Jumbo-Visma hit back at Jérôme Pineau’s accusations of mechanical doping at the Vuelta a España

Lead director Merjin Zeeman responds to Pineau's unsubstantiated claims and questions his integrity following the demise of B&B Hotels-KTM

08:20, Tuesday 12th September 2023

Daniel Benson

Editor in Chief

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Sepp Kuss attacked in the closing stages of the Col du Tourmalet to finish second behind teammate Jonas Vingegaard

Jumbo-Visma’s complete domination at the Vuelta a España has been called into question with the team forced to respond to unproven and unsubstantiated accusations of mechanical doping from former professional rider Jérôme Pineau.

The Dutch team currently occupies the top three places overall in the Vuelta with Sepp Kuss leading Primož Roglič and Jonas Vingegaard with a week left to race. The team’s control and success have been celebrated in many mainstream quarters, with commentators and fans debating whether this squad is the best men’s Grand Tour collective cycling has ever seen.

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However, on Monday Pineau appeared on RMC Sport in France and couldn’t have made his feelings any clearer - pointing to a moment on stage 13 of the Vuelta a España when Sepp Kuss accelerated, slowed and then kicked again on the higher slopes of the Col du Tourmalet. In Pineau’s eyes, there was one reason, and one reason only for Kuss’ acceleration.

“Mechanical. The acceleration from Sepp Kuss on the Tourmalet, 10km/h faster than the group, with Evenepoel absent but with top riders like Ayuso and Uijtdebroeks, no slouches on the bike, and Kuss comes along 10km/h faster. There’s a spectator who steps out, he brakes and gets going again 10km/h faster… on the Tourmalet. How do you explain that? How can someone explain that to me?” Pineau posed.

Pineau retired in 2015 after a long and successful career as a rider. He then moved into team management where he ran the B&B Hotels-KTM until the squad’s untimely demise at the end of 2022 due to a lack of sponsorship.

During his RMC performance, the Frenchman also suggested that several other performances from Jumbo-Visma were too good to be true, including the stage in Paris-Nice in 2022 when the team went 1-2-3 after dropping the entire peloton on a relatively short final climb.

“On the Col de Spandelles, I saw Sepp Kuss open 10 seconds without pedalling. I don’t know how it happens. I’m asking myself… when the three jokers went off on the 800m climb near Yvelines [Roglič, Van Aert, Laporte at the 2022 Paris-Nice], that’s the international peloton, and at Paris-Nice there’s been less than three months of racing. We’ve all done training camps. They put four pedal strokes down and they gained 10 metres. How are they doing it? I was in this environment not long ago. The discussions around the buses… It’s not just the small teams who were complaining. But no one says anything.”

Pineau, as stated previously, has no proof to back up his accusations, and it should be reported that the UCI routinely checks bikes for motors at all major men’s WorldTour races, like the Vuelta a España. Not a single men’s WorldTour rider has been caught using mechanical doping since those checks started several years ago, and while there have certainly been whispers and accusations in the past involving several high-profile riders, nothing has stuck or been proven.

Pineau did at least rationalise this during his media appearance but again, he failed to make any of his accusations stand up.

“With [Lance] Armstrong there wasn’t any proof either. We’re waiting for the wall to hit us in the face. But it’ll perhaps be too late,” Pineau added.

GCN reached out to Pineau for further comment but he did not respond.

Jumbo-Visma, for their part, were reluctant to comment on the matter at first. However when the news was picked up by L’Equipe and then parts of the Dutch media the noise perhaps became too loud to ignore.

B&B Hotels-KTM's final victory as a team came through Axel Laurance at the 2022 CRO Race

Lead director Merjin Zeeman unsurprisingly had little in the way of compliments for Pineau, and in fact, the Jumbo-Visma DS pointed to the demise of the B&B team at the end of 2022 as a way of discrediting the Frenchman’s position of authority and knowledge.

“Comments of a 'team manager' who signed multiple riders and staff and then in October it turned out that he was fooling everybody and put all these people in a bad position? That person can talk about others?” Zeeman told GCN via text.

There’s little doubt that Jumbo-Visma have been in a league of their own in this year’s Vuelta a España and their efforts are on the cusp of eclipsing anything we’ve ever seen from a men’s team in a season of Grand Tours but Pineau will continually be asked for more evidence if he’s to back up his initial claims.

Keep up to date with all of the latest racing news from the Vuelta a España on our dedicated race page, linked here.