There are three types of racers in the Tour: the sprinters, the climbers and the oh-god-please-don’t-let-me-die-why-did-I-do-this riders. Most fall under the last category.

A quick overview of the Tour de France:

It, along with the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Espana, is one of the most famous cycling races. It occurs once every year. Hundreds attempt it, and not everyone finishes. It is made up of stages, both individual and team. There is an overall winner and a points winner, but few outside the race understand how the points system works. The “Best Young Rider” has to be under 26. The race occurs mostly in France, though the first stage, called “the prologue,” often occurs in another country.

The French are terrible at it.

In 2007, the Tour snaked its way around London, and hundreds of riders in skin-tight, brightly colored, sweat-ridden, logo-covered jerseys eased into the journey to come. I happened to be there with my family on our first trip abroad. My dad was the one who got me interested in cycling and in the Tour, and we planned our trip so that — even if we couldn’t see the cyclists finish on the Champs Elysees — we could watch them speed by the Tower of London.

Lance Armstrong didn’t compete in that race, still two years shy of coming out of retirement. I won’t rehash Armstrong’s story here. It’s been plastered over the news since the first accusation against him when he was still racing, since before the confession, before the testimony of teammates, before the denials, before the frozen urine and before the never-failed drug test.

The Tour has a long history of doping, cheating and protests. In 1904, the Tour’s second year, 12 riders were disqualified, some for illegal use of cars and trains. In 1950, after an Italian team leader was threatened with a knife, two Italian teams withdrew from the race. In 1966, riders went on strike in response to drug tests being conducted. In 2010, Australian cyclist Mark Renshaw was disqualified after headbutting a rider. That same year’s Tour winner, Alberto Contador, was later stripped of his title after failing a doping test. His title was given to runner-up Andy Schleck, whose brother Fränk tested positive in the 2012 race. 

The fact that Lance’s seven wins were not reallocated to the runner-up further speaks to the prevalence of doping within the sport. The New York Times published an article last October depicting all of the cyclists who both finished in the top ten and “tested positive, admitted to doping or (have) been sanctioned by an official cycling or doping agency.” More than a third of the top-10 finishers have used performance-enhancing drugs since 1998. An especially poor year was 2003, with seven of the top 10 finishers being linked to doping.

German journalist Hans Halter wrote of the Tour in 1998: “For as long as the Tour has existed, since 1903, its participants have been doping themselves. No dope, no hope. The Tour, in fact, is only possible because — not despite the fact — there is doping.” Though just a bike race, four cyclists and 27 spectators have died in the Tour, and hundreds if not thousands more have been injured. They race up steep inclines at a speed of 25 mph. They ride on cobblestones in the rain. They break arms, legs, collarbones, backs. They get hit by cars and fall into barbed wire fences. Yet still they finish.

To me, Lance’s story is still an inspiration. Overcoming cancer on its own is an accomplishment worthy of praise, let alone riding for 21 days over roughly 2,000 miles in France for over a decade. I do not feel outraged at his drug use. I do not feel disappointed in him as a role model or as a hero or as a spokesperson for cancer survivors. I feel sad. Just sad. That athletes feel they have to chemically enhance themselves to maintain superiority, to keep the public interest, to win, saddens me. 

I don’t want to maintain a collective culture where we encourage our heroes to excel beyond a point that is humanly possible and then decry them when they let us down, or when we learn that they did it only with help from some kind of drug. 

Sarah is a senior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected].