Tour de France To Use Thermal Cameras To Spot Cheats (npr.org)

An anonymous reader writes: At this year's Tour de France, thermal cameras and various other tools will be used to detect "mechanical doping." The image tests can be done anywhere and their locations will not be publicized, according to officials. NPR reports: "As far back as at least 2010, accusations have flown that elite cyclists were turning in superhuman performances with the help of motors that are hidden inside their bike's seat tube. Commercial versions of such devices can provide a steady power stream of around 200 watts -- the lower range of a pro cyclist's average output in a stage race. They can also be set to assist riders automatically if their pedaling cadence falls below a certain threshold. Tour de France officials explain how the detection system will work: 'Developed by the CEA (the French Atomic Energy Commission), the method consists of using a thermal imaging camera capable of detecting mechanical anomalies on the riders' bikes. The checks can be made in the race and on the side of the roads.'"

Comments

So what

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats the fucking problem with attaching a v8 to your bike? It would be much more exciting to watch if they were traveling as NASCAR speeds.

Re:So what

[Anonymous Coward]

may i recommend you watch the North West 200 or the Isle of Mann TT?

Re:So what

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Especially the collisions!

Re: So what

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you're joking and I don't think you should be at -1. However, there are actually a lot of similarities between restrictor plate racing and cycling races. Especially in the first several laps after a restart, you'll generally see something that looks a lot like a peloton. While the big one is fun to see when it happens, it isn't good for the quality of racing afterwards, and generally makes me dislike restrictor plate racing. However, I understand that it's necessary to reduce speeds for safety and it does turn it into a race that has a lot of similarities to a cycling race.

Why not just

[Anonymous Coward]

check the seat tubes? Wouldn't it be cheaper?

Re: Why not just

[Anonymous Coward]

Stfu. You're going to ruin it for some contractor who is making tens of millions off this.

Re: Why not just

[WarJolt]

Many tubed are sealed.

Re:Why not just

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, probably not cheaper in terms of hours of effort needed to disassemble bikes and deal with bikes that might not designed to give easy access to the tubes they want. Heck, it would take more time and effort to use a boroscope with every bike required to have a suitable opening for it to inspect tubes. There is a reason thermal cameras are popular for various external inspections in industry, replacing more time-consuming disassembly and opening of equipment.

Re: Why not just

[davester666]

Just have them all ride through an airport x-ray scanner at the start of each stage...as well as all the bikes on the support car...

Re: Why not just

[Anonymous Coward]

Because a high end thermal camera is cheaper than an airport or industrial x-ray scanner, and is quicker to use on a large number of bikes?

Re: Why not just

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, they already do inspect the bikes... but riders switch them out near the course.

Re: Why not just

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that's easily fixed. Scrutineers could attach breakable stickers with a random QR code to the frame before the race and they check for the presence of the same sticker at the finish line. (Assume: the area after the finish line is "quarantined" so they can't do another switcheroo before the second check.) They could further frustrate cheats by having spot checks mid-race.

Re: Why not just

[beastofburdon]

They could check this with a camera as they crossed the finish line, or anywhere else throughout the race.

What about drug testing?

[Joe_Dragon]

What about drug testing?

Re: What about drug testing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Drug testing the thermal cameras or the bikes?

Re:What about drug testing?

[hcs_$reboot]

This is another matter - much less cheating in this area after Lance Armstrong doping scandal.

Re:What about drug testing?

[ls671]

But, but, I Soviet Russia, we get barred from the Olympic Games.

Re:What about drug testing?

[Opportunist]

Why not make them display what they use? That way we'd at least get to see what stuff works.

Re:What about drug testing?

[Shoten]

What about drug testing?

What about it? This has nothing to do with drugs; this is a way of detecting an entirely new method of cheating. It's not replacing or displacing drug testing.

Think of it like this: with the advent of computer-based crime came new forms of fraud and new laws to prosecute them. They didn't throw any of the existing laws out as a result, however.

Re:What about drug testing?

[Shoten]

Why not make them display what they use? That way we'd at least get to see what stuff works.

At what point would they do this, exactly? And what would keep them from swapping out the bike before/after?

I get a feeling that a lot of the people commenting on this article have never actually watched professional cycling. They all say "the bike" like there's only one bicycle in use here; in fact, multiple types of bikes are used, as well as multiple instances of each bike. Watch the support cars; you'll see spare wheels and even entire spare bikes on some of them. So playing a shell game whereby you swap an inspected bike out with one that hasn't been checked...and then, before the finish line, swap them back again...would be relatively simple.

Re: What about drug testing?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's already a massive amount of drug testing for professional cyclists. Sure, the cheaters can and do find new drugs to cheat with but it's getting a lot harder. There's also pretty stringent testing for blood doping through transfusions in addition to the testing for EPO that's been in place for a long time. Cycling is one of the sports that takes drug testing very seriously and has caught a lot of cheats. Maybe there are cheats out there using new performance enhancing drugs that aren't yet tested for, but it's not for a lack of effort to catch the cheaters. Much like Major League Baseball, cycling once had a really bad reputation as a cesspool of doping. Both now have outstanding programs in place to detect PED use. If anything, the difficulty in doping might be why cyclists would turn to altering the bikes to cheat. The drug testing is so good that the cheaters have to find other ways to break the rules, perhaps.

Re:What about drug testing?

[CastrTroy]

Personally, I think they should do away with team cars. There's too much furniture on the road anyway, and things are getting unsafe. Have neutral service cars with spare wheels, which are pretty much all compatible at this point.

If your whole frame breaks, or some other crucial part such that you need a new bike, they should just be forced to take a neutral service bike so they can finish the stage, but I don't see much reason why somebody should feel the need to win the stage if their bike breaks half way through the stage. Note that it has happened that somebody went on to win the stage on a teammate's bike that was the wrong size.

Re: What about drug testing?

[slazzy]

To make sure they are doing enough drugs?

Re: What about drug testing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that the roads are too crowded. Some of the problem is the TV cars and motorbikes, too. I seem to remember a couple of years ago, one of the TV cars hit a rider, knocking him off the road into a barbed wire fence. Somehow he managed to get back on the bike and finish the stage.

