by Jens Voigt
Some journalists asked me if I felt cheated. I finished second to Lance in the 2004 Tour of Georgia, for example. So some people wondered if I felt like I’d been robbed of a victory. But as I’ve said before, I just don’t think like that. I’m not going to poison my mind thinking about all the “what-ifs.” I’m not going to think about every single race where I finished in second or third or fourth place behind riders who later tested positive for doping. That just doesn’t make my life better or healthier. As a rider, you just can’t continue if you’re always thinking about getting beaten by dope cheats.
But thinking back on it now, yes, certain conclusions can be drawn. In that Tour of Georgia, for example, it took six days of racing and a really hard, steep uphill finish to Brasstown Bald in Georgia for me to lose 1 minute and 20 seconds to Lance. Two-and-a-half months later in the Tour de France, I was losing 10 to 15 minutes to him per day in the mountains, when I was really in peak condition. In those two-and-a-half months between the Tour of Georgia and the Tour de France, I trained hard. I was healthy and didn’t crash. So where did the difference come? Was I doing something wrong? Or did something else come into play?
You have to remember, though, we’re talking about 2004. Nobody knew what to think back then. There was suspicion around Lance, but there wasn’t any proof yet! Don’t forget, this is before Operation Puerto broke in 2006. This was before a lot of things came out that we didn’t know about. In hindsight, yes, things are more obvious. I understand why suddenly I was, say, 25 percent less competitive than I had been only a couple of months prior. Today, equipped with the perspective afforded by history, we see things differently. But that was a good decade ago. We didn’t know what we know today.
In addition, there are other factors that you can’t ignore. A race like the Tour of Georgia has mostly rolling stages with maybe one hard climb. I can handle that. In the Tour de France, you have three or four hard mountains in a single day. That’s just too much for me! I’m a big, powerful rider, but I’m not a pure climber. I’m just not. I can compensate with willpower and desire on one climb, perhaps, but not three or four climbs day in and day out. There are no secrets. You have to be a climber to excel at that kind of racing.
Also, you can’t forget that my role in the Tour de France was different. I was not a leader. I was a support rider. I spent time and energy covering breakaways or chasing them down. I spent time and energy fetching water bottles for my teammates. I spent time and energy riding in the wind, protecting my team leaders. All those factors combine to explain why I lost so much time to guys like Lance in the Tour. Back then, I tried to focus on concrete reasons like those to explain the time gaps rather than speculate about doping. It’s called survival. Sure, sometimes I was surprised that the gap between a rider like Lance and me suddenly increased so much. But I preferred to focus on tangible reasons for the differences.
Sometimes, we would speculate about a rider’s performance at the dinner table with the team. We’d see a performance from a rider who had shown nothing for years and ask, “Where did that come from?” Or sometimes someone would go off training for a couple of months and come out and just go “bang!” Or as in my situation at the Tour of Georgia, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Hey, how did that happen? How could I almost be winning a big race against the best rider in the world and then, a couple of months later, just be a total shit kicker?”
To be clear, though, Lance didn’t get in the way of my having a satisfying career. As we know, I rode for a long time. I made 17 starts in the Tour de France. Every time my contract expired, I would have offers from a fair number of teams. Most of the time, I was happy to stay where I was, and really I only competed for three different teams. GAN and Crédit Agricole were the same team, as were CSC and Saxo Bank, as were Leopard, Radio Shack, and Trek Factory Racing. Team names changed from time to time, but in terms of team structure, I only knew three. And that was fine with me. I liked the security.
There were times where I’d be out training by myself and thinking, “What could I do to get better?” But for me, I felt like I had a choice. Perhaps I could have become a big superstar by signing with certain teams and winning bigger races. But at the same time, I would have risked having everything blow up in my face. You know, after the Festina affair in 1998, it was still possible to ride clean and have a good career. The French teams were the first to take a strong position against doping, but other teams soon followed. And a lot of riders like me won smaller races or stages in the Tour without doping.
But somehow you just knew inside, or at least sensed, that if you were going to be a podium finisher in the Tour de France in that time, you would have to cross the line and do something illegal, that you would have to break the rules. And if you look at the Tour podiums in most of those years, that suspicion is pretty well confirmed, since just about every podium finisher in the Tour was involved in a doping scandal in one way or another. Either they tested positive at some point, they admitted to doping, or their names were cited in some very serious investigations.
And with certain teams, there just seemed to be a much greater chance that you would have to overstep the line and start doping. Yes, perhaps I could have won more big-time races if I had cheated, but my life would have been much more stressful. My career would have become this maddening cycle of lies and the constant fear of getting caught.
I always chose the other option, the one where you have a good solid career, a long career, but where there are no million-dollar contracts. There would be no Porsches and no Ferraris. I chose this option so that I could enjoy a safe and long career. For me, it was worth it, knowing that there were no skeletons hanging in my closet. But as a result, I never became a big superstar. I never won any really big races. Sometimes I do wonder what I could have accomplished with a little chemical help. With my talent and work ethic, maybe I could have been a podium contender. Instead, I think my highest Tour de France finish was when I placed 35th back in 2004. That said, I was always satisfied in knowing that I had achieved the maximum results possible with my natural talent and work ethic.
