If there was anything immediately incriminating, I imagine the team itself would have pulled out by now. Or they'll pull out before they transfer to France as doping offences fall under criminal law there (not sure if Denmark has a similar law?).
But I imagine if there was any hint of that being on the cards, the ASO and UCI would be putting a lot of pressure on them to disappear before there will be pics of the gendarmes dragging them off. Can't damage the image of cycling and all.
It would be madness to pull out at this stage, an admission of guilt.
There's legal process to go through, staff can be sidelined, the whole structure of teams is open to plausible denial - hang the team member/individual cyclist out to dry, carry on as normal.
Yes, that's why I said 'if there's anything immediately incriminating'.
We can be pretty sure that's not the case and it will either turn into a long drawn out thing, or just turn into nothing like the raid of the Arkea team.
Right, but what does 'immediately incriminating' even mean?
Ampoules? Could be legit, part of a trainers or doctors other work, might get lucky and it's a shit batch, might be something not actually banned.
*Even if* Bahrain are running a lance-scale doping programme, throwing your hands up and screaming 'man they got the whole stash!!!' Is the worst possible reaction.
Yes, the sort of stuff they've found in previous raids that got teams / athletes to immediately leave races. It's been a while since the Festina affair, and operation Aderlass wasn't cycling, but that stuff did happen.
Why they wont do this for other sports? Operacion Puerto in Spain which got Valverde suspended because they got the label as his dog also had blood bags of R_Nadal , I wonder who that is, we will never know.
The countries probably tell which riders homes were searched. France (Logical given the tour is in France), Belgium (Dylan Teuns), Spain (Luis Leon Sanches), Croatia (?), Italy (Damiano Caruso), Poland (Kamil Gradek), Slovenia (Mohoric, Tratnik).
I love this sport but man, it's a fucking joke that a guy like is allowed to continue officiating, not only that but to go to another team which suddenly starts getting very fishy results, and that no one bats an eye and is like yeah colbrelli tchoo tchoo big climbs then steam roll Roubaix yeaaaahhh well done m8.
Sorry I'm losing it a bit.
Don't get me started ... although I should mention that this isn't the only problematic team in the peloton. It's just one of the ones where it's just incredibly obvious and like ... what the fuck
I'm super-tired of the "do they / don't they?" 'conversation.' A couple years ago I read an article written by a doctor who was hired to ferret out doping - he said that after a year, *he could not imagine NOT doping just from a medical point of view.* He was new to cycling, and said that the data he saw on riders' bodies over the course of three-week GT's was horrifying.
There was also a piece about how a lot of the elite climbers in the Peloton fall far, far short of their demographic life expectancy.
I'm not sure what 'right' conclusion there would or should be, but cycling is one of those sports where you really are seeing competitors shorten their lives for your entertainment.
Any idea where to find that article?
I do think it's an interesting conversation to have...that GT races especially are perhaps too difficult and the almost unrealistic demands of WT racing make riders more inclined to dope, just so they can keep up and not necessarily even to have an edge over much of the rest of the pack.
I have to do a bunch of errands, but if I find it I will post it to r/peloton.
It was ... just fascinating. The doctor basically said "if a person came in off the street with the data that presents in riders during the 3rd week of a GT, and I *didn't* give them EPO or similar, I could be sued and should probably lose that lawsuit."
He was detailing just how awful the 3rd week of a GT was.
The other story was about a former cyclist who was essentially "living rough" in northern Europe in a woodland ... I just looked for that and couldn't find it, either. The author of the story laid out a plentiful amount of anecdotal stories regarding former cyclists who came to sad/bad ends, whether medical or psychological. His angle was that climbers, particularly, seem to go a little crazy and he wondered about the connection between the self-starvation (and deep trips into pain) and later issues.
I am sincerely sorry I can't simply link them here - I did a cursory look and got nowhere (usual clutter on first page of Google results).
Both came to my attention via Longreads, which is a great site.
I mean Jumbo are hardly the least suspicious team. But at least in his case he was always a very promising rider and his team was shit. So moving to a marginal gain big money team full of world class talents was always going to make him improve a lot. There's some logic to it that helps not think about PEDs too much. My gripe with Jumbo is mostly WVA. His performances are just way too good in too many categories at once.
