"Given cycling's past the question is not an illegitimate one" - Christian Prudhomme honest about Pogacar doping doubts
Cycling
There is no doubt about who the best cyclist on the planet is in 2024. Becoming the first rider in a generation to complete the sport's mythical 'Triple Crown', nearly everything Tadej Pogacar has touched has turned to gold this campaign. As is often the case in cycling however, such all-conquering dominance always tends to bring questions related to the sport's murky past.
Infamous doping scandals involving some of the sport's biggest names, such as the likes of Lance Armstrong, Marco Pantani and Alberto Contador among others, whenever a new superstar emerges to take control of the peloton, some voices are always quick to bring up the question of whether they are doing so legally. In recent years, Jonas Vingegaard has had to deal with such doubts as he secured back to back Tour de France titles but in 2024, the cloud of doubt has descended onto the Dane's great rival, Tadej Pogacar.
Pogacar reclaimed the Maillot Jaune this year, winning the Tour de France for the third time in his career in typically scintillating style. In an interview with La Dépêche du Midi, the race director of the French Grand Tour, Christian Prudhomme was asked to tackle the doping question and whether or not he'd be surprised to find out in future that Pogacar had in fact been cheating.
"Given cycling's past, and not so long ago, the question is not an illegitimate one," admits Prudhomme, choosing his words carefully. "I don't have an answer. I can see that he gives a pretty impressive performance in competitions. The controls exist, we fought with ASO to have independents, and now it's the case with ITA. That's it..."
Nevertheless, Prudhomme does see similarities to the legends of the past in Pogacar this year. "We're back to what we were used to, that is to say champions who are there from the beginning to the end of the season and with this will to win everything," the Frenchman concludes. "Which makes him similar to Eddy Merckx but also to Bernard Hinault... For years, I heard Bernard say that the guys had to rediscover their sense of the game and enjoy themselves. That's exactly what Pogacar does."
The debate on PEDs should not be limited only to the esoteric chemically synthesised 'drugs' such as SGF-1000, but expanded to other 'performance enhancing' substances or methods. Such as ketones, or hyperbaric tents, or Carbon Monoxide inhalation or even carb loaded gels. None of which is a natural method that amateur sportspersons should use either in their diet or exercise regime, but are promoted extensively by influencers. What should be considered the limit or red line in that case? And should all of these 'unnatural' performance enhancers be then banned and cyclists only be allowed to consume regular food such as baguettes and Coke?
So if you win too much you are on drugs? Does anybody know what the magic number of races is? I mean Pidcock can't possibly be doping, right? And Jonas Vingegaard must be purposely staying under it so as to not arouse suspicion, lol.
What a sad answer... if Tadej and Jonas were French, for sure Prudhomme's answer would be different.
Tadej might be a clean generational talent. Apart from that doping is widespread. African runners are now getting tested and caught. The Olympic medals in running seem to indicate a more level playing field. Some countries do not allow testing of juniors. If an athlete under 18 is doping, then they can have a fast start to their career with the results lasting for years. Their initial biological passport that their career is based upon might be influenced by doping as an athlete under 18. What really burns me are masters in my age group who dope!
The greater the records, the louder will be the fall. Watching this guy finishing the hardest stages in record times, without sweating and breathing hard makes me feel sick. There is no point in watching races no more. But does it even matter? The Important thing for him and his sponsors are money earned during this spree. After short time of inconvenience he will be able to enjoy the rest of his days and millions he has been payed.
I don’t doubt for a minute that there are drugs being taken in the peloton. Sure lighter bikes better equipment better fitness better diet, all these help but when you get records falling like in 2024 it’s impossible to imagine drugs aren’t being taken. When there’s so much riding, (excuse the pun) on victory and pressure from sponsors it’s simply too tempting. I don’t mean banned substances/drugs I mean substances that haven’t yet made the band list, drugs that haven’t made the band list. Question: is it cheating if a drug/substance or process is not on the band list? My thoughts are, if it’s not cheating, it’s certainly unsportsmanlike but if it’s technically not cheating, can you blame a rider?
