“It’s probably the worst Tour to try to win, the one where all the Armstrong thing comes out, the lids taken off and everybody realised what was going on,” said Dave Brailsford.
“You come to the first Tour after that… You’d expect that the public who trusted in this sport for a long time to be a bit angry and a bit frustrated with what they found out. It’s understandable.”
It was a remarkable victory for England’s Chris Froome in many ways, not least being the cool, calm and largely unflustered manner in which he dispatched of his rivals for the most famous jersey that professional cycling has to offer.
Crossing the line yesterday in Paris, Froome marked in the history books a four minute and twenty second victory over Nairo Alexander Quintana Rojas of Movistar, with Joaquim Rodriguez Oliver at five minutes and four seconds.
Doesn’t seem much really, after nearly 84 hours of racing. Yet in the modern day, that is a sizeable lead.
It was clear to all and sundry, without exception, that Christopher Froome, despite the hunger knock / feeding fine on Stage 18 up Alpe d’Huez, that he was better than all the rest, and by some margin.
The former two-time winner of the Tour, Albeto Contador, limped home in fourth place after putting in a series of rather disastrous and ineffective attacks that not only wrecked his bid for a podium in Paris but also scuttled teammate Roman Kreuziger’s chances too.
Yes, great to see a fighting spirit but this was more akin to seeing a desperate man betting his house and wife all on one color at the roulette table – in fact it was worse than that, as the odds were never even close to 50/50.
“You have to admit that Chris was just much stronger than anyone else in the race,” said Saxo-Tinkoff sports director Philippe Mauduit at the press conference after Stage 18 – to which the assembled journalists collectively and harmoniously shouted back: ‘No shit, Sherlock.’
It took him 20 days to realise that. Better late than never, as they say.
Contador is worth mentioning here because he fits into a certain, inescapable pattern, and it one that is very clear for all those with their eyes even half open:
When riders come back from doping bans – admitted, or denied – they invariably come back weaker than they were before.
David Millar, Ivan Basso, Alejandro Valverde, Alberto Contador – and that is to name but a few.
As my good friend Adam Semple wrote just last week, the drugs make you fast, of that there is no doubt. And it is this pandemic of doping in cycling that informed the Brailsford quote at the top of this article.
He’s no fool, our Dave, he knows the score as well, or even better, than anyone else.
He’d have seen the Froome numbers pre-Tour and surely thought ‘Oh we’re going to have trouble here.’
Which, to my mind is a tad puzzling, because when you are see the angles as acutely as Brailsford then you’d have known that there was going to be one hell of a PR-palava brewing.
With all that in mind, Froome’s win becomes even more impressive as he faced more challenges off the bike than on it.
So what did Sky do, in the last week of the Tour and facing a barrage of questions and doubts?
“They can have everything we’ve got,” Brailsford said of his offer to give WADA all Froome’s data from the year.
“They can come and live with us. They can see all of our data, every single training file that we’ve got. They can compare training files to blood data, weight; they can capture that information on a consistent basis.
“They could then tell the world whether they think this is credible or not. That would be my best shot.”
But WADA quickly responded by saying that they could not validate any individual rider data.
“It is not specifically in WADA’s mandate to accept specific team or individual requests, however, and we undertake at-event observation programs only if invited to do so by an International Federation,” read the WADA response.
“UCI is the organisation responsible for the sharing of relevant information with Team Sky. UKAD, as the national anti-doping agency, would also be well placed to discuss further with Team Sky.”
Sky then released the data to French sports paper L’Equipe, which very quickly ran this headline: “His performances are coherent.”
How exactly did they come to this conclusion? They had a French physiologist, Dr. Frederic Grappe study the numbers, and he came to the conclusion that Froome was riding within the rules.
Yet the choice of Grappe was a curious one, as he is the same doctor who once declared that Lance Armstrong was, at the height of his powers, also riding on bread and water without a vial of EPO in sight.
“Certain people say silly things,” said Grappe of the accusations – proven to be very correct – levelled at Lance at the time.
