State of Peloton 2023

[Pantani_lives]

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ju...xtra-anti-doping-tests-at-the-tour-de-france/
Extra blood tests before stage 17 for Jumbo & UAE, but this is, in my opinion, not much more then a show for the press, "see, we do testing"!

Yes, it isn't the number of tests that matters, but the quality. I believe the tests are fifteen years behind. In the days of CERA and the introduction of the blood passport they were pretty reliable, and the chance of getting caught was real for big names.

Today someone like Vingegaard might be using a new kind of synthetic drug that's undetectable with the current testing methods. Another possibility is that gene doping or stem cell doping is involved. If that's the case those tests are merely symbolic.

 

[hender-retour]

Serious question - how is the public stance and culture on doping in Denmark?

I feel I can ask that question since Austria has a quite bad reputation as well and to some degree I would argue that this is routed in culture. A little bit of collective "What the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over. (Was ich nicht weiß, macht mich nicht heiß.)"

So with having Riis and Rasmussen in mind - same in Denmark?

As for Riis. The Danes are forgivable once but not twice. He is relatively ignored after the CSC debacle.

Rasmussen is a bit of a different beast. The Danes had to show they learned their lesson with Riis so he was pretty quickly an outcast.

Over the years both have had on/off media presence but only to a minor degree.

The usual commentators in DK have been on the job for many years, but what are You gonna do when one of them is Rolf Sørensen. It's just a topic they slide over with some basic comments. Once in a while there is a special tv-show focusing on the problem but it is short and only dealing with the issue on a scandal-basis.

I've argued on twitter with one of the TV2 fronts and basically the message I got is that unless I have definitive proof the cyclist in mention is utterly clean.

I do think a lot of the fanbase now is unaware of history and believe it when the rare tv-special points out it's a totally different era (backed by statements from former dopers and decade-commentators.

Another small portion gets angry when Riis, Rasmussen gets tv-time but they are a very small minority.

I do think if Vingo is caught within the next 2-5 years it could be damaging for Danish cycling and weivership for a decade or more.

As a final comment. Danish commentators celebrate a Mads P. Stage win more than a Vingegaard Tour GC win. That should tell You they know whats going on.

A small caveat to this they always seem to have their favorites regardless of performance.

I have some more comments for another time.

 

[unamused1]

the CEO of Ironman recently stepped down. In an interview he said this:
Have you been frustrated in attempts to sanction high-profile athletes?

Absolutely, we have taken cases all the way to the court of arbitration for sport and lost, and these are people we believe we had cold. And those cases will never see the light of day. You will never know who those athletes are, and that is the right answer because ultimately you have to protect the rights of the athlete, and if you can’t prove it then tainting them by association is just wrong. And let me reinforce that [not getting the conviction] is personally unsatisfying

if the sport of triathlon can't get dopers convicted, cycling has no chance

 

[Pantani_lives]

The people are way past caring about doping. The outrage was popular in the days of Lance, but now they just want to be entertained. They want their rider to win, doping or not. In the end they are racing so that the Netflix documentary looks good.

In 1999-2005 Armstrong was mostly treated like a hero. Only a small minority was asking questions. There was a controversial documentary on German television, with witnesses talking about US Postal.

In 2006-2008 all of a sudden everybody was against doping. Remember how Rasmussen and Ricco were vilified. It was the era of the New Cycling.

In 2009 cycling went back to the old days with Armstrong's return to the Tour. When the truth about him came out journalists promised they would be more critical in the future, but they haven't kept that promise.

Today we're back in the Dark Ages. Christian Prudhomme says the new records are all because of better nutrition and better bikes, and there's nothing fishy going on. There are no critical questions in the Belgian, Dutch or Danish media. Some French journalists are more critical, but really not that much. People are kept ignorant. The show must go on.

 

[Mayomaniac]

the CEO of Ironman recently stepped down. In an interview he said this:
Have you been frustrated in attempts to sanction high-profile athletes?

