by John Deering
Team Sky suffered in the first of those spills when they lost the excellent Simon Gerrans to a broken arm. There wasn’t any good news from Bradley Wiggins to cheer the team up, either. After looking good for the majority of the day he struggled on the final climb up to Avoriaz, losing touch when the main group was still quite large. In his diaries, published as On Tour, he contemplated what had happened. ‘Was it the heat or altitude, or have I got my training wrong?’ His uncertainty was all-pervading. The British public, high on Cav’s stage wins and full of expectation for Brad and the new team, were brought down to earth with a bump. Even if this was a blip, our man was now 2’45” behind the new leader, the World Champion, Cadel Evans. That was a lot of time.
After a rest day, the peloton tackled the biggest day’s climbing of the Tour; 66km of the 207 were spent going up mountains, the biggest of which was the Col de la Madeleine, just before the finish in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. Once again, it was depressing viewing for Bradley’s fans as he found himself fighting to stay in touch with the leaders. He lost the best part of five minutes to Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck, the men he had aspired to beat. It was a chastening and sad day for the hero of Athens, Beijing and Ventoux. Mick Rogers was also enduring a rough time as leader of the HTC-Columbia team, and it seemed increasingly likely that this would be the last time he would be seen as a contender in the world’s biggest race.
The Tour de France quickly became the Schleck–Contador show as they put on a battle royal. Andy had lost his brother Frank as early as that Roubaix-style stage with a broken collarbone on the pavé, and some critics seemed to think that this actually allowed him to express himself and ride more freely, a suggestion hotly denied by the Schlecks and their Saxo Bank team.
They would rage against each other all the way to Paris, where the difference gained when Contador took advantage of Schleck’s mechanical problems in the Pyrenees was all the Spanish rider needed to retain his title.
Mark Cavendish picked up an incredible five stages in the race. Brad took a quietly creditable top ten finish in the long time trial. But 24th place at the Tour de France was not what he or the team had in mind when they signed up to this great project. Many traditionalists had baulked at Team Sky’s new methods. They perceived as arrogance the notion that a British team could come along and just tell them all, ‘You’ve been doing it all wrong.’ There were sniggers in the salle du presse at Wiggins’s travails in the mountains. ‘All part of the plan,’ they would chuckle. Wiggins, Yates and Brailsford wanted to come back in 2011 and shove those laughs right down their throats. But they needed to find a better way of doing it.
Contador inadvertently summed up the problem when caught in a philosophical mood in Paris. ‘Cycling is not like mathematics; there are moments when you are well prepared and everything runs smoothly, and there are times when you are well prepared and everything does not.’
The drawing board beckoned.
There was an unsavoury postscript to the 2010 Tour de France when it was announced at the end of September that Alberto Contador had tested positive during the race for Clenbuterol, a steroid. In one of the more convoluted drugs cases in sporting history, he fought a long battle to clear his name and eventually failed. All his results from that moment forward were expunged until his return to racing in late 2012. The record books now show that Andy Schleck won the 2010 Tour de France, but the Luxembourger would dearly love to cross the line first before his career is over. Time is on his side: he is five years younger than the 2012 champion.
STAGE 15:
Samatan–Pau, 158.5km
Monday, 16 July 2012
We’re still in the Pyrenees, and will be in them or under their shadow for most of this riveting final week. A hillyish day today is followed by the now traditional second rest day, then two big days in the high mountains for Bradley Wiggins to beat off his challengers for the yellow jersey. And he has Saturday up his sleeve – the second individual time trial in this race where he will not be expected to concede anything to anybody.
Perhaps it’s the looming rest day, but today’s stage holds nothing of interest for the contenders. A break goes. It is brought back. Repeat. Another break goes and is chased for a while, then left to its own devices. The break rides powerfully together for a while, then attack each other to try and win the stage. When Pierrick Fédrigo storms by Christian Vande Velde to win in Pau for the second time in his career it’s great for him and his FDJ team, and for the French who celebrate another stage victory. Those of us with an interest in the greater prizes on offer in this year’s Tour will have to wait until after the rest day to see them unfold.