Perhaps my choice is a result of growing up in a Communist system. After the Wall came down, I had so many more opportunities than I ever thought possible. Heck, I was already living the life just being a professional cyclist! I already had been given so much more than I’d ever expected coming from my modest, small-town background, where my choices had been so much more limited. Sure, one can always dream about a bigger life. But I was always taught—and this goes back to my parents, Egon and Edith—that it wasn’t right to take shortcuts to get somewhere if it was going to make someone else suffer. That’s what doping was to me, a shortcut. And it was never an attractive option.
As a result, there were times when I refused to join certain teams because of their reputations. One of those teams was ONCE, a really powerful team in the 1990s, led by Manolo Saiz, who would later find himself at the heart of Operation Puerto. By that point, the title sponsor had changed to Liberty Seguros, but it was still the same team. On at least two occasions, Manolo made it clear that he would like to work with me. Now ONCE was one of the big teams. They had one of the first big team buses. At the time, I was with Crédit Agricole, and we just showed up to the start of a race in a camper. So there was a lot of glamour around ONCE.
But I was good at Crédit Agricole. I had good friends there and had fun racing there, so it never really happened. And in hindsight, it’s safe to say that I’m happy that things worked out the way they did and that I stayed at Crédit Agricole.
And then there was US Postal, which asked me to join them not once but twice.
The Tour de France is many things. It’s a great bike race. But it’s also a huge job market. Those three weeks are when teams and riders do most of their talking and when many contracts get signed. At the Tour, you see the same people every day for three weeks. Before the start, team directors are often standing out by their team cars. So it’s not uncommon that some
will stop and chat with you. And often, conversations include talking about your contract and whether or not it’s coming up at the end of the year.
With US Postal, I talked with Lance directly. Over the years, I’d chatted with him during races, when we were rolling out in the neutral zone before the official start or during a quiet moment in the race itself. Back in the day, there weren’t many English speakers in the peloton. I thought it was great how Lance had come back from cancer, and we’d always chatted off and on. And then one day, he asked if I would be interested in joining him.
The first time came in 2000, when I was with Crédit Agricole. We had just finished the Pyrénées and were rolling along on a flat stage and Lance said, “Hey, man, why don’t you come to our team? We could use you. We need a rider like you. You are a good rider, and we’d make you a better rider. We’d win some great races together.”
But I just said, “Hey, I’m pretty happy where I am. Roger [Legeay] has always been good to me. It’s a good team, and I have a lot of chances to ride for myself and explore my own limits.”
I really liked the freedom I had on Crédit Agricole, and I knew that if I rode for Lance, I wouldn’t have the same freedom. There was always a lot of suspicion and rumors around Lance regarding doping, which didn’t attract me to the team. Nothing had been proven yet—far from it—but there was always suspicion.
And then there was another very big reason. US Postal just didn’t seem like a fun team. They were so focused on winning that I was afraid I would just become part of a big machine. I always wanted to enjoy my team. So US Postal was never super-attractive to me.
Then, in 2003, Lance asked me again. This time it was a little different. It happened when the Tour de France was in the Pyrénées, after the mountaintop finish to Luz Ardiden. We were both called into doping control after the finish. Lance had won the stage and was wearing the yellow jersey, so he automatically had to do the drug testing. I finished in the grupetto that day, about 30 minutes behind. But I got called as part of the random testing that they do regularly at the races. Because Lance was wearing the yellow jersey, the Tour provided him with a helicopter evacuation off the mountain. That’s standard procedure for the wearer of the yellow jersey, since he’s always delayed for the podium and the doping controls. After finishing doping control, the race organizers offered me a seat in the official helicopter going down to Pau, where our hotel was. Getting off a mountain in the Pyrénées is never an easy thing to do in the Tour de France. The roads are smaller than in the Alps, and there are so many cars. I jumped at the occasion. So Lance and I started chatting going down in the helicopter, and he asked me again.
Later I learned that I was the only rider that Armstrong or US Postal had asked on two different occasions to join the team. I only learned that detail by circumstance, really. It was in the 2004 Tour of Georgia, when we were both fighting out the victory. One day, in a postrace press conference, a journalist asked Lance about his chances to win the race. And he looked over at me and said, “It depends on that man there.” And then he went on to explain that I was the only rider he’d twice asked to join the team.
It was a funny moment. But I never regretted my decision, especially after all the news came out about the doping and after Lance finally admitted it.
You know, it may sound funny, but in some ways, I was surprised by how much of a shock Armstrong’s admission finally provided. Evidence was mounting in the two years prior to his admission, and by the time he finally confessed, there was just an overwhelming amount of evidence against him. I mean, by the time he announced that he would talk to Oprah Winfrey, 90 percent of the people knew what it was going to be about. Yet, still, his admission was earth-shattering.
Lance was the greatest rider in modern history—such a high-profile figure—so it was just huge news all over the world. As I said, Lance was so big that when there was a problem for him, there was a problem for all of us. Though many of us hoped that the sport could just move on, it was impossible, because his admission reopened a lot of legal cases from the past, some of which are still ongoing today.
