Jonas Vingegaard may have pushed performance to new heights with his domination of this Tour de France, but there is a sense of déjà vu about the story all the same. In the 25 years since the Festina Affair shattered the illusions of old, the exploits of the race winner have generally tended to be greeted with as much suspicion as wonderment.
The murmured unease that greeted some of the climbing speeds earlier in this race has amplified into a more open kind of scepticism during a third week that has seen Vingegaard turn a previously tight duel with Tadej Pogačar into a procession.
On the morning after Vingegaard's decisive victory in the Combloux time trial, for instance, the front page of L'Équipe pointedly described his display as "from another planet." On Thursday, Ouest France spoke of a "climate of embarrassment" at the Tour, quoting various unnamed sources from within the peloton who spoke of their discouragement in the face of Vingegaard's crushing displays.
In his press conference in Courchevel on Wednesday evening, Vingegaard acknowledged the scepticism that inevitably greets the maillot jaune of the Tour – "I understand that it's hard to trust in cycling with the past there has been" – but he was unable to suggest what more he could do to allay the suspicions.
Before the start of stage 16 in Moutiers on Thursday, Cyclingnews put the same question to Jumbo-Visma manager Richard Plugge. The Dutchman insisted that his outfit had already demonstrated its commitment to racing without doping by allowing various film crews and reporters to embed themselves with the team in recent years.
"Can we do more? We have two camera teams 24/7 with us, with Netflix and Amazon, and we had the writer of a book for three years in the team. We had a journalist from L'Équipe with us last year for a couple of days in the training camp," Plugge said. "We open our doors always, and I think that especially journalists should put a little more effort into [analysing] what's happening.
"I think also it's the job and the responsibility of some journalists to look a little bit deeper into it rather than just spread around suspicion. Of course, this sport has a long history of this, but I think WADA said we were once the worst kid of the class and nowadays we were in the top three. We open our doors, we are transparent, we do as much as we can. And yeah, we are always happy to answer all questions. So, ask us the questions and we will answer."
From Blanco to Jumbo
Plugge, previously a journalist and press officer, took over the management of what is now Jumbo-Visma in the winter of 2012 after Rabobank had withdrawn its long-running sponsorship, citing the culture of doping that had existed on the team and in the sport at large.
In the opening months of the 2013 season, the squad had no title sponsor, instead competing under the 'Blanco' moniker, which Plugge said he selected to reflect their desire for a fresh start. After struggling near the foot of the WorldTour table in their opening seasons, the team has enjoyed remarkable success over the past five years, winning at least one Grand Tour per season.
At the 2022 Tour, Jumbo-Visma claimed overall victory, the green jersey and six stage wins at the Tour. In 2023, Primož Roglič has won the Giro d'Italia and Vingegaard is on the cusp of his second consecutive Tour de France win having already dominated Itzulia Basque Country and the Critérium du Dauphiné.
"I wanted to start with a clean sheet and a blank sheet of paper. The idea was to create a new team that nobody ever did before and to leave the past behind," Plugge said. "That's why we opened our doors. We're the only team who have documentaries and 24/7 following for many years. NOS, the public broadcaster in Holland, has twice made big films about us. That's the only way.
"You ask us, what more can we do? Ask us all the questions you like, but also do your own job really well and look into what happens, really. We open the doors and we're as transparent as possible. I ask you, what more can we do?"
In years past, teams and riders have moved to release power data publicly in a bid to prove their bona fides. A decade ago, for instance, Team Sky presented selected examples of Chris Froome's climbing numbers to L'Équipe, though the publication of the subsequent analysis did little to shift the polarised debate over the credibility his performances. Plugge suggested that Vingegaard's true power numbers were already effectively in the public domain.
"For the data, you know there are so many people on Twitter doing that already, and if you follow these guys, you can see already what is happening," Plugge said. "We can share, but they already share a lot, and they are very accurate, I can tell you. For us, that's no problem at all.
"And we did that in Holland, by the way, with [the AD journalist] Thijs Zonneveld a couple of times, you can ask him. We showed him all the data we have, he looked into it. That was quite a big story in Holland, so ask him and then you know more."
Plugge will know, of course, that many elements of the case for the defence have already been offered in bad faith by fallen champions of the past, including the argument that his riders are "tested more than 100 times in the year, individually."
He has also been in this game long enough to know that no amount of Netflix documentaries or power analyses will eradicate all the scepticism that greets a performance as dominant as Vingegaard's. He insisted, however, that the climate of suspicion would not temper Jumbo-Visma's celebration of their success.
"No, not at all. We know what we do and that's why we are happy with this," Plugge said. "I have to admit that maybe especially the French are always very sceptical, you know. If it's not us and it's Pogačar or whoever is winning gets it. Apparently if you win in cycling, to the French you apparently never can do it do it right. Me, I would say, 'Come over, we can tell you everything.' I answer every question, like I do now."
Plugge perhaps feels that Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma can never do enough in the eyes of some to demonstrate they are racing clean. The reaction to their dominance at this Tour, however, suggests they might still endeavour to do something more.
