It's Not About The Bike: Book Review

It's Not About The Bike, Lance Armstrong and Sally Jenkins, G.P. Putman's Sons, 2000

Sally Jenkins lists on the cover of the book some amazing attributes of Lance Armstrong: "Winner Tour de France- Cancer Survivor- Husband- Father- Son- Human Being."  If I were to edit the attributes I might mention Liar, Cheater, Doper, Scoundrel, and Dissimulator of Noxious Poppycock.  But then again somebody would accuse me of being a cynic.

The book is segmented into three parts, a youthful brash Lance Armstrong who was an impulsive athletic sensation feeling his roots and taking incredible risks, the Texas tornado days; the cancer diagnoses and the realization of mortality; and the aftermath, the astounding recovery and sensational athletic success of winning the Tour de France.

There are some themes to the book that resemble Every Second Counts, Lance Armstrong's propensity to launch solo suicide attacks that were usually reeled in.  His brazen, argumentative style prompted other riders in the peloton to flick him.  The term flick is derived from a German obscenity, and in cycling, it equates to tactics used by other riders in tandem to prevent one from winning a race.  Lance Armstrong was warned by other riders: "cool it, you are making enemies," and in cycling races, you do favors for friends, so they will do favors for you when the need arises.  A group of angry riders will flick you at the most critical moment.  Understand?

Then there are the weight claims, the bad cycling technique, the lack of understanding of team tactics, the lack of commitment, the lack of discipline, all excuses contrived to circumvent the rumors that the vast improvement in Lance Armstrong's performance was founded on dope.  Aerodynamics might account for some of the improvement, but how do you explain the fact that during the 1993 Tour de France, Lance Armstrong after winning the Chalons-Sur-Marne to Verdun stage, abandoned the race during stage 12; in 97th place?  Lance Armstrong claimed that the Alps were "too long and too cold."  What an amazing metamorphosis, the man of clay suddenly emerges as the man of steel, dropping the opposition like flies in sensational climbing attacks during the 1999 Tour de France, to the amazement of everyone, who predicted before the race that Lance Armstrong would never finish the race, let alone win the race.   The French press was shouting that the improvement must be related to the Epogen that Lance Armstrong took during his cancer treatments.  Lance Armstrong attempts to quell these rumors in his book; to disarm the accusations with a crafty bit of reasoning:

"There was an odd commonality in the language of cancer and the language of cycling.  They were both about blood.  In cycling, on way of cheating is to take a drug that boosts your red blood cell count.  In fighting cancer, if my hemoglobin fell below a certain level, the doctors would give me the very same drug Epogen.  There was a baseline of numbers I had to meet in my blood tests, and the doctors measured my blood for the very same thing they measured in cycling: my threshold for physiological stress." P.92.

Thus, if there was any use of Epogen, it was a therapeutic practice necessary to promote good health, not a method to increase athletic performance, and any other reasoning by the French press or anyone else was based upon a bit of loony speculation, not science.

Anyway, this argument could be extended indefinitely, but in certain sense retrospective arguments always have perfect logic.  More Germain to the issue is a specific instance in the book where a certain suspect inherent psychopathic tendency of Lance Armstrong becomes manifest, a bit of trickery, that was aided by other professional teams, where all parties made money.

The Thrift Drug Triple Crown

Thrift Drug offered a million dollar bonus to any rider who could win the 1993 Triple Crown of Cycling: a one day race in Pittsburgh, a six-day stage race in West Virginia, and the U.S. Pro Championships, a one-day road race covering 156 miles through Philadelphia.

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

"1)  Lance Armstrong easily won the Pittsburgh race, which he had also won in 1992.
 2)   During the West Virginia race, a 493 mile, six-stage race in the hills, Lance Armstrong won the opening Morgantown prologue time trial by just under two seconds.
 3)  The second day of the West Virginia race featured a 100-mile mountain course in the Monongahela National Forest near Elkins.  After Lance Armstrong won again, his lead in the overall standings was 14 seconds, with Michael Engleman of the rival Coors Light team in second place." P.59.

Then a business deal was struck between Lance Armstrong and the Coors Light team.  Quoting: Wheelmen, Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O' Connell, Gotham Books, 2013

"With the one million dollar prize on the line, Lance Armstrong then turned to an age-old tactic to boost his chance of winning.  He sent a Motorola teammate to approach Scott McKinley, one of the captains of the Coors Light squad, with a business proposition.  Stephen Swart, another Coors team captain, later recalled, under oath during a lawsuit deposition, the following proposition:  Would Michael Engleman and his Coors Light teammates be open to a payoff in exchange for agreeing not to challenge Lance Armstrong in what remained of the Triple Crown?" P.59.

