Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour De France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever

by Reed Albergotti

  By the early summer, the Postal team was considering Landis a likely possibility for the Tour de France squad, just as he had hoped. The team had experienced men like George Hincapie and Chechu Rubiera, a Spanish climber they had picked up for the 2001 season. But they needed someone with sheer raw speed, and they thought it likely that Landis could fill that role. Johan Bruyneel chose his riders according to the tactical goals he thought each could fulfill. To ensure Armstrong’s victory, Bruyneel needed guys who could ride fast into the wind. He needed selfless teammates who could ride in front of Armstrong in the mountains and keep a steady pace for long periods of time. And he needed riders who were good for one or two amazing accelerations up the mountain slopes to break apart the field and make the race more manageable for Lance. That was the role he envisioned for Landis. Bruyneel thought Landis could be the guy who, once given the command through his earpiece to “Attack!” would sail ahead of everyone else, leaving the riders trailing in his wake, gasping for air.

  In May, Armstrong rented an apartment for Landis in St. Moritz, the Swiss ski resort town where he was living for the final buildup to the Tour, so they could train together at a high altitude. The town is perched at 6,000 feet and is surrounded by circuitous mountain passes. Nearly every day for weeks, the two men went on punishing rides in the alpine climbs where, as Landis recalled, he often had trouble keeping up with Armstrong. Michele Ferrari followed behind them in an old station wagon stocked with food, water, and warm clothes for the descents. At the top of each climb, Dr. Ferrari would pull over to analyze the “wattage meters” on their bikes. Lance told Floyd that Ferrari was a genius—one of the most brilliant minds in cycling, someone who had a mathematically precise knowledge about technique and physiology—and Landis assumed Lance was right.

  Before being awarded a Tour de France spot, however, Landis faced one final test: the Dauphiné Libéré, the early June race in France that follows many of the same mountain roads as the Tour de France. For Landis, the race would be an opportunity, a chance to see if he could handle the mountains and hold his own against many of the same riders who would be competing in the Tour. Bruyneel gave Landis the role of chief domestique so that they could see how he’d perform under the stress and battery of a punishing weeklong race. The chief domestique, also called a lieutenant or a super domestique, is the rider who stays with the team leader the longest and has the most responsibility. While other riders on the team could back off the pace early and soft-pedal to the finish line, Landis would have to stick with Armstrong until the final acceleration, when Armstrong pulled away from his rivals and struck out for the finish line alone.

  By the start of the fifth day, Armstrong was in second place. Midway through the day, a breakaway of fifteen riders formed. Bruyneel wanted to test Landis’s legs and he ordered him to take off and latch himself on to the group, which had zoomed far ahead of the main field. But as they hit the ascent of the final climb, the 9.3-mile Col de Corobin, the group shattered. Landis stayed with the leaders, often pushing the pace up the mountain roads. He finished fourth on that day, nearly 4 minutes ahead of the main contenders, including Armstrong. Armstrong still had his lead, but Landis had moved all the way up to second place overall, trailing Armstrong by only 19 seconds.

  The next day was the most difficult of the race. It included a daunting finishing climb called the Col de Joux Plane, a seven-mile stretch with an average gradient of ten pecent, meaning for every one hundred feet of road, the elevation rises ten feet. Armstrong won the stage. But surprisingly, Landis was able to retain his second place in the race. After the finish, the website Cycling News said Landis “may be developing into the best American stage racer since Armstrong.” It was a high compliment. And Landis had done it without drugs.

  Landis was exhausted after the seven-day race, gaunt and dehydrated from the grueling days of riding for Armstrong in the mountains. But he had loved every minute of it. He savored the pain and the suffering of the race. Still, he wondered how difficult it would be to attempt the same thing over a 21-day period. If he were chosen for the Tour de France team, would he be able to handle it?

  Landis was in his room, packing his things for the return trip to St. Moritz, when he heard a knock on the door. It was Johan Bruyneel.

  “Congratulations,” Bruyneel said. “You’re on the Tour de France squad.”

  Landis was ecstatic. “Thank you!” he exclaimed. “You’re going to be happy you made that decision,” he said.

