A quarter of a century has passed since the 1999 Tour de France, which promised a new era for the sport of professional cycling. It delivered, but not the way it set out to do.
The 1999 edition was dubbed the ‘Tour of Renewal’, coming 12 months after the Festina scandal had shaken the sport to its very foundations. Widespread doping within the peloton had been laid shockingly bare and, after the 1998 Tour somehow made it all the way to Paris, the sport was supposed to have turned the page and started on a fresh, clean, slate.
