Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong

by David Walsh

  McQuaid wasn’t president in ‘99 but still, listening now, I hear only brazenness.

  But this is a momentous day. Armstrong himself will soon change the profile on his Twitter page, removing the five words ‘7-time Tour de France winner’. He’s history now, another ageing story of cheating and lying and doping and bullying and sport that wasn’t sport. An icon until the mask was taken away. ‘The greatest heist sport has ever seen, ’ says Travis Tygart, chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

  I think back to the kid I met in 1993, when I interviewed Armstrong in the first week of his debut Tour. We talked for three hours in a hotel garden outside Grenoble and got on well. He was a Texan in France, so uncool you warmed to him, and if his American gaucheness didn’t win you over, his need to succeed did. Nothing was going to get in the way.

  Was he always the same man? He doped before cancer, but when he came back he was harder, more focused, less tolerant of failure and, yes, less concerned by the path to victory. He’d had four shots at the Tour, his best finish was 36th. After cancer he returned a changed man: physically, psychologically and chemically enhanced. From him we learned there was a doping programme and there was an élite doping programme. He had moved up in the world.

  Readers of the Sunday Times were mostly disgusted by what I wrote. Keith Miller’s put-down touched a nerve. ‘Sometimes people get a cancer of the spirit. And maybe that says a lot about them.’

  You think you’re impermeable, until someone says you’ve got cancer of the spirit.

  For thirteen years, this story has been a central part of my life. Mary, my wife, has lived it more than anyone. While I have been away writing this book, she emailed her thoughts.

  When Lance Armstrong first came into our lives thirteen years ago, I never dreamt he would have the impact he had. I don’t think of it as good or bad, just ever present. We have six children and meal time was question time. If I had to sum up what the kids thought, it would be that they believed their dad when he said Lance was doping but they also felt it would never come out. ‘You’re not going to be able to prove it, Dad.’

  Dave was always very passionate about the story. For the right reasons, I felt. He wanted people to see Lance for the person he really was. When people told me my husband was obsessed by Lance, I didn’t feel he was. But Lance followed us everywhere; to dinner parties, weddings, gatherings in the village hall; there was always someone who had a question, often there was a line of five or six. And then there were the journalists, the TV crews who came to our house. Once, as Dave was leaving the house to play golf, he shouted back to me that there was a TV crew coming later in the day but he would be home before they arrived. They were from Canada and they got to our house two hours before Dave. What’s a woman meant to do?

  My friend Fiona tells me there were times when I was afraid Lance Armstrong would cost Dave his job, and I suppose I must have been at one time. When the end came for Lance, and he was finally stripped of those titles, in a strange way I felt sorry for him. I was sorry that so much of his life was spent earning the admiration of people from all over the world and then to have himself exposed . . . You might imagine our dinner table isn’t as lively now but, believe it or not, there are still lots of questions from us about Lance.

  My final memory is of sharing Dave for a number of years with Betsy. I’d walk into his office, he’d be on the phone and, before I’d say a word, he’d say, ‘It’s only Betsy.’ How many times did I hear that!

  Now, on this day, 22 October 2012, the game is up for Armstrong. ‘Vindicated’ is the word every interviewer uses. Quickly I grow to dislike ‘vindicated’. It is not how I feel. I didn’t need McQuaid to tell me what he and I both knew. What satisfaction there is comes from the meaning it has for a group of people that had, in one way or another, contributed to the search for truth in this story.

  I thought of Christophe Bassons and how his persecution on the 1999 Tour de France was the defining moment in my reaction to Lance Armstrong. Back then, it was obvious you could not be anti-doping and anti-Bassons. Impossible. But they ran him out of town and at the head of the lynch mob, lacking only a white hood and length of rope, was Armstrong.

  Bassons left pro cycling long before he should have. His trainer, Antoine Vayer, told him to go back to education. That’s what he did and now he works for the French Ministry of Sport in the Bordeaux region, making sure that sport is properly organised and, where there should be doping controls, they are in place and properly executed.

