Every Second Counts: Book Review

Every Second Counts, Lance Armstrong, and Sally Jenkins, Broadway Books, 2003.

Lance-o-phobes might consider Every Second Counts as a masterpiece of dissimulation.  This estimation would be too simplistic, however.  It is true, Lance Armstrong does a masterful job of denial of doping, he spins a mighty yarn.  Nevertheless, the book is not all about dope.  Lance Armstrong did suffer from a virulent form of invasive testicular cancer that metastasized into his lungs and brain.  Mr. Armstrong was subjected to traumatic chemotherapy, surgeries, and radiation treatments.  Against all odds, Mr. Armstrong fought and survived cancer.  I think Mr. Armstrong created the Lance Armstrong Foundation without mercenary motives: a place where cancer survivors could meet, share experiences, and be consoled by other cancer survivors.  The Lance Armstrong Foundation survives in spite of the personal backlash Mr. Armstrong experienced after the Reasoned Decision and the Oprah doping confession.  The foundation Lance Armstrong created still exists, but the foundation has been re-named Livestrong.  Mr. Armstrong resigned as the leader of the team.  Nevertheless, the Livestrong foundation continues to help people who suffer from the most insidious disease of all, cancer.

Cancer awareness and education is a good thing, after all, we all know someone who suffered from cancer.  My mother had breast cancer, she is a survivor.*  A friend of mine, Collin, was diagnosed with stage IV non-Hodgkin lymphoma.  I was his roommate.  He was a gifted college varsity athlete.  Collin needed a bone marrow transplant.  His stem cells were harvested, his immune system was killed, he was given radiation and chemotherapy treatments.  His stem cells were re-infused.  One fine day while at the University of Utah hospital, Collins' lungs began to cleave cells, he spent days expectorating blood.  Collins' condition deteriorated to the point that he was placed on a "death watch."  But Collin had the will to live and the man beat all odds: his lungs healed, and he was released from the hospital, his cancer in remission.  Then began after-effects.  Collin injected EPO to raise his red blood cell count.  There was little progress.  Collin had a damaged spleen that was cannibalizing his red blood cells, so his spleen was surgically removed.  Then shingles appeared.  Then the bone in his hips suffered severe atrophy; he received bilateral artificial hip replacements.  Then he began to experience cognitive problems with language and reasoning.  Then: unexpectedly, his cancer returned.  After the L'Alpe d'Huez stage during the 2001 Tour de France, the Salt Lake Tribune published a photograph of Lance Armstrong flexing his biceps, over the caption "King of the Hills."  I cut out the photograph and glued it to the wall in the garage where I used to work on my bikes.  Collin declared Lance Armstrong to be his favorite athlete.  Mr. Armstrong meant a great deal to both of us in those days.  Collin died one night in a convalescence home, from a ruptured artery.  Thus ended a valiant battle of a man whose life was terminated in such a sadistic fashion, by such a callous foe: cancer.  I have empathy with cancer patients and survivors; I have seen suffering first hand. I commend the intrepid research being done at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, and at other institutions who are committed to finally ending cancer as a disease once and for all.  I hope a cure is discovered soon, that extends to all cancer types.  In the meantime, never give up hope, ever.

Every Second Counts is a snapshot of happier days for Lance Armstrong, he was still married to Kristin Richard, he was focused on raising his son Luke, he was ecstatic about the birth of his twin daughters, Grace Elizabeth, and Isabelle Rose.  Mr. Armstrong was a loving husband and father, for the moment.  Later, Lance Armstrong divorced "Kik."  Kristin Armstrong lived in Austin, Texas with the children while Lance Armstrong lived in Girona, Spain, in his castle flat with his life in girlfriend Sheryl Crow.  A run amok playboy.  Not so family-focused then, of course.  Later there would be other women with whom Mr. Armstrong would sire children.  The later behavior of Lance Armstrong would tend to reinforce the opinion of the Lance-o-phobes.  Lance Armstrong is nothing more than a narcissistic selfish hedonistic psychopath.

A comment on the rough treatment Sally Jenkins received from the press after she attempted to support Lance Armstrong after the USADA allegations surfaced.  You paragons of virtues who live in glass houses should refrain from casting stones, for if you should stumble, the same fate awaits you.  Leave the poor woman alone.

Lance Armstrong Quotes

"It was not hard to feel that I'd been singled out because I was successful and American."

"Anyone who thought I would go through four cycles of chemo just to risk my life by taking EPO was crazy.  It was one thing to seek to maximize performance or explore a pharmacological grey zone.  It was another to court death."

"Luke's name is Armstrong and people know that name, and when he goes to school I don't want them to say, 'oh yeah, your dad's the big fake, the doper.'  That would just kill me."

The first quote by Lance Armstrong typifies his attitude towards his doping.  Indeed, Armstrong used the same logic when he stormed out of a meeting with Travis Tygart: everyone doped, but I am the only one being punished.  The second quote is a masterpiece of misinformation: what former cancer patient would take risks that might prompt a return of cancer?  Most sound-minded people would agree; the side effects of performance-enhancing drug use is not fully understood; drugs might trigger a genetic predisposition or genetic trait and terminate remission: so why take unnecessary risks?  The third quote, apparently, motivated Lance Armstrong to confess his crimes on Oprah.  Luke was being teased about his doper father, and Lance Armstrong wanted to set the record straight.  Ignoring the sincerity of his motives, these statements provide a window into the psychological makeup of Lance Armstrong as a man.

Tour de France 1999

Right from the start doping allegations plagued the miracle man.  Lance Armstrong was detected using a corticosteroid that was on the WADA prohibited list.  There were people who claimed Lance Armstrong, on his original therapeutic use exemption form filed with the UCI before the race, declared he was not using any forbidden prescribed medications by a doctor essential for his health.  Furthermore, under oath, Emma O' Reilly testified the corticosteroid prescription for saddle sores "that never existed" was backdated by Dr. Luis Garcia del Moral.  David Walsh alleges the UCI was fully cognizant of this prescription forgery.  However, Lance Armstrong would contest these versions of the story insisting he had followed proper protocol.

"I used an analgesic cream that contained corticosteroids to treat a case of saddle sores, so the press reported that I tested positive for a banned substance.  It was untrue.  I had received permission from race authorities to use the cream." P.76.

Nevertheless: during the 1999 Tour de France, the UCI decided to gather samples from selected riders that would be preserved until a suitable test could be developed to detect synthetic EPO: a drug that was being abused with particular virulence at the time.  When these samples were tested in 2004 by the French WADA accredited laboratory LNDD, several samples marked with Lance Armstrong's doping control number tested positive for synthetic EPO.  Lance Armstrong's 1999 Tour de France prologue, and 1999 L'Alpe d'Huez stage samples showed nearly perfect synthetic EPO isoforms.  After the mountain stages had stopped, the collected Lance Armstrong samples showed no sign of further synthetic EPO use, but, the samples did mimic physiological parameters that would be expected after an abrupt cessation of synthetic EPO use.  Of course, these tests generated an amazing amount of controversy, and the certainty of the test results remain debatable.  But, in 2004, the UCI, on the recommendation of Emile Vrijman, refused to suspend any of the riders who tested positive, including Lance Armstrong.  Emile Vrijman in a scathing report cited safety concerns with the WADA accredited Chatenay-Malabry laboratory that rendered the results suspect. Emile Vrijman also chided the behavior of WADA president Dick Pound, who openly opined on numerous occasions a philosophy that anyone suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs was guilty of committing crimes, and contesting the accusation in arbitration against infallible WADA was nothing more than a deceitful ruse on the part of the athlete.  Christiane Ayotte remarked that she found the LNDD results "surprising" due to the fact that stored EPO samples would degrade over time, thus the quantitative content of EPO in the samples could not produce the almost perfect isoform values measured at LNDD.  Christiane Ayotte also wondered if the prevailing attitude among the alphabet agencies was drifting toward acceptance of unverified "positive" samples.  The "A" samples of the 1999 Tour de France were not available in 2004 for testing.  Nevertheless, these "positive" results did fuel speculation that the miracle man might have been doping for his entire reign, and these rumors refused to die.

Tour de France 2000

After Lance Armstrong won an Olympic time trial bronze medal in Sydney, Australia, [since rescinded] he returned home to an announcement that the French government had opened a criminal doping probe against him and the U.S. Postal Service Professional Cycling Team.

"During the 2000 Tour, someone surreptitiously videotaped two of our medical staff as they threw away a couple of trash bags.  The tape was sent anonymously to a government prosecutor, as well as to the French 3 television station." P.72.

The medical waste supposedly contained traces of actovegin, a drug that may possibly aid recovery from acute injury.  However, actovegin was not on the prohibited list at the time.  Nevertheless, Sophie-Helene Chateau, the judge of instruction,

"Promptly subpoenaed all of my urine samples from the 2000 Tour as well as those of the rest of the U.S. Postal Service team.  She appointed an assistant prosecutor, Francois Franchi, to conduct an investigation.  We were charged with suspicion of using doping products, inciting the use of doping products, and using toxic substances." P.73.

The tests done on the U.S. Postal riders did not turn up any positives for EPO use.  I think the French launched the investigation for sensationalism.  Although the probe was of a long duration nothing was conclusively proven.  The rumors persisted about the miracle man using performance-enhancing drugs, unabated, however.  Why?

TDF 2000: Hautacam Climb

I remember this stage vividly even today.  Lance Armstrong never looked so smooth on the pedals.  In one kilometer of riding Armstrong was taking one minute out of "en Tete de la course" Javier Palacios Ochoa.  Lance Armstrong dropped Marco Pantani, who initiated an attack, like a hot rock.  The 2000 Tour was essentially over at this point, even though Marco Pantani remarked Lance Armstrong had peaked "too early."

TDF 2000: Mont Ventoux

The cold cruel mistral winds were in full force during this immortal stage.  Marco Pantani attacked and Lance Armstrong responded near the Tommy Simpson memorial.  Armstrong claims he told Marco Pantani to "ride with him," but Pantani claimed Armstrong told him to "get out of the way."  Marco Pantani also was very offended when Lance Armstrong claimed he had gifted Marco Pantani the stage win.  Lance Armstrong later insulted Marco Pantani by referring to him as "Elefantino" rather than the more respectful "Pirata."  This stage still rates as one of the greatest Tour duels of all time.

