But yes, there’s a danger that looking back, any success can be taken as evidence of cheating, when you know that the people who got beaten were cheating themselves.

I think we can do it sensibly, though, by only picking outliers. Balance up the likelihoods, as it were. To me, the second tour is suspicious not just because he won, but because you’ve got all of “only second year”, “white jersey”, “beat heavily-doped riders”, AND “historic winning margin” all put together.

It’s easier for me, I think, because I’m fairly ignorant of cycling in the nineties – I only started really following the tour in 2006 – and although I vaguely know who people like Indurain and Virenque, and Ullrich and Armstrong were, I didn’t know enough to know who had been caught doing what, except in the most blatent cases. So I can look at those lists with far less distress. Rinero? Boo- (what, Boogard finished 5th in the tour? woah. never knew that. I only knew him from the mid-2000s, when he was a scary-looking superdomestique. didn’t know he’d been that good. (and/or doped? i thought i’d heard something, but the wikipedia page mentions nothing))-gard, Robin, Meier, Nardello, Di Grande, [What, Axel Merkx came 10th in the tour? That surprises me], Escartin, Dufaux, Belli, Peron… names I either haven’t heard or barely recognise, so I’m ignorant or whether or not they doped!