Innocent Until Proven Guilty - unless you're an athlete

The Tour de France is on at the moment, and as far as many people are concerned, that means one thing: doping scandals. For the last few years there have been riders kicked out of the Tour for doping violations, and this year is looking like it is going to end the run. No riders have tested positive to a banned substance so far, and there are only a few days to go.

Unfortunately, the lack of any actual violations has not prevented the scandals from emerging. Antoine Vayer, an ex-TDF team trainer, has "calculated" tour leader Alberto Contador's power output on a certain climb, and inferred from his result that an impossibly high VO2 max result would be required to achieve the feat. He published his story in Liberation.fr.

One account of the situation can be found on cyclingnews.com.

In response to Vayer's analysis, Contador is being called upon (by ex-TDF winner Greg Lemond amongst others) to prove that he is physiologically capable of that VO2 result without doping.

There are a few things wrong with this scenario:

1 - Contador already proved that he is capable of the requisite power. In the race. And he was drug tested not only on that stage, but also several other times during and before the Tour, as well as throughout his career. His samples will also be held to be tested again in the future if/when more accurate tests become available. What could be gained from testing him in a lab? Since when do you need to be able to break a record twice in order for it to count? If Lemond is so keen on validating results in a lab, then let's get him in to validate his Tour wins.

2 - Vayer is guessing virtually every parameter in his "calculations." In order to arrive at a value, Vayer would have had to measure or estimate: distance travelled and gradient, Contador's weight and drag coefficient, his bike's weight and tyre pressure, wind speed/ direction, air density, road surface friction, etc. How can he make so many estimates, and be certain of the accuracy to the extent that he publishes his results?

3 - Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty? Obviously this is not the first time that an athlete has been denied this "right," but I still don't understand why athletes continue to be denied this.

Another interesting point is that Vayer used to be the trainer for the Festina team, which broke up after systematic doping was uncovered... if you live in a glass house, Vayer...