When was the last time a CLEAN rider won the Tour de France

Evans win was a total workmanlike grind. He just out sufferred the other riders. No huge win in the mountains. No huge time trials. Just consistent riding and great team support.

What difference does it make if they were clean or not? Their personal hygiene is not important in the grand scheme of things. So what if Lemond used Irish Spring instead of Dial, if Armstrong attained a full lather, or Cadel Evans didn't shampoo? I am sure most of these athletes want nothing more than to get a good shower after all that riding, and they are probably all clean.

Long distance cyclists were using performance enhancing drugs before the Tour De France started in 1903. The earliest drugs included strychnine and ether. Henri Pélissier, the winner in 1923, took cocaine and chloroform, along with unidentified pills. The winner in '49 and '53, Fausto Coppi, admitted to taking amphetamines.

It is not clear to me that here has ever been a clean winner fo the Tour de France.

When this is discussed in the cycling world, they say "Cycling is getting cleaner. Hell, Cadel won the TDF" as proof.

It is generally regarded that he is clean.

They have unofficial records for some of the frequently used climbs - they are currently riding those climbs 3-4 min slower than pre 2007 and the gaps between the riders is shrinking as well.

This article gives a summary of the suspicions and implications of every TdF podium finisher from 1996 to 2010.

Conclusion: only very recent finishers have not been implicated.

Only Cadel Evans, Andy Schleck, Carlos Sastre, Denis Menchov have no evidence to implicate them. Wiggins is too new on the scene to have been mentioned in the article, but he seems to be in the same boat as Cadel and Schleck.

This is also a good article

...explaining exactly how much slower the tour has gotten, and estimates that:

"So, in terms of what that means for Wiggins and co at the front of the stage, it predicts about 6.4 to 6.5 W/kg. Over 16 minutes, that's not at all unreasonable. To give you some context, calculations of climbing power output in the Tour de France in the 1990s and 2000s often estimated that top riders maintained power outputs of 6.4 to 6.5W/kg on the Tour's HC climbs, most of which take over 40 minutes to climb."

"You're predicting physiology that says that the world's best cyclists have a VO2max of 85 to 87 ml/kg/min, that they're 23% efficient, and riding at 90% of maximum. Or, they could be 24% efficient with a VO2max of 81 ml/kg/min. That is, on paper, normal physiology for the best cyclists in the world in peak condition.

The "abnormal" physiology of years gone by came from guys who were sustaining 6.4W/kg for 45 minutes. That points to a human that has a VO2max of 97 ml/kg/min on the bike, or an efficiency of 28%, or can sustain 95% of max for 45 min at the end of five hours of racing. That just doesn't happen."

Good post above!

cenotaph wrote:

andy schleck "won" because he didnt test positive. maybe hes clean. probably not. but i would bet him over anyone else in the past 20 years

I think Andy never tested positive however his brother was rumored to be on the Fuentes list I believe. What are the odds of two brothers in the Tour, one clean, one dirty?

In chronological order, chance that the rider was clean:

Cadel Evans: 50% (relatively unimpressive win)

Andy Schleck: 10% (dirty brother)

Alberto Contador: 0%

Carlos Sastre: 30% (relatively unimpressive win but dirty teammate)

Oscar Pereiro: 25% (only asthma medication proofed)

Lance Armstrong: 0%

Marco Pantani: 0%

Jan Ullrich: 0%

Bjarne Riis: 0%

Miguel Indurain: 10% (dirtiest decade, 5 times winner)

Greg Lemond: 60% (just my guess)

Bernard Hinault: 60% (no evidence, I think)

Laurent Fignon: 0% (he admitted drug abuse)

This list covers 30 years of TdF. I would only give Evans, Sastre, Lemond and Hinault the benefit of the doubt.

I think the exact date was The 1st of Never.

Everybody knows that Greg Lemond blood doped.

So according to Velo News...

Congratulations to Bobby Julich - only the second and last American winner of the Tour de France.

You can't win the Tour de France just drinking water."

Eddy Merckx

Who was Eddy Merckx you ask... Only the greatest cyclist of all time. just look him up.

5x winner of the tour

5x winner of the Giro

3x world champion

But he got got caught doping three different times. Cycling has always had people who doped. Anf for those people who are arguing that Greg Lemond never doped but say that Lance did, just look at the people who Lemond beat. Just as many dopers:Fignon, Zoetemelk, delgado, Roche, Indurain ect.

Coaches News Network wrote:

1963

Coaches News Network wrote:

1963

Anquetil was doped to the gills. He admitted it and refused to give a sample when testing was introduced in 1966.

Farho13 wrote:

You can't win the Tour de France just drinking water."

Eddy Merckx

Who was Eddy Merckx you ask... Only the greatest cyclist of all time. just look him up.

5x winner of the tour

5x winner of the Giro

3x world champion

But he got got caught doping three different times.

No he didnt't.

And again it was Anquetil who said "you can't win the Tour drinking just water." But Merckx said that wasn't true.

Oh please wrote:

I think the last rider that was never linked was LeMond

LeMond blood doped.

I'd say it goes waaaaaay back. Maybe never. Even now it's "legal" to blood dope so long as your hg count isn't above 40 (Hamilton got busted for this, his count was too high). So as of today everyone dopes. It's just legal as long as you stay within their limit.

My gf has a whooty! wrote:

Oh please wrote:

"I think the last rider that was never linked was LeMond"

LeMond blood doped.

I'd say it goes waaaaaay back. Maybe never. Even now it's "legal" to blood dope so long as your hg count isn't above 40 (Hamilton got busted for this, his count was too high). So as of today everyone dopes. It's just legal as long as you stay within their limit.

It's true that we can't say they aren't using smaller amounts of the same banned substances & techniques they always have. We can't ever say we know for certain that they are 100% clean.

What we can say, and what we do know, and the point of my last post was that the riders in the tour are no longer physiologically mutants. The best riders in the world are plausible human beings now. That's a big improvement and personally, makes the tour much more satisfying to be a fan of.

I don't know anymore. I have loved the tour since I was a kid. The last 10 years has all but ruined it for me.

I don't know if what I'm watching is fake or real anymore. That said, I think if anyone is clean out of the contenders it's Evans. I don't remember him ever doing anything even close to super human on a single stage.

Wiggins is the big question mark for me. The entire Sky team is suspect. They're suddenly the modern day USPS. Super dominant in big races all year long with guys that were never dominant before. I can't help but thinking they're doped to the gills but who knows.

atx guy wrote:

Wiggins is the big question mark for me. The entire Sky team is suspect. They're suddenly the modern day USPS. Super dominant in big races all year long with guys that were never dominant before. I can't help but thinking they're doped to the gills but who knows.

Also the British have no history of being cyclists, all of a sudden they're dominant (compare 2008 Olympics track cycling). Highly suspicious.

LMFAO at all of you clowns that think that Greg Lemond was clean. There has never been a clean winner of the TDF. Right from the start, they were all dirty. The drugs have changed, but the fact that they've always been cheaters hasn't.