When I lived in Brussels, I made a personal pilgrimage to the Eddy Merckx Metro Station. Merckx, nicknamed “The Cannibal” for his refusal to let anyone else win, is the greatest rider the Tour de France has ever seen. I got a great surprise when I arrived. One of his actual racing bikes is right there in a glass display case inside the station! That’s the kind of reverence this sport commands, even decades later.
The Tour de France started in 1903 as a newspaper publicity stunt. It’s now one of the most demanding events in sports, three weeks of mountain climbs and high-speed sprints that push riders past what most of us would call reasonable limits.
Even though only one rider wears the famous yellow jersey at the end, the Tour has evolved from a solo grit-fest into a high-stakes team sport. In the early days riders used to fix their own bikes on the roadside. Today, you don’t win without a team behind you. These teammates, called domestiques, completely sacrifice their own chances to block the wind for their leader, fetch water, chase down rivals, and pace them up steep peaks. It’s chess on wheels. Legs matter, but so does the willingness to sacrifice for someone else’s win.
Then the sport nearly destroyed itself.
Around the turn of the century, doping scandals tore through cycling, and Lance Armstrong became the face of it. When he was stripped of his seven Tour titles, the fallout went deeper than one rider’s reputation. For years, the culture around him rewarded silence. Teams, sponsors, and even some governing bodies looked away because winning was profitable and asking questions wasn’t. Once the truth came out, fans felt betrayed, sponsors pulled out, and regulators scrambled to catch up to a problem they’d ignored for a decade. It proved that a hundred years of history can disappear overnight when integrity goes out the window.
Cycling didn’t just move on. It rebuilt, slowly and deliberately. Biological passports now track each rider’s blood values over time, making it far harder to hide doping. Random testing became standard, not occasional. None of this happened overnight, and none of it happened because people believed the fans. It happened because the sport put systems in place that didn’t depend on trust alone.
Four lessons from cycling’s darkest era
Thankfully, cycling has dragged itself out of that dark place. By introducing strict biological passports and random drug testing, the sport has slowly earned back its reputation. This comeback offers some great, real-world lessons for companies and teams trying to bounce back from a crisis:
- Drop the egos – Build a culture like cycling’s domestiques, where people support each other because the win for the team matters more than any individual win. The same instinct that made Merckx a legend, the will to win at all costs, is exactly what corrodes a culture when it isn’t balanced by teammates willing to sacrifice for the bigger goal.
- Face the bad news early – Cycling’s downfall wasn’t the doping itself. It was years of looking away. Toxic issues left unaddressed don’t disappear, they compound.
- Keep things transparent – Biological passports worked because they replaced trust with verification. Clear data and outside checks build trust and let people believe you’re playing fair, instead of just asking them to.
- Play the long game – Cycling’s reputation didn’t come back in a season. It came back over a decade of consistent, boring, verifiable good behavior. Customers and investors notice the pattern over time, not the promises made once.
Trust is everything, and it’s fragile. It takes years to build, one bad decision to break, and a long road to win back. Cycling, and the Tour de France in particular, proved that the hard way. Most companies would rather learn it from a bike race than from their own headlines.
Hi, I’m Vikas. I’m a Banking and Consulting industry professional with experience across Asia and Europe. I thrive on transformation and complex programme delivery. I believe that planned and considered effort, when invested sensibly, can deliver big benefits. An inclusion champion, and visual artist (Zen.Zarf), I have three exhibitions under my belt. I love sport and support the Liverpool Football Club. Do connect with me on LinkedIn. You’ll Never Walk Alone.
4 Responses
I remember the old Blackberry standard messaging “Trust but Verify” – quite apt! Perhaps even when trust is earned, it pays to keep service providers honest by verifying from time to time that the assumptions behind that trust are still valid. Particularly since “trust” is an intangible – even more critical to maintain it once it’s earned.
Thank you for your comments. You are right about trust. It can never be taken for granted, and is only as current as your most recent engagement.
Great analysis. Not being particularly interested in sports I was somehow fascinated by the Tour de France – the gruelling almost inhuman schedule, the huge number of participants,the beautiful countryside. When Lance Armstrong’s doping scandal surfaced it was felt as a personal shock. One does hold up sporting stars as role models of not only their sport but of moral righteousness as well. A heavy burden to carry ofcourse, but it must be done if even with the help of strict oversight and rules.
Thank you for your views and comments. I agree with you that sportspersons are role models and people across the entire age spectrum look up to them for lessons regarding physical fitness, mental agility, and most importantly, integrity. When the Lance Armstrong scandal broke, it left large numbers of fans gutted and disappointed. I stopped following the sport and have only, and maybe grudgingly, begun my interest in it again.