Why I reckon Chris Froome is clean; and why cycling should be cut a little slack
It is the rest day in the Tour de France and so naturally without a doping scandal to go with it, the media are out in force questioning Chris Froome and his epic performance on Mount Ventoux, desperate to try crack the Sky rider like no rival has been able to do on the road in the hopes that he breaks down and admits it all, saying that he is on drugs. The questions about his performances have been coming thick and fast and they're the same questions every couple of days. You can see why he's getting fed up with it ... I'm getting fed up reading about it, though it's no shock that he's sticking with the denial. I mean, if he says he isn't cheating the first time, do you expect him to change that point of view with a week to go in the Tour?But that's the Tour de France for you now. No performance can go without question and the doping angle, of which cycling has aired that dirty laundry in public in order to try and right its ship remains the sinister story that the scandal driven world we live in gravitates itself towards. Drugs in cycling here in the 2013 Tour is best described by the words of Bruce Springsteen as, the darkness on the edge of town. It's subject is there, we know its there, and nobody can help themselves but to go looking for it in spite of the great action we're witnessing in front of us, for real, in this Tour.
It was always going to happen though. It happened with Bradley Wiggins last year and it's the doubled edge sword with being successful in the sport of cycling here in the second decade of the twenty-first century. On one side Froome must be delighted that he is living out his dream and going full steam ahead to win his first Tour de France, yet on the other side he must wish he was the worlds best Tennis player instead. Free to exploit your talent and free from questions. Heck, in Tennis he'd be free from a lot of the testing he must endure also.
Then again, the amount he is being tested and questioned will eventually prove rewarding for him if those tests remain clean and he finds a way to prove to the media and some elements of the fans that he is indeed clean. There will be no doubting him then. But how does he do that?
I've watched so many sporting events this past twelve months: The Olympics, the Champions League, the National Hockey League, the NBA, the NFL, Tennis tournaments and much more and never once have I heard a press conference with the leading/winning athlete/team dominated by questions on why they're performing so well and demanding to be proven to that they're doing it clean. In baseball there is a drug scandal on going right now that could lead to a series of suspensions for the offenders, but for the most part the subject is receiving side column coverage in the papers, with the main focus on the games, results and action that people pay to see.
And before you say that cycling only has itself to blame for the current cynicism because of what has gone on in the past ... a lot of these other sports I mention have been just as dirty ... it's just that you don't know about it because there wasn't a desire to try and clean them up. Say what you want about cycling being lax towards drugs in the 1990's and even during the Lance Armstrong era, but they've implemented testing that has never existed in other sports, they've gone further than any sport in history to try and weed out the cheating and yet they continue to get held to a higher standard than these other sports. Until which time these other sports are put under relentless pressure regarding drug use and a lack of testing, then I continue to find it unfair that cycling has it this way, right in the thick of it's biggest annual event.
It doesn't deserve that. It's hypocritical.
Can these people not enjoy cycling for the entertainment it is? Can't they wait until Froome tests positive or is found out via some scandal or former team-mate writing a book to hammer him? If they must smell a rat every time he exploits his talent, then they'd be better off going and watching another sport where they don't need to ask these questions.
Don't get me wrong, if Froome was caught out via a positive test or a scandal, I'd be the first to criticise him, but I love watching the sport too much to get caught up whining about possible drug use every day and I love the sport to get caught up running it down when there's other sports getting away with much worse by doing much less. On top of that, I've yet to see anything in Froome's performance that screams out 'druggie'. If anything the Tour as a whole has shown enough to point towards a cleaner race than in many editions before it.
Personally, as of today on Monday, July 15, 2013, I think he's clean. Why? Well, here's four reasons:
1. In his prime
Chris Froome is 27 years of age. I reckon the prime years of a cyclist to be between about 26 and 30. I say that because the average age of every Tour de France winner in the last 30 years (1983-2012) is 28.4 years. So take a look at Froome's major competition this year: Alberto Contador is 30, Aljeandro Valverde is 33, Joaquim Rodriguez is 34, Cadel Evans is 36, and Laurens Ten Dam is 32. All past their best years. On the other hand, Nairo Quintana is 23, Michal Kqiatkowski is 23 and Andrew Talansky is 24. Their best years still ahead of them. Only Roman Kreuziger at 27 and Jakob Fuglsang at 28 of the top ten on GC so far are in that prime range.
