Vasseur Sacked

Cédric Vasseur has been sacked from his role as general manager of the Cofidis cycling team. In comes Raphaël Jeune to the role. We’ll see how long he lasts, because unlike rivals, this is one team that does change management if results are poor.

Jeune has his work cut out because running a team like this is the equivalent of playing Pro Cycling Manager on expert mode, and then more.

If cycling is the new football then seeing seeing managers getting sacked for the poor performance of their teams is part of this. Team managers have typically been team owners and so management changes are typically rare

Not so chez Cofidis. The team was founded by François Migraine, who died last year. He was a cycling fan and president of a local club who founded the consumer credit company Cofidis so once the business grew it was inevitable that he’d want a cycling team. It launched in 1997. A hobby project? Possibly two decades ago when it was one of the sport’s super teams, it had hired the likes of Lance Armstrong and Frank Vandenbroucke. But it’s kept going despite scandal because the sport overlaps well with the company’s marketing demographic, especially as the company has expanded beyond France and into several European countries and the team has hired riders to match this, like a cohort of Spaniards but also Italians and Poles.

Over the years Migraine was the one giving his managers headaches. In 2005 he sacked Alain Bondue after l’affaire Cofidis – inevitably a doping scandal – and in came Eric Boyer. Boyer got sacked on the eve of the 2012 Tour de France. He was replaced by Yvon Sanquer who lasted until 2017.

Cédric Vasseur was appointed as his replacement. Vasseur seemed a good match, a local for a team that is from the suburbs of Lille and a rider who could bring experience from his time at Quick-Step. Only the results haven’t impressed.

But the second part of the comparisons with football is the strong correlation of results with budget. Yes Cofidis hasn’t had the wins nor placings but it’s not had the budget either. Here’s the chart for recent years and note this is the total spend across their men’s, women’s and the disabled team.

Managing a team in the World Tour with a budget like this is tough, it’s one of the lowest amounts going, alongside Arkéa-B&B and Intermarché-Wanty, and this sums involved are the gross amount before we net of French payroll taxes.

One problem for Cofidis that they haven’t looked clever despite the modest budget but it’s just not easy without money. Talent detection is increasingly reliant on funding; plus if they have got a talented rider holding onto them has been hard to impossible, see Christophe Laporte. Likewise trying to pull off a tactical coup is several times harder if the team is weak. With hindsight Guillaume Martin’s Tour de France rides have been a highlight, a regular top-10 and with it visibility.

Famously they didn’t win a Tour stage between 2008 and 2023 but this wasn’t a quirk, it’s been part of a wider struggle to win big races, and sometimes just win. In 2020 the team only had two wins; in 2024 just five.

Right now the team are facing relegation from the World Tour at the end of the 2023-2025 three year period and Uno-X take their place although there’s only 200 points in it right now. Relegation needn’t be ruinous as for now if relegated they’ll stand to qualify automatically for the Tour de France as one of the three best non-World Tour teams in the UCI rankings but while they’re very much a French team, they’re also a sponsor with business interests in Spain and Italy and so the Giro and Vuelta matter too. The risk is beyond this where they’re being overtaken by others.

If Vasseur has gone we can ask how he lasted this long. The results have been meagre for some time; and we could circle back to the budget talk. But there’s been more. A year ago there was a review into the lack of results and the staff changed – not Vasseur – and it was not handled well. Long term trainer Vincent Villerius – snapped up by Picnic-PostNL – found out he was made redundant when he saw he wasn’t on the list of the those going to a training camp, as in Vasseur hadn’t called him and others complained of similar treatment. There are reports of what football call “dressing room issues”, in pro cycling team bus bust-ups. Vasseur roasted Axel Zingle publicly during the 2024 Tour de France. There are other tales, of sarcastic WhatsApp messages, riders being blocked from racing if they didn’t perform and more although part of this is because it’s seen the light of day, similar issues at other teams don’t always get aired. Also for what it’s worth Guillaume Martin has been sympathetic about his time on the team.

Conclusion
Cédric Vasseur has been sacked by Cofidis. But they’re the one team that’s made a habit of ejecting general managers. It’s hardly a magic solution to their challenges.

We’ll see if Jeune can give the team a sense of purpose and direction. Cofidis has looked like a collection of mercenaries hired to race together; being overtaken by Uno-X feels significant as the Norwegian team has an identity and mission, as well as superior results.

