Tag Archive: Tour de France

Every July hundreds of thousands of cycling fans make their way to France. They are there to watch the world's greatest and most arduous bicycle race, the Tour de France. In 2023, the race started in Bilbao, in Spain. It'll end on the 23rd of July in Paris at the Champs-Elysees. In between will be a number of testing sections including flat, hill, mountain, and time trials. The overall winner gets a prize of 500,000 Euros, making it one of the most lucrative races in the world.

Though there's probably a lot of match-fixing going on in many sports, tennis has attracted more than a fair share of betting mafia attention. Due to the nature of bigger bets being allowed in Asian countries, the potential profits are that much bigger than for European sports gamblers. With huge sums of winnings at stake, the easiest means of fixing a match is to encourage the players themselves to lend a hand in the process, especially with so many tennis players struggling financially.

On face value, it appears to be almost incredible that a sports person of such high stature could of been taking performance-enhancing drugs for so many years, and yet still fly under the radar. If you consider that Lance Armstrong won a total of 7 Tour de France's, then you have to ask yourself, where were the governing bodies who are supposed to police the sport? A lot comes down to sheer force of personality. Armstrong was able to bully and threaten those he feared might expose him.