History of doping in cycling
What is Doping? _The use of drugs and artificial methods in an attempt to enhance sporting performance and is often referred to as doping.
The drive to compete and win is as old as humankind. Athletes throughout history have sought foods and potions to increase their performance.
Doping by professional cyclists can be traced back to the early 1900s. Six day track racing was immensely popular back then, and unlike now, the cyclists actually raced for 6 days! The sport crying out for a “stay-awake” drug and strychnine was the answer. During the 1930's it was Amphetamines that replaced strychnine. In the 1950s the Soviet Olympic team used male hormones to increase strength and power. The American's developed steroids as a response. Right up to and during WWII Benzedrine was the pill of choice; so in the 1950s everyone was familiar with the drug, and there were probably still ample supplies. Feelings at the time were neutral; everyone allegedly took ‘it,’ so it wasn’t looked upon as cheating.
In the Tour de France; it was an “open secret” that riders in the took dope. Five times Tour de France winner, Jacques Anquetil reportedly perfected the use of “the Anquetil cocktail” comprising a painkiller, morphine or palfium, injected directly into painful muscles even whilst cycling; an amphetamine to offset the somnolent effect of morphine; and a sleeping tablet, Gardenal, to allow sleep when the stimulatory effects of the amphetamines were still active. Anquetil’s said, “You would have to be an imbecile or a crook to imagine that a professional cyclist who races for 235 days a year can hold the pace without stimulants”.
Even though Danish cyclist, Kurt Jensen during the 1960 Olympics collapsed and died from an amphetamine overdose. , nothing changed until July 13, 1967 when British cyclist Tom Simpson died on the slopes Mt. Ventoux during the Tour de France. This was a mountain stage of that year’s Tour, and a brutally hot day. Tom Simpson died of heat exhaustion but would not have done so if amphetamines had not caused him to push his body beyond the limits of human endurance. The world stood up and took notice. Only after this death was doping frowned upon by cycling supporters.
During the 1970's anabolic steroids became the preferred form of doping. But it was another sport that resurrected doping into the headlines. In the 1988 Summer Olympics Ben Johnson shattered the world record in the 100-meter sprint. His medal was stripped the day after when he tested for anabolic steroids. It was at this point in history that doping became no longer acceptable to the public.
Modern times.
A decade on doping was rife in the peloton.1998 Tour de France in was hit by the worst drugs scandal in its history. The Top Flight ‘Festina’ team was thrown out of the Tour after the team masseur Willy Voet was arrested when performance-enhancing drugs where found in his team car. In the end, one third of all teams in the race either withdrew or were expelled because of illegal drug abuse. The world looked at cycling with disgust and in essence the regular scandals, since the Festina affair have kept that public opinion in contemporary culture.
The tense one would write a history of doping since 1998 chances, as it is essentially the present tense and all tangled up. The riders of the 1980’s and 90’s have moved into management and the endemic culture thus lives on.
Bjarne Riis, the winner of the 1996 Tour, recently admitted to doping. The problem is that he does not appear to be an isolated case, and even within that race of 1996, the top 4 riders all have some sort of history of doping. And now all involved in team organisation. The following is a timeline of major doping cases in the last decade. The unfortunate fact is that each of these cases made TV and press headlines. With each incident our sport’s reputation got buried further in a pit of immorality. Individual cases are ignored, only as they number in there hundreds
1999 Giro d'Italia_• Tour and Giro champion Marco Pantani of Italy is expelled while leading the race after failing a blood test.
2001 Giro d'Italia_• France's Pascal Herve is forced out from the Giro by his Alexia team after failing a test for EPO. Mercatone Uno rider Riccardo Forconi does not start Stage 17 after failing a doping test. • Police officers search the rooms of riders from all 20 teams, confiscating medicines. Organizers cancel the 18th stage when riders call a meeting to discuss the raids.
• Second-place Dario Frigo is sacked by Fassa Bortolo after illegal drugs are found in his room. Frigo later admits to carrying them as security in case he needed a boost during the final stages of the race.
• An insulin syringe found in a room where Pantani stayed leads to a six-month ban for the Italian. Pantani would later die of a cocaine overdose in 2004.
2002 Giro d'Italia_• Italian Nicola Chesini is arrested by police after Stage 5 as part of a probe into the sale of performance-enhancing drugs.
• Race favorite and 2000 winner Stefano Garzelli tests positive for the banned diuretic and masking agent probenecid and is expelled from the race. He is given a nine-month ban.
• Gilberto Simoni, the 2001 winner, tests positive for cocaine. He withdraws from the Giro but is later cleared by the Italian Cycling Federation.
• Italian Roberto Sgambelluri and Russian Faat Zakirov become the first professional cyclists to be caught using NESP (an improved form of EPO) and quit the Giro.
2002 Tour de France_• The wife of Lithuanian rider Raimondas Rumsas is arrested after French police find doping substances in the boot of her car. Edita Rumsas says the stock, which includes testosterone, EPO and anabolic steroids, is for her sick mother.
• Rumsas, who finished third in the Tour, denies his wife obtained doping products for him and that he ever took any.
2003 Giro d'Italia_• Rumsas is suspended by his Lampre team in June after failing a drug test during the race in which he finished sixth overall.
2004 Tour de France_• Italian Stefano Casagranda and Slovenian Martin Hvastija are kicked out of the Tour on doping charges.
• Brit David Millar, France's Cedric Vasseur and Italian Danilo Di Luca are not allowed into the race for the same reason.
2005 Tour de France_• French police take Italian rider Dario Frigo in for questioning before the start of Stage 11 in the Alps after finding performance-enhancing drugs in a car driven by his wife.
2006 Tour de France_• Top riders, including Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich, are kicked out of the race one day before the start in Strasbourg for their involvement in a blood-doping scandal known as "Operacion Puerto."
• Tour winner Floyd Landis tests positive for synthetic testosterone after an impressive solo effort gave him a Stage 17 win.
2007 Tour de France_• Spanish rider Iban Mayo, who finished 16th overall in the race, is suspended by his Saunier Duval team after cycling's governing body confirm traces of EPO in a sample taken on the July 24 rest day.
• Michael Rasmussen is sacked by Rabobank on July 25 while leading the race after the Dutch team says he lied about his training whereabouts in June, an allegation the Dane denies.
• Cofidis announces on July 25 it is pulling out of the Tour following Italian Cristian Moreni's positive test for testosterone.
• Pre-race favorite Alexandre Vinokourov tests positive for blood doping after winning a time trial on July 21. The Kazakh's Astana team leaves the Tour and sacks Vinokourov, who denies any wrongdoing.
2008 TDF Stage winners Leonardo Piepoli of Italy and Stefan Schumacher of Germany tested positive for doping from blood samples
The pair became the second and third riders to test positive for CERA, an advanced version of the blood booster EPO. Italian cyclist Riccardo Ricco has already admitted to CERA use. In October Bernard Kole, KOM winner and third place overall gets caught for EPO.
Between them, the three riders won five stages during the July race - or about a quarter of the 21 stages, which has struggled to maintain its credibility after being rocked by doping scandals for three years in a row.
-German sponsors pull the plug on 4 pro teams and the National tour, citing repeated use of drugs in the sport.
Depressing reading.
_A final quote comes from the judge who presided over the doping case of Richard Virenque. His name is Judge Daniel Delegrove:_
_"These are not racers, they are pedaling test-tubes"__