The current champion of cycling's Tour de France has shed new light on how technology is cleaning up his sport and could offer inspiration in the anti-doping fight for other sports too.
Chris Froome, the Kenyan-born professional road racing cyclist who competes for the U.K., told CNBC that the anti-doping agencies in cycling had really "stepped up their game."
"I think anti-doping, it's been a massive part of the evolution of the sport over the past 10 years. Especially moving on from the whole Lance Armstrong era," he said Tuesday in an interview at the annual Web Summit in Dublin
"I really do think the sport has led the way now for even other sports to adapt."
He explained that the biological passport, created in 2009, has helped to clean up the sport in a "huge way" and said the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale), the governing body of cycling, has introduced even more measures.
"We are now the only sport to have 24 hour testing, so they could come and wake us up at 2 o'clock in the morning, 365 days a year," he added. "And (there's) a no needles policy so they've gone above and beyond to try and get rid of doping within the sport."
Froome is the double winner of the Tour de France, which is widely regarded as the greatest - and toughest - cycling event in the world. Despite never failing a doping test, the Brit suffered abuse from a very small minority of the crowd at this year's event. This came after suggestions in the European press that Froome was doping in order to gain an advantage. These suggestions were fiercely denied by Froome, who emphasized his clean record.
Cycling has been plagued by claims of doping for the last few decades and U.S. cyclist Lance Armstrong was famously stripped of his Tour de France victories after a prolonged scandal.
Froome has claimed that he had urine thrown at him at this year's tour and some of his teammates at the Sky cycling team also claim to have been punched by crowd members while racing.
Armstrong told the BBC earlier this year that he had apologized to Chris Froome and another former champion Bradley Wiggins - an ex-teammate of Froome - for the incessant doping questions they received in 2012 and 2013 due to the timing of his own scandal and subsequent admission.
Aside from doping, Froome told CNBC that broadcasting of the sport could develop significantly in the coming years. He said that TV viewers could gain access to the audio of team radios and also "sharing data" could be utilized in broadcasting, similar to Formula 1.
"That would be fascinating for people to be able to pick up on and be able to share in that experience," he said.
