HISTORY is repeating as we wait for Chris Froome to follow in Bradley Wiggins’ slipstream by becoming a British winner of the Tour de France.

Just like in 2012, all the talk is about doping and it has provoked an angry and frustrated response from the man in yellow.

Press conference after press conference of probing about performance-enhancing drugs prompted a reaction from Froome and his Team Sky bosses.

The Tour leader snapped on Monday’s rest day, less than 24 hours after his sensational stage on Mont Ventoux.

“I just think it's quite sad that we're sitting here the day after the biggest victory of my life, a historic win, talking about doping,” he said.

“My teammates and I have been away from home for months training together and working our a**** off to get here, and here I am accused of being a cheat and a liar.”

At least the language wasn’t quite as fruity as that used by Wiggins a year ago.

But the pair are the victims of their predecessors and the omerta of the peloton that allowed grubby cheats to prosper.

It’s going to take a lot to win back the trust of the journalists (plenty of whom also turned a blind eye to Lance Armstrong) and fans.

Many believe that gut instinct is better at detection than tests that the cheats have seemed to be one step ahead of.

Sports fans have been betrayed before, just like we have in athletics, which has been hit by the revelations about Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell et al.

And the truth is that we are all being betrayed in sports that are not ‘traditional’ doping sports.

We don’t want that to be the case but human nature suggests that if a small percentage can be gained then someone will be using.

Tennis, football, rugby; no sport is immune to a drugs scandal.

When it comes to rugby we have all seen someone come back for a new season with a new physique that you suspect isn’t just down to a summer of hard graft and good eating.

At certain levels there is plenty to be gained, with low risk, when out of competition.

Yet the figures published by the International Rugby Board for 2012 make good reading.

They did 1,542 tests in and out of competition and there were 21 positive tests – just 1.36 per cent.

The IRB warn of the dangers of performance enhancing drugs through its Keep Rugby Clean campaign, which is particularly prominent at the Junior World Championships.

There is plenty of education out there and players at the top level are warned about what they can and can’t take when it comes to supplements and remedies.

It’s important that we are all on our guard and have the attitude of doping being a problem for cycling and Olympic sports.

Rugby Union is becoming big business now with lucrative contracts to be earned and money changes things.

There has long been an admission of the use of amphetamines in the amateur era in France.

The temptation to get that extra edge is not to be underestimated now that there are big bucks to be made.