Lanced: The Shaming of Lance Armstrong (16 page)

"If that's what you're here for, it would be better if you returned home and found some other kind of work."

"I have things to say and I will say them."

"Ah, f*** you."

Betsy Andreu watched the first two weeks of that Tour from her home in Dearborn, Michigan. Even at that remove, she had doubts about what she was watching.

"It was the first mountain stage, the one to Sestriere, and as they began the climb Frankie was at the front of a line of Postal riders. Frankie is about as much a climber as the Pope is an atheist. 'What the hell is this about,' I said." She called her husband and said she didn't believe he was clean any more. He was too wasted to argue.

Armstrong would win, nearly all the journalists were swooned by a feelgood story and after the travails of the year before, cycling's authorities embraced the new champion like a long lost son. Anybody who dared to ask a serious question was shouted down and with hundreds of sycophantic journalists in his entourage, Armstrong needed no PR staff.

When journalists at The Sunday Times asked serious questions, Armstrong engaged lawyers to sue us. In France, judges gave him short shrift. He never dared to sue in his own country.

As the Tour victories rolled on, one after another, a strange thing happened: the boys of summer found the sport wasn't as much fun. Lance kept winning but the questions became more persistent and more difficult to silence. George tried to keep rolling along, Sancho Panza to Lance's Don Quixote. As for Frankie, life definitely got tougher.

Betsy despised the dishonesty that underpinned the success. Frankie could choose EPO or her but he couldn't have both. And it bothered her that Armstrong was feted as a hero when she had a different view. She couldn't forget that when she and Frankie visited the cancer-stricken Lance at Indiana University Hospital in October 1996, they insist, they both heard him tell doctors about the performance-enhancing drugs he had used in his team.

Stephen Swart, a retired bike racer from New Zealand, broke his silence on the doping question in an interview with this newspaper and spoke of the two years he had ridden with Armstrong on the Motorola team of the mid-90s. They were a good team who couldn't get good results and felt they had to consider doping. Armstrong, claimed Swart, was the most persuasive voice in favour.

Emma O'Reilly spent two years as Armstrong's masseuse on the Postal team and claims she saw enough to convince her that he doped. Moved by the drug-related death of Italian cyclist Marco Pantani in February 2004, O'Reilly felt compelled to go public with her concerns about Armstrong's success. For telling her story, she was vilified by Armstrong. As was Swart, the Andreus, and anyone else who dared to question him.

But ultimately, the facade of friendship among the cyclists was too great to maintain. Frank Andreu publicly admitted doping to help Armstrong win the 1999 Tour and a year ago Floyd Landis told the sordid details of the doping culture that existed during the years he was Armstrong's strongest teammate. Landis claimed that both he and Armstrong doped.

And, then, in the past two days, the dam has appeared to break. Tyler Hamilton ended 10 years of lying about his doping and in an interview with CBS, he confessed to having doped throughout his career. For the 1999 and 2000 Tour de France, he rode with Armstrong in the US Postal team and used EPO to perform better.

Hamilton was asked if his team leader had used EPO. "I saw him inject it more than one time," he said.

But still Armstrong denies all the allegations against him and has criticised his detractors.

"Tyler Hamilton," it said on a new Armstrong website, "is a confessed liar in search of a book deal." That might have deflected attention away from the accusation, back onto the accuser, but a day later, George Hincapie came to the table.

George, reliable, so regular, and guaranteed to have Lance's back covered. Good old Margherita.

Except that on this occasion George didn't order the usual. He claimed that he and Lance used to supply each other with EPO. And George Hincapie can't be shouted down like all the others.

It’s not about the bike, it’s about the drugs

David Walsh

May 22, 2011

"

Lance has ripped apart, attacked and shredded anybody that's said anything against him. I don't know that that would work against George Hincapie

"

If there was one thing Lance Armstrong had, greater even than his gift for winning the Tour de France, it was a talent for discrediting those who said he cheated with performance-enhancing drugs.

