@cmbreports
🎤 https://lnk.to/GhostInTheMachine Named among best podcasts 2024. ✍️ Journalist, podcaster, storyteller. Mostly but not limited to cycling. ⛷️Ski/cycling guide. 📍Valencia, España https://cmb-reports.com/
Now, of course, that's highly unlikely to happen, but it highlights once again the tightrope sports governing bodies are having/choosing to walk. Despite, as they nonsensically insist and preach, sports and politics not being meant to mix.
Full article here: www.cyclingnews.com/news/sport-i...
UCI pres. David Lappartient told @matildaprice.bsky.social in Sept that the reason Russia was suspended from competition and not Israel was because Russia started a war during the Olympic truce. So if the IOC were to apply their rules consistently, the US and Israel will now be sanctioned.
Who remembers this guy? 💭
Excellent piece by @cmbreports.bsky.social
My first article for @theathletic.com reveals how nervy and tetchy pro cycling is right now:
🌈UCI pressing ITA to catch a big name rider
🚲 Rumours that many banned doping doctors/trainers are back. Not just Martí
💊 Concerns over finishing bottles and decongestants
www.nytimes.com/athletic/706...
Big signing for @theathletic.com. Very excited to have the dogged @cmbreports.bsky.social (his choice of adjective) writing for us during the upcoming season.
First up: why cycling’s doping ghosts appear to be rising once again:
Then again, you could also reasonably ask: is €2m profit off the Tour of Flanders (4th biggest race in the sport?), all the Classics and all the cyclo-cross calendar really a lot? I'd argue it's not.
I meant in the grand scheme of things of how it could theoretically benefit teams if rev-share was brought in. €2m profit off €21m is pretty decent, but it would account for €80k for stakeholders (teams, organisers etc) if hypothetically there was equal rev-share.
Thank you for the kind words, Phil. It's a nice idea you have, and one that could theoretically be incorporated into a budget cap. Other sports have such mechanisms where smaller teams receive a (modest) windfall from the bigger shareholders to help them grow and close the gap.
A deep dive into the financial accounts of the Big 3 race organisers (ASO, RCS & Flanders Classics) for @escapecollective.bsky.social revealed a lot
🇫🇷ASO (therefore TdF) account for 75% of all profit
🇮🇹Giro is not hugely profitable
🇧🇪Flanders Classics even less so
escapecollective.com/profit-shari...
Thank you!
Perfect excuse to plug my podcast documentary into motor doping, Ghost in the Machine.
Seven episodes to binge listen to :) or to listen to again, of course
open.spotify.com/show/5m2ykFE...
Pleasure to feature in GCN's brilliant new documentary in which they have built a "magic wheel" with a motor inside it that they believe could evade UCI motor doping tests.
Well worth a watch to understand how the technology for such brazen cheating definitely exists.
youtu.be/ZdDHtLP3oEs?...
Brilliant additional reporting from Ciclo21 on 'Caso Martí-Soler': www.ciclo21.com/marc-y-jaume...
Worth pointing out that Ciclo21 note that the Spanish police have photos of the three together. Marc Soler told me repeatedly such photos don't exist.
Many questions still to answer.
The best website in cycling – www.cyclingcols.com – has had an update and a redesign and it's absolutely terrible for staving off procrastination. Also very motivating to sort my shit out and climb way more cols this year.
I assume you're referring to all of the interview and profile pieces that account for probably 70% of my published work?
www.rouleur.cc/blogs/the-ro...
A journalist can have many strings to their bow. Just because I write on politics and doping, etc. doesn't mean I can't write softly-softly, too.
The media needs and often relies on access to teams. I don't refute that. And we ought to work together with teams. But equally teams have to respect the independence of media. We are not PR vehicles. It's really as simple as that.
It's really against editorial independence and guidance to share quotes with subject(s) pre-publication (unless there's legal issues/contentious), but I've increasingly acted in good faith and done so to appease teams and riders. But that doesn't meant there's free reign to request changes.
These requested changes have included teams being paranoid about exposing 'team secrets' (despite overwhelming evidence that this isn't the case) and subjects rephrasing entire sentences despite no factual errors being present.
It's been a frustrating week dealing with some major men's and women's teams requesting changes to quotes pre-publication. This has become the norm in recent years and it's setting a very worrying precedent for the future. Independent publications are not PR vehicles for teams/riders.
Yes. Another point on this: cycling really, really, really, really needs to end its reliance on nation states and billionaire owners. How? I don't know. It's not an easy solution. But what I do know is that the current model is causing too many problems.
Is it a coincidence that Ineos have become the most unlikeable team in cycling when they're owned and run by a man such as Ratcliffe? No, no it is not.
Maybe I'll regret writing this in time, but fuck it: Jim Ratcliffe is a xenophobic wanker and he's dangerous for society. Cycling is better without him.
I can't vouch for Unbroken's performance benefits, but I can confirm that they are best in class for killing hangovers. I'm sure they weren't designed with that in mind, but I have a stack entirely for that reason. Knocks paracetamol out the park.
"Ah, well, buahh, you know, it's as I always say, it is what it is, no? Buah."
Thanks Peter!
A ghost from cycling's past has re-emerged - despite still serving a sanction. Full details of the extremely concerning development in the Escape article.
escapecollective.com/a-notorious-...
I didn't expect Andrea Piccolo to feature quite so heavily in my week. On Monday I was reliably told there'll be news soon relating to his doping offences, and this morning it appears he's been arrested for hiding counterfeit notes in his Porsche.
www.tuttobiciweb.it/article/2026...
Professional cyclists are tested more than most sports, yup. But that doesn't mean it's impossible to get away with doping. In fact, micro-dosing and short shelf life products make detecting positive cases extremely difficult for authorities. And most riders are only tested four times a year.
And, yep, that includes cycling. Lots of chatter going on within the peloton right now, lots of rumours circulating. A lot of the distrust can of course be traced back to people being vexed by the dominance of a select few teams but the atmosphere is noticeably nervous and tetchy.
I was speaking with someone very well connected in the anti-doping world yesterday. They said: "In a lot of countries it's impossible to be caught. We're not going forwards but backwards."
The feeling among most within the anti-doping movement is that it's facing its biggest ever crisis.