Breaking The Chain: Drugs and Cycling - The True Story (Yellow Jersey Cycling Classics) - Softcover

Voet's role as team "pharmacist"--ferrying and administering the cocktails of performance-enhancing drugs--made him the invisible hand that shaped the fortunes of one of the sport's most successful teams and he spares little detail in relating how it was done. Step-by-step guides to the business of "charging" on amphetamines and testosterone, administering mid-race injections and the secrets of beating the dope tests, are revealed for the first time.

.You slip the part of the tube fitted with the condom up the backside, inject clean urine up the tube ... cork it and stick it to the skin following the line of the perineum as far as the testicles ... this system was never bettered ... I used it for three years without any worries.

This is an astonishing story and Voet's is an amusing, candid voice--strong on the thrills of cheating and on the horrors of being caught--but given the ongoing investigations, and that fact the Voet, along with other senior members of the Festina team, is living under the cloud of a suspended prison sentence, it is hard to gauge whether the author's version of events has itself been "doctored". He names specific individuals related to the Festina case but protects the identities of other cheats that he claims operated on the pro circuit and it remains to be seen whether the full story of the scandal has now been told. --Alex Hankin