French cycling success points to a clean peloton

I thought it would be a waste of the 30minutes of my life (that I will never get back) with which I used to read this discussion to not add a few fun observations of my own. Firstly, DerailleurEd, i was disappointed that you only managed two cycle puns in your entries. I certainly think that, given a little more time and effort, you could've really achieved your full pun-tentiial. Instead, and I should note, secondly, I see that instead of dedicating your time to the noble art of pun-ny humour, you instead used this time to carefully ensure your successful defence in any (potential) defamation claims by nothing that any doping accusations against Phil, by you, were merely (potential) accusations. I maintain the opinion that this was miss-placed effort - it would have been much more satisfying a result to have built a reputation as a pun-tasticly hilarious prankster, even if it meant being sued for a coupla cheeky annual-salarys. Hindsight's 20:20 though, eh? Thirdly, on the discussion as to what to call the 80's regarding doping, i feel like the only obvious answer here is the Disco-Era (read: Coke-Era). If we could henceforth implement this term in all internet-discussions from now on, that would be great. Let's face it, if we're going to waste all our precious free time on internet-disscusion boards, we may as well have fun with it. Fourthly, and to follow on from my previous point, Phil, you claim you've never experienced doping first hand? Surely you've used the men's in some classy Parisian nightclub after the Champs-Elysees at some point or another? ha. ha. ha. Fiftly, DerailleurEd, when you say 'clear and opaque' is this some sort of hilarious play on the saying 'as clear as mud'?. If not, maybe check out a dictionary. It's really easy these days - just google 'Definition opaque', or, as a fun alternative, next time you're at the shops, have a look at the 'opaque' stockings and compare and contrast with 'sheer' stockings. It'll be like a fun game for your rainy Saturday afternoon. Sixthly, speaking of doping in Australian cycling, really we should be looking at Tomolaris:, the biggest offender. Remember kids, alcohol is a drug too. And just a hot tip - try to not have 4 or 5 bottles of mid-range french red before you have to conduct your post-stage interviews on live TV. And lastly, Phil, maybe you, me and DerailleurEd could combine your preferred methods of cycle-osophy discussion and have a fews froffies while we go for a burn and come up with some better material for DerailleurEd to use in reply to your next article? Feel free to use as many exclamation marks as you wish when you RSVP. PS. does anyone have Sagan's number? I'd give him a Roar, if ya know what I mean.

I don't think there's necessarily a catch-22 because I never said they should all be eradicated from the sport, not that starting fresh in a lot of aspects is inherently a bad thing. There's just a big difference between the Vaughters in cycling, and those...well a lot of those closer to home. Moving forward as long as everyone is clear and opaque in their motives, there should be no problem, but I'm not remaining optimistic when cycling media and riders are so quick to defend Rogers and O'Grady, yet Santambrogio is public enemy #1 before a B-sample, or something like the Vance report is quickly forgotten swept underneath a carpet. Anyway, I still disagree with a lot of that, but happy to leave it there and appreciate that you took the time out to reply to it all, so thanks.