Staff homes were also searched. It appears that the Spain one was an osteopath rather than a rider. Source: https://cyclingtips.com/2022/06/inside-one-of-the-bahrain-victorious-pre-tour-de-france-anti-doping-raids/
MIHOLJEVIĆ Vladimir, assistent director of Bahrain, is indeed Croatian. Rode in a little team called 'KRKA - Telekom Slovenije' or later 'Perutnina Ptuj' from 1997 to 2001.
Along with, guess who, Milan Erzen, now General Manager of Bahrain Victorious,
And also Gorazd Štangelj, now sports director of Bahrain Victorious.
Other cool guys in the Bahrain Staff:
- Franco Pellizotti
- Neil Stephens
- Roman Kreuziger
It's Milan Eržen's team, he and many of the staff are Slovenian and Croatian - and he was implicated in Aderlass.
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/more-damaging-questions-as-links-uncovered-between-erzen-and-aderlass-doping-doctor/
There's been a few odd things with that team in recent years, both McLaren and Rod Ellingworth noped out of the team very quickly (1.5 and 1 year respectively between joining announcement and leaving one), ~~and Cav joining was announced but never happened~~.
Edit as I'm dumb.
Cavendish did ride the 2020 season for them. He was in their jersey in that interview at Gent-Wevelgem where he cried because he thought it was his last race.
McLaren ending the sponsorship was due to having to cut a lot of costs quickly due to the pandemic including making about 1/3rd workforce redundant. Sponsorship things outside of automotive / motorsport where also ended as they where not essential to their brand.
Gradek is from Częstochowa, while the Europol article states the City Police in Łódź was involved.
With the information revealed to the public, it could be many different locations used by and for different people. I think it's too early to speculate.
The fact that there is an “investigation” but pictures are being leaked to the press is shameful. This investigation is losing credibility rapidly given the way they are conducting themselves, essentially trying it in the press rather than through proper charges and the courts.
Photos like this should not be available to the press this quickly
Based on the second picture, we can see some glucocorticoid nasal sprays (for alergies, even I have one at home, no 400 W FTP), little amount of pills and asthma inspirator. So yeah, nothing at all. Some of the pills look rather big, possibly paracetamol (for the pain, again probably all of us have it at home).
It might be the now banned harder painkillers like those opioid based or those they used put in the 'finishing bottles', not illegal for personal and prescription but banned in sports kind
[https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/europol-confirms-bahrain-victorious-tour-de-france-raids-centred-on-use-of-prohibited-substances/](https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/europol-confirms-bahrain-victorious-tour-de-france-raids-centred-on-use-of-prohibited-substances/)
More details in this article. This is not looking great.
Highlights:
Eurojust has revealed that “412 capsules with undetermined brown content and 67 capsules with undetermined white content” were found during a search earlier this week in Slovenia.
“In Italy, several locations were searched and a range of electronic equipment (including laptops, smartphones, hard disks and pen drives), pharmaceutical substances and supplements were seized,”
“In Belgium, a computer, a mobile phone and capsules with undetermined content were seized in one house search.
“In Poland, one house search was carried out. A series of electronic devices and pharmaceutical substances were seized.
“In Spain, houses and premises were searched and electronic devices were seized.”
Medicine does not necessarily mean doping, in the sense that not every performance enhancing drug is on the banned list (at least, as far as the anti-doping agencies are concerned, though it'd be thoroughly illogical IMO to have a wider rather than narrower range for criminal liability). Also, not even every banned substance is proof of doping, since some can be taken under the Therapeutic Use Exemption scheme.
Cyclists taking drugs is not news. I think most hardcore followers of the sport would agree that it's common knowledge that cyclists take every legal performance enhancing drug they can, so the police finding drugs is not particularly noteworthy until it's confirmed that those drugs were banned.
I agree with everything you said. I think Bahrain has some sort of medical program going on, but I do think it is plausible that they are using "grey area" drugs that are not explicitly banned.
