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This is the most mind-boggling cheating scandal ever. It jiggles my engineering nerves in place I didn't know was possible.
What makes cycling so particularly attractive to cheating? Or is cheating in cycling just getting more publicity than in other sports?
That said, there are pretty amazing stories about cyclists cheating - perhaps because the sport is so grueling that small advantages can really translate to substantial gains. One of my favorites for the Tour de France was cyclists being pulled by cars attached by fishing line to a piece of cork held in the mouth!
If these bikers lost these races, and i am left to assume they did since the scandal hasn't boiled over yet, i think they can safely pack it in. Losing a race you cheated in is about as low as i can imagine this getting.
What makes cycling so particularly attractive to cheating? Or is cheating in cycling just getting more publicity than in other sports?
What makes cycling so particularly attractive to cheating? Or is cheating in cycling just getting more publicity than in other sports?
Where stars aren't getting caught testing is lax or the drugs have outrun the testing regimes (basketball, crossfit, tennis).
In the year 2016, believing that the best athletes aren't using the same drugs as everyone else requires willful suspension of disbelief. After all, look at what they did for eg Barry Bonds -- they turned a clear hall of fame player into probably the best to ever play baseball. Every star athlete, and they tend to be ultra competitive, wants the same thing.
the thing with mechanical doping is that if you aren't caught red-handed, you are free, with doping some races/competitions will freeze your samples and they can be tested years later to find out if you were using something that wasn't testable yet, but with mechanical doping, once you're done the race you're safe. And over a course of a grand tour stage, even if the boost is only 25W, it can easily make the differen…
Seems trivial to detect now though. It's no problem to just tear down the bikes of the first X finishers to look for mechanical aids. Detecting doping reliably is much trickier. edit: I think most high level bikes use carbon fibre frames? You could probably just use x-ray or ultrasound imaging to look for anything suspicious in the frame.
Drivers have been disqualified in the past for a spoiler or brake caliper measurement that are millimetres out, and I remember Daniel Ricciardo was stripped of his podium here in Australia a couple of years back when his fuel flow regulator was found to have a flow rate that was a few mils out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How long do they typically use a bike? For big races, it might not be entirely absurd to cut up the frame after the race, just to be sure.
From the video linked, it sounds like they can (legally) switch bikes during the race, so they could just switch back to a legit bike close to the finish.
What makes cycling so particularly attractive to cheating? Or is cheating in cycling just getting more publicity than in other sports?
A combination of FLIR and homologation could go a long way to solve this problem. FLIR seems like an excellent start.