Your previous posts were tin foil hattery of the highest order. There's nothing to suggest the sport was anything other than (in the vast majority) clean after the Armstrong era and subsequent busts. The mere fact four world class cyclists have sprung up from the same tiny country out of absolutely nowhere in the past five years is what sets alarm bells ringing - along with the ridiculous manner in which Pogacar was dominant in the two previous tours.
The stage average times and times up climbs with comparable conditions and at comparable points in a stage simply don't point to anything like the nuclear levels of Edgar and blood bags on display in the nineties and noughties.
You seem to have an odd, overwhelming obsession with Sky having been 'cheats', but the simple fact is - apart from financial doping (being able to buy four potential grand tour winners to ride for Froome in the mountains), there's nothing to suggest Sky had a team sanctioned doping programme going on. The statistics don't back that up.
Is Pogacar on the gear? Yes. Are other individual riders doping? Yes. Is it at anything like the level it was in the nineties and noughties? Obviously not.
You want to see a sport where doping is absolutely rife, yet the governing bodies are complicit in ensuring everyone looks the other way? Try football.
Calm down.
I have said multiple times before I think ALL top level sport is doped, to some degree, or other. There is absolutely no reason to think football is any different.
I have never said I thought sky were on any sort of US Postal level doping, they clear weren't. The questions for me are did they cheat? Possibly, possibly not. Where they "clean"? Almost certainly not. I would say the same about the majority of top level footballers, swimmers, rowers, track athletes etc etc.
The Jamaican sprinters, Real Madrid, AC Milan in the 00s, a lot of team GB, the top tennis players and multiple others would be my prime suspects.
Back to the subject at hand, clean or not, this has been a hell of a tour.
I really really hope WvA isn't doing anything he shouldn't but this whole TdF has certainly raised my suspicions about everyone.
For those that watched during the Lance era, I always hear people saying how obvious it was looking back that it was just so in your face when watching. Is it anything like today where we see the green jersey leading up a monster of a climb?
I'm torn as regardless of if they are all up to their eyeballs this tour has been fantastic to watch but at the same time I can't get fully on board with the superlatives the press are throwing out and the fingers in ears crowd saying shut up they are all clean.
I really really hope WvA isn't doing anything he shouldn't but this whole TdF has certainly raised my suspicions about everyone.
For those that watched during the Lance era, I always hear people saying how obvious it was looking back that it was just so in your face when watching. Is it anything like today where we see the green jersey leading up a monster of a climb?
I'm torn as regardless of if they are all up to their eyeballs this tour has been fantastic to watch but at the same time I can't get fully on board with the superlatives the press are throwing out and the fingers in ears crowd saying shut up they are all clean.
I think that's a key point isn't it? Does it really matter if they all are? It only really matters if only some are, doesn't it?
The 1988 men's Olympic 100 meters final where everyone was at it was still a spectacular event. Would anyone stop enjoying the Ali Fraser trilogy if they were both at it? It would be different to finding out Tyson was knocking people out in minutes because he was at it, wouldn't it?
You will always get genetic freaks that happen to find the right sport. Lothar Matthaus, Ian Thorpe and Usan Bolt spring to mind but there are always question marks aren't there?
I really really hope WvA isn't doing anything he shouldn't but this whole TdF has certainly raised my suspicions about everyone.
For those that watched during the Lance era, I always hear people saying how obvious it was looking back that it was just so in your face when watching. Is it anything like today where we see the green jersey leading up a monster of a climb?
I'm torn as regardless of if they are all up to their eyeballs this tour has been fantastic to watch but at the same time I can't get fully on board with the superlatives the press are throwing out and the fingers in ears crowd saying shut up they are all clean.
I think that's a key point isn't it? Does it really matter if they all are? It only really matters if only some are, doesn't it?
The 1988 men's Olympic 100 meters final where everyone was at it was still a spectacular event. Would anyone stop enjoying the Ali Fraser trilogy if they were both at it? It would be different to finding out Tyson was knocking people out in minutes because he was at it, wouldn't it?
