Analysis: Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar’s generation offers clean break from cycling’s murky past
Lance Armstrong’s doping was exposed by David Walsh’s dogged pursuit of the truth. The award-winning reporter explains how scepticism about this year’s Tour de France is different on several fronts.
Midway through the last week of what had been a wondrous Tour de France, I spoke with two colleagues at the Centre de Press in Bourg-en-Bresse. On the Col de la Loze the previous day Jonas Vingegaard had driven a stake through Tadej Pogacar’s heart, ending a battle that held us captive for 2 and a half weeks. The suspense had been terrible and, like Oscar Wilde, we had hoped it would last.
Had they enjoyed the Tour? They’ve been many times. Very much, they said. In these moments, journalists talk about their “desks.” Apropos nothing in particular, they both mentioned being pressurised by their sports editors to express scepticism in their stories, especially about Vingegaard’s wide-margin victory in the time-trial at Combloux.
Neither did because they didn’t feel scepticism. It made me think of 1999, the day after Lance Armstrong’s dominant performance in Sestriere. Speaking with my then sports editor, Alex Butler, I told of my misgivings and listed the reasons why Armstrong’s performances couldn’t be believed. EPO, the drug of choice in the peloton during these years, was still undetectable, Le Monde journalist Benoit Hopquin was working on a story that the UCI had covered a positive test for Armstrong. And the French rider Christophe Bassons was telling anyone prepared to listen that doping was still rife in the peloton. Bassons didn’t ask for anonymity.
Hearing my scepticism, the sports editor wasn’t exactly euphoric. “You really think he’s doping after coming back from cancer?” “Yes,” I said. “Well, if that’s what you believe, that’s what you’ve got to write,” he said matter of factly.
"Are you f--king serious? How the f--k did we let that happen?"
— CodeSports (@codesportsau) October 17, 2022
A decade on, @thetimes' chief sports writer @DavidWalshST recounts how Lance Armstrong sealed his own doom. https://t.co/Yd1cNAVll7
You see, 24 years ago there was disappointment that the guy in the yellow jersey was cheating. Now, in some quarters, the belief that the maillot jaune is clean is greeted with disappointment. The second reaction is of course borne out of the first. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
No one, though, comes up with a scintilla of evidence that Vingegaard, Pogacar or any of today’s generation are cheating. Ouest France, a high circulation regional newspaper, published a story last week that quoted a number of anonymous sources saying Vingegaard’s performances were too good to be trusted. “Nobody can be that good,” was the thrust of the argument.
The only source quoted in the piece offered a different view. Asked about the time difference between Vingegaard and his nearest rival, he said: “I wasn’t expecting it, the gap is incredible, but that doesn’t make me uneasy.” The Ouest France piece read like long-form Twitter.
In today’s world, this stuff informs opinion and influences behaviour. In June 2021, Le Parisien published a story based on two anonymous sources who claimed the Bahrain Victorious team had to be cheating. And the evidence? Well, according to the two anonymous sources who happened to work for rival teams, Bahrain were winning more races than they should. The following month, five days from the end of the 2021 Tour, French police were waiting at the Bahrain team hotel in Pau when the riders arrived. “There were 50 of them,” Matej Mohoric, the Bahrain rider, said. “They talked to everyone. They went through our belongings, the buses, the trucks. They took some riders’ phones, some riders’ computers. Of course, they didn’t find anything because we don’t have anything.”
Hair samples were taken from every rider. The police left about 1am. Most of the riders didn’t get to their beds until 2am. Next day, they had to race over the Col du Tourmalet and then on to a summit finish at Luz Ardiden. “In our world, if you ride strongly, they say you’re up to something. If you ride slowly, you’re a nobody. They turned everything upside down,” said Sonny Colbrelli.
Asked by one of the Bahrain sports directors why the team had been targeted, the police chief referred to the piece in Le Parisien. At the following year’s Tour, the same Marseilles investigators turned up at the Bahrain team hotel in Copenhagen and had another look. They also turned up unannounced at riders’ homes. They found muscle relaxant, a drug more commonly used in the treatment of cerebral palsy. This drug is legal.
All the raids and seizures, did not turn up one illicit substance. Two years on the prosecutor’s office in Marseille says the case is still open but no one believes that. When you send in 50 officers and take computers, phones, boxes of pills, hair samples and come with nothing, maybe that is evidence that there wasn’t anything to find.
There was an interesting moment last week when Vingegaard was asked how many drug tests he had done while at his team’s altitude training camps. He said he couldn’t remember, which sounded unconvincing. OK, said the questioner, have you been tested at all while at those camps? “Yes,” he said. “I’ve been tested at every training camp, sometimes they come to the hotel more than once.”
Vingegaard and Pogacar came to the Tour at early points in their careers. The Dane has ridden the race three times; second, first, first. Pogacar has ridden it four times, first, first, second, second. Everything they do is in line with what they’ve done before. For those entranced by their rivalry over the past three weeks, there is the prospect of something similar next year.
Pogacar says he’s pretty certain he wants to come back and take on Vingegaard again. As much as he loves winning, he’s not afraid to lose. He will, though, have to carefully consider his programme of early season races next year with a view to focusing more on the Tour. He will also need to look at his weight and see if he could lose two kilos while retaining his power.
As Vingegaard and his Jumbo Visma team crossed the finish line on the Champs Elysees, it was startling to see how much smaller and lighter he is than his teammates. Pogacar’s natural talent has taken him this far. If he is going to beat Vingegaard in the Tour, he will need to get even better.
Adam and Simon Yates come out of this Tour very much in credit. There were two contenders for the first two places on general classification (GC) and as many as 20 for third. For the twins to finish third and fourth in such a vintage year is quite an achievement.
It was an interesting Tour for Tom Pidcock who set out to stay in the GC race for as long as he could. He had his best day on the 13th stage to Grand Colombier in the Jura, competing strongly against Vingegaard and Pogacar all the way to the top. Next day he paid for that and then it became a torturous race for the Ineos Grenadiers rider. His plan is to sacrifice everything for the 2025 Tour.
Staying in the game, holding onto your self-belief does work, as Bora Hansgrohe sprinter Jordi Meeus proved last evening. He didn’t get close in any of the bunch sprints in this Tour but he didn’t give up and on the world’s most famous boulevard, the Avenue des Champs Elysees, he got his reward, pipping the world’s best sprinter Jasper Philipsen on the line. Though aware that the bar in the Tour has never been higher, Pidcock has time on his side.
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