The Biggest Controversies in the Cycling World

raluca 2020-05-09
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Our world is full of drama. You can’t have a single day without someone mentioning something which is trending in our world. Some of the first things to note are that the world loves drama and that they will not shy away from repeating the things or often making them seem a lot worse than they were when they happened.

Acting, music or sports, you have drama everywhere. People tend to call these things controversies, since they are unsure whether they were actually true, or whether they were stories meant to stir up the masses. The world of cycling is full of such stories. If betting on them was a thing, then people would bet who the next person to get accused of doping would be. They might bet online, at NJ Online Sports Betting, at least on regular bets like who will win the race or a leg of the race. 

Here are the top controversies in the world of cycling.

Lance Armstrong – The One that Got Caught

Hyku on Flickr / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Lance Armstrong is arguably the most popular cyclist and the most notorious one. He was stripped from his trophies from August 1998 to the end of his career in 2010. He admitted to doping in 2012, after a confession from Floyd Landis in 2010, an already disqualified cyclist who shared the team as Armstrong. Armstrong’s career was already over at that point, but he was sued multiple times after that, and many sponsors dropped him almost immediately. According to his words, if he were to go back in time, to 1995, he would most likely be doping again, as that was prevalent at the time.

Lance Armstrong was the one to take the bullet, and doping remains a hot topic in the world of cycling.

Alberto Contador – Meat on Steroids

In a test performed at the Tour de France in 2010, Contador’s urine contained traces of clenbuterol, a substance used on animals and sometimes humans, to stimulate the heart and nervous system.

filip bossuyt from Kortrijk, Belgium / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

He claimed that the substance came from meat he imported from his home country. He was stripped of his 2010 Tour de France victory, as well as everything after that up until 2012. It was safe to say that after that incident, whether true or not, he avoided “sketchy” meat stores. He won 9 Grand Tours, but 2 were stripped from him. Whether Contador was actually doping or not is still a topic in the cycling world.

Tom Simpson’s Collapse

In 1967, when cycling was a bit different, Tom Simpson, an extraordinary athlete who won plenty of titles, collapsed while riding up on a slope of Mont Ventoux while racing in Le Tour, stage 13. His body was found to be full of amphetamines and he had plenty of them in his pocket. It is also known that he had drunk brandy at the time, with hopes of calming his raging stomach. 

These are some of the greatest controversies in the world of cycling. 

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