"Stephen Swart a stocky New Zealander, testified that he met Lance Armstrong in a hotel room to discuss it.  In fact, such deals were common in the strange sport of professional cycling, and not seen as entirely unsportsmanlike.  The riders quickly came to an agreement.  Stephen Swart said if the Coors team riders backed off and didn't challenge Lance Armstrong, and if Lance Armstrong won the $1 million, he would pay the Coors team a total of $50,000.  While the payment wasn't a huge amount of money, the Coors riders hadn't won the first leg of the Triple Crown in Pittsburgh, so they weren't in the running for the $1 million anyway.  They all agreed to keep it quiet, Stephen Swart said in his testimony, knowing that if the insurance company found out, it might refuse to pay up." P.59.

"A few months after the race, the Coors Light team was paid in cash for their lack of effort in the races." P.60.

Lance Armstrong recounts his attack up the Manayunk Wall:

"Then with about twenty miles left, I went. I attacked the most notoriously steep part of the course- Manayunk- all I know is that I leaped out of the saddle and hammered down on the pedals, and as I did so I screamed for a full five seconds.  I opened a huge gap on the field.  By the second to the last lap, I had enough of a lead to blow my mother a kiss.  I crossed the finish line with the biggest winning margin in race history.  I dismounted in a swarm of reporters, but I broke away from them and went straight to my mother, and we put our faces in each other's shoulders and cried." P.61.

Roberto Gaggioli of the Coors Light team claims that Lance Armstrong paid him $100,000 to allow Lance Armstrong to escape on the Manayunk Wall, other teams claimed similar payoffs.

I spent an inordinate amount of time discussing the Thrift Drug Triple Crown because it happened during the Motorola period, and serves as a precursor of behavior that would be exhibited by Lance Armstrong after he recovered from cancer.  Like all sociopaths, Lance Armstrong received positive reinforcement from his crime in the form of money and fame.  Lance Armstrong would repeat this antisocial pattern of behavior for seven Tour de France victories: until he was outed by his former teammate Floyd Landis.  Floyd Landis outed Lance Armstrong out of revenge for being flicked by Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel.  Floyd Landis asked Johan Bruyneel for a job on team Radio Shack.  Johan Bruyneel said "no" to Floyd Landis because Lance Armstrong said "no."  It has been speculated that Lance Armstrong was partly responsible for Floyd Landis having difficulties landing a UCI Pro Tour job after he has served his suspension for testing positive during the 2006 Tour de France.  Lance Armstrong forgot the lesson he learned in the early days: don't make enemies.  If Floyd Landis hadn't spoken up, Lance Armstrong's crime spree would have probably continued in the form of paid sponsorship deals forever.

Lance Armstrong also was World Champion before his cancer diagnoses.  Lance Armstrong beat "Big Mig" who had just won his third straight Tour de France, at the World Championships in Oslo, Norway.  I don't think Lance Armstrong strong-armed Miguel Indurain for the win.  I think this may have been one of few legitimate wins Lance Armstrong ever produced in a professional race.  Did Lance Armstrong use dope to win?  Did Miguel Indurain use dope?  Does one suspicion cancel out another and does it really matter anymore?

Lack of Health Insurance is a Frightening Proposition

Satisfied?  Recapitulation of past crimes is important, but It's Not About The Bike, is not all about past crimes.  No: the book takes a serious personal turn and is focused with the horror of dealing with a particularly virulent form of cancer that as it metastasized, lowered the probability of survival for the patient, Lance Armstrong.  This portion of the book is very well written, and it brings back old memories of my friend Colin who suffered from stage IV of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.  An account of Colin's symptoms and struggles can be found in my review of Every Second Counts.  Lance Armstrong's account of his desire for knowledge about his illness, brings to mind days when I investigated my friend Colin's cancer.  Research studies into specific cancer types are coded with a number, on file with the National Cancer Institute; which can be downloaded on request.  The National Cancer Institute also provides a cancer dictionary, that can be copied and printed on request.  I also downloaded numerous similar research studies that I thought might have been of interest to Colin.  Then there is an association between Lance Armstrong and my friend Colin when it came to not having insurance.  The hospital informed Lance Armstrong, by letter, that he did not have any health insurance.  Lance Armstrong determined that because he was in transition between team Motorola and Cofidis, his insurance with Motorola had been canceled, and his contract with Cofidis was still pending.  Another major difference between Lance Armstrong and Colin existed;  Lance Armstrong had about $700,000 in liquid assets, Lance Armstrong says he sold his expensive Porsche, but my friend Colin didn't have two nickels to rub together.  Lance Armstrong had a team of people assisting him, my friend Colin was told by the University of Utah bone marrow transplant unit that unless he qualified for Medicaid, he would be refused service.  Now non-Hodgkin lymphoma has an almost 100% fatality rate and the average life expectancy is five years.  But without the bone marrow transplant, Colin would have been dead in six months.  Now the obvious question arises: is it worth it to spend $250,000 in hospital expenses to prolong life for five years?  Is it ethical for the medical system to keep spooning money from a man who has a zero probability of living after five years, from a man who is living in chronic psychological and physical pain?  Lance Armstrong at one time had a twenty percent chance of survival, but he lived, so obviously, the time and money were well invested.  But my friend Colin had no chance of survival, and except for being an experimental biped lab rat, he served no useful purpose except to be congratulated by the University of Utah hospital staff for bringing in a huge amount of money for the hospital.  Imagine people who are admitted to a hospital with a chronic cancer condition who have no insurance and no money.  Should we sentence these people to an early death because they are financially insolvent?  Should hospitals and doctors refuse to treat these people?  Should unemployed people, people who make minimum wage, or homeless people be turned away because they can't pay cash on demand for services?