Absolutely, we have taken cases all the way to the court of arbitration for sport and lost, and these are people we believe we had cold. And those cases will never see the light of day. You will never know who those athletes are, and that is the right answer because ultimately you have to protect the rights of the athlete, and if you can’t prove it then tainting them by association is just wrong. And let me reinforce that [not getting the conviction] is personally unsatisfying

if the sport of triathlon can't get dopers convicted, cycling has no chance

Pretty much this, the bio passport was pretty much killed in court.

 

[Fantastico]

In 1999-2005 Armstrong was mostly treated like a hero. Only a small minority was asking questions. There was a controversial documentary on German television, with witnesses talking about US Postal.

In 2006-2008 all of a sudden everybody was against doping. Remember how Rasmussen and Ricco were vilified. It was the era of the New Cycling.

I agree with your general assessment. It seems like after doping discussions and revelations being a defining part of cycling for about 10 years, at some point it became consensus that cycling was clean again. After that the coverage became way less critical.

I don't completely agree on the Armstrong era, though. At least in Germany, I always felt that people were really suspicious of Armstrong (which of course was also related to him beating Jan Ullrich) and many considered his rise in 1999 too good to be true. It rather seemed like an open secret that he was juiced. I agree, however, that the officials treated him like a hero and did not really address the elephant in the room.

 

[zlev11]

those surprise extra blood tests are kinda crazy. that means there's probably been a lot of complaining behind the scenes from other teams. didn't they do the same thing to W52 and Efapel at the Volta a few years ago? lol

 

[42x16ss]

World sport needs another Festina/Puerto/USPS, but what concerns me is that the logistics of what is used now is probably lot simpler than it was for EPO/blood doping and makes a police bust or photo evidence that much more difficult

 

[the delgados]

I agree with your general assessment. It seems like after doping discussions and revelations being a defining part of cycling for about 10 years, at some point it became consensus that cycling was clean again. After that the coverage became way less critical.

I don't completely agree on the Armstrong era, though. At least in Germany, I always felt that people were really suspicious of Armstrong (which of course was also related to him beating Jan Ullrich) and many considered his rise in 1999 too good to be true. It rather seemed like an open secret that he was juiced. I agree, however, that the officials treated him like a hero and did not really address the elephant in the room.

Did anyone in Germany ask questions about Jan Ullrich?

 

[meat puppet]

But there's so much to dissect & I don't intend to single out one team whilst absolving others of equal wrongdoing simply when the result of that wrongdoing is a slower rider. I mean the intent is the same, even when they're losing an arms race. The debate can be framed by LPDBF 2020 & specifically Jumbo's response. What did they do when they witnessed Roglič get clobbered by Pog & UAE? They decided they wanted their own version of Pog. Like going onto amazon.com & buying a new more powerful game console which can run their favorite video game at higher framerates.

That's the mindset we're seeing. They didn't stop & think 'sh*t, where is this sport going?'; they thought 'sh*t, we need our own Pogačar & more importantly whatever they used to make him win!'.

I think this is what leads us to what I was referring to when I mentioned the pervasiveness economic interests. It's not only nation states and sporting federations that may have such interests, but in modern capitalist economies enterprises are of course among key players.

The teams are essentially private (or state) enterprises and/or parts of larger enterprises (or state enterprises), and they are thrown into an environment of not only sporting but economic competition. The former is a means to excel in the latter. Failing in either risks facing demise.

Now, team Jumbo is an enterprise. After PDBF they sure as hell do not have an interest to just step back, smell the flowers and reflect upon what is fair in sport. They got beaten when they thought they were winning.

Of course they fight back, just like any company would when faced with rival competition. In the current context, these two teams play the role of dominant enterprises. They are not monopolies per se, but not price (or, more generally, competition conditions) takers either. They can shape their context to an extent.

So, Jumbo assesses whether their newfound sporting disadvantage is likely to get regulated away (probably not), whether they can up their game without tripping the wire (probably yes), and, well, just send it. If there is leeway to enhance the performance of their riders with an acceptable risk to it, they will do it. And then other teams will follow suit more or less, or perish.