However, I'm not sure I agree with getting rid of the team cars entirely. There's a time limit for each stage, for which riders must finish within a certain percentage of the stage winner in order to stay in the race. It's highly unlikely to matter on a flat stage but it can matter on a mountain stage. Finishing a stage on a neutral bike could also affect the overall outcome of the race if it happened to a contender in the mountains. If there's a problem with a bike and someone falls behind the peloton, the team cars help to get the rider back up to the rear of the peloton. They're not supposed to do this but the officials tend to let it go if it's not too egregious.

I'd like to get rid of a lot of the TV cars, first. There are already cameras on helicopters. If you want to get lower, put a camera on a drone. If it's still too crowded, then consider more restrictions on team cars.

Re:What about drug testing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have neutral service cars with spare wheels, which are pretty much all compatible at this point

They were all compatible. 100mm, QR front, 130mm, QR rear for road bikes.

Now we're seeing through-axle designs, which I'm not sure is TdF approved (yet). Through-axle is still in the many-specifications phase, last time I checked. And some fools are trying to get disc brakes approved for road races (they were briefly allowed by UCI, but I think after someone got sliced up, I think they stopped the trial).

As for "neutral service bike", bike frames have different sizes. How do you size your neutral service bike - for the shortest TdF contestant? Or for the average one (sorry short people). What about pedals - go flat? Or what clipless style do you prefer? What about crank length? Stem rise and reach?

Do you see the problem yet?

But, perhaps you think they could just stock the necessary parts to fix a bike. Which is where you discover that the best thing about bicycle standards is that there are so many to choose from.

Re:What about drug testing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh. What you mean to say is:

In Soviet Russia, Olympic Games bars YOU!

Re:What about drug testing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have neutral service cars with spare wheels, which are pretty much all compatible at this point.

There's a French company called Mavic that makes bike parts and they have neutral assistance cars with spare wheels and spare bikes on them, which they will give to any rider.

http://www.mavic.com/neutral-assistance

I don't see much reason why somebody should feel the need to win the stage if their bike breaks half way through the stage.

These words seem to make a legal sentence but I don't understand what you are trying to say here. You think that these intensely competitive people are likely to think "my bike broke, guess I'll just drop out of the race"? There are some riders who would be content with winning any random stage, but other riders are going for overall time (the "GC" riders), and that means they want the quickest possible finish on every stage.

Yes, there are some people who are happy if they just make it all the way to the finishing line, but I don't know why you think every rider will be so blase about finishing a stage after breaking a bike.

Note that it has happened that somebody went on to win the stage on a teammate's bike that was the wrong size.

In the TdF nobody fixes a flat; they just swap the whole wheel and keep riding. If a GC team captain has a flat, one of his team riders will swap bikes with him and get the flat wheel swapped out.

It's true that there are some riders who are just there to sprint, and will drop out of the race once it hits the mountain stages. But that means that every stage they start, they want to finish, and they can't win the sprint if they aren't there at the front when the pack reaches the finishing line.

Re:What about drug testing?

[Grishnakh]

I have a simple solution for all of this: you get one bike to finish the stage, and whatever tools and parts you can carry with you. That's it.

If your bike breaks and you can't fix it yourself on the side of the road with the tools you're carrying, you don't finish, or you can walk.

This whole idea of having support cars and spare bikes just defeats the whole point of cycling. If you're in a car race and your engine blows up, you don't get to swap out to another car. So why should you get to swap out to another bike? When I'm taking a long-distance trip on my bike, if it breaks, I better have the tools with me to fix it or else I'm walking, unless I'm lucky enough to be near a bike shop (not likely). The only support car they should have in this race is a truck that picks up failed riders and their broken bikes who decide to throw in the towel.

Re:What about drug testing?

[ls671]

Thanks! Sorry, I was on a Greyhound bus when I typed the above message, on a Quebec road going to Ottawa. In Quebec, roads are worse than in Soviet Russia...

Re:What about drug testing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't even read the summary? The cameras will be at multiple unannounced points. Swapping out your cheat-mobile will not be a reliable form of evasion.

Re:What about drug testing?

[HornWumpus]

Your a trusting person aren't you?

We will never know the politics behind Armstrong being made an example of.

I bet you believe cross country skiing has the roids under control too?

They all just have new roids that the test isn't finding.

Re:What about drug testing?

[Anonymous Coward]

But it is tour de France. So bribing the officials will continue to work.

Re:What about drug testing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you have never seen professional cycling and the Tour de France. There is checking of the bikes all along the route, there is checking before and after each stage. There will be checking of bikes using thermal imaging as the race goes on. The chances of somebody slipping a dodgy bike in and out is zero.

Any team found in contravention of mechanical doping will be immediately kicked out. The team will lose their competitive cycling license, the sponsors will go ape-shit and demand their money back... and so on and so on....

I have no doubt that some people will cheat, but suspect that its more chemical rather than electrical.

Sorry to rain on your parade.

Re:What about drug testing?

[Nehmo]

Personally, I'd like the challenge of beating the new system. I could do it. I currently don't have anything to do with the race, but I'm available for hire.

Re:What about drug testing?

[Anonymous Coward]

The racing bikes aren't practical. In a race not too long ago, the low amount of tire clearance caused a pebble to lock up a wheel. Just think about that for a moment. The bikes they ride are about as realistic for the average person as a drag racer would be realistic for the daily commute.

TdF racers are sponsored because they help sell bikes to wanna-bes.

There are some races that are slightly more realistic - some self-supported long distance races, such as the Trans Am Bike Race, or Tour Divide race. But they don't attract the attention or sponsors that the TdF does.

Re:What about drug testing?

[Grishnakh]

The racing bikes aren't practical. In a race not too long ago, the low amount of tire clearance caused a pebble to lock up a wheel. Just think about that for a moment. The bikes they ride are about as realistic for the average person as a drag racer would be realistic for the daily commute.

So, what's the point? If they want to use impractical bikes, that's fine: they run a higher risk of not being able to complete because of mechanical problems, in exchange for higher performance. Racers who use more practical bikes get a performance penalty, but lower risk of mechanical problems and higher probability of finishing. Let them decide how much risk vs. performance they're willing to accept.

Re:What about drug testing?

[gzuckier]

Why not make them display what they use? That way we'd at least get to see what stuff works.

At what point would they do this, exactly? And what would keep them from swapping out the bike before/after?