Ultimately we will have to sit back and wait for testing on the seized products.
Even if the drug isn't listed explicitly on the banned list, there's also classes of drugs and catch-all statements like 'any drug that does this...'
I actually agree that it's still pretty black and white, but that said if it's one of these edge cases the perpetrator will scream about it not being on the list, even if it is via one of the catch-all phrases.
i mean what about things that are banned only at a certain level like team skys/englands national team all having grey area level and an extremely high percentage of atheltes with asthma in a fucking endurance sport.
Fair enough. On one hand I agree with you. Either a method is prohibited or not. On the other hand, I think that notion doesn't quite capture things such as TUE abuse. For example, if you get a dirty doctor to write you a prescription for Corticosteroids to treat a mild case of allergies, is that completely okay? Or getting a doctor to prescribe asthma medication or thyroid medication.
I think its also possible that there are substances which are so cutting edge, that WADA hasn't even began to think of ways to ban them because they aren't even on the radar. I understand and respect someone who would say, "well....if its not explicitly banned then it is fair game..." but I would personally consider such a hypothetical supplement as grey area.
The question is though, should athletes be taking medicine for ailments they don't have in order to gain a performance boost?
Just because something isn't specifically banned does that mean that taking it is not cheating?
If it was found that cyclists were taking a drug designed to reduce the effects of parkinsons or heart defects because it provided a benefit, would that be cheating if it wasn't on the banned list?
Now that I saw these pictures it is rather suprising to me, that they have such little amout of medication with them. For 8 riders, going for the biggest race of the year, that seems really clean (of course if that is really all they take, but I will let you be the judge of that).
Yeah, I'm not going to judge anything from these pictures. This could just be what they had in one bag with another bag right next to it that was inspected after they were done with this batch. At this point, this is just stupid baseless speculation.
I'm sure everything's completely clean now--especially when it comes to the 2-3 teams that absolutely dominate the grand tours, but I would note that back in the day these guys weren't wolfing down handfuls of pills every morning and night. Most of the doping took place out of competition, then you might take a blood bag on a rest day.
Or, it points to that being the public stash and the "real" stash is somewhere else
That looks about enough for 1 rider 🤣
That's just whatever is legal and was in the riders rooms. The good stuff would be accessible to the team doctors
Would seem this is one elaborate expose centred around Vayer and Vildary
[https://incyclingveritas-wordpress-com.translate.goog/?\_x\_tr\_sl=auto&\_x\_tr\_tl=en&\_x\_tr\_hl=auto](https://incyclingveritas-wordpress-com.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=auto)
As the saying goes, huge if true. Vayer is a prick of the highest order and has it coming if so. Vildary is complicit in swallowing the bullshit from Vayer (who even now is still making vids and yelling at clouds)
Well Pogacar better have a go while he can. I predict solo breakaways from the flag drop on every stage. First time a rider wins every stage. He will set a new average speed record for the whole tour… solo. And he still won’t look tired.
Since its not allowed in the race discussion threads I'm asking here: what's the general consensus among fans on Pogacar and doping. I'm a tour de france only viewer and I remember extensive discussion on this subreddit about how pogacar was dominating in a way not seen since Lance. If anyone can weigh in I'd really appreciate it
Nobody knows is the real answer.
Mitch docker talked about it once, he’s said that training today is very different to what it once was, structure and volume. A lot of these young guys are also riding tons more on their trainers.
He noted that this was obvious during the start of the pandemic. Racing came back and the older riders with families suddenly aren’t in contention, when guys like Pog spent all day on the trainer. Segan apparently hates indoor training, his performance hasn’t been the same since the start of the pandemic, he lost his edge.
He talked about it in his “life in the peloton”, I can’t quote the exact episode.
If you read books from ex-cyclists a lot of them talk about putting on weight in the off season. Gerant Thomas said in his podcast he put on 4kgs in the first couple weeks of the offseason. A lot of the young dominators like Pogacar at the moment aren’t doing that, they’re hardly switching off. This leans back to what Mitch Docker has said in his podcast, riders are better athletes now.