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So. Where do you stand on Lance Armstrong? Persecuted hero? Or inveterate liar and cheat?
It’s impossible to talk about cycling in 2012 without some discussion of Armstrong, his career and inevitably his alleged use of banned substances over that time. This seems particularly apt when we reach this second rest day and find ourselves facing a depressingly familiar story of a rider being accused of doping.
It’s worth reacquainting ourselves with the Armstrong legend; a story such as this has never been heard in the history of sport and is equally unlikely to be repeated.
There are echoes of Bradley Wiggins’s own upbringing in Armstrong’s childhood in that they were both sons of an errant father and a fiercely protective and loving mother to whom they remained close. However, where Brad hides his fierce competitiveness behind a lugubrious exterior and a laid-back demeanour, Lance makes no effort to contain his combative nature. Indeed, he has used it as a bludgeon his whole life.
There was a reasonable buzz around the young Texan as soon as he turned professional with the Motorola squad in the early 1990s, such was his brashness and willingness to be an iconoclast for the new wave of English-speaking arrivistes sweeping away cycling’s European stranglehold. He famously fell foul of the revered Italian classics legend Moreno Argentin in an early appearance in Europe seemingly for being unaware not only of the man’s achievements but also the races in which he achieved them. This healthy disregard for reputation was as refreshing to see for the newcomers to the sport as it was disrespectful to those who sought to honour the old brigade.
But it wasn’t until the barrel-chested 23-year-old scored an immense and unanticipated victory in the torrential autumn rain of Oslo in the 1993 World Championship Road Race that the cycling public really noticed Lance Armstrong. The swashbuckling attacking ride, the disregard for personal safety, the disregard for reputations of the old order were all there as Armstrong stormed into the rainbow jersey and declared himself a proper bike rider.
His career as a one-day great developed beautifully, with storming rides in the spring classics and Tour de France stage wins marking him out as a hot favourite for the first open Olympic Games – 1996 in Atlanta on home soil. The Olympics had been the preserve of amateur sportsmen up to this point, meaning the roll-call of champions was less than impressive, but for the first time the big guns would be there. Miguel Indurain led the charge of the legends, becoming Olympic Time Trial Champion to add to his five Tour de France victories. Armstrong’s power and savvy made him the stand-out favourite for the road race, but on the day he was strangely short on power and could only manage twelfth place behind the wily old Swiss fox, Pascal Richard.
That result may have been disappointing, but within weeks it appeared nothing short of miraculous. Still only 25, Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer. The virulent disease had already spread to his abdomen, his lungs and his brain. The cycling world looked on aghast. It seemed to be a certainty. This colourful, wonderful, amazing young man was going to die.
An intensive bout of surgery and chemotherapy took place immediately and, incredibly, appeared successful, sending the cancer into complete remission.
Even from his hospital bed, his head bare from the effects of the chemotherapy and his body ravaged by the cancer, Armstrong spoke bravely of a return to racing. Sc
andalously, the French Cofidis team that had signed the Texan to a lucrative contract at the peak of his success sought to annul the deal. There was widespread outrage and condemnation of such a callous decision, one that still looks unfathomable twelve years later when one considers that the only reason sponsors become involved in the sport is to garner positive publicity. They may have been unwitting collaborators in the truly great part of Armstrong’s story however, as his burning desire to prove Cofidis, and any other doubters, wrong drove him on and defined the rest of his career.
For Armstrong did return. Not just to his former glories but like a real-life Steve Austin, better, stronger, faster. The weight he lost during treatment was not replaced. His whole body shape post-cancer was different: slender, but just as powerful. Perhaps the pain and duress that his body had suffered also left a positive legacy. Riding up Alpe d’Huez couldn’t hurt as bad as chemo. Whatever the reasons, and there were several false starts on the road back, a new Lance Armstrong emerged at the back end of 1998 with consecutive fourth places in the Vuelta a España, the World Championship Time Trial and the World Championship Road Race. His competitors had best look out.
