Blazin' Saddles: Cycling's Sky falls in after Chris Froome revelation
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Published 15/12/2017 at 16:48 GMT
As another scandal hits the sport, fans are being asked to suspend their disbelief once again – this time following news that Team Sky's Chris Froome had two times the acceptable amount of asthma medication in his system en route to winning La Vuelta in September.
Sky's British cyclist Chris Froome poses on the podium with the leader's red jersey at the end of the 3rd stage of the 72nd edition of 'La Vuelta' Tour of Spain cycling race on August 21, 2017 in Andorra la Vella. The 3rd stage was a 158,5km route between
Image credit: Getty Images
Chris Froome's historic Tour-Vuelta double was meant to be a breath of fresh air. Instead it has left fans gasping. Let's not beat about the bush: there are no positives in this story.
Even Froome at this point hasn't technically returned a positive test per se: while his urine sample taken on September 7 after Stage 18 of the Vuelta significantly exceeded the inhaled limit permitted for the otherwise legal asthma drug salbutamol, this 'adverse analytical finding' is not yet an 'anti-doping violation'.
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Contador attacks on Stage 18 of La Vuelta, Froome follows
Yet Froome has some explaining to do. Say what he likes – and Froome has stressed not to have knowingly done any wrong – there's no good that can come from this tale.
Indeed, Froome's claim that he'd "followed the protocol" and "not overstepped any boundaries" is at odds with the fact that he exceeded the allowable upper limit of salbutamol not by a mere smidgen – but by a factor of two.
As one prominent commentator, the sports scientist and anti-doping campaigner Ross Tucker, explains: "That's a big miss – like going out to buy a TV with a budget of $1000 and coming home with an 84-inch flat screen and surround speakers."
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Sky's British cyclist Christopher Froome smiles as he sports the overall leader's red jersey on the podium of the 20th stage of the 72nd edition of 'La Vuelta' Tour of Spain cycling race, a 117.5 km route from Corvera de Asturias to Alto de L'Angliru
Image credit: Getty Images
Froome's predicament has baffled most people because we are talking a substance whose performance-enhancing benefits are highly dubious. In the words of Professor Chris Cooper, Froome "would have to be really stupid" to try and cheat with salbutamol via an inhaler. Even Froome said as much in his defence – not that such a fact can rule stupidity out.
At best, then, it's a monumental mess-up – an uncharacteristically rookie error – by the rider, his team and his doctors. Even breaching the 1000 ng/ml threshold for salbutamol by a factor of two signifies a major bungle.
For all this happened after Froome, dogged by asthma after being put on the ropes by Vincenzo Nibali on the steep ramp to Los Machucos during the Vuelta, admitted he "followed the team doctor's advice to increase my salbutamol dosage."
As always, I took the greatest care to ensure that I did not use more than the permissible dose.
If the most successful stage racer of his generation on the most professional team in the sport in the third biggest race of the season managed to find himself in this sorry situation after taking the greatest care, then it's a mystery why there aren't a flurry of similar adverse analytical findings for salbutamol for less well-supported riders throughout the season.
After all, it's not as if elite cyclists – not least those from Sky – are strangers to the perils of asthma. Recent studies have shown that a third of Sky riders and 70% of the top British swimmers are prone to reach for an inhaler.
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Alberto Contador looks over his shoulder to check on Chris Froome during Stage 18 of La Vuelta
Image credit: Getty Images
Who knows what happened during the Vuelta. At the moment, we're being led to believe that even Froome hasn't a clue – which is why he finds himself in this sorry situation.
But some things simply don't add up. It's not as if Froome or Sky are rookies. The 32-year-old has now won five Grand Tours; his history of asthma and salbutamol use is well documented; he and his doctors know what they're doing, they know his physiology inside out, they know about the limits and about the risks and about the consequences. And yet, this.
By virtue of their status, success and hard-line approach to doping, Sky are always going to be scrutinised more severely than their peloton rivals. Behaving in an honourable, transparent manner was a founding principle - avoiding even the suspicion wrongdoing.
But in the past few years we've had stories about overzealous TUE use, triamcinolone, tramadol, testosterone patches, prednisone, salbutamol and jiffy bags; we've seen two biological passport cases (leading in one dismissal); we've had former doping doctors being hired and fired (Geert Leinders), other doctors refusing to talk then disappearing into thin air (Richard Freeman), directeurs sportifs leaving under a cloud (Steven de Jongh and Bobby Julich); there have even been suggestions of deals being offered to journalists to steer clear of damaging stories.
