The End of the Road: The Festina Affair and the Tour that Almost Wrecked Cycling - Hardcover

Fotheringham, Alasdair

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1472913027 ISBN 13: 9781472913029

Publisher: Bloomsbury Sport, 2016

Synopsis

The Tour de France is always one of the sporting calendar's most spectacular and dramatic events. But the 1998 Tour provided drama like no other. As the opening stages in Ireland unfolded, the Festina team's soigneur Willy Voet was arrested on the French-Belgian border with a car-load of drugs., Raid after police raid followed, with arrest after arrest hammering the Tour. In protest, there were riders' strikes and go-slows, with several squads withdrawing en masse andone expelled. By the time the Tour reached Paris, just 96 of the 189 starters remained., And of those 189 starters, more than a quarter were later reported to have doped. The 1998 `Tour de Farce's' status as one of the most scandal-struck sporting events in history was confirmed. Voet's arrest was just the beginning of sport's biggest mass doping controversy - what became known as the Festina affair., It all but destroyed professional cycling as the credibility of the entire sport was called into question and the cycling family began to split apart. And yet, ironically, the 1998 Tour was also one of the best races in years. The End of the Road is the first English-language book to provide in-depth analysis and a colourful evocation of the tumultuous events during the 1998 Tour., Alasdair Fotheringham uncovers, step by step, how the world's biggest bike race sank into a nightmarish series of scandals that left the sport on its knees. He explores its long-term consequences - and what, if any, lessons were learned.

About this title

Review:

This book provides a fascinating insight into how low a professional team will go to achieve their goal --- www.cambridge-news.co.uk

[A] thoroughly researched book --- www.cambridge-news.co.uk

So much more than an account of a single Tour: one of the most thorough explanations of the drug taking culture in cycling
- Road.cc

A gripping account of the 1998 Tour de France --- Road.cc

Book Description:

The first detailed account of the Festina affair, which ripped apart the 1998 Tour de France and irrevocably changed cycling

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Sport
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1472913027
• ISBN 13: 9781472913029
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352