His breathtaking and uplifting win at the 1999 Tour de France when he swept all before him was not only restorative for Armstrong, it was a Lazarus moment for the whole of cycling. On its knees after the numbing purges of 1998 when it became clear to all and sundry that drug abuse was not only common in cycling, it was endemic to such a degree that nobody was certain that there was a single ‘clean’ professional in the race, the Tour needed a hero. It had one now.
Forever driven onwards by his fire, which was beginning to resemble a war with the world, Lance Armstrong strung together another six wins in the world’s hardest race. Yes, that’s right, seven Tour de France victories. Two more than Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault or Miguel Indurain could manage. And all after rising from his deathbed. What a rider, what a man.
However, his retirement in 2005 as reigning Tour de France Champion was not met with universal regret. It wasn’t just his robust dismissal of anybody who opposed him that upset public opinion, it was the constant allegations of doping that dogged him for an eternity that ground his public down. People were essentially unsure of whether they could trust in his feats.
Armstrong’s surprising comeback in 2009 wasn’t greeted with universal joy. It didn’t go entirely to plan either. Unable to regain his former stellar level, he could only manage third in that year’s Tour de France, one place above the new British hope, one Bradley Wiggins. Even though there was plenty of credit and applause inherent in that result, it was largely spoiled in the public’s eyes by his attempts to unseat the winner – and clearly the strongest rider – his teammate Alberto Contador. He finished behind Contador again in his last Tour de France, this time 39 minutes adrift of the defending champion in 23rd.
Part of Armstrong, despite his stoic refusal to ever admit a mistake, must surely regret coming back to racing. His desire to prove his critics wrong overrode his diminishing powers. And it had the detrimental effect of fanning the flames still burning around his alleged use of illegal products throughout his career. He must have wished he’d stayed at home with his latest celebrity squeeze counting his yellow jerseys and resting on a palmarès unparalleled in the modern game.
Instead, he spent much of the time fighting a federal inquiry that ran until February 2012 before being closed down without any charges being brought. If he thought he was out of the woods though, he was wrong. Based on the testimony of former teammates, riders and associates, and on blood samples taken during the 2009 and 2010 seasons, Armstrong was charged with doping offences by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, USADA. They claimed that he had used EPO, the blood treatment that had been the scourge of 1990s cycling, and steroids, as well as illegal blood transfusions throughout his career. After initially hotly rebuffing the charges, in August Armstrong announced that he would not be contesting them. He was careful not to admit any wrongdoing, repeating his dismissal of allegations against him as a ‘witch hunt’, merely saying that ‘there comes a point in every man’s life when he has to say “enough is enough”. For me, that time is now.’
USADA responded by removing those seven victories from the miscreant’s possession. They gave him a lifetime ban from competition and backdated it to 1 August 1998, meaning that all his results since that date – effectively, his return to successful racing after cancer – were nullified.
To return to the question: hero or villain?
Once upon a time, many in cycling held a degree of sympathy for Armstrong’s situation. Drug testing in the late 1990s and early part of this century was a mess. There was no test for synthetic erythropoietin or EPO, the drug that had transformed the endurance of many cyclists. Since it is a substance that appears naturally in the body, it was difficult to isolate. It mirrored the effects of training at altitude, something that cyclists have done since time immemorial knowing the benefits it would bring. The sympathy for Armstrong stemmed from popular opinion preventing him from using the understandable reasoning that many of his contemporaries were beginning to espouse: ‘Yes, I took drugs . . . just like everybody else.’
Armstrong’s self-acclaimed position as ‘the most tested athlete of all time’ and his proud boast that he had ‘never failed a test’ was sorely tried by the development of that long-awaited EPO test, because samples from his Tour wins had been preserved with such an eventuality in mind.
