Doping in cycling: Things are better…maybe

On paper, 2025 looks encouraging. Twenty doping cases were recorded in pro cycling over the year, as the MPCC, (Mouvement Pour Cyclisme Crédible) reports.

Hey, mazels. That’s down from 29 in 2022, so, part of a steady decline, or something. For a sport that has had a helluva past, that sounds solid.

Compared with other disciplines, cycling no longer stands out for the, erm, wrong reasons. It ranked tenth worldwide for doping and sports fraud cases last year. Athletics led with 163 cases, followed by weightlifting (63) and tennis (46, including 27 linked to fraud). Even Mixed martial arts featured prominently. By comparison, cycling’s numbers are relatively low. Pure as snow.

But context matters. A lot.

For the first time in two years, a WorldTour rider was suspended after anomalies were detected in his biological passport. It’s a reminder that anti-doping controls remain essential at the highest level. The scarcity of elite positives does not mean the system can relax. Not one bit.

Then there are the so-called “grey areas”. The sport of cycling has spent the past decade confronting practices that sit just outside the banned list but raise obvious ethical and health questions. Tramadol was once widely used in the peloton before being prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency. More recently, the UCI moved to ban repeated carbon monoxide inhalation in 2025, with WADA extending the measure across all sports from 2026.

The bigger concern may lie further down the ladder. Of the 20 professional cases last year, nine came at Continental level. At the amateur level, dozens more surfaced worldwide. In Colombia alone, 25 riders were serving bans or provisional suspensions in December, most from amateur or semi-professional ranks.

Then there’s the whole Marc Soler thing going on. Marrying the past with Lance Armstrong’s US Postal team, and the current dominant team UAE, ain’t a good look.

Plus, the rampant rumours that surround some of the best riders in the world. Especially on teams who have guys who have…not-great histories in the sport.

So sure, things are better. The numbers say so.

But in cycling, history has taught everyone to treat good news carefully.