Has Pro Cycling Cleaned Up Its Act?

Aside from a little controversy surrounding the inclusion of dangerous cobblestone sections in this year’s Tour de France route and the heatwave that made this year's competition even more grueling than usual, the world’s most prestigious cycling race made relatively few headlines that weren't directly related to what was happening on France's scenic country roads.

Considering its history marred in scandals that culminated in Lance Armstrong’s seven-year reign over La Grande Boucle (“The Big Loop”), the Tour’s organizing body can likely draw positives from a lack of headlines, as no headlines also means no doping revelations that have plagued the entire sport for so long.

As the following chart shows, the Tour de France and professional cycling as a whole appear to have cleaned up their act, with the share of participants found guilty of anti-doping violations dropping continuously over the past two decades. Given the sport’s history, you don’t have to be a cynic to at least put an asterisk to these numbers, however. Too often have allegedly clean champions later been found guilty of doping as anti-doping agencies caught up with the latest performance enhancing drug of choice.

Looking at the data compiled by French website cyclisme-dopage.com is sobering to say the least. It reveals that the Tour de France winner in 42 of the last 55 years has been found guilty of doping at some point in his career, many of which having retroactively been stripped of their Tour wins.