25 July 2007

I went along to the Champs Elysée a couple of years ago to watch the winning riders come in. Above the sea of heads in front of me, I caught a glimpse of a few bobbing cycle helmets. As far as spectator sport goes, I realised I was better off in my armchair.

This year, it appears, everyone who comes to the Champs believes the cyclists they are there to see are flying high on illegal substances. According to a poll published in the newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, 78 percent of French respondents don’t believe in the honesty of a winner of a Tour daily stage or any other bicycle race. In other words, the majority of fans believe any winning rider is doped up to his eyeballs in performance-enhancing drugs.

The results of the poll should come as no surprise. This year, like last, doping scandals haunt the Tour. The Tour leader Michael Rasmussen has come in for criticism for failing to make the anti-doping authorities aware of his whereabouts for out-of-competition testing. Two German TV channels pulled their coverage of the Tour after Patrick Sinkewitz’s positive drug test. On Monday French custom’s officers raided vehicles belonging to four of the teams … and it goes on.
So what’s new?

Long before Floyd Landis’s odd testosterone imbalance, long-distance cycling has been soaked in drugs. In fact, the history of modern doping begins prior to the establishment of the Tour in 1903 and dates back to the cycling craze of the 1890s and its six-day races. From extra caffeine and peppermint in black coffee, to red wine, brandy, cocaine, strychnine and nitroglycerine capsules, stimulants have always played their part in this extreme sport.

When the pioneering French sports physician Philippe Tissié performed the first scientific doping experiments in 1894, his test subject was a racing cyclist whose performances could be timed and who could be primed with measured doses of alcohol or any other potential stimulant.

With such a background, how can we expect our cyclists to be squeaky clean? After all they put themselves through for our entertainment, aren’t we demanding too much?

What do Expatica readers think? Let me know at Hannah.Westley@expatica.com

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