  Asked how he felt on 22 October, when his old nemesis went down, this is what Christophe wrote:

  The news that Lance Armstrong was stripped of his Tour wins brings no great joy to me, just an appreciation that justice has been done. He cheated; it was important that this was established and that he was sanctioned. It was also important to establish that the people who questioned his performances were not bitter, but true and honest.

  I have no regrets about what I did in 1999. The way Armstrong treated me in that Tour was a reflection of his character and the manner in which he imposed his will on the peloton. He was the only one to say to my face what the other riders were thinking of me. If they had had the opportunity or the intelligence to create the empire he made, they would have done exactly the same. They weren’t any more honest than he was, just less intelligent and courageous. They have no right to point a finger at him, like some have already done.

  Having said that, I was surprised at the influence he had on his teammates in threatening and inciting them to dope. It reminded me of how things were at Festina a few years before. Richard Virenque, like Armstrong, was not easy on his teammates, especially those who disagreed with him.

  For the moment I think it’s probably better to stay in the present and allow Lance Armstrong to explain himself to the American justice system. The world of sport should forget him but should not destroy him psychologically. Armstrong is still a human being with an individual personality that was built during his childhood. I know he had a difficult childhood, which might explain his need to win at all costs, even if that meant not respecting other people.

  Today I feel more pity than contempt for him. I always preferred to be in my position than in his. I am honest, straight and happy. I don’t think he can say the same.

  Contrary to what some people believe, Laurent Jalabert [the former cyclist and now television commentator] in particular, I do not consider Lance Armstrong to be a great champion. He was just someone who was prepared to abandon his morals to win at all costs. His is a story of failure and nothing else.

  The spotlight now should not be on Lance Armstrong but on a sport that is still gangrenous with doping and deceit. The Tour de France 2012 did not reassure me.

  Bassons showed us there were two ways of riding the Tour de France, and that you couldn’t support both. And you couldn’t sit on the fence. His was the side to be on, and the only cancer of the spirit in cycling was in those injecting chemicals into their veins every morning.

  Once upon a time professional cycling enthralled me, tapping into my innocence and winging me off to a world that was beautifully simple and richly complex. On the same day, a stage of the Tour de France can push a man further than ever he’s gone and still seem like chess on wheels. In those unsuspecting years, when EPO hadn’t come with its power to distort and poison, Greg LeMond was the greatest cyclist ever I saw – so blessed with natural talent it seemed almost unfair on his rivals.

  He had once been a supporter of Lance Armstrong, but the relationship turned ugly as time went on. Greg’s legacy as a brilliant and clean cyclist was always greater than anything Lance could achieve. That didn’t stop Lance. He hurt Greg, professionally and personally. In the three years after 2001, we talked a lot and Greg went through a lot of tough times. Without Kathy, he mightn’t have got to the other side. I asked Kathy LeMond how she felt on 22 October:

  I felt some anxiety leading up to the UCI decision. I have always known that t
he leaders of the UCI shouldn’t be trusted to make an unbiased decision, but felt that they were going to rule in the only way they could to save themselves, at least temporarily. This meant they had to find Lance guilty. He needed to be kicked out of the Tour in 1999, but the system didn’t work.

  When this all came out there was no joyous whooping it up at our house. This sport and our family have been through too much for that. To me this was like a criminal trial in which the accused is found guilty. The crime has happened and the victims are grieving. Yes, the accountability feels good but there is no joy, more a feeling of relief. There are others who have not yet been held accountable for their actions and I hope that those verdicts will be coming.

  Greg’s reputation, our business, our children’s teenage years, were all consumed by a vicious vendetta against Greg and our family because we wouldn’t go along with the lies. Greg and I made the decision that, even though the fall-out would be terrible, there was no other option but to be honest about what we knew. The kids were with us when we told the truth about Lance Armstrong, so it strengthened our family to be in this ordeal together. They always supported their dad.

  I imagine that maybe I could feel sorry for Lance, but not after so many years of interfering in our life. No way. He was different to others. There seemed to be no limit to his ability to insert himself into all areas of our life. It was really sick.

