Racing Hard

by William Fotheringham

  By 2005 I couldn’t wait for Armstrong to retire. It wasn’t just the fact that I was certain in my mind that he was doping although I couldn’t actually write it, there was the whole “Armstrong show” – his massive entourage, the sense that he and those around him were bigger than the entire Tour, and thus bigger than the sport of cycling. This piece from the 2005 reflects something of those sentiments.

  The cycling world’s daily struggle with Mr Muscles of Brussels

  4 July 2005

  In three weeks’ time the Tour de France will not merely bid farewell to Lance Armstrong, but to an entertaining spectacle which has accompanied the American since 2001, played out each morning on whatever vast parking area is hosting the Tour’s daily stage start. Yesterday the dance of the bodyguards, the bodies and the bus took place in the industrial hinterland of the town of Challans, between a petrol station and a vast exhibition hall.

  The Discovery Channel team’s vast blue and grey vehicle, air conditioners humming like a spaceship and windows tinted tantalisingly, is parked up and cordoned off with red ribbon, against which a sweating mass of cameramen, journalists and fans pushes fruitlessly like high tide against a sea wall.

  The back door of the bus is guarded by a burly Belgian ex-policeman, Serge, nicknamed the “muscles from Brussels”; at the front stands the bespectacled, slight figure of Erwin, who looks as mild as a kitten in his perfectly pressed shirt. In fact he is a martial arts specialist who has worked protecting George W Bush.

  The ribboned area has the forbidden feel of a VIP area at a premiere, and that is heightened when Sheryl Crow – vast black mirror sunglasses, black slinky top, tight jeans – slips under the tape. Those inside wear what seems to be almost a uniform for the Armstrong inner circle: crew cuts, shades, Nikes, and the yellow “Livestrong” wristbands, probably not bootlegs purchased on eBay.

  The pecking order – and the way Armstrong’s accession to celebrity has turned traditional cycling values on their head – is shown when Crow goes straight into the bus, while her escort, the five-times Tour winner Bernard Hinault (aviators, bald patch, a boxer’s walk) waits 10 minutes before entering the sanctum. A rockstar, and a woman at that, taking precedence over a two-wheeled legend at the Tour is something that would have seemed barely credible even 10 years ago.

  It is 10 minutes before the start time when the inner members of the inner circle begin to emerge: team manager Johan Bruyneel, bearing a briefcase, Brylcreemed hair and a big grin; Armstrong’s team-mates, skinny, impassive to a man under more exotic sunglasses, some chewing energy bars.

  They disappear astride their bikes and the “ah-ing” begins. Every time the bus door opens, the crowd emits a collective sigh: perhaps it is Armstrong. Non, non, non, comes the response; all of five minutes before the start flag drops he emerges, signs autographs, mouths a few niceties and disappears, with Erwin and the Muscles parting the rows of fans like a speedboat in a choppy sea.

  Armstrong has bodyguards, of a slightly different kind, allotted to him during the cycling part of each stage as well. Yesterday, as is usual, two team members, George Hincapie and Benjamin Noval, were instructed to stay close to him to keep him from crashing. There were four chutes [falls] during the stage, none serious, but Armstrong came through unscathed, avoiding a prone Frenchman, Samuel Dumoulin, in the hectic finale.

  Today, the fourth of July, the yellow jersey will be on the back of another American, a clean-cut lad from Utah with a penchant for Batman. David Zabriskie, who has a habit of putting off-beat interviews with his fellow cyclists on his personal website.

  That should not distract, however, from the perfect start that Armstrong has made to his final Tour. The only favourite within a minute after Saturday’s time-trial was Alexander Vinokourov, with the rest up to three minutes behind.

  The daily performance outside the Discovery bus has a clearly defined purpose, and that will be pursued relentlessly in the final three weeks of Armstrong’s career.

  Alongside the Armstrong show – on and off the road – the Tour went on, in its uniquely immutable way. There was much more to the race than the Texan, as this diary from his final Tour shows.