But the one thing Cofidis has going for it is sheer persistence. In the face of meagre results the company still continues to back a team so while it gets overtaken by others it can always hope to outlast them.

93 thoughts on “Vasseur Sacked”

  2. The Vuelta and Worlds passes by without comment. But Inrng is back with in-depth coverage of Cofidis. One thing is for sure, Inrng knows their audience!

    • And to explain the long absence, have been away from home on a long bike trip. On a rainy day early in the trip I hopped over a pothole and when I landed my phone somehow bounced out of my jersey pocket and smashed into the road… and with it went my ability to log into the blog, to get the blog password… and the email as well to recover the blog log in. So been without the internet for most of the last month… and very nice it was. Back to maps for navigation and buying newspapers from time to time to get news and on the other side of the world where the Vuelta, disruption included, never appeared.

      Not sure a Worlds preview would have added much since Pogačar started and finished the race. Indeed with the top of the sport dominated by a few, and often predictably so, there’s a degree of fascination with the race to just exist at the other end of the scale.

      • That certainly sounds like an adventure. And quite appealing. In any case, good to have you back. Agreed about the Worlds (though I reckon Remco had more in him)

        • Riders over the years can be quite fascinating and imperfect personalities (like the rest of us). That to me is the beauty of cycling, to get to see that in play.

          In Remco’s case, he will always struggle with his ego. It’s this Superman’s kryptonite, even more so in high stakes races.

          • I don’t think it’s his ego, I see it more as an emotional regulation issue, which is only human under a lot of pressure, he’s not the only star rider struggling with that. Hopefully his new team environment will support him better with this.

          • Yeah, not an ego thing. I’ve noticed how composed and mature he is in interviews, but the guy must be under huge pressure to perform. He seems to succumb to stress (see the Tour this year) especially when things don’t go right, but he never seems angry or entitled, just upset that he’s fallen short.

          • I’ll capitulate then, that it may just be the stress of racing issues.
            But you’d think he’s almost seen it all by now.

            That said, at least he didn’t contract with Cofidis!

          • Absolutely agree with Chuffy and Samuel. It’s not ego at all. It’s stress/emotions in an elite environment where there is a huge amount resting on his shoulders. So understandable but perhaps not helpful for him – it’s wasted energy.

        • Still had a bike computer but no pre-loaded routes. I liked it, following a trail of breadcrumbs on the screen is too easy, this makes you notice place names and the relative locations of towns, mountains, passes etc more, it felt more like travel. GPS navigation is very convenient but this can have a downside.

          Ironically I pull out a pile of maps for Giro and Tour stages just for this but less so when actually riding.

      • There was a stat thrown out during the worlds. It went something along the lines of the last 22 monuments/worlds have been won by 4 riders. Pogacar 9, MvdP 7, Evenepoel 4 and Philipsen 1. Make the course too hard for the Alpecin riders and you have a pretty predictable outcome.

        • I just checked, and if we include the world champs road race as a ‘monument’, the last 20 have been won by those 4 riders.
          Dylan Van Baarle at the 2022 Paris Roubaix was the last non-big4 winner.

          That’s really quite astonishing – not surprising when I think about it, but not something I’d been consciously aware of.

          • And Philipsen, in this context and in that MSR somewhat of a proxy/foil for MvdP, has won 1 [One] of those 20 so it’s not that much of a stretch to call it a Big2 plus a Remco who can call on the Olympics and crushing major TT titles to bolster the sense of a Big3 bestriding this narrow roadracing world like Colossi.

    • Yes, sad news for Cor Vos. I was reading he’d finally planned to retire and travel with his wife Carla who ran the office. This blog used to have an account with them for photos and they were nice to deal with.

      • His photos played a part in making me a cycling fan in the 80s. He caught the human drama and the atmosphere of the landscape where the races were ridden.

  6. Cofidis haven’t seem to have had a recruitment strategy let alone a good one. Over a dozen of the team are over 30 and only three under 23. Compare that to say Picnic Post NL on a similar budget. They have just 6 riders over 30 but seven u23s and they, unlike Cofidis, have a development team!

    They’ve also a distinct lack of fast men that can help pick up UCI points. Even with Benjamin Thomas, it’s doubtful the rule changes, re points being awarded for roads teams picked up in other disciplines, will be enough of a help for them going forward.

    If Cedric has been in sole charge of recruitment, you can see why the change was made.

    p.s.