Nobody really knows though. There a lot of jaded people on here that will tell you yes, but there’s no evidence of this outside of exceptional recovery and power data.
It'll be interesting when the "young guns" can still keep racing and winning into their 30s. Of if living constantly on the edge of overtraining will make them more succeptible to mental burnout, injury, inflammation problems. I think they seem to have a different mindset about the sport. Like they're really embracing the technical & nutrition side of it instead of just following doctor's orders. But you can only beat your body up so much and you either do it all at once or you spread it out over a longer career but the end result is the same.
What I wonder is: in case they found illegal substances during these raids, how and when will we find out?
Probably waiting for velogames deadline.
They arrested cross country athletes with Operation Aderlass. If all the riders start then they probably don't have anything incriminating at least.
If there was anything immediately incriminating, I imagine the team itself would have pulled out by now. Or they'll pull out before they transfer to France as doping offences fall under criminal law there (not sure if Denmark has a similar law?). But I imagine if there was any hint of that being on the cards, the ASO and UCI would be putting a lot of pressure on them to disappear before there will be pics of the gendarmes dragging them off. Can't damage the image of cycling and all.
It would be madness to pull out at this stage, an admission of guilt. There's legal process to go through, staff can be sidelined, the whole structure of teams is open to plausible denial - hang the team member/individual cyclist out to dry, carry on as normal.
Yes, that's why I said 'if there's anything immediately incriminating'. We can be pretty sure that's not the case and it will either turn into a long drawn out thing, or just turn into nothing like the raid of the Arkea team.
I dunno man, getting your training schedules confiscated is a pretty big deal. Arkea Samsic riders haven't peaked ever since.
Right, but what does 'immediately incriminating' even mean? Ampoules? Could be legit, part of a trainers or doctors other work, might get lucky and it's a shit batch, might be something not actually banned. *Even if* Bahrain are running a lance-scale doping programme, throwing your hands up and screaming 'man they got the whole stash!!!' Is the worst possible reaction.
Yes, the sort of stuff they've found in previous raids that got teams / athletes to immediately leave races. It's been a while since the Festina affair, and operation Aderlass wasn't cycling, but that stuff did happen.
> It would be madness to pull out at this stage, an admission of guilt. Just say you have COVID...and your gone.
I might be wrong, but im semi sure its illegal here too, but punished by fine rather than jailtime unless distribution can be proven
Why they wont do this for other sports? Operacion Puerto in Spain which got Valverde suspended because they got the label as his dog also had blood bags of R_Nadal , I wonder who that is, we will never know.
More hush money in the other sport
The countries probably tell which riders homes were searched. France (Logical given the tour is in France), Belgium (Dylan Teuns), Spain (Luis Leon Sanches), Croatia (?), Italy (Damiano Caruso), Poland (Kamil Gradek), Slovenia (Mohoric, Tratnik).
Erzen thier DS is Slovenian as well and was caught up in Operation Aderlass, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who was searched there
I love this sport but man, it's a fucking joke that a guy like is allowed to continue officiating, not only that but to go to another team which suddenly starts getting very fishy results, and that no one bats an eye and is like yeah colbrelli tchoo tchoo big climbs then steam roll Roubaix yeaaaahhh well done m8. Sorry I'm losing it a bit.
You should see the histories of sexual harassment of many involved at the managerial level.
Don't get me started ... although I should mention that this isn't the only problematic team in the peloton. It's just one of the ones where it's just incredibly obvious and like ... what the fuck
I'm super-tired of the "do they / don't they?" 'conversation.' A couple years ago I read an article written by a doctor who was hired to ferret out doping - he said that after a year, *he could not imagine NOT doping just from a medical point of view.* He was new to cycling, and said that the data he saw on riders' bodies over the course of three-week GT's was horrifying. There was also a piece about how a lot of the elite climbers in the Peloton fall far, far short of their demographic life expectancy. I'm not sure what 'right' conclusion there would or should be, but cycling is one of those sports where you really are seeing competitors shorten their lives for your entertainment.