“When we are told that a rider is not able to put out 420 – 430 Watts in a time trial, that is false. Not so long ago, one of the riders with whom I was involved climbed Mont Faron at a power of 400 Watts for 20 minutes, and he is far from being Armstrong.
“Consequently, I am not astonished that Armstrong or others can produce 460 or 470 Watts on a mountain. It is not impossible.
“It is the result of many days of hard work,” he said of the Texan’s dominance at the Tour.
“With what has happened in the past 10 years, many riders are using bigger gear ratios. Some have lost the suppleness, i.e. they are not able to utilise higher pedalling frequencies…a high pedalling frequency makes it possible to relieve the muscles.”
“We see riders who can reach 50% [of hematocrit] naturally, and that can move to 51%. That does not mean doping.”
And yet Dr. Conor McGrane, one of the Irish instigators in the ‘No’ vote cast by the Cycling Ireland membership against Pat McQuaid’s bid to get its backing for his bid to be re-elected as UCI President, had this to say about hematocrit levels:
“A normal level is between 38 and 44%, occasionally 46. Then all of a sudden, that rule comes in and riders are hitting the high 49s.
“I’m 19 years as a doctor and I have been in cycling for 9 years now and I’ve seen only one natural level above 48%. Then I see the numbers from the late 90s and they are 48.7 and 48.9. These go against all evidence which says that these levels should in fact drop in the course of a stage race. That rule alone took away any chance of drug-free competition for at least ten years.”
So why choose a man like Grappe, who has been proven so spectacularly wrong in the past, to decide on Froome’s numbers? Who made that decision?
And why wasn’t it criticised by Sky?
If truly in the dark on that one, Brailsord and co. must have been aghast.
Why not re-release them to someone with the integrity required, someone like Dr. Michael Ashenden, the anti-doping expert who quit his association with the UCI after disagreements about the implementation of the Biological Passport?
Or how about – well, just about anyone else in the world of anti-doping research?
Once again I find it necessary to reiterate that I am not accusing Chris Froome of doping.
However, I, like Brailsford, recognise the anger and frustration in the support base of the sport, a disenchantment brought about not only by the doping cases but also by the ham-fisted and ill-conceived attempts to ‘prove’ to us that yes, the peloton is clean.
Time and time and time again this has proven to be false. And you’d be a fool to accept otherwise.
So has Brailsford let us down on this one?
Let’s not forget that this is the architect behind two British wins at the Tour de France in consecutive years with two different riders and, in large part, two different squads.
This is the man who got Wiggins into the winning habit early on in 2012 just so that he would learn to deal with the pressure of being in yellow and in having to face the press daily, a pressure that many thought might derail Wiggo’s mental focus and cost him the Tour.
He leaves no stone unturned. And yet he didn’t expect the storm that Froome’s supposed numbers might bring, the taint it would cast over this win?
So: did Brailsford (and indeed L’Equipe) let us down?
For my money, it has to be a yes.
Bas
Guest
Last time i was checked i had a hematocriet of 49 and i am diseased and never used any stuf to improve my hematocriet.. I was born at sealevel and i don't even have holiday's in the mountains. Let me say this in short.. The tour de france is a reverse lotery. If you have won the lottery and became one out of 7 billion people to win the tour the france, people declare you to be a EPO user for being the best out of 7 billion. No not even that.. If somebody has the hematocriet of one in one million (52) that means that he is most likely to be a EPO- user according to normal statistics. But the Tour de france is about the absolute best out of 7 billion!!
