They are:
- Using power data and/or performance to suggest doping
- Using Lance and US Postal as a frame of reference
- Targeting Froome & Sky
My first gripe with this video is, can we be absolutely certain that this is his power data? Sky seem to think someone has hacked into their files and got hold of it, but is this video the file they're talking about? Who knows??
The second gripe is to suggest that these numbers are out of this world and improbable without "help". His supposed w/kg of around 6.1 certainly doesn't set any alarm bells ringing for me. If you read Allen & Coggan's "training & racing with a power meter" then an FTP of 6.1 w/kg is right in range for a world class athlete. Froome is saying that he's on 67kg mark so that's an effort of around 408w. We all saw the picture of Contador's warm up bike for the TTT, there his FTP was listed 450w, so 408w for a rider of that standard shouldn't be too much of a stretch. Yes I am aware of using Contador as a point of reference certainly isn't proof of "cleanliness" but it does show that 408w is not the mind bending huge number it was suggested to be on Sunday evening.
Sticking with "el pistolero", some people were aghast that Froome dropped him like a bad habit yesterday. Let's not forget this guy just won the Giro! I'd have been a lot more worried had he managed to stick with a fresher Froome & Quintana.
"Look at who he beat" were the cries yesterday, that's like saying Djokovic is doping because he beat Federer.
If Froome keeps that intensity up for the remainder of this tour then yes that will look suspicious but one power file from 2013 and yesterday's stage certainly doesn't prove doping or otherwise.
And no I haven't mentioned HR because so many things have an effect on it that just looking at the numbers without knowing the full picture is guessing, and would still lead me to the same conclusion that it doesn't prove or disprove anything.
I thought Lionel Birnie on the cycling podcast summed it up perfectly, until someone can show that a certain power output is impossible without pharmacological help then we are just making guesses.
My second point is this constant use of Lance as the point of reference for the line between clean and dirty. "Lance did x mountain in x time and now What's his Face has done it in nearly the same time or faster they have to be doping". Again that's just a wild assumption! Was a doped up Lance the absolute pinnacle of human endurance? Even Dr Ferrari himself laughed when asked the question "are we at the edge of what's humanly possible?" I'll agree that once the times of the wild west days of cycling are regularly beaten it won't look good but it doesn't prove anything. We don't know for a fact that those times are beyond reach.
You can't even get good data anyway, I googled "fastest time up Ventoux" and got 2 totally different times and references for our Lance. 48:33 (15km) on cycling news & 57:49 (21km) on Wiki. So what does that tell us? It tells me not to believe all the numbers you get bombarded with on the internet! Maybe they are 2 different accents of the mountain but they don't say that
And I can't help but think these same people that use him as the bench mark were the same people that were trumpeting about him 10 years ago and now feel a little silly. They lay into any team or rider that is dominant in the tour whilst their Livestrong bracelet gathers dust in the corner of their room!
My final point isn't because I'm British and I see this is as an attack on British cycling. It's because I don't see consistency here!
I got into a discussion with a chap called Ross Tucker, he's in charge of a page called "The Science of Sport" He appears to be at the forefront of trying to expose doping in sport which I have to commend him for. When I argued against the use of power data he accused me of being "selective with data". Looking through his website I could say the same thing.
In the section "doping in cycling" there's lots of stuff on power and VAM but its all about the tour! Nothing on the Giro or the Vuelta or the Classics!
When I asked him what the w/kg of Contador & Aru were this year he gave me the numbers but then said he didn't even watch the Giro!!!
Now call me mad but if my aim was to lift the lid on doping in cycling I think a grand tour where the two protagonists were Contador and Aru deserved some attention.
Contador, a convicted doper who was supported by Basso, also a convicted doper, and Kreuziger who lets face it has got away with murder. And the Tinkoff back room staff has it's fair share of shady characters too.
Then there is Aru who rides for a team that is run by a convicted (and unrepentant) doper, has had doping bans handed out and is even suspected by fellow riders as being a doper!
He talks about "pixels in the tapestry" and I think he's missed a pretty large pixel there!
Also during the Giro I didn't see half the guff on twitter that I have seen with this Tour. Same can be said for last year when Sky were nowhere.
What I am saying here and this isn't aimed particularly at Ross but everyone who appears to have a bee in their bonnet this Tour is, if you want to expose doping in cycling you have to be doing this at every race with every team otherwise it just looks like you have an issue with Froome and/or Sky.
To finish off do I think Froome is clean? I honestly don't know but I have to assume he is until it is proven otherwise.
Do I think there is doping in cycling? Yes I do and there is doping in all sport but we can't prove it by looking at power files and/or comparing that to Lance Armstrong's performances.
Like I said above, the questions have to be asked and the pressure put on, but on everybody!
Personally I think ridding the sport of people like Vinokurov and using your scientific knowledge to improve the bio-passport would be more worthwhile than stealing power files.
Maybe I am just a naive cycling fan with my head in the sand?
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