Marlen Reusser doesn't mince her words on a sensitive issue: "I don't want to live like that"

The link between cycling and doping will never completely disappear because of its history, and once in a while the doping discussion flares up again. Just recently, for example, it was Oier Lazkano who was suddenly suspended by the UCI after a long and unexplained absence. The discussion flared up again, although Marlen Reusser prefers to end it straight away.

Doping is (unfortunately) inseparable from cycling. For example, Lazkano was recently suspended by the UCI after abnormalities in his biological passport. The discussion flared up again and Johan Bruyneel, for example, gave his opinion. For Reusser, there is really no discussion at all.

"I never thought about it. I don't need it," Marca managed to note from the freshly crowned world time trial champion. For the Swiss, the essence of the sport is very different. "If I won knowing I had cheated, there would be no more joy. A big part of what I love about cycling would disappear."

Reusser was asked about the issue because of the emergence of "Enhanced Games," a project scheduled for 2026 that would include competitions without restrictions on performance-enhancing drugs. In other words, competitions where doping is legal. An idea that Reusser does not support, to say it lightly. "I am happy that doping is banned. It's dangerous; it can damage your health or even worse."

"I prefer a clean sport, where we don't have to take those risks to perform at our best," Reusser continues. That also has to do with the sacrifices that a rider already has to make that are legal, such as altitude training. "I spend weeks indoors. The oxygen is lower and the body adapts. Everyone does it."

Exactly those are the tough sacrifices, but because everyone is doing them, you as a rider have to make them too. "Sometimes I think if we all stopped doing it, we could live a more normal life. It would be great," says Reusser. So if everyone else is doing it, they have to, and she knows that all too well.

So doping is absolutely not a negotiable issue for Swiss, who highlights the ethical side of the issue in addition to the medical dangers. "If doping were legalised and everyone started using it, I would also have to use it to participate in races. And I don't want to live like that."

And so Reusser is vehemently opposed to the idea of "Enhanced Games. She is not naive about the dangers of cycling, but the Swiss does name an important difference: that accepting the inherent danger of races is one thing, artificially forcing them is another. "The 'Enhanced Games' may sound like an interesting experiment, but for me they open a door that is far too dangerous," Reusser concludes.