MUR-DE-BRETAGNE, France — After the world’s best cyclists charged up the final climb in Stage 7 of the Tour de France, passing a roaring crowd at the finish line, a group of officials in black polo shirts darted toward their bikes. The officials put red bracelets on the carbon frames. Their job was to conduct a little-known check in one of the world’s most scandal-stained sports: The bikes were being inspected for tiny motors.
Eight bikes were wheeled to a black tent a few feet from the podium, the handlebar tape still wet with riders’ sweat. One belonged to the winner of the stage, Tadej Pogacar. The other bikes belonged to riders whom cycling officials had targeted based on questionable performances or tips.
Twenty years after a doping scandal upended the sport, professional cycling is pursuing dual challenges of keeping the world’s most famous cycling race honest and convincing a skeptical audience of the Tour’s legitimacy. That’s why Nicholas Raudenski, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigator, was standing next to the finish line as officials escorted the bikes to an X-ray machine.
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Raudenski was hired last year as the head of the global cycling federation’s unit against technological fraud, a form of cheating known colloquially as “mechanical doping.” If he caught anyone, it would send a shock through a sport in which athletes routinely do the superhuman. What if the reason cyclists were able to glide up the Pyrenees mountains was because they weren’t pedaling unassisted?
Raudenski knew that only one professional cyclist had been caught competing with a hidden motor — a Belgian rider at the 2016 cyclo-cross world championships under-23 race. But the technology had improved dramatically since then. If he wasn’t vigilant, Raudenski believed, the Tour could be consumed by riders propelled by tiny motors.
The cycling federation, known by its name in French, Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), was also trying to send a message to its fans. Many had followed the growing online discourse suggesting that cycling was once again turning a blind eye to cheaters. Fans posted videos about how easy it had become to sneak miniature motors into bike frames; they analyzed race footage that allegedly showed superhuman performances; they quoted former cyclists who swore the sport was still corrupt.
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