before and after
I’ve commented a couple of times on the widespread and apparently indiscriminate use of drugs and doping products in sport, particularly cycling and it has been brought to my attention again whilst reading the excellent autobiography of two-times Tour winner Laurent Fignon, ‘We Were Young and Carefree’. Apart from cruelly being known as ‘Monsieur Huite Seconds’ Laurent brings an analytical and perceptive view to doping throughout the generations and having admitted his own sporadic use of amphetamine and cortisone, his opinion is valued.
Fignon’s professional heyday was during the mid 80s and early 90s and the first thing that he is keen to stress is that doping was not the norm. If it existed at all it was hidden, secret and the domain of the elite only. He would occasionally catch snippets of conversation and hear the miracle word: ‘preparation’. With the passage of time and as his status in the ranks of the peloton grew so did his understanding and appreciation of the ‘preparation’ methods being employed.
In the years that Lauren raced, drug taking was not universal and there were many races, the classics and the tours, that were indeed won on mineral water alone. But also with a degree of ‘preparation’ which involved two very distinct definitions. Firstly, there was training, physical ability, diet and rest. Then there was drug-taking which was sporadic, unproven, primitive and naive. Most importantly, some of this ‘drug-taking’ referred to the use of vitamins, supplements and restorative potions, all of which were permitted and used with complete freedom. It was only during the mid 90s that ‘miracle’ drugs such as erythropoietin (EPO) and human growth hormone (HGH) appeared in the sport and it is obvious to all spectators that there are two eras, two very different eras.
Back in Laurent’s day the most frequently used banned drug was amphetamine, which was widely used in races where there were no drugs tests, but which was useful only in the immediacy, for a short time and was highly unpredictable. They were also used for ‘partying’ during the criterium season, when the festivities were a real tradition, a way of life. It was the cyclists letting their hair down and is the equivalent of a ‘friendly’. Anabolic steroids had fallen out of favour due to their ease of detection and testosterone had not yet made an appearance. However, the drug that was being seen in increasing quantities was the anti-inflammatory cortisone and it was, at the time, undetectable. Somewhat tellingly, throughout his whole career he claims never had anyone ever spoken to him or even asked him about ‘doping’ and what he did take was not considered cheating in any form, it was considered the norm.
Rightly or wrongly, Laurent argues that the drugs of his time provided a ‘point solution’ and allowed a rider to perform above his natural level for only a very short space of time, sometimes not even for part of a stage of a race let alone the whole race. When he climbed off his bike for the last time during the 1993 Tour de France, ‘le professer’ believes any points of reference between the cycling generations had been lost in a fog of EPO. With HGH and EPO, all physical obstacles were blown to bits, average riders became superstars over the course of a few short months and these changes could be upheld over the length of the season. In reality, upheld over a career. These drugs had a long-term effect and a psychological one on those riders who delved deeper and deeper. Cycling had not just entered a new era, it had found a whole new scale of values and the ‘EPO generation’ now calls the shots. As Laurent saw it, here is the truth in two sentences: In the 80s, doping methods were derisory and the riders’ exploits huge. Since the 90s, the opposite has been the case.