  It is interesting that he’s on Twitter and taking photos with his seven yellow jerseys. That, to me, really shows that he is different to the average person. Where is the shame? I don’t see any. No apology to all those whose lives and careers were destroyed; people duped for years into believing his story – nothing for them. We all heard his speech on the podium at the Tour de France chastising people for questioning his performances: how do you get to be like that?

  It is a great disappointment to me that it took so many years for ex-teammates and staff to commit to unravelling the story. All those riders that participated only told their stories with their backs against the wall. I know it will seem ungracious to ask now, but how do you keep silent when so many innocents are being destroyed?

  Greg lost so much in this ordeal. He had the courage to say things that needed to be said, and it was unpopular, but he was authentic. Truly, David, as Greg and you said almost twelve years ago, it was either the greatest comeback in the history of sport or the greatest fraud. We know now.

  And my oldest friend, Paul Kimmage? We have ridden side by side through all this. Innocents before this war started, we’re jaded veterans now. In the war against doping in sport, you need moral certainty, and Paul has that. It fuels his courage. He once reminded me what Sam said in Lord of the Rings: ‘There’s some good in the world, Mr Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.’ Paul takes off the gloves, fights bare-knuckled, but he’s always on the side of right.

  I asked him how he felt on that Monday:

  I lost count of the number of times I celebrated Armstrong’s demise since his miraculous escape from the corticosteroid positive in 1999. There were the TV images of Del Moral dumping his syringes in 2000: That’s it. He’s fucked.

  The revelation that he was working with Ferrari in 2001: That’s it. He’s fucked.

  The publication of L.A. Confidentiel in 2004: That’s it. He’s fucked.

  The L’Équipe investigation and that brilliant – sorry, I’m biased – front page: LE MENSONGE ARMSTRONG in August 2005: That’s it. He’s fucked.

  The SCA trial in October 2005: That’s it. He’s fucked.

  The Floyd Landis emails in April 2010: That’s it. He’s fucked.

  The news, three months later, that he was the subject of a federal investigation being led by Jeff Novitzky: That’s it. He’s fucked.

  Thirteen years of false dawns and wasteful swearing.

  I’m not sure how I felt when he was finally nailed by USADA. I used the word ‘elated’ a couple of times, but it didn’t feel that good; I was happy but not elated. And I didn’t feel as high as I felt low, in February, when the federal investigation was dropped. That was not a good night chez nous, believe me: That’s it. Untouchable!

  I was absolutely disconsolate.

  It was scant consolation that Travis Tygart picked up the baton. How would he succeed when Novitzky had failed? But succeed he most certainly did. He delivered the truth, turned the fiction into fact and the icon into a pariah.

  Touchable! Take a bow, Eliot Ness.

  But, Paul, what about my genteel coffee-table book about the last thirteen years? That’s it. Fucked.

  I think too of what this day means for Charles Pelkey, with whom I shared a car and a journey through the moral maze at the 1999 Tour. It was more fun than it should have been. When I recall Lance’s endless quotes about how hard he worked, as if he’d invented the concept, I think of Charles and imagine there isn’t a cyclist out there who has worked harder than Charles. Once I got a text message from him at a little after eleven o’clock in the morning, UK time. I called. ‘Charles, you’re up late.’ It was a little after four in the morning in Laramie. ‘Actually, ’ he said. ‘I’ve just got up. The only way for me to combine my job while studying for a law degree is to start my day at four a.m.’

  Charles would weigh the facts and come to his own conclusions. He’s a lawyer now and I imagine that limber mind serves him well. Now that Lance was being excised from cycling history, I wanted to know what Charles was thinking. I could be sure that he was actually thinking:

  I have to admit that back in 1999, getting ready for the first post-Festina Tour, I was convinced that this brash young Texan, who had battled back from stage iv cancer, could well be the vanguard of a new era in cycling. In a way, I was right, but for all the wrong reasons.

