Reviews

Descent: My Epic Fall from Cycling Superstardom to Doping Dead End by Thijs Zonneveld, Dekker Thomas

snommers's review

4.0

Thomas Dekker doesn't pull any punches in this book. Dekker starts with his rise from a young amateur rider with lots of talent and an ego to go along with that talent. He's signed to a pro team and pretty quickly descends (see what I did there?) into various types of doping, from blood bags to EPO. It's not a pretty picture. He describes the excesses of alcohol, women, prostitutes, drugs, and egomania. He's banned. Comes back, but has lost his passion for cycling. For the most part, he takes responsibility for his actions.

Dekker peels back the veneer that hid the ugly aspects of cycling in the 1990s to early 2000s. It's not pretty, but it feels like the first honest reflection of that time.

velokyrie's review

4.0

Please find my review here: https://echoes-empty-mind.blogspot.com/2019/08/book-review-descent-by-thomas-dekker.html