“As much doping in both sports”: when running goes head-to-head with cycling

Runners, have you ever wondered how closely your favourite discipline is connected to the worlds of Tadej Pogacar and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot? Doping, media coverage, heart rate, injuries… Samuel Maraffi, a doctor with TotalEnergies Pro Cycling Team and co-director of the Besançon University Diploma in Trail Running, takes an unflinching look at the finer points of both sports, weighing up their similarities and differences.

Sports technology: cycling 1, running 0

From Vincent Bouillard to Pierre Rolland via Camille Bruyas, Samuel Maraffi is always on hand. Cycling, running, trail… The general and sports medicine doctor operates across the board. Just days before taking part in the Tour de France with TotalEnergies Pro Cycling Team (5 to 27 July), the holder of a university diploma in clinical and biological physionutrition gives cycling the edge when it comes to sports technology. “Running has evolved enormously over the past 10 years. Midsole compounds, carbon plates and foam have all made their way into the sport.”

Still not enough to challenge the sport of Bernard Hinault, a five-time Tour de France winner (1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1985). “The tools have been around longer in cycling. It’s a weight-supported sport. The data is easier to access. Power meters in running aren’t particularly useful, unlike in cycling, where the data is easier to interpret.” The sport’s longer history also seems to matter. “It’s much more structured. We even have a sports scientist on my team. They analyse the data from every training session completed by the riders.”

“The brain is in control”: performance from three angles

The former doctor for B&B Hôtels-KTM, the cycling team that folded in December 2022, studies performance through three lenses: physiological, covering the heart, breathing and cellular energy use; musculoskeletal, involving the body’s various tissues; and neurological, psychological or psychocognitive. On the first point, there is no major difference. “It’s more or less the same. Heart rate climbs high whether you’re a marathon runner or a cyclist in a stage race, although it’s slightly higher in running,” he says.

On the second, concentric force, involving the shortening of the muscle, plays a greater role in cycling. “Runners have powerful glutes and a stable pelvis with a particular loading pattern.” Running requires different types of muscle contraction, including eccentric contractions, in which the muscle lengthens. “Cyclists have a strong engine, but their chassis isn’t built for running,” explains the holder of a university diploma in therapeutics and microbiomes. “When you come from a weight-supported sport, everything hurts,” says former professional cyclist Pierre Rolland, a recent Paris Marathon finisher who prefers to laugh about it. “Muscularly, it’s brutal. In cycling, there’s no impact on the tendons at all.” “When cyclists run, they struggle to adjust the alignment of their lower limbs. Their gluteus medius is barely engaged,” the specialist adds.

On the psychocognitive side, central fatigue, meaning “when the brain is fried and sends less muscle recruitment,” is more pronounced and dominant in ultracycling. “The brain is in control.” Its counterpart, peripheral fatigue, which alters processes within the muscle itself, is more evident in running. Guillaume Millet, a sports physiologist, has studied muscular fatigue. “He showed that despite this fatigue, the muscle contracts more quickly thanks to an electrical signal,” explains the Annecy resident.

“Not just treating the injury, but trying to understand it”

Cycling has a clear advantage when it comes to macrotraumatic injuries, such as serious accidents. Having suffered repeated concussions, like Italian champion Elisa Longo Borghini during the Tour des Flandres Femmes last April, cyclists are constantly flirting with death. Even more so on descents. Gino Mäder died tragically in a descent during the 2023 Tour de Suisse, as did Muriel Furrer at the World Championships in Zurich the following year, aged just 18.

As for microtrauma, “injuries that build up gradually,” nearly 50% are located around the knee in cycling, according to the doctor, who regularly works as a lecturer for La Clinique du Coureur. For runners, the most vulnerable areas are mainly in the lower limbs, including the calf, ankle and hamstring.

“A marathon World Championship doesn’t have the same visibility as the Tour de France.”
Samuel Maraffi

Rehabilitation inevitably enters the picture. “Today, we don’t just treat an injury in isolation, we try to understand it. What explains the onset of this injury?” While physiotherapy is broadly similar in both sports, cyclists become one with their bikes. That is an important factor to consider. Saddle height, setback and angle, stem length, handlebar height… All those small details can minimise or maximise the risk of injury.

“The money follows the media coverage”

The same goes for sports technology. Cycling is ahead of running when it comes to media coverage. “It’s one of the most widely covered sports. A marathon World Championship doesn’t have the same visibility as the Tour de France.” As he fine-tunes the final details with his team ahead of the world’s biggest race, the 30-something stresses the psychosomatic impact of the cameras. “We have meetings about managing sleep and external stress.” Unlike marathon runners, cyclists have contracts. “Our riders sell the TotalEnergies image. Elite sport is a financial, tax and advertising investment. The money follows the media coverage.”

Answering questions from the press is an integral part of his job. “I trained myself to answer certain doping questions,” he reveals. Do cyclists describe the reality of their profession? “Some of them play along. They have a contract behind them. They can’t say everything. There’s a difference between what you communicate and what you see on the ground. Peter Sagan, who won 113 races as a professional and was one of the greatest sprinters of all time, was very endearing as a person. He wasn’t the same on the team bus, off camera, as he was in front of the media.”

“Anti-doping is more advanced in cycling”

And finally, doping. Inseparable from elite sport, the subject generates headlines whenever a case emerges in either discipline. “I think there is as much doping in cycling as there is in running,” he suggests. “Doping is linked to the economic environment.” The Festina affair at the 1998 Tour de France comes to mind, as does Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson’s disqualification from the Seoul Olympics 10 years earlier for steroid use…

Although “anti-doping is more advanced in cycling,” with the Union Cycliste Internationale leading the way, “it isn’t infallible.” “The net has the tightest mesh,” he says metaphorically. “My riders have between 20 and 30 blood tests a year,” he reveals. Statistically, athletics topped the list of sports for detected doping cases in 2024, with 83, according to the Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC), compared with just nine cases in the sport led by Marion Rousse, director of the Tour de France Femmes (26 July to 3 August). Although he takes an anti-doping stance, Samuel Maraffi cannot control what his cyclists do at home. “I’m not at their bedside,” he points out.

At the edges of doping lies the grey area, where athletes use medicines that generally enhance sporting performance without being banned. It is an obvious source of concern. Cycling led the way in banning Tramadol, a powerful painkiller, in 2019. It took until 2024 for the ban to be extended to all sports following a decision by the executive committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

While some cross-country skiers swap their running shoes for a bike when it is time to make a breakaway, there is no doubt that the two disciplines overlap in many respects. It is hardly surprising that former professional cyclists can excel over the marathon, as Nacer Bouhanni did in 2:34:36 and Laurent Jalabert in 2:55.