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Chris Froome celebrates winning the 2013 Tour de France (picture copyright Simon Wilkinson:SWpix.com)Chris Froome's training data hacked, says Sky boss Sir Dave Brailsford
Team Sky boss Sir Dave Brailsford believes the WorldTour outfit’s computers have been hacked to obtain Chris Froome’s training data in an attempt to prove he is doping.
Brailsford made the revalation at a press conference in Pau yesterday in response to being asked whether Froome can expect to be quizzed over doping now the race has entered the mountains.
He said: “It’s part of the game, isn’t it? If he does well [today], the rest of the Tour it’s ‘How do you know he’s not doping?’
“The question of how to prove a negative is always going to be a difficult one. We think someone has hacked into our training data and got Chris’s files, so we’ve got some legal guys on the case there.
“I would never mention a name but ethically and morally, if you are going to accuse someone of doping, then don’t cheat.”
Froome faced questions over doping during the 2013 Tour de France, which he won, and has consistently maintained that he is riding clean.
The 30-year-old, who is the only current cyclist known to have testified to the UCI’s Cycling Independent Reform Commission, has also said that people on social media who use riders’ power data to try and find clues they may be doping are “clowns.”
Brailsford added: “I used to worry about it a lot more but I don’t any more. It’s part of the game. Just try to be honest, tell the truth, be open.”
Yesterday, a video appeared on YouTube showing the Mont Ventoux stage of the 2013 Tour de France, won by Froome, overlaid with what purported to be the rider’s data.
The latter had apparently been supplied by Antoine Vayer to Twitter user @oufeh – that account has now been deleted, and the video taken down from YouTube.
Vayer, who from 1995 to 1998 was a trainer at the Festina team, raised suspicions Froome and Wiggins Sir Bradley Wiggins shortly before the 2013 Tour de France when he published his e-book, Not Normal? An insight into doping and the 21 biggest riders from LeMond to Armstrong to Evans.
As outlined in a report on VeloNews at the time, he said Froome’s performance the previous year had been “miraculous,” with Wiggins’ yellow-jersey winning exploits at the 2012 Tour merely “suspicious,” according to the scale devised by the author.
Responding to the publication, Team Sky said at the time: “Both Chris and Bradley have received your email and each has considered their response.
“They have been asked many times before about their stance on doping and their approach to performance.
“It’s all already firmly on the record; neither has used banned substances or illegal practices. Team Sky’s approach to conditioning and coaching is also well documented.
“We know exactly how our riders prepare and perform and the true science behind this. And we have our own accurate data that we can rely on to support this.”
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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53 comments
and no surprise we have a new vid from 2014 Vuelta
http://www.chronoswatts.com/news/80/SkyLeaks2
While I'm not a huge Sky fan, I do have a fair amount of faith in them being clean, the British public would be far quicker in condemning them if one of the riders was found to be doping than fans in Spain/Italy are of their riders.
All of the sports science and marginal gains work must be worth something otherwise they wouldn't be doing it, if they're the most high tech team out there then it's likely that they would be able to get the most out of things like that.
The fact that this display came the day after the rest day is not that unexpected, Sky are likely to have studied the way to get the absolute best out of a rest day for the riders so that they can come in the next day fresh and ready to go. As commentators have been pointing out for years, the day following a rest day can often lead to riders not firing on all cylinders, if Sky have managed to eliminate a lot of this effect then of course their in form riders, who've had a relatively easy first week compared to some teams (and vs Movistar on the day who took up the race far too early) then the success of Froome, Porte and Thomas isn't that huge a surprise.
I'm surprised there isn't more suspicion towards Nibali's sudden inability to get up a hill, last year he looked unstoppable, this year, when there's greater scrutiny on Astana he's riding like someone filled his water bottle with lead.
Interestingly Thomas gave an interview straight after the race and he almost actually smiled with actual joy. The stoic face and dry humour dissipated for just a moment!
So someone has the ability to hack into the computer systems of Sky and then post the data so it looks dodgy.
They are obviously after dirt and if they have the capability to hack the system they are certainly capable of altering facts and figures if the info they obtain doesn't suit their purpose.
I have no way of proving this just like everyone who comes on here and slags Sky off as junkies have no way of proving it either.
If you look really, really closely at the film of Kennedy's assassination you can just see members of the Sky team skulking in the crowd ......
Quintana loses 1' 02"to Froome on one of the hardest climbs on Le Tour, even Porte comes ahead of one of the world's best climbers.
Nibali, Uran, Contador 2' 50", Valverde, TJ, Purito, etc...
And it's all down to having 3 Shredded Wheat?
Noah there. let's not forget Geraint Thomas. Out climbing the worlds' best too.
He's come on a bit has the lad.
Who knows, and who cares?
I watch the racing for the tactics, the effort, the skill.
Acknowledging that many riders are taking PED's, I don't really have favourite riders any more.
Yeah, nowadays I just assume they're all doping. It makes it so much more enjoyable to watch the racing when you no longer care about PEDs.
I would hope most people would approach this as wanting to believe in Froome, but with a certain level of scepicism given the past of the sport and Froome's outstanding performances. With this in mind, and given that any data set is open to mixed intepretation I actually assign some value, perhaps naively, to the integrity of Brailsford et al. We know that Team Sky apply total science in their approach and analyse performance deeply, such careful analysis of their athletes by such expert staff would surely reveal any suspicious markers. Would Brailsford stand on a global stage in support of a rider that he had any doubt over, knowing that these questions would be posed? Blind faith possibly but I don't think he would. Are the likes of Vayer etc comparing apples with pears in their appraisal of performance given the passage of time since Pantani/Armstrong were lighting it up climbs? I hope that Froome is a freakishly good athlete who is lucky enough to be in a team who have the budget to command the best possible sport science and apply this to an exceptionally talented individual. We live in hope!
