Will the Tour de France ever escape its doping legacy?

The Tour de France is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated annual sporting events on the calendar, as the three week-long grand tour captivates Europe and beyond with sights of superhuman endurance and speed. It is a celebration of the highest caliber athletes in the world of cycling, as well as a competition to determine the most resilient rider. That is the event when looked at through a rose-colored visor, but behind that nostalgia is reality that has tarnished professional cycling since the Tour first began in 1903.

That of course is doping, the act by which an athlete uses performance enhancing drugs or other special techniques to give themselves an illegal physical advantage over their rivals. Over the years, the Tour de France has endured numerous accusations thrown at its contenders, many of which have been proven true, marring the legitimacy of those competing.

Indeed, the Tour’s history has been so heavily gripped in a culture of competitors searching for an advantage by any means necessary, anytime one stands out from the crowd, questions of doping consistently jump to the forefront. Ever since disgraced seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong confessed to cheating and disclosed cycling as a realm where enhancing one’s performance was the norm, it has been impossible for any rider to shake off that spectre of doubt indefinitely.

Chris Froome, the current holder of the Yellow Jersey and a former winner overall in 2013, has similarly been plagued with claims from opponents and observers of doping to gain his significant edge over his rivals. The speculation grew so rapidly that last night Team Sky released some of Froome’s data to the public in order to demonstrate once and for all that their rider is clean. This was soon after a French commentator questioned his dominant Stage 10 mountain climb, and a spectator throwing a cup of urine at Froome shouting “doper” in the process.

Froome has firmly defended his position, insisting he is competing cleanly: “Try and make up your own mind about things. Don’t listen to certain commentators who are from the old era. These are ex-cyclists. They’re the ones saying, ‘This performance looks dubious, this doesn’t look right to me’. You look at the race. Look at how hard we worked to get here. We’re not cheating.”

This added speculation and questioning of a cyclist’s true performance has reached a peak with the revelations over Armstrong in 2012. Investigators after a protracted case discovered the seven-time champion had been the ring leader of the most organized doping program ever witnessed in professional cycling. And the shadow that his been passed down on today’s competitors as a result of his illegal activity seems inescapable at this moment in time.

“I know it’s tough for a guy like Chris, who’s in the middle of the Tour and having to deal with these constant questions,” Armstrong said. “And to be honest, a lot of that is my fault.

“A lot of people see his style, his performance and the time gaps and the cadence and they say that this guy is just another one of them (doper). I feel bad about that and whoever is leading the Tour de France in 2015 should not be answering questions about someone who won it 10 or 15 years ago. That’s just not legitimate or fair.”

In the Armstrong era of dominance (1999-2005), only one of the 21 podium finishers was not implicated in a doping scandal, Fernando Escartin.

Armstrong’s scandal is not the only massive black mark on the Tour de France surrounding the established practice of doping conducted by multiple cyclists. 2007 marked one of the most infamous examples of its widespread usage, with riders including Michael Rasmussen, Alexandre Vinokourov and Iban Mayo excluded due to drug-related discrepancies. Eventual winner Alberto Contador faced similar scrutiny, and the Spaniard is another rider to have had doping allegations follow him his entire career after testing positive for banned stimulant clenbuterol in 2010.

The 2012 USADA investigation into doping within tour cycling also severely compromised the legacy of the event and its future, as numerous riders presented affidavits establishing a widespread and accepted culture of doping and the use of performance enhancing drugs. With this history staring observers and competitors in the face, it is no wonder Froome and others have endured such relentless attacks despite no evidence to suggest any misconduct on their part. It is simply now common belief that cyclists cut corners to succeed.

Although regular testing and data analysis has frequently defended these athletes, this culture shows no sign of disappearing anytime soon. This is clearly demonstrated by the 2012-2014 Tours, where most of the top ten riders have never tested positive for illegal substances or been sanctioned for drug use. Whilst there will always be some that look for an unfair advantage in the pursuit of victory, it appears that this age of rampant doping has come to an end.

That is why many of his fellow riders have leaped to the defence of Froome in the face of these allegations. Nairo Quintana sees this as a lack of respect towards sportsmen, whilst Alejandro Valverde referred to it as a “lynching”. These are the comments of athletes desperate to wash away the sins of the predecessors, but instead are forced to wallow in their misdoings and endure relentless questions as to their performance in the face of a world conditioned to be skeptical.

Maybe in a decade or two, enough clean riders will convince the majority of spectators that the days of Armstrong and EPO are gone, and the Tour de France can regain its legitimacy as a competition of champion athletes. However, it might very well be impossible to shake off over a century of deceit, deception and doping.