  The Observer

  2005 Tour diary: week two

  Sunday, Les Essarts

  Sudden heat, a rash of holidaymakers in skimpies and Speedos by the roadside, a swelling of support for local team Bouygues Telecom – the stage finishes not far from the elegant chateau that houses their headquarters – and a sprint finish at the end of a stage that is supposed to be by the seaside, but remains at least a field’s width from the beach.

  Monday, Tours

  Literary France today: a quick flip past the birthplace of François Rabelais, a nod to Honoré de Balzac and an exhibition in the tourist office devoted to Antoine Blondin, whose elegies to the race are as integral a part of its 1960s heyday as Anquetil and Poulidor. Fay ce que voudras – do as you will – wrote Rabelais. The Tour sprinters would add “as long as you don’t fall off”, but the race judges do not have such a liberal outlook and relegate Robbie McEwen for a series of headbutts at fellow Australian Stuart O’Grady on the elegant Boulevard de Grammont.

  A newspaper ad for a mattress company the next day runs a picture of today’s winner, Tom Boonen, arms in the air, with the caption “awake” and McEwen, close behind with his head tucked under O’Grady’s arm, captioned “asleep”. Two days later, McEwen wins in Montargis, with Boonen in his wake. He jests that Davitamon, the company who sponsor him, should run an ad showing the Belgian finishing second and caption it “he didn’t use the same vitamins”. Given the speculation about which cyclists use which vitamins and whether they are legal, this does not raise a huge laugh.

  Tuesday, Blois

  Since Saturday’s time-trial, the yellow jersey has been worn by the American David Zabriskie – universally known as Dave Zee – he of the clean-cut college-boy looks, an elaborately rebuilt leg after a close encounter with a lorry in his native Utah and a fine line in delicate sarcasm, as in this answer to a question about his CSC team’s winter boot camp: “I stared death in the eye and it helped me grow as a man. It made me what I am because I almost died in the woods and I can’t wait to do it again.” He will need all his strength after becoming the first rider to lose the yellow jersey because of a crash since Chris Boardman in 1998. His successor is a rather less kooky American, Lance Armstrong.

  [Zabriskie would go on to be a witness against Armstrong in the USADA case.]

  Wednesday, Montargis

  [The day when London was awarded the Olympic Games ahead of Paris.]

  The only signs of anti-British feeling after the IOC’s 2012 Olympic Games vote are a few catcalls from the crowds near the finish on seeing a car registered in Britain. We are expecting at least a few rotten tomatoes or a demonstration from an angry farmer or two and feel a little let down. The vote, and the Paris 2012 T-shirt we were given in Challans, leaves the Observer with a dilemma. Will it be taken the wrong way if we wear it next week, when the weather might finally turn hot again?

  Thursday, Nancy

  [The day of the London bombings]

  The tragic events in London do not seem real in the self-contained, relentlessly festive world of the Tour. I’ve felt this before, 10 years ago, reading about the massacres at Srebrenica as Miguel Indurain was being given a birthday cake a few yards away. The jarring dislocation between here and home is hard to avoid and is made more acute by the abrupt emotional U-turn: affectionate joshing with French colleagues one evening, condolences the next morning. A planned minute’s silence on Friday at the start barely alters the feeling.

  Friday, Karlsruhe

  If two halves make a whole, there is one British competitor in the race. Reading-born, Scottish-educated Italian Dario Cioni, plus Welsh-domiciled Magnus “Maggie” Backstedt who is married to former Wales cyclist Megan Hughes, surely between them add up to one Briton. Cioni, who is aiming for a place in the top 10, made a fine late bid to win yester
day, while Backstedt fights out today’s stage finish in Germany. His aim is to win a flat stage and for a time, as he fights his way up to Robbie McEwen’s side, it looks as if Maggie may.

