Barguil was one of the revelations of this year's Tour de France, winning two mountain stages and the polka-dot climber's jersey. In France, where in the past fans have cried out 'dopage!' and riders have complained of a 'peloton at two speeds', there was little talk of doping this year.
Barguil offered his own results and power data as an indication why.
"It's because I'm winning but I haven't been pushing crazy watts at the Tour," he explained to Danish television interviewers.
"If you look at my data from the climb yesterday, I think it shows I pushed out 5.9 watts per kilo. It's not a super high performance*. I think cycling is getting cleaner, which is nice."
The battle for overall victory has also been extremely close and balanced, with three riders still within 30 seconds before Saturday's decisive time trial around Marseille. Nobody appeared to have an edge on other riders and teams with a recognised stance against doping.
The history of the Tour de France is littered with doping scandals but there have been few scandals so far this year, although Trek-Segafredo rider Andre Cardoso resulted positive for EPO in a test done on June 18 and was replaced on the eve of the Tour de France. But that appears to be an isolated incident.
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"You can see it when the breakaway gets away, no team lets them get a ten-minute gap anymore. You can't, it'd be impossible to catch them otherwise.
"I think things are getting better and better, also because there are more controls than before. We always look at the past but we need to look to the future now. Things have really improved, otherwise, I wouldn't have won yesterday for sure."
After finishing safely in the peloton in Salon-de-Provence, Barguil is now ready to celebrate his Tour de France success in Paris. He has confirmed his ability as a talented French Grand Tour rider.
"I'm close to Paris now, and now there's less stressing about crashing after this stage. I just need to ride the time trial and now and it's done. It's incredible."
Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.
