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

by Reed Albergotti

  “He wanted to tell you good-bye, son. And that he loved you,” Linda told Lance. J.T.’s obituary, which appeared October 3, mentioned his volunteer work with many sports programs at the University of Texas, notably as the massage therapist for the swimming and diving teams. It also mentioned that he had “helped cyclists such as Lance Armstrong.” Lance wasn’t quoted.

  • • •

  The man Kristin had married was a little-known former athlete who was recovering from cancer, happy just to be alive. Now she found herself married to an international celebrity who bore little resemblance to the sensitive, soul-searching cancer survivor who had seemed on the threshold of dedicating his life to giving hope to others struggling with the disease. Having become a superstar, Armstrong, like many of his ilk, slept with other women often. Lots of other women. And as with his doping, Armstrong made few efforts to cover up his philandering.

  A few days after J.T. died, Armstrong flew to Las Vegas for the annual Interbike trade show, where he would talk to the press about his Trek bikes, helpfully pointing out that consumers could buy the same bikes in local stores. Walking around the convention center, wearing a navy blue Trek bike mechanic’s smock, a baseball cap, and sunglasses, he was mobbed by fans seeking autographs and photos. He called up George Hincapie, who was also at the trade show, and told him he wanted to hang out. Armstrong met up with Hincapie and Bill Stapleton, and others at an upscale club, the Foundation Room, at the top of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. The men were escorted to a private room that was decorated with a Far Eastern aesthetic and accented with dark wood paneling. A number of women showed up and they partied for the rest of the night. The night was nothing out of the ordinary. Lance didn’t let his marriage get in the way of cavorting with groupies.

  In early 2003, Lance rented a house in Santa Barbara and flew into town to shoot a commercial—that year, he had commercial shoots for Comcast, Subaru, and Nike. Kristin and the three children, as well as Mike Anderson, his personal assistant, came along. Mike, a mountain biker and the former head bike mechanic at an Austin bike shop, had met Armstrong a few years earlier when Armstrong came into the shop to pick up a special Trek bike that he was to ride while carrying the 2002 Winter Olympics torch through Austin. They became casual friends and in late 2001, a mutual acquaintance who worked for Lance approached Mike and explained that Lance needed someone to follow him in the car during his training rides and help him take care of his properties while he was in Europe. So Mike took the job.

  Once in Santa Barbara, Lance took Kristin for a walk on the beach and told her the marriage was over, then walked away. Lance later told Anderson that he had read an e-mail between Kristin and the owner of an Austin-area running-shoe store that led him to suspect her of infidelity. But Anderson, who had performed odd jobs around the house for the family and whom Kristin had jokingly called H2—for Husband Two—found it unlikely that Kristin had cheated on Lance.

  The split meant that Lance traveled to Girona alone in February, while Kristin and the kids remained behind in Austin. After Lance agreed to enter counseling in an effort to save the marriage, Kristin visited him in April, traveling with him to Nice, where they had lived together before they were married. But the relationship continued to unravel.

  Landis, on the other hand, was very happy in his family life. Everything seemed to be going well for him. And then it wasn’t.

  On a sunny, crisp day in January, Landis went out for a training ride in the small town of De Luz, California. He was going about twenty-five miles per hour, flying through the turns wearing his red, white, and blue US Postal jersey. Landis, who had cut his teeth on mountain biking, was fearless about speed. Unafraid of sharp turns, he was confident in his ability to correct the bike if it skidded or fishtailed. His bike handling ability was one of the things that made him so valuable to Armstrong and the US Postal team. What good is a strong climber if he falls behind on the downhills?

  Landis saw an upcoming turn that he had taken a hundred times before. Approaching the apex of the turn, he leaned his bike into it and lightly touched the brakes. But as he hit the corner, he hit a patch of sand on the road and his wheels began to lose traction. He could feel what was happening, but it was too late. He had no choice but to continue into the turn. The wheels completely lost their grip. Because he was leaning to his right, when he hit the asphalt, all his weight came crashing down onto his right hip.

