In 2017, 3 more doping cases than in 2016 were revealed. Even if this is a small increase, it particularly involves the world’s best cyclists. </strong></span><strong>Compared to 2016, 1st and 2nd division’s teams are far more concerned: 8 cases in 2017 vs only 3 in 2016.

 This evolution sheds light on a strange paradox: cycling had never been so badly ranked in this “worst classification” (10th position) while in the same time, the number of pro riders-related revealed cases is back to rising.

 

From a general point of view, the number of revealed doping cases in sport has been constantly increasing during the last years. The most affected sports (baseball, track and field…) kept the same trend in 2017. This is the case of weightlifting that almost doubled its 2016 score (52 cases vs 26 in 2016), without even including the athletes that were recently sanctioned after the reanalysis of their samples of the Beijing and London Olympics (half of the identified positive samples concerned weightlifters).

 

Some federations that previously had been quite discrete regarding antidoping fight decided to step up efforts and communication around that problem. Therefore, some sports that faced just a few doping cases in the past emerge in this classification, some of them are surprisingly well ranked. This is the case of MMA (Free Fight), equestrian and Tennis (10 cases in 2017 vs only 1 in 2016!).

 

Within this context, cycling has managed to keep quite stable figures just like other sports such as swimming and boxing, thanks to experienced and well-known antidoping measures and transparency. However, as many cases coming from the amateur world were revealed in those sports in 2017, we should still analyse those figures with caution.

 

The most affected sports countries would like to be part of the “best students” too. Currently waiting for an IOC rehabilitation, Russia revealed more than 60 cases in 2017 (3 times more than the year before). Nevertheless, USA still sanctioned more than twice as many cheaters – even if most of them competed in non-Olympic sports.