8 ms·

What makes cycling so particularly attractive to cheating? Or is cheating in cycling just getting more publicity than in other sports?

by Swizec 11y ago

bache 11y ago
It's not just cycling. Boxing, baseball, tennis they are all cheating, theres million dollar incentives for these athletes too
- randlet 11y ago
  Exactly. My impression is that a large percentage of top performing athletes are "enhanced" in some form or another.
33degrees 11y ago
I think it's the nature of the cheating her that is getting a lot of attention. From TFA "Despite more suspicious evidence occasionally floating to the surface, moto-doping seemed like a fairly improbable boogeyman, something that was too outrageous and silly for anyone to actually try. "
chickenbane 11y ago
Most professional athletes are doing everything they can to get ahead, and cycling is no exception. That said, there are pretty amazing stories about cyclists cheating - perhaps because the sport is so grueling that small advantages can really translate to substantial gains. One of my favorites for the Tour de France was cyclists being pulled by cars attached by fishing line to a piece of cork held in the mouth!
- qb45 11y ago
  WTF? Who did that and when?
  - freehunter 11y ago
    I'm not really finding any primary sources, but there is a lot of unsourced blogs talking about it. Allegedly it was Hippolyte Aucouturier in the 1904 Tour de France, which apparently was so rife with cheating that it almost got canceled. http://www.bikeroar.com/articles/the-4-greatest-bicycle-cheats-in-history http://www.bikeroar.com/articles/the-4-greatest-bicycle-chea...
    - qb45 11y ago
      Oh, OK. I was imagining something like that happening more recently and couldn't quite believe it.
sokoloff 11y ago
At the highest levels of every type of professional sports, competitors are working hard to seek an edge. Some of those edges are legitimate and "in-bounds" (training harder/smarter/better equipment within the rules); others are outside the bounds.
x0x0 11y ago
I'd bet there's not a single star athlete in any sport that hasn't used performance enhancing drugs in some way. Test doesn't just make your muscles grow; it allows you to train harder and recover faster. The benefits are obvious. Stars have been caught in nearly every single sport you can think of -- football, baseball, track, cycling, distance running, sprinting, swimming, weightlifting, bodybuilding (well, they mostly don't bother testing), etc. Even movie stars are doing them (see eg Hugh Jackman jumping 20 lbs lean muscle mass in 6 months in his 40s to play Wolverine.) Where stars aren't getting caught testing is lax or the drugs have outrun the testing regimes (basketball, crossfit, tennis). In the year 2016, believing that the best athletes aren't using the same drugs as everyone else requires willful suspension of disbelief. After all, look at what they did for eg Barry Bonds -- they turned a clear hall of fame player into probably the best to ever play baseball. Every star athlete, and they tend to be ultra competitive, wants the same thing.
- mrob 11y ago
  What's more, anabolic steroid use causes long term changes to muscle by increasing number of myonuclei (this also happens with natural training, but less effectively). Myonuclei are not lost even after long term muscle atrophy, so it's much easier to regain lost muscle size ("muscle memory"). You keep the benefits long after your cheating has become impossible to prove. AAS increase myonuclei count: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4160183/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4160183/ Myonuclei retained during muscle atrophy (animal study, but "muscle memory" is well established in humans too): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930527/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930527/
Retra 11y ago
There's also the phenomenon whereby cutting corners is more desirable if you feel that it is prevalent. Cheaters beget cheaters, and you've got a feedback loop.
InclinedPlane 11y ago
Name a professional sport with lots of money involved that hasn't been heavily involved with cheating or corruption in the last 2 decades.
ufmace 11y ago
Seems to me that cycling has gotten so competitive that virtually all of the top performers are on some sort of drugs, like it's a culture there. If everyone is mostly clean and one guy is using special drugs, than it's easy to say that the one guy is a cheating asshole. But if everybody is using drugs and you basically have to to be competitive, then it's harder to judge.
- davidw 11y ago
  Cycling has actually gotten cleaned up a lot lately. There are various teams with 'no needles' policies, and very strict monitoring of what people are ingesting in terms of vitamins and so forth. Most sports are 'very competitive'. That's the point.
outside1234 11y ago
Its getting more press because the other leagues are suppressing it. It is not hard too believe that there is an immense amount of PED use in NFL (way too much money on the line) and probably the NBA and Soccer.
- wmil 11y ago
  The NFL really should have some kind of amnesty about past PED use so that sports doctors can share what they've learned with the broader medical community. It's actually incredible how NFL players can bounce back from serious injuries. Sharing those secrets could really help a lot of people.
wott 11y ago
Because it is one of the most difficult sports, if not the most difficult one. There are not many others, where you race 4 to 7 hours 6 days a week (and besides the 3 main tours, you are engaged in a gazillion of one-week tours, 3-days races, one-day classics, etc., teams run several races happening at the same time in different part of world, even second or third categories teams). Another parameter is that it is probably the sport where it is harder to make a difference, because of the importance of drafting. Leaving the protection from the wind at fair speed is a bit like hitting a wall, it requires an amazing amount of energy compared to staying in the group. But if you ever want to win, at some point...
wmil 11y ago
Part of it could be accessibility. The body shape required to be a top cyclist isn't particularly unusual. Plenty of people could be top cyclists if they had the endurance. After many years of training cheating becomes more attractive than admitting your natural endurance limit is just too low.

