Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong

by David Walsh

  I look back on the last thirteen years and see them in the light of W.B. Yeats’ two poems dealing with a critical time in Irish history: ‘September 1913’ and ‘Easter, 1916’. Back in 2003, when I decided to do that first interview, I really wanted to bring change to the sport; others felt the same and we were the revolutionaries of September 1913:

  But little time had they to pray/For whom the hangman’s rope was spun/And what, God help us, could they save?

  We were persecuted, that’s for sure, and what were we trying to save? But it is right that we spoke up, and I won’t ever regret that. The fact that the USADA report got to the bottom of everything and showed us exactly what was going on is a good thing. I’m pleased for the people who had the courage to tell the truth: the witnesses and the journalists. There weren’t that many, really.

  In ‘Easter, 1916’ Yeats writes of Major John MacBride, a man he didn’t like:

  This other man I dreamed/A drunken vainglorious lout./He had done most bitter wrong/To some who are near to my heart.

  I think of those lines and, yes, I think of Lance and Johan and the wrongs they did to so many. They weren’t drunken but they were vainglorious. But it is the central theme from ‘Easter, 1916’ that most applies to what we’ve seen in cycling over the last few months. Yeats writes about the execution of the Irish patriots after the Easter rising, deaths which directly led to Ireland gaining its independence:

  I write it out in verse/McDonagh and MacBride/And Connolly and Pearse/Now and in time to be/Wherever green is worn/Are changed, changed utterly:/A terrible beauty is born.

  The honesty did help to bring the truth into the open and make sure that people who deserved to be punished were punished. But as Yeats thought about 1916, too much blood was spilt: I think there was too much stress and acrimony and damage in finding the truth in our little cycling story.

  A terrible beauty. Then and now.

  Frankie Andreu knew Lance Armstrong for so many years. I remember the closeness that grew between myself and Paul when we would talk cycling all day long on the rue Kléber back in 1984. What must it have been like for those two guys? They came to live and ride in Europe in the early nineties. Together all the time. Eating together, talking together, socialising together. And training together, those endless rides near Lake Como, then Nice; for a time Frankie was like a brother to Lance.

  He married Betsy, though, a remarkable woman who held him to a higher standard of behaviour than Lance ever would. I asked Frankie to write to me about his reaction to the 22 October denouement. ‘What you want?’ he asked, in the straight-up tone that prompted his friends to call him Ajax, after the abrasive little blue particles in the washing powder. Betsy asked him what he’d written about her. ‘Not much, ’ he replied. ‘Just the matter-of-fact stuff I was asked for.’ She went off on one.

  When Betsy lets rip, it’s better to let the storm blow itself out. Frankie did that, taking the buffeting in his usual calm way. She would later say, ‘Why didn’t you stop me and tell me what you wrote?’ and he replied, ‘Why didn’t you slow down or even pause, and give me the chance to speak?’

  That story is so Frankie and Betsy, as close a couple as I’ve ever seen.

  This is what Frankie actually wrote:

  I don’t remember where I was when the UCI upheld the decision on Armstrong. It didn’t matter. To me the truth was out there with the USADA report, and whatever happened after that wasn’t my problem. I was tired of defending myself, tired of Lance Armstrong, and I was ready to get his name out of my household. It had finally come to an end.

  To say the last few years were stressful would be an understatement. The financial uncertainties were a stress I had to deal with. At times, I was at a complete loss at how to balance pushing for the truth yet trying to maintain my place in cycling. This led to many arguments between my wife and me. Sometimes I wanted to talk and she didn’t want to; sometimes she wanted to talk and I didn’t want to. I usually lost the battle. It started in 2006 with the SCA subpoena. I had left for the Tour de France, and she was left home alone to receive the brunt of the Armstrong attacks. There were many long phone calls, she shed many tears, and was angry that what was being portrayed of her was not correct. She knew the sport had a problem, that I was involved with part of that problem, and it was time to change that. Her upbringing and ethics directed her actions. She showed me that not caving in, and standing up for yourself, can set you free.

