Francaise des Jeux doctor Gérard Guillaume has hailed the six stage wins taken by French riders during this year’s Tour, saying that the improvement in performance is down to a cleaner peloton. Since the Tour start two and a half weeks ago, Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step) has taken two stage victories plus two stints in the yellow jersey, while Sandy Casar (Française des Jeux), Christophe Riblon (Ag2r La Mondiale), Thomas Voeckler (BBox Bouyges Telecom) and his team-mate Pierrick Fedrigo have all netted stage wins.
“It is evident,” Guillaume told Le Figaro when asked the reason for the renaissance. “The anti-doping battle is bearing fruit. The French were robbed for ten years. It was long said that they didn’t train enough, that they raced poorly, but they don’t do any more or less than before. The explanation lies somewhere else, that those who are in front don’t work with the same fuel.”
The first big scandal of the modern era rocked cycling during the 1998 Tour de France, and the so-called Festina Affair led to widespread changes. One of the results was the suivi medical, a quarterly health check on French riders, which saw a number of parameters being measured and documented. It was an early version of the UCI’s biological passport and is regarded by many as having made things more difficult for riders to dope.
That in turn gave rise to the concept of cyclisme à deux vitesses, the notion that the French riders (and certain others) were competing clean but being disadvantaged by the fact that others were continuing to use banned substances and this reach far higher levels of fitness.
Guillaume works with a team with a good reputation, and said that he was relatively confident that the riders would once again have a chance of a more level playing field. “I hoped so,” he stated. “I said it would take ten years to get out [of the problem]... It has simply taken a little more.
“It has happened via the efforts by the World Anti-Doping Agency, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the French Agency for the Fight against Doping (AFLD), with the promise of laboratories working together to advise on new developments, and also the effects the biological passport. The fears of those who cheat had to be increased and, today, we can even wonder if there are those who have not been caught using the famous bicycle with the electric motor. We talk more and more…”
Guillaume means that it is no longer taboo to voice concerns, and this erosion of omerta is an important step. He described the previous behaviour as ‘something a little mafia-like,’ and said that he encouraged his riders to revolt against that line of thinking.
He concluded by saying that he didn’t believe the war was over, but said that significant progress had been made and that drug use was far less widespread than had been the case before.
“Nothing is ever finished,” he said, referring to the battle. “But doping remains more a story of individuals, more than an organized system. I hope that their existence is behind us but there will always be cheaters. Sport in general and cycling in particular is not a more perfect world than society. But it's a shame that this sport was so polluted. Cycling is related to doping in many minds. The road will be long to strive to repair the damage.”
Another encouraging sign is the fluctuating form of riders in this year’s race, and the shaky day-to-day sense of vulnerability when compared to the crushing performances of other years. Riders appear more mortal and there is an expectation that any one of them could have a bad day and lose everything.
According to the excellent website The Science of Sport, the time taken for climbs is significantly slower this year than in other editions of the race.
“Even yesterday on the Col du Tormalet, the climbing time was 56:30 for the Yellow Jersey, compared to that huge day in 2003, when Armstrong and Ullrich did it in 44:30. And yes, the race situation was different, but 12 minutes? That's too big to be accounted for by strategy alone, even weather conditions (yesterday may well have been more favourable anyway),” wrote Ross Tucker.
He also pointed out that many of the climbs have been scaled at a pace less than six watts per kilogram. This is again considerably slower than in other years.