He described them as losers jealous of his success, low-lifes trying to sell books, former team-mates with axes to grind. None was credible.

On Friday, George Hincapie, whom Armstrong described last year as "like a brother to me", came out of the woodwork and the champion's reputation splintered.

Hincapie, a 37-year-old professional cyclist who is expected to start his 16th Tour de France this summer, is the former team-mate by whom Armstrong could not afford to be accused. Through Armstrong's seven consecutive Tour victories, Hincapie was at his side, his most trusted lieutenant; the guy that always covered his back.

The US television network CBS reported that in sworn evidence given in a federal investigation into Armstrong, Hincapie had testified that he and Armstrong supplied each other with EPO (the banned blood-boosting drug erythropoietin) and discussed using testosterone. Normally sharp in his dismissal of accusers, Armstrong did not immediately respond to the Hincapie revelations.

Since winning his first Tour de France in 1999, Armstrong has become an icon. Three years before that first Tour victory he had been struck with life-threatening testicular cancer but recovered to become his sport's greatest champion.

Like many successful athletes, Armstrong established a foundation, and his championed the cause of cancer victims. His charity Livestrong became a big presence in the battle against the disease and Armstrong became one of the world's best-known sportsmen.

He went for bike rides with President George W Bush; the Hollywood actor Robin Williams was a regular training partner; he dated the singer Sheryl Crow; and he described the Irish rock star Bono as "a dear friend". Yet Armstrong couldn't shake off suspicion.

Ten years ago Greg LeMond, the other American cyclist to have won the Tour de France, encapsulated the dilemma in one short sentence to The Sunday Times: "If the [Armstrong] story is true, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sport. If it is not, it is the greatest fraud."

Armstrong dismissed LeMond as a jealous has-been.

And when The Sunday Times raised legitimate questions about Armstrong's record in an article about cycling and doping, Armstrong sued. The paper, unable to persuade sufficient colleagues to talk, reached a settlement in 2006 which will be reviewed by our lawyers once the federal investigation concludes.

But the story did not go away. Armstrong's former masseuse, Emma O'Reilly, said she had seen enough to convince her he doped; former teammate Stephen Swart said Armstrong was the team's most persuasive advocate of doping when they were together at Motorola in 1993 and 1994; another former teammate, Frankie Andreu, and his wife Betsy said they both heard Armstrong admit using performance-enhancing drugs to his doctors during his cancer treatment in 1996; and more recently former team-mates Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton said they saw Armstrong dope.

Always, Armstrong had a counter: O'Reilly had a grudge, Swart came from an unstable background, Andreu and his wife did not like him, Landis and Hamilton had both lied before. His lawyers threatened newspapers and broadcasters, legal warnings were circulated and in some case writs would follow. And for years it seemed Armstrong would survive.

That was until Hincapie, the man likened to a brother, claimed the two had shared EPO and discussed their use of testosterone.

"You can't find a nicer guy than George," said Andreu, "a more trustworthy guy, a more respected person in the cycling world. Lance has ripped apart, attacked and shredded anybody that's said anything against him. I don't know that that would work against George."

The US federal investigation that threatens to destroy Armstrong — led by special agent Jeff Novitzky of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — began three years ago in Calabasas, a small, affluent town in California, home to Kayle Leogrande, a lowly ranked American pro-rider for Rock Racing.

In late 2008, Leogrande was given a two-year ban by the US Anti-Doping Agency. Soon after he left his rented apartment in Calabasas, his landlord found medical products in the fridge. Having read about Leogrande's doping ban, the landlord guessed the abandoned products were drugs and called the agency.

The agency, which had no legal means to seize the drugs, invited the FDA to look into the case. It was a momentous decision because it brought Novitzky, who had been conducting investigations into steroid abuse in other professional sports, into the dark world of professional cycling.

Novitzky, a 6ft 7in gritty son of a high-school basketball coach and a man who once cleared 7ft in the high jump, soon realised Leogrande and Rock Racing's founder, Michael Ball, were small players in a big racket.

