“Our thoughts are with his family”
Mourning: Ex-professional cyclist is dead
12/26/2024 – 9:34 a.mReading time: 1 min.
Cycling mourns Pascal Hervé. The former professional died on Wednesday night. He is also remembered for a historical scandal.
The former professional cyclist Pascal Hervé, who came into focus through his involvement in the Festina team’s doping affair at the 1998 Tour de France, is dead. The French professional cyclist association UNCP announced via X that Hervé died on the night of Died Tuesday to Wednesday at the age of 60. The association did not provide any information about the cause of death.
In September, Hervé publicly announced that he had undergone surgery for a stomach tumor in the middle of the year. His stomach was completely removed.
Hervé was part of the Festina racing team whose doping scandal rocked the 1998 Tour de France. The team was excluded from the tour back then. In 2000, Hervé was the last driver in the nine-man team to admit to taking the blood doping drug Epo.
At that time he explained: “Yes, I did dope.” Hervé reported that it took him two years to decide to confess. “I didn’t want us to be seen as the only nine idiots caught on the tour. But now I’m saying it: Yes, I doped.”
Despite the dark side of his career, Hervé experienced a high point in 1996: at the Giro d’Italia he won a stage and wore the overall leader’s pink jersey for a short time.
