Tour De France: Encouraging Doping
The Tour De France is one of the most gruelling sports competitions in the world. It started way back in 1903 and over the years the race has evolved and grown in stature and prestige. Today it comprises of 20 or 21 stages and lasts for around 3500 miles. The extreme nature of the event and the intense nature of cycling such a gruelling race have many people questioning whether it is too hard and too stringent so as to lead cyclists to use performance enhancing drugs to survive the race.
The Tour De France started in the very early 1900s and was a gruelling race even then. The first year that records go back till, 1903, saw the race last for 21 days in July and it ran over 2500 miles. 60 people competed in the first race and 21 racers finished. Over the years the race got longer and longer at one stage reaching almost 5500 miles, until coming back down to around 3500 miles as it is today. The number of riders grew to be in the hundreds and last year 180 people competed at an average speed of 21 miles per hour. The famed yellow jersey that is won by the top finisher has been won a record seven consecutive times by the greatest cyclist in the world, Lance Armstrong.
The issue of doping has become a pretty big problem in the world of cycling and it has especially affected the Tour De France. With the gruelling and intense nature of the race, and the fact that cycling itself is a very difficult sport, has led to many issues of doping in the sport. People have used performance enhancing drugs in cycling to make them become stronger and faster athletes, and drugs have been used as a factor of greed and extreme competitiveness. One of the recent controversies to hit the world of cycling was when Floyd Landis admitted to having used performance enhancing drugs. He was found to have elevated levels of testosterone in his blood and he emailed USA Cycling to admit his use of steroids and blood transfusions to mask the process. Landis was stripped of the Tour De France title he won in 2006. He also accused Lance Armstrong of using drugs as well and giving him advice on their use. He dragged many other cyclists into the mud along with Armstrong by accusing them all of using drugs. This showed that something was not right in the world of cycling.
It seems that cycling has been used as a testing bed for the effects of extreme stress on the human bodies since 1890. During that period, stress tests on animals had been done to death and human test subjects were required. By putting cyclists in extreme races and testing their performance to various stimuli the scientists could get very important information. With the commercialisation of the Tour De France in the 1930s, money started pouring into the sport. The race took on a much greater value in everyone's minds. Since 1903 when the race started, doping had been permitted and widely done in the race. It was after the crackdown in the 60s that things started to go from bad to worse. Doping was an accepted part of the sport and it is blamed wholly on just how extreme and gruelling the race itself is. Is this the case though that the race is to blame?
One example given of the race is the fact that the cyclist Bernhard Kohl who tested positive for a commonly used performance enhancing drug called EPO, had a very hard time completing a stage during the 2008 Tour. The argument laid forth is that if someone who was using a highly effective performance enhancing drug was having problems completing a stage of the race, maybe the race is too hard. In an average race, while racing, cyclists burn almost 9000 calories a day, which is a huge amount of calories to lose in any sport. They have to constantly refuel their bodies or they will fall behind.
There are those who compete in the Tour that will cheat no matter what and these individuals push the rest of the pack to compete harder and push themselves to the limit. It could be that these few individuals are making the race seem a lot harder than it is or it could be that the race is simply too hard. Whatever the reasons are for the persistent doping in the Tour, this will not stop until drastic measure are introduced by maybe making the race a bit easier while removing the dopers might help as well.
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