying down now. To go from Chris down the pub, the skinny bloke who likes cycling, to second in the Vuelta just seems impossible without some form of assistance.

I can accept a bit of give and take with doping, though - if there's a sort of narrow window of opportunity that people are exploiting around the testing regimes then I'm not especially arsed. This must be happening - movable battlelines and all that. It would only be if Sky were up to their balls in doping and brass-necking the whole world that I'd find it outrageous.

Porte did no more than I'd expect Porte to do yesterday. He got dropped by Quintana then slowly TT'd his way back on, it's classic Porte. Thomas has been building to this position for the last 2 or 3 years, I remember when SKY initially signed him he was being spoken about as Brad's successor. He did his job on the lower slopes then sat on the wheels of a group that were trying to limit their losses. Again a great performance but not blowing the field apart.

Also I may be naive but I think doping on the level of a TdF team has to come from the top and be very structured and controlled which would mean Brailsford knowing about it and I just don't see that at all.

And just as a side note, I'm not in denial about doping at all.

I would bet my house on the fact that there are juiced riders in the tdf.

I just have no reason to suspect sky based on their performance so far.

Except that's not what happened is it. Watch the Froome docu from ITV and have a look at his palmeres, he was impressing very early on when he was turning up off his own back and he finished strongly on a few stages for Barlowworld.

If you read his biography, there's credible explanations for his improvements (basically the Vuelta was one of the few times that things all came together without him being ill/injured or crashing) but of course the problem is we've heard that before so it's hard to know how true it is.

Similarly things like his TUE for asthma that had never been mentioned until it was 'outed' via the media don't do much for credibility.

And then add in the bilharzia and while it's all circumstantial, it's not surprising that people piece it together to lead to a conclusion of doping.

I think it's more a case of pretty much every other unbelievable ride over the last 20 years has later proven to be due to doping (Vino TT, Landis solo, Armstrong, Pantani etc) combined with Sky's hiring policy, and huge transformations - why would they hire the world's leading blood doping doctor? How did Froome go from [url= http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/racing/giro-ditalia/froome-disqualified-from-giro-ditalia-60517 ]this[/url] to what happened yesterday? The whole bilharzia thing seems to be a convenient excuse for the dramatic transformation of an average rider into the world's best climber/TT.

If they were transparent and released all racing data so Ashenden and other experts can analyse it, that would go some way to helping.. and stopping with the bullsh*t claims like they've never even measured Froome's VO2 max etc

MSP - it's been shown that you can microdose and not fail tests or the bio passport

The science of the tests are pretty solid, especially for EPO, and you have to understand what the benefit of microdosing is, you don't just do it for one day, you do it for a few months so you can train harder and make the gains.

The area where the biggest current problems lie is in the testing regimes. There are rightfully big questions being asked about Kenyan and Ethiopian runners as they face no winter testing as they train on drugs, then come into race season clean.

It is fairly solid but it's not beyond challenge which casts reasonable doubt - Kreuziger for example recently. And again, it's been shown that you can work around it - even if that was for a short period - and get significant (at this level) improvements.

Yep, true enough and again to be fair to Froome, he's been one pointing out times when he hasn't been tested at exactly the times when he should be.

dirtyrider - Member

is there a live link for the video anywhere?

[url= https://vimeo.com/133412409 ]https://vimeo.com/133412409[/url]

monkeyfudger - Member

Except that's not what happened is it. Watch the Froome docu from ITV and have a look at his palmeres, he was impressing very early on when he was turning up off his own back and he finished strongly on a few stages for Barlowworld.

Agreed, he was showing incredible promise from a very early age and doing what, in context, were seriously impressive performances riding for Kenya.

Put that together with the the long term bilharzia that was only diagnosed in 2011 and took 2 years to properly treat and you do have a rational explanation for his rise since joining Team Sky. When you combine an exceptionally gifted physique with a very disciplined, driven mind and then place both in the custody of possibly the most advanced, scientific performance programe cycling's ever seen and off you go.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't ask questions, but does mean there are justifications for a rational conclusion beyond 'they all on it'.

But he's not the best climber and tt in the world is he? If he was on his 7th Tdf win I could understand these comments but he's won one Tdf and podiumed at the vuelta. He rode like a sack of xxxx all last year. He's put in one attack on the first hill of the tour. Hes got a good palmeres but nothing more. Also sky has won 2 grand tours and messed up a vuelta for its £40m a year. Is that really a super team?