[JackGibbs]

It looks like Cervelo was sponsoring the team, based on the bike being used appearing to be an R5 and the kit he was wearing. Nowadays Garmin (for whom Cervelo is a major co-sponsor) only has one Canadian on the team, Ryder Hesdejal, but they do have a number of Americans, including Dave Zabriskie, a reasonably slim time-trial powerhouse (read: perfect for this), who is currently sitting on his couch in Colorado unable to ride due to his six-month suspension he received as part of admitting to doping and testifying against Lance regarding his time on the US Postal team. They could have made it happen...

[ratscabies]

Do they have any rules for this that disallow doped riders? I would almost guess that would be like turbo-charging or water injection.

[bigiain]

From the pdf linked upthread by iandanforth:

"This attempt was made in accordance with the regulations of the FAI Sporting Code including the provisions of 5.2.2.3 on Unsporting Behavior."

and googling for that reveals:

'5.2.2.3 reads: "Unsporting Behaviour. Cheating or unsporting behaviour, including deliberate attempts to deceive or mislead officials, wilful interference with other competitors, falsification of documents, use of forbidden equipment or prohibited drugs, violations of airspace, or repeated serious infringements of rules should, as a guide, result in disqualification from the sporting event."'

So I'd guess for official World Record attempts (and probably for the prize rules) doping is out. (Sounds like the pilot has enough other sporting pastimes that he'd be unlikely to dope just for this project too…)

[famo]

Ha! Alternatively this could become a clumsy, comedic and highly detectable performance enhancing device on the next Tour de France