Pierre Dumas - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

It took many years before the testing that Dumas wanted became common in sport and more years before it was convincingly carried out. Not until 2008, for instance, was testing in the Tour de France taken from the sport's own administrators, the UCI, and given to a body administered by the French government. Dumas was not the first doctor to call for drugs tests but his position in the Tour de France, which in his time was smaller and more intimate so that he could visit most of the teams most evenings, gave him a closer sight than others.

Dumas died a semi-invalid in eastern Paris. The Antenne Médicale de Prévention du Dopage, at La Grave hospital in Toulouse, is named in his memory. It was created in 2002 after the sports minister Marie-George Buffet expanded and tightened the Loi Herzog that Dumas had helped create. Dumas's son, who is head of security at Nice airport, recalled that his father had created the modern medical service at the Tour. "He followed it in a 4CV on which the top folded back. He tied strings to it so that he could care for riders while driving. My mother and I are delighted that you have chosen to name this medical centre after him."