Breaking The Chain

Last week, I ordered a copy of Willy Voet’s Breaking the Chain--a short memoir written by a former soigneur (a glorified massage therapist) which speaks to the rampant drug use among the ranks of professional cyclists.

Voet’s story is relatively simple. As a long time soigneur workign with the Festina team, he was en route to a race and driving a car packed with performance-enhancing drugs (as opposed to drugs which don’t enhance performance) and I’m not talking about Red Bull or Monster Energy drink. This dude was rolling with a fair amount of human growth hormone, EPO, and steroids--everything the team doctor had been buying up for the riders. Unfortunately for Mr. Willy, he was stopped by customs agents and tossed in jail, all of which resulted in what’s commonly referred to as the 1998 Festina scandal.

(Contrary to popular belief, Dr. Rob was not a part of the Festina team during the late nineties. Just a quick FYI.)

While the writing is at times disconnected and a bit difficult to follow, the subject matter more than makes up for whatever faults Willy Voet has as a writer. According to the author, almost every one of the top professional cyclists are doped up, especially those who race the Grand tours. Voet even doped himself as a young amateur dabbling with amphetamines (and sadly relates how his father all but turned his back on him when he decided to quit doping and quit racing seriously, which, when you think about it, is kind of fucked up) and, to a certain degree, is able to relate to the mentality and state of mind of a a cyclist riding while super-charged. Basically, it lends the book a sense of credibility in addition to the fact that the man was responsible for sticking the HGH-filled needle in the asses belonging to plenty of professional riders.

What’s also interesting is when Voet elaborates on evading drug controls and tests. He points out that many of the doctors hired by the UCI to configure the drug tests are the same doctors employed by professional teams (or at least they were during Voet’s career) who help the riders avoid detection, which is the same as the government hiring Boeing to decide where the government should buy its planes (bad analogy, but work with me, it’s late on a Friday night and I drank too much Red Bull today). Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

Ultimately, Voet suggests that cyclists don’t really consider it cheating when they stick a needle in their ass or pop a few capsules of steroids. Why would it be cheating if all your competitors are doing it? Personally, I believe this idea is supported if you watch the short press conference with Jan Ullrich just after he’s learned T-Mobile booted him from the 2006 Tour de France due to Operacion Puerto. Standing in front of the cameras, his eyes absently floating from one spot to another, Ullrich explains (among other things), “I’ve never done anything wrong.” As an outsider looking in, the concept may be difficult to swallow, but try putting yourself in the riders’ shoes. Your every day existence, your entire career, is cycling. You’re surrounded by teammates and other team personnel day after day after day. Despite what you understand of the rules of cycling, the rules by the book, almost all of the people around you are not just accepting, but requesting injections. They’re looking strong on the bike. You see this again and again and again so, after a while, after finding yourself submersed in this performance-enhancing culture, would you think of jumping on the bandwagon as doing something wrong? Sure, maybe at first, but what about a few months after that first shot of EPO? A few years? Of course, there are always the stories of the champions who forfeited their titles by readily admitting to drug use (think David Millar), but how many people in the world--let alone cyclists--can claim such honesty and integrity? Very few, amigos. Extremely few, actually, so I don’t want to hear anything along the lines of, “Well, if I were in that situation . . .” because you simply don’t know until you’ve been there and done that. I know I’ve hypothesized above, but given what we know about human nature and human greed (as a professional, going faster means possibly winning racers which means possibly making more money), I don’t think the above scenario is all too difficult to buy.

As a result, Breaking the Chain is an interesting read and highly recommended from yours truly.