It would be difficult for me to blame individual enterprises for looking after their interests in a hostile environment, ie. market competition, unless they did something totally outrageous. Your conjecture is that Jumbo is doing so now, and perhaps this is indeed the case. The only upside is that perhaps they go too far and face more scrutiny and a backlash.

But from a market competition point of view they are merely innovators and I bet that the others will respond by attempting to out-doping them. Because these are the available technologies and other innovative methods in this particular field. Yes, enterprises and people running them have agency, even moral agency, but it is bounded by their circumstances. Teams and riders make their own history, as it were, but not from circumstances that they have selected or indeed can select for themselves, to paraphrase a long gone German chap. Behind the scenes, teams may try to play politics with the regulatory bodies and annul others' advantages (international trade regulations, anyone?). But what is most directly under their immediate control is preparing the riders the best they can.

And this, the logic of good old market competition, of course, is exactly what makes the doping arms race such a vicious problem. The parties just do not have the interest, or the luxury, to say fuggit, this is not okay.

This post was but an abstract sketch, which only focused on arguing that from a wider, societal standpoint pro cycling can be seen as an economic competition between enterprises. Like other branches of the economy, it has its institutions, rules of the game, key players, opportunity structures etc. The regime of monetary accumulation also intersects with wider social issues. A more concrete analysis would have to take into the account the specific interests of other key players such as the regulating bodies, sporting bodies, race organisers, nation states, the bike industry, etc; the institutional setup within which racing occurs in the here and now; and ideas that frame this whole circus in the minds and public discourse of those involved.

It is customary to end with "discussion", so here goes. When it comes to the racing itself, I understand that viewership figures are rather good. Prior to the last two stages there was some positive hype and yet another Netflix show on the horizon. Perhaps caring about doping at all, let alone demanding that racing conforms to what we conventionally know of the endurance performance capacities of the homo sapiens, is just hopelessly out of touch with the current zeitgeist. This is not what I think, personally, but perhaps the joke is on me.

One thing is certain, however: for the enterprises involved, racing is just a medium, a means to an end, ie. making a bottom line. If all is well in that department, carry on chaps. If not, money can go elsewhere.

Yeah, for one reason or another, I still like the sport a lot (sigh).

 

[46&twoWheels]

I think this is what leads us to what I was referring to when I mentioned the pervasiveness economic interests. It's not only nation states and sporting federations that may have such interests, but in modern capitalist economies enterprises are of course among key players.

The teams are essentially private (or state) enterprises and/or parts of larger enterprises (or state enterprises), and they are thrown into an environment of not only sporting but economic competition. The former is a means to excel in the latter. Failing in either risks facing demise.

Now, team Jumbo is an enterprise. After PDBF they sure as hell do not have an interest to just step back, smell the flowers and reflect upon what is fair in sport. They got beaten when they thought they were winning.

Of course they fight back, just like any company would when faced with rival competition. In the current context, these two teams play the role of dominant enterprises. They are not monopolies per se, but not price (or, more generally, competition conditions) takers either. They can shape their context to an extent.

So, Jumbo assesses whether their newfound sporting disadvantage is likely to get regulated away (probably not), whether they can up their game without tripping the wire (probably yes), and, well, just send it. If there is leeway to enhance the performance of their riders with an acceptable risk to it, they will do it. And then other teams will follow suit more or less, or perish.

It would be difficult for me to blame individual enterprises for looking after their interests in a hostile environment, ie. market competition, unless they did something totally outrageous. Your conjecture is that Jumbo is doing so now, and perhaps this is indeed the case. The only upside is that perhaps they go too far and face more scrutiny and a backlash.

But from a market competition point of view they are merely innovators and I bet that the others will respond by attempting to out-doping them. Because these are the available technologies and other innovative methods in this particular field. Yes, enterprises and people running them have agency, even moral agency, but it is bounded by their circumstances. Teams and riders make their own history, as it were, but not from circumstances that they have selected or indeed can select for themselves, to paraphrase a long gone German chap. Behind the scenes, teams may try to play politics with the regulatory bodies and annul others' advantages (international trade regulations, anyone?). But what is most directly under their immediate control is preparing the riders the best they can.