TDF 2000: Col de Joux-Plane

"Lance Armstrong will not win the 2000 Tour de France."
Marco Pantani

Still smoldering with fury Marco Pantani solo attacked the peloton and built up a lead of over ten minutes.  Lance Armstrong and the U.S. Postal Service team had to respond to this attack up-tempo.  Lance Armstrong was so intent on catching Marco Pantani, Lance Armstrong failed to take a musette bag at the feed zone.  The result of this blunder was a spectacular bonk on the Col de Joux-Plane. Marco Pantani's ploy seemed to be working in masterful fashion.  First, Lance Armstrong was passed by arch-rival Jan Ullrich, then by Richard Virenque, both of whom looked at the stricken Lance Armstrong with amazement.  There is no way of knowing how much time Lance Armstrong would have lost, or even if he would have finished the stage, if not two good Samaritans, Roberto Conti and Guido Trentin, in an act of supreme sportsmanship, had not paced Lance Armstrong to the summit of the climb, and sheltered him from the wind.  Marco Pantani later claimed he suffered "stomach cramps from drinking ice-cold sugar water on a hot summer day," and after being caught by Lance Armstrong, Marco Pantani faded quickly and retired to the back of the peloton.  Marco Pantani withdrew from the Tour the next day, and he would never ride again in a Tour de France, because, he had been granted the notorious title of persona non grata: a title imposed on him because he was suspected of several violations of performance-enhancing drug use during the 2001 Giro d' Italia.  ASO had had enough of Marco Pantani, in the same way, ASO ostracized Richard Virenque; post-Festina.

Tour de France 2001

The doping allegations against Lance Armstrong entered a new phase, but this time the allegations were substantive and long-reaching.  From The Tour Is Won on the Alpe, Jean-Paul Vespini, (David V. Herlihy, Translator), Velo Press, 2008.

"The 2001 Tour was barely underway when the journalist David Walsh of London's Sunday Times published explosive new charges fingering the champion himself, Lance Armstrong, who was seeking his third straight Tour victory.  In a highly detailed article, Walsh presented a number of troubling allegations linking Armstrong to drugs, focusing on the racers' association with the controversial Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, whom the American himself had praised for his integrity.  Walsh asserted that Lance Armstrong had visited the doctor on numerous occasions over the years, and even listed the dates and locations of their encounters.  Walsh also quoted a former Motorola racer who asserted that EPO had been widely used by the team when Lance Armstrong had been a member.  The source also cited a few other troubling affairs, including the case of Lance's former teammate Kevin Livingston, who had experienced strange variations in his red-blood-cell count." PP. 143-144.

TDF 2001: The Team Time Trial

Christian Vande Velde and Roberto Heras collided in the U.S. Postal Service train during the team time trial.  Vande Velde broke his arm and had to withdraw from the Tour.  Since the team time trial clock stops when the fifth rider crosses the line, (thus the picturesque spreading out of the riders at the line), Lance Armstrong could have ordered the team to abandon Vande Velde and Heras.*  Instead, Lance Armstrong ordered the team to wait for Heras and Vande Velde to recover from their accident.  Incredibly, even with the wait, the U.S. Postal Service Team finished the team time trial forth on the course, @ 1 minute 26 seconds behind Credit Agricole, who rode an inspired team time trial in support of maillot jaune Stuart O' Grady.
*Note: the train consists of nine riders if none have abandoned the race previous to the team time trial.  If a rider is separated from the train and falls behind he or she is awarded a separate time.

TDF 2001: Outside of the Time Limit

Then there was an escape by Francois Simon and Russian rider Andrei Kivilev during a rain-soaked stage of the 2001 Tour.  Francois Simon finished the stage with a lead of 35 minutes.  Of course, in the end, this escape did not figure into the final general classification, however, the peloton, including Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich, did finish outside of the time limit.  According to race rules, Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich could have been disqualified from the race.  In spite of the insistence from some disgruntled fans that everyone outside of the time limit be disqualified, Tour officials found a loophole in the rules: if a certain percentage of the peloton fell outside of the time limit, then the disqualification could be waived if a reasonable cause could be found for the delay.  Torrential rain might be an acceptable excuse, or possibly a blizzard.  But stupidity?  After all, nobody wanted to expend the energy to reel in the breakaway, did they?

TDF 2001: "The Look" L'Alpe d'Huez

Lance Armstrong put on a masterful performance of suffering during this stage.  Feigning fatigue and illness Lance Armstrong fell to the back of the leading group, a place where many riders "go out the back."  Scenting blood Jan Ullrich and his Team Telekom lieutenants drove a hard tempo, trying to drop Lance Armstrong.  But at the base of L'Alpe d'Huez, an amazing transformation occurred.  Lance Armstrong experienced an amazing recovery, the recently exhausted man suddenly showed amazing resilience.  Lance Armstrong launched an attack, looking over his shoulder through his Oakley sunglasses at Jan Ullrich, while Phil Liggett commented, "Well, are you coming or not?  The answer is not!" as Lance Armstrong pulled away.  This brazen audacity by Lance Armstrong became immortalized in the annals of cycling as "The Look"

The reaction to Lance Armstrong at the summit of L'Alpe d'Huez was mixed.  From: The Tour Is Won on the Alpe, Jean-Paul Vespini, (David V. Herlihy, Translator), Velo Press, 2008.

Both applause and disapproving whistles greeted Lance Armstrong at the finish line.  The crowd at L'Alpe d'Huez, as skeptical as it was admiring, was focused on a fundamental question: was Lance Armstrong really the great champion of the new century, or did he simply have access to a yet unknown pharmacopeia?  It was rather unjust to be suspicious of him at that point.  The American, after all, had always claimed to be clean, and no firm evidence had indicated otherwise.  Jan Ullrich finished second 1:59 behind.  He had lost over 8 seconds per kilometer behind Lance Armstrong, "the motorcycle." P.144.

TDF 2001: Pla d'Adet

The course of Pla d'Adet passed the spot where Lance Armstrong's former Motorola teammate Fabio Casartelli died during a Tour descent in 1995.  Jan Ullrich almost duplicated Fabio Casartelli's feat when failing to negotiate a turn, he plunged off a precipice into the trees.  Incredibly, in spite of all indications, Jan Ullrich emerged unscathed.  In a gesture of supreme sportsmanship, Lance Armstrong stopped pedaling and waited for Jan Ullrich to catch up.  On the last climb Pla d'Adet, Lance Armstrong attacked Jan Ullrich who did not respond:

"I crossed the finish line alone and toppled off the bike, spent, the new leader of the Tour de France.  We had done what Johan [Bruyneel] asked, and attacked at every opportunity, and the result was that we had won three of the last four stages, and made up 35 minutes and 24 places in the standings.  In two days alone, we'd made up 22 minutes.  It set a record for the biggest deficit ever overcome." P.118

Remarkable what obsessive training and performance-enhancing drugs can accomplish.  If there was a concern about Lance Armstrong using performance-enhancing drugs during the 2001 Tour de France, the suspicions should have focused straight on the results of these stages.  There was simply too much uniformity of performance, that indicated artificiality.

2004 Tour de France: Lance Armstrong Goes Postal!

During the 2001 Tour de France, the invariable questions from the press and public ensued; all focused on Michele Ferrari, who was under investigation for allegedly supplying riders with doped blood.  A link had been established between Michele Ferrari and Filippo Simeoni; a proven doper.  In the investigation of Michele Ferrari, the name Lance Armstrong surfaced.  Lance Armstrong stated that Michele Ferrari had advised him merely on mundane matters: altitude testing, power meter training, watts per kilogram; legal topics that all top riders discuss to improve performance.  Lance Armstrong also claimed that he was working with Michele Ferrari in preparation for an attempt on the world record one hour ride.  But Michele Ferrari had a bad reputation: he brazenly declared in an interview that EPO was no more dangerous than drinking ten liters of orange juice.  Michele Ferrari was also a star student of Francesco Conconi, a notorious doping doctor who was accused of providing human growth hormones and doped blood to the 1980 Italian Olympic Team.  Francesco Conconi had also designed a medical regimen for Francesco Moser: to prepare him for his world record one hour ride in Mexico City in 1984, a ride that dwarfed the old one hour Mexico City world record ride set by Eddy Merckx in 1972.  Francesco Moser would later admit he had injected "doctored" blood prepared by Francesco Conconi and Michele Ferrari.  During the 2004 Tour de France, a curious incident occurred between Filippo Simeoni and Lance Armstrong that directly related to Michele Ferrari.  After Filippo Simeoni publicly accused Lance Armstrong of using illegal substances provided by Michele Ferrari, Filippo Simeoni attempted to join a breakaway on flat stage 18 near the end of the 2004 Tour.  There was no need to reel Filippo Simeoni in, as he was no threat to the general classification.  But unexpectedly, and contrary to cycling etiquette: (a maillot jaune never leaves the peloton to ride down a breakaway), Lance Armstrong went after Filippo Simeoni with a vengeance.  Lance Armstrong reportedly told the breakaway group, if Filippo Simeoni did not return to the peloton immediately, Lance Armstrong would order his team to attack and reel in the breakaway.  The riders in the breakaway group, seeing the maillot jaune in the breakaway were furious with Filippo Simeoni, because he was jeopardizing their chances for a stage win.  Filippo Simeoni had to submit to the pressure, he capitulated, returning to the back of the peloton where he faced further rider insults.  Later, Filippo Simeoni declared he had been threatened by Lance Armstrong: and he filed a lawsuit demanding compensation.  The case was settled in Filippo Simeoni's favor.  This incident was later cited as evidence of bullying and tactics of intimidation Lance Armstrong used throughout his professional cycling career: tactics which included forcing his hapless teammates to use performance-enhancing drugs against their wills: all to satisfy Lance Armstrong's monomania to be the greatest Tour champion ever.

Spinning a Myth: It's All About the Weight

Lance Armstrong does spend some time discussing his weight: prior to and post-cancer.  This discussion cannot be ignored because during the Motorola period Lance Armstrong rode an average Tour, and most years he withdrew long before Paris.  Since Armstrong maintained an aura of innocence as to his drug use there had to be another explanation for his tremendous improvement on the bike; a magic bullet, if you will.  A University of Texas physiologist Edward F. Coyle performed a series of experiments on Lance Armstrong and concluded that the increase in performance from prior to post-cancer was the result of increased pedaling efficiency, and loss of weight.  Edward F. Coyle's conclusions generated a furious debate among other sports physiologists, however: some called his research bunk, others questioned his methodology, and some even accused him of miscalibration of his instrumentation.  In Every Second Counts, Lance Armstrong does a masterful spin job of misleading dissimulation to support Edward F. Coyle's conclusions.