  Saturday, Gerardmer

  The tide of humanity making its way towards the Col de la Schlucht, the first big climb of the Tour, begins an impressive 25 miles away on the outskirts of Colmar, which is not even on the race route. From there to the summit, every parking space is full of cars disembarking fans on bikes who then ride to the top, dicing with death under the tyres of the cars in the race convoy. At the top is a poster proclaiming “one human being is missing and always in our hearts”. It is, predictably, in honour of Richard Virenque, disgraced in the Festina drug scandal and now working as a consultant for Eurosport. Some things never change.

  Armstrong quit at the end of the 2005 Tour, making his famous diatribe from the finish podium against those who did not believe in him. Among several pieces I wrote about his retirement was this one. Describing the legal cases that Armstrong was involved in was a way of keeping the drugs allegations against him out there, meaning the reader could make up his or her own mind about what he was up to. The circumlocutions that were necessary to keep on the right side of the Guardian’s lawyers now look ludicrous, but with Armstrong’s legal action under way against the Sunday Times they were paranoid, and not unreasonably so.

  Armstrong faces legal marathon

  26 July 2005

  In keeping with his declaration that he wishes to keep out of the public eye for the near future, Lance Armstrong yesterday denied recent press rumours that he would run for the governorship of Texas in next year’s elections.

  Armstrong yesterday began his retirement by flying to the south of France for a beach holiday with his girlfriend, the rock star Sheryl Crow – whose next album is inspired by her love affair with the seven-times Tour de France winner – and his children Luke, Grace and Isabelle and close friends. His plan, he said before the Tour ended, was to have a preview of his life “for the next 50 years – no stress”.

  That may not be quite so easy to achieve in the medium term, if the list of impending legal cases involving him is anything to go by. As in so much that he has brought to his sport, litigation on this scale is a first for professional cycling, where lawyers were hardly involved until the 1980s and where they have tended to limit their activities to the occasional contractual dispute.

  All the legal disputes have a common theme: drugs allegations involving either Armstrong or his former trainer Michele Ferrari, with whom the Texan officially cut all ties after Ferrari’s conviction in October on drugs charges.

  A recent biography of Armstrong estimated that he is employing 11 lawyers on eight cases in three countries: the US, Britain and France. Several of the cases centre on allegations made in the 2004 biography LA Confidentiel: Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong, which uses what is apparently circumstantial evidence to support its claim that he may have used performance-enhancing drugs.

  Armstrong has brought libel suits against the authors, the Sunday Times journalist David Walsh and the former L’Equipe sportswriter Pierre Ballester, and against the Sunday Times, as well as against two of the witnesses quoted in the book.

  Armstrong is also fighting a Dallas company, SCA Promotions, over his $5m (£2.86m) performance bonus for 2004. The company withheld the bonus, saying that it wished to look into the allegations in LA Confidentiel further and asking to examine Armstrong’s medical records. The case is in arbitration and is expected to stay there until at least the end of the year.

  In a further case to be heard in the US, Armstrong faces a case brought by his former personal assistant Mike Anderson, who claims he was sacked by the Texan in February 2004 after spotting a box containing steroids in Armstrong’s bathroom. Armstrong denies the claim and has issued a counter-suit.

  Finally, Filippo Simeoni’s case for “public defamation” against Armstrong will be heard in Paris in March. The Italian cyclist was a key witness in Ferrari’s trial and sued Armstrong after the American claimed in an interview with a French newspaper that Simeoni was “an absolute liar”.

  Whatever the outcome, Armstrong has confirmed that he will return to the Tour next year in a consultant’s role with the Discovery Channel team. “I’ll be on the Tour a little, probably bothering [the team manager] Johan [Bruyneel], begging for a place in the car.” He already part-owns the management company that runs the team.

  His immediate task, he accepts, will be to find a new US star to front the team. “The Tour is the only time that cycling crosses over to the newspapers and networks. For the American public to stay interested in cycling and the Tour they have to have an American guy, an American face.”

  As well as his close friend George Hincapie, Armstrong has named another, younger rider with the team, Tom Danielson, as a possible future leader. [both Hincapie and Danielson would eventually confess to using banned drugs and would testify against their former boss in the USADA inquiry.]