Because, there a great number of people who think that Medicaid people are garbage who do nothing but suck money out of the system, and if they were faced with a catastrophic medical condition they should do nothing but die.  The state hates these people so much that they will do anything not to expand the Medicaid roles, preferring to watch people die.  But the chronic poor is not the only people who suffer from medical disasters, average middle-class people with inadequate medical insurance are getting squeezed too.  The number one financial distress among American families that result in bankruptcy is unexpected medical problems.

The Utah Alternative: Panacea of Folly

But Utah State Governor Gary Herbert has the solution!  It is called the Utah Alternative.  Forget Medicaid expansion with all of those excessive regulations!  Gary Herbert wants a block grant of money without any federal restrictions at all!  The money will not expand the Medicaid roles, God forbid!  No Gary Herbert wants Medicaid to be a temporary measure, if the recipient is upright with a pulse, this person will be deemed "able-bodied" and will be required to enroll into a workforce training program.  After successful completion of said program, the graduate, Gary Herbert assures us, will be able to land a "good job."  I don't disapprove of people of being trained and finding good jobs, and contributing to America.  What I object to is the notion that all people who are receiving Medicaid are nothing more than dead beat lazy parasites who would rather live off the government than work.  I fear that a great number of people who are receiving Medicaid are doing so because they are functionally illiterate, of limited physical capacity, mentally ill, or all of the above; and that these people have very few if any marketable skills or work history.  A person who is educated in America for twelve years who has a reading capacity of an eighth grader, or a student who thinks that 2+2=5, are perfect examples of people who are obviously unprepared to enter the workforce in any meaningful capacity.  However, not to worry, as the Gary Herbert training system will rectify this problem with an extensive course of remedial English, and remedial courses in mathematics, that will magically transform the illiterate into a highly educated, highly skilled super producers that any firm would be proud to hire, and promote into positions of even higher responsibility.  Sounds like a boring infomercial.  The idea is a stupid one, there will be money spent on training courses that should be spent in providing people with health insurance, and most of the people who enroll in the training course will lack the mental capacity to complete the course, these people will fail, and failure is equivalent to expulsion from the Medicaid program.  In addition, I will bet you a million dollars to a bucket of warm spit, that people will be required, after completion of the course, to find a job within thirty days, or they will be booted from their Medicaid plans.  Of course, the Utah Alternative has not been implemented yet, and Gary Herbert assures us that this is only a pilot program and that the public will have an opportunity to comment.  But never fear, the ultimate goal is to forward the plan to the Utah State legislature, a group who cannot resist the urge to be trendsetters in national embarrassment. How many times must the oppressed people of the State of Utah shake their heads in amazement at the stupidity of the laws that these people pass every session?  Listen, if you are afflicted with cancer you are not going to care about training and a job, you are going to concern about your life, and survival, period.  Worrying about liquidating your assents to pay the medical bills should never be a concern for a sick person.  It is time for Gary Herbert and his legions return to sanity, abandon their plan, and expand the Medicaid roles to cover the people who have no health insurance.  Stop playing goofy games.

Oakley Insures Lance Armstrong:

"Next day as [Candide] was taking a walk, he met a beggar, all covered over with sores, his eyes half dead, the tip of his nose eaten off, his mouth turned on one side of his face, his teeth black, speaking through his throat, tormented with a violent cough, with gums so rotten, that his teeth came near falling out every time he spit."

The beggar turned out to be Candide's tutor Dr. Pangloss.  After Dr. Pangloss gives Candide a long lecture on the transmission of the communicable disease smallpox, Candide and Dr. Pangloss engage in this memorable discussion:

"'That is admirable,' said Candide; but you must be cured.'  'Ah! how can I?' said Pangloss; 'I have not a penny, my friend; and throughout the whole extent of this globe, we cannot get anyone to bleed us, or give us a glitter, without paying for it, or getting some other person to pay for us.'"

"This last speech determined Candide, he went and threw himself at the feet of his charitable Anabaptist James, and gave him so touching description of the state his friend was reduced to, that the good man did not hesitate to entertain Dr. Pangloss, and he had him cured at his own expense."

Voltaire
Candide

Lance Armstrong is one of the lucky people who always seems to find a way out of every difficulty.  Mike Parnell, the Chief Executive Officer of Oakley came to the rescue like a knight in shining armor.  Mike Parnell said he could get Lance Armstrong health insurance through Oakley. 