You will always get genetic freaks that happen to find the right sport. Lothar Matthaus, Ian Thorpe and Usan Bolt spring to mind but there are always question marks aren't there?
It’s an interesting point, but a big factor in banning certain substances in many sports was to protect the athletes. If everything was allowed then every athlete would be forced to take substances to be competitive. Many of these things aren’t insignificant little pick me ups like a shot of espresso. They can seriously fuck with your health and often have unknown consequences because they haven’t been trialled in the way they are being used.
If Tom Simpson hadn’t taken amphetamines would he have pushed himself to beyond his physical limits going up Mount Ventoux. To what extent did abuse of synthetic hormones among other things play in Lance Armstrong’s and Ivan Basso’s testicular cancer. And thats before even thinking about some of the East German Athletes.
There isn’t really any easy answer, but I do think sometimes too much emphasis is placed on the athlete who is using performance enhancing substances, rather than the coaches and medical teams that have a great degree of influence over what are quite young success hungry people. Anyone in a position of responsibility and power who abuses that in this way should in my opinion be banned from all sport forever, face the toughest sanctions through whichever criminal justice system they come up against and be banned from entering all other countries that compete in international sport. In short fuck their lives up forever so it is not worth it.
I really really hope WvA isn't doing anything he shouldn't but this whole TdF has certainly raised my suspicions about everyone.
For those that watched during the Lance era, I always hear people saying how obvious it was looking back that it was just so in your face when watching. Is it anything like today where we see the green jersey leading up a monster of a climb?
I'm torn as regardless of if they are all up to their eyeballs this tour has been fantastic to watch but at the same time I can't get fully on board with the superlatives the press are throwing out and the fingers in ears crowd saying shut up they are all clean.
I think that's a key point isn't it? Does it really matter if they all are? It only really matters if only some are, doesn't it?
The 1988 men's Olympic 100 meters final where everyone was at it was still a spectacular event. Would anyone stop enjoying the Ali Fraser trilogy if they were both at it? It would be different to finding out Tyson was knocking people out in minutes because he was at it, wouldn't it?
You will always get genetic freaks that happen to find the right sport. Lothar Matthaus, Ian Thorpe and Usan Bolt spring to mind but there are always question marks aren't there?
It’s an interesting point, but a big factor in banning certain substances in many sports was to protect the athletes. If everything was allowed then every athlete would be forced to take substances to be competitive. Many of these things aren’t insignificant little pick me ups like a shot of espresso. They can seriously fuck with your health and often have unknown consequences because they haven’t been trialled in the way they are being used.
If Tom Simpson hadn’t taken amphetamines would he have pushed himself to beyond his physical limits going up Mount Ventoux. To what extent did abuse of synthetic hormones among other things play in Lance Armstrong’s and Ivan Basso’s testicular cancer. And thats before even thinking about some of the East German Athletes.
There isn’t really any easy answer, but I do think sometimes too much emphasis is placed on the athlete who is using performance enhancing substances, rather than the coaches and medical teams that have a great degree of influence over what are quite young success hungry people. Anyone in a position of responsibility and power who abuses that in this way should in my opinion be banned from all sport forever, face the toughest sanctions through whichever criminal justice system they come up against and be banned from entering all other countries that compete in international sport. In short fuck their lives up forever so it is not worth it.
I think that a slightly different argument, in the modern world, because if you look at a non sport where "performance enhancing" drugs have been rife, professional wrestling, the death rate has been horrific but there have also been many people clearly on the juice who have lived long natural lives. The biggest problems have been the pain killers, head injury and recreational drugs.
I don't think sport has got the balance right yet. I remember a skier took the wrong vicks enhaler and Shane Warne (probably not the best example) took an over the counter diaretic.
Now I’m no sportsperson but I do like the idea of trashing everyone after taking shit loads of amphetamines and several bottles of brandy (no disrespect to those who died doing sam )
And that’s the point for me, unlimited doping is one way to go, massively affects the health of the participants and the best doctors win.
