Last Clean TdF Winner

izza

With Armstrong and Landis continually getting their pharmacists' handbags out all the time and Contador's beefgate saga just beginning, who is the last winner of the TdF that people honestly believe was clean?

Indurain?

ratsbeyfus

Sastre?

Lemond?

WisePranker

According to Wikipedia, Sastre was the last winner to never test positive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_ ... _de_France

Anonymous

Sastre. Before that Lemond.

That's what I personally believe anyway.

RichN95.

NapoleonD wrote:

Sastre. Before that Lemond.

That's what I personally believe anyway.

Me too

andyp

Lemond.

Look at who Sastre has ridden for.

RichN95.

andyp wrote:

Look at who Sastre has ridden for.

So what. Bassons rode for Festina.

Sastre has commented in the past that he blames doping for Jiminez's death, so I imagine he'd be quite wary of it at least.

rick_chasey

Clean should be a relative term.

I assume you mean in absolute terms, in which case, my answer is; none.

DaveyL

As far as I'm concerned, "clean" has a pretty precise definition. It means, hasn't doped, i.e. taken any substances or used any methods on the banned list.

mrushton

I'll agree with the LeMond group. Chemistry really accelerated around that time so everything since is poss. suspect.

TheYorkshireMan

izza wrote:

With Armstrong and Landis continually getting their pharmacists' handbags out all the time and Contador's beefgate saga just beginning, who is the last winner of the TdF that people honestly believe was clean?

Indurain?

mrushton

Well he never tested positive apparently but he rode in a 'golden era' of doping - Festina/Pantani/Ullrich/Bugno et al were all to happen

finchy

If we assume that Cadel Evans is clean, then I can't see why that benefit of the doubt shouldn't be extended to Carlos Sastre - at least for the 2008 victory.

I think Jorg Jaksche said that CSC went from running a doping programme before 2004, to turning a blind eye before 2006 to being actively anti-doping from 2006 onwards.

mrushton

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/jon ... sleek-geek

Some interesting points that tie in with this thread. Old news perhaps, but his story majkes a good read

andyp

RichN95 wrote:

So what. Bassons rode for Festina.

Sastre has commented in the past that he blames doping for Jiminez's death, so I imagine he'd be quite wary of it at least.

Bassons was so outspoken about doping that he was ostracised by the peleton. Sastre, like most of his peers, goes all mealy mouthed when asked about the subject.

If you look at the facts, i.e. the prevalence of doping in the modern peloton, many of the teams he's ridden for have been shown to have supported systematic doping in the past, his country of origin and his results then you have to suspect that he doped. It's naive to think otherwise.

TheYorkshireMan

mrushton wrote:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/jonathan-vaughters-the-sleek-geek

Some interesting points that tie in with this thread. Old news perhaps, but his story majkes a good read

Whilst I try to be more of an interested observer when to comes to all these doping stories, that story and the original newspaper article it mentions raise a couple of obvious questions. Who was the famous rider? And what did he mean by 'this would have been taken care of'. Making a deal with someone so that Vaughters would not be at risk of been busted for doping?

Ron Stuart

What would be very useful for our scientists to explore is the link between the taking of performance enhancing drugs and a riders short and long term health issues. If it's proven to be a negative factor as I already believe (and there is evidence to substantiate this for example --- deaths) much more publicity of these factors should be emphasized.
As Laurent Fignon described in his book 'We were young and carefree' drugs can't make a champion of an average rider but it can make a very good rider compete more easily. Maybe there is something ironic about the title of his book as some folk have suggested that his premature death at the age of 50 of stomach cancer might be in part due to the ingestion of certain additives. He has admitted to taking amphetamines and was caught out doing so, Tom Simpson lived, rode and died using them.
Whats the point in glory if you are going to take it to an early grave? There is something more fore-filling about living a full and active life after all.

zippypablo

I'd go with Lemond but am willing to give Sastre the benefit of the doubt.

DaveyL

TheYorkshireMan wrote:

mrushton wrote:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/jonathan-vaughters-the-sleek-geek

Some interesting points that tie in with this thread. Old news perhaps, but his story majkes a good read

Whilst I try to be more of an interested observer when to comes to all these doping stories, that story and the original newspaper article it mentions raise a couple of obvious questions. Who was the famous rider? And what did he mean by 'this would have been taken care of'. Making a deal with someone so that Vaughters would not be at risk of been busted for doping?

Well, I'm no Sherlock, but presumably the "famous rider" was a VERY famous rider, and was alluding to the fact that the UCI would happily accept a post-hoc cortisone TUE from his team...

dulldave

There's a good chance that Sastre was clean at the time of winning the Tour de France regardless of what he did in the past. I personally feel that the 2008 Tour was the cleanest we've had in a long while.

shinyhelmut

dulldave wrote:

There's a good chance that Sastre was clean at the time of winning the Tour de France regardless of what he did in the past. I personally feel that the 2008 Tour was the cleanest we've had in a long while.

This would be the tour with stages won by valverde, ricco (2), schumacher (2), piepoli, KOM won by kohl.

Who was it who said "the drugs don't work"

rick_chasey

I don't normally get involved in the doping threads, but...