And then in May last year Landis, winner of the 2006 Tour de France before being disqualified for a failed drug test, circulated an email detailing his own doping and the epidemic within the sport.

Landis also pointed at Armstrong, with whom he had ridden from 2002 to 2004.

From the outset, Novitzky's team was warned not to expect co-operation. For decades, professional cyclists practised a code of silence. Their culture of doping had survived countless investigations in Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and other countries. What made the feds think they could do better? Their reply was that they had a truth serum, in the shape of the gun and badge that were visible during interviews and in the constant reminder to witnesses that one lie would land them in prison.

Tyler Hamilton, now a 40-year-old former racer from Massachusetts, was of especial interest. He had ridden with the state-funded US Postal Service team for six years and had been a key member of the Armstrong team that won the 1999, 2000 and 2001 Tours.

Twice Hamilton had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. His second eight-year ban ended his career though he had always denied involvement in doping.

Last July, Hamilton was subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in Los Angeles. Grand jury protocol does not allow witnesses to have a legal representative in the room, nor any another person at their side. Faced by a prosecutor and the threat of jail if he lied, Hamilton admitted he had been a serial doper and claimed he had seen Armstrong inject himself with EPO "more than one time". He said he had also seen stocks of the drug in Armstrong's fridge.

Hamilton also testified that he believed an Armstrong positive test at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland had been covered up by the authorities, an allegation previously raised by Landis.

Hamilton has explained his changed story in a letter to close friends: "Until ... I walked into the courtroom, I hadn't told a soul. My testimony went on for six hours. "For me it was like the Hoover dam breaking. I opened up; I told the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And I felt a sense of relief I'd never felt before."

Armstrong responded by saying Hamilton was a proven liar with a book to promote and lacked credibility. A year before he had taken a similar line when Landis claimed to have seen the multiple Tour champion dope. "It's our word against his," Armstrong said. "I like our word, I like our credibility." Though there are solid reasons for believing Landis and Hamilton had lied in the past but were being truthful now, their past lies still worked against them.

But then along came Hincapie, who, like Armstrong, had never been sanctioned for a doping violation, to tell a grand jury that he and his former leader had both doped. And Armstrong was left to decide what to do about the friend he considered a brother, the one without a stain on his credibility.

What is also clear is that fears about professional cyclists refusing to speak about their doping were misplaced. "The problem," said one source close to the investigation, "was not getting them to talk but to stop them crying so they could continue talking."

The truth serum appeared to have worked.

It did not take long for investigators fully to understand the scope of their inquiry. They believed they had clear evidence that Armstrong and members of his various teams used doping products, but that was not the only issue. Far more relevant were the offences that may have been committed along the way.

From whom were the drugs purchased? Who was involved in the distribution? Did riders break the law by carrying them over state lines? Most important was the question of fraud. Multi-milliondollar sponsorships were won on the strength of results but the millions would not have been forthcoming without guarantees from Armstrong and others that the team had a zerotolerance policy to doping. Emails between Armstrong and John Hendricks, founder of the Discovery Channel, are believed to exist containing Armstrong's reassurance to his main sponsor at the time that the team did not, and had not doped.

Questions will have to be answered by Armstrong; Thom Weisel, the original owner of the US Postal team; Bill Stapleton, Armstrong's lawyer; and Johan Bruyneel, the longtime team manager.

Armstrong has complained the investigation is a waste of taxpayers' money and even ridiculed Novitzky's team for the cost of a trip to meet European anti-doping and police authorities.

Using a Twitter alter ego, Juan Pelota, Armstrong posted his derision in schoolroom Spanish: "Hey Jeff, como estan los hotels de quarto estrellas y el classe de business in el aeroplane? Que mas necesitan?" ("Hey Jeff, how are the fourstar hotels and the business class flights? Anything more you need?") In fact, while in France, the investigators had stayed in hotels so cheap one of them slept in his suit to protect himself from the bugs.