Strict sloping controls, blood passports and monitoring is better. With a bit more common sense applied it would be helpful. Oh look, that cyclist/swimmer/rower/athlete has just done something that is basically impossible or out of this world good. So they are suspect, require even more intrusive and offensive monitoring and when that happens and their performance drops off a cliff that’d be a ban in my book
Slovenia does have a good history of riders on the Pro Tour. Simon Spillak being probably their most successful, but a bit forgotten because he excelled outside the Grand Tours in the spring and early summer one week races. They also have a very solid record of middle ranking pro-tour riders who doped such as Borut Bozic and Kristjan Koren. Milan Erzen was managing director of Bahrain Merida, linked to Operation Aderlass and also investigated by the UCI. I've not seen a link to Pogacar but Erzen did manage Roglic early in his career.
Operation Aderlass has links to the Freiburg clinic that doped the T-Mobile team around 2004-2006, and also has admissions and evidence of riders doping in the Sky era such as Danilo Hondo. I'm not saying Sky were bang at it, but over the years I've come to the belief that during the Sky era there was plenty of PEDs and doping going on albeit on a reduced level to say Mr 60 Bjarne Riis in 1996-97 Tours. It's not difficult to imagine that the experts and doctors making money have found better ways to get round the blood passport system. None of the cyclists - that I'm aware of - pursued via Operation Aderlass were banned prior to the police investigation, nor tested positive or ha their blood passport indicate irregular activity.
Slovenia does have a good history of riders on the Pro Tour. Simon Spillak being probably their most successful, but a bit forgotten because he excelled outside the Grand Tours in the spring and early summer one week races. They also have a very solid record of middle ranking pro-tour riders who doped such as Borut Bozic and Kristjan Koren. Milan Erzen was managing director of Bahrain Merida, linked to Operation Aderlass and also investigated by the UCI. I've not seen a link to Pogacar but Erzen did manage Roglic early in his career.
Operation Aderlass has links to the Freiburg clinic that doped the T-Mobile team around 2004-2006, and also has admissions and evidence of riders doping in the Sky era such as Danilo Hondo. I'm not saying Sky were bang at it, but over the years I've come to the belief that during the Sky era there was plenty of PEDs and doping going on albeit on a reduced level to say Mr 60 Bjarne Riis in 1996-97 Tours. It's not difficult to imagine that the experts and doctors making money have found better ways to get round the blood passport system. None of the cyclists - that I'm aware of - pursued via Operation Aderlass were banned prior to the police investigation, nor tested positive or ha their blood passport indicate irregular activity.
There's a big difference between Spilak and a pair of pro-conti level riders over 30 years and Pogacar/Roglic/Mohoric/Tratnik all emerging at the same time, from a country with a population of about 3 million people.
This is the issue with doping - it emerges in patterns (usually around a specific team or country - eg: Nike/Oregon with runners, Jamaican sprinters, Russian... everything). That's usually a result of lax/complicit local testing regimes. Slovenia's testing is almost non-existent, meaning we're relying on WADA to test - and the number of out of competition tests during Covid plummeted (for obvious reasons). It ain't legit.
I think cycling is largely clean (aeons away from the Armstrong era) although the odd rider is likely to be at it (usually shit level conti riders trying to get into the pro ranks, but the odd pro who's coming towards the end of their career, or someone in a contract year looking for a new gig) - certainly much cleaner than football (where money talks) rugby (where it's been endemic for decades) and athletics (where, despite it being filthy, the Damascene moment hasn't yet happened like it did with Armstrong and cycling)
Pog and Rog were ripping up the Vuelta in 2019. Pog rode a very believable ITT on stage 20 in the 2020 TDF, as he did in the 2018 TDF. But it's good to discount any evidence that goes against a conspiracy. Roglic must have been one of the most tested riders of 2019. My point of view is more nuanced than just Slovenia. Why would Belgium and the Netherlands give up doping? Those two countries were wonderful early adopters of doping.