I get a feeling that a lot of the people commenting on this article have never actually watched professional cycling. They all say "the bike" like there's only one bicycle in use here; in fact, multiple types of bikes are used, as well as multiple instances of each bike. Watch the support cars; you'll see spare wheels and even entire spare bikes on some of them. So playing a shell game whereby you swap an inspected bike out with one that hasn't been checked...and then, before the finish line, swap them back again...would be relatively simple.

i remember a cheating scheme that appeared in the 80s, i think; spectators would hand the competitors water bottles, as usual, and competitors would toss the bottle away when it was empty, as usual, except that at the top of a hill the spectator would hand the competitor a water bottle filled with lead which he would toss away at the bottom.....

Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just xray all competitors bikes airport style?

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

What metal? Road racing bikes are all carbon fiber now.

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. I see it done almost everyday. I'm a b pressure welder and the only way to test pipe welds without destroying the pipe itself is with xray or ultrasonic testing.

Keep on pretending like you know what you're talking about though.

Re: Xray bikes

[EEPROMS]

yes but that's to check the welds to see if they are cracked so they can get certified. We are talking about penetrating a steel pipe not just looking a few mm down into a weld.

Re: Xray bikes

[PopeRatzo]

We are talking about penetrating a steel pipe not just looking a few mm down into a weld.

No Tour de France bicycle has steel tubing.

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

You are kidding right? It doesn't look for just cracks. Different strength sources and exposure tes are used depending on the alloy on the thickness of the metal. They take an xray that does the entire welds from the root pass to the cap. Thickest I've seen shot is an inch and a half. They have the ability to detect cracks, porosity, lack of fusion, pin holes, slag entrapment, undercut on the INSIDE of the pipe, double bead, hollow root, excessive penetration, and a few other things.

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. But please keep on pretending like you do.

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Tes = times. I'm aware there are a couple other errors. I blame my smartphone and whiskey.

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

We are talking about penetrating a steel pipe not just looking a few mm down into a weld.

If the bikes were made of steel, just how thick do you think the walls of the tubes actually are? In a steel bike, the thickest the walls get is usually around 1.5 mm. Double that and you get 3 mm. So how is that a greater challenge than "looking a few mm down into a weld"?

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, we've used x-ray inspection pressure vessels, turbines, and motor assemblies that require x-rays to penetrate far more material than if you took an ancient all steel bike, and x-rayed it from head-on. Also, I don't know what kind of bike you're expecting to be in a race like this that has more than a "few mm" of steel in the wall of the frame.

To reiterate what the previous, different AC said: Keep on pretending like you know what you're talking about though.

Re: Xray bikes

[publiclurker]

even if they used metal tubes, they probably wouldn't be much thinner than a few mm. These guys value light weight over durability.

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a challenge at all but some people have this uncontrollable urge to sound like an expert on every subject that they spout of with such athoratative sounding bs that it fools people uneducated on the subject. The only problem is when they do it with a large enough audience the odds are no longer in their favour that they will be able to fool everyone.

I've seen xray techs screw up and use the wrong source inside a boiler that I was repairing. End result being I was called twice on the same "repair" and twice I fixed it and found nothing. When they realised what had happened they determined that what they were picking up was corrosion on a pipe one layer down and about 300 mm away.

Most people think a lead sheet will protect them from xray's which is only partially correct. A sufficiently strong source will easily penetrate the hospital type aprons that are worn when taking xray's of your body.

Last job I was on was doing a valve station where the pipe I was welding was 1inch thick and contained a high chrome content. The source used to shoot that metal was strong enough that we had to clear the building and maintain a 100 yard distance from the building while the sours were taking place.

I've seen sources used on .125 pipewall that were so weak you could stand 5 feet away on the other side of your truck and not pick up any negative effects.

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you need to X-Ray them as anything other than a last step in an investigation?

I would guess that most seat uprights are hollow (since there's typically a sliding tube for adjusting height).

Use a probe, measure how far down the hollow part goes. Compare it to the outside of the tube down to the crank, if there's more than 2 cm or so then remove the bike from use for further examination.

Since there needs to be some form of mechanical connection to either the cranks or wheel axles, you could inspect those too.

Re:Xray bikes

[quenda]

Why not just xray all competitors bikes airport style?

Because its too late to look for drugs, and there are much easier ways to find motors.
A metal detector or magnetic sensor (such as in smartphones) will do the job.
And thermal cameras can do it quickly from a distance.
If you see an anomaly, you put an endoscope camera down the tubes.

That works until the cheats get a ceramic compressed-air powered motor in there.

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people think a lead sheet will protect them from xray's which is only partially correct. A sufficiently strong source will easily penetrate the hospital type aprons that are worn when taking xray's of your body.

Even technical people who should know better don't understand this. I brought in to diagnose an issue on some lead-containing ceramic composites a while back. The problem wasn't even inside the bulk of the ceramic, but in the interface to some visually inaccessible stuff. I suggested taking it to a local (very high end) industrial CT scanner. One of the people involved in the previously unsuccessful diagnostics made a point to remind me that "it contains lead, and x-rays can't go through lead". I had to explain a) depends on the energy and flux, b) I'd previously gotten quite successful full CT scans of stuff that was of comparable radiodensity to what we were looking at, and b) we could easily set it up so we wouldn't be shooting through lead anyway.

Re: Xray bikes

[bitingduck]

Use a probe, measure how far down the hollow part goes. Compare it to the outside of the tube down to the crank, if there's more than 2 cm or so then remove the bike from use for further examination.

There isn't necessarily easy access to the inside of the seat tube without potentially messing up the rider's position from having to remove the seat-- many modern bikes have complicated seat tubes and integrated posts that may make it non-trivial. And even if you can, it's become so easy to make bikes that are well under the 6.8 kg minimum racing weight that I've known many smaller riders who have had to do things like drop a length of chain down their seat tube to bring the bike weight up to the minimum.

Re: Xray bikes

[ctrl-alt-canc]

NDT methods based upon gamma rays has been designed exactly for this purpose. Just use a properly desgined Cs137 or Co60 radiation source, and you can see everything in a thick steel pipe.

Re: Xray bikes

[adhdengineer]

you shouldnt let your phone drink whiskey.

Re: Xray bikes

[quetwo]

These competition bikes used in the Tour de France don't have movable seat posts. They are one chunk of fiberglass that goes right to the seat stay. I would assume, like the rest of the bike, that the seat post is sealed and aerodynamic.