  “Listen,” Bruyneel said. “When you get to St. Moritz, Lance is going to give you something to shorten your recovery time. Just a small testosterone patch. Two out of every three nights, put the patch on before you go to bed, okay?”

  “Yeah, got it,” Landis said.

  “And, Floyd, Ferrari is going to take some blood out. It will be put back in during the Tour,” Bruyneel said in a matter-of-fact tone that made everything sound legitimate. Never mind that they were discussing cheating in the biggest cycling event of the year. Never mind that this was the coach of one of the most famous and respected sports teams in the world.

  The whole thing felt surreal to Landis, but he had figured this day would come. He knew that if he made the Tour de France squad, nothing would be left to chance. He’d be taken care of. It was kind of exciting, actually. Landis had never done performance-enhancing drugs and he was curious how they would affect him. Would he feel superhuman? Would he start flying up mountains with no pain at all?

  Later that day, Landis boarded a helicopter with Armstrong for the flight back to St. Moritz. It was the first time Landis had flown in one and he was in awe, looking out the window at the spectacularly beautiful peaks of the French Alps.

  When they landed, the two men were picked up by Armstrong’s longtime masseur, Ryszard Kielpinski, and driven to the penthouse near the village center where Armstrong was staying with Kristin, their little boy, Luke, and the twin girls Kristin had given birth to the previous November. As they sat in the kitchen drinking espresso, Armstrong handed him roughly twenty testosterone patches in silvery foil, which Floyd stuffed into his backpack. Armstrong didn’t have to say anything. Landis knew what they were for, and Bruyneel had explained how to use them. Landis concluded at that moment that Kristin, who was standing only a few feet away and made no comment about the transaction, knew about the doping. What Landis didn’t know was that Kristin was not just aware of the doping, she was complicit in it. Landis hadn’t been on the team when Kristin helped pass out cortisone pills. He didn’t know about their secret code word for the EPO: butter. Back in his own apartment later that night, Landis placed one of the testosterone patches on his stomach as Bruyneel had instructed him. Landis wondered how he’d feel the next day. To his disappointment, he didn’t notice anything. The effects of the drugs were subtle. A few days later, Landis went to Armstrong’s apartment, where Dr. Ferrari had him lie down on a bed while he stuck a thick needle into his arm and extracted a half liter of blood. “We will put this back in a few days before the Tour. Then, another half liter we take out. That goes back in during the race,” Ferrari explained to him.

  All of this drawing of blood, and reinfusing it, required considerable resources. During their training rides in the mountains above St. Moritz in the weeks between the Dauphiné and the Tour, Armstrong had explained the complicated logistics, which involved carrying coolers with hidden blood bags across international borders. He also told Landis that this was a change from previous Tours, when cyclists would use EPO. But now that the UCI was testing for EPO, riders had turned to transfusions again. Landis would later tell federal investigators about a dramatic conversation he had with Lance on the subject. Facing the possibility of criminal prosecution if he lied to the feds, Landis said Armstrong told him he’d actually tested positive for the drug during the 2001 Tour de Suisse. He had been too brazen, he told Landis, pushed the EPO use a little too far. Landis told the federal investigators that Armstrong told him cycling authorities at the UCI had let
him off the hook because he was the sport’s biggest star—and because he had made a financial arrangement with the UCI. Verbruggen and the UCI deny there was any such arrangement. Landis told investigators that he was shocked at the time. He had certainly not found the UCI to be particularly accommodating. Quite the opposite. After his former team, sponsored by car manufacturer Mercury, folded, he waited several months for the UCI to compensate him out of the escrow account it was supposed to maintain for riders in case a team disbanded. In fact, Hein Verbruggen sent Landis a nasty, taunting letter, informing him that the UCI would pay him whenever it felt like it. In the end, Landis got only about half of what he was owed.

