Breaking the Chain: Drugs and Cycling: The True Story | 
 enlarge | Author: Willy Voet
Publisher: Random House UK
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $8.55
You Save: $6.40 (43%)
New (15) Used (9) from $6.47
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 476214
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 128
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 4.8 x 0.5
ISBN: 0224061178
Dewey Decimal Number: 796
EAN: 9780224061179
ASIN: 0224061178
Publication Date: August 1, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new book delivered from the UK in 10-14 days.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Cocaine, amphetamines, EPO, heroin—all these are now considered not optional but necessary—not to win, but just to compete in the Tour de France. Details of how these drugs are obtained, mixed together to make cocktails, administered and concealed are all included in this graphic and uninhibited account by a fomer competitor.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Depressing but entertaining September 22, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Breaking the Chain: Druga and Cycling - The True Story by Willy Voet is a quick read but quite informative. Assuming his story is as true as the title suggests, it is surely an eye opener. Because of the translation of the book, it is cumbersome to read at times, but for any cycling fan interested in the dark side of the sport, it is a necessary read.
 Wrong price... February 4, 2006
0 out of 10 found this review helpful
There is a mistake with the price of this book. This book is being sold at $10 everywhere else, including B&N. Please correct it as it doesn't reflect well on Amazon. Thank you.
Very interesting read - leaves you wanting more. February 23, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book was a very interesting read. The Festina professional cycling team trainer gets caught at a border checkpoint with his team's drug supply for the upcoming Tour de France - and to no one's surprise, the team doesn't back him up (at least not initially).
The book is translated from French, and even though Voet is not a professional author, it's still better written than most of the professional-athlete biographies I've read - many of which were written by ghost writers anyway. Voet was courageous enough to come forward - even though he was probably financially motivated, to at least some degree, after his team essentially abandoned him when he (i.e. they) got caught. As your riders used to say, "Good stuff, Willy!"
The book that had to be written November 7, 2004
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
While this is anything but a masterpiece, it's a book that had to be written. A story that had to be told. And judging by the continued show of doping (drug use) in professional cycling, a story that needs to be told repeatedly.
Willy Voet was the trainer for the infamous Festina team who was caught driving over the French border with a carload full of performance enhancing drugs, just before the 1998 Tour de France. Voet at first claimed the drugs were all his. Then, he recanted under pressure, admitting they were for his team. The team dropped out of the Tour, as did many others under police crackdowns, and Voet went to jail for 16 months. When he got out, he forever cemented his career to ruin by spiling his guts in this book (originally in French, "Assembly Line Massacre" - a fitting title). He wrote this very detailed, very disturbing, morbid read of some very sinister goings on. Unfortunately led by himself perhaps most of all. If you want to know most (not all, but most) of the deep, dirty, nasty, evil goings on in professional cycling that is never spoken of, then read this book. In the 6 years since it's publication, sadly not much has changed judging by the frequent positive tests, and admissions of guilt by riders.
There is a negative to this book though. First, while Voet honestly admits what he was doing was wrong, he seems to want to shake some element from his torrid past, like coming clean is a way for forgiveness, yet in reflections in other areas of the book treats much of the cheating he did in his career as matter of fact, almost with amusement, with only fleeting elements of remorse. Honest or not, coming from a man with a rather sinister past, it makes the book hard to read at times. One might also come away reading this book feeling empty from a lack of hard facts. While there is no denying what he did, and what others do, there needs to be another book written on this subject. One written from more researched, fact based information. There are many studies, admissions from riders, positive tests, arrests, lawsuits, etc. to fill binders of information. Some journalist with guts needs to sift through all that information and put together an old-school, hard jouranlistic, non-emotional, fact based book on this nasty subject. Until that time, if you want to know about the deep details of drug use in professional cycling from a few short years ago, this is about all there is. And taken within the context of who the author is, it should be recommended reading for all young athletes.
Disappointing August 28, 2003
8 out of 15 found this review helpful
Breaking the Chain was a truely disappointing book for me. Although the sub-title is "the true story" it seemed that the text reflected more innuendo than it did "truth" concerning drug use in the cycling world. In a time when the cycling world is trying to get back on it's feet after being rocked with gossip about drug use (particularly EPO), the book seems to add to, rather than take away from, the culture of rumor. I finished the book with the feeling that the author wrote it not to inform the world of drug use in professional cycling, but rather as a means of making money (now that he was without employment). I am sorry that I may have contributed to his retirement fund by purchasing the book.
|
|
|