And this, the logic of good old market competition, of course, is exactly what makes the doping arms race such a vicious problem. The parties just do not have the interest, or the luxury, to say fuggit, this is not okay.

This post was but an abstract sketch, which only focused on arguing that from a wider, societal standpoint pro cycling can be seen as an economic competition between enterprises. Like other branches of the economy, it has its institutions, rules of the game, key players, opportunity structures etc. The regime of monetary accumulation also intersects with wider social issues. A more concrete analysis would have to take into the account the specific interests of other key players such as the regulating bodies, sporting bodies, race organisers, nation states, the bike industry, etc; the institutional setup within which racing occurs in the here and now; and ideas that frame this whole circus in the minds and public discourse of those involved.

It is customary to end with "discussion", so here goes. When it comes to the racing itself, I understand that viewership figures are rather good. Prior to the last two stages there was some positive hype and yet another Netflix show on the horizon. Perhaps caring about doping at all, let alone demanding that racing conforms to what we conventionally know of the endurance performance capacities of the homo sapiens, is just hopelessly out of touch with the current zeitgeist. This is not what I think, personally, but perhaps the joke is on me.

One thing is certain, however: for the enterprises involved, racing is just a medium, a means to an end, ie. making a bottom line. If all is well in that department, carry on chaps. If not, they can go elsewhere.

Yeah, for one reason or another, I still like the sport a lot (sigh).

the 90s were not so much different. Entertainment and superhuman feats are the key to draw interest and viewers. it seems that fairness vs entertainment is a zero sum game and prevention/contravention chase each other. Cycling has always had this cyclical history of alternating "care for fairness" and "free competition" (which is also reflective of political economy in general)
We seem to be in a phase where free competition is given more leeway in order to make the sport more exiting and thus more attractive. Astana/SKY simbolically represent the beginning of this era (if we exclude US Postal), where technological progresses and patents through huge investments have been more important than ever to define competition.
If regulatory bodies are not concerned about (for the reasons you said) even the institutional science cannot follow the private "business" science. it's always a question of balance. SKY/Ineos in the end became more human-like, drawing more sympathy. For how long will Jumbo dominate competition? and how much will be the future gap between them and the peloton? Is entertainment compromised by a single dominating team? These questions and the answers will establish future "Tolerance" by organizers, regulatory bodies, fans and journalists.

 

[Rackham]

I think this is what leads us to what I was referring to when I mentioned the pervasiveness economic interests. It's not only nation states and sporting federations that may have such interests, but in modern capitalist economies enterprises are of course among key players.

The teams are essentially private (or state) enterprises and/or parts of larger enterprises (or state enterprises), and they are thrown into an environment of not only sporting but economic competition. The former is a means to excel in the latter. Failing in either risks facing demise.

Now, team Jumbo is an enterprise. After PDBF they sure as hell do not have an interest to just step back, smell the flowers and reflect upon what is fair in sport. They got beaten when they thought they were winning.

Of course they fight back, just like any company would when faced with rival competition. In the current context, these two teams play the role of dominant enterprises. They are not monopolies per se, but not price (or, more generally, competition conditions) takers either. They can shape their context to an extent.

So, Jumbo assesses whether their newfound sporting disadvantage is likely to get regulated away (probably not), whether they can up their game without tripping the wire (probably yes), and, well, just send it. If there is leeway to enhance the performance of their riders with an acceptable risk to it, they will do it. And then other teams will follow suit more or less, or perish.

It would be difficult for me to blame individual enterprises for looking after their interests in a hostile environment, ie. market competition, unless they did something totally outrageous. Your conjecture is that Jumbo is doing so now, and perhaps this is indeed the case. The only upside is that perhaps they go too far and face more scrutiny and a backlash.