Hi DerailleurEd, You make some very good points, and some I still have to disagree with. Firstly, the connection between the 80s and the 90s is still a bit of a stretch. In my early years I was still washing my own kit on tour, and the idea of systematic doping just wasn’t present. People occasionally took banned substances, but I found out about these people in the same way that everyone else did, and didn’t really think a great deal of it at the time. I just focused on riding my bike, as that’s what my job was. Fast-forward to the end of my career and it is possible (for me, with hindsight) that some teams had begun supporting doping programs, but I wasn’t aware of any such program in the teams I was involved with, including Motorola. So the problem is primarily with the way I supported Armstrong. This was undoubtedly a great failing of mine. I hadn’t had anything to do with him since those very early years, and didn’t personally have any evidence with which to support a public condemnation of him. I chose to support him. For the best part of my career I was denied opportunities for full support from continental-based teams and was still an outsider in the world of Cycling, as an Australian. Lance seemed like the culmination of a more global cycling world in which non-Europeans could flourish, and brought with him a great deal of US interest and sponsorship. I wasn’t sceptical enough, I wanted to believe these good things came without the bad. I didn’t benefit directly in any way from any of this as my career had finished long ago, but it was the principle of English-speaking involvement in cycling that I wanted to believe in. All the sources of Armstrong-support had their vested interests in offering that support (the media is a complex one, but I gather from your post that you’ve grasped most of it), and this was mine. I’m just not a person who desires conflict, and I chose the easy way of supporting rather than attacking Armstrong. This brings me to “omerta”. The culture of not speaking up certainly hasn’t helped us solve these problems, but there is no Great Historical Conspiracy that involves every person to do with cycling for the last 40 years in the same way, as most Internet commentators would have it. Obviously I haven’t been in the peloton for a long time, but my experience is simply that the moral demand of speaking up is much more opaque when you know the people but not the hard evidence (I’ve never witnessed doping first hand), when you know there are rumours but you also respect so many people involved and recognise that everyone, including the accusers, can have their own interests. It’s all very well for someone at home to analyse power outputs and make a case out of it, but that person has no personal interest in the case. Note that I don’t mean vested interest by complicity, just personal by virtue of knowing people, of not being indifferent about them as people and people who’s careers could be ruined (which hindsight, should have been ruined. But that’s hindsight). Without having hard evidence to justify these claims to both yourself and to the world, it’s a much greater demand to be asked to speak up. I didn’t meet that demand. So it was a failing of mine to support Armstrong, but obviously I draw a sharp distinction between this failing, and that of doping or of covering up doping that I knew about, because I’ve not doped or ever had direct, concrete knowledge of individual doping cases. The distinction is obviously less sharp for you, perhaps non-existent. That is a shame to me, because I think that in the scheme of things, there are many people still in cycling who rode clean, believe passionately in riding clean, but have failed to be vocal enough in the right ways. I am one of them, but we still have a lot to offer to the sport. I agree with your assertions about team management still being made up of convicted ex-dopers. That’s a huge problem, without doubt, and the culture of employing these people is both damaging in reality, and perpetuates the idea of "omerta". Lee Rodger's article on this site regarding the issue was a good one. But with whom do you contrast these people? With whom do you replace them? Unfortunately your argument would have cycling reject every person involved in the sport for the last 40 years with the only possible exception being Greg Lemond. He was certainly brave in taking the stand he did, but the rest of us who rode clean but weren't so brave still have a (lesser) contribution to make. You would have us all face a catch-22 from which there is no escape. I would prefer to try to contribute as positively as possible and learn from my mistake of not being questioning enough. It’s part of the catch-22 that me saying I was clean won’t be enough for you, but it will always be enough to continue to motivate me. Lastly, your “The French are Cleantm“ comment was amusing, and you’re right to point out that there is a bit of a myth there. But still, I think the worst kinds of doping are slowly being eradicated, and the French are signally a good example of this. Like I said, there’s nothing concrete about my argument, there is still cheating, but it’s getting less wide-spread and less successful. Consider this the same kind of circumstantial reasoning that might have lead you to suspect Armstrong in, say, 2002, but I’ve used it to suspect the general state of the peloton is healthier than before. Thanks for the conversation and feel free to reply again, but I won’t continue to reply from here, as an Internet forum seems like the wrong setting. I prefer to talk while out on the bike or over a beer than through a keyboard!