Lance paid a high price for his doping. You can argue about whether that price is too high or not, but he definitely paid a high price, because after years of lies and evasions, he missed the chance to have some negotiating power regarding his sentence. Many other riders who admitted guilt early and expressed contrition received reduced sentences. But Lance chose the path of denial and ended up painting himself into a corner. As a result, he also pissed a lot of people off, so when he finally did confess, he got the maximum sentence.
With every doping scandal, some people definitely pay a higher price than others. Look at Operation Puerto, for example. Initially, it was announced that up to 60 cyclists and 200 athletes from all sports, including tennis, soccer, and track and field, had been working with Dr. Fuentes, the man behind Puerto. But in the end, we only knew the names of maybe 10 cyclists maximum. No other names were ever revealed. That’s an absolute scandal in this day and age! I mean, it was probably easier to find out who shot JFK than to find out who else visited and worked with Dr. Fuentes! That’s just wrong! To sweep so many names under the rug in this day and age, wow. There must be some pretty big people, companies, or institutions involved.
So yes, Lance definitely paid the highest price in the US Postal doping affair. It’s understandable. But also I feel it’s time to move on from it. It’s time to forgive. I mean, what are we going to do, shoot him to the moon? You know, I’ll never forget a time in 2009 after my bad crash in the Tour de France. When I woke up the next morning in my hospital room after my surgery, I had a bunch of messages from my team, but only one other rider sent me a message. And that was Lance Armstrong. Obviously, he has caused a lot of damage, but he’s not the devil, either.
Moments before starting the time trial in the 2011 Paris-Nice race. (James Startt)
LEOPARD TREK
“You can set the stage just perfectly. You can put all the pieces in place. But you cannot guarantee victory.”
After six years with Bjarne Riis, an opportunity arose in 2011 to join a very exciting new team, Leopard Trek. In many ways, it had the makings of a real dream team. In reality, the promise never materialized.
The team arose in Luxembourg through an initiative with Flavio Becca, our director Kim Andersen, and the Schleck brothers. In addition to that, it appeared that Bjarne was getting worn down from the constant search for sponsors and team stability. In 2008, CSC’s sponsorship ended, and we started working with Saxo Bank. At first, we thought we would have a really great cosponsor with IT Factory.
But it quickly turned into a disaster. Right after the team survival camp at the end of the 2008 season, we visited the IT Factory headquarters in Denmark. It was strange from the beginning. We arrived at what was supposed to be a five-million-dollar sponsorship deal, and things were just so calm. The place was just not big enough or busy enough to support a cycling team because, well, a company that can afford a five-million-dollar sponsorship deal generally is going to be pretty active, with people visibly working. And that was not the case here. And the very next morning, news broke that the company CEO, Stein Bagger, had been on the run for three weeks with all kinds of money. Interpol had even launched a big manhunt for the head of what was supposed to be our new title sponsor!
It turned out that the IT Factory’s factory never existed. The whole thing was an industrial Ponzi scheme! The company had apparently won awards for good business in Denmark, yet they never produced one thing!
The morning after our visit, when the news was just breaking, Bjarne pulled me aside along with Bobby and a couple of the older Danish riders and said, “Hey, boys, we have a problem. We don’t have a sponsor!”
Fortunately, we had Saxo Bank as a sponsor, but it was a year-to-year deal and never very secure. As a result, it just seemed like Bjarne was getting worn down. He was spending so much time and energy looking for sponsors that he couldn’t be as activ
e in the team. He just seemed less connected to us. When I first started with Bjarne, he would be in the team car in early-season races such as the Tour Med until the last races of the year. But six years later, he wasn’t in the car anymore at the Tour Med. He was a lot less present. It seemed like he’d lost the desire a bit. It seemed like he’d lost the passion.
I was still in the best years of my career, and my family on the road was Bobby Julich, the Schleck brothers, and Stuart O’Grady. So when the project in Luxembourg materialized and the Schleck brothers asked me to join them, there was no reason to hesitate. It was a no-brainer. One of my dreams toward the end of my career had been to help Andy win the Tour de France and to ride into Paris with him in yellow. To this day, that remains one of my regrets. Andy did eventually win a Tour when Alberto Contador was disqualified in 2010 (i.e., traces of clenbuterol were found in his blood), but that’s not same as riding into Paris with Andy in the yellow jersey on my wheel.
Andy was just a pure talent. You could see from the get-go that he had it! After all, he won the white jersey as the best young rider in 2008, 2009, and 2010, so it seemed like it was just a matter of time until he would win the race himself. He had more pure talent than even someone like Carlos Sastre. And because he was young, there was still so much potential for him to develop and get even better. When Carlos won the Tour, he was a mature rider at his peak. Andy was still improving. He seemed to possess the talent to become one of the great Tour de France riders of all time. So when the Schlecks asked me to join their team, it looked like a good fit. Bjarne could only offer me a one-year contract, while Leopard immediately offered me a two-year deal. For an aging rider like me, one that had five kids—and a sixth one on the way—the opportunity to ride for Leopard was too good to pass up.