"Every once in a while, I'd deliver a big ride: when I was 21, I had come out of nowhere to win the Worlds, and then a stage of the Tour de France.  But mostly I cruised for months at a time, performing decently but not exceptionally, just meeting the definition of "professional."  After cancer, I realized I'd been operating at about half of my abilities.  For one thing, I carried 15 to 20 pounds more weight than I should have, some of it in puppy fat and some of it in margaritas and tortilla chips.  After cancer, I was twenty pounds lighter." PP.155-156.

"Under Johan [Bruyneel], I began training seriously, and kept the weight off, and discovered what a huge difference it made in the mountains, where your own body was your biggest adversary.  The lost weight, I discovered, made me 10 to 12 minutes faster over a mountain stage; I figured it saved me about three minutes on every mountain pass I rode.  As a young rider, I would start off at the gun and just go.  I didn't really know how to race: I mashed big gears and thrashed around on the bike.  My position is all wrong. Now with Johan [Bruyneel] and Chris Carmichael, I studied proper aerodynamic positioning and effective cadence." P.156; italics added.

Indeed!  It was obvious.  It was better training, altitude tents, better coaching, better diet, higher drive and motivation, improved technology, power meters, improvements in skin suits, space-age bicycle design, wind tunnels, computer analysis of power outputs.  But dope?  Forget about it!

Conclusion:

As Lance Armstrong told Floyd Landis: "There was no mystery and no miracle drug that helped me win the Tour de France in 1999!"  This statement is disingenuous, of course, but it does reinforce the notion that winning Grand Tours requires hard work, and nobody worked harder than Lance Armstrong.

Lance Armstrong also misleads us when he claims after his former teammates departed U.S. Postal Service they maintained good relations.  Tyler Hamilton lived in Girona, Spain; and when he joined CSC, Tyler Hamilton claims he actively avoided Lance Armstrong like the plague.  There were rumors Lance Armstrong fired Kevin Livingston, who joined Team Telekom (T-Mobile) to bring in the Spanish rider Roberto Heras, and further interactions between Armstrong and Livingston were terse, at best.  In Every Second Counts, even though Lance Armstrong speaks very favorably of Floyd Landis, who had just received a new two-year contract with the U.S. Postal Service Professional Cycling Team, by the end of the contract Floyd Landis was so fed up he would have retired from cycling rather than continue with the U.S. Postal Service Professional Cycling Team.  As Lance Armstrong says in his book, "some people regarded him as a tyrant," and from accounts of his conduct, there appears, today, very few who would disagree with this statement.

Update 2020

* A lady friend of mine, her name is Gail, has a particularly difficult time dealing with cancer.  All four of Gail's sisters are dead.  Three of Gail's sister's died of cancer at a very young age.  Gail's fourth sister died young of unknown "natural causes".  When Gail's sister Janice lost all of her hair as a side-effect of chemotherapy, Gail and her family members shaved their hair in support of Janice, and vowed to remain bald until Janice recovered.  Gail and her family shaved their heads to raise cancer awareness among the community, and Gail and her friends launched a cancer awareness Internet campaign stylized, #Janice's Army, or #Janice's Army Strong, on Facebook.  Janice died in 2017 from cancer.  In May 2019, Gail's last remaining living sister, Debi, died of cancer.  Debi's obituary states, "No funeral is planned.  In lieu of flowers, donations may be made toward fighting cancer."  An appropriately blunt message.  When I got confirmation that Debi had died, I wrote this message to Gail.  "I am heartbroken for you.  My mom died in September 2019, from bone marrow cancer.  My mom had a virulently pernicious breast cancer that metastasized throughout her whole body.  My mom suffered for years with chronic pain, she dealt with chemotherapy treatments, baldness, radiation treatments, and expensive hospitalizations.  So, I understand your pain".  Gail greatly suffers emotionally from the loss of her sisters.  Gail said her sisters were; "my best friends".  My mother is no longer a survivor, she is a statistic.  Gail's sisters who died of cancer, Janice, Valerie, and Debi are no longer survivors, they are statistics.  Cancer leaves behind a wake of family tears, shed by mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters.  "In lieu of flowers, donations may be made toward fighting cancer".

Doping Indifference is Contagious

First, there is outrage expressed by a furious public declaiming that the perfidious practice of cheating scoundrels who have forever contaminated our sacred sport of cycling must cease!  The media blitz pontificates a need for reforms, the public expresses their displeasure, the fanatics wander around dazed and confused wondering how such a thing could happen.  Then there are the regulatory agencies, asleep at the wheel, who are invested with the sacred duty of monitoring cycling, burdened with the responsibility of deterring and punishing people who are tempted to use illicit drugs to gain an unfair advantage.  The International Cycling Union (UCI) pontificates their position with hypocritical passion; while allegedly accepting bribes under the table to protect favored riders.  The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) maintains a policy of "fair play," while at the same time they administer laboratory tests on samples of athletes that have no scientific reliability or validity.  WADA also employs an arbitrary and capricious set of standards; physiological ranges that are subject to modification at the whim of the prosecution.  These variable physiological ranges indicate "use" of performance-enhancing drugs, ( these physiological ranges once considered a "normal" range, now magically constitute "proofs" ), these "proofs" are generally rubber-stamped by arbitration panels, who agree to change the "rules" mid-stream, thereby effectively destroying the tactics of the athletes' defense team.  There is a sacrosanct philosophy that scientific evidence generated by WADA is considered "infallible," so challenges to the laboratory papacy are considered warrant-less heretical attacks, by wealthy guilty athletes, who have generated so much income from cheating, that to question WADA generated scientific "proofs" amounts to nothing more than divergent obstructionism.  According to WADA, wealthy athletes can afford to hire a staff of high priced lawyers who specialize in confounding the "proof" merely as a divergent tactic, a base amusement, merely because wealthy athletes suffer from ennui.  Of course, there is ample evidence of accused athletes who had no wealth at all; athletes who are poorly represented, or athletes who cannot even read or understand the language of the accusing document.  These "unfair" facts are ignored, the accused in these cases are minor players, collateral damage to be sacrificed to the altar of WADA infallibility.  Journeymen riders have professional careers that have little impact on cycling; so if these riders are treated inhumanely, nobody cares.  These "second tier" athletes who are treated in such a cavalier fashion fall below the threshold of public scrutiny, so their abuse does not resonate with the public.  Awareness of these cases falls below the threshold, and these victims of injustice are shunted into other professions and disappear without a trace after enduring insufferable humiliation. After all, the mantra is: if WADA has evidence, you are guilty, so there is no need to defend yourself.  Accept the dictated reward, serve your time, then if you are deemed worthy, return to the peloton, if you can secure a contract.

There is a huge difference between being a second rate journeyman rouleur and a winner of the Tour de France, however.  The fate of a rouleur may be regarded with indifference, while the fate of a Tour de France winner encourages hot debate!  This debate peels layers off the sacrosanct philosophy of WADA scientific evidence, like peeling a rotten onion.  The heresy is not generated by wealthy athletes suffering from ennui, but rather from people who have been awarded doctoral degrees, and who are considered experts in their respective fields of study.  Public opinion is better directed by a professor who has conducted scientific experiments in the area being investigated than a professional lawyer who has an invested interest in clearing his client.  A scientific expert may be regarded as impartial as to motivation, therefore, credible as a witness.  WADA has an invested interest in winning cases to ensure more of a market in providing laboratory testing to professional sports leagues who govern professional athletes; therefore the credibility of WADA motive in guaranteeing a fair level playing field for the athlete is suspect.  It is also important to note that there exists in many sports an unnatural incestuous relationship between WADA and the agency governing the sport, (for example, the UCI) and this invites probable illegal collusion between the two.  In a time of crises, when questionable scientific practice is revealed by professional investigation into the arrogant laissez-faire scientific practice being conducted, such as documented violations among WADA accredited laboratories, violations that result in the WADA accredited laboratory falling outside international norms, blatant lack of quality control, ignorance of protocol, there is a propensity to conclude from this evidence that this practice is directly responsible for producing spurious results!  Contesting the origin of these spurious results in a legal format and referring to the testimony of expert scientific witnesses who present convincing arguments, does not make the evidence presented against the athlete any less spurious.  But the public process does expose the laissez-faire arrogance of the alphabet soup groups who maintain the fallacy of infallibility, and public exposure generates an awareness that the process has been so abusive and so devoid of public accountability that there is a certainty that athletes in the past have been unfairly accused and punished.

This vendetta against athletes, this unfairness in the process, this arrogance, generates hysteria among the concerned public who are appalled that such behavior among the regulatory agencies can be tolerated.  But the hysteria soon evolves into apathy due to overexposure; there have been so many people who have claimed innocence who are guilty.  People become jaded, the agencies, in spite of their callous disregard of the rights of due process prove to be right in their assessments, not because they are infallible, but because the accused have no honesty.  Constant exposure to dishonesty in virulent forms generates extinction; people are constantly bombarded by the stimulus, but it does not penetrate into perception above the threshold.  Floyd Landis, Alberto Contador, Ryan Braun, are perfect examples of the bad stimulus.  Liars all, these men have raised the threshold for possible abuse of athletes' rights to an unacceptable level, based upon the premise that anyone accused of wrongdoing; must be a liar.  As a consequence, public concern has declined to an unacceptable level of acceptance of the status quo.  Worse, the public has accepted the concept that anyone accused of cheating is guilty, so tactics employed by the accusers are "fair," and that abuse of athletes' rights do not merit any consequences to the anti-doping agencies responsible for the abuse of process.

Ryan Braun lied about using performance-enhancing drugs.  He accused the courier of tampering with his samples.  Ryan Braun was exonerated not because he was guiltless, but because the people who wrote the chain-of-custody rules; were outside of the law!  Therefore, Shyman Das had no choice but to invalidate the suspension.  The press called this invalidation of the suspension, a technicality, not an abuse of process, or simply incompetence, or indifference, to the right of the athlete.  Nevertheless, Ryan Braun did the effort to maintain "fairness" in the anti-doping process irreparable harm by the initiation of an unnecessary appeal that was based upon lies.  Athletes who base appeals upon lies, opaque the situation, making it more difficult for falsely accused athletes to present a credible case.