"But there the health care provider balked; I [Lance Armstrong] had a preexisting condition and therefore they were not obliged to cover my cancer treatments.  Mike Parnell picked up the phone and called the provider, he informed them that if they did not cover my medical treatments, his entire firm would take it's business elsewhere.  'Cover him.'  The provider still balked.  'I don't think you understood what I just said,' Mike said.  They covered me." P.128

Well now, Obamacare has taken care of the preexisting condition problem.  But probably not for long.  There seems to be a number of highly motivated people who think Obamacare the work of Satan; and they are highly motivated to repeal and replace this health care law at any cost, even if millions of Americans are reduced to the previous American health care system of barbarism, unprovided for unless they produce cash on demand for services!  The hospitals will be inundated with uninsured patients, will these people be denied care?  Will the hospitals face bankruptcy, or be forced out of business?  Will insurance rates skyrocket as a side effect to this madness?  Will hospital closures will be discounted as collateral damage; as a necessary evil to maintain free-market purity?  This callous disregard for human life reminds me of the poetic verses of  Edgar Allan Poe:

"The motley drama-oh be sure
It shall not be forgotten!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth
To the self-same spot,
And much in Madness and more of Sin
And Horror the soul of the plot."

Edgar Allan Poe
The Conqueror Worm

But, it is nice if we all had a Mike Parnell who would sign us up under their corporate health care plans when we were in need, instead of casting us under the bus like Gary Herbert wants to do.

Brain Surgery, Mortality, and Philosophical Considerations:

The stress of not facing certain disaster gave Lance Armstrong time to focus on the task at hand, survival.  There were certain indications cancer may have spread to his brain.  A magnetic resonance image (MRI) found a number of lesions in Lance Armstrong's brain.  But according to neurosurgeon Dr. Scott Shapiro, the tumors seemed to be located on the surface of the brain, so surgery would be very simple.  But Lance Armstrong was convinced even a simple mistake could lead to catastrophic results, as some of the tumors were located in the occipital lobe, the location of neurons that regulate vision.  Call it paranoia, or irrational fear, but the night before the brain surgery Lance Armstrong had an existential moment.  He pondered death and made a philosophical resolution:  "I believed I had a responsibility to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking, and honorable.  If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn't a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed that would be enough."  This personal angst by Lance Armstrong is very curious because it has been said by numerous philosophers good people do not fear, they welcome death.  People who fear punishment in the afterlife, [if such a place exists] by some vengeful deity, [if such a person exists] must have some basis for this fear: like engaging in behavior that would be considered contrary to good social norms.  Lance Armstrong's philosophical resolutions were laudable; he was facing mortality, he was uncertain as to whether his perceptual reality would be the same after the surgery as it was before the surgery: would he be blind?  Would his spacial or cognitive world be subjected to some sort of modification?  Facing the prospect of being physically changed, of having your personality modified, to emerge from surgery as a different person with different traits and characteristics, would be terrifying, and these changes might serve as an impetus for sober reflection.  As an aside: I knew a woman named Linda who had reoccurring seizures that required brain surgery.  When I met her, she already had one surgery, and the seizures abated for a while, but they returned, which required a second surgery.  I used to ask her what she was like before her first surgery, she could not exactly define it in words, but she used to say I was different. After the second surgery, her personality changed almost one hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction, with a pronounced cognitive decline.  She had almost no recall of her previous personality when I used to remind her of her former style, she had no recollection at all.  Her brother had the same malady, and he was resisting surgery, but the doctor told him if he waited any longer he was courting death.  I was heartbroken for both of them, it was a tragic case.

But as Lance Armstrong admitted: "Things change, intentions get lost."  Lance Armstrong's newly articulated spiritual reformation vanished like a mirage.  The laudable sentiments were replaced by a sort of cheap cynicism; win at all costs.  Necessity knows no law, and Lance Armstrong had learned from experience that winning in cycling requires a long litany of nefarious behavior,  drugs, and bribes, cheating, threats and intimidation of other riders, authority figures, or anyone else who stood in his way.  Winning also requires lawsuits: SCA Promotions.  Bribes: of UCI President Hein Verbruggen, to cover up an Epogen positive during the 2001 Tour de Suisse.  There were even rumblings that Lance Armstrong made a $1 million donation to the Indiana University Medical Center oncology unit in order to buy the silence of Dr. Craig Nichols when Lance Armstrong was accused by Betsy Andreu of making a hospital room admission to doctors of using performance-enhancing drugs during the Motorola days.  The old behaviors learned during the Thrift Drug Triple crown had returned in spades.  The vengeful deity was forgotten, replaced by a vengeful rider who was fixated on annihilating all and sundry.

As it turned out Lance Armstrong's brain tumors turned out to be necrotic.  They were dead.  He had dodged another bullet.

The Horrifying Side Effects of Chemotherapy:

The book next deals with the trauma of the side effects of chemotherapy.