I think the debates would make more sense if people accepted there is a grey-scale when it comes to doping.

Some do the full blown doping, charged up to the eyeballs - others only dope during training - others only take the odd illegal vitamin injection because they're in real difficulty - others just a bit of cortisone here and there.

In the eyes of the law they are the same, but they're clearly not. It's like getting sent off for 'time wasting' twice in a football match versus a full blown assault and punch to the head.

If you want to judge performances on the bike, you need to take into consideration the level of doping. The odd vitamin injection, or cortisone for that one day you want to win isn't quite the same as a £100,000 EPO course for the whole year.

They're both dirty, but, in my eyes, one is much cleaner than the other.

finchy

ShinyHelmut wrote:

dulldave wrote:

There's a good chance that Sastre was clean at the time of winning the Tour de France regardless of what he did in the past. I personally feel that the 2008 Tour was the cleanest we've had in a long while.

This would be the tour with stages won by valverde, ricco (2), schumacher (2), piepoli, KOM won by kohl.

Who was it who said "the drugs don't work"

And doesn't the fact that a dangerous GC rider (Ricco) blowing the rest of them away on a mountain and Schumacher wiping the floor with the specialists in TTs show that the rest of the peloton was cleaner than in most years?

Cleat Eastwood

Ullrich's grandad

frenchfighter

Rick Chasey wrote:

I don't normally get involved in the doping threads, but...

I think the debates would make more sense if people accepted there is a grey-scale when it comes to doping.

Some do the full blown doping, charged up to the eyeballs - others only dope during training - others only take the odd illegal vitamin injection because they're in real difficulty - others just a bit of cortisone here and there.

In the eyes of the law they are the same, but they're clearly not. It's like getting sent off for 'time wasting' twice in a football match versus a full blown assault and punch to the head.

If you want to judge performances on the bike, you need to take into consideration the level of doping. The odd vitamin injection, or cortisone for that one day you want to win isn't quite the same as a £100,000 EPO course for the whole year.

They're both dirty, but, in my eyes, one is much cleaner than the other.

Good post actually.

Hence why you shouldn't hate on Contador when clen is a total leightweight product and basically will not make you come anywhere close to greatness.

In answer to the OP, Contador.

rick_chasey

frenchfighter wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

I don't normally get involved in the doping threads, but...

I think the debates would make more sense if people accepted there is a grey-scale when it comes to doping.

Some do the full blown doping, charged up to the eyeballs - others only dope during training - others only take the odd illegal vitamin injection because they're in real difficulty - others just a bit of cortisone here and there.

In the eyes of the law they are the same, but they're clearly not. It's like getting sent off for 'time wasting' twice in a football match versus a full blown assault and punch to the head.

If you want to judge performances on the bike, you need to take into consideration the level of doping. The odd vitamin injection, or cortisone for that one day you want to win isn't quite the same as a £100,000 EPO course for the whole year.

They're both dirty, but, in my eyes, one is much cleaner than the other.

Good post actually.

Hence why you shouldn't hate on Contador when clen is a total leightweight product and basically will not make you come anywhere close to greatness.

In answer to the OP, Contador.

Possibly, but I recon Bertie was on the massively overblown very expensive doping regime...

dulldave

ShinyHelmut wrote:

dulldave wrote:

There's a good chance that Sastre was clean at the time of winning the Tour de France regardless of what he did in the past. I personally feel that the 2008 Tour was the cleanest we've had in a long while.

This would be the tour with stages won by valverde, ricco (2), schumacher (2), piepoli, KOM won by kohl.

Who was it who said "the drugs don't work"

Yes it would be the very same tour, I'm impressed by your recall of relatively widely known Tour trivia.

The positive tests from that tour stood out like sore thumbs which would suggest they were up against relatively cleaner opposition than in previous years.

Kohl had been doping since he was 19 but in 2008 he looked a different rider.

I'm no fan of Valverde but it's entirely possible that he was clean in the 2008 tour. He peaked too soon, winning the Dauphine and then won early on in the tour before fading when it mattered.

At the 2008 tour ASO had a fairly ruthless approach to chasing dopers. If that had continued we might not have a 78 page thread about the winner of the 2009/10 Tours testing positive.

cal_stewart

dulldave wrote:

At the 2008 tour ASO had a fairly ruthless approach to chasing dopers. If that had continued we might not have a 78 page thread about the winner of the 2009/10 Tours testing positive.

+1

inkyfingers

frenchfighter wrote:

Hence why you shouldn't hate on Contador when clen is a total leightweight product and basically will not make you come anywhere close to greatness.

Agreed, but blood doping might.

ratsbeyfus

frenchfighter wrote:

In answer to the OP, Contador.

What a sense of humour you have. Just to remind you, the OP was looking for a clean winner! Steak or no steak, contodour will go down in history as one of only two winners to test positive during a tour they won* (OK, LA did as well, but he had a dodgy TUE get out of jail free card.)

Even Pantani who probably had more smack in him than the Happy Monday's tour bus managed to skip through the (inadequate) tests in his tour win. You've gotta laugh FF? I guess you are not though...


*AFAIK

blazing_saddles

Squeaky clean?.............Gino Bartali.