Sickening.  Worse.  The Milwaukee fans cheered Ryan Braun at his first at-bat with a standing ovation.  Sickening.  Doping in Sport?  Who cares anymore.  What was once considered an outrage is now regarded with accolades and cheers.  The public wants winners, like vulture's want corpses.

Bryan Byrge and John Coons: A Sad Saga

John Coons 

Bryan Byrge 

Bryan Byrge, 39 and John Coons, 35 were on their weekly cycling jaunt to work when they were killed instantly in a head-on collision with a pickup truck while turning left at the corner of Redwood Road and Twenty-First North in Lehi, Utah.  The accident happened at six o' clock in the morning before sunrise.  The dark may have been a contributing factor, but contrary to the statement made by the Lehi police: there were no contributing weather-related issues that could have "impeded visibility."  Bryan Byrge and John Coons both were family men who left behind wives and children; men who were very respected by the community.  The stupid senseless deaths of these men prompted the cycling community to organize a group memorial twenty-mile ride, and over a hundred cyclists participated.

The driver of the pickup truck, whose identity is unknown, was also hospitalized in the accident.  The investigation as reported in the press, could not identify who was at fault, the pickup truck driver, the cyclists, or the fact that there was no fault by either party; but from the tone of the reporting the most likely conclusion will be the patented "I did not see them" excuse, and the most likely outcome of the investigation will be no formal charges or criminal prosecution of the pickup truck driver.

Remember, cyclists, when you are lying dead on the road that you are in no condition to testify about your behavior, or whether you were following the rules of the road.  You are presumed to be at fault simply because you are on the road.  This idiotic notion has emerged because there is a minority of cyclists who ride with a blatant disregard of the rules, a fact that is editorialized in newspapers by disgruntled people with an anti-cyclist bias.  The truth is far different than the perception portrayed in the press; professional cyclists are strict adherents to the rules, they have to cycle carefully to survive the onslaught of automobile drivers who are either incompetent or aggressively belligerent.  The fools who act out on bicycles are not professional cyclists, but they sure do seem to garner all of the attention!  And there is an additional problem associated with foolish cyclists; when automobile drivers encounter a person who follows the rules they seem to be confused as to what to do; like deer staring into the headlights.  This adds to the safety concerns cyclists experience every day; the confused automobile driver.  For example, at intersections, I tend to let automobiles go first because it has been my experience that when you put foot to the pedal, automobile drivers put foot to the accelerator.  Then there is that awkward breaking moment, followed, of course, by a noxious adrenaline rush, and a propensity to want to explode into a verbal tirade of frustration.  But the experience in these matters is the best teacher and may end up saving your life.  Patience saves lives.  Wave the fools through!  Bryan Byrge and John Coons were responsible people who from their very nature were road rule followers to an excessive degree of caution, but this caution did not save them from a horrible end.

What about the pickup driver?  What personality traits did this person possess?  Was this person in a hurry or distracted?  After the funeral of Bryan Byrge and John Coons, will this person simply disappear completely without penalty after killing two people?

Remember Josie Johnson?

Photo credit: KSL news.

Josie Johnson, a young woman who was killed while climbing Big Cottonwood Canyon on her bicycle, by a woman who wasn't paying attention!  Josie Johnson was riding on the shoulder out of the traffic lane when she was rear-ended by a woman driving a sports utility vehicle.  The last time I rode up to Big Cottonwood Canyon, a bouquet of flowers was left resting at Josie's accident site, adorned with tears, placed by a sensitive soul who is tired of all this senseless slaughter of cyclists! Every year there is the Josie Johnson Memorial Ride, ridden to lament this senseless decimation of young cyclists who are murdered on the roads every year!

Josie Johnson Memorial Ride original bib. Bibs were worn to honor fallen riders who died on the road.  Photo: velovortmax.

I have a challenge for all of you who editorialize in the media about the horrid cyclists and their disrespect for the rules of the road.  Come ride with me for a month, if you have the courage!  You will see the road from the perspective of a cyclist!  But I am warning you that you will have to learn defensive cycling skills very quickly or you will die!  You will be another statistic lying dead in the road!  You will not have an opportunity to defend yourself!  You may develop an attitude adjustment when you realize that that cell phone wielding zombie who is bearing down on you at thirty miles an hour is about to end your paltry existence!  You either get out of the way or die, it is as simple as that!  These enjoyable experiences happen several times every day!  And just wait until you are hit by a car!  Only a suicidal maniac would continue to ride after being hit by an automobile, but we pros do so every day with pleasure!  Then, after a month of this fun, you can go back to your editorializing in the newspaper, scolding people who don't know how to drive!

I didn't even mention the people who drive automobiles who intentionally try to kill you or cause you harm.  But these paragons of social virtue exist in the world too.  People who make obscene gestures, people who shout, "get off the road!"  People who throw objects at you.  People who drive up behind you and honk their horns.  People who spit on you.  People who deliberately try to run you off the road.  How about mentioning these facts in your editorials, eh?

Sure people need to be educated about automobile/cycling safety.  But education is a two-way street. Cyclists can't control the behavior of automobile drivers and vice versa.  Nevertheless: it is a given axiom that people should not be allowed to kill cyclists with impunity, and they need to be punished for their crimes.

Cycling Doping History: What's Your Version?

Whenever I ride at night on a darkened street,
And storms are heard at dusk all-day-
O friend defenseless, ill and homeless,
Before me suddenly your shadow gleams.
Nikolay Nekrasov

Actually, the poem title is Whenever I Drive at Night (1847), not ride; but according to a book I read, the poem was an adaption of Alexander Pushkin: Wherever I may Wander (1833), which is probably misleading!  Being a poor liberal arts student with a smattering of biology, who am I to not suffer from confusion, especially when I was not there to inquire of the poet himself as to his supposed plagiarism, and had to guess instead.  Or incapable, through lack of specialized knowledge; I must rely upon and accept expert opinions of other people, who are supposed to be all-knowing, and subject to vetting and fact checks before publishing a load of rot.  You think I trust Greg LeMond for one instant after the load of crap he has disseminated on the cycling community?  Well, I don't.  Do you think my case against Greg LeMond is insufficient to prove that there were opportunities for Greg LeMond and the peloton of his era to dope with both blood and drugs?  The fact that the 1984 USA Olympic team used blood transfusions to medal in the Olympic games, where America as a country had not won an Olympic medal since 1912 when Carl Schutte won a bronze medal in the individual time trial, and the American team, Carl Shutte, Alvin Loftus, Albert Krushel, and Walter Martin won bronze medals in the team time trial; is pointless to discuss, because there was no official Olympic games prohibition against using blood transfusions in 1984 or 1912!  Nevertheless, according to the La Vie Claire apologists, blood doping was a top-secret venture unknown to the professional peloton, (except for the East Germans): La Vie Claire, Greg LeMond, and Bernard Hinault were completely ignorant of these methods, and even if they were aware, they would never stoop so low.  But, perhaps you are joking about the impeccable honesty and integrity of Tour de France champions of the past, which is sheer nonsense, regardless of your psychological bias or selective references.  The Lance Armstrong haters spit vitriol for years with no scientific proof, yet they were convinced of their correctness, and woe to anyone who would have the audacity to disagree with them!  Of course, you can't disagree with the Greg LeMond groupies or their rock-solid scientific grounds, the man never failed a dope test, even if methods of doping that existed at the time had no known tests or the fact there was no prohibition as to the use of some of these methods; even if they had known performance-enhancing qualities.  But, we are devolving into illogical semantics: if it is not prohibited, then can it be cheating? Can a person rationalize the use of substances known to improve performance because they are not yet illegal, as an acceptable practice to win prizes and accolades?  Then there are bleating sheep, who, when suspecting others of using the same methods now prohibited by statute, encourage them to confess their crimes, to come clean, to display what? a guilty consciousness?  Or do these tears of remorse, as to the damage done to cycling by miscreant present-day dopers merely display your own repressed guilty cognitive subconsciousness, and are you, Mr. LeMond, trying to assuage your old crimes by casting stones at others, when you yourself did not suffer any penalty?  Do your pleas for clean riding and your accusations express the fact that you cheated your fellow cyclists like a worthless scoundrel; or the fact that your sordid conduct was rewarded with laurels?

So who developed the test to detect synthetic EPO?  Was it Jacques de Ceaurriz?  Or was it LNDD without Jacques de Ceaurriz?  Was it Don Calin at UCLA?  Or was it Christiane Ayotte in Montreal?  What was the true role Francesco Conconi played in the development of a test to detect recombinant erythropoietin, and what role did the International Olympic Committee play in the development of this test?  Perhaps claims made in certain cycling reference books should be subjected to better editing before publishing, because certain "facts" presented as "truth" may in fact be nothing more than grossly misleading rubbish.  If you suspect books or articles of spouting disinformation, then why not invest some of your time and your effort to write a book review pointing out all of the errors yourself.  Or better yet, why don't you offer your services as an editor, since your knowledge is all-encompassing.  Don't forget to provide references to support your assertions.  And if you have something to say, say it publicly, you don't need to hide behind a veil of secrecy.  Because, as it stands, your corrections are selective, incomplete, and based on an agenda.  Not quite an objective way of proving things, is it?

I would rather be reading Alexi Pisemsky, One Thousand Souls, than worry about who was doping with what, or when, in the 1980s; or concern myself with who is cheating now.  Because, even contemporary truth is subjected to fraud, fiction, cover-up, ignored, or distorted by evil people who have mercenary motives to mislead the public.  This misleading agenda leads directly to disagreements and factual errors.  Thus your version may not exactly coincide with my version, but that does not mean that I will forego my version to accommodate a popular cycling opinion invented by Greg LeMond; using the resources available to me.  Of course, I expect you to do the same, never claiming a monopoly as to what constitutes historical truth or to what constitutes historical fallacy.  That way we can agree to co-exist.

Finally, I don't do promotions or advertising on my blog spot!