"Doctor Youman explained that the standard treatment protocol for testicular cancer was called BEP, a cocktail of three different drugs, bleomycin, etoposide, cisplatin. The most important ingredient of the three was cisplatin, which is actually platinum, and its use against testicular cancer had been pioneered by a man named Dr. Lawrence Einhorn, who practiced at the Indiana University Medical Center in Indianapolis.  Prior to Einhorn's discovery, testicular cancer was almost always fatal." P.86

The chemo drugs were so toxic that nurses handled them with Ebola tested level three bio-hazard gloves.  The side effects of the chemo treatments are riveting reading, with every increase in the level of the treatment protocol the suffering intensified.  Chemotherapy kills cancer cells, but it also kills healthy normal cells, the problem is that the therapeutic dose is almost identical to the lethal dose. Dr. Craig Nichols told Lance Armstrong, "I assure you that I can kill you."  The secret is to configure a schedule that does not kill the patient, because the side effects to the lungs, will kill you!  This is a reminder to people: if your prescription says to take two, take two, not three, or four, or you may die on the emergency room table if you make it that far!  Lance Armstrong suffered for hours, balled up like a fetus, he could not eat, he could not drink, he could not read the newspaper or watch television.  Worse torture could not be devised by man than advanced chemotherapy.  Lance Armstrong developed a caregiver-patient relationship with La Trice Haney; that became almost spiritual.  This interdependency among patient and caregiver is common; my friend Collin showed me a photograph of himself standing with two nurses of the bone marrow transplant unit; smiling together, at a five-year cancer survivor picnic.  Collin always had the highest praise for these women.  Finally, one day La Trice told Lance Armstrong, "When you are cured I never want to see you again.  I want you to wonder, did I dream her?"  Powerful stuff.

The End of Cofidis:

Unfortunately, during these dark days of suffering business reared its ugly head in the form of an unexpected visit by Alain Bondue, a representative of Cofidis, where Lance Armstrong had a pending two-year contract worth $2.5 million.

Alain Bondue had a conversation with Lance Armstrong's business agent Bill Stapleton where Bill Sherwin served as an interpreter:

"Alain Bondue pointed out that my contract had a clause stating I was required to pass a medical examination.  Obviously, I was in no condition to do that.  Therefore, Cofidis had the right to cancel the contract.  They were offering to renegotiate, which they felt was generous under the circumstances.  They wanted to honor part of it, but not all.  If I didn't accept the new terms they offered, they would force me to undergo a medical scan, and terminate the contract in its entirety." P.142.

Alain Bondue would be a good staff member for the Utah Alternative, he is certainly ruthless and cold-blooded enough!

In the end, after Lance Armstrong was released from the hospital with his cancer in remission, Cofidis chief executive officer Francois Migraine told Bill Stapleton:  "We want you to know that we're going to exercise our right to terminate Lance Armstrong's contract."  Cofidis was worried that Lance Armstrong would never reach his previous riding level and that he would get sick again.

But Cofidis did make Lance Armstrong and Bill Stapleton an offer:  "Cofidis called and offered Lance Armstrong $180,000, with an incentive to pay more if he earned UCI bonus points based on performance in various races.  The base salary was the equivalent of a league minimum."  According to David Millar, this was standard practice at Cofidis at the time, incentives based on UCI points, and the practice was roundly criticized in cycling as an incentive to dope.

U.S. Postal Service: Paris-Nice: An Existential Crises: The End of Professional Cycling For Lance Armstrong?

But Lance Armstrong was finished with Cofidis.  Bill Stapleton wanted a better deal than the $180,000 minimum Cofidis was offering.  Bill Stapleton finally reached an agreement with Thomas Weisel, the mastermind behind the U. S. Postal Service Team, who offered Lance Armstrong considerably more money and even an incentive based upon UCI points.

But Lance Armstrong was going through an existential crisis again.  Worried that his cancer would return after remission, and guaranteed a disability payment from  Lloyds of London, Lance Armstrong wondered if he wanted to face the cold, the cheap European hotels, the rotten food, the injuries, and the stress of professional cycling.  Then in the 1998 Paris-Nice race, the crises reached a crescendo:  After finishing in 19th place in the prologue and feeling confident in himself, Lance Armstrong collapsed on Stage 1.  George Hincapie had been designated as team leader, and Lance Armstrong and the team were riding as domestics.  George Hincapie flats:

"We all stopped.  The peloton sped up the road away from us.  By the time we got going again, we were twenty minutes behind the leaders, and in the wind, it would take an hour of brutal effort for us to make up what we had lost.  We rode off, heads down in the rain." P.190.

Then the supreme moment of failure for every professional rider occurred, the lack of will to continue:

"The crosswind cut through my clothes and made it hard to steady the bike as I churned along the side of the road.  All of a sudden, I lifted my hands to the top of the handlebars.  I straightened up in my seat, and I coasted to the curb.  I pulled over, I quit.  I abandoned the race.  I took off my number.  I thought this is not how I want to spend my life, freezing and soaked and in the gutter." P.190; italics original text.

