This week John takes a look at how the Giro d’Italia has become the Tadej Pogačar show. He talks about about suspension of disbelief and whether we’ve been here before. Patrick takes a look at the idea of what bike we “deserve” and considers words from former co-host Patria Vandermark.
Listener note: Patrick made a mistake in mixing this week’s show; if your device automatically downloaded the episode, the hosts may be talking over each other after the Shimano spot in the break. We’ve corrected the file, but you may need to download it again. Apologies. The engineer will be flogged on his next group ride.
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Show links:
Netflix’s Tour de France Unchained
Feedback Sports Adjustable Pliers Wrench
Well either the mushrooms on the pizza are not what I think they are or the mix is a wee bit off.
Yes. We go badly out of sync around the 22 minute mark. Working on that now.
Update: The issue is fixed now.
On the doping question, I found the story told by Lizzy Banks to be revelatory. In short, the current testing system is detecting trace amounts of drugs, especially diuretics, indicating contamination in prescription mediation and even food and water. Apart from cycling, I’ve certainly heard about the problems with medications and other chemicals ending up in our food and water supply. The problems of strict liability doping system (i.e. the athlete is responsible for every substance in their body) and chemically contaminated infrastructure are obvious.
What’s astounding is how little WADA has adjusted its standards to account for the contamination issue. The antidoping system loses credibility when it is “catching” hundreds of athletes for having such small amounts of substances that “performance enhancement” loses its meaning. Not to mention, that the athletes with money will be able to challenge, likely successfully, the problems on the system, if not exploit those problems, to escape consequence. Meanwhile, athletes without legal resources will walk away from their sport, livelihood and perhaps even passion, being labeled as “dopers.” I don’t know how to fix the antidoping system but that doesn’t mean I can’t see it’s broken.
I heard Lizzy interviewed on the Cycling Podcast (https://audioboom.com/posts/8509557-an-interview-with-lizzy-banks). You can find a long writeup from her on her blog (https://lizzybanks.co.uk/).