Re:Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just xray all competitors bikes airport style?

Because x-ray machines are not portable enough. It's not particularly useful to check the bike once at the start because the motor could be added after that, and moving one around to follow the cyclists would be too expensive.

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean "they probably wouldn't be much THICKER than", but then, you ARE American, aren't you...

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't tell from his comment whether he is American or not, but I can definitely tell from yours that you are a fuckhead.

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

As are you.

Re: Xray bikes

[CastrTroy]

I've seen a lot of tour bikes, and I don't think I've ever seen a single TdF bike that had a single piece seat tube. You might be more likely to see something like that in a triathlon like the IronMan, where the rules are quite a bit more relaxed on what they can do with their bikes. Pro road riders want millimeter accuracy of the seat height on the bike, and if the entire seat tube was a single piece, a different bike would have to b e made specifically for each rider, which is not how things are done. They may get a custom paint job, but the actual frames they are riding are the same ones you and I can go buy in the store if you have the cash.

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, teams can and do swap out bikes during a race. There are also bikes just for the time trials. I'd imagine the teams could find a way to sneak a bike away before there would be an opportunity to x-ray it. There have been some incredibly sophisticated doping programs. Just read how Lance Armstrong got away with doping for so long. I have no doubt that the same level of effort could sneak a bike away without measures to catch cheaters in the act.

Re: Xray bikes

[Anonymous Coward]

...fiberglass?

Re: Xray bikes

[RedShoeRider]

You're both right, mostly.

Race-grade carbon-fiber (not fiberglass, but same idea) bicycle frames have integrated seat masts with adjustable height mast caps. So, most of the seat tube is integral to the frame, requriring that the frame be roughly the right size for the rider. The seat cap's height is adjustable to set the last few mm's of height to exactly what the riders preference is. It's a great system, as you get all of the benefit of an integrated seat mast (added strength and reduced weight at the top tube/seat tube/seat stay junction, reduced weight because you don't need a clamping system for the seatpost, reduced weight from not having a seatpost, some vibration reduction from the extra carbon) without the steep penality of having to make an absolutely custom sized frame for each rider.

They are, generally the same bikes that you can get from a high-end bike shop. Occassionally they'll use an in-development carbon for the true pro frames to see how it holds up (Trek did this with the 110(?) OCLV frames before they brought them on the market, IIRC), but otherwise, they're the same.

Re: Xray bikes

[RedShoeRider]

The last steel TdF frames were in 1999/2000. It was the Colnago Tecnos, IIRC. Or at least that's what Colnago liked to claim.
The last time that anyone knows a TdF winner was on a steel frame was Indurain, in 1993/94.

Re: Xray bikes

[Grishnakh]

I interviewed at a company that made X-ray systems for welding inspection, way back in the late 1990s. I seem to remember them telling me they had systems that could inspect welds on steel plates used in shipbuilding, which would be several inches thick at the very least. The amount of X-ray radiation produced by one of these machines was huge.

X-raying a bike is nothing, especially when they're all made of carbon fibre now with bits of aluminum and titanium.

Re: Xray bikes

[PopeRatzo]

The last time that anyone knows a TdF winner was on a steel frame was Indurain, in 1993/94.

Do you know why they were using steel instead of 531 aluminum?

Re: Xray bikes

[LoRdTAW]

Sure have. Use it all the time to measure and verify the penetration of electron beam welds.

Re: Xray bikes

[dpiven]

Do you know why they were using steel instead of 531 aluminum?

Huh? Reynolds 531 is a steel alloy.

Detection and countermeasures

[Anonymous Coward]

So how much LN2 will the tires need to hold (and slowly release) to fool the thermal cameras?

Re:Detection and countermeasures

[Agripa]

So how much LN2 will the tires need to hold (and slowly release) to fool the thermal cameras?

Why add active cooling? Seal the frame, evacuate it, and add some distilled water or alcohol so it operates as a heat pipe and distributes the heat from the electronics evenly throughout the frame.

cheating is expected

[frovingslosh]

If we gonna pretend to try to stop all of the cheating in professional sports we might as well do away with professional sports.

Re:cheating is expected

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want to see one sport just give up and say everything is allowed. That will be entertaining.

Re:cheating is expected

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes for an interesting cat-mouse metagame.

Re:cheating is expected

[Anonymous Coward]

In the case of professional cycling, that's an excellent idea! Eliminate it entirely.

Re:cheating is expected

[SvnLyrBrto]

Seriously, I think it's well past time we stop thinking of professional sports as some kind of special or noble endeavor, and acknowledge their "athletes" for what they really are: entertainers. Pro sports are a multi-billion dollar for-profit business. No actually, they're a collection of several multi-billion dollar for-profit businesses. And it's show business, pure and simple. Steph Curry's and LeBron James' jobs are not to put the ball through the hoop. It's not really David Beckham's job to kick the ball into the goal. And it's not the job of those 11 guys to put their ball in the end zone. In all cases, their real jobs are to put on a show that sells arena and stadium seats and puts eyeballs on the television screens.

So why not just drop the pretense, acknowledge pro "athletes" for what they really are, quit obsessing about how they attain their performance levels, and just let them put on a good show? After all... We don't drug test Lady Gaga just after the Grammys, and take hers back if she tests positive for pot (Which she's admitted using, saying it makes her more creative.). Nor do we randomly drug test the Rolling Stones and suspend Keith Richards for the next ten tour dates if he tests positive for... well, it's Keith Richards. Take your pick.

Re:cheating is expected

[frovingslosh]

I think you're on to something with the drug test idea. It would certainly make the Grammys and other self congratulating award shows more interesting.

Re:cheating is expected

[AmiMoJo]

If you allow drug you, you pretty much mandate it for an athlete to be successful. No amount of training or dedication will put you in the same league as another athlete using drugs or other cheat devices. And using drugs is risky, with the risk of detection being the only thing that really limits dose right now. If you allow drug use, you are going to see a lot of overdosing, addiction, ruined health and early death.

There is no good solution, just like it's basically impossible to fairly divide all athletes into male/female groups. Maybe the way forward is to move focus away from sports like athletics and cycling where doping is extremely effective, and towards sports like football and golf where it's much less beneficial. Remove the incentive.