Lance Armstrong skipped the 1998 Tour de France, but he did do some color commentary for the 1998 Tour.  The 1998 Tour de France as we all remember was a disaster after Festina Watch soigneur Willy Voet; was caught at a French frontier post with a pharmacy of performance-enhancing drugs concealed in a wheel boot.  The reaction by ASO and the French police was nuclear.  The police conducted unannounced midnight raids on team hotels looking for contraband.  The riders and teams protested what they considered inhumane treatment; the riders laid their bikes down in the course refusing to ride.  Further police raids were initiated; teams exited the race en masse.  Lance Armstrong made the following comment:

"Doping is an unfortunate fact of life in cycling or any other endurance sport for that matter.  Inevitably, some teams and riders it's like nuclear weapons, that they have to do it to stay competitive within the peloton.  I never felt that way, and certainly, after chemo, the idea of putting anything foreign in my body was especially repulsive." P.205

This from a man who used Epogen and other performance-enhancing drugs to win the 1999 Tour de France!

Even more astounding, in context of his existential crises, his laying around the house all day until Kristen had her own near nuclear meltdown, is the fact that Lance Armstrong finished fourth in 1998 Tour of Spain:

"To place fourth in the Vuelta meant more than just a comeback.  In my previous life, I'd been a great one-day racer, but I'd never been competitive in a three-week stage race.  The Vuelta meant I was not only back, but I was also better.  I was capable of winning any race in the world.  I swept up UCI ranking points right and left, and all of a sudden I was the real deal." P.206.

Whew!  A hint!  Lance Armstrong had become magically transformed from a one-day racer into a Grand Tour winner.  This magical transformation was one of the most mystical, puzzling, and debated improvements in cycling history.  The man who abandoned the 1993 Tour de France, on the 12th stage, in 97th place, because the "Alps were too long and too cold," was suddenly placing fourth in 1998 Vuelta an Espana, shortly after withdrawing from Paris-Nice, ready to quit professional racing forever.  This was not a comeback, it was a metamorphosis.  The Phoenix had arisen from the ashes, not as a winner of classics, but as an eventual winner of seven straight Tours de France in a row, a feat that had never been accomplished even by the legendary Eddy Merckx.  Lance Armstrong's sensational improvement was of such mind-blowing proportions that fans and the press began to question its origins.

In Vitro Fertilization: The Plight of Kristen Armstrong:

The book next transitions into the trials and tribulations of Kristen Armstrong and her in-vitro fertilization, a riveting chapter of the first quality that any couple facing extinction should avidly read.  I am amazed about the amount of pain and discomfort that a woman has to endure to produce a child; a man contributes nothing; he has a pleasurable experience; but a woman!  A warrior of the finest quality.  I have spoken to women who look so young, who promptly informed me that they have four children!  When I ask about the discomfort that they may have experienced in confinement, they smile at me like I am a child who should be excused for his stupidity!  Kristen Armstrong even had a breech baby, and that is one of the most difficult deliveries imaginable, and before cesarean section killed many a woman.  So kudos to the ladies!

1999 Tour de France:

Misfortune claims some riders at the beginning of the Tour de France, they get caught up behind crashes and are never able to make up the time.  This was what happened to Alex Zulle and Michael Boogerd, who were both favored to finish high in the general classification or even win the 1998 Tour de France.  Lance Armstrong describes the situation:

"In the second stage, we came to a four-kilometer causeway called the Passage du Gois, a scene of almost surreal strangeness.  The passage is a long, narrow, blacktop road across a tidal marsh, but the brackish water floods at high tide, covering the road and making it impassable.  Even when the road is passable, it's slick and treacherous, and the edges are covered with barnacles and seaweed." P.233

Alex Zulle crashed behind a group of riders and had to wait until the carnage was sorted out so he could continue.  Alex Zulle lost over six minutes on the stage because Lance Armstrong and his team attacked, and Alex Zulle complained that he could do nothing because he was "stuck in the middle of the Atlantic ocean!"  If you subtract this incident; Alex Zulle until the Sestriere climb would have been only a minute behind Lance Armstrong.  Of all the nasty things Lance Armstrong did on a bike, and the attack on Iban Mayo on the cobblestones would rank a close second, this ranks as the most villainous, unsportsmanlike, unfair attacks, and it is unforgivable!

Sestriere Climb:

This is the point where Lance Armstrong's newly found climbing skill began to raise questions.  Lance Armstrong was in a group of riders that were nearly thirty seconds behind a group of leading riders on the course.  But suddenly Lance Armstrong attacked his group, caught the group in front, and accelerated, dropping the leading group in the process. Looking at the film is better than a thousand words, and this performance looks too good to be real.  Lance Armstrong called his effort "effortless."  But the French press wasn't buying it.  L'Euipe and Le Monde ran articles declaring that Lance Armstrong must be "taking something."  There was an additional problem, Lance Armstrong was accused of testing positive for a corticosteroid, that Lance Armstrong claimed was listed on a therapeutic use exemption form filed with the UCI before the depart.  Of course, it is now known that the UCI accepted a backdated prescription and that Hein Verbruggen knew about the whole thing and allowed it to happen.

The End.

What the hell, they even put Lance Armstrong on a Wheaties box!