Tim Cassidy
Guest
Hi Conner sorry for late reply. Its crazy trying to get this clinic up and running. I agree with all your comments but if you look back at what my first comment was about, I was referring to the quote that “A normal level is between 38 and 44%, occasionally 46. Then all of a sudden, that rule comes in and riders are hitting the high 49s." “I’m 19 years as a doctor and I have been in cycling for 9 years now and I’ve seen only one natural level above 48%." Like I said before I completely agree that if you test a large number of cyclists and they all come in around 48% you have to assume there is a large level of doping going on especially if they dont drop over the course of a stage race. I apologize if my first comment came across that I dont respect your qualifications or experience and was probably due to being defensive but im not talking about 50% and above. I feel like your comments cast suspicion over anyone with a natural high haematocrit especially if they use methods that are not ped's i.e altitude training. You did state "None of the many elite men and women, I’ve seen (MTB, Road, Track) at various levels (protour, pro conti and continental, funded ISC athletes or amateurs riding abroad at a high level) have got close to the figures you seems to achieve." Which makes me assume you would flag someone around 47 - 48% on a individual basis. That comment was directed straight at me. You should have a record of me on the 24/7/02 with a haematocrit of 47.8% carried out in the National Coaching and Training Centre while being tested with the National team as a junior. Im sure the only reason why the UCI used the 50% mark was for health reasons to prevent riders running up and down hallways at 3am so not to drop dead. I don’t think it was ever put in place to stop doping. I believe without an actual test the culture of epo would have flourished either way. One thing I would say about it is that for me as a rider I could compete as a u/23 riding filthy armature races and uci races up to 2.1 while still being able to win. If the 50% rule wasn’t there you just could not match a guy once the road went up if they were riding at 56% or whatever number. I remember where I finished 2nd to a guy who was stopped on numerous times that year for being above 50%. I saw what a guy riding without a care could achieve using high doses of epo and it was out of this world the gearing he was using up these 5km climbs. That was his 18th win that year and we were all shocked that Ag2r picked him up. Subsequently he finally got caught for epo in 2011. Took long enough. Well ill take back my bizarre comment because I know where you stand and for all the right reasons, I just feel the whole haematocrit thing is a a bit false due to doped riders having numbers that are similar to guys that are not 50% but naturally high forties. A simple example is a guy at 41% brings himself to 45%. That is a massive performance gain but completely under the radar and even by dropping the bar would still encourage doping.
Colin N
Guest
"So do you support greater transparency in an attempt to alleviate the suspicion, as suggested by Lee?" Of course but you miss the point (although I thought Sky's offer to release data to L'Equipe and WADA was pretty reasonable yet that was poured scorn on). You can't compare the Armstrong era and the current era as I have outlined above.
Boba
Guest
So do you support greater transparency in an attempt to alleviate the suspicion, as suggested by Lee? Lee comes across as a very reasonable person and he makes a convincing argument. What is the alternative? Trust the tests and the teams - nothing to see here, move along - until the next doping revelation. Sounds like the classic Pat McQuaid approach. Brian Cookson's seven point plan to restore credibility to cycling, which requires transparency of data, seems like a far better approach.
Clive Saffery
Guest
Apologies if this point has already been made but I don't think enough attention has been paid to the actual performances that have prompted some of the questions. Take for example Froome's time on Ventoux. The bare facts have been reported (i.e. how his time compared to Armstrong, Pantani etc) but no one seems to have dug further. Read any description of riding Ventoux and you will always see warnings of how tough it is once you get beyond the tree line at Chalet Reynard not due to the climb but due to the weather. When Armstrong recorded his fastest time he did so in incredibly windy conditions (remember extremely high winds are often recorded on Ventoux). When Froome climbed it the weather was absolutely perfect with no wind whatsoever and the conditions clearly had a big impact on performances. Don't forget also that Froome was on oxygen for 10 minutes at the finish, another sign of a clean performances perhaps?
Colin N
Guest
"What do you say to those who back in the 2000s were saying that LA was cheating?" Well, the thing is that Armstrong actually failed several tests and journalists knew that (the likes of Walsh/Kimmage) so there was plenty of evidence to go at him on. Testing was also poorer than it is today and you could avoid detection. But Froome, I think, was tested 23 times during the tour, couldn't hide from doping control like those in the Armstrong era could and there's also more out of competition testing. There's no evidence to suggest Froome is doping, only suspicion - so there's a difference between hm and Armstrong. "It’s not about accusing people of cheating, it’s about demanding transparency in a sport that has lived in the darkness for so long." You might not be, but many are and it's very disappointing.