Cycling Blood Doping: An Evolution

Blood doping in cycling evolved from blood-boosting to recombinant EPO then back to blood-boosting again.  There were known benefits of blood-boosting known in cycling in the eighties, the 1984 USA Olympic cycling team, in order to put on a good show after the Russian boycott, decided to use blood transfusions from compatible family member donors to increase the medal count, a method that was neither encouraged or forbidden by Olympic rules.  The thought of a mother giving her child a blood transfusion shortly before a race seems to be the apex of morbidity, ghoulishness, and sickness*: but America had to put on a good show of dominance to demonstrate the superiority of the capitalistic Western system over the heathen inferiority of the Communists.  Not surprising, as cheating to achieve success in competitive systems is an accepted practice, especially in America.  One fine day a visiting East German cycling coach was amazed that the Americans' were training at altitude; "We can achieve the same results in fifteen minutes" blood boosting, so there was no need to waste time raising hematocrit levels from "train high, live low" methods, or from sleeping or training in altitude tents.  Nope. A simple blood transfusion would achieve the same results in fifteen minutes with no effort at all.  Amazing, the 1984 USA Olympic cycling team knew of the benefits of blood-boosting on performance, the East Germans used the practice and had phenomenal Olympic success: and produced Jan Ullrich,** the legendary diesel; a man who could power up twenty percent grades at six watts per kilo gram, never leaving the saddle, breaking a sweat, or breathing hard.  But according to Greg LeMond, the professional peloton never heard of blood-boosting, the riders never cheated, he, along with Bernard Hinault, and Laurent Fignon, were the only three winners of any grand tour who rode clean and other fairy tales.

These assertions by Greg LeMond are hilarious and make you laugh; but I swear there are still fools around who believe Greg LeMond: and who comment that his stellar performances such as his monumental climb up L'Alpe d'Huez in the 1986 Tour de France; where Bernard Hinault looks ready to drop dead from exhaustion, while Greg LeMond is dancing out of the saddle with an inexhaustible supply of energy; laughing at, smiling at, and hugging the fallen badger was all done dope free! Bernard Hinault, whom earlier in the race, in a fit of madness, launched a suicide attack with an insurmountable lead until he bonked! throwing away his certain Tour de France win.  Bernard Hinault never physically recovered from this disastrous folly.  Bernard Hinault looked cooked on L'Alpe d'Huez.  An impartial observer watching Greg LeMond's body language and his personal deportment during the climb could come up with the conclusion: "it's juice." ***

There were no vampires stalking around the riders waiting to extract blood in 1984 and Greg LeMond did not win his first tour until 1986, which suggests foul play, certainly.  Indeed, in 1990 a newer form of blood doping was available: rEPO: a synthetic form of erythropoietin, a much more efficient method of raising hematocrit levels without the infectious complications of heterologous blood transfusions, or the necessity of finding an acceptable blood donor.  It is a certainty that rEPO was being used to some extent along with heterologous blood transfusions during this period, on an experimental basis, in order to lower lactic acid levels in the muscles: as was done by Francesco Conconi and Michele Ferrari to prepare Francesco Moser for his world one hour record ride attempt in 1984.***** rEPO use could not be detected until 2000 and until then the use of this performance-enhancing substance was rampant.  After the IOC hired Francesco Conconi to develop a prototype test to distinguish the difference between endogenous and synthetic EPO;**** then and only then did the peloton switch to homologous blood transfusions.  Blood was taken out of riders in small increments, refrigerated, then reintroduced into the riders shortly before and during races.  The increase in hematocrit levels could be diluted with simple methods such as injections with saline solutions when the vampires were scheduled to arrive; a fact that was known among riders through various tips from persons associated with the various regulatory agencies.  There were many occasions, in the lax days, where the riders would run out the back door as the vampire was knocking on the front door: but there was no penalty unless three anti-doping out-of-competition tests were missed.  There were other devious methods employed to defeat anti-doping urine tests, such as using a "whizzinator" or a reservoir filled with substitute urine attached to a rubber penis.  After numerous athletes were caught using this method, the chaperons used more stringent methods when obtaining urine samples.  Other methods of defeating the tests included soaking the hands with soap.  Once this malady was discovered the vampires took more stringent measures to defeat this chicanery too.

The dimwits who were in charge of the sample collections grew wiser, and the tests got wiser, so the riders got wiser and switched from rEPO back to blood infusions.  Lance Armstrong got away with taking rEPO in 1999 because there were no tests, and for the same reason, Greg LeMond and his La Vie Claire team probably used advanced blood-boosting techniques until the peloton switched to the more efficient rEPO. Then Greg LeMond faded and only then accused others of using performance-enhancing drugs.  Greg LeMond had a incredibly high volume oxygen+oxygen (VO2 max) ratio of 95, or the efficiency of oxygen converted to energy and performance within the muscles during athletic work; (compare to Lance Armstrong who had a VO2 max ratio of 83; most common males have a VO2 max of about 30), which could be enhanced with an increase in hematocrit, due to increased oxygen carrying capacity, the lowering of lactic acid, and by the ability of the mitochondria to more efficiently produce power aerobically.  So, obviously, a rider like Lance Armstrong had more to gain from an increase in red blood cell production than a person like Greg LeMond; who had a superior baseline score. Greg LeMond had a natural advantage, which might explain why he accumulated three Tour de France titles, embarrassing Bernard Hinault and Laurent Fignon, riders who had probably more tactical talent than Greg LeMond: even though Hinault and Fignon were inferior to LeMond in practical talent.  Miguel Indurain and the boys had incredible VO2 max scores too; most of the increase in these scores may have been assisted by questionable blood work; although there is very little, if any, interest in discovering the truth of this assertion, at least among the worthies at the UCI or WADA.  I might point out that Greg LeMond beat Miguel Indurain in the 1990 Tour de France.  How did this happen if Miguel Indurain was using synthetic EPO as Greg LeMond alleges?

Why not invest time and money to chase phantoms.  Old events will do nothing to stop doping today, a concept that Travis T. Tygart will never understand.  Events that happened fourteen years ago with riders who are either retired from the sport or dead mean nothing to anyone except nostalgic people who spend their retirement years watching Tour de France films of the good old days.  Most millennial kids have never heard of Tyler Hamilton and could care less.  Lance Armstrong's name will soon disappear from memory, the old techniques of doping have all been detected, they are worn out like an old shoe, people need to be forward-looking and innovative, not retrospectively focused on obsolescence.

So there we have it, first, it was donor blood, then rEPO, then autologous blood transfusions. The dopers were always one step ahead of the regulatory agencies when the tests improved, the cheating techniques were modified.  What WADA and the UCI need to do is to employ someone like Michele Ferrari on a contractual basis to catch the cheaters.  The International Olympic Committee (IOC) hired Francesco Conconi to develop a test to detect synthetic EPO, and Francesco Conconi may have developed a prototype test.  But Francesco Conconi also exploited his position as a researcher to help riders dope.  Michele Ferrari might be invited to help the geniuses at WADA, but after thirty-four years of thumbing the "gold standard" of testing in the eye, this might be perceived as an unacceptable outrage.  Of course, to prevent another Francesco Conconi disaster, Mr. Ferrari would have to be closely supervised.  But instead of new novel approaches to combat doping, anticipate another thirty-four years of moping around in the dark wondering why riders are generating "superhuman" power up the climbs, or seventy-kilometer per hour sprints.  Complain and see what happens!  The blinders will be fully attached.  First, there will be denials, then proclamations, "we are doing our best under the circumstances," then will come more denials, then mea culpa.  But to anticipate anything sensible; forget about it!

UPDATE:  I forgot to mention that autologous blood transfusions can be combined with micro-dosing EPO with intravenous injections, a fact that Michael Ashenden, "never considered."

References:

* Source/Quote: Wheelmen, Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O' Connell, Gotham Books, 2013

"The U.S. [Olympic] team, however, went ahead with the blood-boosting effort.  Participation in the program was voluntary.  If they were interested, they were to arrange for family members with compatible blood types to provide blood donations.  A few days before the Olympic track cycling events, the cyclists and their blood donors lined up in a room at the Ramada hotel in Carson City, and a doctor connected tubes between them, allowing the blood to flow directly from the one to the other.  There was no screening of the blood for hepatitis or other diseases.  Brent Emery opted to participate, and his mother showed up at the hotel to provide the transfusion.  Having her blood flow into his body through a plastic tube was a weird experience." PP.30-31; italics added.

Yes. Eddie Borysewicz was the 1984 USA Olympic Team cycling coach: and from this account, he knew of and encouraged blood doping among the team to enhance performance.  The blood transfusions were not autologous they were heterologous, at least for the men.  What is misleading in that?

** A person sent me an e-mail stating that Jan Ullrich was not a product of East German athletics.  However, John Wilcockson summarizes the evolution of Jan Ullrich and explains the upward mobility of young promising athletes within the German Democratic Republic:

Source/Quote: 23 Days in July, John Wilcockson, Da Capo Press, 2004.

"Becoming an athlete was the best passport to prosperity for a child in the German Democratic Republic, so Jan Ullrich became part of the country's elite sports program.  Jan Ullrich won his first bike race at age 11, and two years later he became the East German national scholastic cycling champion in track racing.  That breakthrough win earned the 13-year-old Jan Ullrich a place at SC Dynamo, a sports school in East Berlin.  There, he met coach Peter Becker, a strict disciplinarian, and made friends with a skinny youth called Andreas Kloden, who was eighteen months younger than Jan Ullrich and came from Mittweida, a city in southeast Germany.  Under Peter Becker's influence, both cyclists thrived, with Jan Ullrich winning the national youth and junior championships in both road and track." P.59-60.

"Wolfgang Strohband, Jan Ullrich's manager, dipped into his own pockets to set up Jan Ullrich and nine other East German cyclists in Hamburg.  Wolfgang Strohband was hoping that his riders would be good enough to compete at the 1996 Olympics." P.60.

Jan Ullrich moves to the west in 1989, two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Peter Becker remains his coach.