But from a market competition point of view they are merely innovators and I bet that the others will respond by attempting to out-doping them. Because these are the available technologies and other innovative methods in this particular field. Yes, enterprises and people running them have agency, even moral agency, but it is bounded by their circumstances. Teams and riders make their own history, as it were, but not from circumstances that they have selected or indeed can select for themselves, to paraphrase a long gone German chap. Behind the scenes, teams may try to play politics with the regulatory bodies and annul others' advantages (international trade regulations, anyone?). But what is most directly under their immediate control is preparing the riders the best they can.

And this, the logic of good old market competition, of course, is exactly what makes the doping arms race such a vicious problem. The parties just do not have the interest, or the luxury, to say fuggit, this is not okay.

This post was but an abstract sketch, which only focused on arguing that from a wider, societal standpoint pro cycling can be seen as an economic competition between enterprises. Like other branches of the economy, it has its institutions, rules of the game, key players, opportunity structures etc. The regime of monetary accumulation also intersects with wider social issues. A more concrete analysis would have to take into the account the specific interests of other key players such as the regulating bodies, sporting bodies, race organisers, nation states, the bike industry, etc; the institutional setup within which racing occurs in the here and now; and ideas that frame this whole circus in the minds and public discourse of those involved.

It is customary to end with "discussion", so here goes. When it comes to the racing itself, I understand that viewership figures are rather good. Prior to the last two stages there was some positive hype and yet another Netflix show on the horizon. Perhaps caring about doping at all, let alone demanding that racing conforms to what we conventionally know of the endurance performance capacities of the homo sapiens, is just hopelessly out of touch with the current zeitgeist. This is not what I think, personally, but perhaps the joke is on me.

One thing is certain, however: for the enterprises involved, racing is just a medium, a means to an end, ie. making a bottom line. If all is well in that department, carry on chaps. If not, they can go elsewhere.

Yeah, for one reason or another, I still like the sport a lot (sigh).

Nice post, i.e. I enjoyed reading this.

I'll post a very short addition to the above in the form of a natural extension to your analysis about market forces, i.e. competition... is good for the consumer but also essential for the sustainability of the market itself.

In business there are (at least according to the law) regulators who ensure unfair advantages & monopolies aren't detrimental to the market. In cycling we've just had a clear example of this phenomenon play out in real time: viewership in the Tour was up, people were hyped, the duel between Vinge & Pog was on a knife edge of drama & suspense (despite the PED abuse on all sides)... until the house of cards came tumbling down over the past 3 days & one side attained a clear advantage over the other. Good for them (Jumbo in this instance), maybe, but bad for the industry in which they operate.

Jumbo needed Pog & UAE to provide a better challenge in week 3. Their own credibility depended on it. Now the Emperor is naked & there's no fun left in the race. And cycling is a sport after all which is constrained by the same rules as other sports: it must be entertaining, fun & inspire viewers to switch on their tv & actually watch it. More of what we've just seen (Jumbo demolishing everyone) would be bad for business.

Ironically, this would remain true if everyone was riding paniagua as well.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

I think this is what leads us to what I was referring to when I mentioned the pervasiveness economic interests. It's not only nation states and sporting federations that may have such interests, but in modern capitalist economies enterprises are of course among key players.

The teams are essentially private (or state) enterprises and/or parts of larger enterprises (or state enterprises), and they are thrown into an environment of not only sporting but economic competition. The former is a means to excel in the latter. Failing in either risks facing demise.

Now, team Jumbo is an enterprise. After PDBF they sure as hell do not have an interest to just step back, smell the flowers and reflect upon what is fair in sport. They got beaten when they thought they were winning.

Of course they fight back, just like any company would when faced with rival competition. In the current context, these two teams play the role of dominant enterprises. They are not monopolies per se, but not price (or, more generally, competition conditions) takers either. They can shape their context to an extent.