Lee Rodgers
Expert
If you watched the Tour in the LA years and if you had been following all the rumblings in the background about him doping, those Tours too were somewhat of a foregone conclusion. What do you say to those who back in the 2000s were saying that LA was cheating? And that doesn't mean I am saying Froome is a doper. Or Quintana. Or whoever. But there is no doubting that we are again seeing extraordinary things. After all the sport has been through, isn't is simply being prudent to ask 'How?' It is a shame for Froome to be in this oposition but someone had to be. As Brailsford said, "You’d expect that the public who trusted in this sport for a long time to be a bit angry and a bit frustrated with what they found out. It’s understandable.” 'It's understandable'. That's from the man whose leader just won the Tour. So, either we deal with those doubts, or we don't. It's not about accusing people of cheating, it's about demanding transparency in a sport that has lived in the darkness for so long. There is a difference.
tony meadows
Guest
A fair amount of back slapping here amongst a number of "disbelievers" determined to cast doubt on the result of the Tour. Is there any enthusiasm left in waiting for the Vuelta or is it a foregone conclusion.......Sky will be doping.....,but if there's a rider or team who can beat them they'll be"clean" I cannot ,would not condone any form of doping but what is the point of following a race ,in fact what is the point of a race if its winners are so easily and cheaply "accused" of cheating?If they are indeed cheats are we to suspend cycle racing because it is fraudulent and there is no apparent means of controlling the use of drugs and stimulants.If we cant accept the results perhaps we should. Before this though I would like to see LA stripped of some of his ill-gotten gains and behind bars.Now THAT could possibly do more to prevent future cheating than the present ineffective measures.
Boba
Guest
Hardcore, it is very trusting of you to give all of these guys the benefit of the doubt (regardless of nationality). I am a pretty cynical soul - ANY leading athlete being busted for doping would not surprise me, regardless of nationality. I am an equal opportunity sceptic.
Conor McGrane
Guest
Tony please read the published research I've attached below in a previous post. Having a HCT of around 50% is exceptional in elite cyclists except for a period in the late 90's and 00's which it is now clear was as a result of EPO and transfusions (among other things). Haematocrit is not a marker of exceptional fitness or inherent ability/talent. It was and is still a variable which can be manipulated by fair means as well as foul. It was ignoring this scientific evidence that lead to the loss of a generation of pro cycling to drugs like EPO.
tony meadows
Guest
IS IT LEE? If its humanely possible why would you not expect to find a great number of these "exceptions" in a field of the worlds best? If you went to a Mensa convention you might find they all appeared to be pretty bright! During this tour Ive read so much opinion and analysis concerning performance power ratings etc ,etc often summarised by comments such as "its difficult to know what to make of this"that I have to doubt the science that is being employed. Evidence of performance enhancing substances or un-natural treatment treatments is just that EVIDENCE.Suspicion based on debateable "scientific theories" is CONJECTURE
Lee Rodgers
Expert
I did mention Porte in other articles. As mentioned before, I am English and seem to remember there was a great bias towards non-Anglo speaking riders not so long ago from the English and American press. It was always 'them' and never 'us'. Then LA came out and kaboom, it wasn't just stray 'nutters' like Landis. Cadel's performances were at times sparkling but never unbelievable - he was an incredible young rider who came up, and whose 'sudden' success coincided with what was probably the cleanest Tour ever. I didn't write this article with any bias towards an Aussie audience - didn't even enter my mind. I try not to concern myself with stereotypes. Froome could be from Iceland for all I care. Finally, to believe that the riders are now clean because LA got busted is just, well, where have you been the past 10-15 years? They said the same thing after Festina, Puerto, etc. In cycling, for many, it is not cheating unless you get caught. And no one ever cheats thinking they WILL get caught. Yes, less are doing it, and yes more are against it than ever before, but that is saying very little, in reality...
