List of doping cases in cycling
"[2]The International Olympic Committee slightly modified this, and adopted this definition: "The administration of or use by a competing athlete of any substance foreign to the body or any physiologic substance taken in abnormal quantity or taken by an abnormal route of entry into the body with the sole intention of increasing in an artificial and unfair manner his/her performance in competition.
When necessity demands medical treatment with any substance which, because of its nature, dosage, or application is able to boost the athlete's performance in competition in an artificial and unfair manner, this too is regarded as doping.
"[3]In 1886, a Welsh cyclist is popularly reputed to have died after drinking a blend of cocaine, caffeine and strychnine, supposedly in the Bordeaux–Paris race.
The American champion Major Taylor refused to continue a New York race, saying: "I cannot go on with safety, for there is a man chasing me around the ring with a knife in his hand.
[13][14] The acceptance of drug-taking in the Tour de France was so complete by 1930 that the rule book, distributed by Henri Desgrange, reminded riders that drugs would not be provided by the organisers.
[20] The Wiel's-Groene Leeuw affair – At the stage from Luchon to Carcassonne of the 1962 Tour de France, twelve riders fell ill and said 'bad fish' was the cause.
[18] Hans Junkermann of Germany had been ill overnight so the start was delayed by 10 minutes, but at the first hill he got off his bike and sat by the roadside, telling onlookers "I ate bad fish at the hotel last night.
Jacques Goddet wrote that he suspected doping but nothing was proven - other than that none of the hotels had served fish the previous night.
The first riders to be caught were four amateurs, three Spanish (Luis Santamarina, Canet and Usamentiaga) and one Briton (Ken Hill), who were thrown out of the Milk Race when they tested positive for amphetamines after Professor Arnold Beckett first applied sensitive gas chromatographic techniques to monitor drug abuse.
During the 1979 Tour de France, the leader of the mountains classification Giovanni Battaglin tested positive for doping in stage 13.
[91] The practice, instigated by national coach Eddie Borysewicz, was not against Olympic rules although Games medical guidelines discouraged it.
Borysewicz and a colleague, Ed Burke, set up a clinic in a Los Angeles motel room and four of the seven athletes who had transfusions won medals.
[91] The emergence of EPO - In the late 1980s a recombinant drug created for people suffering from kidney failure became a substance abused by athletes seeking enhanced stamina and performance.
[99] EPO stimulates the bone marrow in order to increase red blood cell production and thus the body's ability to carry oxygen.
A study of 15 Swedish athletes by the Stockholm Institute of Gymnastics and Sports found an improvement of nearly 10 percent in aerobic performance.
One of them was Johannes Draaijer, a 27-year-old Dutch rider who finished 130th in the 1989 Tour de France, and died from a heart attack in February 1990.
[99] Although the autopsy did not specify the cause of death, Draaijer's wife later told the German news magazine Der Spiegel that her husband became sick after using EPO.
[153] On 25 May 2007, Riis issued a statement confessing to taking EPO, growth hormone and cortisone for five years, from 1993 to 1998, including during his victory in the 1996 Tour de France.
1999 Tour de France - In 2005 the French sports daily L'Équipe accused Lance Armstrong of using the performance-enhancing drug EPO during the race.
[209][210] In 2006 a UCI appointed independent lawyer, Emile Vrijman, released a report in 2006 claiming that Lance Armstrong should be cleared of any suspicion surrounding the retrospective testing of the 1999 Tour de France.
Vrijman denounced the manner in which the doping laboratory in Châtenay-Malabry carried out its research, claiming that there were too many procedural and chain of custody gaps.
[235] The week prior to the raid saw Pascal Hervé and Riccardo Forconi expelled from the race after testing positive for EPO.
Italian police carried out anti-drugs raids on a number of hotels in the town of San Remo where the participants of the race were staying.
The organizers decided to cancel the 18th stage after second-placed Dario Frigo was sacked by Fassa Bortolo team after illegal drugs were found in his room.
