Smoothie104

https://www.procycling.com/news.aspx?ID=1427


Customs raid team vehicles
14/07/2005
procycling gets a first-hand viewing of a swoop by French customs on a number of team vehicles before this morning's stage.


PIC BY TDWSPORT.COM

It was the quintessential, Bastille Day, Tour de France scene: luminous blue skies, the picnic-hamper brigade out in force, a route fit for a coach tour through the southern Alps towards the Cote d’Azur… and customs officers rummaging for drugs in two Tour de France team vehicles on the D942 in Tallard.

It was 11.20 local time when, en route to Thursday’s stage finish in Digne-Les Bains, procycling’s Renault Mégane approached the intersection south of Gap where the D942 joins the A51 motorway. With the Tour de France road-book recommending this deviation for suiveurs not travelling on the day’s 187km race route, a sizeable convoy of accredited vehicles was heading in the same direction. Among them, as is the case every day on the hors course itinerary, were several cars, team camper vans and mechanics’ lorries. So far, so unremarkable.

Only on closer inspection of the two vehicles in a stopping area in sight of the A51 péage did it dawn that the Phonak team camper probably hadn’t parked up alongside an unmarked police car to exchange restaurant recommendations - and that our reporters may be witnessing an attempted drugs raid.

A further hundred metres down the road these suspicions were confirmed. Adjacent to a roundabout which fed into the A51 toll booth was a car park which lay empty but for a yellow transit van devoid of any distinguishing marks and a white car marked ‘Douane’ or ‘Customs’. A circuit of the roundabout and a right turn led into the car park and close enough to see the van’s rear double-doors propped open to reveal its interior and a slender figure dressed in a Liberty Seguros T-Shirt. Three customs officers were stooped over a suitcase laid open on the tarmac. Another urgently signalled to the procycling vehicle to clear the area.

Early this afternoon the Tour press-corps received confirmation of the raids and the news that three other teams' vehicles had been stopped in random controls. The French authorities stated that the searches were not intended to target specific vehicles and that no seizures were made. Ag2r Prévoyance, Bouygues Telecom and Davitamon-Lotto were the other teams whose vehicles were searched as they made their way to Digne-Les Bains.

While the Tour could let out a collective sigh of relief this afternoon, the fact that the searches uncovered no incriminating evidence will do nothing to ease the convoy’s heightening drugs neurosis. Following Evgeni Petrov’s failed haematocrit test on Monday, the Frigo couple’s arrest, and revelations about a new, test-proof method of EPO abuse on this site yesterday, Thursday’s raids will please those, like Amore e Vita team boss Ivano Fanini, who believe that doping is still widespread in the peloton.

Speaking yesterday, Fanini commented that “Frigo’s arrest is only the latest in a long line of incidents which demonstrate how competitive cycling is degenerating into an exercise in sporting fraud.” Fanini, who earlier this year was sanctioned by the UCI for branding its 50 per cent haematocrit limit an “invitation to dope”, scorned the view that record average speeds in the Tour so far could be accounted for by favourable winds in the first 10 days of the race.

“The current average speed in the Tour is astronomical and it’s inexplicable that in 1996, when there were still no EPO tests and it was easy to dope, the top speed was never more than 41 or 42 kilometres an hour […] Can it possibly be that such a quantum leap is merely the fruit of technical progress? If the people in charge of teams do little or nothing to eradicate the use of banned substances in their own teams, then we’d all be better off staying at home for the good of cycling.”

Mojo GoGo

Ah, good to see no drugs were found! Now, what was the strength of the prevailing tailwind again?

DocRay

What the press misses, almost always, is the fact that most doping is done during training, not the actual racing, so of course they won't find anything. It is difficult to clear EPO if it was overdone in training to close to the race.

They should test tour racers all year long.

There is enough data after 100 years of TDF to know that there has to be significant "enhancement" , or a new era in human evolution to explain the performance gains.

lotek 

they do, read about Lances experiences
in Its not about the bike
I believe they call them non race controls.
happens all the time throughout the year.

Marty

DocRay

maybe they should raid more training camps throughout the year.

ed073

They do....and it's not just Tour racers.

gmason

There is a significant "enhancement" . Several actually.

The equipment alone has to add a lot of performance gain. Single speed to 30 speeds; much lower weight; etc. Then there is the improvement in the roads - have you noticed how many newly paved sections they race on? That is an annual affair. Then there are the enormous advances in training regimens and diet.

Think what you will. There are a lot of legitimate reasons for the improvements.

ckleps

Question for anyone who knows tour history, because I know close to nothing. Has the percentage of full time racers remained the same throughout the history of the tour?

j.foster

If i remember rightly, none of them were full time racers in the very first tour.

alanbikehouston

One factor in Tour speeds is never mentioned: the condition of the roads. I have seen photos of the same exact places in the Tour taken in 1940, 1960, 1980, and 2004 and 2005. First, it is a narrow goat path, with clods of dirt, and large rocks. Then, it is a dirt road, with gravel and small rocks. Then, it is a very smooth dirt road, with well packed, smooth gravel. Then it is a wider asphalt road, which can melt and turn to tar in the July sun. And, finally, it is a very wide, very smooth "perfect" concrete road.

Likewise, many of the tight, twisting and turning descents from the mountains have been replaced with more gently curving roads that permit safely descending at 50 mph or 60 mph. Crash barriers guide the riders around curves where, twenty years ago, a miscalculation sent a rider over a cliff.

A British rider was attempting to "pre-ride" the Tour one year. He had a map that showed the Tour would go from "Town A" to "Town "B". There were two or three roads connecting the towns. He did not know which road to take. Then he discovered: the road to be used in the Tour de France would be absolutely perfect. Every pothole and crack had been paved over.

If he was on the WRONG road, he felt as if he was riding from Paris to Roubaix, and he discovered the French have dozens of ways to post a sign that says "Bad road ahead"...road impassable ahead"....road dangerous ahead".

The difference between a horrible road and a perfect road may be worth 10 mph over a 200 mile stage. And the difference between a mediocre road and a perfect road may be worth 3 mph or 5 mph per stage.

And, over three weeks, those BAD roads of the past were a major factor in how few riders survived to Paris, and a goodly number of serious and even fatal crashes. Today, great roads permit even some of the sprinters to make it all the way to Paris, although they may be finishiing hours behind the yellow jersey.

gcasillo

Did they get Robbie's altitude tent?

^*^BATMAN^*^

Makes alot of sense.....

Allen H

The TdF is France's modern "mini-Olympics" every year - i.e., these villages that are selected as starting
or finishing points on a stage get spiffed up, knowing tourist $$ will flow in while they're on center stage. And the roads for each stage get fixed, etc. - so capital improvements happen because of the TdF, thanks to the added media coverage and commercial sponsorship today, compared to years ago.