Hi Phil, thank you for taking the time to reply. At the end of the day, you're the only one who will be going to bed at night knowing 100% whether you doped or not, so a commenter on the internet won’t ever change that. That’s the most important thing to remember during this conversation. Unfortunately for the rest of us, we are left to find and distinguish the facts from the stories as best we can. Regardless, that's not really the point I was trying to make in my post. It wasn't about your (potential) doping specifically, but your involvement in the Lance lie and the cycle of repurposed bovine waste that is being generated by people such as yourself, that frankly, I can't see as having a leg to stand on to make such a claim as this, whether it is true or not. Rest assured I am not discriminating solely against yourself Phil with my opinion, I "tar" with the same brush many in the media who were so complicit and willing in their venerations and promotion of Lance as the idol he became, and refused to even consider he was guilty until USADA had to slam the book into everyone’s faces a few times. Neither is this a personal attack, as I don't know you personally to make such claims, and I fully understand that it is possible for nice guys to dope just as easily as the baddies. I am not confusing the 80s by labelling it as the EPO era. I used that term separately, because to me the EPO era is during the 90s and pre-Armstrong, when its influence grew exponentially. Whilst I know that EPO was not available during most of the 80s, that does not immediately mean that doping was all of a sudden less rampant during that time or that EPO was a lot of veteran cyclists’ “first” banned substance. It is my OPINION (caps for emphasis, not shouting), that it is more likely than not that at the bare minimum, a rider racing during (or between depending on how you look at it) those eras would have been involved with doping in same way. If they were such exceptional athletes that they weren't on it themselves, they at least knew about it, from team-organised doping or riders at an individual level, and made the decision not to speak out, not to say anything, and continue to do so now, explicitly protecting their mates in the peloton. That is Omerta. That is still happening today. Forward now to 2012 and within the cycling community and press, it was well established before that July's Tour that a USADA case was being prepared against Armstrong and he was smack bang in the middle of all the talk. The Media (where you come into this specifically) during this time had plenty of opportunity then to start changing their tunes - but only a few did. Instead the majority, eg from CN, SBS/CC to Phil Liggett n Paul Sherwen, all chose to keep defending Armstrong, apologising for him by making excuses, and repeating his own lies that people were victimised before for coming out against. I won’t ever forget when watching SBS towards the end of the Tour during a post-stage interview with Tomalaris, as millions of other Australian no doubt were too, where you defended Armstrong in a discussion about the allegations and your insight as a team-mate to defend him and all he has done for cycling. This isn’t so much about being a person being wrong, but about a cover up, when we finally wanted people to start talking the truth, we still only got the same stories. It was only afterwards (5 days after for you on this very site), that the wind finally changed for most in the media and those former-apologists were now reporting that yes he was a huge doper, and yes this was a bad thing and trying to blissfully pretend they had no involvement in the cover up and denial of his actions for all those years. What has that got to do with now and this article? Everything, because articles like this, from people directly involved in the continuation of the lies and Omerta, are saying the same things we heard before. Go back in time a decade and substitute "French cycling" with "Armstrong" and it reads exactly the same as articles posted back then. History repeating itself. So I make no apologies for scepticism, especially when the person in question, is someone who makes a living now after his role in cycling during an era rife in doping and little testing, and his own opinions on the Lance era which were firmly entrenched in the camp of a team-mate for as long as possible. So you've gotten with the times and think things are peachy because the French Don't Dope™ and Things Are Cleaner Now™. That’s great and all, but for some, we haven't forgotten the past, nor forgotten recent events. Like Sylvain Georges and Steve Houanard (which forced AG2R out of the Dauphine to adhere to the MPCC's rules), Europcar and Rolland's cortisone abuse, Remy di Gregorio. Or that in the current era 37+ year olds can podium in a GT and in a time of modern sport science a fast food addict can break records winning a Grand Tour. When the likes of Ibarguren, Mikhailov are still doctors, the likes of Ekimov, Vino, Riis, White are heavily involved in every day running of teams, you still know there is a long way to go in cleaning up the peloton. At least you do, if your head is not in the sand and you're not just trying to say something repeating a positive to hide some native advertising. I hope this helps you better understand my position now.

Great response Phil.

Your approach to commenting is pretty abrasive, DerailleurEd. It’s an important issue, though, and I’m very happy to defend my career, so I’ll reply. Firstly, I defend my own career absolutely as being without the use of performance enhancing drugs. Your blanket assumption of “guilt by association”, whether with one of these so-called eras, or with Armstrong, is a pretty thin one and tars everyone with the same brush, leaving little scope for reasonable discussion. This aside, though, and with all due respect, you’ve significantly conflated the 80s with “the EPO era”, the “Armstrong era”,“omerta”, and my own career, and use this to implicitly accuse me of doping. The so-called EPO era began in the years following my retirement and most of my biggest successes came in the early 80s, long before the period in question. Synthetic EPO itself wasn’t even developed until the very late 80s, let alone in use or in systematic use in cycling. I am certainly guilty of having believed in Armstrong for far too long. I had very little to do with him in the first part of his career, but I wanted to believe and am regretful that I didn’t speak out against him earlier. That doesn’t therefore lead logically to the conclusion that I was complicit in or guilty of doping myself. It’s much harder to face these unpleasant facts about people you know, and harder to make these accusations from within the sport, than it is from the armchair of indifference. But having learned a little in life myself, I try to be as alert and vocal about these things as I can be these days. This article is part of that. As I said, I am proud of my career, was 100% clean and have never knowingly supported doping. I stand by this absolutely, and to read aspersions such as those that you’ve cast do hurt. This is what qualifies me to speak about these things: a long and proud career at the top of the sport, and a love of the Tour de France and of getting on my bike that I still hold today. You are of course free to ignore my opinion. What, in turn, qualifies you to have an opinion? The fact that you’re a fan of cycling too, that you also love the sport. I’m sure you, too, have at some point supported an athlete who has subsequently disappointed you. It seems that you’re somewhat jaded, and that’s understandable given the recent failures in the world of cycling to deal with its problems, me included. Being skeptical and vigilant is important, but extending that to falsely accusing me of doping or supporting doping is both hurtful, and unhelpful at large. The point of my article was a positive one, and one that I think was worth making.

