The question I always find hard to answer is; where do you draw the line?....
I don't know the answer and the truth is I enjoy the racing anyway and for me a drug scandal in Le Tour always makes it better viewing.
Good point; I admit I enjoy a good drug scandal too. AndyP sums it up well; better than it was, still not right but you don't know for sure what is going on. But anyone who followed cycling through the 90s knows to be sceptical and that often it is the way that riders and managers* talk *about doping that gives the best clues. I think even the most doped up riders have some conscience or at at least don't want their colleagues laughing in their faces after they have condemned doping when they are well known to be using the stuff themselves. So Pantani, for example, never said anything convincing about doping and never sounded angry about it; likewise Armstrong. Whereas Wiggins and Moncoutie and others do sound convincing; they sound pissed off. Evans falls somewhere between the two and maybe that's just his slightly odd, slightly shy, personality. If Evans is doping then clearly he needs to get a new doctor.
The difference between third and first in the tour seems small but can often actually be pretty big; drugs can make that difference. Contador's time trial performances are an example I think; the last climber to TT like that was Heras and before him Pantani.
One thing I am sure of; genuinely clean riders are never implicated in drug scandals. So the elder Schlek can't be believed and his little brother is pretty mealy mouthed on the subject. That they work with Riis hardly helps; which then implicates Sastre and so on and so on. You just can't be certain of any but a handful of riders.
Good point; I admit I enjoy a good drug scandal too. AndyP sums it up well; better than it was, still not right but you don't know for sure what is going on. But anyone who followed cycling through the 90s knows to be sceptical and that often it is the way that riders and managers* talk *about doping that gives the best clues. I think even the most doped up riders have some conscience or at at least don't want their colleagues laughing in their faces after they have condemned doping when they are well known to be using the stuff themselves. So Pantani, for example, never said anything convincing about doping and never sounded angry about it; likewise Armstrong. Whereas Wiggins and Moncoutie and others do sound convincing; they sound pissed off. Evans falls somewhere between the two and maybe that's just his slightly odd, slightly shy, personality. If Evans is doping then clearly he needs to get a new doctor.
The difference between third and first in the tour seems small but can often actually be pretty big; drugs can make that difference. Contador's time trial performances are an example I think; the last climber to TT like that was Heras and before him Pantani.
One thing I am sure of; genuinely clean riders are never implicated in drug scandals. So the elder Schlek can't be believed and his little brother is pretty mealy mouthed on the subject. That they work with Riis hardly helps; which then implicates Sastre and so on and so on. You just can't be certain of any but a handful of riders.