Let's be honest, the real issue is most fans no longer care about doping, so there's little incentive to spend money on grossly underfunded anti doping agencies. Doping was never considered by the common fan to be an organized, widespread issue until the 90's and the Festina scandal. The Armstrong years were so polarizing because the idea of doping and unfairness was fresh to the layman. Some 20 years later here we are and doping discussion has just exhausted everyone. The fact positive tests are few and far between these days only shows the bleeding edge of doping science is so far ahead of bureaucracy and testing methodology, there's almost no way to catch up. The only thing we can do at this point is retain samples for the maximum of 10 years under WADA protocol and hope the science catches up so they can be retested in the future.
right? this is part of the problem. merckx — caught THREE TIMES after lying about it every time, anquetil, coppi, kelly, and EVERY SINGLE tour de france champion from charly gaul through contador except indurain and lemond were with CAUGHT out confessed later. asterisk on hinault — never caught or confessed, just suspended for REFUSING to submit sample. fans focus so much burning hatred on armstrong (who i’m not saying doesn’t deserve it) that the galactic, historical scope of the problem still feels like it’s never been confronted fully. merckx and company are ROYALTY, adored, idolized, while a tiny handful of riders like armstrong and ullrich are the lightening rods for all the rage, judgement, etc.
I'm blown away that anyone questions if he's clean. There's absolutely no way he is. The real question is what percentage of the back end of the World Tour peloton is dirty? Is it 90% or 100%?
Ok we know you're a known Tadeg hater so your opinion is totally biased. Where's your proof!
Thrashing climbing times of the worlds best climbers who are now known to have been drugged to the gills. Any sane person knows they are on drugs. I am constantly surprised when people think they might not be.
That’s your basis for concluding he’s doped ? Wow that’s really scientific ! Let’s all go back to the 1950s then and totally ignore tech and nutritional breakthroughs!
Drugged to the gills and pushing antiquated bikes with ridiculous gearing, no power meters, and mostly likely nutritionally bonked. I don't know how much time all of that is worth but its not insignificant. So the comparisons are pretty meaningless.
We’ve banged heads before on this yet you can’t quite grasp the carbs/hr intake that has revolutionized the races and training due to your stubbornness ! Wake up !
Calm down. There is a line after which naivity becomes stupidity and you have already crossed it.
Tadej has been a great cyclist since his junior days, it's not like he was average then became a superstar all of a sudden. He won his national under 18 road race when he was 13, he wasn't doping then and is probably not now.
Yup, and likely not clean then either. 15yr olds beating pro triathletes is most definitely superhuman.
Plenty of juniors dope. That said, he was not a world talent as a junior.
The new drug which hit the peloton recently and was clear for all to see is from an earth worm. The red blood cells carry 40 times as much oxygen as human blood cells. Waaay better than simple epo. It was a game changer and visible for those watching with open eyes. Demare and Pinot separately wrote an open letter to journalists stating the peloton is back to being a 2 speed peloton. But no amount of information will change your mind that he is clean eh.
Nonfictionone Its hemoglobin from a sea worm called a lugworm. They live in the sand on the sea shore. It's commonly used by anglers as bait. It can be detected with current doping tests but has a very short half life and iis undetectable after only a few hours and apparently it doesn't show up in the biological passport if used correctly. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8304559/
The "great junior rider" claim is a terrible barometer of potential. It works both ways. Lots of great juniors were also mediocre professionals. Likewise there were mediocre juniors who became great professionals. The body still has lots of growth and hormonal changes until the early 20's.
i’m NOT saying pogačar is guilty, at all, but THIS argument means nothing. any rider who would ever be in any position to BOTHER to dope was great as a junior. unless you were amazing you don’t get pro contracts, you aren’t seen as a commodity, you aren’t close to money and success and everything that would lead a rider to make that choice. and it’s already been said, but the most despised rider on the planet, armstrong, was a generational FREAK on the bike as a triathlete and junior, and by every account he didn’t start doping until he was on Motorola, coming close to winning races but coming short too often for his burning ambition. marginal riders much duper just to cling to a career, great riders might dope to be as great as they think they can be. the choice is tempting for all kinds of racers, because it IS the hardest sport in the world.
