Hey, cycling season started today! Unless you’re a hardcore devotee of the Tour of Qatar or you really love the Volta ao Algarve, this morning’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad was the first real race of the season. Greg Van Avermaet took the win today, with a really impressive sprint where he dusted everyone, including World Champion Peter Sagan, on the uphill drag.
But since this race takes place a mere month after the confirmed existence of cycling’s silliest boogeyman, motorized doping, where you put a real actual motor inside a bicycle. It’s the dumbest way to cheat and I love it. Officials used to have to crack frames open and look inside of them manually, but this is 2016, it’s iPad time baby!
As you can see, they scan the seat tube, the down tube, as well as the wheels for any electromagnetic anomalies. Femke Van den Driessche got caught with a motor in her crankshaft, and they were clearly checking for that sort of thing, as well as much-rumored, not-yet-seen electromagnetic wheels. Nobody got popped, and as Lotto Jumbo’s tweet shows, racers and their teams aren’t angry anymore at the UCI for even thinking that anyone could be moto-doping.
Lotto maybe could have used a motor or two, as Tom Van Asbroeck was their only top-20 finisher.
Photo via AP
Contact the author at patrick.redford@deadspin.com.