  This didn’t come without a price. Many times mean things were said, or we’d ignore each other; many nights we went to bed mad at each other. Over time some things became evident that I didn’t realise before: Betsy was so strong-willed and determined. She stuck to her convictions like none other. We had supporters behind the scenes but we also had many detractors. The hateful messages would arrive and the fury in her would rise. She had the courage that I didn’t have. As time went by I realised that her part in this was an important role – she gave a sound to our voice. No longer was the loudspeaker of lies repeatedly coming from the Lance camp the only sound that was heard. She knew the only way to reveal the truth was to defend herself at all costs. In doing so she defended me, and for that I’m thankful.

  But right now, in this café off the M25, I feel no joy at Pat McQuaid’s volte-face over USADA and Armstrong. Somebody once said that fate is the thing you meet on the road you took to avoid fate. Oddly, today should have been the 30th birthday of our son John, killed on his bicycle seventeen years ago.

  The thing about the Armstrong scandal was that, even in 1999, the year of his first victory, you didn’t need to be Woodward or Bernstein to get it. On the afternoon the American delivered his first great performance in the Alps, the stage to Sestriere, many journalists in the salle de presse laughed at the ease with which Armstrong ascended. He climbed with the nonchalance of the well doped.

  And now on this day, as I sit in this café, Armstrong has finally gone down: 22 October, John’s birthday. I ring Betsy, in whose slipstream I have travelled for almost ten years. I tell her it’s John’s birthday and, though she’s far away in Michigan, I can feel her sadness.

  ‘It’s his birthday, ’ she says in a whisper. ‘This is his little gift to you.’

  It’s a nice thought.

  Acknowledgements

  I don’t wish to bore you any further, but some people deserve to be thanked.

  I hope that those deserving the greatest credit have been properly recognised in the story. What set Emma O’Reilly, Betsy Andreu, Stephen Swart and Greg LeMond apart was their willingness to tell the truth at a time when there was nothing in it for them except vilification and other forms of bullying. They were one part of my motivation. Those riders who rode clean in the darkest days were the other. I don’t know Christophe Bassons, Gilles Delion and many others, but as long as there were riders saying no to doping, we had a cause worth fighting for.

  My first experience of seeing how riding clean could virtually end your pro career came from knowing and being close to Paul Kimmage. The way the sport treated him was demoralising, but through the tough times came the determination never to be another fan with a typewriter. Paul’s integrity has been a constant. At the Olympics in Atlanta, we cut our teeth on the Michelle Smith story and were inspired by the work of our colleague Tom Humphries who is, by some distance, the most talented sportswriter I’ve ever read. A fine man, too.

  There were many journalists/friends who made the journey interesting and offered unflinching support at important moments. Tom Goldman from Northwest Public Radio was one of the first in the US to get the Armstrong story and it didn’t scare him. Charles Pelkey, Gwen Knapp, Alex Wolff and the late Randy Starkman in Canada were always supportive. Pierre Ballester, co-author of L.A. Confidentiel, has long been a great friend.

  So, too, many others. Alex Butler, my sports editor at the Sunday Times, has been friend and supporter. Not many sports editors would have allowed me to pursue the Armstrong story as Alex did, and for that I
shall always be in his debt. Some time ago Alex described Lance as ‘the story that keeps giving’, and he wasn’t wrong. His deputy during the most difficult days was Alan English, who did a fine job then and remains a true friend. At the Sunday Times we knew the truth and were determined to get it out there. Other colleagues – Hugh McIlvanney, Stephen Jones, Jonny Northcroft and Simon Ritter – were also tremendously supportive.

  Along the way there were plenty who thought we were wrong, but others who backed us. I recall an evening at Veyrier-du-Lac near Annecy with Peter Zaballos and his family during a Tour de France – ordinary Americans who loved their country but wanted to know the truth behind Lance Armstrong. Enough people believed that however painful, the truth should be revealed.