Re: cheating is expected

[nehumanuscrede]

Where money / glory is involved, there will always be cheating. Always.

Re:cheating is expected

[just another AC]

. Maybe the way forward is to move focus away from sports like athletics and cycling where doping is extremely effective, and towards sports like football and golf where it's much less beneficial. Remove the incentive.

You obviously haven't had much to do with professional footballers (any code) or golfers. I can guarantee you drugs would help them immensely. There have been cases in both sports.

Golf - steroids will allow much more power hence much farther drives. Something like a beta blocker to slow the heart rate down would help with steady hands for the putts.

Football (soccer) - has a cardio/speed component - similar to athletics doping.
Football (american) - has speed component in running backs etc - doping like 100m sprinters; has power/mass component - linesman - doping like weightlifters (steroids etc) ...

So please think of another theory.

Also there are ways to divide people into the gender categories - use blood chemistry etc. - much of the genetic advantage of males is in the high levels of testosterone. So people who pass a certain limit compete in "male" while people who are below the limit - by birth or by reassignment hormones - compete in "female"

Re:cheating is expected

[cdrudge]

Golf - steroids will allow much more power hence much farther drives

Except drive distance isn't necessarily a indicator of overall golf performance. If you're on a 400 yard hole, it doesn't matter that much if you drive it 300 yards and have a 100 yard approach, or drive it 350 yards and have a 50 yard one. It's a few years old, but here's a pga.com article about how almost all of the long ballers didn't make the cut for the 2012 US Open.

I'd say that doping for power is less of a factor in golf than doping for other reasons, like recovery, endurance, concentration, or as you mentioned steadying.

Re: cheating is expected

[Anonymous Coward]

Professional sports are incredibly competitive, especially when there's big money involved. Game of Shadows documents the anger Barry Bonds had toward the Giants after the 1998 season because he didn't get the salary increase in contract negotiations he thought he deserved. Mark McGwire had recently got a big pay increase with his recent contract because of all the home runs he was hitting and Bonds wanted to be paid like McGwire. Bonds hadn't doped to that point but started using the cream and the clear (steroids) out of anger with the Giants, bulked up tremendously, and started hitting a lot more home runs. When there's big money in doping, everyone will start doing it.

In cycling, steroids provide some benefit but it's probably more important to maximize the efficiency in transporting oxygen through the bloodstream. This can be done by boosting the red blood cell count. One legal way for an athlete to do this is altitude training. With less oxygen at altitude, the body has to produce more red blood cells to compensate. For a time after descending to lower altitude, there's at performance boost. It is completely legal if Nairo Quintana gains an advantage over his competitors by training in the high mountains of Colombia.

However, there are other ways that aren't legal. The kidneys naturally produce EPO as at signal to produce more red blood cells. In some patients with anemia, synthetic EPO can be legitimately given to treat the condition. When Lance Armstrong was being treated for cancer, it was completely legal and actually beneficial to his health to receive EPO. Using EPO as a performance enhancing drug, however, is not permitted. For a time, EPO was rampant in cycling but it's now easy to test for. As a result, cyclists turned to other forms of blood doping.

It became quite common for cyclists to receive transfusions once EPO was no longer an option for blood doping. Initially these transfusions would come from other people. As a result, testing was instituted to look for more than one person's blood in the cyclist's bloodstream. The next step in blood doping was for cyclists to store their own blood, temporarily making them anemic. The body, of course, replenishes the lost red blood cells, so the anemia is temporary. At that point, the blood they stored is then returned through a transfusion, boosting the red blood cell count. There is now a test to try to detect this form of blood doping, too.

There's a good reason that blood doping is banned. The excess red blood cells thicken the blood, which causes the heart to have to work harder in order to circulate it. There have been cyclists who died at an early age from heart failure, which may have been a result of blood doping. If doping was safe, there wouldn't be a reason to ban it. The rules are there to protect cyclists from themselves.

Re:cheating is expected

[dslauson]

If you allow drug you, you pretty much mandate it for an athlete to be successful.

The sad truth is that we're already there, because drug prohibitions in sports have proven to be largely unenforceable.

Re:cheating is expected

[swb]

Wasn't John Daly really good at distance driving?

Re:cheating is expected

[SvnLyrBrto]

> If you allow drug use, you are going to see a lot of
> overdosing, addiction, ruined health and early death.

And this differs from the rest of the entertainment industry... how exactly? Or should I knock up a list of actors, musicians, and etc. who've suffered ODs, addiction, ruined health, and death?

Re:cheating is expected

[Grishnakh]

we might as well do away with professional sports.

Sounds good to me. I'm all in favor.

I think amateur sports are a great thing to get involved in, but pro sports are just a waste of time and money and just a competition to see who's the best at cheating.

Re:cheating is expected

[Grishnakh]

I don't see why the downsides (OD, early death, etc.) are a problem. If someone wants to risk those things, let them.

However, insurance companies should be allowed to deny coverage for anyone who's a pro athlete. If they want to screw up their bodies to compete in these dumb sports, then the consequences should fall entirely on them.

Re:cheating is expected

[david_thornley]

A friend of mine explained drug use by entertainers this way: you have access to enough money to buy drugs. You have no assurance that you're going to be working after your current contract. You're going to do what you can to make it more likely that you'll do well in this gig so you'll get another one. The availability, uncertainty, and incentives push strongly towards drug use.

Re:cheating is expected

[Nehmo]

move focus ...towards sports like football ... where it's much less beneficial.

Football = Steroid Competition

Re:cheating is expected

[Nehmo]

I hate sports too.

Re:cheating is expected

[frovingslosh]

I think amateur sports are a great thing to get involved in, but pro sports ....

At least where I'm located amateur sports are mainly a doorway to professional sports. We have supposedly amateur athletes (don't ask where they got those expensive new sports cars) who get through four years at universities taking courses that never really meet and they get As in, but they graduate not only ignorant but in many cases illiterate. And their coaches make more money than all of their other teachers combined (not that I'm advocating for more money for any teachers complicit in this). And the real paying students are charged steep "fees" that go to support this. Getting rid of professional sports would be a great first step, and a lot of corruption incentives in amateur sports would go with it, but amateur sports wouldn't be entirely fixed by getting rid of pro sports. If anything it likely would drive the sports fans to more interest in amateur sports and increase the problems (including drugs and cheating) in amateur sports.

