EIGHT YEARS ago Lance Armstrong, the winner of an unprecedented seven Tours de France, admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs. His confession bookended the “heroic age” of doping in cycling. Between the 1990s and the mid-2000s drug use was widespread and blatant. Doping is harder to get away with now than in Mr Armstrong’s day. But cycling’s reputation has never fully recovered. Fans watching this year’s Tour, due to finish in Paris on July 18th, discuss drugs as much as they discuss tactics or which riders are on form. Fairly or not, suspicion dogs every race.It …