  Landis slid across the road, rolling a couple of times before coming to a complete stop on the chalky dirt shoulder. He couldn’t get up. What an idiot, he thought to himself. It took nearly an hour before someone drove by and offered to help. The driver placed a phone call to Amber, Landis’s wife, who came to pick him up. She wanted to take him to the hospital, but he refused. He went home, cleaned off his road rash, and then passed out from the pain. The next day, realizing he was in serious trouble, Landis went to the hospital. X-rays showed that he had severely fractured his hip. He needed emergency surgery, during which three screws were placed in his hip. Landis had a sinking feeling that everything he had just gained might be slipping away.

  Later that month, Landis showed up to the team’s training camp in Solvang, California, on crutches and was off the bike for most of the early season. Nobody on the team shed any tears for Landis, including Armstrong. The US Postal squad was a business. That business centered around making sure Lance Armstrong won the 2003 Tour de France—for what would be his fifth consecutive win, a record only one other man had achieved. To that end, every rider on the team was disposable, including Landis. Though he had proven himself to be perhaps the most promising young rider on the team, now he was just damaged goods. The only thing that mattered was whether Landis would be ready in time to help Lance win a race that was a little more than six months away. Landis realized he was nothing more than a piece of machinery in the Lance Armstrong factory.

  Just as he got back on the bike in the early spring, Landis discovered he would need another surgery to shorten the pins holding his hip together. When Bruyneel heard the news, he urged Landis to have the surgery in Spain, but Landis was wary of the suggestion. A Spanish doctor? Instead, Landis turned to Arnie Baker, a physician and cycling coach whom Landis trusted and viewed almost like a father. Landis was well connected in the medical community in San Diego, and he decided to have his surgery there.

  In a normal year, two surgeries inside a period of a few months would have meant Landis was off the Tour de France squad, but US Postal was desperate that season, with a rash of injuries and illnesses among its riders. So Johan Bruyneel asked Landis to fly to Europe the same day as his surgery in order to race just a week or so later in the Tour of Belgium. Landis had to argue with him to explain that it wouldn’t be safe, that, in fact, it was insane for Bruyneel to even make the suggestion, and he refused to go that day.

  Nonetheless, worried for his job, he flew to Europe the next day. By the time he got off the fifteen-hour flight, so much blood had pooled down from his incision site that the bottom part of his leg had turned completely black. He was also in incredible pain. But a little more than a week later, Landis entered the seven-day Tour of Belgium. Still in intense pain, he was barely able to finish the race.

  George Hincapie, Armstrong’s trusted lieutenant, was another of the riders who was having health issues that season—in his case, a mysterious illness that left him feeling fatigued for three months. Hincapie was weak and in pain. He confided his problems to Stephanie McIlvain, the rep from Oakley. Hincapie was one of several Postal riders to whom McIlvain had grown close over the years. McIlvain connected Hincapie with a homeopathic doctor in California, who ran tests on Hincapie that showed elevated cortisol levels. He recommended herbal remedies to Hincapie, who thought the doctor was full of crap. Every high-level athlete has elevated cortisol levels, he thought. Hincapie looked around for a doctor who could treat the problem. Various doctors poked, prodded, scanned, x-rayed, and examined every part of his body, but none of them could figure out
what was wrong. Finally, Hincapie found a specialist in holistic medicine who said he could help.

  • • •

  The months leading up to the 2003 Tour de France had a different feel for Landis. Instead of training in relative isolation with Armstrong in St. Moritz, he and Armstrong were in Girona with a bunch of other cyclists from the team, though Armstrong was frequently away, dealing with his marital problems.

  Since most of the top riders who would be helping Armstrong in the Tour de France were living in Girona for the season, the blood transfusion operation was centralized there. After the blood draws were done, the blood bags were stored in a small refrigerator in Armstrong’s closet, each of them labeled with a code name in case they were confiscated by authorities.

  The Postal team riders weren’t the only ones who were doing transfusions. Jan Ullrich, who would be Armstrong’s chief rival in the upcoming Tour, was getting stronger, thanks to a renewed commitment to doping. Ullrich and his trainer had backed off doping after the Festina scandal, on the assumption that everyone else in the field would, too; but they realized, after the 2002 race, that their logic was flawed. Through the gossip in the peloton, they heard that the US Postal team had indeed stopped using EPO but was doing blood transfusions instead. So they began to look for discreet ways to conduct their own blood transfusions. They were playing doping catch-up, but they were confident that they were closing the gap on Armstrong.

