Brian Holm offers new insights into the 1998 Tour de France doping scandal: "When people said that cycling was dead, I stood up"

Speaking on the podcast Café Eddy, Brian Holm shared his perspective on the infamous Festina doping scandal that overshadowed the 1998 Tour de France, the year before Lance Armstrong began his doping campagin. Holm, a former professional cyclist and now a Eurosport commentator, did not shy away from discussing the challenging period for cycling.

"The easiest thing would be to jump in and say how terrible it all was. The easiest thing is to take a stand and say the same as the others: "Everyone is doping, shut down cycling,'” Holm began, reflecting on the widespread condemnation of the sport at the time.

Holm criticised the negative narrative perpetuated by politicians and the media:

"Politicians and journalists could always find a professor who said that you can't complete the Tour de France without being doped, it's all drug addicts tied up. They all wanted us to go where the weeds grew, so it was nice that someone came along who defended the sport," he said, referring to Danish filmmaker and cycling advocate Jørgen Leth.

Holm himself maintained his commitment to the sport, even amid the storm of criticism:

"I refused to back down myself. I didn't want to stand around apologizing and whining and saying that it was all terrible. When people said that cycling was dead, I stood up and said: 'That may be true, but I'll continue cycling, I've done that all my life,'" he concluded.

The 1998 Tour de France, which was ultimately won by Marco Pantani, saw several teams withdraw in the wake of the Festina Affair, one of the most significant doping scandals in cycling history. This was a chapter in one of the darkest stories in cycling history, and still to this day more and more stories are coming out that offer further insights into just how dark this doping saga was.