Professional cycling has a long history of doping as we all know, and the debate now – or shall we say the ‘murmuring’ these days – is more about how much of what is grey area should in fact be black, and about what percent of the peloton has strayed into the full on illegal area.

Recently, anti-doping advocates and riders themselves have offered up perspectives on both the progress and persistent vulnerabilities within the sport’s anti-doping framework.

On one front, the Movement for a Credible Cycling (MPCC) has raised serious concerns about the “medicalisation” of the sport.

Eeh lad, I remember th’auld days, when riders were rolling medicine cabinets – whatever you needed, they had it in ’em!

In a statement to the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the anti-doping group urged stronger action against substances and treatments that fall into ethical these grey areas — products not yet banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) but nonetheless questionable when used by healthy athletes.

Sucking on an exhaust pipe (using CO rebreathing, often with oxygen, to artificially boost the body’s oxygen-carrying capacity by increasing red blood cell production) might sound like it probably should be totally banned, for instance, but it ain’t.

Pretty dark shade of grey if you ask me.

The MPCC highlighted worries about ketones and potent opioids like tapentadol (it’s just an opioid, you’ll be fine), and about finishing bottles containing borderline compounds handed out during the final stages of races – which people have been complaining about for years – see this excellent CP article by Dr. Conor McGrane.

Tramadol used to be the drug of choice for dulling the pain and senses in the final kilometres….

I often joke about this stuff but there is an obvious issue here: as long as these substances remain officially permissible or poorly regulated, both riders’ health and cycling’s credibility are at risk. 

The organisation also criticised the UCI for slow regulatory response times, arguing that anti-doping procedures take so long that new products continually enter the sport before rules catch up – nothing new there.

Amid these institutional concerns, riders themselves have been speaking on the topic recently.

Irish pro Ben Healy says it’s unrealistic to claim any sport is 100 % clean. He stressed that while cycling has some of the most rigorous and frequent testing regimes — illustrated by high-profile cases like the provisional suspension of Oier Lazkano over biological passport irregularities — no system can guarantee total purity. According to Healy, this doesn’t mean the sport has given up on fairness, but it does show the inherent difficulty of policing elite performance. He praised current anti-doping infrastructure, noting riders today may be tested even more often than in other sports.

“In any sport I think it’s impossible to go, ‘Oh yeah, the sport is 100% clean,” said Healy in an interview with the Irish Mirror. 

“That’s not to take away from anything that the sport and the governing bodies are doing to try and keep it clean and catch people out,” said Healy. “Look at Lazkano, everyone’s being tested thoroughly and pretty often to be honest, potentially even more than other sports.”

So we have the MPCC on one hand saying that there are too many grey areas and that testing is often targeting drugs which may not be in use anymore because new drugs have already been developed and are being used, and on the other, Healy is saying what we have heard many times, that this is the most tested sport in the world. Mark Cavendish recently came out to say that cycling is “one of if not the cleanest sport in the world.”

We’ve heard this before lads, and look, we all know the history. Just saying. Well, doing more than that – saying we need to be looking harder, get rid of finishing bottles, heavy sedatives, and exhaust pipes, as the MPCC calls for.

There’s a sense around the sport that something is wrong, just we don’t quite know yet what it is…