The festival of the Slovenes, who will place, save accident, two of theirs, Roglic and Pogacar, in the first two places of the Tour, the relentless domination of Jumbo-Visma, the Dutch yellow jersey team descended from the sulphurous Rabobank, whose best wheeler-sprinter, the Belgian Wout Van Aert, exhausts the climbers in the passes ... While the Grande Boucle, which will end on the Champs-Elysées this Sunday, seems to have long since delivered its verdict, questions arise, moreover and more.
In an interview given to Ouest-France on Wednesday, Romain Feillu, former yellow jersey in 2008, withdrawn from the pelotons for a year, expressed his doubts and notably mentioned the taking of ketones by part of the peloton.
Ketones?
The term hit the headlines last year on the Tour when the Jumbo-Visma team admitted to consuming it in the Dutch daily, De Telegraaf.
According to Alaphilippe it's like "a food supplement"
Ketones?
What are they for ?
These organic compounds, authorized by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), are naturally present in the body, produced by the liver, and serve as fuel for muscles.
Thanks to them, the body can delay the solicitation of carbohydrates, which the body has in limited quantities, and therefore the rise of lactic acid, the runner's enemy which burns his legs and blocks his effort.
Drinks rich in ketones have been developed for about ten years.
The Deceuninck-Quick Step team has also admitted their use, Julian Alaphilippe defining them as an energy “gel” or “a food supplement”.
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The results of two studies, carried out by the University of Louvain (Belgium) this year in the fall and in the spring, however contradict those of another study produced a year earlier by the same faculty.
Contrary to what had been suggested (a performance increased by 15%), the benefits would not be so obvious.
And the long term side effects are completely unknown.
This is also why the doctors of the French teams oppose the taking of ketones.
"I do not want to receive in ten years the mail from a runner telling me that he has a loose liver," said Jean-Jacques Menuet, the doctor of Arkéa-Samsic.