Conor McGrane
Guest
Just to clarify Tim re "I just find it bizarre that you feel a number between 46 -48% hematocrit represents 1-2% off all athletes worldwide", i don't the 1-2% is for results above 50%. They do occur naturally just not very often at all, As you can see that figure is not based on my records of Irish cyclists but on the scientific literature of those for elite/pro cyclists and endurance athletes. The irish figures used by labs here list 37-46 as the referance range and flag anything outside that as potentially abnormal .(general population levels to include 95%). Regarding "I know the day we got tested the lowest reading was 37% and I was the highest with the rest in around 42% but one other rider had 46%." they would be the sort of figures you would expect to occur naturally. The UCI figures are standardised to some extend to try to discount dehydration/overhydration/postural changes, they are supposed to be done Sitting, in the morning and before breakfast. So just to clarify I don't say a HCT pf 44 is suspcious nor one of 46. I am saying that a HCT over 50 naturally is rare and that getting levels universally in the high 48's and 49's which dot not drop over the coure of a stage race is extremely suspicious. I also made the point that using the 50% HCT was based on poor research and has a small false positive rate but also a huge false negative rate. i also stand over the claim I made that using it effectively legitimised doping with EPO at that time and in a way forced cyclists to dope to be able to compete. In the original article those quotes came from I used those figures to back up my opinion that Hein Verbruggen did the sport massive damage by introducing that rule. If you still feel thats bizarre I'm sorry but I have to strongly disagree with you.
HardcorePrawn
Roar Guru
I'm afraid to say that it becomes about nationality when Australian riders are seemingly assumed to not be complicit, while other nations' riders are. This article questions Team Sky and Dave Brailsford, throws a few accusations around, and yet singularly fails to mention Sky's second placed rider, and Froome's right-hand man for long spells during this year's tour: Richie Porte. What we've seen from the fallout over Lance Armstrong's admissions is that when he was doping, his entire team was too. He made it very clear that anyone who couldn't support him in a race would not have a position in his teams. They were either bullied into doing it, or agreed of their own volition, but dope they all did. If Froome and Wiggo are to be accused, then surely it stands to reason that Porte (and Mick Rodgers for that matter) are complicit too. What we've also seen amongst all the accusation being thrown around at the sport is the curious omission of Cadel Evans' name. If they're all doping, and as Armstrong admitted, it's impossible to win clean when everyone else is doping, then surely Cadel is too? How else to explain how a 34 year old (one of the 5 oldest men to ever win the Tour) managed to single-handedly drag most of the GC contenders (who, if the accusations here are to be believed, were most likely all doping too) up the Col du Galibier in one of the last stages of the 2011 tour? Actually, I don't believe for a moment that Cadel is a cheat - nor Porte or Rodgers, or indeed Froome or Wiggo, not after such a high profile case as Armstrong's. The risks would be too great, the scrutiny probably too intense. I'm just making the point that I think it's a bit rich that non-Australian riders are continually accused of doping by the Australian media and in forums like this, but Australians aren't.
sittingbison
Guest
Post of the year!! BTW Speeds are down, attacks are not long range, time trials are not won by two minutes, teams don't use doping docs. So says Sir Dave and Sir Wiggo. Oh they also said we are all bone idle lazy w*****so, C***so.
Conor McGrane
Guest
Sorry to hear that, you were a class act and are still young. I have something like that in my notes (recorded race numbers rather than names but can cross check). Hope the new career pathway is going well. I have heard good things about you in that regard.