    Glad you enjoyed your holiday!

      • Movistar are changing this for 2026 too.

        Hiring older riders overlooked by other teams can work, Jayco are going down this route trying to find value, see Paul Double, Elmar Reinders, Filippo Conca next year.

        • Aranburu was a good pick up by Cofidis but everyone else has washed out.

          It doesn’t have to be sprinty types, Astana have shown the way if you have a different plan but Cofidis seem like they’ve paid for a Garmin but forgot to put it on the headset.

          • As clever as Astana have been hoovering up points rather than wins what I’m really getting from them this year is that money talks. If you’re at the bottom end of the budget spectrum you need a bit of luck or avoid bad luck. Onley was always a major prospect, but what if he had taken another year to blossom? He’s got as many points as 2-5 on TPP combined. OTOH if Girmay had something like the form he had last year it wouldn’t be squeaky bum time for Intermarche. OT3H if Vauquelin had the form he had last year Arkea would be unsalvageable.

            Not to say Cofidis management are blameless for this. They’ve always struck me more as dedicated amateurs rather than professionals getting on with the job. Sad to see them go down (if they do) but I think they would survive it.

          • It´s curious how tenacious the myth that “Astana has cleverly hoovered up points rather than wins” (and that it is higher in the ranking than teams that have ridden for wins and that is to say higher than it “should” be)) is!

            One would think that look at their number of wins and a quick comparison with the numbers of the WT and Pro teams slightly above or under them would suffice to bunk it – but I guess that since those who believe in it (and, possibly, like to propagate it because they are of the opinion that Astana is higher in the UCI ranking than teams that have ridden for wins, that is to say higher than it “should” be) don´t bother to do that, they don´t see that the myth is false and therefore it persists.

  8. I suspect this is exactly the scenario that the UCI were hoping for when they introduced relegation. On a personal level, I have always liked Vasseur but there can be little or no doubt that they are not worthy of a world tour license. To see them replaced by a properly motivated outfit like UNO X is probably to be encouraged.

    • It’s not obvious to see but Uno-X punch above their weight in performance and research, they have a lot of old Ineos/Sky staff for nutrition, aerodynamics etc. Tudor are similar too and both are well ahead of many World Tour teams with double the budget, and it’s here that Cofidis are well behind. This affects the ability to get results but also to recruit as riders will think twice or just want higher pay if their results and performance take a dive.

      But I have concerns for Uno-X too. Every team with a regional or national identity doesn’t last, even the Basque Country struggles with this and if the retailer one day decides it’s had enough it won’t be easy to land a replacement. And because it has to have Danes and Norwegians it has to pay a premium for them in order to tempt them (but this brings us back to the performance work which is a good lure too).

  9. Vasseur can not really have too many complaints about what happened, despite the fact Cofidis do not have a huge budget.

    Two years ago Cofidis got 10,437 UCI points, and this year they are under 7,000. Around 9,000 per year is enough for a world tour licence so the fall-off has been alarming. Their budget has not declined that much compared to other teams: they should have just about enough to fight for World Tour.

    More seriously, of the teams currently not in the top 18, three get the Pro-team auto-invites. Cofidis are currently fifth in that ranking (just the current year). This is a bad under-performance that can not be fully explained by budget problems (Arkea have more UCI points this year, for instance). In practise they may end-up qualifying for the auto-invites if Intermarche and Arkea disappear. But it does not inspire confidence for next year.

    • Yeah, when he was appointed there were sharp intakes of breath concerning some of the things alluded to in the OP, that he was prone to rubbing people up the wrong way while calling a spade a fuggin’ shovel and bus bust-ups could be an issue. Thing was that this was how Cofidis existed even back then and Migraine’s bet seemed to be that it couldn’t be any worse than what was going down at the time [remember all the years of ‘what are we going to do about Bou?’] and that Vasseur was somebody who could knock heads together and get results.

      It worked … for a time. They got better results with a bit more focus and a little less indecisive friction. But then the sense of Cofidis will be Cofidis never really went away and all the things that have plagued them for years and already mentioned in the OP and comments stuck around, ready to bite them sooner or later. Lack of budget, poor recruitment, lack of strategy, lack of backroom expertise, the niggles and pressure attendant upon an unhappy working environment, etc.