  • • •

  By June, Landis’s hip was better and Hincapie was on the mend. Both men were now looking well enough to race in the Tour the following month, which was good news for the Postal team.

  The news was not all good, however. There were whispers around the team that Kristin was filing for divorce and that lawyers were already involved. Armstrong was racing a lighter schedule than usual in 2003, focusing most of his energies on getting ready for the Tour, but he was having trouble avoiding distractions.

  Among those distractions was the book about Armstrong that Irish reporter David Walsh was known to be writing. Armstrong knew Walsh had been gathering sources for his book, and that one of his sources was Emma O’Reilly, the Irish masseuse and his former soigneur. O’Reilly told Walsh that she had transported drugs for Armstrong while working on the team, and that Armstrong had all but confessed to her that he used drugs. “Now you know enough to bring me down,” she quoted him as saying to her in 1999, during the Tour de France. Another of Walsh’s sources was Steve Swart, the Kiwi on the Coors Light squad who had accepted the $50,000 payment for helping Armstrong win $1 million. Swart later switched to the Motorola team and had raced alongside Armstrong in 1995. Swart, who by then was living a quiet life in New Zealand and had nothing to lose by speaking with Walsh, told him that Armstrong had been an advocate for using EPO. Swart didn’t much care for Armstrong and he figured that getting out the truth about cycling would ultimately be good for the sport, helping to reduce the pressure to dope.

  Even as Walsh was gathering his evidence, Johan Bruyneel was doing everything he could to hold the team together and keep the riders focused on the Tour de France. Before they got there, however, there was one more critical race: the Dauphiné Libéré.

  After a slow start, Armstrong won the time trial on the fourth day of the Dauphiné, taking the race lead. It was a sign that he was coming into form. But on the next day in the mountains, Armstrong was beaten in a sprint finish by Basque Spaniard Iban Mayo, who was looking like another potential rival for Armstrong in the Tour de France. Armstrong and Mayo stayed neck and neck for the rest of the race. Armstrong never shook him, but Mayo never ate into Armstrong’s lead. On the final mountain stage, Mayo beat Armstrong up the Galibier, but the race did not finish there. Armstrong chased Mayo down on the descent, carving up the corners of the road at more than fifty miles per hour. It was a harrowing, life-threatening, thrilling performance. Armstrong walked away with the lead, but he was hardly as dominating in the mountains as he had been in the past.

  After the June victory, Armstrong got an e-mail from Frankie Andreu. After retiring from racing, Andreu worked for two seasons as director of the Postal’s US squad. Now he was doing on-air commentary for the television station Outdoor Life Network, which would be broadcasting every stage of the Tour de France live on cable in the United States. Until then, American viewers had never been able to watch all of the Tour; instead, they were limited to highlights on CBS. But because interest in Armstrong was now running so high in the States, there would be much fuller coverage—which was of direct benefit to Andreu, who loved his role on the network.

  In the note, Andreu complimented Armstrong on his descending ability when he caught up with Mayo on the downhill.

  Finally!!! a chance to go ballistic on the downhill and show your skills. That must have been fun and Mayo’s jaw must have hit the ground when you finally caught him . . . ciao . . . frankie.

  Armstrong replied:

  yep, it was pretty fun . . . there are some stupid-crazy mofos out there as you well know. bottom line. it was a hard DL to win. much harder than i expected. that mayo(nnaise) was attacking his ass off. and fast too. hope you’re well. La.

  And then Armstrong expressed his worries about Walsh’s book in a note he added at the bottom of the e-mail:

  ps. emma o’reilly has gone psycho and decided to spew to david walsh. she’s nuts . . . has he called you? surely he has.

  Andreu didn’t know how Armstrong had gotten the info about O’Reilly. But Armstrong always knew things first. He was the most talented gossip in the professional racing circuit.