As more and more cyclists and ex-cyclists, often under the threat of prosecution, admitted their own involvement in what they saw as a curse of their time, Armstrong steadfastly refused to acknowledge any guilt. His return from retirement merely seemed to point out that the world had moved on, and that cycling didn’t dance to the narcotics puppet master’s beat any more. Lance was out of step with the cleaner new world order. He was an unwelcome reminder of a dirty past.
It won’t have escaped anybody’s notice that the new Tour de France Champion, inheritor of Lance Armstrong’s crown, is one of this new world’s most outspoken critics of the old ways.
In a recent Guardian article, Bradley Wiggins wrote an impassioned defence of his sport in 2012 and let those who weren’t prepared to play by the rules have a piece of his mind. ‘When I look back, we now have an idea of what was going on in the sport back then, and it was a different era. Personally, I used to find it difficult. You’d be trying to negotiate a contract – say, £50,000 – I had two kids to worry about, a livelihood to earn in the face of what was going on, and people beating me because they were doping. I wasn’t shy of saying what I thought about doping, because it directly affected me and the lives of my family.’
Things have improved greatly via better testing. Brad himself and the reformed David Millar have made the simple, key point that it is essential to make not cheating more attractive than cheating. Writing in the same paper, the renowned cycling journalist and drugs-in-sport commentator William Fotheringham noted, ‘The temptation to dope needs to be countered in the athlete’s mind with “Why would I?” rather than “Why wouldn’t I?”’
Brad explained that much of his long-held stance against doping stemmed from cultural differences. In the cycling heartlands of other European countries people can pick up a ban or be implicated in a scandal, sit tight for a few months and return unscathed. At a recent visit to a cycling clothing company in Italy, it was truly astounding to see one framed picture or jersey or medal of a cycling star brought down by their unmasking as a fraud, still revered and lauded as heroes in the trophy room.
In Britain, it’s just plain cheating and you’d better have a bloody good story to get out of that. David Millar’s post-drugs-bust career has been defined by his need to point out that he is a cheat, that he did wrong and he knows it, which is to be applauded. These lines in the first pages of his autobiography are eye-wateringly frank: ‘My name is David Millar. I am a professional cyclist, an Olympic athlete, a Tour de France s
tar, a world champion – and a drugs cheat.’
As Brad wrote in the Guardian, ‘If I doped I would potentially stand to lose everything. It’s a long list. My reputation, my livelihood, my marriage, my family, my house. Everything I have achieved, my Olympic medals, my world titles, the CBE I was given. I would have to take my children to the school gates in a small Lancashire village with everyone looking at me, knowing I had cheated, knowing I had, perhaps, won the Tour de France, but then been caught.’
Wiggins’s article was by way of explanation for his comments a few days prior when, wearied by the day’s tribulations that were barely over, he responded robustly to a question on his own legitimacy regarding drug use, by labelling those who suspect him of foul play as ‘just fucking wankers. I cannot be doing with people like that. It’s easy for them to sit under a pseudonym on Twitter and that sort of shit rather than getting off their arses in their own lives and apply themselves and work hard at something and achieve something. And that’s ultimately it. Cunts.’
For every person outraged at his ‘foul-mouthed rant’ there were many more who stood up and praised his forthright attitude to those who sought to undermine his achievements. The Guardian column was thankfully free of an apology. It was a succinct and reasonable explanation made with more time to think through his words. While there are those within the organisation at Team Sky who may well have their hearts in their mouths every time Brad is asked his opinion on something contentious, especially when the sweat of 200km is yet to dry on his sideburns, the majority of those listening find his willingness to speak his mind a breath of fresh air. Sports reporting has already scared footballers into speaking almost entirely in clichés and platitudes that are impossible to spin into a ‘rant’ or an ‘amazing attack’. Thank God for Bradley Wiggins and long may he continue to tell us what he thinks. After all, it’s our choice whether we agree with him or not, just his decision to say it.