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Something I've wondered and sorry it might have been done before and we should have moved on from the TdF now.
I just wondered what being clean actually meant. Does it mean you are 100% confident you will never fail a drugs test. Or you don't mess around with hormones/steriods/injections at all. For instance I've heard of microdosing, I think it's slightly tweaking your testosterone levels so you're still within legal limits. But the sport outsiders might not think that is really clean. Some teams have a 'no needle' policy, but some legal vitamins and recovery products are more effective if injected. So is Sky's success all down to nutriton, training, equipment, resources, personnel etc - or do they tinker with things some people might find questionable whilst staying well within the law? Anybody know if they've ever defined 'clean'?
I guess as long as they are within any legal guidelines then they are clean.
So for instance they could be doing all sorts with drugs / hormones that aren't on a banned list, but technically they're 'clean'
On a similar vein ( 😉 ) an ex pro has to inject himself with EPO every day because he's lost the ability to produce his own red blood cells!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18951518
IIRC the UCI has a no-needle policy for all riders.
Don't they just give you suppositories and squirt stuff up your japs eye?
There was a quote on the Louix Theroux does bodybuilding program allong the lines of "there's no such thing as natural, just over the counter". And as my Medicinal Chemistry lecturer put it, carbohydrates are just as much a drug as alcohol or cocaine.
I'd say they were 100% clean as far as the UCI and WADA lists are concerned, if there was even the slightest incling that they weren't then they'd lose all credibility (c.f. Armstrong). But they'll be multivitamined upto their eyeballs and probably drinking their bodyweight in whey protein and recovery drinks and any other suplememnt they need.
This year the TDF riders are producing around 10% lower watts per kilo than in the past 10 to 15 years. Sports physiologists say this reduces their performances to believable rather than the unbelievable of the last 10 to 15 years.
On the watts per kilo thing, I saw some of the same stats, really makes you question the likes of Contadors and Schleks performances in past years given how they compare to riders who raced this year.
The stats I saw showed Contadors VAM was way higher than any other tour riders ever so either he's super human or was doing more than just eating a bit of tainted beef.
I'd like to think most riders this year were clean but who knows. There are probably still riders pushing the boundaries and experimenting with new drugs that don't yet appear on the banned list.
Similarly I'd like to think Sky are 100% clean and if so I think it's a shame that they employ a Doctor that's previously been linked to doping at Rabobank