Why cycling?

Gold medal winner Nicole Cooke retired from cycling today and went with a parting shot to the drug addled sport she's leaving behind, and a promise to help bring any and all cheats she competed against to justice.

A question it raised in my mind was - Why cycling? Why have so many competitors doped themselves up? Why has this sport become the biggest headline maker in the world of doping? And if this is so pandemic in cycling, how much of it is going on in other sports?

Don't be misunderstood, I'm not ignorant to the high profile cases across sport. Athletics has had its share of big names fall as drug cheats - Marion Jones and Ben Johnson for example. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemons and Mark McGwire are a few of the big names in baseball to come out and admit to using performance enhancing drugs. In the NFL there are countless examples of players receiving short-term bans for using banned steroid substances.Terry Newton is a famous and tragic example from Rugby League. In other sports there have been accusations and innuendo. But no sport has had the same success in getting doping in the headlines as cycling.

To my mind, there are far more financially rewarding sports than cycling. There are sports where muscle growth and physicality are more required. There are sports where recovery might be harsher or competition might be more brutal. There are sports that take a more lenient view on the issue and where one drugs ban wouldn't end your legacy. So why cycling?

Terry Newton explained how it was the pain climbing his stairs after pre-season training as he moved into his 30s that pushed him to dope - the constant wear and tear on his body that a high impact contract sport can cause meaning he needed that extra push to get himself through. The same sort of problems are faced by American Football players. The amount of work you need to do to get yourself in shape combined with the hits you have to get over make players think they need something to help them out. I get that cycling and athletics competitors will benefit from that extra boost to their training capabilities, but I don't feel they have the same motivation in this regard as rugby or gridiron players.

As for money - why haven't we heard of golfers doping? Surely the financial incentive to get an edge would be greater. Rumours about Nadal exist, and Agassi had a doping question over him for a while, but generally tennis isn't questioned. Boxers at the top level can earn as much for one fight as some sportsmen earn in a year, or even a career, but you don't get much talk about doping. The top footballers can earn a million euros a month, but no one is suggesting Messi, Ronaldo or Van Persie are doping. I understand that the sport has gained a higher profile and sponsorship earnings began to soar in cycling in the last 20 years, but it isn't the highest earning sport.

The punishments are quite severe too. Serious bans are given out. Cyclists compete in the more stringent environment of Olympic Games so are more likely to be found out. It's not like the NFL where the league runs the show, can hide what they want to and only have to give four game bans to players anyway. Cyclists can get two year bans or worse, they can have medals stripped and reputations ruined.

So, it's not the richest or most popular spectator sport, it isn't the most physical sport, and the punishments are severe. So why do cyclists seem to dope so much more than other sports?

I don't subscribe to the Lance the Kingpin theory. It can't just be one man, one star ego, that took a whole sport with him. I also feel the 'everyone's doing it so you have to as well' argument carries little weight, because everyone would be doing it in every sport and we would have legalised it if that was the case - pharmaceutical companies would love the chance to make bigger profits from selling stuff to amateurs. 

My fear is cyclists aren't doping more than the rest. My fear is it goes on in all sports. My fear is we're paying our hard earned money to enjoy the achievements of the heroes we idolise, and they're earning a pretty penny from it, and we're being duped. We aren't watching what one athlete is able to do, it's what they are willing to do. And cycling as a minority sport is the tip of the iceberg...at least that's my fear. I'm afraid that we'll no longer be able to trust what we see, to believe the edge a sportsman or sports team has is through hard work and exploiting everything they have within their power, within the rules, within themselves.