Doping in cycling has been a chronic issue for the sport. For as long as cycling fans can remember, it has ruined careers, and made headlines worldwide. Reporting on doping has become, for many, more important the reporting on the sport itself.
In 2012, Lance Armstrong, prior to then a seven-time winner of the Tour de France, was banned for life from all further events and stripped of his titles, found by the United States Anti-Doping Agency to be the ringleader of “the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.”
However, Armstrong’s regime was only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to doping in cycling. The involvement of performance-enhancing substances in the sport goes back much further and is wider spread than Armstrong’s case, and it has ruined the reputations and claimed the lives of many.
Joe Frost’s series, ‘World War Cycling’, examines in detail the history of doping in cycling – beginning at first with a look at Lance Armstrong’s downfall but continuing further into doping’s place in the sport’s history and present.
In the first few pieces of his series, Frost questions who knew about Armstrong’s doping, and just how deep the culture of doping ran among US cyclists. He looks into the death of Italian cycling legend Marco Pantani, caused by drugs illicit but not without the involvement of performance-enhancing. He looks at the spread of doping to riders in Kazakhstan.
With more to come, World War Cycling provides an insightful look at the darker side of cycling.
PART 1: World War Cycling: The Prologue
PART 2: World War Cycling: The United States of America
PART 3: World War Cycling: Italy
PART 4: World War Cycling: Doping learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan
PART 5: World War Cycling: Spain
PART 6: World War Cycling: Germany and Denmark
PART 7: World War Cycling: France
PART 8: World War Cycling: Belgium
PART 9: World War Cycling: Australia