2. Cleaner peloton
There's good reason to believe the race is being rode clean(er) than in the past. Certainly by comparison to the 1990's and 2000's. I think the 2012 edition was clean also, but this year we're really seeing signs of it. On stage eight Froome and Sky dominate; the next day the team are dropped early and one rider is eliminated on time. On stage 13, the Saxo-Tinkoff team line out the race dropping Froome in the cross-winds, yet two days later on the climb to Ventoux they are (baring Kreuziger) struggling to help Contador. As a result of this cleaner peloton we're finally seeing clean riders able to ride up at the front: Dan Martin won a mountain stage, Laurens Ten Dam is in the mix for a top five, and Chris Froome is able to lead. Could they have done that had they been as they are now five years ago? I'm not sure. Alberto Contador seemed very suspicious back then -- backed by way of a positive test, I might add -- and now looks half the rider he once was. And what about Andy Schleck? Contador is older, but he's dropped off dramatically. He looks more realistic for an elite 30 year old. Further more people were quick to compare the Sky team to the US Postal team of the early 2000's, yet in the team competition they are only 10th, more than 54 minutes behind first place Saxo-Tinkoff and behind the likes of Ag2R and Garmin.
3. No positive test
You might raise an eyebrow at this one and say that Lance Armstrong never failed a test, neither did Bjarne Riis or Jan Ullrich, but times have changed. Back then they couldn't even test for EPO and in the 1990's it seemed there was a willingness to turn a blind eye. Today the riders are tested more and for more than any athlete in the history of sport. The bans are stiff, they have brought in out-of-competition testing, blood testing and the blood passport. Dirty riders are being caught and the system is working more than ever before. Is it perfect? Of course not, it never will be, but it's certainly a deterrent and I think if Chris Froome is on performance enhancing drugs he'll be found out sooner than later either via a failed test, the revelations of a former team-mate, a scandal of some sort, or retroactive testing of his samples. It's happened with almost every winner in the past twenty years. If that ever happens and he tests positive then we'll deal with it.
4. Talent
There is this theory that Froome came from nowhere to announce himself to the cycling world by finish second in the 2011 Vuelta. That's only true in that a lot of us weren't fully aware of him before that Spanish Tour, but that doesn't mean he didn't exist as a talent. In a era better associated with performance enhancing drugs, Froome was often beaten by men he is now beating, but still had the talent to perform admirably. He competed in his first Tour de France at the age of 23 finishing 83rd including a 31st on Alpe d'Huez and 18th in the final time-trial; a year later at age 24 he finished 36th at the Giro; a year after that he was disqualified for holding onto a motorbike on a climb after struggling with a knee injury. A waterborne parasite disease called Bilharzia that he picked up while visiting Africa set him back a year and a half before a treatment called Biltricide was found and he was able to compete again properly. Fully recovered he finished second in the Vuelta and kicked on from there. As he has grown in years he has matured in cycling from a kid with no knowledge of the sport or its history that came through the African system to one that grew into a road racer in the professional peloton and on into one who could compete at the sharp end. A late bloomer perhaps but one that has always improved when healthy.
---
The questions have to be asked, I suppose, but you can't help but wonder if Froome would have been better off finishing as close to the second place man as possible or even lost the few seconds he could afford to, to keep everyone happy? Will we possibly lose out on seeing him do what he can do on Alp d'Huez in order to appease the masses by finishing on Froome's wheel, or will he say to hell with what people think and go on the attack in search of even more time. I hope it's the later. Before this Tour I didn't care too much who won so long as it was close. A back and forth battle throughout the mountains all the way to the penultimate stage. Now though, the way people are getting their backs up at Froome's riding, I think I'd get a kick out of seeing him go for it every day he felt he had the legs to do so and win this Tour by a huge margain. Then again, I'm not sure I could handle the nonsense I'd have to read as a result.
