Science Is Winning the Tour de France. Data, nutrition, equipment, and training are propelling riders to performances that best the dopers of yesteryear. “In other words, Armstrong on dope then would be an also-ran next to Pogačar today.”
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The doping scandals destroyed my enjoyment of pro road racing, and I can't shake my skepticism about the current crop of absurdly high performing riders. I want to believe, but this all sounds like a repeat of the 2000s, and everyone un-ironically saying "marginal gains" is not helping matters.
Same. My gut reaction to this is they've just figured out better ways to dope and the powers that be haven't figured out how to detect it yet.
I have a lot to say on this topic but I haven't read the article yet so I'll refrain from most of it, but mostly it comes down to: 1) gains comparing one rider in 2025 to another rider in 2025 may be marginal, but the gains in bike and clothing technology (to say nothing of training and nutrition philosophy) in the last 20 to 30 years are absolutely monumental (I love old steel bikes more than most people, but if you wanna be fast in the 21st C they ain't it) and 2) Tadej seems otherworldly, absolutely, but he still didn't beat Bjarne Riis' time up the Hautacam from nearly 30 years ago, so I dunno, man.
Everything is better in cycling today compared to yesteryear - the equipment, aerodynamic analysis and optimization, training, recovery....
...and doping.
Same thinking here. I used to love watching the Tour back in the US Postal days and a few years after but once they started retroactively giving the trophy to the guy who finished 7th because in the interim the 1st thru 6th place finishers all got sanctioned for doping, I started to not care.
After he got busted for doping German cyclist Jan Ullrich (I think) said "I didn't cheat anyone out of anything" (or something along those lines), basically saying it was a fair race because we were all doping.
I fear for the future of cycling as a sport if there's another doping scandal...
Oh, you guys are all so cynical! (But I also had the same thought while reading the article.)
I just got back from France (woke up in Paris yesterday, Manitoba today) where I was able to see three stages of the Tour (18, 19, and 21) but more pertinently I was also part of a charity ride called Tour 21 that cycled the entirety of this years route, doing each stage one week ahead of the pros.
The difficulty level of some of those stages, the HC climbs especially, is ridiculous, especially when they are stacked one after another as in a Grand Tour. The fatigue accumulates and it just gets tougher and tougher. People will train for weeks or months to do a century ride OR Ventoux. This year’s Stage 16 featured a century and THEN Ventoux, and it wasn’t even one of the hardest stages!
I’m a decided amateur and I gutted out the distances thanks to incredible support, “endurance pacing” (going slow), and possibly pig-headedness. It was wild to see just how much faster the pros were on the same courses — but nothing stuck out to me as “other worldly” cheating-level speeds.
I’m no expert and maybe I’m no cynic, but I do think training, bike tech, and teamwork/strategy can explain most of the results. I think there’s also some that can be attributed to growth in the sport (more people cycling means you catch more extraordinary talents) and better developmental programs (catching and training riders younger).
For what it’s worth, the cause we were riding for, leukaemia research, has also benefitted from marginal gains. Some leukaemias that were ~90% fatal when I was born in the 1970s are now ~90% survivable — not because of a magic bullet treatment or miracle discovery, just the slow steady march of slightly better outcomes. Science works!
That is such a great story, thanks for sharing and the work you are doing for leukemia. I’ve let the statute of limitations run out on the doping generation - to view the current sport through those old goggles just seems depressing.
After the Lance thing blew up, which he was what got me into watching cycling, and it seem to be the consensus that mostly everyone was doing it, I just could not follow it anymore. I was done. I doubt I’ll ever go back. Too many other good things anyway.
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