Richard Plugge of Jumbo Visma has raised the ire of Groupama-FDJ boss Marc Madiot over comments he made, which were clearly about the French team (Photo: Tim van Wichelen-Cor Vos)
Groupama-FDJ boss Marc Madiot has reacted angrily to comments about his team by Jumbo Visma boss Richard Plugge, who said members of the French team were drinking beers on the Tour de France.
Plugge made his remarks in an interview as he face questions, and suspicions, about the dominance of Jonas Vingegaard, who leads the Tour by over seven minutes with two stages remaining.
Plugge claimed his team was better than others because of its more professional approach to all aspects of the sport - even aerodynamics and technical ability in TTs.
He insisted Vingegaard doesn't use ketones and "even a paracetamol, he doesn't like to take it". Asked why his team did not release rider data to address suspicions, he said "experts would know how to look at it, but a majority would misinterpret it".
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As well as the things Jumbo Visma did well, according to Plugge, other teams put themselves at a disadvantage with a more relaxed approached. He said on one night when his team was staying in the same hotel as a French team on the Tour, he saw members of the French team drinking alcohol.
Plugge said consumption of any level of alcohol, by his riders or staff, was out of the question during the Tour, yet he had seem members of a French team having "large" beers.
While he did not name Groupama-FDJ, it was clear to the media on the race who he was talking about. And when L'Equipe put Plugge's remarks to Marc Madiot, he was clearly irate.
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“On every rest day, we have a moment of conviviality between my riders and the management," Madiot explained. "The management drinks a beer, not necessarily the runners and even if they had drunk one, it wouldn't have been fifty centilitres. I was at the table, there were Perriers. It's shabby, small and shabby."
When asked to address the suspicions around his team, Plugge said: "There are two things. The first is that we open our doors to people who shoot documentaries, it's been four years now (Amazon and Netflix) , journalists come to our training camps. The second thing I want to say is that some people could look deeper, ask the right questions and analyse.
"For example, Australian television did an analysis of the time trial, with the videos of Jonas and Pogacar in parallel, and we can already see a big gap, in the cadence of pedaling, the change of bike which makes him lose 40 seconds. It is enormous.
"You can also ask Bert Blocken, professor of aerodynamics with whom we work, the gains between a chrono bike and a normal bike like the one used by Pogacar in the last kilometers. We respond with all that, we try to give the indications.
"We also look around us at what others are doing. For example, we were with a French team at our hotel during the rest day. We saw runners drinking large beers. Alcohol is poison, and especially when you are already tired, you will be even more so. At the start of the last week of the Tour, which is the most important, you have to be very careful about what you drink and eat.
"We, nobody drank alcohol, because it breaks you, and even those who are not runners should not drink it. So it's a whole set. We can open our doors, answer all questions. But you also have to show the other side. Because it also explains part of the differences, not only in our favour, but against others."