      Good luck to Uno-X. They’ve thoroughly deserved it as did Arkea three years ago. But, as Inrng says, promotion brings its own problems [as in football] and, again like Arkea though in their own way, they could struggle with the narrowness of their squad even if they have more going for them in terms of budget and back-up and calendar planning.

  10. A lot of unknowns still for next year with Lotto, Intermarche and Arkea all in flux.
    I suspect there will be a few riders who will not have a happy Christmas.

    • Arkéa team manager Emmanuel Hubert is still refusing to say he’s reached the end the road, he originally said that he’d make an announcement either way in April so that things did not drag on only… for things to drag on as he searches for a replacement sponsor. As he said yesterday (an interview out today in Ouest France), today is the day for teams to lodge their bank guarantees for next season and still he’s holding out with the idea that some sponsor might read his appeal and call him. But barring a miracle it’s over. It means a lot of riders on the market and while Vauquelin’s been snapped up long ago (Ineos) as have others there are some decent names that because it is now late, can be got cheap too.

        • That’s not obvious yet. Bernaudeau could find a replacement sponsor, Visit Rwanda are sniffing around pro cycling and if they’re said “non merci” to Arkéa then Total Energies could be a match.

        • Israel PT throwing in the towel at the end of next year? Have I completely missed this piece of news – or is it something “reported by usually well-informed sources”?

          I´m aware that neither Premier Tech nor Factor are willing to continue as sponsor unless the team changes its name and registers itself in some other country – but isn´t that something that is going to happen – or not – at the end of *this* year?

          • A kind of PS (and further off-topic, but since we were talking about IPT):

            As we all know, WorldTour races are obliged to invite all WT teams (and the top two PT teams). But it wasn´t until Giro dell´Emilia withdrew its invitation from IPT that I realized ProSeries races have no obligations whatsoever.

            They can invite whomever they want! They only have to keep within the upper limit of WT teams.

            To exaggerate: unless you are one of the top two WT teams, you might – in theory, that is – end up with a really bleak looking race program, if all ProSeries and all Continental circuit races decided that they don´t want you in their race…

        • Total extended their contract until the end of 2026, (so will be sponsoring 2 teams next season)
          Sylavain Adams is a stubborn SOB, so may not fulfill your predictions, even if Premier Tech, Factor and all the other sponsors bail on them rather than having their brands dragged through even more mud?

          • I agree, I can see Sylvain Adams wanting to keep the Israel name on the jerseys. However, he will have to personally underwrite the costs (not a problem for him). But he will have three other problems: (i) it is possible no-one will supply him with a bike he can use; (ii) he will struggle to attract riders to his team; (iii) outside the world tour, there won’t be many races willing to have his team at their race.

            We all need to understand that races happen because local government supports the race by closing the roads and providing police to allow the race to proceed. This is costly, and races exist on very fine financial margins: we should all be very grateful for the support races get since without local support there would be no race. I can not imagine many local government authorities being keen to dramatically increase their costs in order to enable Israel PT to participate in their local race (whatever their views of Israel). Ultimately, races could simply ban Israel PT to avoid these costs (and it could even happen with World Tour races).

          • If I continue to speculate for the fun of it, the rule change you pointed out means that it would make sense for a hypothetical “Israel – Second Title Sponsor” to turn down the promotion to WorldTour: as a top two ProSeries team, “ISTS” would have the right to participate in all WorldTour and ProSeries races, while if promoted, the ProSeries races wouldn´t have to invite it.

            A pleasingly absurd result – and quite probably one that no-one had in mind when the matter was discussed and the decision made…

            Meanwhile, the really existing IPT will not participate in Coppa Bernocchi, Tre Valli Varesine or Gran Piemonte, the 1.Pro -races that were a part of its racing program until, well, a few day ago.

            We do not know whether IPT was disinvited or whether the team simply chose not to bother (which would be a fairly easy option to take out since there is no risk whatsoever of the team dropping out of the 18 in the UCI ranking).

            IPT is still on the start list on the Il Lombardia web page…

  12. Glad to have you back! Hope your bike trip results in a new “Roads to Ride” report. I enjoy the pic above of the Cofids riders changing a flat with no support, in part because I too own an old Look 695 – not the easiest bike for unsupported roadside maintenance, flats excepted.

