Professional cycling has experienced some incredible moments during its colourful history but few decades saw the dramatic changes that arrived in the 1990s. The widespread use of the blood-boosting drug EPO and the subsequent scandals, police raids and controversies changed the sport like never before. Races became faster, with sports doctors replacing soigneurs as the facilitators of a dirty revolution in the peloton. The sport became medically driven like never before, with a rider´s haematocrit as decisive as their natural talent. Rather than protest, many riders simply adapted to the times and began carrying their own EPO in ice-filled flasks. They injected it at races, sure that they would not be caught by a governing body lacking in both recourse and courage. A few veterans quit in disgust as those in power largely turned a blind eye and took advantage as the sport grew globally like never before.ADVERTISEMENT The racing in the 1990s was often spectacular and dramatic, but it was also surreal and fake. The house of cards eventually came tumbling down when the French police intervened, and the Festina Affair exploded during the 1998 Tour de France. However, it would take another decade to begin to clean up the mess and restore some credibility. A lost decade? It would be easy to write the 1990s off as a decade lost to doping. But to mask oneself from cycling history would be just as unjustified. The 1990s most certainly happened, races were won and lost, and results remain on rider palmares. The only pertinent question we are left with is: Where do the 1990s stand in the history of the sport? To help answer the question, the doubts and this discussion, we´ve created a collection of stories that look back in time. They are first-hand accounts from the riders, managers and journalists who lived through those races, and the difficult choices that had to be made. The decade that transformed cycling forever
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