  Frankie responded:

  I was just wondering the other day about Emma and what she is doing. Walsh tried to contact me in April and June through a third party. I told Walsh, through the third party, that I could not talk with him. So, technically, I have not spoken or met the guy yet. I’m sure he will probably try to track me down at the Tour.

  On that note, what is Emma talking about and how do you know he talked with Emma?

  Armstrong’s performance in the four-mile time trial that opened the Tour de France that year was disappointing. He finished more than 7 seconds behind the day’s fastest time of 7 minutes, 26 seconds. Ullrich had finished ahead of him by 5 seconds. The results mattered more to him symbolically than in any real way, because Armstrong hated to show weakness on the first day of the Tour. The team time trial a few days later allowed Armstrong to regain momentum, leaving him just a second out of the yellow jersey. But the real tests were yet to come. On day nine, a stage that finished atop Alpe d’Huez, Mayo, who had looked so strong in the Dauphiné, won. Armstrong rolled in third, more than 2 minutes later. Unlike his previous trips up that climb, Alpe d’Huez was no fun for Armstrong that year. But his time was good enough to put him in the overall race lead—if only by 40 seconds—over another Spaniard, Joseba Beloki. Ullrich was still lurking, too, down by only a couple of minutes in eighth place. Armstrong was facing the toughest competition he had ever met in the Tour de France.

  Armstrong got a bit of luck the next day, another mountain stage. He was right on Beloki’s wheel on a descent. The two men were screaming down the road at close to fifty miles per hour, when Beloki panicked and hit the brakes. The heat caused by the friction between the brake pads and the wheel, in combination with the heat coming off the road, was so intense that it caused the glue on Beloki’s tire to melt. The tire slid off the rim and soon Beloki’s bike was sliding sideways onto the road. He hit the pavement hard. Armstrong had nowhere to go. To avoid crashing into Beloki, Armstrong veered left, taking his bike off the road and into a field. The course looped around the field, so Armstrong could ride across the field and get back on his bike on the other side. He jumped off his bike to carry it over a ditch and then climbed back on. He had essentially cut the course, but because he was avoiding a crash, this was perfectly legal. He was right back with the lead group of riders, and had averted disaster. Beloki, who was having the race of his life, was seriously injured. The crash en
ded his Tour.

  But by the end of the stage, Armstrong was still nowhere near secure in his lead. Kazakhstani rider Alexander Vinokourov now trailed him by only 21 seconds. Iban Mayo was a minute down and Ullrich was still only about 2 minutes behind. In all of his previous Tour wins, Armstrong had had the race wrapped up by now. Then, on day thirteen: disaster. Armstrong became severely dehydrated during the individual time trial. He finished dry-mouthed and dying of thirst. Ullrich, finally looking like Ullrich again, beat Armstrong by more than a minute. The race was neck and neck. Armstrong lost more time to Ullrich on the next mountain stage, shrinking his lead to a mere 15 seconds. On day sixteen, Armstrong finally had a breakthrough, winning a mountain stage and gaining back 40 seconds on Ullrich. Vinokourov lost more than 2 minutes that day and was now out of the picture, so Lance’s lead was now back up to 1 minute and 7 seconds. It was a lead that could completely evaporate if he didn’t perform in the individual time trial on the penultimate day of the race before Paris.

  The time trial took place on a rainy day in Pornic, France. There were nearly 150 riders who would finish the course that day, but only the last two mattered. Ullrich was the second-to-last rider to be called to the starting gate. Wearing his green Bianchi kit and aerodynamic helmet, he shot out into the rain for his final chance at the yellow jersey. Armstrong was the last out the gate—the honor given to the current leader in the race. As both men pushed themselves to their absolute maximum aerobic capacity, Ullrich was looking stronger. He was chipping away at Armstrong’s lead. But then, Ullrich made a fatal mistake, taking a turn too fast. His tires lost traction on the slick roads and Ullrich hit the ground with a thud. Both of Armstrong’s toughest opponents in the race had been felled by crashes. When Armstrong crossed the finish line, he pumped his fist in the air. He knew there was no way Ullrich could win now.