Tour de France

Winning the Tour is one thing, but convincing a sceptical sector of the cycling media and public that it is being done ethically is proving harder for Team Sky. That challenge has prompted Dave Brailsford to make another attempt to prove his team are above board by providing the newspaper l'Equipe with all the climbing data Chris Froome has produced in the past two years: 18 ascensions dating back to the Vuelta a Espana in 2011, when the Kenyan-born Briton made his big breakthrough.

L'Equipe, which is owned by the Tour's parent company, Groupe Amaury, had the data examined by their in-house physiologist, Dr Fred Grappe, who has worked with the Francaise des Jeux team since 2000, and was the French Cycling Federation's scientific adviser from 1998 to 2008. None of the data was made public in the newspaper, under agreement with Sky, but Grappe concluded that Froome's performances were humanly possible without doping.

"His performances are coherent," ran the paper's headline, a complete contrast to the previous day's splash in Le Monde over a piece by the former Festina trainer Antoine Vayer – Froome and Sky's most persistent critic in the last two weeks – in which Vayer said that Froome was as fast as Lance Armstrong and Marco Pantani up Mont Ventoux, although "he must have used more watts of power to win the stage".

Grappe pointed out several key indicators. He noted that the drop in Froome's power profile was consistent over intense efforts between 20 and 60 minutes – the point being that there should always be a drop-off in power output as the body struggles with the effort. Froome's drop-off is about 60 watts, as against an average of 50 watts for most of the riders Grappe has studied.

Grappe's method is based on estimated Record Power Profile (PPR), which is essentially the maximum power an individual can sustain over a set period. "Froome's PPR over two years shows no fundamental anomaly," he wrote. "In two years, his profile has not changed." He also notes that Froome's weight has barely varied over the two years, being around 68 kilos, with variations of less than 900 grams.

Team Sky have never measured Froome's VO2Max – his maximal level of oxygen intake during exercise – but Grappe concludes that this must be "close to currently known physiological limits … You can estimate that, compared to his main rivals, he has a margin of 20 watts more power. This is the margin, for example, that we see between him and his main rivals at Ax Trois Domaines and the Ventoux."

Sky also released data regarding the drug tests that Froome has undergone recently, revealing to l'Equipe that he has been tested 19 times in this Tour – 13 blood and/or urine tests, and six biological passport profiles – while during this season he has been tested 29 times, 23 times in competition, six times out of competition.

Is Quintana doping then? hes looked strong all Tour and if he hadn't been working for Valverde at the start could have challenged Froome for the win

Quintana hasn't been the most dominant guy in the mountain AND on the time-trials.

The last guys who were that dominant on both excercices: Contador, Kohl, Armstrong.

That's also why saying "Quintana could have challenged Froome" is just plain wrong. On top of beating him (and virtually everyone else) on time trials, Froome also beat him twice in the moutains at Ax and in the Ventoux.

If you think I say he's doping because I don't like him or british cyclists you are the retard. That's the Armonstrong defense "they say I'm doping because they don't like me and the fact that I'm better than everyone else because I train better and harder than everyone else"

I suspect Froome and Sky in general (Wiggins was no different) because of how well products like AICAR can explain their performances. For me what's wrong with Froome isn't what he's doing in the mountains, it's where he established his reputation, it's the time trials and overall endurence.

And I watch the Tour every year for moments like today. Riblon was fantastic, the moment he passed by Van Garderen and then realizing he had won after all that efforts (he has been in 3-4 breakaways in this Tour, almost won the there the year Rolland won) plus for AG2R the day after Peraud abandonned, it's amazing.

It's hard when you have situations like Ax 3 Domaines, with one team dominating that badly, I've never seen anything like it even during the reign of US Postal.

Sky are dominating so much because they've done their fucking work to get here you cretin.

Fuck off

Seeing so many photos of riders with beers in hand riding up the climb today, so good

Is there any reason why or they just soaking up the atmosphere and larking around?

I imagine a beer would be the last thing I'd want when I was actually doing that climb.

Welp, that's convinced me.

Tends to happen alot when riders are in the Gruppetto, they just have abit of fun with it

We always tend to take beers to the finish in Paris and give them to the riders after, odd seeing the likes of David Millar & Ten Dam riding around with a beer

If you can't be courteous in an debate, then yeah, fuck off.