And yet, and yet… it seems to be business as usual: nothing to see here, move on. It's almost as if Sky see it as an affront that the story was broken in the first place.
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Froome bares all after his Vuelta victory
Image credit: Eurosport
Froome learned of his infraction on September 20 – the day he rode to bronze in the world championships time trial. He since negotiated his ticket to Israel for the 2018 Giro d'Italia – and an alleged $2m performance fee – knowing that his case was the first thing to have fallen into the in-tray of the new UCI president.
As David Lappartient took up his role on the same day Froome heard the bad news, the out-going Brian Cookson left the UCI headquarters knowing that the sport was facing its biggest scandal in years – and yet he still said in a subsequent interview that Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky deserved to have their reputations "reinstated" following the unproven doping allegations concerning a now-infamous jiffy bag.
The same Wiggins whose wife this week branded Froome a "slithering reptile" on social media (before quickly apologising) for what she saw as their throwing her husband under the bus in order to protect their new number one asset.
Meanwhile, a week after chewing the fat with the Cycling Podcast's Richard Moore and Orla Chennaoui without any apparent worry in the world – during which he stressed his unyielding stance on motor-doping – we now have Froome trying to use his predicament to become an unofficial spokesperson for UK asthma sufferers.
The state of this sport, eh?
But we should hardly be surprised. This is pro cycling. Even in today's ostensibly clean era we've had failed drugs tests on the eve of every Grand Tour in 2017 – not to forget eight riders testing positive for EPO at the Tour of Colombia. Heck, even since the Froome scandal broke, we've seen three Dutch riders sent home from a training camp for self-medicating with sleeping pills.
Who are we kidding if we believe a fresh cast of protagonists is necessarily going to change the script?
Now Froome and Sky must convince the UCI of their cast-iron assertion that they do not belong among the wrongdoers.
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Team Sky's cyclist celebrate on the podium after winning the 1st stage of the 71st edition of 'La Vuelta' Tour of Spain, a 27,8 km team trial time between Balneario Laias to Castrelo de Mino (Ourense) on August 20, 2016.
Image credit: Eurosport
So, what next? Well, Sky will have already hired the best lawyers in the business and will be working on Froome's defence. Given the laws of strict liability, the onus will be on the lifelong sufferer of asthma to prove his innocence – and he won't be able to simply claim he absentmindedly over-puffed, because such slapdashery simply won't cut the mustard.
Froome has promised that a "wealth of information" can prove his innocence – but that sounds rather ominous from a team renowned for losing their medical records, grappling with Dropbox and having their doctors' laptops stolen while on holiday.
He claims his legacy will not be tarnished by this story but that's just castles in the Sky. Cycling fans have seen enough to develop a deep cynicism. Fair or not - and even if he is completely exonerated - this casts a pall on Froome's career.
Froome will hit the lab for controlled tests, get himself into a suitably dehydrated state and prove that it's possible for him to take the legal dose of salbutamol and still produce the same adverse concentrations of the drug in his urine. Yet how do you replicate the exact conditions as well as the two weeks prior to that – not to mention the effort he made in winning the Tour two months earlier?
It's going to take a stricken age – reaching perhaps beyond the Giro d'Italia, which Froome could feasibly win before having his maglia rosa snatched away a la Contador in 2011.
Because while some riders have got away with a slap on the wrist for excessive levels of salbutamol – Miguel Indurain, for instance – others have been less lucky, including, most recently, the Italian Diego Ulissi, banned for nine months.
Any sanction would of course involve the stripping of one half of Froome's historic Tour-Vuelta double. If it comes sooner than expected, it could also reopen the Giro door to Geraint Thomas, Froome's dependable team-mate who once claimed that asthma sufferers should forget cycling and "go work in an office".
Such an eventuality would then present Sky with something of a dilemma. After all, doesn't the team's zero tolerance stance stretch to not employing anyone who has ever served a doping ban?
It remains to be seen if a sanctioned Froome will be fired or welcomed back to have a crack at Tour number five in the new whiter than white colours of Sky. There's a big chance, of course, that this fiasco could even prove the final nail in the embattled team's coffin.
With Rupert Murdoch's Sky and Fox News being sold to Disney, the on-going Froome fandango could be the sequel to Fantasia we've all been waiting for.
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