Years ago I talked to an cyclist who raced in the UK on the amateur scene, mostly to keep fit. He reported that the young lads who were hoping to be spotted, by the big teams, were taking drugs.
I also read somewhere that in a normal pro-cyclist back in the day they got x money and team doctors, flights, new bikes and all the other thins in their pay packet. But a little bit was hold back for a "medical" fund.
Then along with all the cyclist over the years who has been done for doping. I have just become used to and accepted the idea of cycling at top level meant drugs.
So in one way I'm not shocked at all that, just how easy it sounded it was to dope and how lax LA and the agency doing the testing about picking up tests. Not just lying about taking th drugs but the other lies about who he was working with and when, etc etc etc.
Now we need to clean it up and we start with the top, not bottom up as it sounds like will happen.
When the Olympics was on I read an article about doping and one falla said. I paraphrase: Keep the medals and blood for eight years and then test and hand out medal if there is any to pass out. Since the drugs are so far ahead of the test.
Anywhoo, that was my two cent and I agree with everything said here.