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I am definitely a layperson when it comes to organized sports, but from my POV it seems like competitive cycling attracts WAY more fraud/cheating/doping/etc. th

• 50208 1y ago
  It's not unique. Different sports police themselves more & less, punish more & less, coverup wrong doing more & less. As you said, you've just heard about it more.
  • kube-system 1y ago
    Yeah, in some sports cheating is so common that the cheating itself has become part of the competition... e.g. finding 'loopholes' or difficult to detect cheats in motorsports, doctoring the ball in baseball, flopping in soccer, etc.
• asdfasvea 1y ago
  First, what is there to wonder about? Stakes. There are things to be gained from winning (and purposely losing). Second, no one sport has more cheating than any other with similar stakes. Third, "cheating" is more of a spectrum than binary. Travelling with the basketball is cheating and sometimes penalized. Having your husband kneecap your Olympic skating rival is cheating as well. Fourth, "cheating" is relative and always in flux. You could head slap an NFL receiver in the 1970's, but no longer. Forward passes in the NHL were illegal in olden times, but fine today.
• vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
  Doping happens in all sports. It's pretty safe to assume that most/all top athletes are on something.
  • ahi 1y ago
    I replied directly to OP, but applies here as well. Cycling is far more specialized than other sports so the pay off for doping is greater.
    • floodfx 1y ago
      Why is pay off greater in cycling than other sports? Salary of the top riders? Compared to say NBA players, pro cyclist make relatively little. Tadej Pogacar (best and top paid cyclist) makes about $8M (euros) in salary per year. Steph Curry (highest paid) NBA player makes $55M (dollars) in salary per year.
      • xboxnolifes 1y ago
        Not money. It's highly specialized in what physically benefits it, so even a small doping on that specific physical attribute leads to significant advantage.
      • vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
        Basketball isn’t as demanding physically as cycling. You need to be fit but not to the extreme degree cycling demands. I would expect doping to be most beneficial in sports where pure physicality is needed. Marathon, triathlon, track running.
        • tgv 1y ago
          There's a lot more money in basketball, though. And money is the number 1 incentive. Growth hormones might be used.
          • noelwelsh 1y ago
            You can reasonably assume that some NBA players are using PEDs. However, the effect is different. To be an NBA basketball player you need to have several attributes, such as height and hand-eye coordination, that cannot be affected by PEDs AFAIK. If basketbally are using PEDs, it is probably to recover faster, which means coming back from injury or training more. More training can lead to a higher level of skill, but it's a second order effect. It's not like cycling where, for example, EPO directly affects performance on the bike.
• ahi 1y ago
  Road cycling is a sport of extreme hyper specialization. Skill is much less of a factor than dedication, training, nutrition and genetics. Increasing VO2max by 5% isn't going to make you Messi, but it can put you on a tour podium.
• chrisfosterelli 1y ago
  It's very hard to tell because the true rate of doping is not known. We just know about who we catch (or very questionable survey results) which are skewed by the resources available for testing and the resources available for hiding doping. Competitive cycling is more popular than many sports, so it gets a lot of attention and effort on both. Cycling was also at the center of the explosion of EPO use between the 1990s and 2000s -- there was no known screening process originally and it was extremely effective at improving performance in endurance sports with low amounts. Cycling has spent a lot of time working to restore the reputational damage from that period.
  • dr_dshiv 1y ago
    When will the average person benefit from all the interesting performance enhancing drugs that have been secretly developed?
    • unsigner 1y ago
      I prolonged the life of my terminally ill dog using EPO. It wasn't exotic or expensive. Probably that means it's already in wide use for humans, too.
      • thyristan 1y ago
        Yes, EPO is a normal drug used to treat certain disorders affecting blood formation, or to trigger increased blood formation before donations or operations. Medication for human use has been availabe in various forms and brand names since before 1990, as Epogen, NeoRecormon, Eprex and lots of other names.
    • rjsw 1y ago
      Medical uses typically come before any performance enhancing ones.
    • lupusreal 1y ago
      No can do, that would be bad for coca cola and starbucks sales.
• h11h 1y ago
  One way of thinking about it is how much a sport is skill-based versus fitness-based. Team sports and racquet sports tend to rely more on skill. Cycling and track and field rely more on fitness. A good soccer player isn't going to become a great just by getting a bit fitter, but the advantage given by doping is exactly what it means to be a better cyclist. This doesn't explain why cycling seems to attract more doping than running. I don't even know if it's true that it does. But there might be something there given the institutional problems cycling has had with doping. Back in the day, it was entire teams doping, with the team staff and doctors in on it, and it's not like they all left when the sport tried to clean up. Either way, the reputation has stuck around.
  • mkesper 1y ago
    Soccer very much depends on fitness too.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • pmontra 1y ago
      Yes, and I remember the years around 1990 when teams with tall men with a lot of stamina and not much else were giving headaches to top teams with top players. But soccer is also a team sport and there are dynamics that go beyond fitness. The morale of a team has a lot of impact. There have been many cases when the same players started playing well suddenly after a change of the manager. Looking at normal workplaces: fire the boss that hates everybody and everybody hate back, put somebody not abusive or toxic in charge, the workers will start performing better.
