Jake Humphrey

clean and was coming bottom and was being risked having his funding cut and having to go back to being a painter and decorator and then having the opportunity to dope meant that he got to carry on living his dream and i think what your book shows james is that doping is rarely just about one bad decision it seems to be a mix of pressure ambition culture opportunity when have you seen the desire to win tips over into crossing this ethical line

It was that famous incident, wasn't it, where Lance Armstrong like publicly denounced somebody that had broken that Emerta.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We present it in such binary terms that I think your book shines a light in, in the shadows to go, but none of this is, is, is so obviously right or wrong or good or bad.

It's, it's so subtle.

Which led me to,

Do you think sports become too reliant on the idea that testing alone is almost like the bulwark against fairness and all things being equal?

And can I just ask you about something like the EPO?

What is that worth in sort of seconds on a bike?

If you've got higher levels in your system, what does that translate to?

Wow.

Because that's, I mean, that's far, far beyond the marginal gains.

You know, like you hear about bringing your own mattress or having a certain pillow and what that can offer you versus like rolling the dice and sort of start injecting EPO.

There's no contest, is there?

So what was your view then when you heard about the enhanced games?

Oh, right, okay.

But based on what you were talking about there, sort of like WADA chasing down people and the constant innovations of these sort of illegal substances that people are doing,