Alberto Contador analysed the 17th stage of the Tour de France on Eurosport and is clear it will be one of the most entertaining days of the final week. The former champion believes the route offers a perfect opportunity for the breakaway, though he warns that making the move will be extremely diffi...

The controversy over pre-dawn anti-doping controls on Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard during the Tour de France 2026 continues to grow. After Remco Evenepoels criticism, Lance Armstrong has now weighed in on his podcast The Move, calling the situation a dangerous precedent and using an extreme c...

The vian time trial confirmed Remco Evenepoels outstanding form. The Belgian champion dominated stage 16 of the Tour de France from start to finish and, for Johan Bruyneel, there are few doubts left about his position on GC. Honestly, I no longer see Remco losing that second place, said the form...

The Tour de France ended for Jonas Vingegaard this Sunday on stage 15, with a crash that has left him with a fractured collarbone. The Danish rider has underwent a successful surgery, as has been confirmed by Team Visma | Lease a Bike. Vingegaard was aiming to attack Tadej Pogacar on the stage that...

Doping scandals at the Tour de France shaped the sports reputation for years.In the late 1990s and early 2000s, performance-enhancing drugs were widespread in the peloton. The Festina affair exposed organised team-wide doping, while Lance Armstrongs case later revealed how deeply embedded it had become at the very top of the sport.Armstrong won seven Tours between 1999 and 2005 before being stripped of his titles after admitting to systematic doping. His downfall has cast a long shadow over the sport thats been almost impossible to shake off.Seemingly superhuman performances still regularly raise eyebrows, but the consensus is that the sport is cleaner than ever. However, there are still gaps and challenges on the horizon.This week's controversy at the Tour, in which Tadej Pogaar and Jonas Vingegaard were visited by doping control officers at 2am and 5am respectively, with the latter crashing out of the race the following day, sparked further heated debate.No major scandals since the days of Lance Armstrong It took almost a decade for the Armstrong scandal to fully unravel. Andreas Rentz/Bongarts/Getty Images As journalist James Witts explains in his book Dope: How Drugs Changed Sport, there have been no major scandals at the Tour since the Armstrong era.Is doping a problem at the Tour de France? The evidence suggests not with no major scandals since the days of Lance Armstrong, Witts says, speaking to BikeRadar.Since then, cycling has introduced stricter anti-doping measures.The most important is the biological passport. Introduced in 2008, this tracks an athletes blood values over time to detect suspicious changes. It sits alongside the Whereabouts system, which requires riders to record their location, and to be available for testing every day.Together, these systems have made it much harder to cheat without being caught. As a result, there have been no further majordoping scandals on the scale of Armstrong.That hasnt put a stop to investigations and rumours. For example, Bahrain Victorious had its hotel searched by police during both the 2021 and 2022 Tours, but no charges followed.However, that does not mean the problem has disappeared.Witts is clear that gaps remain in the system, despite the progress made: As we've seen many times before, an absence of positives doesn't necessarily mean an absence of guilt, he says.Lance Armstrong said I've been tested 500 times and never failed a drugs test, before revealing all to Oprah.Altitude vs EPO Altitude training on the 3,715m Mount Teide in the Canary Islands and elsewhere has become the preferred method for pros to increase their VO2max. Michael Blann Testing technology has also improved since the Lance era, but it is not perfect.Substances such as EPO, which increases red blood cell production, can be taken in very small doses. Witts says this micro-dosing can boost performance while remaining difficult to detect.It is also hard to separate artificial changes in blood values from natural ones caused by altitude training a common tool used by elite teams which produces similar effects in the body.There are practical gaps, too. Riders are not usually tested overnight, leaving a window where banned substances could be used and cleared from the body before morning controls, explains Witts.Funding is another limitation. Anti-doping programmes are expensive, and resources are finite across a global sport. As Witts notes in Dope, this can create tensions in a system where those who promote the sport are also responsible for policing it.The risk of AI AI has the potential to design new performance-enhancing drugs too fast for detection to keep up. Getty Images There are also new challenges on the horizon. Advances in science and technology mean novel drugs could be developed faster than testing methods can keep up, including substances designed using AI.However, for now, Witts is confident there is no clear evidence to suggest widespread doping at the top level today. Testing is more sophisticated, monitoring is tighter and the risks of getting caught are higher than ever.But cyclings history shows how long it can take for the truth to emerge. The sport is cleaner than it was, yet the possibility of doping has not been eliminated.James Witts new book, Dope: How Drugs Changed Sport, published by Blink is available now from major retailers including Foyles and other online booksellers. More on the 2026 Tour de France "We should be testing at all times" Tour de France's nighttime doping tests reveal a tension at the heart of professional sport Pogacar's dominance at the Tour de France reveals cycling's two true loves: uncertainty and the underdog An incredibly low heart rate and an unbelievable engine: the physiology of a Tour de France cyclist in numbers Every team bike at the 2026 Tour de France