23 Days in July: Book Review

23 Days in July, John Wilcockson, Da Capo Press, 2004.

The 2004 Tour de France was advertised as a defining moment in the history of cycling.  Never before had a rider passed the mythical five Tour de France win threshold, not Eddy Merckx, not Jacques Anquetil, not Miguel Indurain, not Bernard Hinault.  There existed with the sport of cycling, a fatalistic superstition that some destiny would intervene to prevent the riders from reaching the magic number six.

Lance Armstrong entered the five-time Tour de France champion club after barely surviving the epic 2003 Tour de France, which was in question until Jan Ullrich plunged out of control on rain and oil soaked turn in the final individual time trial.  In the 2003 Tour de France, Lance Armstrong almost ended his chances when Joseba Beloki crashed on a Pyrenees descent; and Lance Armstrong had to detour across a plowed field expecting every moment to blow one of his tubeless Hutchinson tires.  Then there was the child with the souvenir musette bag who hooked Lance Armstrong's bullhorns and dumped him and Iban Mayo on the ground, breaking one of Lance Armstrong's chain stays in the process.  Then a few seconds later one of Lance Armstrong's toe clips slipped out of the pedals, nearly doing severe damage to his groin area.  Then, of course, there was the mediation by Tyler Hamilton who enforced the rule that when the maillot jaune has an accident you don't attack; a lesson Alberto Contador should have learned before he tested positive for clenbuterol.  Nevertheless, if Jan Ullrich had continued to ride he would have won the race, and the 2004 Tour de France would have been nothing but a footnote.

As it was the 2004 Tour de France turned out to be one the least suspenseful in history.  Lance Armstrong won four mountain stages in a row; including the L'Alpe d'Huez time trial; a feat that had never been accomplished in Tour de France history.  Several race favorites foundered; Tyler Hamilton after a crash that injured his back bonked on a climb; his favorite dog Tugboat died during the race and Tyler Hamilton was despondent over the death of his best friend.  Later during the race iron man Tyler Hamilton; the man who rode through an entire 2002 Giro d' Italia and 2003 Tour de France with broken bones; a man who placed high in the classification in both grand tours; could not continue in 2004.  Why?  I suspect that he received a tainted blood sample that was intended for another rider.  Iban Mayo, a great Basque climber, who was caught behind a crash on the cobblestone course, who in spite of his heroic Euskai-Euskatel teammates, who tried to pace him back to the peloton lost time, while a smiling Lance Armstrong lead the pack hammering away.  Later in the race,  during a mountain stage in the Pyrenees, fifty thousand rabid Basque fanatics lined the course while waiting for their hero Iban Mayo, greeted Lance Armstrong with catcalls and upraised fingers for his cobblestone antics.  Iban Mayo hopelessly behind and exhausted quit the race shortly thereafter.  Roberto Heras, (Liberty Seguros) who had a string of successes in the Vuelta a Espana also quit saying that there was "no point in continuing."  Gilberto Simoni, (Saeco), a great climber and two-time winner of the Giro d' Italia, did not abandon, but he did complain that Lance Armstrong was hogging all of the mountain stage wins; stages where Gilberto Simoni lead long breakaways.  Gilberto Simoni, when asked if Lance Armstrong was the new "cannibal", responded Armstrong is not a "cannibal" he is a piranha!  Jan Ullrich, (Telekom) lost time in the Pyrenees, he was at a loss to understand his performance, promising to do better in the Alps.  Andreas Kloden, (Telekom) was better placed in the general classification that his team leader Jan Ullrich.  Ivan Basso, (CSC) in spite of the "gift" mountain stage win could not keep pace with Lance Armstrong losing time on every stage.  Floyd Landis surprised everyone by setting an inhuman pace, and he would have won the stage if not for the obstinacy of Jan Ullrich.  After Jan Ullrich chased down Floyd Landis he even tried to barter a deal for help to drop Ivan Basso; an offer which the Posties refused point blank.  Of course, in a superhuman sprint, Lance Armstrong won the stage, nipping Andreas Kloden at the line because Lance Armstrong was angry because T-Mobile would not let Floyd Landis go. 

But John Wilcockson does his best to keep us entertained, even if the 2004 Tour de France put us to sleep.  John Wilcockson does mix up some old historical tales of roadside fanatics who were around when Le Tour went by eons ago.  My favorite story was of Charly Gaul who slid to a stop at the city fountain to cool down by plunging his head into the water and filling up his water bottles.  The proprietor of the local sports bar claims that he pushed Charly Gaul back onto the course, to the admiration of his patrons.  This proprietor produced photographs to prove, not that he pushed Charly Gaul back onto the course, but that Charly Gaul had actually stopped at the fountain.  John Wilcockson says that after this unscheduled pit stop Charly Gaul rode with Louison Bobet, conceding twenty minutes and a probable Tour de France win to legendary Spanish climber Federico Bahamontes.  Charly Gaul was known as the "Angel of the Mountains" and in cold weather he was unbeatable.  In the 1956 Giro d' Italia, there was a snowstorm on the Monte Bondone stage that was so severe that the Italian Army was mobilized, armed with snow shovels to clear a path for the riders.  Charly Gaul arrived almost an hour ahead of the pack and begged the Italian soldiers in French to push him up the pass.  The soldiers refused to help Charly Gaul, but they did help push the Italian riders up the pass; nevertheless: Charly Gaul won the stage by eight minutes over his Italian rival Alessandro Fantini, and the entire 1956 Giro d' Italia in the process.  Charly Gaul's Achilles heel seemed to be the heat, where his performance declined to average among the great climbers of his day, this would probably explain the unexpected visit to the fountain.