So, Jumbo assesses whether their newfound sporting disadvantage is likely to get regulated away (probably not), whether they can up their game without tripping the wire (probably yes), and, well, just send it. If there is leeway to enhance the performance of their riders with an acceptable risk to it, they will do it. And then other teams will follow suit more or less, or perish.

It would be difficult for me to blame individual enterprises for looking after their interests in a hostile environment, ie. market competition, unless they did something totally outrageous. Your conjecture is that Jumbo is doing so now, and perhaps this is indeed the case. The only upside is that perhaps they go too far and face more scrutiny and a backlash.

But from a market competition point of view they are merely innovators and I bet that the others will respond by attempting to out-doping them. Because these are the available technologies and other innovative methods in this particular field. Yes, enterprises and people running them have agency, even moral agency, but it is bounded by their circumstances. Teams and riders make their own history, as it were, but not from circumstances that they have selected or indeed can select for themselves, to paraphrase a long gone German chap. Behind the scenes, teams may try to play politics with the regulatory bodies and annul others' advantages (international trade regulations, anyone?). But what is most directly under their immediate control is preparing the riders the best they can.

And this, the logic of good old market competition, of course, is exactly what makes the doping arms race such a vicious problem. The parties just do not have the interest, or the luxury, to say fuggit, this is not okay.

This post was but an abstract sketch, which only focused on arguing that from a wider, societal standpoint pro cycling can be seen as an economic competition between enterprises. Like other branches of the economy, it has its institutions, rules of the game, key players, opportunity structures etc. The regime of monetary accumulation also intersects with wider social issues. A more concrete analysis would have to take into the account the specific interests of other key players such as the regulating bodies, sporting bodies, race organisers, nation states, the bike industry, etc; the institutional setup within which racing occurs in the here and now; and ideas that frame this whole circus in the minds and public discourse of those involved.

It is customary to end with "discussion", so here goes. When it comes to the racing itself, I understand that viewership figures are rather good. Prior to the last two stages there was some positive hype and yet another Netflix show on the horizon. Perhaps caring about doping at all, let alone demanding that racing conforms to what we conventionally know of the endurance performance capacities of the homo sapiens, is just hopelessly out of touch with the current zeitgeist. This is not what I think, personally, but perhaps the joke is on me.

One thing is certain, however: for the enterprises involved, racing is just a medium, a means to an end, ie. making a bottom line. If all is well in that department, carry on chaps. If not, money can go elsewhere.

Yeah, for one reason or another, I still like the sport a lot (sigh).

Nice post! On top of that comes the issue that you don't even have to know for sure your competition is doping, you just have to believe they do to have a motivation to act, or to find it necessary.

 

[noob]

 A noob wants to add; pro cycling corporation's aren't necessarily interested in old fans. Netflix fans are a new category and don't underestimate that the will, no the urge, to be entertained is a ton bigger today than 99. You can't compare time periods before and after the smartphones and people's shortened attention spans.

This a new brave new world baby. People don't want to hear about doping as it will ruin their entertainment. Or they will switch to enjoying the doping scandals in themselves eventually. Still just entertainment!

 

[Salvarani]

 A noob wants to add; pro cycling corporation's aren't necessarily interested in old fans. Netflix fans are a new category and don't underestimate that the will, no the urge, to be entertained is a ton bigger today than 99. You can't compare time periods before and after the smartphones and people's shortened attention spans.

This a new brave new world baby. People don't want to hear about doping as it will ruin their entertainment. Or they will switch to enjoying the doping scandals in themselves eventually. Still just entertainment!

I have seen a lot of doping comments on social media.

I dont know what a place like reddit looks like.

The thing is... the cat is out of the bag. These guys are doped up. It is evident, they are. Have been for awhile. Nobody has just dared to go as far as this, like in the last two days. Maybe by mistake because Vinge is dumb as bricks not looking at his wattmeter correctly, not understanding what he is doing. Going back there has of course always been a lot of context clues around. From riders and people alluding to stuff with their comments. "Peloton is much faster now" and so on. Backed with actual numbers and climbing times. It is all there in plain sight, because so far they have kept it at a level thats not ridiculous. At least, it hasnt looked as ridiculous as the past couple of days.

