Cycling coexists with its suspicions, intrinsic to a sport that years ago insisted on shooting itself in the foot over and over again and that since then has had no choice but to fight to be the vanguard of cleanliness.. Jonas Vingegaard's exhibitions are applauded, amazed, but also asterisked. And the Dane responds with patience, he even understands the skeptics, but he defends himself against doping by putting his daughter ahead.
This was the agony of Pogacar in La Loze: “Tadej, you have to suffer”
Vingegaard and the shadow of doping: “I would not take anything that I could not give to my daughter”
The Tour also makes a banner of fair play, of continuous controls by an independent agency. “This is not like 20 years ago,” they all say. And it goes further. To stay ahead of technological doping, something that has never been tried yet, invest in technology. It is better prevent.
Every day, the UCI (International Cycling Union) checks by protocol at least eight bicycles from the peloton, always including that of the race leader. It does it after each stage, with a state-of-the-art X-ray scanner. They usually coincide with the runners who pass the anti-doping control that day.
Michael Rogers
The person in charge of this mission is an old acquaintance of the platoon. Michael Rogers, three times consecutive world champion against the clock (from 2003 to 2005), winner of two stages in the Giro and one in the 2014 Tour, ending in Bagneres-de-Luchon, retired seven years ago and is now the head of the Road, Innovation and Esports departments of the international organization.
L'Equipe witnessed last Tuesday an analysis session of the bicycles in Courchevel. They are hung, weighed, tagged and passed through the scanner. Wanted magnets, hidden motors, anything suspicious. The French newspaper reported that if doubt persists about a bicycle and a “high material density” of a possible mechanical trap is detected, the UCI teams activate phase 2: “The disassembly of the bicycle.”
AG2R Citroen Team bikes. AFP
“We are in contact with various universities to ensure that there are no new technologies. We also talk to other sports, like Formula 1 and energy storage systems that are too heavy for cars and therefore bikes,” says Rogers.. Tablets have been used to analyze bikes since 2016 and more than 1,000 tests were carried out last year, although not as exhaustive as the current ones, with improved technology and other portable devices with backscatter and transmission technology.
So far they have never found anything.. Beyond viral suspicions, none like that of 2010, when Fabian Cancellara left Tom Boonen behind in the Kapelmuur during the Tour of Flanders. Such was its power that it seemed like an artificial acceleration. Or the direct accusations of Jean Pierre Verdy, former head of the French anti-doping agency, who in his 2021 book claimed Lance Armstrong to use, in addition to declared doping, also an engine on his bike.. The only case detected was in cyclocross, where the first positive occurred during the 2016 World Cup: the Belgian cyclist Femke Van den Driessche. She was the favorite to take the U23 test: she was banned for six years and fined 20,000 Swiss francs.
In a statement ahead of the Tour, the UCI explained that mobile X-ray technology provides a high-resolution image of a complete bike in just five minutes. Meanwhile, backscatter and transmission technology provides high-resolution snapshots of the interior of the examined sections that can be transmitted, remotely, directly to the UCI Stewards.