Cycling is a bizarre sport. Both the sport and its attitudes towards doping. I'm still a fan and collect race used Time trial bikes from roughly 1979-1996. I Could expand that to 1999, but there were big rule changes after 1996 and the really crazy stuff was banned.
The old time racers have occasionally talked about doping in the 50's and 60's. If there was a group of guys out front, at some point they would be given a special red water bottle for the end of the race. Probably amphetamines or something like that. When asked if he thought it was cheating one of them said "why? we were all getting the same thing." More common in big races and far more common in the 60's as team cars became more common.
That began to change when Tom Simpson died during the 67 tour, having taken amphetamines and drinking brandy earlier in the stage. That prompted a move towards testing.
Of course in the 80's they couldn't test for much and the fashionable thing was blood doping to raise hematocrit levels. The limit was a score of 50, and riders would often avoid the "vampires" -what they called the testers for an hour or two. And sometimes they would get a pass on something I've heard of the test official coming to a team tent and telling them "you're ok, 49.9 for everyone"
Things have changed so much.
They're now the most tested athletes. Random testing during races, but everyone tested sometime during a big race. Urine test nearly daily, and urine and blood for stage winners. Off season they have to report exactly where they will be with who and doing what. And if there's a change they have to file a form in advance. If the form is in late it may betaken as a positive test. If they can't be found for the surprise random offseason test that they have like 24 hours to show up for it's counted as a positive result.
And the actual testing covers a wide array of stuff, with zero tolerance and detection down to silly levels. And so many things can be found. Cough medecine, most vitamin supplements, and as we've just seen recently if the beef was raised with growth hormones as most is they'll find that too.
Imagine the MLB players accepting a program like that!
And still they catch guys cheating.
(And dying, the 90's was a big time for EPO, but a large slow heart with thickened blood from EPO led to a few heart attacks and strokes from clots developing, usually while the cyclist slept. )
Steve B
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