You're missing the point I'm making on Slovenian cycling. Cycling is big in Slovenia. It was pre and post Yugoslavis. Slovenia is pretty much the richest country from the Eastern Bloc. Slovenia has close historic and economic ties to Italy and Austria. The above mentioned cyclists were established World Tour riders, not pro-conti. There are quite a few others you'll recognise like Grega Bole and Janez Brajkovic. When Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and Martin Earley emerged Ireland had had one previous Tour winner.
Slovenian cycling is linked to the biggest police investigation into doping of the last few years. Germany and Austria aren't seen as lax testing regimes, but the doping occurred there from T-Mobile, through to Getolsteiner and onto Bahrain Merida riders. I thought I was making a very obvious point that a very organised doping system, has tentacles that touch Pog and are all over the Slovenian connection at Bahrain Merida. In that I agree that doping will coalesce around doctors, teams, countries and clinics.
I don't think cycling is largely clean. I don't think it's necessarily a majority of cyclists. If low ranking World Tour riders are up to it and not found out, why wouldn't higher ranking cyclists who're paid €100,000s more? Both Bahrain and UAE registering in the Middle East mean their employees may not be open to the criminal charges of doping in sport that Mark Schmidt was in Germany.
The doping structures and medical support in Western Europe was not dismantled post Armstrong or Puerto. Fuentes wasn't operating without competition. To my knowledge nothing was ever dismantled in Belgium or Holland. Geert Leinders was banned for life, but it's hard to believe he was the sole Dr Mabuse of Benelux.
Notice there were climate activists who held up the start of the Stage today - I know its all about exposure for them etc, but still gives off a strong sense of irony.
I mean Ganna was still comfortably ahead of the rest but then he gets blown out of the way by WvA and that time also looks like it might not stand. Anyone not raising an eyebrow surely is now.
Ineos, the rider’s agent and his current team have all remained tight-lipped, but VeloNews understands that Leo Hayterwill stagiaire with the British team towards the end of this season with the view of moving into the WorldTour with the squad next season.
Hayter, 20, starts the Tour Alsace on Wednesday for his Hagens Berman Axeon team before suiting up in the Great Britain kit for the all-important Tour de l’Avenir later in the year.
After that he is likely to focus on a number of one-day Italian races as part of Ineos Grenadiers, the team on which his older brother Ethan currently rides for.
The younger Hayter was recently on an Ineos Grenadiers camp with several of the team’s WorldTour riders in Andorra, and has been courted by several top-tier outfits with the view on turning professional in 2023.
Hayter has been earmarked for the top for the last couple of years but he has enjoyed a breakthrough season in 2022, winning two stages and the Baby Giro in June of this year. His two stage wins were impressive, with solo moves in the mountains netting him more than five minutes on his closest rivals.
To be fair I think it’s only a banned substance in cycling because the side effects can make it dangerous to ride a bike.
Yep, it’s not performance enhancing, it’s a very powerful painkiller. Interesting that he’s completely denying it - I’m not sure you get false positives for this.
Are pain killers not performance enhancing? Surely they'd enable a rider to push themselves a little harder than they might otherwise do.
That’s a very interesting point Stig, but if you were using them for that purpose you might not chose a synthetic opioid, because of the side effects. Also risk of injury would increase dramatically.
Completely anecdotally about 7 years ago, I was regularly cycling long distances as the only serious exercise I could do following an accident that left my lower right leg basically held together by Mechano. About 50 miles into a 100 mile ride on a hot day I was experiencing some pain in the back of my right leg that I felt was sciatica, which I experienced regularly and not surprising from being in the same position for so long. I stopped took 2 x 200mg of ibuprofen that I had with me and carried on, the pain reducing a bit later. The next day I had a dull ache in that leg that got progressively worse as the day went on. After work I looked in the mirror and saw the whole of the back of my leg was purple and by now extremely painful. I felt a bit stupid going to A and E for what was obviously a massive bruise and muscle strain. I was admitted straight away with compartment syndrome and an urgent MRI showed a 12 cm tear down my hamstring. They showed me it on the screen afterwards and it looked like a leg of lamb that had been sliced. If I had left it overnight and gone to the hospital I would have ended up having to have my leg removed at the hip.