What makes cycling so particularly attractive to cheating? Or is cheating in cycling just getting more publicity than in other sports?

by Swizec 11y ago

What makes cycling so particularly attractive to cheating? Or is cheating in cycling just getting more publicity than in other sports?

bache 11y ago

It's not just cycling. Boxing, baseball, tennis they are all cheating, theres million dollar incentives for these athletes too

randlet 11y ago
Exactly. My impression is that a large percentage of top performing athletes are "enhanced" in some form or another.

33degrees 11y ago

I think it's the nature of the cheating her that is getting a lot of attention. From TFA "Despite more suspicious evidence occasionally floating to the surface, moto-doping seemed like a fairly improbable boogeyman, something that was too outrageous and silly for anyone to actually try. "

chickenbane 11y ago

Most professional athletes are doing everything they can to get ahead, and cycling is no exception. That said, there are pretty amazing stories about cyclists cheating - perhaps because the sport is so grueling that small advantages can really translate to substantial gains. One of my favorites for the Tour de France was cyclists being pulled by cars attached by fishing line to a piece of cork held in the mouth!

qb45 11y ago
WTF? Who did that and when?
- freehunter 11y ago
  I'm not really finding any primary sources, but there is a lot of unsourced blogs talking about it. Allegedly it was Hippolyte Aucouturier in the 1904 Tour de France, which apparently was so rife with cheating that it almost got canceled. http://www.bikeroar.com/articles/the-4-greatest-bicycle-cheats-in-history http://www.bikeroar.com/articles/the-4-greatest-bicycle-chea...
  - qb45 11y ago
    Oh, OK. I was imagining something like that happening more recently and couldn't quite believe it.

sokoloff 11y ago

At the highest levels of every type of professional sports, competitors are working hard to seek an edge. Some of those edges are legitimate and "in-bounds" (training harder/smarter/better equipment within the rules); others are outside the bounds.

x0x0 11y ago

I'd bet there's not a single star athlete in any sport that hasn't used performance enhancing drugs in some way. Test doesn't just make your muscles grow; it allows you to train harder and recover faster. The benefits are obvious. Stars have been caught in nearly every single sport you can think of -- football, baseball, track, cycling, distance running, sprinting, swimming, weightlifting, bodybuilding (well, they mostly don't bother testing), etc. Even movie stars are doing them (see eg Hugh Jackman jumping 20 lbs lean muscle mass in 6 months in his 40s to play Wolverine.) Where stars aren't getting caught testing is lax or the drugs have outrun the testing regimes (basketball, crossfit, tennis). In the year 2016, believing that the best athletes aren't using the same drugs as everyone else requires willful suspension of disbelief. After all, look at what they did for eg Barry Bonds -- they turned a clear hall of fame player into probably the best to ever play baseball. Every star athlete, and they tend to be ultra competitive, wants the same thing.

mrob 11y ago
What's more, anabolic steroid use causes long term changes to muscle by increasing number of myonuclei (this also happens with natural training, but less effectively). Myonuclei are not lost even after long term muscle atrophy, so it's much easier to regain lost muscle size ("muscle memory"). You keep the benefits long after your cheating has become impossible to prove. AAS increase myonuclei count: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4160183/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4160183/ Myonuclei retained during muscle atrophy (animal study, but "muscle memory" is well established in humans too): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930527/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930527/

Retra 11y ago

There's also the phenomenon whereby cutting corners is more desirable if you feel that it is prevalent. Cheaters beget cheaters, and you've got a feedback loop.

InclinedPlane 11y ago

Name a professional sport with lots of money involved that hasn't been heavily involved with cheating or corruption in the last 2 decades.

ufmace 11y ago

Seems to me that cycling has gotten so competitive that virtually all of the top performers are on some sort of drugs, like it's a culture there. If everyone is mostly clean and one guy is using special drugs, than it's easy to say that the one guy is a cheating asshole. But if everybody is using drugs and you basically have to to be competitive, then it's harder to judge.

davidw 11y ago
Cycling has actually gotten cleaned up a lot lately. There are various teams with 'no needles' policies, and very strict monitoring of what people are ingesting in terms of vitamins and so forth. Most sports are 'very competitive'. That's the point.

outside1234 11y ago

Its getting more press because the other leagues are suppressing it. It is not hard too believe that there is an immense amount of PED use in NFL (way too much money on the line) and probably the NBA and Soccer.

wmil 11y ago
The NFL really should have some kind of amnesty about past PED use so that sports doctors can share what they've learned with the broader medical community. It's actually incredible how NFL players can bounce back from serious injuries. Sharing those secrets could really help a lot of people.

wott 11y ago

Because it is one of the most difficult sports, if not the most difficult one. There are not many others, where you race 4 to 7 hours 6 days a week (and besides the 3 main tours, you are engaged in a gazillion of one-week tours, 3-days races, one-day classics, etc., teams run several races happening at the same time in different part of world, even second or third categories teams). Another parameter is that it is probably the sport where it is harder to make a difference, because of the importance of drafting. Leaving the protection from the wind at fair speed is a bit like hitting a wall, it requires an amazing amount of energy compared to staying in the group. But if you ever want to win, at some point...

wmil 11y ago

Part of it could be accessibility. The body shape required to be a top cyclist isn't particularly unusual. Plenty of people could be top cyclists if they had the endurance. After many years of training cheating becomes more attractive than admitting your natural endurance limit is just too low.