  13. Welcome back INRNG! I’ve been checking in daily for your triumphant return, glad to hear that your absence was for (mostly) positive reasons! As for the racing, I recall discussing earlier this year how Guangxi might end up being an important race. Still might be, especially with Uno-X not in attendance. Not that Cofidis appears to be on the upswing…

  14. When they re qualified for the world tour perhaps cofidis should have allowed a second name sponsor Ie. Cofidis insert a name here. Take advantage of there world tour status and a few million extra bucks might have been all the extra budget need for a couple of riders for results.

  15. So good to have you back. I’ve been worried about much worse than a destroyed mobile phone.

    Cofidis have been around for almost as long as I’ve followed men’s pro cycling, good times, bad times. I wish them the best and root for Uno-X. What the Reitan Group have done for Norwegian cycling cannot be underestimated.

  16. Glad to see you are back!

    Impressive that Paul Magnier(21) has won 8 of the last 9 races he has been in. Or 8 out of the last 10. That has to be some kind of record, I think.

    • Good rider, potentially very good, on a late-season hot streak. On the other hand, he was favourite for each of those wins, sometimes at very short odds-on, and 21 has been the new 25 for a few years now.

      When, for example, Freddy Maertens won 13 stages, the points jersey, the hotspot sprints jersey and the overall at the 1977 Vuelta and Arnaud Demare won every stage of Poitou in 2018 how much is that really impressive and how much is down to a relatively poor and uncompetitive race?

      • If we count the prologue as a race, Maertens also won 8 out 10, but since there were two stages between those wins, he doesn´t actually tie with Magnier´s 8 out of 9.

        We probably have to agree that the races Magnier has won could´ve been more competitive, but it’s still an interesting statistic – and a remarkable achievement considering that the best rider does not always win.

        PS My memory is short and my knowledge of pro cycling history is neither deep nor that detailed, but I haven´t forgotten the way Marcel Kittel burst into the scene, winning 4 out 5 and 3 out 4 on several occasions. Alas, there were too many mountain stages between those wins…

    • Usually there’s gossip to the point that when a rider move is announced you think “I thought this was happened six months ago” but this time it seems nobody except the team managers, Uijtdebroeks and his agent knew about it.

  18. Talking of recruitment strategies and cycling as the new football – Uijtdebroeks to Movistar. Even Carlo Ancelotti’s eyebrows may struggle to give that its due.

    • Crowded at Visma-LAB, after Paris-Nice this year the Giro was promised/implied for Jorgenson and now it looks like Vingegaard will go too and presumably double up at the Tour. Then they’ve got Simon Yates and Jorgen Nordhagen to accommodate too. Plus the team keep adding sponsors to the jersey like Gianni Savio used to fund things, so unloading what was surely a seven figure sum from the wage bill matters too.

      • And on the other side of the coin Visma’s incomings this off-season look neither specially mouthwatering nor eyewateringly expensive.

        • On the surface Kooij looked a surprising departure though at Visma-LAB he’s unlikely to ever get a GT start with sprint support and doesn’t look to have the versatility to be a P-R or Flanders candidate either. It seems Decathlon broke the bank for him and his lead-out but is he better than Merlier, Milan, Philipsen, Magnier and De Lie? Besides Visma have Brennan who looks to have potential and versatility.

          • According to the latest Vélo magazine, Brennan can hit the same peak power as Kooij but he’s more aero and 7kg lighter too. Kooij has some versatility, he’s won some hillier days, but we’ve yet to see how much.

          • Kooij may be the least surprising move of their off-season. He wanted to go last year for the same reasons as this year and was persuaded otherwise, always as an interim measure. This year with Brennan as either a straight swap or even an upgrade [whether talent or versatility or both] it’s been a no-brainer for all concerned, including Decathlon as the latest team to suffer from Sam Bennett’s sufferings.

      • With my less informed knowledge, it seems plausible that neither Visma-LAB nor Vingegaard will win another TdF in the Pogacar era. Assuming Pogacar stays motivated, TdF wins #5 and #6 seem likely and would set the “real” all-time record.
        And right behind Pogacar is the 21 yr old wunderkind, Isaac del Toro.

        • I agree. As much as I, as a Dane, cheer for Vingegaard, it’s clear that Pogacar (and UAE) have reached a different level over the past two years. I was dismissive of the talks after the Tour about Vingegaard cutting his career short, but now I’m not so sure. I think he might aim for the Giro next year, drop or deprioritize the Tour, and settle for that. He might also ride in ’27, but that could be it. I guess Pogacar will win the next two Tours, and then IDT might dominate for a decade.

