Goodbye then .. Chris Froome

[Tangled Metal]

The Badger calls "pied a terre!", he says riders should boycott*, refuse to race if Froome is allowed to start the TdF
(Guardian)

Hinault led a strike after the TdF riders were expected to ride three stages in one day

Maybe he should go into politricks

* see also live thread: *who should we be boycotting?*

Did Hinault ride clean? I kind of assume that everyone from Coppi to Armstrong were at it in some form or other, with a few cleanish competitors coming in after that.

Quite possibly he was clean because anti-doping was not around much back then. However he is probably clean (he's French so benefit of the doubt applies).

[mjr]

Did Hinault ride clean? I kind of assume that everyone from Coppi to Armstrong were at it in some form or other, with a few cleanish competitors coming in after that.

We don't know for sure. Hinault served a one-month ban for refusing a doping test in 1982 but nothing more, except defending some known 1980s dopers. So, I feel there's more reason to suspect him than Lemond or even currently Froome I'd say, but less than Merckx (several positives, admitted one but blamed bad medical advice and disputes others). Hinault seems like a rider in the greyest of the grey area of that time, more Wiggins than Froome?

[crazydave789]

The Badger calls "pied a terre!", he says riders should boycott*, refuse to race if Froome is allowed to start the TdF
(Guardian)

Hinault led a strike after the TdF riders were expected to ride three stages in one day

Maybe he should go into politricks

* see also live thread: *who should we be boycotting?*

Did Hinault ride clean? I kind of assume that everyone from Coppi to Armstrong were at it in some form or other, with a few cleanish competitors coming in after that.

a lot of the very clever East German drugs were turning up in the west around that time if memory serves. post wall collapse a lot of those scientists and doctors found work elsewhere.

funny how when someone wins repeatedly it is deemed to automatically mean they are cheating - I haven't read any studies on how Froomes early african riding as a teenager might have affected his physical development - african long distance runners being a case in point - africa hasn't produced many world class distance cyclists due to the cost involved but it can't be long before someone stumps up some cash.

teams are not penalised for altitude training which is effectively a form of blood doping, another legal cheat along with IV fluids in general that give a competative advantage over a rider who just has a couple of pints of milk post race.

HInaults was winning as I started to take an interest in the TDF then lemonds spell at the top which was another oddity as riders stayed there year after year like Indurain who was said to be too tall to win a tour yet went on and on.

[firedfromthecircus]

a lot of the very clever East German drugs were turning up in the west around that time if memory serves.

I think your memory might be miss-serving you.
The wall was breached in 1989, three years after Hinault retired!

[crazydave789]

a lot of the very clever East German drugs were turning up in the west around that time if memory serves.

I think your memory might be miss-serving you.
The wall was breached in 1989, three years after Hinault retired!

I never said anything about the wall coming down (and I was there at the time saving the west by singlehandedly preventing the soviet hordes from surging through the fulda gap) but the drugs were coming across in the same way western drugs were going their way. a Taxi from east to west berlin. drugs were sent across to see if they were detected and even better if it was capitalist athletes doing the cheating

they developed different drugs to western companies so didn't show up in any accepted tests for years as the olympics proved. cycling was overlooked for decades so could take advantage of all the hard work done to cheat in athletics.

if the french decided they wanted Hinault to win as a french rider in a french team as a political measure then they could meddle in all sorts of ways. Team renault was in effect a state team after all.

I prefer to think that he just understood how to ride the tour properly.

[crazydave789]

it was obviously common because Lemond was always banging on about it.

it cost him his bike business when he accused armstrong of doping and Trek took armstrongs side.

as an aside - found this

https://vimeo.com/88229927

[The utility cyclist]

a lot of the very clever East German drugs were turning up in the west around that time if memory serves.

I think your memory might be miss-serving you.
The wall was breached in 1989, three years after Hinault retired!

EPO/blood doping was already a thing in 1984, the septics used it in the '84 olympics, even some top GB athletes (cough former long jumper turned 100/200m sprinter) were on the juice according to very close sources and the doctor that supplied him and that was going back to the 70s. Someone who suddenly went from a bang average sprinter/long jumper and a skinny 11.5stone not able to break 11s for the 100m then all of a sudden did a 10.55 at the age of 23, another 2 more years saw another 0.4s chunk improvement and by that point a 3 stone weight gain in muscle.

