380 cases of doping, fraud or corruption have already been revealed this year in the world of sport on the highest level. Among them, only 6 concerned cycling.
With cycling ranking 13th “Credibility Ranking”, riders can be genuinely surprised to still be the targets of so many negative comments regarding their image. These comments are not really due to the number of doping cases revealed this year, but probably more to the sole case concerning Chris Froome. This case has been subject to a lot of media attention until the UCI dismissed it 5 days prior to Le Tour de France.
As of today, 6 professional cyclists are linked to ongoing procedures concerning suspected doping : 3 in Europe, 3 in Latin America. None of them involves a World Tour rider, a women, or a mountain bike rider. This number is smaller than last year (10 less cases on the same date) but we still need to be careful on drawing any conclusion. In 2017, there were 7 cases at the end of August and 15 at the end of the year (14 eventually, given that Froome was not convicted). Cautiousness is required too when it comes to the nature of the detected substances : in two cases out of six, EPO usage has been detected.
Out of cycling, the nations and sports involved in doping revelations have been the same for a few years. Dominican Republic leads the way with 23 doping cases, all of them involving baseball players. Crossfit makes a sensational entrance into our classification. This new sport is now well aware that a big clean-up among his practitioners is an urgent issue. The 14 cases registered in only a few weeks prove that their testing methods are efficient!
Corruption, fraud and match-fixing also have their favorite sports, and they are not always the same as in doping : football, cricket and tennis account for more than 80% of the revelations in 2018.