  My gratitude is due also to Kerr MacRae, Ian Marshall and the team at Simon & Schuster who did a terrific job in getting the book to the market place. I was introduced to Simon & Schuster by my literary agent Richard Relton, who asked for a ‘ten-minute audition’ and now looks like he’s going to stay around for a bit. I needed time off to write the book and, as always, Alex Butler and the Sunday Times were generous. For solitude, I went to the south coast of Ireland where my brother Brendan and his wife Mary provided a beautiful home and excellent meals on wheels. I also thank their eldest son Brendan for the Brad Pitt quote from Se7en that appears in the epigraph at the front.

  My own family were wonderfully supportive, not to say indulgent, through the Armstrong years. If the story hadn’t been so damn interesting, I would never have got away with it. Our kids didn’t always eat their vegetables, but they never did boring.

  Photographs

  1. John Walsh, almost two, sitting on Paul Kimmage’s bike, wearing Paul’s ACBB gear, and looking serene in the front garden of 10 rue Kléber in Paris, 1984.

  2. A scene from the 1984 Tour de France with two of my heroes at the time, Sean Kelly (centre) and Stephen Roche. Eighteen years later I would be invited onto Ireland’s number one television programme, The Late, Late Show, to debate with Roche evidence that appeared to show he was given EPO by Dr Francesco Conconi.

  3. Two weeks short of his 22nd birthday, Lance Armstrong became the third youngest world road race champion when winning in Oslo in August 1993.

  4. After spending 1997 recovering from testicular cancer, Lance Armstrong returned to racing with US Postal in 1998 and is seen here in his home city, Austin, with the State Capitol Building in the background, before setting off on a training ride.

  5. Postal team member Jonathan Vaughters plays doctor as he and Armstrong goof around at the medical before the 1999 Tour de France. According to Emma O’Reilly, this was the occasion that Lance asked her to use her makeup to cover needle marks on his arm.

  6. After feigning fatigue earlier, Armstrong was strong on the final climb to Alpe d’Huez in the 2001 Tour de France. In control, he had the energy to turn and check on his rivals, especially the German Jan Ullrich. This became known as ‘the look’.

  7. At a press conference in the Tour of Georgia when Armstrong announced he would retire after the 2005 Tour de France. Alongside him, the ever-present (at least from ’99) Johan Bruyneel at his right shoulder.

  8. Armstrong returned to professional cycling in January 2009 when he competed in the Cancer Council classic in Australia and he would be part of the peloton for a further two years.

  9. Though Armstrong had the yellow jersey seven times on the Champs-Élysées and Floyd Landis once, Greg LeMond now stands as the only official winner of the Tour de France to have come from the United States. Here LeMond stands above his Z teammates after winning in 1990.

  10. 23 July 2006 seemed like the happiest day of Floyd Landis’s sporting life as he enjoyed the triumphal ride down the Champs-Élysées after winning the Tour de France. The following week everything turned sour as Landis was told of the positive drug test that would take away his victory and destroy his reputation.

  11. At the height of their powers, US Postal was the dominant team in the peloton and here, at Spain’s Bicicleta Vasca in May 2001 are four of their strongest: (L-R) Robert Heras, Lance Armstrong, Tyler Hamilton and Jose Luis Rubiera.

  12. A smiling Dr Michele Ferrari first teamed up with Armstrong in 1995 and he would have a significant input until the rider’s final retirement in 2010. According to USADA’s report, Armstrong paid Dr Ferrari over $1 million in fees.

  13. Armstrong’s agent/manager since 1995, Bill Stapleton is a former vice-president of the United States Olympic Committee and was part of the committee that helped bring the United States Anti-Doping Agency into being.

  14. Frankie and Betsy Andreu suffered both professionally and personally because of their willingness to tell the truth in the story of Lance Armstrong, but the more stress that came their way the closer they felt as a couple.

  15. Emma O’Reilly, massaging Armstrong’s legs during her time with the US Postal team, and twelve years after she left the team. Her 2003 interview was the single–most important contribution to understanding the culture of doping in the US Postal team until Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton broke the law of silence in 2010 and 2011.

