Last year's King of the Mountains winner at the Tour de France, Austria's Bernard Kohl, describes his pre-Tour doping/cheating diet:
“Apart from the caffeine, pseudo-ephedrine, painkillers, EPO, human growth hormones, insulin, I took all that before, not during (the Tour).”
Kohl tested positive for taking CERA during the Tour, a heretofor untraceable form of EPO (boosts the transferrance of oxygen to the muscles), and was stripped of this King of the Mountains title.
One thing about cycling, though -- yes, that cornucopia of drugs is staggering, but at least these guys are being caught and tossed out. Kohl claims, however, that everyone in the top ten on the general classification from last year's Tour de France were doping. A little bit of sour grapes perhaps, but who knows. Kohl's allegation would ostensibly include the American rider Christian Vande Velde, who came in fourth. Kohl:
“When I learned that the French authorities were going to make new analysis after the Tour — I reassured myself, OK, I am dead, but others will be dead, too,” he said. “What were the French authorities going to do? Withdraw the complete GC of the Tour? I knew they wouldn’t dare. Bizarrely, only three of us took the fall. I am convinced that the top 10 would be positive.”