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by the prosecutor that tests showed he had taken drugs, Virenque stated
”My name has been cleared.”

1999 – Cipollini’s name means “little onions”. (Intro to an article that also
mentioned that he used pictures of Pamela Anderson taped to his
stem/bars to legally boost testosterone levels. (If that worked, we’d have
seen that on Team GB bikes by now…)

2002 – A look back at Tommy Simpson, including an anecdote about him
handing over £800 to a couple of Italians for “a year’s supply of Mickey
Finns” [amphetamines presumably] – four times the witness’s annual
retainer from his British team, eating 10lbs of carrots per day, racing 18
times across Europe in three weeks, covering 12,000 miles behind the wheel
between races.

2003 – An un-named rider is mentioned as having to change shoe size
mid-season due to the effects of his human growth hormone habit.
Scientists in Cambridge have modified human haemoglobin with crocodile
amino acids, a possible route to high-quality artificial haemoglobin. Other
cheat’s routes may be artificial haemoglobin from bovine sources, genetic
engineering or using perfluorocarbons – probably detectable only by gas
chromatography of the rider’s expired air – tricky for testing the B-sample
if not the A.. On genetic engineering, baboons with a modified EPO gene
need their blood diluted regularly as their haematocrit level soared from
47% to 75% in under three months..

2007 – Article talks about the opening stage in London and mentions
spectators wearing club jersies of, wait for it, Dulwich Paragon and Catford
CC..! Did money change hands…?? J

The book also includes an entertaining timeline –e.g.
∙ 1924: the Pelissier brothers admitted to augmenting their natural
abilities with chloroform, aspirin, cocaine and “horse-liniment”.

∙ 1981: Jacques Boyer is the first American rider to ride the TdeF.

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