Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?
washingtonpost.com15 points by bookofjoe 20 hours ago
15 points by bookofjoe 20 hours ago
At that level of competition, just keep xraying bikes so it can't become an issue? Drug testing is privacy invasive, having your bike xrayed isn't if you're not cheating.
At the top levels, there isn't much privacy already. In 2007, the GC leader of the Tour was removed from the race because they had lied about their location a month prior. Racers are required to tell UCI, the cycling governing body, their locations in order for doping controls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rasmussen_(cyclist)#Un...
Not just at the elite level either. The whereabouts system has expanded to apply to tens of millions of people, completely outside of any serious national or international legal frameworl.
I understand that thermal imaging cameras can pick up anomalies in the frame where the motors are housed during the race.
This is not new and they routinely examine bikes for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_doping
Article created in 2016.
It's too obvious to put the motor in the bike. What they should do is embed electromagnets under the road surface to help accelerate certain bikes and decelerate others.
They could examine random bicycles plus those that did extraordinarily well and issue lifetime bans for offending parties.
Motor doping has been around for ages. Nothing new.
Not as far as they can tell!