“I can't explain what I see on the road” - Doping shadows cycling once more as German documentary reopens old wounds
CyclingTuesday, 24 June 2025 at 09:29
More than a decade after the Lance Armstrong scandal
threatened to destroy the credibility of professional cycling, the sport finds
itself once again under scrutiny. A new documentary by German broadcaster ARD, Geheimsache
Doping: Im Windschatten (Secret Case Doping: In the Slipstream), suggests that
while the methods may have evolved, the culture of cheating has not entirely
disappeared.
One could argue the sport has never truly emerged from the
dark cloud of doping, always troubled by rumours of cheating. The question is,
are they to be believed? And if these rumours are to be believed, can cycling
endure another doping scandal?
The film presents testimonies from several whistleblowers
inside the sport, including former professionals, who risked their safety to
speak out. “Many people are afraid to talk,” says one ex-pro. “I know someone
who wanted to testify, but he received death threats when the masterminds
behind doping found out he wanted to talk.”
It’s a chilling reminder of how deep the roots of doping
still run, despite claims of a cleaner peloton in the post-Armstrong era.
Armstrong’s case, built on EPO, blood transfusions, and systematic deceit,
shook the sport to its core, before he was ousted by the likes of Tyler Hamilton. But in exposing the scale of the fraud, it also
reinforced just how advanced and coordinated doping operations had become.
Cycling introduced the biological passport and increased out of competition
testing, but the new revelations suggest those measures might still fall short.
According to the documentary, EPO remains in use, not in the
same large doses seen in the 1990s and 2000s, but through microdosing, a method
designed to fly under the radar of modern testing. More concerning still is the
apparent widespread use of Aicar, a drug that is both hard to detect and
immensely beneficial in endurance sports.
“People who are active in professional cycling say that
Aicar was and is the drug of choice in the peloton,” says a whistleblower.
Aicar enhances blood flow and can alter muscle fibres,
giving an unnatural edge in long, gruelling races, making it perfect for
cycling. Its growing use reflects the constant game of cat-and-mouse between
dopers and anti-doping authorities. As Oliver Catlin, an American doping
expert, puts it: “If I were an athlete, would I take Aicar, knowing that it is
on the list of banned substances? Or would I take a related product that is not
on the list?”
Even those within the industry admit the Pandora’s box has
not been shut, and perhaps is still very much open. “It opened a door that has
never been closed,” says Evans, referring to the doping culture that once
engulfed the sport.
The documentary doesn’t just highlight the drugs themselves
but questions the physical plausibility of what fans witness on the road.
Pierre Sallet, who has long studied human performance limits, is blunt. “We
know the limits of human performance. We know what a person can and cannot
achieve. There are certainly grey areas, but it becomes black and white at some
point, and then it's doping, 100%.” He adds: “I can't explain what I see on the
road. A normal man is between 1.60 meters and 2.20 meters tall. But the
performances we see are sometimes as if someone is 3 meters tall.”
Not everyone agrees that performance gains are due to
doping. Some argue that technological progress, from bike design to nutrition
and data analytics, accounts for much of the change. “The major developments
are much more important than the advantages of illegal substances in the past,”
says Filippo Galli, product developer at Colnago. “We are talking about
countless innovations: materials, aerodynamics, weight, bike control, grip,
comfort.”
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- I would let him go now, take any cash they can get, rebuild the classics team. Alpecin is failing apart a bit around MVDP. lots of guys are leaving and sponsors. I’d make a play for the biggest classics name on the block - including MVDP. Quick-Step could pay more than Alpecin, especially with Remco gone, and Specialized could pay much more than Canyon. And Remco will never be satisfied, or realize, his biggest problem is not the team. he isn’t that good of a climber.mij10-07-2025
- I would let him go and return to the teams roots. I’d get rid of him now while he is still under contract. deploy the money elsewhere.mij10-07-2025
- This lasted wellslappers6610-07-2025
- Pog 2025 is supposedly better than Pog 24 who was already better than Pog 23 and all previous Pogs, Evenepoel is still a youngster but looking at Pog at his age, I doubt you can say they’re not closely matched. Affini had wind assistance, no mention of KV?Mistermaumau10-07-2025
- One the one hand yes, on the other, TT is more of a measure of individual performance than positioning during hours of being pulled. In a tdf where each rider is alone all the way, it’d be interesting to see how the GC would look.Mistermaumau10-07-2025
- But very strong and convinced it need only be applied to othersMistermaumau10-07-2025
- Sorry, I pressed send by mistake. I agree with that Tadej has usually been more playful, but when he's obviously having a tough time, everyone can see it, he seems to hold back from crying.Hill3310-07-2025
- Vauquelin made him look like an old man when he passed him.Renz10-07-2025
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- Does he or his team work on his TT to the extent of the top teams?abstractengineer10-07-2025
My assumption is that right now, the ability to train your body to take in huge amounts of perfectly legal fructose/glucose mixes, while doing the high altitude training that creates naturally what they used to do illegally, mixed with the unbelievably data driven analysis of output and recovery, means that we are seeing legal ways to drive performance in the human body beyond what doping once provided. After all, people now react to Merckx’s doping as “yeah, but those methods weren’t really effective,” but it was still doping. I honestly think that what is legal now outperforms the typical illegal cases of the past. I also see how some riders don’t want to be that kind of automaton, so tightly controlled in comparison to the past.
Just as all of those things that you have mentioned have evolved, so have advances in medicine and pharmaceuticals. Everything that pro riders do now is highly advanced, and that includes their doping practices.
And all of that suddenly improved in 2023/2024 offseason.. right? Cut the crap please…
The wheels keep turning and the fans keep cheering Pogacar doped to the gills…
Show us on this doll where Pog touched you.
As much as Pogs performances are a sight', being able to perform in the way he does is a sight, yet how many wonder at the back of their minds, it's natural whilst a having a manager who tested positive, bit like Riis managing him...maybe David Miller can join Ineos or Jalabert goto Fdj ? cycling still in the rot of rubbish, cept it's valuable now as it's being recycled and the Arabs are investing in it..
“The major developments are much more important than the advantages of illegal substances in the past,” says Filippo Galli, product developer at Colnago. “We are talking about countless innovations: materials, aerodynamics, weight, bike control, grip, comfort.” Lol he would say that wouldn't he? It's all about the bike.
There is SOME truth to it though, if you consider an amateur can ride over 90km in one hour on an aerodynamically optimised « bike » you cannot ignore that improvement will happen in many domains of the bike and posture(comfort). If you consider development in eg swimming or running, everything stays pretty parallel, we’re still cycling at only twice running speeds.
Of course, nobody is going to be surprised that doping still occurs but I think the gains afforded by it these days are much smaller than expected, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were using stuff more effective for things like fast recovery and consistency at peak level. What’s more, riders are probably picked vased on their malleability to just swallow whatever they’re given and not ask questions, it seems plausible that tvere are ridees, maybe even Pog naive enough to think they’re not taking anything but that someone in the team is in charge of their « intake », feeding them exactly what they need when they need without it being noticed.