  How could, one reasoned, anyone who’d faced death and suffered through cancer, surgery and chemotherapy, put his life and health at risk by taking dangerous drugs? It was a point Armstrong himself made in an interview on NPR just days before the Tour. I bought the argument. Not for long, though.

  I had the privilege of spending that ‘99 Tour with David Walsh, along with my good friend Rupert Guinness and my boss, John Wilcockson. Four men packed into a small car for three weeks, with the topic of conversation invariably drifting to the question of doping. Walsh had arrived at the Tour with a healthy level of scepticism; scepticism that was bolstered when a sample Armstrong submitted on the day of the prologue tested positive for corticosteroids.

  No, I didn’t buy the back-dated prescription (but I did dutifully report Armstrong’s explanation). By the time we reached Paris there were many in the press room openly asking questions about Armstrong’s stellar performance, particularly the French, who’d had their national Tour nearly destroyed by drug scandal just a year earlier.

  The questions led to that now infamous response from Mr Armstrong, who was clearly tiring of the ‘wrong’ kind of attention he was receiving: ‘Monsieur Le Monde, are you calling me a liar or a doper?’ Actually, Lance, ‘Monsieur Le Monde’ was calling you both, and the intervening thirteen years proved he had every right to do so.

  For me, the Lance story pretty much ended the day USADA released its 200-page ‘Reasoned Decision’, bolstered by nearly 1000 pages of supporting evidence and affidavits. Now no longer a cycling journalist, I nonetheless blew off an entire day’s work in my law office to read as much of that document dump as I could manage.

  I’ve said it before and I will say it again: reading USADA’s file struck me as if I was reading the unabridged version of L.A. Confidentiel: Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong. For McQuaid to stand there and decry Armstrong’s destructive impact on the sport of cycling was akin to the madam of a bordello waxing indignant about the decline of sexual morality in her community. It lacked a certain degree of sincerity.

  So, on 22 October, I didn’t really think much about Lance Armstrong. I thought more about people like Betsy and Frankie Andreu, Emma O’Reilly, Greg LeMond, David Walsh, Pierre Ballester, Paul Kimmage and count
less others who were attacked, belittled and even sued by Armstrong’s formidable legal team.

  I thought about people like Oakley’s athlete liaison, Stephanie McIlvain, who was clearly the victim of bullying and intimidation and never did talk for fear of losing a job she used to support a disabled child. I thought also of admitted dopers, like Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton, whose own testimony served as the thread that, once pulled, unravelled the myth much like a two-dollar sweater.

  I also spent a bit of time thinking about the tenacious CEO of USADA, Travis Tygart, who actually spent time listening to those people and used his considerable resources to take down someone who, for years, thought he was somehow immune to scrutiny. He wasn’t.

  What’s more, I spent time thinking about the cynical exploitation of a disease suffered by millions around the globe, by a man who used what could otherwise be deemed ‘good works’ as a shield to distract the inquisitive from raising questions about his flawed character. Having recently suffered through three surgeries and five months of chemotherapy myself, I resented the self-aggrandising attitude displayed by the man many of us in the press corps came to call ‘Cancer Jesus’.

  No, for me, 22 October’s UCI announcement was not a milestone. It merely served as the final nail in a coffin that should have been six feet under years before.

  Strange thing. When Pat McQuaid threw down the card which he hoped might be the final card in the game, it was the champion bridge player Bob Hamman who had most cause to smile. He was the man sitting on the only sworn testimonies in the entire case. Bob read L.A. Confidentiel and decided to withhold a $5 million bonus he owed to Lance Armstrong for winning the 2004 Tour. Everybody went into court and swore to tell the truth. Now we know that some lied.

  As a player of cards, Bob is one of the best. Bridge, gin rummy, poker, it doesn’t matter. ‘Please, ’ he says, in that slow Texas drawl of his, ‘don’t mention the poker. I’m tired of saying no to people wanting me to play that game.’ Now, eight years after deciding he shouldn’t have to pay the bonus to a man he believed cheated, the man from the SCA has some good cards in his hand.