    • Mawr 1y ago
      The parent did not say it doesn't. He said team sports depend more on skill than fitness, which is true.
  • nradov 1y ago
    Running attracts a lot of doping, it's just less publicized. In particular a lot of Kenyan distance runners have been caught recently. https://x.com/aiu_athletics https://x.com/aiu_athletics
• rich_sasha 1y ago
  In team-based group start road racing, like TdF, a lot of people aren't really competing. They are top sportspeople by ability, but their job is to support the team star. They are often called in French "domestiques", servants. I wonder if this contributes. Imagine you're a sport person, your job depends kn your performance, you are at the mercy of your team, and it's not even like you can win. So why not help yourself to some pills. But then, as siblings say, I don't even know if cycling is worse than other sports.
  • cogogo 1y ago
    I think the format plays a huge factor too but for different reasons. This format of racing is very dependent on aerodynamic advantages - to the point that even on the massive climbs the rider on the wheel still holds the edge to someone doing the work. On the flat stages the peloton is almost always going to catch a breakaway. Any marginal advantage is super useful in that context and the well funded teams push to optimize everything. I think it’s more likely than not there is cheating. Motors seem unlikely but with this kind of money and international attention marginal advantages like microdosing for example will be exploited. People cheat in everything and often get rewarded for it. It’s an infuriating fact of life.
• edding4500 1y ago
  I think there are different factors. One is that doping in cycling had big media coverage, especially in the 90ies to 2010s. Media uncovered that basically everyone in the race org knew that doping was involved. See for example Cofidis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cofidis_(cycling_team) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cofidis_(cycling_team) This adds to the perception that cycling is very prone to doping. Whether it is so more than other sports... I don't know. As was mentioned before, in cycling as in other endurance sports, doping can push you very far. Then there is the way the whole sport is organized. In the tour de france, privately sponsored teams compete against each other. I think this is very different to, say, a world championship. A country or trainer may have the interest of pushing their athletes beyond what is legal. But in a privately sponsored team, the pressure could be much higher.
  • Azrael3000 1y ago
    Not sure your last statement is necessarily correct, just think of the massive doping in the former soviet union. The prestige gained by countries due to e.g. the Olympics regularly causes people to use illicit means.
• discreteevent 1y ago
  Because it's such a tough sport. The Tour de France was originally intended to be so tough that only one person might finish it. In other words it was set up to be extremely hard for most normal athletes to compete without some kind of artificial assistance. So there was a history of drug taking from the start. But after the scandals of 20 years ago it became one of the most tested sports in the world. So now, in my opinion, drugs are not used much compared to other relatively untested sports (maybe some microdosing). Instead sports science has taken over. Pogacar, the current TdF champion works with a someone who is a contributor in mitochondria research. Something that has made a big difference in the last few years is the amount of carbohydrates the riders take in during a stage etc. etc.
  • ekianjo 1y ago
    > drugs are not used much they just switched to drugs you cant easily detect.
    • lonelyasacloud 1y ago
      For the prestigious pro events samples are kept for years afterwards and are subject to re-testing at any time as science advances. If any of those re-tests fails (or if cheating comes to light through any other means) the rider would be dq'd, stripped of the result, and be liable to pay back prize any and sponsorship money. These are riders in their twenties, that's such a long time to rely on getting away with it I personally do not think it's happening at the highest pro-level.
      • koolba 1y ago
        > For the prestigious pro events samples are kept for years afterwards and are subject to re-testing at any time as science advances. That’s easy to solve. Use some of the prize money to stage an elaborate heist of the blood sample and replace it with a clean sample. I bet this would make a good movie. Could be called “Blood Spoke”.
        • 1y ago
• raverbashing 1y ago
  Honestly there's an (unhealthy) dose of self-loathing to want to bike long distances uphill for several days during the European summer But I'm not surprised they want "extra help" with that
  • IncreasePosts 1y ago
    It doesn't start out that way. And in any case, a lot of people have horribly physically demanding jobs that just barely let them survive, not earn millions of dollars and have fawning fans wherever you go.
• cujo 1y ago
  it's a safe bet that your big money sports (not cycling) have a lot more doping than cycling. the issue is that you can't report what you don't know. * cycling is a mix of moderate money and lots of drug testing. there are significant incentives to dope, but it's fairly hard to do these days since there is a lot of testing. * big money sports (in the us especially - nfl, mlb, nba) are the jokes of the testing world. they rarely test and often inform their athletes when a test is coming. the big money basically assures that the incentive to dope is also big. but you'll never get caught if the testing process is a joke, so there is nothing to report.
  • noosphr 1y ago
    >they rarely test and often inform their athletes when a test is coming. the big money basically assures that the incentive to dope is also big. but you'll never get caught if the testing process is a joke, so there is nothing to report. This reminds me of compliance training when I worked at a trading firm. >Canada is perceived to have the least corrupt stock exchange in the world. >>Makes sense ... wait perceived? >Yes. >>So no one looks at the actual amount of fraud? >No. >>... >...