  In truth, the UCI operated very little like a legitimate governing body. Bribes like the one Armstrong described to Landis had been common in professional cycling for decades. The sport operated with such an undercurrent of corruption that payoffs were almost a given. Not only did governing bodies accept bribes to quash positive drug tests, riders themselves often accepted bribes from other riders. The negotiations for these bribes would take place on the road, during the races. For instance, if a star rider found himself in a breakaway with another, less famous rider, the star might offer to pay the lesser-known rider to allow him to win—just as Armstrong had done in the Triple Crown race that had netted him his first million-dollar payoff a decade earlier. After all, the bigger star could easily afford the bribe because he would be able to capitalize on the win with bonuses and higher endorsement revenues. Partly to grease the wheels for such transactions, riders were paid race winnings and appearance fees in cash. And although the UCI mandated that the teams pay riders a minimum wage, riders were often paid their wages in under-the-table cash, in amounts significantly lower than the minimum. Rather than blow the whistle on the practice, most cyclists were just happy to be on a professional team with a chance to make it big.

  When Landis arrived in France for the 2002 Tour de France, his eyes bulged as he took in the surreal, carnival-like atmosphere. The thousands of fans creating a mob scene around the riders, the millions of people who lined the sides of the roads to cheer as the race went by—it was like nothing Landis had ever seen.

  During the first half of the race, the Postal team made only a mediocre showing. Armstrong won the opening prologue, but four days later, the USPS lost the team time trial, finishing in second place. On the eighth day of the race, Armstrong took a minor spill and lost 27 seconds. On the tenth day of the race, Armstrong finished second in the individual time trial to Spaniard Santiago Botero. ONCE’s Igor González de Galdeano ended up in the race lead, 26 seconds over Armstrong, who was not happy.

  On the twelfth day of the Tour—the first day in the mountains—Armstrong pummeled them all. In the final climb up the La Mongie, an eight-mile, 6.8 percent slope, Armstrong sprinted past his opponents for the win. Landis, though, had a bad day. He drifted back and wasn’t able to help much in the mountains.

  The next day, Landis bounced back to prove his worth. The 123-mile stage included five major climbs, finishing with Plateau de Beille. As the pack began riding up the slopes, Armstrong faced numerous attacks from other teams, but Landis was right there, chasing down the riders and doing the hard work for Armstrong. On the next mountain stage, Landis again proved to be a big help to Armstrong, setting the pace at the bottom of Ventoux for a good 15 minutes before pulling off.

  The final opportunity for Armstrong to open an even more decisive lead came on the second-to-last day in the individual time trial. As he had in previous years, Armstrong began the time trial so far ahead—by 5 minutes, 6 seconds over Spaniard Joseba Beloki—that he had absolutely no pressure. But Armstrong wouldn’t go easy on his competitors. He won the time trial handily, adding 2 more minutes to his lead. The next day, as he rode into Paris and crossed the finish line, he was more than 7 minutes ahead of Beloki.

  For Landis, the win was life-changing. The roughly $40,000 bonus he received for being on the nine-man Tour de France squad, and the multiyear contract he signed with the team afterward, provided him with an income substantial enough that he could afford to buy a home big enough for his family, as well as a nice car. His contract, which had paid him $60,000 for his first year, jumped to $215,000 in 2003, and then increased to $240,000 in 2004.

  Landis and his family moved to their new home in Temecula, California, a small town northeast of San Diego with affordable housing, a mild climate, and vineyards surrounded by mountains that had the long steep climbs he needed for training. And the temperate climate—no snow, hardly any rain—meant he could train there even in the winter. Landis had gone from being a vagabond cycling bum maxed out on his credit cards to a man successful enough to support his family comfortably while competing in a professional sport that he enjoyed. It felt like the American dream.

  Landis didn’t feel as if he’d cheated his way into his new life. The drugs didn’t seem to give him any new capabilities on the bike. They did help with recovery. Before he started doping, he’d feel awful after long, hard days of training. Now he felt energetic. But he still had to do the training and it was still challenging. Besides, he thought, everyone is taking the same drugs.

  • • •

  With his fourth Tour de France win, Armstrong had achieved near icon status. Sports Illustrated named him Sportsman of the Year, and the Associated Press named him Male Athlete of the Year. His off-season was punctuated with photo shoots, speeches for six-figure honorariums, and celebrity hobnobbing. He developed a close relationship with fellow Texan President George W. Bush, who had added Lance to his cancer advisory panel in September 2002.

