Spin Cycle is Escape Collective’s news digest, published every Monday and Friday. You can read it on this website (obviously) or have it delivered straight to your inbox. You can sign up here.
Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle! Escape Collective’s news digest.
We’re in a bit of a lull period in between the World Championships and Vuelta a España (unless the Bemer Cyclassics, Tour of Denmark, Arctic Race of Norway, and Vuelta a Burgos are expressly your jam), so thankfully there has been a whole mess of doping news to keep you titillated for the time being.
Between Dr. Freeman’s ban, Michel Hessmann’s positive, and Toon Aerts’ guilty verdict, the new cycling is beginning to feel eerily similar to the old cycling, and protestations that the sport has changed begin to wear thin.
That’s not to say we’re all doom and gloom, though. The fact that riders test positive and dodgy doctors get banned shows the health and strength of cycling’s commitment to anti-doping comparative to other, bigger sports where the issue gets pushed under the rug. There is no doubt these positives damage the image of the sport, but the answer is continued vigilance and proper explanation from interested parties, such as the management at the likes of the Ineos Grenadiers and Jumbo-Visma, of how these circumstances have arisen and what they will be doing in the future to make it less likely to happen again. We remain hopeful yet won’t be holding our breath.
Look at the Hess you’ve made
The biggest news story of the week has been Jumbo-Visma’s 22-year-old German Michel Hessmann returning a positive test for a banned diuretic in an out-of-competition test in mid-June. Our own Joe Lindsey has a fantastic contextual report on the matter, which is well worth a read.
For Jumbo-Visma, this is their first rider to get caught up in positive tests and doping accusations since they dropped Luis Léon Sánchez 10 years ago (when in between sponsors and know as ‘Blanco) due to the Spaniard’s links to Eufemiano Fuentes. Sánchez has denied ever doping, yet Team Blanco said, rather strongly, at the time: “His name appears in too many cases. Appearances are against him.”
Announced on Wednesday afternoon, Jumbo-Visma’s PR machine whirred into action, putting out a solitary tweet to declare the news that they had suspended Hessmann, with no accompanying news article on the team’s website and the tweet locked so that none of the 1.2 million people who saw the news could respond to it.
With only three sentences to go on in the statement, information is scarce. Jumbo-Visma say they are awaiting the results of further investigation, but it’s not clear whether that means the results of Hessmann’s B-sample or something else. As deduced by the Inner Ring, the positive isn’t listed on the UCI website, so the case is likely from another agency, probably the German National Anti-Doping Agency, but a further confusing matter is the team suspending him rather than the National Agency or Hessmann offering himself up for suspension.
What is clear is that Jumbo-Visma are trying to get out in front of the matter and exhibit some control of the situation. Following a second Tour de France victory where their performances came under renewed scrutiny and Jonas Vingegaard consistently pledged the cleanness of his results, the cycling world will be watching how this incident unfolds very closely.
With a star-studded Vuelta line-up for the Dutch outfit featuring both Vingegaard and GC co-leader Primož Roglič, expect some fireworks not just on the road but in Barcelona at the pre-race press conferences …
Clear mind, full Aerts, can lose…a UCI Anti-Doping Tribunal
While this newsletter doesn’t mind a bit of cloak and dagger doping conspiracy, it turns out high-profile doping positives actually suck.
Toon Aerts has finally been found guilty of his January 2022 Anti-Doping Rule Violation (presence of letrozole metabolite collected in an out-of-competition sample) and so the cyclocross star will continue his provisional (now confirmed) suspension until early next year.
In the UCI Tribunal’s decision, they considered that Aerts had “failed to establish how the prohibited substance entered his body,” with the rider’s defence being that he ingested the testosterone-boosting drug involuntarily due to a contaminated food supplement.
“We found a contaminated supplement but in an opened container,” Aerts’ manager Yannick Prevost explained. “To be legally binding, we also need to find a contaminated supplement in a closed container. And unfortunately, we have not succeeded to date. So officially, the source of the contamination has not been found.”
Aerts now has one month to appeal the decision before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
We just need to know what’s going on at Ineos
Following the expected end to the seemingly never-ending Dr. Freeman debacle earlier this week when the former British Cycling/Team Sky doctor was handed a four-year doping ban, the bad news week continued for Ineos Grenadiers with a number of strong riders announced as departing and presumably nailed-on replacements now looking not so sure.
The 27-year-old Dani Martínez is off to Bora-Hansgrohe, while young British talent Ben Tulett will swap the team he shares a nationality with for Jumbo-Visma, with the 21-year-old providing a likely unintended kick in the ribs on his way out by declaring the Dutch squad “the top team in our sport”.
With Tao Geoghegan Hart off to Lidl-Trek and Pavel Sivakov switching to UAE Team Emirates, the British squad is far from its heady dominant days of the last decade, and what’s more is that GCN’s Dan Benson is reporting that Tobias Foss and Carlos Verona, long suspected of being inbound to Ineos, are no longer making the move.
With 15 riders contracted next year, and a sizeable cohort of 11 still undeclared whether they are re-signing or moving on, that still leaves four spots that will have to be magicked up out of nowhere and filled (and the street magician himself Dani Martínez won’t be around for long to help with any conjuring).