Thanks for a good candid article Phil, I wish all countries would do as the French have done!

Great insight Phil, this is in line with my thinking but interesting to hear it from someone so close to the action. How great to see the French going well - think how "nuts" the crowds will be in the next few years when the younger French riders develop

How does someone who never rode in clean peloton, promoted Omerta, was in the pro-Armstrong camp right up to the USADA case was published, including defending him and his achievements on air at the Tour just beforehand with Tomalaris to a viewership of millions of Australia, know what constitutes a clean peloton or is qualified in anyway to make a judgement on it? Whilst *I* think cycling has become cleanER than the 80s, EPO era, Armstrong era, articles likes this are nothing but a repetitive spin cycle that is never changing despite the lessons history should teach us.

Well, the scientists reckon Froome and Nibali were doing the top end of human performance, so that's 6.4 w/kg over a shorter climb and 6-6.1 w/kg on a longer climb. The doped guys were doing 6.4-5 on longer climbs. I'm still a bit of a sceptic myself when it comes to performance comparisons on climbs because there are lots of differing factors between each year, stage etc, but there's no doubt that it's a useful baseline to compare numbers

Good article Phil. Imo france doesnt only have "tough laws' against doping but they have a willingness to unearth the culprits at all costs, even 'theirs' as proven by the Virenque case 15 years ago. The french have always had the impression everyone wanted to fight doping as long as it was involving 'the others'. Spaniards were definitely not as virulent when the alleged dopers were theirs while the whole anglo saxon world thought the french were just showing their anti americanism when they fought L.A for over a decade. History shows that the french were right on this occasion and if the rest of the world had joined them instead of fighting them, we would not have lived the last 15 years we have had. Good to see a cycling name from the english speaking world acknowledging it, Phil.

Thats nice on paper...and retrospectively that can apply sure...but at the time, what they dont know...

The use of legal is OK. The use of illegal is not ok. The use of not yet illegal is also not ok. S0. NON-APPROVED SUBSTANCES Any pharmacological substance which is not addressed by any of the subsequent sections of the List and with no current approval by any governmental regulatory health authority for human therapeutic use (e.g drugs under pre-clinical or clinical development or discontinued, designer drugs, substances approved only for veterinary use) is prohibited at all times.

Well im not wanting to cast stones to a particular rider:) But in general... 'clean' only applies to not utilising medical advances the doping control know about. Any new 'technology' or 'methods' is not technically doping until its revealed and outlawed. Thats the flaw in the whole issue for me. I have a very ummm liberal mindset on the issue though!

The performances might be 'humanly' possible but that doesn't explain how Froome went from donkey to racehorse overnight....

Colin what are the specific metrics that are reliable indicators of doping? Peak power output? Average sustained power output?

Performances between Froome and Nibali were very similar in terms of times and power outputs. Both Froome and Nibali went quicker than Wiggins in 2012. Both Froome and Nibali produced 'plausible' performances, although the prediction is that they would have challenged for a podium during the Armstrong doping era. However, how much has technology improved? Have training techniques improved? So many different factors to take into account.

Thanks Phil, great read. It is great to see the French back in contention. In past years there has been analysis done of riding performance to inform speculation about which riders are clean. From memory there are a number of performance characteristics of riders that are using drugs which can be extracted from the data. eg. ability to back up on successive mountain stages. Power output over sustained climbs etc. Has analysis of the riders this year indicated a clean race? Were the times for big climbs faster or slower than previous years? Did analysis of Wiggins and Froome perfrmance metrics indicate clean races in '12 and '13? Obviously these metrics don't prove anything, but from what I have heard they are a pretty good indicator. Also - have you heard anything about the Green Edge search for a GC rider since the tour?