A Little Something

Big-time bike racing may well be the world's most agonizing sport, and the pressure reaches a peak in the Tour de France--2,990 miles across the plains and mountains under a midsummer sun. Understandably, competitors often take a little something to boost their strength and spirit. Sometimes that little something is a little illegal.

Last week, as the Tour set out from Marseille for the climb up 6,273-ft. Mont Ventoux, Tom Simpson, 29, who in 1965 became the first Briton to win bike racing's world championship, was in the lead pack. Nearing the summit, Simpson began to zigzag, crashed into a rock pile and collapsed. Doctors rushed him to a hospital in a helicopter--but Simpson was dead. In his jersey pocket, police found two partly empty pharmaceutical vials--one labeled with the trade name for a brand of British "bennies"--and Tour promoters found themselves with the makings of a major dope scandal.

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