"Cycling is still a better place than ever": Former Danish champion believes doping is mostly extinct in peloton

Will cycling ever come clean of doping? Probably no. But at the very least, it appears so that systematic doping is no longer haunting the beautiful sport. However individuals can still end up being pushed over the edge for various reasons; hunger for success, pressure to perform, inner uncertainy, contacts with wrong people, or just naivity. Either way, the use of illegal methods is tightly monitored by anti-doping authorities and sinners are severely punished with life-time bans carried out towards the biggest sinners at times.

Among those who will forever remain persona non grata in the world of cycling are the likes of former seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong, or his then sports director Johan Bruyneel. Both given exemplary sentences for their part in the systematic doping at team U.S. Postal in late 1990s and early 2000s. Since then, only Portugal has been haunted by systemical doping problems.

But the end of 2000s also brought about a shift in mentality, a more clean cycling with not more than individual offenses on the professional level. However the cases such as that of Oier Lazkano remind us that we can never be too sure about cleanness of a professional cyclist. The Spaniard's contract at Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe has been terminated following UCI's report that abnormalities have been found in the 26-year-old's biological passport, resulting in a provisional suspension.

"I think that the professional field – regardless of this case – is cleaner than ever. But that is of course why it is boring. And it shows, in the nature of things, that things are still happening that cycling is unlikely to be completely freed from at any point," says Eurosport commentator Anders Lund on Radio Tour podcast. "It is still my impression that the sport is a better place than ever."