It's funny, because some of the same people who are disappointed at the sight of Froome's aggression and what that potentially means, were also disappointed when the likes of Andy Schleck, Cadel Evans and Bradley Wiggins won their Tours without being very aggressive.
One angle that many feel counts against Froome is the times he has set riding up some of the climbs. According to some unofficial accounts -- measured by geeks the moment he crossed the line in a desperate attempt to build a case against him -- Froome set a time up Ventoux that was quicker than a lot of known dopers in the past and almost as quick as Armstrong in his pomp. So what does that mean? Well, as a number, it means very little.
You just can't just compare different times up the same climb over different years. People try to reason it by showing the average power these different riders put out on the climb, but unless you have the power metre off the crank of each of those riders, it's speculation and guess work at best. Then again, many people don't require little more than speculation and guess work to point the finger.
When comparing the times and trying to figure out the power numbers, are we factoring in the wind direction, wind speed, temperature, humidity, how much racing had been done overall at the time of the climb, how much racing had been done on the day, how much climbing had been done before the climb, how intensive that climbing was, how much pressure was on in the lower slopes?
Remember yesterday was a flat stage leading in, there was a favorable wind for a large part of the climb and Quintana attacked early forcing the pace to be high on the lower slopes. Unless they time-trial, alone in the same conditions from the same point at the bottom to the same point at the top on the same day, then comparing times is merely fun for interests sake, but certainly no guaranteed indicator of drug use. I could go climb a hill near my home today in a tailwind having rode fifty flat kilometres before hand and go up it far quicker than if I went tomorrow in a headwind having rode fifty hilly kilometres before hand. Doesn't mean I'm using drugs today.
There are calls for Froome and Sky to reveal their power numbers and their blood passport information but unless we're going to ask this of every team then I think it's unfair to request it of one just because their man is the leader. Do Red Bull make public the telemetry of Sebastian Vettel to prove to F1 fans there's no dodgy goings on in the Red Bull car? The reason they don't is because seeing such information would be of a benefit to their rivals. For Contador to see where exactly the threshold of performance, recovery, and power is for Chris Froome would give him an advantage.
So could they give the information to an independent expert? I suppose that is possible once the Tour is over, but how do we prove independence? You can bet now that should this expert come back and say it's all good and Chris Froome is definitely clean, then the doubters -- who I am fully convinced will be doubters forever after -- will claim the expert wasn't independent enough.
And anyway, if his blood passport is flagged up by an independent expert wouldn't it be flagged up beforehand by those monitoring it now anyway? And as for the power numbers, what do you measure them against? Who decides what the cut off in power is for clean and dirty? Do we have the official power numbers of Lance Armstrong? As I said before, it isn't just about the number itself but the conditions in which they are attained: Amount of riding before the big effort, the weather, the demands of the stage. And over what time do you base those numbers? A 10 minute stretch of the same climb? The whole climb? The whole stage? I have to imagine it's going to be hard to obtain those official figures across many riders over many years and factor in and out the various relevant and irrelevant data.
All of this stuff gives some people a real kick. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a power metre on my bike from which to train myself better, but the idea of analysing / generalising Froome's data the moment he crosses the line really isn't for me. I'd like to someday see the official numbers out of interests sake, but in the moment I prefer to be enjoying the action that just entertained me, maybe finishing up a cold beer, or perhaps considering going out on my own bike for a ride, if not to emulate Froome, Mark Cavendish, Peter Sagan or whoever won that day, but to be inspired by it.
Words like 'benefit of the doubt' are hard to sell to many cycling fans given what they have been put through and I understand that, but until which times I see or hear something that leaps out as suspicious, be it a positive test, his name showing up on the books of some dodgy doctor, or a few allegations from fellow riders, then I don't see why I shouldn't give Froome the chance to do what he does and entertain me without jumping up and down in anger.
Cycling has gone through the mud to try and clean itself up and as a fan I feel I should give it the same treatment I do any other sport ... indeed better treatment because of what it has done. If we're not willing to do that or we feel we cannot because of what we've been through, then we'd be better off walking away. It would be the less hypocritical thing to do. The British Open starts this weekend and the Premier League season is less than a month away.
