Tour de France competitions: conditioning, bikes, and drugs?

 Agence France Presse (AFP) reports on the bike race, and speculates on the historical competition between drug takers and drug testers.

Pogacar's Tour superiority stirs up old doping debate.  Tadej Pogacar's towering domination of this year's Tour de France is once again raising eyebrows in a sport long tainted by the spectre of doping.

"Pogacar himself brushes off the suggestions of skulduggery he has had to face ever since his first Tour win five years ago, always insisting that he should be "trusted".

"Last October he said to dope "is to ruin your life". "I don't want to take the risk of falling ill one day," he added, pointing out that cycling was "a victim of its past".
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He continued, with an air of resignation: "There is no trust, and I don't know what can be done to restore it."

Dope-testing on the Tour

"Around 600 blood and urine samples will be collected from the peloton during this year's race, with 350 out-of-competition samples taken in the run-up to cycling's blue riband event. 

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"A selection of the samples are held for 10 years to allow for retro-testing with the advance of new detection techniques.

The UCI also inspects bikes to prevent any technical cheating.

While ketones to help store energy are permitted and widely used, the UCI banned the inhalation of carbon monoxide earlier this year.

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"Pogacar's ability to smash records set by infamous dopers like disgraced seven-time winner Lance Armstrong or Pantani is remarkable.

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"And as in other sports, cycling has made enormous progress since the EPO years.

"Technology has led to faster bikes, with the Tour's technical director Thierry Gouvenou suggesting a there has been a 10% gain in performance just thanks to better two-wheeled machines. Nutrition and training have also evolved."