Table Of ContentLANCED
The shaming of Lance Armstrong
Copyright© Times Newspapers Ltd 2012
All rights reserved, not to be copied or reproduced without permission
Contents
Introduction
Riding out the storm in yellow
Flawed fairytale
Poison in the heart of sport
Puzzling silence of an inspirational fighter
Pharmacy on wheels becomes a sick joke
When the lying had to stop
Saddled with suspicion
Paradise lost on Tour
Stopwatch brings uncertain time for Tour
Chorus of boos sounds like lost innocence
Beautiful and the damned
LA confidential
The battle and the war
Armstrong the iron ruler
Champ or cheat?
The clean machine
Blood, sweat and fears
The loneliness of the long-distance cyclist
A cycle of deceit
It’s not about the bike, it’s about the drugs
Riding into a storm
Off yer bike!
Broken on the wheel of truth
'I hope Lance can tell the truth. We were part of a screwed-up world'
The women who stood up to the bully
Lance, the lies and me
Foreword
One line sticks out in all the many thousands of words written about Lance
Armstrong. It was a quote from Greg LeMond, the first American winner —
indeed, now officially the only American winner — of the Tour de France.
Talking about Armstrong’s recovery from cancer to win the race, he said:
“If Lance is clean, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sport. If he isn’t, it
would be the greatest fraud.”
LeMond spoke those words in 2001 but it was only this year that
Armstrong was unmasked as one of sport’s most notorious cheats. That he was
finally brought to justice was in no small part the result of the tireless efforts of
David Walsh, the chief sports writer of The Sunday Times.
As this collection reveals, Walsh knew something wasn’t right about
Armstrong’s amazing recovery from cancer as early as 1999, when the Texan
won his first Tour (all his seven consecutive victories have now been expunged
from the record books). That year was supposed to be about redeeming the race
after the drug busts of the previous year, but, incredibly, Armstrong was riding
the race faster than the drug-assisted competitors of previous years.
Walsh was one of the few journalists who dared to doubt the miracle of the
cancer survivor who had come back nearly from the dead to win arguably the
toughest race in sport. As the years went by, the other reporters largely melted
away, feeling that if they could not tell the truth about the race and its winner,
they didn’t want to write anything about it at all.
Walsh, however, persisted, exposing Armstrong’s links to Michele Ferrari,
a disgraced doping doctor, and gradually piecing together evidence of
Armstrong’s guilt, through first-hand testimony from those who had witnessed
him taking performance-enhancing drugs.
The combination of Armstrong’s hold over the sport of cycling and
Britain’s libel laws was to prove costly for The Sunday Times. The newspaper
was sued for libel by Armstrong after we published a report (reprinted here with
the headline 'LA confidential') about a new book by Walsh and a French
journalist. The case was eventually settled for a six-figure sum, although The
Sunday Times is now taking steps to recover the money spent in damages and
legal fees.
Here we present Walsh’s articles, and a number written by other colleagues
on The Sunday Times. They show the tenacity with which the newspaper
pursued Armstrong and the drug cheats. Of course, they are of their time, and
should be taken as historical documents, recording the best of our knowledge on
any particular date.
As a whole, they represent some of the finest investigative reporting in
British journalism in recent times.
Alex Butler, Sports Editor, The Sunday Times
November 2012
Riding out the storm in yellow
David Walsh
July 18, 1999
"
I can still write about cycling, but not in the same way, not with the old passion.
Cycling has to change
"
A year ago the police moved in and found drugs wherever they looked:
Willy Voet's car, the riders' suitcases, the team's camper van. Had the Tour been
a low-class casino, it would have been shut down. Scandals fell like boulders
onto the route, but the race weaved its way round them and on to Paris. They
said it was a sad Tour. It wasn't. This is the sad Tour. For back then the police
exposed the deceit and offered the sport an opportunity to begin again. Jean
Marie Leblanc, the Tour organiser, said that cycling needed "a new morality"
and that the 1999 race would be "the Tour of Restoration".
It is Tuesday afternoon and Philippe Bouvet sits in the Tour's tented press
room at the Italian ski resort of Sestriere. The son of a professional rider, Bouvet
is L'Equipe's cycling correspondent. For 14 years he has written about the sport
and for most of that time he was driven by his passion.
As the American Lance Armstrong slashes on the pedals and surges clear of
his rivals on the last 6km of the climb to Sestriere, Bouvet watches
dispassionately. To others, Armstrong's victory may be an exploit; Bouvet is one
of many journalists who are not sure.
"There is a new kind of cycling," he said. "You see things you don't
understand. Doping is an old story in cycling, but over the past few years the
manipulation of riders' blood has changed the nature of competition. What we
are getting is a caricature of competition. It is killing the sport. I can still write
about cycling, but not in the same way, not with the old passion. Cycling has to
change."
Armstrong has never tested positive in his career. There is no evidence
linking him to drug taking and yet the reticence to acclaim his success has been
widespread in France. Bouvet wrote of the peloton travelling at "deux vitesses"
(two speeds) - Armstrong's and everybody else's.
There wasn't a hint of celebration in his report. Neither was there in any
other French newspaper. "I haven't written an enthusiastic line about