Re:cheating is expected

[Grishnakh]

This seems non sequitur to me. I agree about all the crap with university sports, but I don't see how eliminating pro sports would drive drugs and cheating into amateur sports. If there's no monetary rewards to be had in amateur sports at all (if they make money at it, it's "pro" by definition), then what's the incentive to do all that? Bragging points with your neighbors? Keeping the money out of it I think would eliminate all that, because with amateur sports it's just something people do for fun, after work or on the weekend, and they still have to go to a regular job during the week.

Re:cheating is expected

[AmiMoJo]

I should clarify I was talking about football, or soccer as it is known in the US, not American football. Steroid use is quite rare in European football leagues, and it doesn't convey much advantage anyway as the sport is non-contact and more about skill and speed than power.

Re:cheating is expected

[Anonymous Coward]

it's well past time we stop thinking of professional sports as some kind of special or noble endeavor

Well, we ... errm, other people, not me ... already think of singing and acting as some kind of special or noble endeavor, even if it is strictly for our entertainment, and do not frown on drug-taking (as much) in such professions.

We don't drug test Lady Gaga just after the Grammys, and take hers back if she tests positive for pot (Which she's admitted using, saying it makes her more creative.).

Hmmm, it certainly makes her more entertaining, but a lot of outside observers would disagree with her self-assessment of being more creative. Do note again: she doesn't take it to better entertain. By her reasoning, it should also be OK for athletes to get "help" to "make them more sporty" - but nothing is said of getting "help" to "be a better entertainer" by using her example :-)

Re:cheating is expected

[cdrudge]

2000-2002 he had the highest average driving distance* over the season of any Tour golfer. Oddly enough those years weren't his longest averages of his career though. And there is only about a 15 yard difference since 2000 between his lowest average and highest average.

* drive distance statistics are measured twice per round selected on 2 holes that face approximately opposite directions to counteract any effects from wind.

all pro cyclists cheat

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a completely open secret that all top cyclists dope or otherwise cheat, as it is literally impossible to compete at the top level without doing ao. This was why it was so comical to see the chuckle heads who actually believed Lance Armstrong defend him so seriously. It was also equally sad to see the cycling powers that be throw Floyd Landis under the bus for getting caught and then daring to go public about the scale of the cheating problem in the sport.

I have no doubt that every cyclist who can afford such a motor is using one.

Re:all pro cyclists cheat

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no doubt that every cyclist who can afford such a motor is using one.

They can all afford it, and I suspect almost none of them are using a motor.

Doping, on the other hand, is rampant. And very little of it is ever caught.

Re:all pro cyclists cheat

[Anonymous Coward]

But not every pro cyclist is a malicious bully.

How about a lifetime ban if caught?

[schwit1]

For the rider and YUGE fine for the team.

Re:How about a lifetime ban if caught?

[hcs_$reboot]

Why would you care about a lifetime ban if your only chance of winning is by cheating.

Re:How about a lifetime ban if caught?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you care about a lifetime ban if your only chance of winning is by cheating.

Because the winner is not the only guy who makes money from cycle racing.

If I might care for one moment...

[Anonymous Coward]

Require that all bicycles be made out of C-channel type extrusions or require that tubes not be fully enclosed.

Looking for liars

[Anonymous Coward]

They should check for pants-on-fire.

Re:Looking for liars

[jcr]

Pretty sure that thermal imaging would be highly effective in detecting pants on fire.

-jcr

It you ain't cheating you ain't trying

[Joe_Dragon]

It you ain't cheating you ain't trying

Re:It you ain't cheating you ain't trying

[Anonymous Coward]

China's national motto.

Re:It you ain't cheating you ain't trying

[Monoman]

Rationalizing is not justification. People act so surprised about the corruption in the world. It seems that cheating is in the DNA of a lot of human beings.

Re: It you ain't cheating you ain't trying

[nehumanuscrede]

The thought process is you have to cheat to compete because so many others are doing it.

It's almost mandatory in order to remain competitive unless they can weed out the ones doing it.

Finally...

[feufeu]

Finally the CEA has something important to do, which is trying to raise credibility in a bloody professional sport that no one believes works without any cheating at all anyway. And it has been like this for a long time now.

Tax money wasted but I have to admit I'd rather have them do this than to develop stuff for nuclear weapons.

Why doesn't everybody just get over it and enjoy - if at all - the Tour de France for what my mother does - the nice scenery of France live on TV ?!

Re:Finally...

[hcs_$reboot]

Tax money wasted but I have to admit I'd rather have them do this than to develop stuff for nuclear weapons

Nowadays CEA is more involved in public matters, like nuclear plants that generate electricity. FYI

Re:Finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be surprising if any tax money via CEA ended up being used on this, especially considering such thermal systems are common in various industrial roles. They probably just hired someone from the CEA as a consultant on their free time to help develop a set procedure and criteria for looking at thermal images.

Tour de Cheat?

[Gussington]

Has any other sport ever been associated so much with cheating as cycling? It really is getting ridiculous.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[hcs_$reboot]

Not so many sports are as inhuman as cycling.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[penguinoid]

It's a vicious cycle.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[quenda]

Has any other sport ever been associated so much with cheating as cycling? It really is getting ridiculous.

Plenty of sports have endemic drug-use, though they don't make as much noise about being clean, and maybe its not cheating if everyone does it.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[TooManyNames]

My favorite example was divulged in Lance's discussion with Joe Rogan. According to him (and, I guess, consider the source), cyclists have bitten down on a piece of cork tied to fishing line, pulled by a vehicle ahead. Getting pulled along by your teeth just to get a tiny bit extra seems right up there on the ridiculous meter.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[Vegan Cyclist]

This. A lot of professional sports, from baseball to wrestling, have systemic doping....the difference is cycling has clamped down on it, where many others still turn a blind eye. When they look, they'll find it as well.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[Gussington]

This. A lot of professional sports, from baseball to wrestling, have systemic doping...the difference is cycling has clamped down on it, where many others still turn a blind eye. When they look, they'll find it as well.

