This is truly an all time low we're facing. Dutch cycling is the biggest sport after football (in terms of members, TV investment and professionals combined), and they've always been somewhat critical about 'the performances' in cycling. (yes mostly because of the failure to achieve what Sky did in just 3 years)
After Good old Rabo decided; 'we don't want our name on the outfit but we'll still hold the licence and keep most of the network' - talk about a new start - there was quite an outrage when the Rabo story came out and everybody except petty man Dekker confessed. But it was mostly because of the failure of Gesink and the whole Rasmussen thing that it got so much attention. So when Mollema and Ten Dam came back, the need to question the performances just disappeared like we were back in 2007. That brings me to...
This will all disappear for 2 whole decades again if Kruiswijk launches off like this. Nowadays the national trend is cyclists taking even more cheaper fake/dirty products just to be in shape for a few weeks in the summer.
If you look at it now, it looks like Lotto-Jumbo have finally caught up, with Astana and even Katusha.
The Dutch were one of the last massive cycling nations that failed to produce a GT winner in the last decades, which made the national media and Anti-Doping Authority receive more attention and more time for journalists to investigate, that's how Rabo was uncovered. Danny Nelissen got an full hour. Boogerd got an full hour on TV, etc etc.
Just last year the Dutch Anti Doping Authority released a report with the Dutch Union of General practitioners that they treated an average of 160.000 patients a year with health problems as a direct result of grabbing the wrong jar. Most medical specialists even suspected in the report that a lot of cases were not even recognized as substance-related = This is the just the number of the guys that chickened out.
People are going to die eventually, we already got close with Aicar when everybody thinned out and couldn't handle Carbon-bikes anymore.
Kruiswijk winning is not a good thing, just examine this;
He has been operated two times, one in '08 for his femoral artery which caused his left leg to give up earlier in intensive efforts and recuperation. Notably in TTs and GC Stages(!)
Second operation was in '13. The first one proved to not fix the problem which is causing him to this day (if you look at his strava) to have an uneven pedal stroke which reduces performance, you know, apart from the 6 years of structural problems in training.
How can a guy with structural problems in his femoral artery drown The Shark and just-keep-winning-at36-like-Puerto-never-happened Alejandro.
It is a disgrace.
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