Now, this clearly establishes that Jan Ullrich was a product of the East German sports system that had an emphasis on Olympic competition.  Jan Ullrich turned professional and rode for Team Telekom placing second in the 1996 Tour de France General Classification behind teammate Bjarne Riis, @1 minute 41 seconds.  Jan Ullrich won the Tour de France in 1997.  Team Telekom was run by Walter Godefroot and Jan Ullrich's personal trainer and the coach was Rudy Pevenage.  After Jan Ullrich tested positive for Ecstasy, a popular rave drug in an out of competition test, he was sacked by Team Telekom and served a one-year suspension.  When Jan Ullrich returned to cycling in the 2003 season, he refused to accept a diminished contract from Team Telekom, and he signed a contract with Team Coast.  Team Coast went bankrupt, so Jan Ullrich negotiated a deal with Bianchi Bicycles for a one-year sponsorship, taking Rudy Pevenage from Team Telekom.  Jan Ullrich raced with Bianchi Bicycles in the 2003 Tour de France, finishing second in the general classification, and he might have won the race had he not fallen in a roundabout during the rain and oil soaked final time trial.  When Jan Ullrich returned to Team Telekom in 2004, as punishment for what Walter Godefroot considered treason, Rudy Pevenage was banished from Team Telekom: although Jan Ullrich continued to employ Rudy Pevenage as personal coach and trainer.  During the 2004 Tour de France, in the early stages, Jan Ullrich suffered a mysterious illness and high fever that most attribute to a bad blood transfusion supplied by Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes of Operation Puerto fame.  In 2006, Jan Ullrich was denied entry into the Tour de France because Spanish drug police raided the offices of Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes and found records and blood samples labeled "son of Rudy."  Jan Ullrich was subsequently banned by the Switzerland Cycling Federation for two years after the Spanish investigation confirmed the DNA of the "son of Rudy" blood samples matched Jan Ullrich.  Jan Ullrich retired from cycling shortly afterward.  Thus ended the career of one of the greatest cyclists of all time.  It seems amazing that Jan Ullrich who tested positive for Ecstasy in an out of competition test and served a suspension, a man who was uncertain about continuing his career in cycling from injury, a man who backed his automobile over a bicycle rack in frustration, a man whose relationship with his longtime girlfriend Gabby was on the rocks and uncertain of continuing, could, after recovering from all of these misfortunes, risk all by paying Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes money to supply him with doped blood.

*** A critic wrote me an e-mail complaining Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond rode at a snail's pace compared to the Marco Pantani record ride up L'Alpe d'Huez.  Before the 1986 L'Alpe d'Huez stage Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond made a deal: Bernard Hinault would set the tempo up the climb and win the stage.  In return for the stage win, Bernard Hinault agreed not to attack Greg LeMond in any of the future stages, including the final time trial, thus ensuring Greg LeMond a Tour de France victory.  Greg LeMond did not set the tempo up L'Alpe d'Huez even though he boasted after the stage he could have put five minutes on the badger!  Thus, we will never know how fast Greg LeMond might have climbed L'Alpe d'Huez in 1986.  But a quick examination of the stage results is suggestive.  Bernard Hinault, 5:03:02, (2) Greg LeMond, same time, (3) Urs Zimmermann, +5.15, (4) Jose Reyes Montoya, +6.06.  If Greg LeMond boasts he could have distanced Bernard Hinault by five minutes, then he could have beaten Urs Zimmermann by ten minutes, fifteen seconds!  Immediate red flags are detected here.  Therefore, the Marco Pantani record ride can be compared to an exhausted Bernard Hinault, but not to a invigorated Greg LeMond.  However, I am convinced Marco Pantani was using rEPO, or blood transfusions, or a combination of the two.  This may have helped Marco Pantani set the record up L'Alpe d'Huez.  After all, Marco Pantani was booted from the 1999 Giro d' Italia for hematocrit over 50%.  Let us just say the 1986 ride up L'Alpe d'Huez, even at a Bernard Hinault snail pace, Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond dropped the entire peloton by over five minutes, and the badger passed Urs Zimmermann for second place in the general classification.  What is misleading in that?

**** Did the International Olympic Committee employ Francesco Conconi to develop a test to detect synthetic EPO?

Source/Quote: Wheelmen, Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O' Connell, Gotham Books, 2013

"Before the 2000 Tour de France began, there were rumors in the peloton that a new prototype test for EPO had been discovered and would be used during the race.  This was the test that the International Olympic Committee had commissioned Francesco Conconi, the so-called fox in the hen house to develop." PP.135-136; italics added.

Here is some additional evidence concerning Francesco Conconi and his supposed development of a test to detect synthetic EPO.

Source/Quote: Seven Deadly Sins, David Walsh, Atria Books, 2012.

"So in the surreal world of Italian sports politics, it came about that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) itself asked a German pharmaceutical company to supply [Francesco] Conconi with EPO so that he could carry out the research which might lead to an EPO test.  This generosity would see the creation of [Francesco] Conconi's infamous 'EPO file,' his 'study group of 23 amateurs' who were in fact 22 professional athletes and himself, that EPO, courtesy of the IOC was used to cheat.  Welcome to the brave new world and its Orwellian dialect of doublespeak." P. 121.

Then there is the great Irish champion Stephen Roche.

"Stephen Roche's career had been highly successful and in 1987 he won the Giro d' Italia, Tour de France, and World Championships, a treble previously achieved only by the legendary Eddy Merckx." P.95.

But unfortunately Stephen Roche was linked to Francesco Conconi:

"In an inquiry into the Ferrara based doctor, Professor Francesco Conconi, Ireland's Tour de France winner Stephen Roche was listed among twenty-three riders in what would be called the EPO file.  Stephen Roche was in the EPO file under his own name but also under aliases, two of which were Ronchi and Roncati." P.95.

Source: 50 Years of Hematology: Research That Revolutionized Patient Care, American Society of Hematology, 2008.

As David Walsh states in his book the Francesco Conconi notations concerning Stephen Roche probably occurred in 1993 and 1994.  This fact does not prove Stephen Roche had any contact with Francesco Conconi prior to 1991, or that Stephen Roche blood doped to win the Tour de France!  But if Stephen Roche chose to blood dope in 1987, blood transfusions would be the method of choice, not synthetic EPO.  A method was found to mass produce recombinant EPO in 1983, but EPO was not approved for use in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration until June 14, 1989.  Even if Stephen Roche and Francesco Conconi had a association prior to 1989, unless Francesco Conconi obtained medical research synthetic EPO by illegal means; or in a European country where EPO had been approved for medical use; or on the black market, there is zero chance synthetic EPO was used by Stephen Roche to dope in 1987.

Source: Stephen Roche and David Walsh, Late Late Show, 2002.

Source: Poison in the heart of sport, David Walsh and John Follain, 2002.

On the Late Late Show, David Walsh accuses Stephen Roche of using synthetic EPO based on Francesco Conconi's 'EPO file'.  Stephen Roche presents his random UCI synthetic EPO test results.  The old EPO tests developed by professor Francesco Conconi measured "transferrin receptor concentration.". Transferrin receptors regulate re-uptake of iron in the cell.  "Transferrin receptor concentration, according to the Conconi study, an untreated athlete (one without EPO) could not have a transferrin receptor concentration higher than 3.1.  The report concludes that 'the increased concentration of the transferrin receptor could be employed as an indirect indicator of EPO misuse in Sports.'"  David Walsh claims that the Francesco Conconi study records include measurements from Stephen Roche under an assumed name that were above the 3.1 transferrin receptor threshold.  Thus indicating Stephen Roche used EPO.

"EPO is the perfect drug.  EPO has a half-life of four hours."   Lance Armstrong.

Obviously, this statement has profound implications for testing.  Theoretically, a rider could take a shot of EPO and ride the entire stage and test clean.  This statement also has implications for Stephen Roche. 

Stephen Roche wanted to prove he rode clean.  A quick glance at Stephen Roche's test results shows a decrease in EPO values between tests taken early (above threshold) in the day as opposed to later the same day (below threshold). This change could be accounted for by EPO four hour half-life decay rates, or basic metabolism, or by introduction of masking agents, saline solutions, or any number of other unknown variables. The variations in values do not necessarily indicate problems with the testing methodology: primitive as the tests were at the time.  Stephen Roche presents a unconvincing case.  The test results indicate that Stephen Roche may have used synthetic EPO on the days indicated on the tests.  David Walsh has a valid case to suspect Stephen Roche of doping.

However, even if the unproven assumption that Stephen Roche was working with Professor Conconi in 1987 is true, EPO doping was not available in 1987.  However, other methods of doping were available, some of these doping methods were undetectable to the testing methodology of the day.

By the way, if you want to know how much Francesco Conconi contributed to the synthetic EPO test solution, contact the IOC.

Source: 50 Years of Hematology: Research That Revolutionized Patient Care, American Society of Hematology, 2008.

However, it is important to note that synthetic EPO was commercially available in the United States just prior to the depart of the 1989 Tour de France and was readily available world wide prior to the depart of the 1990 Tour de France.  Greg LeMond won both Tours.  Greg LeMond beat Miguel Indurain in the 1990 Tour de France.  Greg LeMond has accused Miguel Indurain and the peloton of doping with synthetic EPO during the 1991 Tour de France because Greg LeMond struggled to keep pace with Miguel Indurain and the lead group.  But proof exists that synthetic EPO may have been available to professional cycling during the 1989 Tour de France.

***** Francesco Moser was an Italian time trialist.  Eddy Merckx complained his 1972 one hour world record ride was beaten due to a combination of factors.  Medical treatments from Francesco Conconi.  The medical supervision of Professor Antonio Dal Monte; official doctor of the Italian Cycling Federation.  Medical assistance from star student Michele Ferrari.  Add the aerodynamic design of Francesco Moser's bicycle, moon disc wheels, plus the fact a concrete Mexico City velodrome floor was resurfaced with a special preparation which would reduce friction, as the deciding factors for Francesco Moser setting a new world record one hour ride in Mexico City in 1984.  Eddy Merckx stated he trained with oxygen tanks to mimic the atmosphere of Mexico City; the old "live low, train high" method.  Eddy Merckx also stated after the ride he could not walk for eight days, while Francesco Moser was back on the bike four days later.  Francesco Moser admitted he used blood transfusions to break the hour record.  Ah!  The miracles of modernization.

The reaction to a thirty-one-year-old man, Francesco Moser, smashing the world one hour record of legendary Eddy Merckx, stunned the cycling world!

Source/Quote: The Fabulous World of Cycling: season 1984, Eddy Merckx and Leon Michaux, Winning Production, 1984. PP. 4-13.

"It was a triumph:  In the world of cycling, where nobody believed [Francesco] Moser had a chance, the news had the effect of a bomb.  When Moser went back to the track four days later, astonishment changed to stupefaction, and people started wondering about the technical and medical breakthroughs of the record, which was extended to fifty-one kilometers, one hundred and fifty-one meters." P.12

The UCI allowed all of this nonsense, even though the radical design of Francesco Moser's bicycle and the use of moon disc wheels were a direct violation of UCI Article 49, which states, "anything that might improve penetration through the air is forbidden."

