Jeremy Whittle’s Bad Blood is an insider’s story of 10 years following the Tour de France, and of how a sport has been corrupted by commercialism, scandal and doping.

“For Jeremy Whittle, there isn’t much in life as spectacular as the Tour de France: sweat-streaked, taut and burnished athletes toiling across vast and ancient European landscapes, hundreds of thousands of fans lining the route – the twisting Mediterranean roads, the jerseys, the peloton in full flight. And then there are the riders: men of almost superhuman capabilities, men who have become his friends, men whose stories he has written day in day out for the past decade. But even the biggest fan can one day wake up to find that he has lost his faith.”

“Bad Blood details Jeremy Whittle’s journey from unquestioning fan to Tour de France insider and confirmed sceptic. It’s about broken friendships and a sport divided; about having to choose sides in the war against doping; about how galloping greed and corporate opportunism have led the Tour de France to the brink of destruction. Part personal memoir, part devastating exposé of a sport torn apart by drugs and scandal, Bad Blood is a cautionary tale, a love letter to one man’s past and a warning to professional sport’s future.”

Jeremy Whittle has written about the Tour de France since 1993. A former editor of procycling magazine and the Official Guide to the Tour de France, he is also cycling correspondent to The Times and the Sunday Herald and has written for the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune. He has appeared on BBC Radio 4, Radio 5, NPR and CNN and is the author of Yellow Fever (1998) and Le Tour (2003).

Available from 26 June from all good bookshops, priced £12.99.