Doping is a scourge for our sport of cycling and has always been. However, a legitimate question arises : has doping never existed in the world of cycling? ? We are not going to redo the list of cases that have spanned the history of cycling since its beginning, but it is certain that the effort required sometimes seems superhuman..
Cycling's dark period of the years 1990 / 2000 is it finished ? From a control point of view we could say yes, but is this the case ? Only the community could say it but it is obvious that a certain omerta reigns there.. In any case at the level of facts the period “Sky” already seemed strange in view of the followers. Bradley Wiggins who discovers climbing legs to win the Tour. Christopher Froome runner who came out of nowhere and started walking overnight and ended up in the anonymity of the peloton after his departure from the British structure are very suspicious elements and History will surely reveal its truth in broad daylight in a more or less distant time.
But this period is not the subject of this editorial. Let's focus instead on current cycling. A cycling that could make the period pass “Sky” for common cyclo tourists. Number of general classification runners walking at the time and who disappeared overnight from traffic could perhaps testify to this. But since 2020 and Tadej Pogacar's victory in the Tour de France a shadow hangs over world cycling with increasingly strong riders, who seem invincible, records broken by the shovel, an impression of being back in the EPOque as it is nicknamed. The more or less successful suspicions are well underway, and the feeling of unease or embarrassment is more and more present when watching our beloved sport on television (or online rather, From now on…).
Tadej Pogacar who flies over the final time of the Tour de France in 2020 and thus overthrows the final general is certainly an upheaval and emotions that we have not experienced on the Tour for a long time but after the moment it raises questions. Of the “mutants” as we call them, nothing seems to resist. Take the example of sprinter Wout Van Aert / flandria / puncheur / roller and now climber, profiles from the old days , a kind of Terminator, by Robocop, as you want cycling. As they say, the bigger the better…
To avoid being treated as “cock-a-doodle Doo” let's talk a little about French :Julian Alaphilippe even if his performances currently seem more normal (drop in level on its part or on the contrary increase in level of competition ?). Christophe Laporte who by changing team sees his level multiply. But it is well known that French teams do not work, do not have the “good tools” as Patrick Lefévère would say.
The “good tools” let's talk about it and take examples that concern a nation : Belgium. Nothing very personal against the Belgians but let's say it is this nation which surprises the most since 2 years, more generally the Belgian teams.
Take this start of the season 2023 for example. The first name that comes to mind, Kobe Goossens. Certainly not a bad runner, in the background of the general rankings, often in good shape at the start of the season but this season is impressing to say the least. A Merckxian number on the Trofeo Andratx, 70km of a raid that we hardly see anymore. Then the next day a new victory on the Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana, as if his epic of the day before had not tired him. In the same team we can cite Rui Costa, the resurgent Portuguese winner of the Tour of the Valencian Community recently. More generally, the observation that we make in this Intermarché Circus Wanty team is the meteoric progress of the riders who sign there., even rebirth for some ! Which makes some say by distortion of its sponsors to call it “Bricomarché” or “‘Magic Circus”. This observation can be applied to all the main Belgian first division teams, how many times comments have been made about runners who no longer advance once they leave the Quick Step ? For Lotto the Arnaud De Lie case seems more and more embarrassing. This boy has a talent, we have no doubt but seeing him with his size and his sprinter profile start to climb real passes and finish 8th on Mont Bouquet (!) and cannot withstand repeated efforts, it questions.
To conclude on Belgian cycling becoming the “land of good tools” is creating a three-speed cycling. Two-speed cycling which has been reborn in recent years (clear distinctions between large formations such as UAE, Jumbo, Ineos, Quick Step, Bora who monopolize the first places and leave little to the others) is now surpassed by a “third gear”, certain teams and certain Belgian riders to which we could add the mutants (Van Aert, Van der Poel, Evenepoel, Pogacar even Vingegaard if we just mention the Tour)…
In short, the UCI after having dismembered Portuguese cycling certainly filled with boilers and organized doping in teams but at the Continental level therefore invisible to most of the followers and after having taken care of certain Colombians should look at Belgian cycling. Unless of course she turns a blind eye or, worse, the anti-doping authorities cannot detect new substances. (it is well known that doping is always one step ahead of the fight against doping). In this case let's try to look at cycling above all as a spectacle, like the games of the Roman circus and not via the prism of strictly natural which makes us ask so many questions at the moment. In the end, cycling has certainly not changed, we know that History is an eternal start again, such was in the past, such will be in the future.