So what is going on?!
Ineos Grenadiers used to be the team the best riders wanted to be on, for both optimum performance and salary. Yet losing young talent, especially British talent, is a worrying continued downward trajectory. Sure, Geraint Thomas came second at the Giro d’Italia earlier this year, and Tom Pidcock is one of the most exciting bike riders who is still yet to find his ceiling, but those are thin slivers of hope for a team of the budget and pedigree of Ineos.
How much have Brailsford and Ratcliffe had their heads turned by the Manchester United bid, to the expense of the cycling team’s success?
For Brailsford, it may have provided some much-needed space between himself and the unfurling of the Freeman debacle. But in an update to our reporting on the matter from Monday, we finally got a reply from the team!
In response to our request for comment from either the team or Brailsford himself, a spokesperson told us the team “have nothing further to add to our previous statement.”
Which previous statement would this be?
The only one we can find is this one issued on March 12 2021, 889 days ago, in the aftermath of Freeman being found guilty by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service of ordering Testogel “knowing or believing” it to be for an athlete to improve their performance.
We followed up with the team asking them to clarify which exact statement they were referring to but … shock … we didn’t hear back!
As a Somewhat Reputable News Outlet™, we do want to provide some balance to our reporting, and so are glad to let you know that Ineos’ latest merch release ahead of the Vuelta a España is fire. Nothing like designing merch to get through a PR crisis!
Feed Zone ?
? Chantal van den Broek-Blaak is back racing after giving birth at the end of May
?? 30-year-old German Max Walscheid arrives at Jayco-AlUla from Cofidis to bolster Dylan Groenewegen’s lead-out
? Another faster man leaving Cofidis is Simone Consonni who is off to Lidl-Trek to provide support to Jonathan Milan. Fabio Felline also returns to the American squad on a one-year contract.
?? Mikel Landa has signed for Soudal Quick-Step, and the announcement video is nearly as fun as the signing itself.
? Twins Laura and Lucia Ruiz have signed for the Movistar women’s team until the end of 2026.
?? The Tour of Guangxi is back for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, slated for October 12-17 (and it’s looking like Spin Cycle will be in attendance on the ground, fingers crossed).
?? Pascal Ackermann will join Israel-Premier Tech from UAE Team Emirates, with Lotto DSTNY’s Michael Schwarzmann also arriving as his leadout man.
? MyWhoosh will replace Zwift as the UCI’s partner for the eRacing World Championships for the next three years.
?? Frederik Frison will leave Lotto DSTNY after eight years for Q36.5, where he hopes to have more of a free role in some of the Classics.
Cycling on TV ?
Saturday 19th
Arctic Race of Norway, Stage 3
GCN+ (09:15-12:15 ET/14:15-17:15 BST/23:15-02:15 AEST)
Postnord Danmark Rundt, Stage 5
GCN+ (07:45-11:50 ET/12:45-16:50 BST/21:45-01:50 AEST)
Sunday 20th
Bemer Cyclassics
GCN+ (08:25-10:15 ET/13:25-15:15 BST/22:25-00:15 AEST)
Arctic Race of Norway, Stage 4
GCN+ (09:00-12:00 ET/14:00-17:00 BST/23:00-02:00 AEST)
Tour de l’Avenir, Stage 1
GCN+ (09:00-11:00 ET/14:00-16:00 BST/23:00-01:00 AEST)
NCL Cup – Atlanta, Round 3
GCN+ (12:00-16:00 ET/17:00-21:00 BST/02:00-06:00 AEST)
Monday 21st
Tour de l’Avenir, Stage 2
GCN+ (09:35-11:35 ET/14:35-16:35 BST/23:35-01:35 AEST)
? Unbelievably mundane pre-Grand Tour quote of the week ?
“This is a very strong group of riders who are ready to take on this race. We start every Grand Tour hungry for the win, and I know every single rider is going to give everything for the team and each other.”
There’s nothing we love more than the series of impossibly anodyne quotes trotted out by team managers and riders in the run-up to big races. About how they hope the legs will be good and they can’t wait to get started, finding the perfect balance between contained excitement and humble anticipation, and there are few better at this game than Ineos Grenadiers Deputy Team Principal Rod Ellingworth.
A quote so ordinary that it could apply to any of the 22 teams appearing at the upcoming Vuelta a España. Although Ellingworth does go on to say the fact that his squad will have the Barcelona-based Ineos Britannia sailing team cheering them on for the opening team time trial will provide “massive motivation” for a good result …
And finally…
Amidst a busy August transfer window, we’ve found one rider, Moran Vermeulen of Team Vorarlberg at the Volta a Portugal, who won’t be heading to Jumbo-Visma next year…
? Send us yer laundry pics ?
“Bubble Wash self-service laundry in Thessaloniki Greece,” writes Juhani Saario, who has graciously provided us with this week’s laundromat photo. “Where I recently washed my very dirty cycling kit after finishing the Transcontinental race.”
An awesome achievement, congrats!
As always, we are accepting your own laundry photos (especially ones with the doors open so we can Photoshop riders inside the drum) to star in Spin Cycle. Either send them via the Discord or shoot me an email: [email protected]
Until next time …
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