Soccer? Rugby? Tennis? Golf? Yachting? I don't think it's as wide-spread as you think. Maybe some sports that require actual skill need drugs less, since drugs don't really help. In sports where it is simple endurance or strength then it does.
Funny thing is that I find those strength/endurance type sports the least entertaining to watch.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an ex-racer I found that to be part of its allure. I still ride (in my 60s) for the health benefits but also in part because of the suffering.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[just another AC]

This. A lot of professional sports, from baseball to wrestling, have systemic doping...the difference is cycling has clamped down on it, where many others still turn a blind eye. When they look, they'll find it as well.

Soccer? Rugby? Tennis? Golf? Yachting? I don't think it's as wide-spread as you think.
Maybe some sports that require actual skill need drugs less, since drugs don't really help. In sports where it is simple endurance or strength then it does.

Funny thing is that I find those strength/endurance type sports the least entertaining to watch.

The GP said "a lot" of professional sports, not all. You list a few, that does not invalidate his point.

Having said that, the sports you listed are BAD examples. They are not the ones "turning a blind eye" because they are under the same anti-doping initiatives as cycling etc. The examples the OP mentions are sports not signed up to the world anti-doping authority. Those include (AFAIK) baseball, wrestling, ufc, ...

Even then there are still people who cheat when they think they can get away with it. Take tennis. It was only a couple weeks ago that Sharipova got banned because she had been cheating for years, but the code only caught up to ban her drug of choice recently.

Weightlifting and track and field are another 2 sports like cycling - systemic doping that they are trying hard to stamp out. The result is Russia is not even going to the Olympics because of it!!!

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[bano]

Doping in cycling has been around since the very beginning. It predates the TdF.
It's pretty much ingrained in the sport itself. Where as doping in other sports came later in their history.

I think the association with cheating in cycling seems more prevalent due to the history and the exposure. I'm not certain that cycling has more cheating than any other sport.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, it goes round & round. I mean who would pedal this kind of news?

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[dissolved]

I feel Cycling is a skill sport but that's besides the point. I want to address the "skill sports" not needing drugs line which I think is a lie told so often it is accepted as the truth. For Soccer and Tennis - there is nothing to gain from catching doping. Absolutely nothing. If you catch drugs cheats in the Premier League you don't gain anything at all, you damage a multi-billion pound brand. This "skill sports" line is what everyone from the top to the bottom tells the public to deflect away.

For soccer - There is evidence of Italian and British clubs using drug transfusions. There are videos of Cannavaro on Youtube while at Juve taking blood. Chelsea went public with reinfusing blood in the early 00's. There are testimonies of German internationals from the 70's being injected with everything and anything. If you can take EPO and be fresher in the 89th minute than the other team with no chance of being caught (remember, the blood testing is rare) then why wouldn't you?

For tennis if you can take steroids or EPO and know you have little chance of getting caught you can train 2-3 times a day instead of the once - bringing massive strength and phenomenal endurance to the court for the sake of a good show. If you are glowing and a tester arrives you can hide in your panic room, even though it is the time and day you told the tester you would be at your house and then tell the world you thought you were being robbed (Williams) and people believe it because they don't want to believe the alternative.

Rugby has the highest number of athletes serving drug suspensions in the UK. Players are having to take mid career breaks to recover from spending 80 minutes a week getting beaten up. At local amateur level banned substances are normal here, it's a level playing field almost.

Cycling isn't clean, it's cleaner but there are still suspicious performances. It is a handy whipping boy though. During the whole Olympic scandal last year the first question of the first interview I heard on the BBC spoon-fed the party line to the interviewee from British Athletics along the lines of "do you think you will become as bad as cycling?". How can you answer yes to that? Why would you spit in the soup and admit you have a problem when you can just bring cycling into it?

I feel very strongly about this as a sports fan in general who prefers Cycling. The hypocrisy is infuriating.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Higher profile, gymnastics. Arbitrary judges can take any sub-par athlete and make them the best.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[HornWumpus]

Cross country skiing is as bad a cycling.

IIRC there was an Olympics where they applied new tests about a year afterward and recalled all the medals (in one event anyhow, the long one). I think they should have given them out to the end runners that were 'clean', that has to take dedication and deserves recognition.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[Nehmo]

My favorite example was divulged in Lance's discussion with Joe Rogan. According to him (and, I guess, consider the source), cyclists have bitten down on a piece of cork tied to fishing line, pulled by a vehicle ahead. Getting pulled along by your teeth just to get a tiny bit extra seems right up there on the ridiculous meter.

I hadn't thought of that one. Nowadays, a drone could pull the line and then escape.

Re:Tour de Cheat?

[Gussington]

there is nothing to gain from catching doping. Absolutely nothing.

Apart from public shaming, banning from international events, and massive legal implications you mean?

Rugby has the highest number of athletes serving drug suspensions in the UK.

Maybe this is a UK thing, and maybe it explains why until Eddie Jones took over they have been so shit. Until last month, NZ and Australia were the best teams in the world, and they have mandatory testing programs. The likes of Dan Carter and Johnny Wilkinson are not the best because they are the fastest or strongest. It's because they have skills drugs can't buy. They've also both had extended injury records with no miracle cures which supports the fact they don't need drugs to succeed.

I feel very strongly about this as a sports fan in general who prefers Cycling. The hypocrisy is infuriating.

At the top level, no other sport has such a high record of cheating. From 98 to 2011 there was only one winner who hasn't tested positive. Other sports have cases that's true, but I can't think of any other sport that included every single champion for a decade.

cheaper way

[ebonum]

Racing bikes are stupid light. (Actually they are about 14 lbs.) Pick the bike up. Shake it. If it feels light, it is fine. If there is a 2 lbs motor and battery pack in it, you'll me able to feel the weight. Plus, you know the motor is near the crank. The moment of inertial will be all wrong. Racing bike don't have saddle packs, and they certainly don't have saddle packs with batteries.
If you pick up 100+ bike a day, after a while, you will be able to sense: "Wow, this one is different".
Bike mechanics skip the torque wrenches because they learn to get the correct ft-lbs by feel. A 2 lbs difference is a lot on a 14 lbs bike.

Re:cheaper way

[hcs_$reboot]

The thing is, bikes are changed many times by teams during the race. That would be impractical.

Re:cheaper way

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for one small detail: the UCI enforces a minimum bike weight - any bike used for racing in a UCI sanctioned event must be at least 6.8 kg. These days, it's not difficult to get hold of a bike that weighs less than that - for example, a Specialized Tarmac weighs in at around 6.4-6.6 kg (depending on size), and that's a commercially available bike. To make up the difference, pro riders add weights, typically tungsten; if you're going to put a motor in a bike, that just means you need to add less weight to make your bike weight legal.

