Jumbo-Visma boss accuses a French team of “drinking very good beers”, reacts Marc Madiot (Groupama-FDJ)

Since his rousing performance in Tuesday’s time trial, Jonas Vingegaard and his Jumbo-Visma team have reignited the fires of suspicion in a sport with a heavy past. In an interview with L’Equipe, the boss of the Dutch team Richard Plugge defended himself against any doping practice, before assuring that the yellow jersey is even reluctant to “take acetaminophen”. In particular he took the opportunity to accuse the riders of a French team of “drink great beers” during the Tour de France.

“We also look around at what others are doing. For example, we were with a French team in our hotel on the rest day (Monday, eve of the time trial). We’ve seen runners drinking big beers, related Richard Plugge. Alcohol is poison, and especially when you’re already tired, you’ll 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 eat and drink. The yellow jersey manager does not mention the Groupama-FDJ team, but L’Equipe made the connection. Groupama-FDJ was the only French team to stay in the same hotel as Jumbo-Visma on Monday in Saint-Gervais.

“Nobody drank alcohol (…) We can open our doors, answer all the questions. But we also have to show the other side. Because that too explains part of the differences, not only in our favor, but against the others.”

Richard Plugge, manager of the Jumbo-Visma team

at The Team

Marc Madiot pissed off about these “sleazy” reviews.

Comments that Groupama-FDJ manager Marc Madiot didn’t like, who protested to AFP on Friday, qualifying the Jumbo-Visma boss’s statements as “shabby”. “The beer trick is pathetic, how dare you say such a thing, Madiot was moved. It’s terrifyingly stupid. They weren’t at our table. Some of the management had a beer. But the runners were in Perrier,” he develops.

“What does this mean? That our riders aren’t serious, that they don’t train? I remind you that the next day, our eight riders all finished in the top 80 in the time trial. We have to stop talking nonsense, it’s pathetic, pathetic! What are they trying to hide”He added.