Defiance
Matej Mohorič won his second stage of this Tour de France, 207-kilometers from Mourenx to the wine mecca of Libourne, with a powerful, solo move, leaving his 20 breakaway companions behind to win by 58”. The Slovenian escaped the break with 25-kilometers to the finish, churning his massive 55-tooth chainring at 75-80 rpm into a strong headwind in a rage-fueled effort. Rage, because on Wednesday night, after the first of two brutal mountain stages, with the racers and staff in a state of extreme exhaustion, the French Police decided the time was right for a 2:00 am drug raid.
It’s so tough for the young riders of today; one feels that no one is standing up for them, no one willing to make the efforts to understand just how much they’ve been leading the entire world in changing the culture of professional sport. The fact that cycling has handled the Covid situation in such a successful manner, certainly compared with other pro sports, goes unnoticed and unmentioned. As Mohorič pointed out, trying to make sense of it all, the sacrifices the riders make today are extreme. They spend enormous amounts of time in isolated, high altitude training camps – Guillaume Martin spent up to 14-hours a day simulating 2500-meters when at the French National Cross Country Ski Center – endure experimental diets and are constantly monitored and measured like the walking, talking science experiments that they’ve become. There is in fact a strong anti-doping culture among the young riders of today, scarred as they all are by the revelations of the past. As the veteran Simon Geschke put it in a touching L’Equipe interview, “After turning pro 15-years ago, just after the Operation Puerto scandal, all we wanted was for the media to speak even a bit about us, the simple young racers who had nothing to do with all of that. Any time cycling comes up in the German press, doping is the subject and no matter how much we try and show how in-depth today’s controls are, how constantly we are monitored. We just can’t convince a public who don’t want to believe in us and a media with only one point of view that is constantly pushed out to that public.”
Mohorič made a foolish mistake on the finish line, a clumsy attempt to tell everyone to stop talking trash about him and his team, one that unfortunately mirrored that of Lance Armstrong 17-years ago. Mohorič was nine years old at the time, and I highly doubt that the then boy, if he even saw Lance’s gesture, thought to himself, “Yea, I’m going to do that one day.” A straightforward man in the Eastern European manner, Mohorič was calmer after his win – a win that put him directly into Medical Control it’s worth noting – saying that if the police need to take my phone, with all the photos of my family, if they need to do that to understand the truth about us, and about modern cycling, “then so be it”.
Pehaps the raid was justified, perhaps the opposing team directors who anonymously dropped the dime on Mohorič’s team were correct and we’re all on the verge of a giant new Festina scandal. The fact that the raid took place on the night before French President Emmanuel Macron made his annual Tour visit, ensuring that he would be greeted with nasty headlines leaves me a bit suspicious of the timing and intent of the action, politicized at the anti-doping movement has become. There was a similar hubbub last year, launched by the same Marseille prosecuting office when they raided Nairo Quintana’s hotel. We’re still waiting on the results of that one.
But never fear, even if the raid on Bahrain-Victorious comes up bust, as Quintana’s must have done, there are new ‘mechanical doping’ accusations – made anonymously of course – to keep the press busy and the public ever suspicious of our beautiful sport of cycling.