Conor McGrane
Guest
Hi Tim I have personal access to the Irish figure but also have attended conferences at home and abroad and read the academic literature extensively. I'm not overly concerned re figures of 46% but at 49% plus that certainly raises eyebrows. In this admittedly small study no cyclist exceeded 47% www.iutasport.com/files/articles/Heamatocrit%20in%20Elite%20Athletes.pdf In this study using over 1600 samples the average was Hct: 45 ± 2.9% and 40.7 ± 2.7% (M/F) althought this was done in 200 at the height of the EPO years. Only 1.6% were found over the limits used. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0838.2002.10112.x/abstract;jsessionid=50F438776F9842412E12F66EB60CD546.d04t01?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false A 2006 study of Pro cyclist showed an average HCT of 40$ in the off season ans 43% in the season with a drop or 7-20% during the course of a stage race. https://www.thieme-connect.com/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/s-2008-1038842 This 2008 one got values 43%-44.9% http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?start=10&q=haematocrit+elite+cyclist&hl=en&as_sdt=1,5 These are a small selection of the vast amount of literature available regarding HCt and the limitations of using it as an anti doping tool. The 50% rule brought in by Verbruggen resulted in values almost universally in the 49's and high 48's.I was based to some extend on the mean + 2 SD's ie 98% of the population although was rounded up after discussion with teams at team doctors at the time. The cut off wasn't lower for God knows whatever reason but it was a poor screening tool anyway with many inherent flaws. I just quoted these to show the figures I'm using are not just based on the cyclists I have seen (that would be poor statistics (as are isolated case reports )) but based on the published data in peer reviewed scientific journals. Conor
Tim Cassidy
Guest
PS I think our paths did cross in the Rás 06' if it was yourself who told me to stop with my tendenitis before my career would end. We actually joke at the dinner table saying I wish I met you at the start of the year becuse it did end my carreer.
Farsh
Guest
well said. It seems the one unfortunate development in recent years that has made a difference in the fight against doping is the criminalization of doping in sport. Remember David Millar singing like a canary when he got picked up. I doubt he would have cracked like that sitting in doping control booth. Although it is clearly making a stronger impact than biological controls, it really changes the spirit of these big events to have police raids and riders dragged out of their hotels in the night for hours etc...it is frustrating that we cannot control this as a sporting body and that it would get so bad that outside authorities have to take over.
Tim Cassidy
Guest
Hi Connor. First thing is first I did not and do not question your qualifications at all. What I said was that in the big picture of cycling your experience referring to numbers outside Irish cycling might not be big, as this article is about Froom and the elite in cycling. Therefore the number you are referring to, i.e one rider in 9years must represent a large majority of Irish cyclist. Judging from what you replied with I am not far wrong. Again I am not saying you lack experience, far from it. My gathering is that your opinion is coming from a majority of Irish cyclists and some elite cyclists. Again you should not feel like that is a personal thing, I am still only saying when talking about the elite in world cycling surely you can’t compare that with working with Irish cyclist as there is only a handful of top class cyclists. Therefore in the big picture when talking about the elite riders in the world that are clearly out of the ordinary and not normal average cyclists I just find it bizarre that you feel a number between 46 -48% hematocrit represents 1-2% off all athletes worldwide. That number obviously represents more than just cyclists. As far as my own hematocrit I have never tested it myself only from team docs, French federations. Id say the last time in Ireland was in 2000 or 2001 as a junior. So im pretty sure my level would have gone up a percent or so with age from your files. As far as I remember I was always around 46% sometimes 47%. But my whole point was that after 2weeks at altitude with my team I rode Ronde de l’oise in the blistering heat and recorded in the 48% after we got a 5am knock on the door early in the race. So if you have a high hematocrit to start, you then train at altitude, say you throw in a little dehydration. Can you not see how a statement with anything above 44% is far from normal starts to point fingers. In the end of the day we are talking about a number that is taken on a race day not any day and people will try to increase this without doping methods. I suppose the question is what number do you feel is attainable without performing enhancing drugs. I know the day we got tested the lowest reading was 37% and I was the highest with the rest in around 42% but one other rider had 46%. So that makes two of us questionable already from one team alone. Like I said in my previous comment the whole peloton racing at 48% is obvious doping especially if tested at the end of a stage race. If 46-48% was that unusual why isn’t the uci cut off lower. Surely if normal hematocrit is below 44% the bar would have been brought below 50% and you would need a cert after that. Just out of curiosity, did you carry out any blood tests during the Rás and Tour of Ireland to get a reading or were they all urine tests? The most interesting would be TOI.