We will just have to see if the talk dies down after the Tour, when masses stop caring or stop asking questions. I guess that is what everybody involved hope they will do. They let Sky ride on through years though, Froome didnt get busted despite a positive test. He could ride on. I doubt they will bust Vinge or JV, or any other big rider/team. Probably there has been a bunch of calls behind the scenes already. I am assuming these guys hate each other though, so maybe something even more ridiculous stuff starts happening after this one. Could be good entertainment, I guess.

 

[Forever The Best]

Vingegaard's TT was a joke. The most ridiculous display in a long time. 3+ minutes the 3rd place in a TT that was not even long.
Also did Pogacar's program go wrong yesterday like Zulle in 1998 Giro or Yates in 2018 Giro?

 

[magliaroz]

They really are desperate to show they have the situation under control in the past couple of days. Not suspicious at all.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1681964597954199553

View: https://twitter.com/LeTour/status/1681964597954199553?t=VLE9RZEAq5XpcNPZ0Cdgqg&s=19

 

[Riek s]

They really are desperate to show they have the situation under control in the past couple of days. Not suspicious at all.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1681964597954199553

View: https://twitter.com/LeTour/status/1681964597954199553?t=VLE9RZEAq5XpcNPZ0Cdgqg&s=19

anybody knows how this test works?

seems more efficient to put a very sensitive heat sensor on random intervals on a parcour/moto and record it.

 

[Lequack]

anybody knows how this test works?

seems more efficient to put a very sensitive heat sensor on random intervals on a parcour/moto and record it.

They just scan for magnetic components. It's a very basic test, not even worth doing in my opinion. It's like testing for doping by smelling the riders.

 

[Aimar16]

They just scan for magnetic components. It's a very basic test, not even worth doing in my opinion. It's like testing for doping by smelling the riders.

Are these guys really just using the built-in magnetometer in a tablet with a random app from the App Store?

 

[Lequack]

That's what it seems yes.

 

[magliaroz]

The bike checks look totally out of date, amateurish. I've heard claims that they check only 8 randomly selected bikes after every stage. Teams have dozens of spare bikes for each of their riders, how much ability do you think it takes to swap an incriminated machine with a clean one?

Meanwhile, I just listened to an almost 10 minutes long monologue (one of the many I've heard in the past 2 years, and they all sound the same) about how everything is different now, the poor cyclists are like people on parole supervised by anti-doping officers 24/7 all year long and basically there are no Saints in Heaven anymore, because they are all riding the Tour!

 

[Netserk]

I've argued on twitter with one of the TV2 fronts and basically the message I got is that unless I have definitive proof the cyclist in mention is utterly clean.

Well, doping is a serious allegation. Just asking questions is not a serious treatment.

I don’t imagine that it’s common to ask politicians if they are corrupt, not even in countries with a great amount of corruption. Independent investigations can be serious, but that’s difficult. Just asking a rider if he has doped, that’s easy and takes no work.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Did anyone in Germany ask questions about Jan Ullrich?

Well I don't know when it started exactly, but I do remember that there as a little debate when he was banned for amphetamine use back in 2002. Not everyone believed his story about having taking unknown pills in a club. With what we know now though, that sounds like a pretty realistic thing for Ulle to do.

There were general doubts though and I think Ullrich was regularly asked about the topic of doping.

97 I was so young I don't remember any doping debates fullstop. The first time doping became known and a reality to me was with the Festina scandal I think. There was, from then on imo, enough public debate about doping to become suspicious yourself about the peloton in general and Ullrich in specific as well.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Dope testing, bike checks, all of these serve one purpose: to paint the veneer of legitimacy on an otherwise rotten state of professional cycling. The whole idea is to reassure sponsors that their investment is safe and treated with due respect and to placate the already gullible public.

This is an extraordinary sport, maybe the most beautiful one of all. But it's not clean, not even cleaner than the 1990s, IMO.