The Hardest Stage: Documentary on doping in German Cycling

In 2011 Germany television stations stopped broadcasting the Tour de France and cycling coverage has drastically been reduced. Its cycling superstars have been cast with a dark shadow after doping admissions in recent past and the current success stories such as Tony Martin, Marcel Kittel, John Degenkolb and Andre Greipel are the ones answering for the past generation’s misdeeds.

This documentary aired in Germany by ARD looks into the current situation of cycling in 2014.

Use the “CC” button at the bottom of the player for English subtitles.

http://www.cyclingTipsBlog.com cyclingTips

A positive first step is that the likes of Kittel and Degenkolb were willing to be interviewed for this documentary, and previous generation were not. It is worrying seeing the past footage of the likes of Ulrich and Aldag lie straight to the camera (but never looking straight at it).
- Faz
  
  I don’t think you can take too much from not looking at the camera direct. When being interviewed you are told not to look at the camera rather the reporter beside it or in the case of an “all in” to where the question was asked from. Only when interviewees move away from these “protocols” and start staring down the camera is when one should become suspicious - are they trying to reinforce a point to cover up what they don’t want you to know….
velocite

What an excellent program. Struck me as balanced and direct. Situation reminded me of whack-a-mole: you just have to stay alert and keep on whacking, for ever, just accept it as an expense of the sport. Interesting that Italy has the toughest approach, with significant police efforts involved. How is Australia doing? I hope we are serious about clean cycling.
- Dave
  
  The answer to your last question is “badly,” the only
  
  There are four stages of dealing with the issue of doping:
  1. Pretend it doesn’t exist (Spain and Britain at the moment)
  2. Make token efforts when it becomes seriously embarrassing (Australia)
  3. Tackle it aggressively (USA, Italy)
  4. Develop a mature clean sport culture (France, Germany)
  - velocite
    
    That’s a nice, sharp list.
    One thing that looks certain is that it takes a gutsy approach to make any difference. The formal interview approach a la Nicki Vance, even if conducted with integrity, which I assume it was, is likely to be a waste of time and money. At worst, hypocrisy, at best - window dressing.
    - Dave
      
      For sure. It’s a progressive thing, you can’t move forward without going through each stage of dealing with it.
      
      Where Australia is now, France was 25 years ago. Looking on the bright side, at least we’re only 25 years behind where in many areas outside sport (e.g. building new freeways like it’s 1970) we are about 40-50 years behind the world.
      
      In years to come, the 1998 TdF with the Festina fiasco and the stored samples will come to be seen as both one of the sport’s lowest moments, but also a major turning point at the same time.
TV Time Tommy

A timely contribution and a reminder that we cannot assume that in the post-Armstrong era the pro peloton (or the new generation of riders to come) are/will be clean. Kittel and Degenkolb, on the other hand, should be applauded for being interviewed. I can’t help but feel sorry for Jorg Jaschke, he seems pretty rattled by his experience.

I must say that I’m more than a bit worried about Nibbles though. While Vayer’s assessment of rider performances seems to be more of a black art than anything strictly scientific, it does concern me that he identifies Nibali as almost rubbing shoulders with the performances of Armstrong, Pantani and Riis. Framed against the backdrop of positive tests by the Iglinsky brothers & the Kazak stagiaire (and of course ex-doper DS Vinokourov), Astana might end up fulfilling that truism of where there’s smoke, there’s fire…
- De Mac
  
  I agree re suspicion over the performance of Nibali - and the producers of this doco were less than subtle in highlighting his 2014 TdF results. Some Astana riders have clearly fallen foul and one can only guess the extent to which their ‘performance’ made Nibali’s win possible. Did he, too, dope? Will the answer ever be known???
  - Dave
    
    I think the answer is quite clear, just look at how Nibs cosied up to Pantani’s family. Would any American winner cosy up to Armstrong or Landis? If they did would you think they were clean?
OlegS76

I keep reading everywhere that TdF is no longer televised in Germany but I was visiting Germany this summer (2014) during TdF and it was on TV (basic cable, one of a dozen or so channels available in the hotel) with german-language commentary.
- Ulf
  
  That must have been Eurosports.
  - OlegS76
    
    it was indeed the Eurosport feed (it’s the same feed for all countries anyways - but they featured LeMond commentary in the end which I enjoyed, sometimes featuring Degenkolb) - but it was all IN GERMAN! Even LeMond interview was dubbed.
    
    In any case, it was a basic cable channel, so when news organizations say TdF is not televised in Germany - sounds very dramatic by the way - while it’s very easily available, in German, even on basic 10 or 15 channel bundle, well, it’s not exactly as if germans cannot watch TdF anymore. It’s right there, with easier access than in US or most other countries I visited.
- Dave
  
  The benchmark for TV coverage is whether it’s on FTA TV, not just on subscription TV and probably taking a commentary feed from the Swiss broadcaster.
  
  But in any case, I also remember reading that German FTA TV was to resume partial coverage this year with something similar to the nightly highlights and one live stage that the TDU had in the years when they had to pay SBS to cover it in the absence of anyone purchasing the rights.
Peter

The problem in Germany is that the best cycling team we ever had (Telekom) was funded by a public sponsor like US Postal in the USA. That sponsor was the “ARD” media network, comparable to the BBC. After the whole doping thing blew up public media had then to become the strongest critic of the cycling sport in order to keep their credibility. That pretty much destroyed the public opinion about cycling and made pretty much all sponsors withdraw their money from the sport. Right now the situation for competitive cycling in Germany is in a mess. Race organizer not only struggle with money issues but won’t get support and permissions by the authorities to have racing on public roads. Many traditional races have been abandoned not to speak of world tour racing that is not taking place in Germany anymore. Most people have the feeling that they were personally betrayed by Jan Ulrich and regard to all cyclists as cheaters still. That will not change any time soon, especially with documentaries like that. This is the only imagine of cycling Germans get presented on the public media right now. However it’s not a critical approach in my opinion as soccer, biathlon, skiing are all regarded to as pretty much clean. German “anti doping” portrayed in the media is highly hypocritical!
Paul Jakma

Wow, to hear Marcel Kittel sit there and claim he’s never been offered anything, when he was the subject of a doping case that went all the way to CAS. He got off on a technicality. The WADA Code then banned oxygen capacity blood doping. The blood manipulation he received was being done with the *intent* to increase performance, but because it was unscientific quackery, there was no scientific evidence to say it was actually effective, so he got off.

I.e. Marcel Kittel, for all intents and purposes, participated in what he should have thought was blood doping. And he sits there now and plays the innocent.
- Paul Jakma
  
  Oh, and the WADA Code I think has been updated since then to close off that loop-hole. By today’s WADA Code Kittel would have been sanctioned for attempted blood doping.
  - OlegS76
    
    Hmm… I thought I followed all cycling stories very closely but I never heard of “UV light” doping scandal involving Kittel! Very interesting indeed.
    - Paul Jakma
      
      I used to think maybe he was young and naïve at the time, so maybe it wasn’t his fault. However, he’s not so young anymore, and to hear him in this video makes me rethink on exactly who takes who for a fool.