Moser admitted doping after he was found out and fessed before being exposed, then we had the ridiculousness of an 85kg TT powerhouse outclimbing mountain goat specialists
Hinault was every bit the Merckx of the 60s/70s, a bully, a liar, a backstabber and a dope cheat.

[Cyril Haearn]

The DDR was very good at sport because many children were profiled early and steered into suitable sports, makes sense without doping
That is how Jan Ullrich eventually came to win the TdF 1997

He did not have a privileged background and would not have made it in the west

[pwa]

The DDR was very good at sport because many children were profiled early and steered into suitable sports, makes sense without doping
That is how Jan Ullrich eventually came to win the TdF 1997

He did not have a privileged background and would not have made it in the west

And he was doping.

[Brucey]

The DDR was very good at sport because many children were profiled early and steered into suitable sports, makes sense without doping
That is how Jan Ullrich eventually came to win the TdF 1997...

Ullrich (like many other successful pro cyclists around that time) was a blood doper, later self-confessed after he was rumbled.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070311115123/http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/03082006/3/ullrich-spent-35-000-euros-year-drugs-claims-expert.html

Retroactive bans and title stripping are all very well but you might end up giving the win years later, to someone who didn't finish in the top ten at the time, if you wanted to find someone who was taint-free in this regard....

cheers

[Cyril Haearn]

The Laterne Rouge is the Tour Winner for me
Bouleversement sur classement general!
The last shall be first..

[mjr]

There have been some awful cheating incidents to secure last place over the years, especially when the giro awarded the maglia nera. Most famously, Luigi Malabrocca puncturing his own wheels!

[Flinders]

If they seriously want to clean up cycling, then maybe take a leaf out of horseracing's book. If a horse is over any limits, it's disqualified, however it occurred, even accidentally; the limit is absolute. The punishment for the trainer (in cycling that would be the cyclist and/or team) is then decided later on the evidence. When in one case a few years ago the substance responsible came from feed which had been accidentally contaminated at the manufacturer's plant, those trainers whose horses had been involved were given more or less zero punishment, but the disqualifications still stood.
Egregious doping, at the other end of the scale, can get someone banned from owning, riding or training horses, racing, racecourses, and even training stables, for life.
The disqualification is done purely on the basis of being over the limit set, any punishment beyond that (bans, fines, exclusion from racing altogether) reflects the degree of blame the inquiry allocates after the evidence has been considered.

It takes away the reason for doping positively if you are disqualified if you're over the limit, no exceptions.

(the advantages of doping a horse to lose are different, of course, but the rules are the same)

[Tiberius]

And there's me thinking 'Innocent until PROVEN guilty'.......


https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cyc ... 25301.html

[Tangled Metal]

I wouldn't use horse racing as a positive role model personally.

A betting man I know (not a problem better just someone who bets on horses mostly but also football I believe for fun and only because he enjoys following the sports he's into) once told me about how to pick a winner. He said watch what a certain jockey is doing. When you spot a series of poor results (usually on a promising horse he rides) place a bet on him to win. He's pulling up the horse to get better odds. I believe it was some jockey called Richard but I didn't pay attention. Needless to say this guy I know used to use him as a banker. Apparently there were other similar riders. I think some got pinged for something.

Of course it sounds like they have a way of handling doping. It's questionable whether guilty until proven innocent and even if you are proven innocent the sanction stands is a western European style of justice. It seems potentially unfair.

However with Froome it's unfair that he got singled out for the leaking of his AAF against UCI and WADA rules and procedures. Would it happen to a French man or a cyclist in a French team? Plus it's taking too long to sort out (I think but don't know because most AAF investigations go on without making the public attention unless they have no defence and get sanctions).

Whatever your views of Froome the system has completely broken down in his case.

PS thank you for mentioning Ullrich and "without doping" in the same post. It got a chuckle from me. Seriously though, do you not think the profiling was probably too find those physically able to perform but also mentally likely to be manipulated into cheating? A physically natural athlete with the mental strength to say no to potentiality damaging drugs or to ask questions is likely to say no it defect or something. You want physically suitable but compliant kids to work on surely?