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Mechanical doping: Bradley Wiggins says it's gone on for yearsSir Bradley Wiggins exits bus at start of Tour de Yorkshire 2015 (picture Simon Wilkinson, SWPix)

Mechanical doping: Bradley Wiggins says it's gone on for years

Multiple world and Olympic champ also reveals commissaires took his Hour Record bike apart
by Simon_MacMichael
Wed, Feb 03, 2016 13:08
5

Sir Bradley Wiggins says he believes the motor found hidden in a bike at the Cyclo-cross World Championships at the weekend is not the first time such a device has been used in a cycle race, and that commissaires took his own bike apart after he set the new UCI Hour Record last June.

Speaking at the Dubai Tour, where Team Wiggins is racing, the multiple world and Olympic champion and 2012 Tour de France winner said: “I think it’s probably been around for a while. For five years now they’ve had this suspicion because they’ve been checking the bikes.

“I think it is the first one they’ve found [correct – ed], but I’m sure that it has happened in the past, but they haven’t found them. It’s just one of those thigs.”

The bike found in Zolder on Saturday had been prepared by mechanics for Belgium’s Femke Van den Driessche to race in the Women’s Under-23 race.

She insists it belongs to a family friend – ex-pro cyclist Nico Van Muylder claims it is his – and that her mechanics mistakenly thought it was hers and washed and set it up for her.

> Family friend said to own THAT bike identified

“In a way, it is good that they found it because they’ve been checking them for five years now. They did it after the Hour Record; they took my bike to pieces. They didn’t give up with it, which is a good thing.”

Earlier this week, Eddy Merckx said that riders caught using concealed motors should be banned for life, a view Wiggins shares.

“I would probably agree with that,” he said. “But you’ve got to ask questions of the athlete. It’s one thing to choose to blood dope, but it’s another thing to choose to put a motor in your bike.

“Aside from ethically, you’ve got to ask a lot of questions of the athlete, especially the girl that they found it in because she was the favourite to win the race anyway.”

> Ban hidden motor cheats for life, says Eddy Merckx

Comparing using a hidden motor with cheating through taking banned substances, he said: “It’s different, I wouldn’t say it’s worse. I think that they’re both as bad as each other.

“I can understand why people would dope in terms of what’s to be gained from it financially but to stick a motor in your bike, I don’t understand the logic behind that and winning a race because you’ve got an extra 200-odd watts in your bottom bracket.

“It is the same thing as doping, but I can’t see the logic in it,” Wiggins added.

> All you need to know about concealed motors

Sir Bradley Wiggins
#Femkegate
Femke Van den Driessche
Mechanical doping
Simon MacMichael

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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5 comments

Avatar
Grigor | 8 years ago
2 likes

I personally don't agree with lifetime bans for mechanical doping/cheating. It might be ethically abhorrent but the advantage disappears as soon as you take the bike away.

In contrast, steroid use in young athletes can promote the generation of extra muscle cells (number of not size of) - a benefit that will stay with them for their athletic life. It also lets them train to maximum potential at an age when the body is best able to adapt. Helping to build a higher base level of performance even once drug use is ceased.

Drug dopers also have more chance of avoiding detection. It's fairly easy to routinely check the bike of a former 'mechanical doper/cheat'.

The push for lifetime bans seems largely to be about protecting the image of the sport. The UCI should hand a couple out and then get on with the real task of facilitating regular checks.

Avatar
earth replied to Grigor | 8 years ago
0 likes

Grigor wrote:

I personally don't agree with lifetime bans for mechanical doping/cheating. It might be ethically abhorrent but the advantage disappears as soon as you take the bike away.

In contrast, steroid use in young athletes can promote the generation of extra muscle cells (number of not size of) - a benefit that will stay with them for their athletic life. It also lets them train to maximum potential at an age when the body is best able to adapt. Helping to build a higher base level of performance even once drug use is ceased.

Drug dopers also have more chance of avoiding detection. It's fairly easy to routinely check the bike of a former 'mechanical doper/cheat'.

The push for lifetime bans seems largely to be about protecting the image of the sport. The UCI should hand a couple out and then get on with the real task of facilitating regular checks.

 

Good point, perhaps the penality should be the otherway around.  But I'm more in favour of all cheating resulting in lifetime bans.  Another point is that with mechanical cheating the likely hood is that team mechanics will be involved whereas a drug doper could do it all themselves.  I can't see any reason to keep mechanics in a team if they have been  involved in mechanical cheating.

Avatar
surly_by_name | 8 years ago
3 likes

Its lucky he won the TdF cause otherwise he sounds as ill informed as the rest of us. "It’s one thing to choose to blood dope, but it’s another thing to choose to put a motor in your bike." At a purely phyiscal level, correct. But they are both cheating. Can't understand on what basis Wiggins then seeks to draw a distinction between the two.

Although the headline is misleading. He didn't say "it's gone on for years"; he said "I think its probably been around for a while", there is quite a difference.

Could we also stop calling it "mechanical doping". Technical fraud or mechanical cheating or something but not doping.

Avatar
dafyddp replied to surly_by_name | 8 years ago
1 like

surly_by_name wrote:

"It’s one thing to choose to blood dope, but it’s another thing to choose to put a motor in your bike."

Maybe the point he is making is that during the heyday of drug-cheating, a doping rider could convince themeselves that doping is okay because 'everyone is doing it' and therefore the winner still needs to be a the best athlete. If you've got a 200W motor dropped down your seatpost however, you're  a) clearly not the same as everone else  and b) no longer even riding a bike - it's a different vehicle altogether.

At it's most absurd, It's a bit like had Ben Johnson turned up to a race on battery-powered roller-skates!

Avatar
bsknight replied to surly_by_name | 8 years ago
0 likes

surly_by_name wrote:

Could we also stop calling it "mechanical doping". Technical fraud or mechanical cheating or something but not doping.

 

Yes, absolutely, but then journalists would have to stop being lazy. It's like adding "gate" after any scandal. I know, there is a very obscure work for it - it's called "cheating".

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