What none of the doctors could understand is how I tore my muscle so extensively and kept on riding without pain stopping me. So I guess blocking out pain could be performance enhancing, but with quite serious consequences.
Comments
I have never said I thought sky were on any sort of US Postal level doping, they clear weren't. The questions for me are did they cheat? Possibly, possibly not. Where they "clean"? Almost certainly not. I would say the same about the majority of top level footballers, swimmers, rowers, track athletes etc etc.
The Jamaican sprinters, Real Madrid, AC Milan in the 00s, a lot of team GB, the top tennis players and multiple others would be my prime suspects.
Back to the subject at hand, clean or not, this has been a hell of a tour.
For those that watched during the Lance era, I always hear people saying how obvious it was looking back that it was just so in your face when watching. Is it anything like today where we see the green jersey leading up a monster of a climb?
I'm torn as regardless of if they are all up to their eyeballs this tour has been fantastic to watch but at the same time I can't get fully on board with the superlatives the press are throwing out and the fingers in ears crowd saying shut up they are all clean.
The 1988 men's Olympic 100 meters final where everyone was at it was still a spectacular event. Would anyone stop enjoying the Ali Fraser trilogy if they were both at it? It would be different to finding out Tyson was knocking people out in minutes because he was at it, wouldn't it?
You will always get genetic freaks that happen to find the right sport. Lothar Matthaus, Ian Thorpe and Usan Bolt spring to mind but there are always question marks aren't there?
consequences because they haven’t been trialled in the way they are being used.
If Tom Simpson hadn’t taken amphetamines would he have pushed himself to beyond his physical limits going up Mount Ventoux. To what extent did abuse of synthetic hormones among other things play in Lance Armstrong’s and Ivan Basso’s testicular cancer. And thats before even thinking about some of the East German Athletes.
There isn’t really any easy answer, but I do think sometimes too much emphasis is placed on the athlete who is using performance enhancing substances, rather than the coaches and medical teams that have a great degree of influence over what are quite young success hungry people. Anyone in a position of responsibility and power who abuses that in this way should in my opinion be banned from all sport forever, face the toughest sanctions through whichever criminal justice system they come up against and be banned from entering all other countries that compete in international sport. In short fuck their lives up forever so it is not worth it.
I don't think sport has got the balance right yet. I remember a skier took the wrong vicks enhaler and Shane Warne (probably not the best example) took an over the counter diaretic.
And that’s the point for me, unlimited doping is one way to go, massively affects the health of the participants and the best doctors win.
Operation Aderlass has links to the Freiburg clinic that doped the T-Mobile team around 2004-2006, and also has admissions and evidence of riders doping in the Sky era such as Danilo Hondo. I'm not saying Sky were bang at it, but over the years I've come to the belief that during the Sky era there was plenty of PEDs and doping going on albeit on a reduced level to say Mr 60 Bjarne Riis in 1996-97 Tours. It's not difficult to imagine that the experts and doctors making money have found better ways to get round the blood passport system. None of the cyclists - that I'm aware of - pursued via Operation Aderlass were banned prior to the police investigation, nor tested positive or ha their blood passport indicate irregular activity.
This is the issue with doping - it emerges in patterns (usually around a specific team or country - eg: Nike/Oregon with runners, Jamaican sprinters, Russian... everything). That's usually a result of lax/complicit local testing regimes. Slovenia's testing is almost non-existent, meaning we're relying on WADA to test - and the number of out of competition tests during Covid plummeted (for obvious reasons). It ain't legit.
