“I can't explain what I see on the road” - Doping shadows cycling once more as German documentary reopens old wounds

Cycling
Tuesday, 24 June 2025 at 09:29
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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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8 Comments
RidesHills 24 June 2025 at 10:43+ 851

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.

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santiagobenites 24 June 2025 at 16:29+ 1926

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.

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UltimateOpportunist 25 June 2025 at 05:16+ 85

And all of that suddenly improved in 2023/2024 offseason.. right? Cut the crap please…

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UltimateOpportunist 25 June 2025 at 05:17+ 85

The wheels keep turning and the fans keep cheering Pogacar doped to the gills…

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ScottG 24 June 2025 at 14:15+ 978

Show us on this doll where Pog touched you.

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leedorney 24 June 2025 at 13:57+ 819

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..

Cyclingsbestfan 24 June 2025 at 13:44+ 172

“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.

Mistermaumau 25 June 2025 at 03:44+ 4067

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.

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