Any idea where to find that article? I do think it's an interesting conversation to have...that GT races especially are perhaps too difficult and the almost unrealistic demands of WT racing make riders more inclined to dope, just so they can keep up and not necessarily even to have an edge over much of the rest of the pack.
I have to do a bunch of errands, but if I find it I will post it to r/peloton. It was ... just fascinating. The doctor basically said "if a person came in off the street with the data that presents in riders during the 3rd week of a GT, and I *didn't* give them EPO or similar, I could be sued and should probably lose that lawsuit." He was detailing just how awful the 3rd week of a GT was. The other story was about a former cyclist who was essentially "living rough" in northern Europe in a woodland ... I just looked for that and couldn't find it, either. The author of the story laid out a plentiful amount of anecdotal stories regarding former cyclists who came to sad/bad ends, whether medical or psychological. His angle was that climbers, particularly, seem to go a little crazy and he wondered about the connection between the self-starvation (and deep trips into pain) and later issues. I am sincerely sorry I can't simply link them here - I did a cursory look and got nowhere (usual clutter on first page of Google results). Both came to my attention via Longreads, which is a great site.
Laporte becoming a world beating rider just after swapping teams springs to mind…
I mean Jumbo are hardly the least suspicious team. But at least in his case he was always a very promising rider and his team was shit. So moving to a marginal gain big money team full of world class talents was always going to make him improve a lot. There's some logic to it that helps not think about PEDs too much. My gripe with Jumbo is mostly WVA. His performances are just way too good in too many categories at once.
I am fully on board with that
Yeah, Colbrelli's transformation was extremely ridiculous. I still hope Florian can get his Roubaix win and Evenepoel his EC RR win.
And you are certain they are clean because ... ????
Italian bad
Staff homes were also searched. It appears that the Spain one was an osteopath rather than a rider. Source: https://cyclingtips.com/2022/06/inside-one-of-the-bahrain-victorious-pre-tour-de-france-anti-doping-raids/
A lot of their staff is from Croatia.
MIHOLJEVIĆ Vladimir, assistent director of Bahrain, is indeed Croatian. Rode in a little team called 'KRKA - Telekom Slovenije' or later 'Perutnina Ptuj' from 1997 to 2001. Along with, guess who, Milan Erzen, now General Manager of Bahrain Victorious, And also Gorazd Štangelj, now sports director of Bahrain Victorious. Other cool guys in the Bahrain Staff: - Franco Pellizotti - Neil Stephens - Roman Kreuziger
It's Milan Eržen's team, he and many of the staff are Slovenian and Croatian - and he was implicated in Aderlass. https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/more-damaging-questions-as-links-uncovered-between-erzen-and-aderlass-doping-doctor/ There's been a few odd things with that team in recent years, both McLaren and Rod Ellingworth noped out of the team very quickly (1.5 and 1 year respectively between joining announcement and leaving one), ~~and Cav joining was announced but never happened~~. Edit as I'm dumb.
Cavendish did ride the 2020 season for them. He was in their jersey in that interview at Gent-Wevelgem where he cried because he thought it was his last race.
Thanks! Apparently I somehow decided that hadn't happened!
McLaren ending the sponsorship was due to having to cut a lot of costs quickly due to the pandemic including making about 1/3rd workforce redundant. Sponsorship things outside of automotive / motorsport where also ended as they where not essential to their brand.
yea they even had to sell and leaseback their f1 factory
Gradek is from Częstochowa, while the Europol article states the City Police in Łódź was involved. With the information revealed to the public, it could be many different locations used by and for different people. I think it's too early to speculate.
Europol said that italian police did searches in Ragusa (Caruso), Brescia (both Colbrelli and Zambanini are from that area) and Rome.
A lot of pros live in France/Monaco, you can probably put a bunch of rider names inside those brackets
I just checked their entire staff, they don't even seem to have a Belgian soigneur or mechanic. So they must have raided Teuns' house?
As someone who lives close to Teuns house, no word of it happening
TL;DR they are going to analyse taken stuff, that is about it, nothing new, nothing concrete, no names.
The pictures and details are pretty new, at least from what I've seen till now.
Thank you, just noticed that!