          I might have to eat those words come ’27 or ’28 but lets see…;)

          • I noticed that Vingo was dropped in the Euros. What happened? Did he crash, is he unwell, or just out of form? He seemed fragile in the Vuelta, and it would be a significant blow to pro cycling if he’s on a downward trajectory.

          • @Anton

            He was exhausted, or at least that’s what he claimed after the race. I think it’s more about the toll of a long season with two Grand Tours than any illness. Pogacar seems capable of planning and maintaining a nine-month season with minimal dips in form, but it’s not surprising that other top riders have limits to what they can handle.

            Regarding the Vuelta, yes, Vingegaard wasn’t at his best throughout all three weeks, but he and VLAB managed to control the stages even on his off days. This also makes me think that he might not be far from ending his career. I doubt he’ll ever prioritize to peak in two Grand Tours again.

          • He said he wasn’t able to train properly after the Vuelta. I don’t think expectations were too high but his only one day win was in the Drôme Classic on some of the same roads.

            We might see him at Lombardia, if not then at the Giro route presentation.

          • You should never look too far ahead with predictions.
            When someone young wins a major event like Wimbledon or the Tour, stories always follow about they will dominate/make a vast fortune and it regularly doesn’t turn out that way.

          • @Kevin

            Absolutely agree. Remco is one of the few who has successfully bridged the hugely-promising-junior to hugely-successful-pro gap. So some in the current batch of juniors and U23s with low profiles will certainly turn into white swans come time.

  19. Are Cofidis really assured of an automatic wild-card slot next season? I thought the wild-cards were decided by the one-year points rankings, not the three-year totals.

    On 2025 points (only) Cofidis sit behind Uno-X, Tudor, Q36.5 and Arkea, and only about 200 points ahead of Total Energies. If Uno-X end up getting promoted and Arkea don’t continue then Cofidis will probably be safe in the third spot, but they could well find themselves outside the three.

  20. A contributor has commented on Onley’s outstanding season yet Poole, in the same team and with a similar profile, has been invisible though injury and misfortune. It’s hard to predict who will harvest the points and who won’t – unless one has the means to buy stars in bulk or a magic potion available. It seems that the unfortunate Vasseur had neither.

    • Hard to disagree efter the Euros and Coppa A today.

      As much as I believe Pogacar has been a huge asset to pro cycling, I’m not sure this level of dominance is a good thing. Both Pog and UAE as a team. It raised more questions than I like.

      • There are a few things at the moment that are pushing at the boundaries of credibility. Pogacar producing bigger time gaps in one day races than would’ve been considered normal after a 3 week stage race relatively recently being one of them. If you look at the worlds and euros Evenepoel has put in historic performances and wiped the floor with everyone, but he can’t get anywhere near Pogacar. Pogacar crosses the line grinning as if we should all be delighted that he has rendered another Sunday afternoon a total none event. Its got to the point where, for the sake of viewer entertainment outside of Slovenia, you can’t have hills in a one day race.

        • We should give Pog the benefit of the doubt, as there’s no evidence suggesting that either he or UAE are involved in any shady dealings. That said, I agree—the gaps are ridiculous, and unless you’re Slovenian or a die-hard Pog fan, the races feel almost pointless.

          I wonder if teams and viewers will adapt to this by 2026? Take a look at Pog’s schedule and pay attention to the races where he’s not participating.

  22. There are definitely some young riders – Seixas being one of the best – who will likely be knocking Pogi off his perch at some point. For the time being, he won’t get any competition from maybe the most dangerous young rider, Del Toro, because UAE were smart and wealthy enough to nip that threat in the bud. It makes for a less-than-ideal prospect for the next few years.

  23. Riders going from winning grand tours to the back of the bunch and then easily dropped, in the space of a month…. Riders with incredible peaks for a handful races they care about, and very off-colour form in +/1 a month or two of those peaks…. That has been consistent in the past with autologous blood transfusions in the past. The removal of blood leads to large performance loss.

    Thankfully, that’s all a thing of the past now. Thanks to the incredible and completely fool-proof biological passport.

    • It’s significantly more suspicious if a rider can perform at a top level for 8-9 months without being off-color at any during that time.

      • These comments often tell us more about the commenter and their views.

        I’ll close the comments now as trial by blog comments doesn’t get us anywhere, unless anyone has any new information or insight.

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