Another year at the Tour de France and we have yet another doping scandal. Yesterday we had the first day of rest of the 99th edition of the Grande Boucle. But instead of resting the peloton experienced a major shakeup. Cofidis rider Rémy Di Gregorio was arrested by the French police in the aftermath of a team hotel raid. He was later suspended by his team and is the first doping casualty of this year's tour.
But it is not the only doping related story these days. Lance Armstrong is fighting doping allegations brought forward by the USADA. Currently highly successful team SKY, the team featuring the current tour leader Bradley Wiggins, is confronted with doubt and suspicion, as it was questioned by the media if the remarkable time trial performance on Monday was possible without performance enhancing drugs.
After a relatively quiet Tour in 2011 we are probably back to the days when doping news were daily business during the 3 weeks of the Tour. Up to this day no positive test results were published, but Di Grigorio's case does not look good. Maybe he is indeed the "single case" his team wants him to look like - or not guilty at all. Maybe he is part of a team Festina-like structure of organized doping and just a scapegoat. We will have to wait and see what the next few weeks will bring along...
Doping is a highly interesting topic in sports economics. A recent paper by Coupé and Gergaud (2012) presents a recent attempt to analyze data from professional cycling in order to establish a link between doping related indicators and riders' performance.
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