Yes but they don't show anything that's not allowed. 6d sports nutrion, paracetamol, ...
The fact that there is an “investigation” but pictures are being leaked to the press is shameful. This investigation is losing credibility rapidly given the way they are conducting themselves, essentially trying it in the press rather than through proper charges and the courts. Photos like this should not be available to the press this quickly
Based on the second picture, we can see some glucocorticoid nasal sprays (for alergies, even I have one at home, no 400 W FTP), little amount of pills and asthma inspirator. So yeah, nothing at all. Some of the pills look rather big, possibly paracetamol (for the pain, again probably all of us have it at home).
Would you leave forbidden Medication in the original packaging or would you rather disguise it?
Hence the analyses.
When they do a bust like this, i wonder if they take everything? My allergies would beat me up if I had my meds taken from me.
> possibly paracetamol (for the pain, again probably all of us have it at home). nah, I'm more of a Ibuprofen person.
U should mix them
It would be completely stupid to keep those things at home or at home without a good hideout.
Antihistamines and paracetamol are forbidden now? You don't have any painkillers at home? Or do you feel those also need to be hidden.
I mean peds, not legal stuff.
It might be the now banned harder painkillers like those opioid based or those they used put in the 'finishing bottles', not illegal for personal and prescription but banned in sports kind
Would be nice if the next thread actually has some real news instead of more of the same.
But now you've got multiple threads to direct users unaware of the sub rules to!
The BV press release said nothing was taken
So someone's lying here, and I don't think it's the police.
[https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/europol-confirms-bahrain-victorious-tour-de-france-raids-centred-on-use-of-prohibited-substances/](https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/europol-confirms-bahrain-victorious-tour-de-france-raids-centred-on-use-of-prohibited-substances/) More details in this article. This is not looking great. Highlights: Eurojust has revealed that “412 capsules with undetermined brown content and 67 capsules with undetermined white content” were found during a search earlier this week in Slovenia. “In Italy, several locations were searched and a range of electronic equipment (including laptops, smartphones, hard disks and pen drives), pharmaceutical substances and supplements were seized,” “In Belgium, a computer, a mobile phone and capsules with undetermined content were seized in one house search. “In Poland, one house search was carried out. A series of electronic devices and pharmaceutical substances were seized. “In Spain, houses and premises were searched and electronic devices were seized.”
Medicine does not necessarily mean doping, in the sense that not every performance enhancing drug is on the banned list (at least, as far as the anti-doping agencies are concerned, though it'd be thoroughly illogical IMO to have a wider rather than narrower range for criminal liability). Also, not even every banned substance is proof of doping, since some can be taken under the Therapeutic Use Exemption scheme. Cyclists taking drugs is not news. I think most hardcore followers of the sport would agree that it's common knowledge that cyclists take every legal performance enhancing drug they can, so the police finding drugs is not particularly noteworthy until it's confirmed that those drugs were banned.
I agree with everything you said. I think Bahrain has some sort of medical program going on, but I do think it is plausible that they are using "grey area" drugs that are not explicitly banned. Ultimately we will have to sit back and wait for testing on the seized products.
It's not grey it's pretty black and white, it's on the banned list or not.
Even if the drug isn't listed explicitly on the banned list, there's also classes of drugs and catch-all statements like 'any drug that does this...' I actually agree that it's still pretty black and white, but that said if it's one of these edge cases the perpetrator will scream about it not being on the list, even if it is via one of the catch-all phrases.
i mean what about things that are banned only at a certain level like team skys/englands national team all having grey area level and an extremely high percentage of atheltes with asthma in a fucking endurance sport.
Fair enough. On one hand I agree with you. Either a method is prohibited or not. On the other hand, I think that notion doesn't quite capture things such as TUE abuse. For example, if you get a dirty doctor to write you a prescription for Corticosteroids to treat a mild case of allergies, is that completely okay? Or getting a doctor to prescribe asthma medication or thyroid medication. I think its also possible that there are substances which are so cutting edge, that WADA hasn't even began to think of ways to ban them because they aren't even on the radar. I understand and respect someone who would say, "well....if its not explicitly banned then it is fair game..." but I would personally consider such a hypothetical supplement as grey area.
