Cycling continues to struggle with widespread doping, according to a landmark report into the sport's troubled recent history.
Set up last January to investigate how cycling so badly lost its way during the 1990s and 2000s, the Cycling Independent Reform Commission (Circ) has heavily criticised the sport's leadership throughout that era.
Its 227-page report, published on Monday, clears the International Cycling Union's (UCI) bosses of outright corruption but censures them for a litany of failings.
Foremost among these are that the UCI did not really want to catch cheats and therefore turned a blind eye to anything but the worst excesses.
The report's authors also accuse former UCI presidents Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid of failing to follow their own anti-doping rules and showing preferential treatment to disgraced former champion Lance Armstrong.
A total of 174 anti-doping experts, officials, riders and other interested parties were interviewed. These are the main points:
- One "respected cycling professional" believes that 90% of the peloton is still doping, another put it at 20%
- Riders are micro-dosing, taking small but regular amounts of a banned substance, to fool the latest detection methods
- The abuse of Therapeutic Use Exemptions, sick notes, is commonplace, with one rider saying 90% of these are used to boost performance
- The use of weight-loss drugs, experimental medicine and powerful painkillers is widespread, leading to eating disorders, depression and even crashes
- With doping done now on a more conservative basis, other forms of cheating are on the rise, particularly related to bikes and equipment
- Doping in amateur cycling is endemic
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