  16. L.A. Confidentiel became a bestseller in France but didn’t go down so well in the world of Lance Armstrong and would be the cause of multiple lawsuits.

  17. Pierre Ballester, co-author of L.A. Confidentiel, has most recently written a book about his sister Anne who has lived with the Yanomami people in the Amazon for the last eighteen years.

  18. Sandro Donati, the Italian anti-doping campaigner who has done so much to expose corruption in his own country.

  19. Quietly spoken Stephen Swart was the first witness to alert the world to Lance Armstrong’s doping when giving an interview to New Zealand Herald journalist Phil Taylor in 1997.

  20. Travis Tygart, chief executive officer of USADA, whose investigation into Lance Armstrong would reveal the truth behind the story of the ‘seven-time Tour winner’.

  21. The Edenbridge Bonfire Society in Kent, south-east England, burnt a 10-metre effigy of Lance Armstrong on 3 November as part of the community’s traditional Guy Fawkes’ night celebrations.

  22. After the decision of the UCI to accept USADA’s report stripping Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles, the former champion then changed his profile on Twitter, deleting the words ‘7-time Tour de France winner’. A couple of weeks later Armstrong was more defiant, posting a photograph of himself in the company of his seven yellow jerseys at home in Austin.

  1. John Walsh, almost two, sitting on Paul Kimmage’s bike, wearing Paul’s ACBB gear, and looking serene in the front garden of 10 rue Kléber in Paris, 1984.

  2. A scene from the 1984 Tour de France with two of my heroes at the time, Sean Kelly (centre) and Stephen Roche. Eighteen years later I would be invited onto Ireland’s number one television programme, The Late, Late Show, to debate with Roche evidence that appeared to show he was given EPO by Dr Francesco Conconi.

  3. Two weeks short of his 22nd birthday, Lance Armstrong became the third youngest world road race champion when winning in Oslo in August 1993.

  4. After spending 1997 recovering from testicular cancer, Lance Armstrong returned to racing with US Postal in 1998 and is seen here in his home city, Austin, with the State Capitol Building in the background, before setting off on a training ride.

  5. Postal team member Jonathan Vaughters plays doctor as he and Armstrong goof around at the medical before the 1999 Tour de France. According to Emma O’Reilly, this was the occasion that Lance asked her to use her makeup to cover needle marks on his arm.

  6. After feigning fatigue earlier, Armstrong was strong on the final climb to Alpe d’Huez in the 2001 Tour de France. In control, he had the energy to turn and check on his rivals, especially the German Jan Ullrich. This became known as ‘the look’.

  7. At a press conference in the Tour of Georgia when Armstrong announced he would retire after the 2005 Tour de France. Alongside him, the ever-present (at least from ’99) Johan Bruyne
el at his right shoulder.

  8. Armstrong returned to professional cycling in January 2009 when he competed in the Cancer Council classic in Australia and he would be part of the peloton for a further two years.

  9. Though Armstrong had the yellow jersey seven times on the Champs-Élysées and Floyd Landis once, Greg LeMond now stands as the only official winner of the Tour de France to have come from the United States. Here LeMond stands above his Z teammates after winning in 1990.

  10. 23 July 2006 seemed like the happiest day of Floyd Landis’s sporting life as he enjoyed the triumphal ride down the Champs-Élysées after winning the Tour de France. The following week everything turned sour as Landis was told of the positive drug test that would take away his victory and destroy his reputation.

  11. At the height of their powers, US Postal was the dominant team in the peloton and here, at Spain’s Bicicleta Vasca in May 2001 are four of their strongest: (L-R) Robert Heras, Lance Armstrong, Tyler Hamilton and Jose Luis Rubiera.

  12. A smiling Dr Michele Ferrari first teamed up with Armstrong in 1995 and he would have a significant input until the rider’s final retirement in 2010. According to USADA’s report, Armstrong paid Dr Ferrari over $1 million in fees.

  13. Armstrong’s agent/manager since 1995, Bill Stapleton is a former vice-president of the United States Olympic Committee and was part of the committee that helped bring the United States Anti-Doping Agency into being.