Doping? A problem of the past?

In this year's edition of the Tour de France only one cyclist (Alexander Kolobnew, RUS) was tested positive for doping, or rather a substance often used to camouflage performance enhancing drugs. So can we conclude from this that professional cycling is a clean sport?

My answer would be NO. The average speed of the Tour peaked at 41.654 km/h in 2005, during the reign of Lance Armstrong , who won the world's most famous bicycle race 7 times. In the wake of the Floyd Landis case in 2007 the average speed dipped to 38.98 km/h, the lowest value since 1991. One could easily attribute this to a more cautious approach towards the usage of performance enhancing drugs due to an increased intensity of testing. In recent years, however, the average speed has returned to the level of 2002/2003 and my intuition is that it will climb again. The graph to the left presents all average speed values since 2000.

While this might not be ultimately convincing that doping is still big in cycling, it provides some initial evidence. Even if one does not correct for difficulty of stages, weather or other influences, one can ask the following question: Why should todays athletes be able to ride as fast as their colleges were in a period which was known for widespread usage of doping (f.e. Team Telekom/T-Mobile, US Postal)?

So why do athletes dope? The answer of an economist is simple: They incur the risk of being caught and penalized in order to gain an illegal advantage over competitors and win a prize. Three factors are critical: The risk of being caught, the penalty and, of course, what is at stake. In the presence of ever increasing prizes at the Tour de France the two other factors also have to adjust in order to reduce the incentives to cheat, or at least keep it constant. If we notice the fact that "doping-hunters" are probably always one step behind a cheater, the most obvious measure would be to increase the penalties. My impression, however, is that this is still not being done. As long as it is possible to participate in the Tour while having tested positive (Alberto Contador) for performance enhancing drugs, few cyclist who are willing to win at any prize will shy away from doping. Even well known dopers of the past are welcomed at the Tours despite a dubious "zero-tolerance" stance of the Tour organizers.

There is probably still to much to gain and too little to lose at the world's most prestigious bicycle race.