Indeed, there is a disparity between the modern accepted notion crafted primarily by Greg LeMond that the 1980s was the era of cycling drug abstinence and the consensus of cycling enthusiasts in 1984 who recognized that this incredible increase in performance by Francesco Moser was explosive.  People were stupefied with astonishment.  It was not just the radical design of Francesco Moser's bicycle that accounted for this stupefaction, or the moon disc wheels, or the coefficient of drag, or the special preparation applied to the track, or the aerodynamic suit and helmet.  No indeed!  People were questioning the medical preparation of Professor Francesco Conconi, and the medical supervision of Professor Antonio Dal Monte; official doctor of the Italian Cycling Federation; with increasing alarm!  Eddy Merckx was not fooled: he complained if he was provided with an equal medical and technological playing field his one-hour world record would have lasted for a thousand years!  Here is another example of how doping can trump athletic ability, a lesson the 1984 USA Olympic Cycling Team was fully aware of.  Absurd to suggest the professional peloton was ignorant of the fact blood transfusions increased performance in 1984; when it has been officially documented by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA); blood transfusions had been in use since the late nineteen-seventies!  Equally absurd would be the notion once the performance-enhancing qualities of blood doping were known, the temptation of using blood transfusions in the nineteen eighties was considered taboo by the professional peloton!  Only a simpleton would accept the Greg LeMond premise the nineteen-eighties were cleaner than any other decade in cycling or the fact that Greg LeMond was the only clean Tour de France champion, simply because he rode during the nineteen-eighties!

It helps to read the books before you make unsupported statements and send out unsolicited e-mails!

Cycling Ain't Baseball

Wow!  Baseball is certainly tolerant of their cheaters; the Alex Rodriguez arbitration decision is final: a 161 game suspension, or one season, for the second known doping offense.  Of course, Alex Rodriguez will lose twenty-one million dollars in salary for one year; but unlike cycling, the Yankees still have three years left on his contract to pay, even if Alex Rodriguez never appears again at-bat.

Yes, if it were only so simple.  The Yankees hate "A-Roid".  The Yankees wish "A-Roid" would vanish from baseball forever.  But "A-Roid", like all good cheaters feels that he has been a victim of a vendetta; after all he uses the same logic as any other doper; there were no positive tests and Bud Selig wants to make him a scapegoat.  Of course Alex Rodriguez is innocent, the cash payments that were recorded at Biogenesis of America were incorrectly attributed to the wrong Alex Rodriguez, and the human growth hormone and other prohibited performance-enhancing substances Anthony Bosch injected into Alex Rodriguez were nothing more than inert saline solution.

There is also a further complication: Alex Rodriguez wants to contest the arbitration award in Federal Court as an unfair process that denies due process and other legal protections to the defendant.  Ice will freeze in hell before any Federal Court will side with Mr. Rodriguez.  The only winners will be the shyster lawyers who will reap incredible fees for service.  Listen, Mr. Rodriguez, these cases are always dismissed.

If Alex Rodriguez was a cyclist his career would be over for eight years for a second doping offense.  Under the archaic rules of cycling, the Yankees could fire Alex Rodriguez even if he had a multi-year contract.  His case would be considered a "personal affair" between himself and the anti-doping agency that was responsible for prosecuting him, even if the team ran an organized doping program.

For example, Floyd Landis, supposedly asked Andy Rihs, owner of BMC bicycles to run an organized doping program similar in scope to the organized doping program Lance Armstrong used with the United States Postal Service Professional Cycling Team, or so Floyd Landis claims.  If this fact is true,(and given Floyd Landis's track record of flip-flop inventiveness over the years, this is a very big if) then Andy Rihs should have been charged along with Floyd Landis. There should have been an investigation of Team Phonak, and if any wrongdoing could have been discovered, then the whole bunch should have been charged with doping violations and chucked out into the street.  To say that an organized doping program did not exist on Team Phonak before Floyd Landis arrived would be misguided lunacy.  Tyler Hamilton was a chronic Phonak doper who took substance abuse to extreme levels.  Phonak had so many riders who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs that the UCI felt obliged to pull Phonak's Pro Tour license.  The license was only restored after Phonak put on a show of cleaning up the team through a bogus internal team biological passport that turned out to be nothing more than developing a methodology to beat the WADA labs.  But, when Floyd Landis tested positive for synthetic testosterone, Phonak described the situation as a "personal affair," that had nothing whatever to do with Phonak.  See the deception in all of this?  Of course, nobody is accusing the Yankees baseball team of running an organized doping program that included the Biogenesis of America.

Never trust any team, cycling or baseball that carries around a mandate against doping, a blood centrifuge, or blood diagnostic equipment.  Or the name Garmin or Sky.  Stated intentions are never what they appear to be; there always seems to be an underlying current of deception lurking somewhere right below the pristine surface: follow the money!

Of course, baseball could ban players for eight years for a second doping offense instead of for 161 games, then people could be rid of these repeat offenders -- like they rid the world of Lance Armstrong!  Eight years is like a lifetime ban.  But then again, baseball can continue the charade and pay men who dope millions of dollars under binding contracts at the insistence of the players union.  Everybody is saying that Alex Rodriguez wanted to be the first player to hit 800 home runs; just like Lance Armstrong wanted to be the first man to win seven Tour de France titles.  The punishment should be commensurate with the crime after all.

Alex Rodriguez will serve his suspension and the Yankees will probably eat his contract and farm him out to some baseball team in Siberia.  But it is time for baseball to rethink the problem and re-structure the contracts.  Otherwise teams will continue to be stuck with deadwood and the remaining players who have not yet been caught will never be incentivized to quit.

Wheelmen: Book Review

Wheelmen, Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O' Connell, Gotham Books, 2013

Wheelmen approaches the business side of cycling.  Wheelmen is primarily focused on the creative genius of Thomas Weisel.  Thomas Weisel developed the concept of formulating an American cycling team, which would dominate the Tour de France.  Considering the indifference to professional cycling in the United States at the time, an American team win in a classic race was considered almost impossible.  Nevertheless, in spite of the long odds of success, Thomas Weisel managed to secure an agreement with the United States Postal Service to sponsor a professional cycling team owned by Tailwind Sport. When the Postal Service team continued to lose money, Thomas Weisel offered limited partnership options to a group of fanatical cycling entrepreneurs, men such as David "Tiger" Williams of Williams Trading LLC. The David " Tiger" Williams group was more interesting in fostering the growth of cycling in the United States than in a profit margin.  What emerged from all of these efforts was a spectacular United States Postal Service Professional Cycling Team, and a unbelievable domination of the Tour de France by an American team for six years.  When the United States Postal Service ended their sponsorship, Tailwind Sport immediately signed a new sponsorship deal with the Discovery Channel.  One sponsorship contract stipulation postulated by the Discovery Channel, according to one account: (although this fact is disputed in Wheelmen) required Lance Armstrong to race for the Discovery Channel team in one Tour de France.  This stipulation in the sponsorship contract only makes sense considering the amazing amount of exposure and return in revenue to expenditure Lance Armstrong was generating by his athleticism.  For example, it is estimated that the United States Postal Service generated $1.5 billion in European sales a year before sponsoring the U.S. Postal cycling team, but after sponsoring the cycling team, European sales increased to over $3 billion a year.  Sales of Trek bicycles increased by 141%.  Nike and Oakley also had monumental increases in sales.  All of these profits were directly attributed to relationships with Lance Armstrong.  Lance Armstrong was a gold mine, people loved his remarkable recovery from cancer, they loved his "miracle" racing success on the bike.  Lance Armstrong was a American icon.  When Lance Armstrong started the Lance Armstrong Foundation, now known as the Livestrong Foundation, and Nike developed the classic yellow Livestrong rubber bracelet to raise money for cancer awareness, an enthusiastic public immediately forked over $500 million in one-dollar donations.  Yellow Livestrong bracelets were seen to adorn celebrities and plebeians alike.  Lance Armstrong was like King Midas, everything he touched turned to gold.

Fools gold, fueled by performance-enhancing drug abuse.  The Lance Armstrong empire, due to an unusual set of circumstances, would come tumbling down in a heap of rubble; the indestructible Goliath would be taken down by a mild mannered David.  Travis T. Tygart of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).  Ironically, the fatal information, which would lead to the demise of Lance Armstrong was provided by Floyd Landis.  Floyd Landis is a former disgraced Tour de France winner who had his title stripped after being found guilty of using synthetic testosterone in a highly contentious arbitration process.  In the Floyd Landis arbitration process the roles were reversed: Travis Tygart played the role of Goliath, with a succulent taxpayer funded budget of $15 million a year.  Floyd Landis played the role of David without a slingshot, or two wooden nickels in his pocket to rub together.  In the Floyd Landis arbitration process, USADA employed stall tactics. For example, Howard L. Jacobs submitted a document to USADA requesting information pertinent to the defense with regards to suspicious lab results generated by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accredited laboratory LNDD, but access to this discovery request was flatly denied by USADA; even though USADA was in possession of the documentation at the time of Mr. Jacobs request.  Similar document access requests submitted to USADA by Maurice Suh were also denied by USADA until the arbitration panel, after months of legal wrangling, ordered USADA to release the documents to Floyd Landis.  The Floyd Landis arbitration case was extended for two and a half years. USADA received $15 million a year from the United States taxpayer for a total of $37.5 million. Floyd Landis had to appeal to David "Tiger" Williams, hat in hand, for help with his legal expenses.  USADA had an operating budget of $37.5 million to fight mono a mono a man who had exhausted all of his savings in protracted legal expenses engineered by USADA.  By the end of the arbitration process Floyd Landis did not possess one red cent.  Of course, I am convinced that inequity in expense funding to cover legal costs was one of the motivating factors deterring Lance Armstrong from mounting a challenge against USADA.  But Lance Armstrong did have a plausible defense.  Lance Armstrong never failed a single test conducted by the "gold standard" of WADA accredited laboratories. WADA has always advocated a aura of infallibility never to be contested.  Lance Armstrong had assembled a team of $1000 a hour lawyers who were experts in federal courts, but who had no experience in doping arbitration cases. Lance Armstrong's legal team did not understand the irrational nature of arbitration; where the rules are arbitrary, and capricious, and subjected to change with every prosecution request. Lance Armstrong's legal team did not understand that WADA code is not legally binding in arbitration.  Lance Armstrong's expensive group of legal experts would have certainly bankrupted Lance Armstrong in an arbitration fight.  Travis Tygart would have employed the Bleak House method of arbitration, with continual denials of access to information pertinent to the defense, and delay of process, until Lance Armstrong joined Floyd Landis in bankruptcy court.  Travis Tygart would have made sure of that.

