An alternative approach to the prevention of doping in cycling

Framed by an overly reductionist perspective on doping in professional cycling as an individual moral failing, anti-doping policies tend to envisage a combination of education and repression as the primary intervention strategies. We offer an alternative approach, which seeks to understand doping practices as embedded in social relations, especially in relation to team organisation and employment conditions.

We undertake an in-depth analysis of the functioning of nine of the 40 world professional cycling teams, and the careers of the 2,351 riders who were or have been professionals since 2005.

We find that anti-doping approaches rest upon questionable assumptions of doping as an individual moral fault, and have not produced the anti-doping effects expected or intended. Based on an analysis of team practices, and the ways in which riders produce their achievements, we offer an alternative perspective which emphasises doping as a product of social-economic condition. Our findings emphasise employment and business models, as well as day-to-day working conditions, as structural drivers of doping practices in which individuals and teams engage.

Anti-doping requires structural as well as cultural change within the sport of professional cycling, especially in the ways teams function economically.