The flawed WADA testing methodology is significant and may clear Froome. Dehydration is a significant variable. If the methodology was based on swimmers, that should have been noted and publicized last year, not just now.

When I was involved in endurance events during the 1970s in my late teens and 20s I had some wonky blood and urine tests -- proteinuria and other problems -- caused by dehydration. Didn't affect my participation since these events were such low level amateur races nobody bothered with testing. But it concerned my doctor when I'd show up with a weird grab bag of symptoms and wonky blood and urine tests. I just wasn't drinking enough and back then I avoided using salt on food, didn't drink Gatorade, etc.

Personally I don't care one way or another -- I don't dislike or distrust Froome. He seems like a perfectly nice fellow. I just find him to be the least exciting dominant champion in my lifetime, and that includes Indurain who wasn't particularly charismatic but at least looked like an unstoppable freight train in his peak. Froome looks like a pterodactyl that swooped out of the sky, killed the actual cyclist and stole his bike. It's still hard to imagine how such an awkward, ungainly guy with his elbows flapping like bony leathery wings can be aerodynamic.

OTOH, his recovery in the Giro and dominance in the late mountain stages sorta forced me into grudging admiration. If he's clean -- at least within applicable standards -- that's pretty good evidence of Sky's many marginal gains philosophy, as well as Froome's own mental toughness. He's starved himself 20 lbs below his natural weight to do this. If he's done it without the benefit of enough salbutamol/albuterol to affect his lean muscle mass/low fat physique, that's a pretty significant feat. Appetite has been the downfall of many otherwise great or potentially great athletes. And at the elite level, even the tiniest indiscretion in diet can make a difference in a field crowded with equally hungry and determined competitors.