Then there is the second question posed in Wheelmen: what motivated Floyd Landis to blow the whistle on Lance Armstrong?  Answer?  (1) Floyd Landis had nothing to lose.  (2) Floyd Landis had thrity million reasons to break to code of omerta and finger Lance Armstrong: a qui tam suit.  But Lance Armstrong is certainly to blame!  When Lance Armstrong returned in 2009 after his brief hiatus from cycling and Team Radio Shack was formed, according to Wheelmen:

That July when Landis learned about Radio Shack, he swallowed his pride and called Johan Bruyneel to ask for a spot on the team.  Bruyneel turned him down.  He said Floyd would bring too much negative publicity, that in terms of public relations, Floyd was radioactive. P.243.

Of course, Johan Bruyneel signed his own death warrant.  Persona non grata was a mistake.  All Floyd Landis wanted to do was race.  If Floyd Landis would have been allowed to join Team Radio Shack, Lance Armstrong will still be a cycling god, and Johan Bruyneel would still have a career as directeur sportif!  There were also rumors at the time that Lance Armstrong personally vetoed all Floyd Landis requests to join a European pro-tour or Continental team.  There was Lance Armstrong, summa doper, returning to the limelight, the money and accolades, while Floyd Landis sat in a log cabin scorned by the cycling community like some outcast leper.  Floyd Landis was so angry he finally decided to do something about Lance Armstrong.  Floyd Landis sent an e-mail to USA Cycling president Steve Johnson describing past doping offenses Lance Armstrong committed, doping offenses Floyd Landis had personally witnessed and participated in; such as the team blood transfusion at a French highway rest stop, at midnight, while the bus driver feigned mechanical trouble.  What chutzpah!  Imagine what would have happened if a French policeman had stopped to ask what the trouble was!  The bus was plainly marked the United States Postal Service Professional Cycling Team.  Inside the bus the entire team was re-infusing their own blood!  The Festina Affair would have been like a firecracker compared to an atomic bomb if the team would have been caught!  Insane!  One might ask the question: what evil being was in possession of these people?  The answer is; Johan Bruyneel thought the hotel where the team was assigned was bugged with microphones and cameras.  Blood transfusions at the hotel was out of the question!  Thus the midnight bus blood transfusions, in spite of incredible risks, was the only solution.

Descriptions of these tales of doping by Floyd Landis certainly triggered an atomic response.  The United States Department Of Justice immediately convened a grand jury to hear witness testimony to determine if the United States Postal Service Professional Cycling Team had engaged in any criminal activity.  Lead by Jeff Novitzky, former teammates of Lance Armstrong who rode for the U.S Postal and Discovery Channel teams were forced to testify under oath or to submit written depositions as to their involvement in, and/or knowledge of, any doping practices, trafficking, or wire transfers of money, which may have occurred while they were riding for the U.S. Postal Service or the Discovery Channel teams.  Things looked bleak for Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel, but suddenly, apropos of nothing, the criminal investigation suddenly terminated.

The criminal investigation may have terminated but Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel still faced civil action in the form of a qui tam, or whistle blower suit where the United States Postal Service claimed the cycling team violated their contractual agreements not to engage in performance-enhancing drug use; and if it was to be determined in court that the team was in violation of this "no drug" stipulation, this contractual violation constituted fraud.  Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel were listed as the men most responsible for this fraud, when it was reported by Floyd Landis,  Johan Bruyneel had told him all of the extra team Trek bicycles and Shimano Dura Ace group sets were being sold in Belgium "off the books" to finance the doping program.  Of course, the lack of a suitable time trial training bike was one of the points of contention, along with an inadequate salary, which caused Floyd Landis to leave US Postal Service and join team Phonak; as Floyd Landis recounts in his book, Positively False.  Of course, Floyd Landis did not disclose the bicycles for dope scheme; in his book because he was still trying to maintain his victim status and his aura of innocence!  Anyway, if the US Postal Service prevails, the judgment against Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel could be as high as $120 million and Floyd Landis could receive a reward of $30 million.

So much for Floyd Landis and his motivations.  Lance Armstrong thanked the government for dropping the grand jury probe, but alas, USADA was waiting in the wings.  Travis Tygart grabbed all of the grand jury witnesses who had testified and convinced them they would "clean up cycling" if they would testify against Lance Armstrong.  The response was overwhelming: even Lance Armstrong's most trusted lieutenant, George Hincapie, the super domestique who helped Lance Armstrong win all seven of his consecutive Tour de France victories testified.  A non-analytical positive case was quickly developing against Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, Michel Ferrari, Pepi Marti, Luis Garcia del Moral, et al., and the evidence appeared to be overwhelming.  Suddenly, Lance Armstrong surrendered, he announced that he would not contest the evidence in arbitration.  USADA had won the war without firing a shot or spending a penny.  The Reasoned Decision followed, a terse summary of the evidence collected against the accused parties, and Lance Armstrong had all seven of his titles rescinded without a hearing.  Also, USADA ordered Lance Armstrong a lifetime ban from professional cycling and any other sanctioned sport, including triathlon competitions Lance Armstrong was keen to compete in at the time.

Lance Armstrong was outraged by the USADA action.  Armstrong thought that he had been unfairly singled out for an excessive punishment arguing that he was merely doing what the entire peloton was doing at the time: using performance-enhancing drugs to win races.  Lance Armstrong wanted his penalty reduced so he could continue to compete in sanctioned triathlon competitions.  Ironically enough, Travis Tygart offered Lance Armstrong an option to keep five of his Tour de France titles if he would testify under oath and help to "clean up the sport."  However, Lance Armstrong has declined to accept this offer, and he was not convinced that the offer of an eight-year suspension Travis Tygart offered was a good deal.  As Lance Armstrong reasoned, an eight-year suspension amounted to a lifetime ban since he would be over forty years old when the suspension ended, so he would never again be in contention in triathlons.  Lance Armstrong declined USADA's offer, a stupendous blunder, true, but nobody can accuse Lance Armstrong of violating the code of omerta!

When Nike decided to pull the plug on Lance Armstrong as corporate spokesman, other stalwart companies who had backed Armstrong did the same.  Trek, Oakley, other companies that had endorsement deals followed suit.  Lance Armstrong skirted down the mountain like an avalanche, the momentum could not be stopped.  The board of the Lance Armstrong Foundation asked Lance Armstrong to resign.  Sports Contest Associate (SCA) Promotions, who was ordered by the court to pay a five million dollar bonus and legal fees to Lance Armstrong for winning his sixth Tour de France victory was demanding a refund.  The London Sunday Times who printed David Walsh's contention that Lance Armstrong was using performance-enhancing drugs was sued by Lance Armstrong for libel.  A British court ordered the London Sunday Times to pay 300,000 quid British sterling to Lance Armstrong.  Now the paper was filing a lawsuit demanding a refund and damages.  Other firms were lining up with lawsuits.  Lance Armstrong's entire fortune was in jeopardy of vanishing into ethereal space.  The American love affair with Lance Armstrong was over.

Then the final blunder.  Lance Armstrong confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs on Oprah.  The public relations campaign, if it could be described as such, backfired.  Nobody cared about a washed-up, over the hill ex-cyclist doper who competed in triathlon competitions.  People were more worried about discovering the fountain of youth with deer antler spray.  The coup de Oprah did nothing to increase her ratings either.  People had become bored with Oprah.

There is the final issue of Lance Armstrong using performance-enhancing drugs during the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France.  Lance Armstrong denies any use of performance-enhancing drugs after 2005.  Lance Armstrong claims the variations discovered in the UCI biological passport were caused by natural physiological processes.  However, there was a missed opportunity that UCI and cycling probably will rue forever.  An opportunity to nail two past Tour de France champions at the same time, Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador.

Plasticizer Armstrong

I conclude this review with this thought and extensive quotation from Wheelmen as to a method that could have caught both Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong in one fell swoop during the 2009 Tour de France.

Several anti-doping scientists believed Armstrong was planning to use blood transfusions during the 2009 Tour de France, and they were in the process of developing a test they thought would be able to catch him.  The new test, which was being developed in a laboratory in Barcelona, could detect plastic molecules from transfusion bags in riders blood.  The scheme would require cooperation from several organizations, including WADA, UCI, and the Swiss anti-doping laboratory that handled blood testing for the Tour de France.  But as the test hadn't yet been perfected, the plan was to freeze Armstrong's blood and test it later.  There was a small hitch, though.  In order to preserve a frozen specimen, a chemical needed to be mixed with the blood. P.231.

Thus the problem: the preservative.  Adding a preservative would compromise the integrity of the sample.

The people involved in the plan decided they would take the blood test, seal both samples in front of Armstrong, and then beak the seal at the lab, add the preservative, and freeze it.  Once the Barcelona test was perfected, they would test Armstrong's blood for the plasticizer.  Because the seals were broken, the test itself could not be used to sanction Armstrong, but it could be used in conjunction with other evidence - such as witness testimony - to convict him of a doping offense.  The scientists were excited.  They thought they had their man.  P.232; italics added.

Hmmm! Really!  A tampered sample was to be used as supplemental evidence?  Nevertheless, didn't they find elevated plastic in Alberto Contador's blood samples in 2010 when he tested positive for clenbuterol?  And was not this finding for elevated plasticizer not used as supplemental evidence?

It is a pity that the test for the plasticizers had not been perfected at the time.  Indeed, both Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador could have been detected.  Lance Armstrong could have been exposed as a fraud.  Alberto Contador could have been tagged as a three-time loser and banned forever.

But like with all novel ideas people get cold feet and reconsider.  The idea fizzled because nobody was courageous enough to go through with the plan.

From Wheelmen:

The attempt by anti-doping scientists to test for plasticizers in Armstrong's blood had also failed.  The anti-doping laboratory that was supposed to store the blood pulled out at the last minute, just before the Tour, when it came under pressure from the UCI, which said that the test fell outside the bounds of normal testing procedure. P.235; italics added.

Conclusion

If you are a neophyte doping investigator or a seasoned expert in the subject: Wheelmen is a good read.  The best man in this drama is none other than David "Tiger" Williams who told Floyd Landis to depart U.S. Postal Service for Phonak, even though Williams had a vested interest in Tailwind Sport.  Then when Floyd Landis faced economic calamity, David "Tiger" Williams came to the rescue, once again, with money to help with the legal costs of Floyd Landis' arbitration.  A good man.