Thymen Arensmans time trial got off to the worst possible start when he missed his start time, rolling down the ramp 10 seconds late. But his director of racing says mistakes happen

The time trial of the Tour de France showed something that hadn't been seen before this edition: Tadej Pogacar being beaten and distanced by one of his direct rivals. Remco Evenepoel's victory on Lake Geneva was impressive and earned him praise from Fabian Cancellara. He works hard, there is the w...

Garmin just announced it has acquired TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic. Two platforms widely used by athletes, coaches, and teams for pretty much everything. That includes programed/structured training, coach-athlete workout delivery, data/performance tracking, and coach-athlete communication.(Image/Garmin)Garmin TrainingPeaksFor cyclists, triathletes, runners, and endurance coaches, TrainingPeaks is already part of the daily routine. As a coach, its been part of mine for the better part of 13 years. Its where plans are built, workouts are assigned, power and heart rate files get combed over, annual training plans are built, and dreams are put into words. Its where athletes can communicate with their coach (or find coaches like myself) directly. Most importantly, its where all the data lives for years of training, racing, personal notes, and health data are stored.(Image/TrainingPeaks)TrainHeroic GarminThose who use TrainingPeaks should be familiar with TrainHeroic (TH). TrainHeroic was acquired by TrainingPeaks and brought an easier way for coaches and athletes to bring strength training into their routine and programming.Why Would Garmin Buy TrainingPeaks? Garmin says the acquisition strengthens its fitness platform with more coaching options for endurance, strength, and performance-focused athletes.Garmin already owns a huge part of the hardware side through watches, cycling computers, heart rate straps, power-adjacent data, and Garmin Connect. Bringing TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic into the fold gives Garmin a much bigger hand in the planning and coaching side of the equation, not just the recording side.TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic are owned by Peaksware Holdings, based in Louisville, Colorado. According to Garmins press announcement, 120 combined associates from the two platforms will join Garmins global workforce. Financial terms were not disclosed.(Image/TrainingPeaks)What About The Coaches?The big question is what changes for athletes and coaches. Only two years ago, Todays Plan (another popular training module for coaches and athletes) was purchased by Specialized and left to rot. Will the same come from Garmin? Or is this a play to add more AI coaching into TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic? Either way, its gonna leave the coaching and strength/conditnoiing world a bit shocked, and looking for other programming options. Garmin did not outline any immediate product changes in the announcement, so for now, there is no clear word on pricing, platform integration, account changes, or whether TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic will continue to operate as standalone services.(Photo/Jeremy Benson)Where do we go from here? For now, Garmin has two established coaching platforms, TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic, folded into one of the biggest names in fitness tech. Athletes and coaches will have to wait and see what deeper integration looks like once the corporate dust settles. As a coach that uses TrainingPeaks daily, I am a bit shook. I have some lingering pain from the Today Plan acquisition, and lots of lost data. Hopefully, this acquisition simply puts TrainingPeaks under a new roof and allows all users to continue on with regular programming. Garmin.com