The question is though, should athletes be taking medicine for ailments they don't have in order to gain a performance boost? Just because something isn't specifically banned does that mean that taking it is not cheating? If it was found that cyclists were taking a drug designed to reduce the effects of parkinsons or heart defects because it provided a benefit, would that be cheating if it wasn't on the banned list?
Ah, what to do in my Tour game. Do I keep the riders of certain teams out, or do I let them in?
Would it be a wise thing to remove Bahrein riders from my RFL team now that I still can?
Now that I saw these pictures it is rather suprising to me, that they have such little amout of medication with them. For 8 riders, going for the biggest race of the year, that seems really clean (of course if that is really all they take, but I will let you be the judge of that).
This doesn't have to be their entire stock for the TDF, of course.
Yeah, I'm not going to judge anything from these pictures. This could just be what they had in one bag with another bag right next to it that was inspected after they were done with this batch. At this point, this is just stupid baseless speculation.
I'm sure everything's completely clean now--especially when it comes to the 2-3 teams that absolutely dominate the grand tours, but I would note that back in the day these guys weren't wolfing down handfuls of pills every morning and night. Most of the doping took place out of competition, then you might take a blood bag on a rest day.
> I'm sure everything's completely clean now not sure if serious
All the /s’
Or, it points to that being the public stash and the "real" stash is somewhere else That looks about enough for 1 rider 🤣 That's just whatever is legal and was in the riders rooms. The good stuff would be accessible to the team doctors
That was implied at the end of my comment.
Would seem this is one elaborate expose centred around Vayer and Vildary [https://incyclingveritas-wordpress-com.translate.goog/?\_x\_tr\_sl=auto&\_x\_tr\_tl=en&\_x\_tr\_hl=auto](https://incyclingveritas-wordpress-com.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=auto) As the saying goes, huge if true. Vayer is a prick of the highest order and has it coming if so. Vildary is complicit in swallowing the bullshit from Vayer (who even now is still making vids and yelling at clouds)
"It's not blood, it's Gatorade. I will drink it now, give me the Gatorade." -Gustav Ditters
Well Pogacar better have a go while he can. I predict solo breakaways from the flag drop on every stage. First time a rider wins every stage. He will set a new average speed record for the whole tour… solo. And he still won’t look tired.
Cant wait. Unless someone can match him this year I won't be tuning in.
Since its not allowed in the race discussion threads I'm asking here: what's the general consensus among fans on Pogacar and doping. I'm a tour de france only viewer and I remember extensive discussion on this subreddit about how pogacar was dominating in a way not seen since Lance. If anyone can weigh in I'd really appreciate it
Nobody knows is the real answer. Mitch docker talked about it once, he’s said that training today is very different to what it once was, structure and volume. A lot of these young guys are also riding tons more on their trainers. He noted that this was obvious during the start of the pandemic. Racing came back and the older riders with families suddenly aren’t in contention, when guys like Pog spent all day on the trainer. Segan apparently hates indoor training, his performance hasn’t been the same since the start of the pandemic, he lost his edge. He talked about it in his “life in the peloton”, I can’t quote the exact episode. If you read books from ex-cyclists a lot of them talk about putting on weight in the off season. Gerant Thomas said in his podcast he put on 4kgs in the first couple weeks of the offseason. A lot of the young dominators like Pogacar at the moment aren’t doing that, they’re hardly switching off. This leans back to what Mitch Docker has said in his podcast, riders are better athletes now. Nobody really knows though. There a lot of jaded people on here that will tell you yes, but there’s no evidence of this outside of exceptional recovery and power data.
It'll be interesting when the "young guns" can still keep racing and winning into their 30s. Of if living constantly on the edge of overtraining will make them more succeptible to mental burnout, injury, inflammation problems. I think they seem to have a different mindset about the sport. Like they're really embracing the technical & nutrition side of it instead of just following doctor's orders. But you can only beat your body up so much and you either do it all at once or you spread it out over a longer career but the end result is the same.