  Capitalizing on the latest escalation of his fame, he teamed up again with Sally Jenkins, who by then was a Washington Post sports columnist, to write his second memoir, Every Second Counts. The book glorified cancer survivors, but mostly provided an insider’s look at competitive cycling. Although he hadn’t yet faced any serious doping allegations in the United States, Lance came across in the memoir as a good guy who’d been victimized—he complained about the incessant drug testing he endured, specifically recounting the indecency of the drug testers who had knocked at his door just as he prepared to take his wife to the hospital to give birth to twins. He mentioned “my friend Robin Williams.” Twice.

  Fame and fortune were his, but Armstrong’s family life was falling apart. His relationship with his mother had deteriorated. Shortly after Lance got married, Linda divorced John and dealt with the emotional distress of their breakup by throwing herself into her work. Lance provided some financial support. He gave her the funds to fix her teeth, and flew her to Paris each year for the Tour de France. But to some of his old friends, it seemed he didn’t want much to do with her. He rarely visited her in Plano, and when he and Kristin were living in Nice and Spain, he rarely called her. She continued to work, rising up the ranks at Ericsson, but she missed her young grandson, Luke, and at times felt a profound sense of loneliness.

  “Heard from Lance lately?” J.T., Lance’s former landlord and close friend in Austin, would ask Linda when they spoke on the phone. “No, not for a while,” she would say, explaining that he and Kristin had a lot to handle. “I’m sorry,” J.T. would say.

  After her third divorce, Linda did meet another man, Ed Kelly, a widower and senior project executive at IBM. They met on a blind date in 2001, eventually fell in love and planned to get married. She badly wanted Lance to be there, and he provided her with a date in June 2002. She went forward with arrangements, but then a month before the event, he called to cancel. She pushed the wedding date back, but that date didn’t work out for Lance, either. Eventually, Linda and Ed married in Dallas without Lance there.

  J.T. couldn’t make it to the wedding that summer, either. He was undergoing yet more chemo and radiation, as well as bone marrow transplants. When these treatments were unsuccessful, he turned to alternative medicine. Nothing worked. He knew he wouldn’t live much longer, and for some reason, he felt profound guilt over how Lance had treat
ed his mom. At times, he blamed himself for not telling Lance directly to call his mother more often, especially after he moved to Austin, but now, it was too late for J.T. to say anything to Lance. After Lance married Kristin he rarely called J.T. to check in, even as J.T. endured the rigors of cancer treatment.

  What bothered J.T. was that he wasn’t able to point to any arguments or disagreements. He began to wonder if Lance was ashamed of him, and whether Kristin disapproved of him because he was an eccentric older man.

  Lance had been a part of J.T.’s family, sharing meals with him and his wife, Frances, and their three young children. J.T. would visit Lance in Como and, during one Tour de France, acted as his soigneur while he was on the Motorola team. He stood by Lance, and truly cared for him.

  As his health deteriorated, J.T. was on steroids as well as several medications for pain. He found it difficult to keep the emotional hurt inside. He began telling his close friends that Lance had used him, that he’d become a part of his family and then cut him off. He made plans to write a tell-all book that would expose Lance as a narcissist who lacked empathy for others. His friends talked him out of it, saying nothing good would come of it.

  On October 1, 2002, J.T. called Linda to say he was in the hospital. Linda offered to drive to come see him, but he told her his hospital room had not been set up, and to call back later. Linda knew J.T. was saying good-bye to the people he loved, and that he didn’t have much time left. She wanted Lance to speak to J.T., so she tried calling him at his house but got his machine. Later, she dialed Lance’s home again. Someone picked up. There was a blowout party going on. The person who answered the phone said Lance was unable to come to the phone as he was swinging on a rope with his mother-in-law. The next day would be the sixth anniversary of Lance’s cancer diagnosis, his so-called carpe diem day. He had thrown a big party, had invited Kristin’s parents, but hadn’t told his mom about it. J.T. died the next day. Linda attended the funeral and Lance showed up, looking distressed.