I love cycling and have been watching for years, but it is true that the spector of cheating hangs over the sport. In a day where seemingly every edge from diet to sleep to individualized training at a micro level, it just seems unlikely that 1 rider would be this much better than everyone else. Jonas Vingegaard can climb as well, but he can't sprint or compete in the classics against Poggi. Van der Pol and Van Aert can maybe match his power, but they are just too big to climb like he does. In track and field, no one wins the 5000m and the 400m. I hope he is clean, and it is great to see how much he loves to race, but I will always be suspicious.
Maybe not the 400 and 5000 but everything from 1500 to marathon has been done and she’d probably also manage the 800 based on her PB from 2017 when she stopped doing those. We should always stay suspicious but some people consider that to mean baselessly accusing. There are plenty of dopers so we also don’t need to focus on anyone in particular before they give us valid reasons to. Somebody has to be the best and when someone has a good streak it’s often for several reasons, including rivals not being up to scratch at that time.
They're definitely all doping. But Tadej isn't doing the equivalent of winning the 5k and 400m. He's more of winning the marathon and 10k which is still not something you expect but more comparable.
'all' doping? You're bias and lack of any substanial proof is astounding ! You must be doping with these comments.
Yes it is definitely not true. There would be some who are not. All the prolific winners you are aware of are.
A lot of pundits claim, without any semblance of proof except "unbelievable performance", that all cyclists dope, even those who don't win. That certainly says a lot about the work of the anti-doping regulators. But let's talk about doping, per se.. If an athlete takes anything that is not allowed by the doping regulators, that's doping. If somebody discovers any miracle method of enhancing performance that is not yet in the "disallowed" list, that may fall under "nutrition" or TUE, rather than doping. To say that everyone is doping, when we have all these anti-doping regulators doing all these tests on all participants to ensure fair competition, is just ridiculous. I've heard it said that dopers are smarter than the doping regulators, but this is just plain stupid. Why don't we just legalize doping then. Then we can just enjoy the show, and not have to wonder if Tadej or Jonas or Remco is doping. Because all of them are doping anyway, so everything is fair competition.
Maria Sharapova was banned for taking Meldonium in 2016. Ten years prior to that, she was prescribed the drug by a family doctor to treat some health issue. It was not yet on the prohibited list at the time, but in 2016, WADA included it in the "disallowed" substances list. She failed to take notice of the updated "banned" substances list and suffered the consequences. She later won her case on appeal. My point is, it is not doping if it is not on the "disallowed" list provided by WADA. But I digress.. I don't condone doping. I used hyperbole because I find it unfair that we should consider "all" cyclist to be doped, when their training regimen and diet and machinery is more than enough to beat the crap out of any doper. We have been raising the specter of doping as if it were " the be all and end all "of cycling. Let UCI and WADA deal with the doping problem and treat all competitors who are tested regularly as clean.
That's a great point: Pog is not training any different, harder, or more than half the peloton. Almost every rider is following the same basic training and diet methodology these days, especially since WorldTour team doctors, coaches, and physios jump around teams. Every WorldTour team is designing their rider's lifestyle around racing. Even superior genetics will only carry you so far, but for Pog, that seems inhuman.
i think it’s interesting, and ONLY interesting, that the most infamous doper of all time — armstrong — actually DID train differently. he was light years ahead in preparation for the specific, singular goal of winning the tour. he did prep for that in a way nobody had ever thought out bothered to do before. he was TRULY a “stop at nothing” to win guy. megalomaniacal, ruthless, probably sociopathic, but NOT LAZY…
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