Now, the sort of design that would be caught easily with thermal imaging cameras is fairly naive... that it's happening, I have no doubt, but the cheaters will probably be using a more sophisticated design. Technology evolves and adapts; with thermal imaging to try to catch cheats, they're just going to design the next motor to dump excess heat in a less obvious way.

Re:cheaper way

[Harlequin80]

There are minimum weight rules in place. So all you need is a bike that is lower than the minimum and fit a motor.

Re:cheaper way

[TooManyNames]

The saddle packs are only used in the standard kits; there are other kits that hide the batteries in a water-bottle, for example. Femke Van den Driessche was recently banned for using one such hidden-away setup (the button to engage the motor was even hidden in the handlebar tape), and it certainly wasn't evident by glancing that the bike was rigged.

Re:cheaper way

[Vegan Cyclist]

You can get 12lb race bikes, and many, if not most professional race bikes actually have weight (literal, lead weights) inserted in places like the frame, in order to get the bike to the minimum of 6.8kg/15.99lbs. Bikes are ridiculously light these days, and something like this is actually quite possible (and 200 watts is actually a lot of power, if any amateur racer were able to pedal an extra 200w for an hour, they'd be catapulted to the higher elite levels instantly.) It's very possible one might not actually be able to tell by feel, imo.. Not to mention it'd be impractical to pick up every bike, given how each rider might have 2-4 bikes in the race and ~180 racers...they were using some kind of magnetometer before, which took a few seconds per bike, and could check several bikes on a car roof rack quite quickly, but the addition of thermal cameras is a good step too. I'd be curious to see how much a frame warms up normally, with regular friction from riding...

Re:cheaper way

[dunkelfalke]

Not quite right. UCI sets a minimum weight of a bike (6.8 kg), but enough technologies exist to make bicycles much lighter than that. If you don't want to compete, you can build a 3.38 kg bicycle, which is half the minimum weight. There are full suspension mountain bikes that come close to the UCI limit FFS. You won't be able to feel the motor inside one of these.

Re:cheaper way

[mrchaotica]

Given that common lithium-ion battery cells (e.g. 18650) are cylindrical, sticking the pack in the seat tube seems like the obvious choice.

Re:cheaper way

[Nehmo]

Actually, so-called "stealth" e-bikes are a thing. Some jurisdictions outlaw e-bikes (NYC, eg), and motorized bikes aren't allowed on bike paths or in the bus racks of some cities.

UFC

[hcs_$reboot]

Try the UFC

Better Idea

[twistedcubic]

Cancel the event for the next ten years. It's a sham anyway.

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Before scandal:

Everyone in the US: "Who cares about bicycle racing? Oh... our guy won? Go Lance!"
Tour de France: "Thank you for your money."

After scandal:

Everyone in the US: "DAMMIT Lance, you let us down. Also, nobody cares about bicycle racing anymore."
Tour de France: "OMG for shame. Like we totally didn't realize that 19 of the last 20 winners were on roids."

If you cheat they are allowed to kill you

[Anonymous Coward]

Make athletes sign a form. Problem solved.

Re:If you cheat they are allowed to kill you

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Most of them would probably sign it, and still cheat.

Thermal Cameras not X-rays

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is slashdot and we don't RTFA, but it's in the title FFS.

Fucking losers

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pathetic enough if you're even participating in a fucking bicycle race, but shooting up ball shrivelling roids and installing motors to cheat your way to victory?

Holy fuck I'd chug a gallon of bleach on the spot if my existence was that meaningless. What a bunch of fucking losers.

Re:Fucking losers

[Opportunist]

How much would you do to get ahead in your job?

Re:Fucking losers

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that your opinion matters, but what the hell is wrong with bicycle racing? What criticism could you possibly have that could not be extended to literally any other physical competition?

Full disclosure: I do not give two fucks about bicycle racing.

Re:Fucking losers

[gzuckier]

How much would you do to get ahead in your job?

my job sets up infrared imaging to see if you are drinking coffee, by the extra heat radiated from your abdomen, and then you are disqualified for using perforance enhancing drugs

flood gates...

[Anonymous Coward]

or, we could let go of all this policing crap and just say, "anything goes". seriously, at the top pro level, if being #1 is so important to you to the point of having small shriveled up nads, or enough roid rage to have a hit out on your spouse, so be it, unleash the gates, let's see where this leads...

Re:flood gates...

[Anonymous Coward]

They've done that already. It's called Motorcycle Racing.

Not precisely

[argStyopa]

A better title would be "Tour de France announces precisely how it's going to keep an eye out for cheating so everyone can change their processes enough that nobody embarrasses the Tour."

Let's keep in mind what's really important.

Re:Not precisely

[Moof123]

This. The doping limits are set too high to catch anyone except those who are really sloppy. The short bans are slaps on the wrist. It is all a sham.

Fun fact.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lance Armstrong has never failed a drug test.

That is a FACT.

Re:Fun fact.

[Nehmo]

Lance Armstrong has never failed a drug test.

That is a FACT.

He's already admitted using drugs. And I hazard to say, there are still things he hasn't admitted to: like pre-storing red blood cells; and bribery.

A cautious writer would be hesitant declaring facts in caps. It's very possible Lance failed a test but managed to get the official result of the test declared as negative.

Re:Fun fact.

[gzuckier]

Lance Armstrong has never failed a drug test.

That is a FACT.

He's already admitted using drugs. And I hazard to say, there are still things he hasn't admitted to: like pre-storing red blood cells; and bribery.

A cautious writer would be hesitant declaring facts in caps. It's very possible Lance failed a test but managed to get the official result of the test declared as negative.

armstrong had a small nuclear power plant replace his removed testicle.

Re:Fun fact.

[RockDoctor]

Also, you don't know how many drug tests Armstrong took - and failed - while learning his physiological profile of response to a particular drug.

other cheats come to mind

[DriveDog]

"Mechanical doping" reminds me of the infamous 1973 Soap Box Derby cheat.

need more imaginative/accurate names for cheating

[gzuckier]

this is doping in the same sense that calling an uber to carry you and your bike to the finish line is doping.