Tour de France 2026 ***Spoilers***

[M.R.M]

From RoadCC:

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Should they not then have to disclose the specifics of said suspicions? Otherwise it's just a blanket get out of jail card to do whatever you like.

 

[misforturob]

Maybe the serious suspicions are that they are both going faster up hills than the young French hope?

 

[SpokeyDokey]

road.cc indicating that other riders in this year's Tour have had early morning tests.

https://road.cc/news/judge-signed-o...ns-before-tour-de-france-according-to-reports

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Should they not then have to disclose the specifics of said suspicions? Otherwise it's just a blanket get out of jail card to do whatever you like.

I think that would be a bit accusatory for a public statement, wouldn't it?

 

[Blazing Saddles]

road.cc indicating that other riders in this year's Tour have had early morning tests.

https://road.cc/news/judge-signed-o...ns-before-tour-de-france-according-to-reports

Reading that and assuming that the judge is acting purely on the information put before him, I would suggest that the threshold for proof must be An extremely low bar.

Also, it’s a bit rich that Vingegaard and Pogačar’s names were instantly in the public domain, while other riders remain anonymous.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Reading that and assuming that the judge is acting purely on the information put before him, I would suggest that the threshold for proof must be An extremely low bar.

Also, it’s a bit rich that Vingegaard and Pogačar’s names were instantly in the public domain, while other riders remain anonymous.

To be fair, I think Vingegaard put his name out himself, as did Pogacar. Might not have been easy to keep out of the public anyway, but it didn't seem either made the effort.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Should they not then have to disclose the specifics of said suspicions? Otherwise it's just a blanket get out of jail card to do whatever you like.

They had to get it signed off by a judge with competence in the area. So not a licence to do what they like.

There will no doubt be clamour from people demanding that they have a right to know. And there might well be leaks. And there will definitely be totally made up stories claiming to be leaks.

 

[Dogtrousers]

On the other hand, one source at an established Tour team told road.cc that, as far as the squad’s doctors can remember, their riders have never been required to submit an anti-doping sample between 11pm and 6am

A distraught spokesman for Cofidis said "I told them our riders are available for testing 24 hours a day, and they just laughed."

 

[No Ta Doctor]

They had to get it signed off by a judge with competence in the area. So not a licence to do what they like.

There will no doubt be clamour from people demanding that they have a right to know. And there might well be leaks. And there will definitely be totally made up stories claiming to be leaks.

Well strictly speaking, the judge's competence is in liberties and detention, rather than anti-doping enforcement or professional sport. I imagine they rely fairly heavily on expert testimony if there are technical details. Unless they're fans of cycling, who pretty much have a masters in this stuff if they've been around for a more than a couple of years.

 

[mjr]

If we could get genes or DNA into the body with anything better than miniscule efficiency then cystic fibrosis, muscular Duchenne muscular dystrophy, many cancers, and many other genetic disease would be cured long ago. Advances have been made but we're still a long way off efficient delivery.

It's not putting genes or DNA directly into the body, but there are fairly new therapeutic treatments for some genetic diseases using small interfering RNA (siRNA), which a journalist or reporter might describe as a genetic therapy. The first FDA approval for one was in 2018. I'm not a medic, I don't know all of the treatment now available and reading some medical texts makes me feel uncomfortable, so I don't know of any that might improve cycling performance as well as their intended purpose. Cycle racers have seemed willing to risk using similar treatments off-label in the past.

We'll probably find out eventually... if it works, someone is silly enough to use it, and gets banned for it.

 

[mjr]

Well strictly speaking, the judge's competence is in liberties and detention, rather than anti-doping enforcement or professional sport. I imagine they rely fairly heavily on expert testimony if there are technical details. Unless they're fans of cycling, who pretty much have a masters in this stuff if they've been around for a more than a couple of years.

I do wonder if any expert presented a racer's view about how tiring/disruptive a test in the middle of the sleep before the last day of the second block of consecutive days racing could be. Surely they couldn't let the teams know and have their lawyers presenting, else they'd know the testers would be coming in the nights?

There are more questions than answers...

 

[No Ta Doctor]

I do wonder if any expert presented a racer's view about how tiring/disruptive a test in the middle of the sleep before the last day of the second block of consecutive days racing could be. Surely they couldn't let the teams know and have their lawyers presenting, else they'd know the testers would be coming in the nights?

There are more questions than answers...

Yes. The more I think about it the more it seems likely to be a touch pro forma. Where, I wonder, would an anonymous tip-off rank as supporting evidence for an out of hours test?

 

[mididoctors]

Maybe the serious suspicions are that they are both going faster up hills than the young French hope?

I actually think this may be true

 

[mididoctors]

Anyway

Stage 16​

Évian-les-Bains>Thonon-les-Bains 26.1 km. ​

Individual time-trial​

Well remco is going well .

The flat bit has a fair number of technical sections so not out and out bonus for remco .

Top of the GC started times. First rider off at 13:00 CEST

 

[Pross]

Maybe the serious suspicions are that they are both going faster up hills than the young French hope?

Mind you, they’d have spent the last 40 years testing virtually the whole peloton if that was the criteria.