  Speculation that Armstrong will eventually find his way into politics was heightened when the White House confirmed yesterday that he had taken a telephone call from George W Bush, a fellow Texan, shortly after finishing his final Tour in Paris.

  President Bush and last year’s Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry are both keen cyclists. Kerry was at the Tour over the weekend and said that Armstrong would be a force to be reckoned with if he went into politics, “but I hope he goes in for the right side”.

  Armstrong has never openly declared his allegiance; he is on President Bush’s cancer commission but apparently opposed the Iraq war, and his girlfriend’s left-wing credentials are well established.

  Armstrong denied at the start of the Tour that he had any immediate ambitions for a political career, citing his dislike of press conferences. “I don’t like this setting,” he said. “Why be president and have this setting every day? But politics and the good of my country interest me.”

  Given the benefit of hindsight, this piece was hard to resist. It ran alongside another, which placed Armstrong in the pantheon of world sporting heroes who had quit while on top of their game: Nicklaus, Ali, Fangio, Herb Elliott, Rocky Marciano, Martin Johnson, Steve Redgrave. For a few weeks it was possible to put him in that league. But on August 23, l’Equipe broke the story that EPO had been found in urine samples taken from Armstrong in the 1999 Tour. What that meant was that there was finally direct proof to go with the wealth of circumstantial evidence. Unfortunately, for legal reasons, Armstrong could not be described as a drug taker. That was to take another seven years.

  5. AU REVOIR FLOYD, BIENVENUE MARK

  Eleven months after Armstrong’s retirement, the Tour caravan assembled in Stuttgart, well aware that a major doping scandal was looming after Spanish police had broken the blood doping ring centred on Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, with a host of the biggest names in the Tour implicated.

  Tour elite thrown out

  1 July 2006

  Jan Ullrich’s T-Mobile team had laid on a sumptuous buffet in a luxurious golf club a dozen miles out of town where the press were to meet their squad yesterday morning. But as the team bus turned into the drive at Kemperhof, 10 minutes before it forks up, the driver took a call on his mobile phone and was told to do a U-turn.

  Their leader was out of the Tour de France, which was at a stroke deprived of the only rider in the field who had actually won the race. Ullrich’s team-mate Oscar Sevilla of Spain was also withdrawn, along with Rudy Pevenage, the grizzled, burly Belgian former professional who has been Ullrich’s mentor since he turned professional in 1993 and was to manage T-Mobile in this Tour. The public-relations man who had arranged the spread, Luuc Eisenga, was left to face the press on his own, an apposite image of the shambolic embarrassment the race endured yesterday. Never can so many favourites have been lost in the flagship event in any sport in so few hours.

  After their implication in a blood-doping inquiry conducted by Spanish police, and repo
rted in the Spanish press on Thursday, was confirmed, the Tour was rapidly relieved of Ullrich and the other big favourite, Ivan Basso, as well as last year’s fourth finisher Francesco Mancebo of Spain. The three riders’ records put them at the top of the Tour’s recent hierarchy behind the now-retired seven-times winner Lance Armstrong.

  Ullrich finished in the first three in seven of the last nine Tours, Basso second and third in the last two races and Mancebo has five top-10 placings in the last six Tours. The loss of credibility was the greater with the implication in the investigation of Joseba Beloki, third in 2000 and 2001 and second in 2002.

  Last year’s fifth finisher Alexander Vinokourov was forced out of the race yesterday evening, even though he was not personally implicated in the police inquiry. His team, Astana, withdrew the five riders in their Tour squad who had been named in connection with the inquiry and as a result, they were only able to field four men, thus falling foul of the rule that Tour teams must start with at least six cyclists. They had owed their place in the race to the clemency of the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday, which reversed the Tour’s decision of Monday that they should not ride due to the possibility that they might damage the race’s image.

  Ullrich, Sevilla and Pevenage went early in the morning, after T-Mobile were sent a fax by the Tour organisers who had received a 50-page memo from the Spanish Cycling Federation, giving details of the police investigation.