2025 Tour de France stage winner and race leader Ben Healy has highlighted the limitations anti-doping measures have to face, while he also pointed out that cyclists are tested "thoroughly and pretty often" as a major part of the struggle against banned drugs in sport.
In a lengthy interview with The Irish Mirror, Healy pointed to the recent Oier Lazkano case as one of the examples where testing has proved effective in rooting out a potential doping case.
Asked about the current state of the anti-doping battle in sport, Healy made it clear that absolute certainty that a sport was completely clean was all but impossible. "In any sport I think it’s impossible to go, ‘Oh yeah, the sport is 100% clean,'" Healy told the Irish Mirror.
"That’s not to take away from anything that the sport and the governing bodies are doing to try and keep it clean and catch people out.
"Look at Oier Lazkano, everyone’s being tested thoroughly and pretty often, to be honest, potentially even more than other sports."
"I think the biggest thing to attribute to why racing is so fast now – look at the equipment that we’re using now to even when I was racing first year at Under-23, which is only five years ago.
"The bikes are night and day different almost, that’s the first thing. And then just the way that we’re racing now.
"Look at UAE" – four-times winner and defending champion Tadej Pogačar's squad – "they just set up their train and one by one the riders pull the race along at maximum speed possible. That makes a big difference."
"If you think one thing is going to keep on working forever, then you’re only fooling yourself, so it’s just a natural progression to different things," he said.
"But nothing major is going to change in 2026. I’ll probably have a pretty similar calendar."
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