I think cycling is largely clean (aeons away from the Armstrong era) although the odd rider is likely to be at it (usually shit level conti riders trying to get into the pro ranks, but the odd pro who's coming towards the end of their career, or someone in a contract year looking for a new gig) - certainly much cleaner than football (where money talks) rugby (where it's been endemic for decades) and athletics (where, despite it being filthy, the Damascene moment hasn't yet happened like it did with Armstrong and cycling)
Roglic must have been one of the most tested riders of 2019. My point of view is more nuanced than just Slovenia. Why would Belgium and the Netherlands give up doping? Those two countries were wonderful early adopters of doping.
You're missing the point I'm making on Slovenian cycling. Cycling is big in Slovenia. It was pre and post Yugoslavis. Slovenia is pretty much the richest country from the Eastern Bloc. Slovenia has close historic and economic ties to Italy and Austria. The above mentioned cyclists were established World Tour riders, not pro-conti. There are quite a few others you'll recognise like Grega Bole and Janez Brajkovic. When Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and Martin Earley emerged Ireland had had one previous Tour winner.
Slovenian cycling is linked to the biggest police investigation into doping of the last few years. Germany and Austria aren't seen as lax testing regimes, but the doping occurred there from T-Mobile, through to Getolsteiner and onto Bahrain Merida riders. I thought I was making a very obvious point that a very organised doping system, has tentacles that touch Pog and are all over the Slovenian connection at Bahrain Merida. In that I agree that doping will coalesce around doctors, teams, countries and clinics.
I don't think cycling is largely clean. I don't think it's necessarily a majority of cyclists. If low ranking World Tour riders are up to it and not found out, why wouldn't higher ranking cyclists who're paid €100,000s more? Both Bahrain and UAE registering in the Middle East mean their employees may not be open to the criminal charges of doping in sport that Mark Schmidt was in Germany.
The doping structures and medical support in Western Europe was not dismantled post Armstrong or Puerto. Fuentes wasn't operating without competition. To my knowledge nothing was ever dismantled in Belgium or Holland. Geert Leinders was banned for life, but it's hard to believe he was the sole Dr Mabuse of Benelux.
Hayter, 20, starts the Tour Alsace on Wednesday for his Hagens Berman Axeon team before suiting up in the Great Britain kit for the all-important Tour de l’Avenir later in the year.
After that he is likely to focus on a number of one-day Italian races as part of Ineos Grenadiers, the team on which his older brother Ethan currently rides for.
The younger Hayter was recently on an Ineos Grenadiers camp with several of the team’s WorldTour riders in Andorra, and has been courted by several top-tier outfits with the view on turning professional in 2023.
Hayter has been earmarked for the top for the last couple of years but he has enjoyed a breakthrough season in 2022, winning two stages and the Baby Giro in June of this year. His two stage wins were impressive, with solo moves in the mountains netting him more than five minutes on his closest rivals.
I
Completely anecdotally about 7 years ago, I was regularly cycling long distances as the only serious exercise I could do following an accident that left my lower right leg basically held together by Mechano. About 50 miles into a 100 mile ride on a hot day I was experiencing some pain in the back of my right leg that I felt was sciatica, which I experienced regularly and not surprising from being in the same position for so long. I stopped took 2 x 200mg of ibuprofen that I had with me and carried on, the pain reducing a bit later. The next day I had a dull ache in that leg that got progressively worse as the day went on. After work I looked in the mirror and saw the whole of the back of my leg was purple and by now extremely painful. I felt a bit stupid going to A and E for what was obviously a massive bruise and muscle strain. I was admitted straight away with compartment syndrome and an urgent MRI showed a 12 cm tear down my hamstring. They showed me it on the screen afterwards and it looked like a leg of lamb that had been sliced. If I had left it overnight and gone to the hospital I would have ended up having to have my leg removed at the hip.
What none of the doctors could understand is how I tore my muscle so extensively and kept on riding without pain stopping me. So I guess blocking out pain could be performance enhancing, but with quite serious consequences.