This is not going away ....
Antoine VAYER @festinaboy
Soon a new video impossible to hack even by the best hacker lawyer...
Tour de France has been a great watch so far hasn't it? I might even watch and enjoy it right to the end.
SKY haven't said that though, have they?
Why not take a YouTube video and just add some spurious data? Why go to all the trouble of hacking SKY, to then change the data when you don't have to.
And that would be how SKY should have reacted, but it wasn't. They were hacked and the data detailed hasn't beed shouted down as being incorrect.
If I make up a video with false data, there is no crime.
If I hack a file and change the data, I'm committing a crime.
Not logical.
Exactly, just a shame it's not applied to all suspected dopers.
The data pulled off a sky server and the data posted on a website may or may not be the same.
This blind support for people with a unproven 'facts' is funny as there is no proof in the argument.
no one doubts it is the same, only you.
BTW Vayer says this was leaked
Sky says it was hacked
I know who to believe
SKY have proved where it came from by saying their files were hacked.
I have no idea why they would want to store false details.
See above, SKY say the data is true.
EDIT: Whatever we have SKY know more than they're letting on.
The choice of the word "hacked" is very telling. /EDIT
I've said it before, Johnny foreigner is suspected and the British fans have labelled them guilty by assumption.
A British Team is not even allowed to be suspected without pages of documented evidence.
Lance was pilloried for years before he finally came out and admitted it.
Conatdor was a doper before the minute levels of clem were confirmed.
SKY have their computers hacked and the files are dodgy/sources unreliable/easily explained.
This blind support is funny as there is no consistency in the argument.
You would have thought an organisation so closely linked to the Murdoch Empire would have a better appreciation for hacking and security protocol, after they were the masters of this kind of thing.
Look, this data can be estimated fairly accurately. The physics of a bicycle climbing a hill isn't exactly complicated. We know what are reasonable values for the ranges of the unmeasurable variables. The measured variables (time and the profile of the road) can be measured from charts and video to at least the same accuracy as the cycle computer - indeed better for road profile. Further, the longer, steeper and twistier the climb, the more accurate the estimations can get.
Indeed, the estimations can be *more* accurate than the power-meters given enough time on a sufficiently steep hill, given that the power-meter accumulates its errors while the estimation doesn't.
There is no reason to doubt that we can give a very accurate power figure for long climbs, with reasonable error bounds. And there are scientific papers demonstrating this. To try dismiss this method as being highly inaccurate suggests the person doing so is either ignorant, or putting up a smoke-screen.
The one big criticism I would have of those presenting the estimations is that some do not present the reasonable range of the estimation. Instead, it is sometimes given as an exact figure. That's wrong. At least some correctly give ranges though.
I don't think anyone was suggesting they are highly inaccurate were they ?
Indeed.
Froome has already said he can't understand why his max heart rate is so low, but he has acknowledged that his lungs are 8 litres whereas a normal person has lungs of only 6 litres. Plus he uses oval chain rings and brings his own pillow to races.
I want one of those pillows.
The UCI will put a stop to that.
re: Froome's pillow. Here you go, they're flogging one on ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Chinese-Asian-Blue-White-Porcelain-Headrest-Op...
....dodges carbs, never eats nuttella, attends meetings in a camper-van, washes his hands after taking a pee, never forgets his inhaler, warms-down on rollers - the aggregation of these marginal gains must be enormous!
Things that prove doping, it would seem:
the existence of power data
winning
even bothering to try to win
simply riding the tour
simply entering any race
looking at a bicycle
Yes it is all about interpretation. Frappe says in 2013 it was possible but Froome has to have one of the highest known VO2 Max's to do it.
Lemond's is one of the highest ever and highest for a pro cyclist at 92
LA's was 84
Indurain's 88
http://www.topendsports.com/testing/records/vo2max.htm
Sky laughably say they do not test him, why ? Surely this is a key figure for any cyclist to know and improve ?
There are better measures of performance now than vo2max for almost all athletic endeavours which is probably why Froome's results aren't published. Data is only useful if you can use it and there are better sets of data than vo2max.
Stop being stats geeks and just watch the racing instead. You might even enjoy it.
Thanks for that. Probably the most credible "analysis" from us armchair enthusiasts out there
I don't think Sky are debating whether the data are 'dirty' or not - certainly not yet publically - but they were calling into question the analysis and interpretation of raw data.
This is perhaps not unreasonable, even Vayers own analysis in Not Normal is known to diverge from real data (e.g. extreme of 9% up the Tourmalet) and doesn't take into account race conditions (e.g. wind, drafting) and unsure about power adjustments on the SRM/Osymetric in the specific case of Froome (no matter what SRM say about the matter) - but you can see why he was someone to pass the data to.
Much of the sane analysis i've read on the internet about this seems to suggest there is nothing particular that is really 'unworldly' about the performance - but it does seem to be right up there as far as what can be achieved. PEDs ?.. possible I guess.. one of the best in the world at the top of his form in in competition in race conditions ?.. maybe not so impossible.
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