  • kasey_junk 1y ago
    The nfl testing regime is purely surprise testing based. The bigger difference is that endurance sports have more options for doping than others. Frankly, I think too many things are banned. Blood doping seems no worse than sleep chambers and hgh in correctly applied regimes would take some of the punishment out of football.
    • sumo89 1y ago
      Maybe read some of the stories of the cyclists like Pantani doing blood doping. They would have to wake up every few hours through the night and do some cycling on a stationary bike to get their heart rate up or their heart might stop while they're asleep due to their blood being too thick. Sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber to boost the mitochondria is childs play in comparison.
    • PleasureBot 1y ago
• sumo89 1y ago
  It's the most tested sport by far. Mostly because a couple of huge scandals - Festina and Armstrong. It's an endurance sport which is a natural target for doping because of the huge gains that can be made and it's also probably the most popular endurance sport too. That said, it's a problem in other sports but they just don't test as much or publicise it as much. It's become a real problem in Rugby, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/50785122 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/50785122 and in Football where they hardly test anyone https://warrenmenezes.substack.com/p/doping-and-english-football-a-deep https://warrenmenezes.substack.com/p/doping-and-english-foot...
  • brrrrrm 1y ago
    > endurance sport which is a natural target for doping This makes a lot of sense to me. A very singular goal of "maximum output" without much need for fine motor skills and strategizing. I'd guess sprinting/marathons might have similar issues?
    • david-gpu 1y ago
      There is actually a lot of strategy in road cycling. Remember for one thing that there are teams -- ask yourself why is that.
      • cvwright 1y ago
        But like Jorgenson said this year, there’s no tactics that can beat Pogi going up a steep hill at 7w/kg. At some point it all comes down to power to weight.
        • peter422 1y ago
          Stage 21 was a great example of how tactics can beat a stronger rider. Pogacar was probably the strongest but Matteo burned up his energy chasing attacks in the final lap and then at the right moment WvA was ready to pounce and take the stage.
• tokai 1y ago
  Its not like that. If anything cycling has less doping than most sports. Cycling has been very serious about doping for much longer, than most other sports. Infractions are punished very hard; a guy like Hessmann had his career paused for a year plus, while also losing his contract, even though he hadn't doped. While a tennis star get three months for a clear doping infraction. Cycling also bans more substances than the international doping authorities does. As an example did cycling banned tramadol and other strong painkillers, while other sports don't care. You have heard much more because from cycling over other sports, because the other sports don't want their dirty secrets aired out, and you heard about the huge scandals in cycling in the 00s.
• stefs 1y ago
  i think that cycling is cleaner than other sports today. the past doping epidemics led to so much bad press cycling faced a huge sponsorship crisis. if another one of the stars would get caught today they'd take the whole sport down with them. so, if they don't cheat as much, what's left? todays cyclists are actually a lot better than the stars of yesterday, mostly due to better nutrition. training efficiency also improved as the young stars of today are of the first generation that grew up with power meters. i'm not very knowledgeable in the sport and my last point is a bit of an assumption, but here we go: pro cycling is mostly based in europe. the UAE team is swiss, astana qazaqstan team (a team representing the state kazakhstan) trains in spain and austria. girona (spain, near the pyrinees) is _the_ classic cycling hotspot. this means testing by officials is comparatively easy. in other sports the training facilities are, for example, in the chinese mountains, russian provinces or in the iranian back country. getting regular testing there is hard. so imo no: cycling today is probably less dirty than most others sports. tbh i think pogacar is just one of those rare genetic talents that show up from time to time to dominate a sport, but is doubted more than others due to cyclings tainted history. it may be possible he uses newly developed drugs that are undetectable, but i'd say innocent until proven guilty is still applicable here.
  • lbreakjai 1y ago
    Spain doesn't test during evenings or weekends. They've also historically had a habit of turning a blind eye on positive tests, especially if the athlete was Spanish.
• alistairSH 1y ago
  Cyclists can be tested all year. This includes mandatory tests immediately post-race for top placings. This is true for gymnastics and track&field/athletics as well. NFL players can be tested once during the season. It's a joke. NBA players can be tested four times in-season and two more off-season. Less of a joke than the NFL, but still pretty relaxed compared to cycling.
• thenoblesunfish 1y ago
  Relative to other sports it doesn't require much skill that can't be easily quantified. The person who can produce the most Watts over the required window is a strong favorite. I assume that doping simply makes a difference in a way it doesn't for skiing or soccer, and probably not as much as even swimming or running.
  • datadrivenangel 1y ago
    Skijumping has routine cheating with clothing that gives too much lift by being thicker than the regulations.
    • jrm4 1y ago
      I mean, hard for me to regard this as "cheating" worth taking seriously. Unless those clothes have little propellers in 'em. :)
      • Azrael3000 1y ago
        Why not? Its a big difference whether you go ski jumping in leggings or in a wingsuit. Obviously the difference in reality is less, but the principle stands
• matthewowen 1y ago
  there's probably just as much doping in distance running but it's easier to evade (top athletes spend most of the year in countries that have limited interest in testing)