Historic acceptance of drug use in the Tour de France.
I was doing some searching to see some history about the Tour. No teams for the first few races. 250 mile stages. Do your own repairs. And still 17 mph average speeds.
But what I found interesting was this-
The acceptance of drug-taking in the Tour de France was so complete by 1930 that the rule book, distributed by Henri Desgrange, reminded riders that drugs would not be provided by the organisers
And in 1929-
Henri Pélissier, Francis Pélissier, Charles Pélissier of France. In 1924, following their abandon of the Tour de France, the first real drug scandal arose when the Pélissier brothers gave an extraordinary interview to journalist Albert Londres. They said that they used strychnine, cocaine, chloroform, aspirin, "horse ointment" and others drugs to keep going. The story was published in 'Le Petit Parisien' under the title 'Les Forçats de la Route' ('The Convicts of the Road'). Francis is reported as saying "In short, we run on dynamite." Henri is reported as saying "Do you know how we keep going? Look, this is cocaine, chloroform, too. And pills? You want to see pills? Here are three boxes - We run on dynamite." Francis Pélissier said much later: "Londres was a famous reporter but he didn't know about cycling. We kidded him a bit with our cocaine and our pills." Even so, the Tour de France in 1924 was no picnic.
The first live radio coverage was in 1930.
So much interesting stuff.