There is some mention of dope, too, in 23 Days in July.  David Walsh, L.A. Confidential, Michele Ferrari, EPO, the horse that has been beaten into submission.  There is one gem gleaned out of the muck, however, a statement made by Shelley Verses.  John Wilcockson asked Shelley Verses, former soigneur of La Vie Claire to respond to statements made by Emma O' Reilly in L. A. Confidential that she purchased drugs for Lance Armstrong and the United States Postal Service Professional Cycling Team, disposed of syringes, applied cosmetics to hide bruises, etc.  Shelley Verses stated:

 "It's a part of a soigneur's job to dispose of syringes.  And I used to drive all over the Continent getting drugs, legal drugs.  And I often lent guys makeup to hide bruises.  Riders are so vascular because they have no body fat, and they bruise easily." P. 143.

This is the first statement I have ever heard of that could possibly implicate Bernard Hinault, Greg LeMond, and La Vie Claire of using supplements, or possibly performance-enhancing drugs, during the 1985 and 1986 Tours de France.  First, Shelley Verses is not a doctor so her assurance that the drugs she did purchase were legal is mere conjecture.  Second, drugs that were legal in 1986, may have been added to the prohibited list, so we may assert that legally does not preclude the fact that the legal drugs that she purchased in 1986, did not have performance-enhancing qualities.  Nevertheless, this admission by Shelley Verses directly contradicts the Greg LeMond myth that professional cycling was not in search of a magic pill that would aid in their performance in 1985 or 1986.  Shelley Verses could be considered the first La Vie Claire "whistle blower" if she would come forward and offer testimony of malfeasance; perhaps she should contact USADA!

There was one other piece of rubbish.  Lance Armstrong mentioned his debacle during the 2003 Time Trial where he was beaten soundly by Jan Ullirch as being caused by "chronic dehydration."  Lance Armstrong tries to tell us that he had been suffering from "chronic dehydration" since he received platinum therapy in fighting cancer in 1996.  Lance Armstrong then assures us that drinking water filled his bladder without saturating his cells.  This is complete and utter nonsense and I can't believe that John Wilcockson published such nonsense.  Even stranger is the explanation by Chris Carmichael who claims that the dehydration originated in the 2003 Dauphine Libere, where Lance Armstrong pushed himself to the limit trying to outpace Iban Mayo.  I remember Lance Armstrong hanging on to the medical car, having his elbow patched up by the race doctor during the Dauphine Libere, not because of dehydration, but because he hit a sewer lid, because he had some break malfunction in his new Trek Madone bicycle!  Never was there a word about the "chronically dehydrated" Lance Armstrong during the Dauphine Libere or even the 2003 Tour de France until the mysterious partial bonk during the time trial where Lance Armstrong assures us that he was "riding in squares."  I mean, like, whatever dude!

Anyway, if you are a hardcore Lance Armstrong fanatic this book certainly would not be amiss in your library as a curiosity, since the impact of the mythical six never existed in reality; and has yet to be attained by anyone.  We have the old five-timer club, and Lance Armstrong is not among them.  John Wilcockson has written a very good account of a very boring Tour de France, that occurred during a very drug-saturated era where the best drugs win, not the best athletes.  23 Days in July would have been regarded as a first class work of reporting in 2004 when the Lance Armstrong mania was still in full force.  It still could be considered a first class reference book; not the parts that examine the personality of the riders; except in a study of abnormal personality traits, or in a study of dissimulation; but the technical discussions of the race tactics still have pertinence.  The book would also be a good companion to the old 2004 Tour de France films.  23 Days in July is a good book even if the contents are dated and without much relevance, or of much interest anymore.  A museum piece fit for mothballs.  But these facts do not detract from John Wilcockson's writing ability or his competence in cycling reporting which is the first rate.

2014 Tour of Utah: Stage 6 Depart

Well, it was a boisterous atmosphere at the Tour of Utah Stage Six Depart at Rice Eccles Stadium, there were cycling starved fanatics of all stripes, including families with children. I arrived late, planning to ride up to Big Mountain, but when I checked my bike the front wheel had an overnight flat, Murphy's law! But I didn't really miss anything, most of the riders were sequestered in their team buses, and the depart was thirty minutes late. I did wander over to the BMC team bus and saw Cadel Evans. Cadel Evans is the most gracious man I have ever seen. He immediately walked over to the youngest fan in the crowd and signed an autograph; the young man was smiling in genuine happiness; then he posed for photographs holding some of the fanatics young children. I tried to get a photograph, but my camera batteries failed at the most inopportune moment, so nothing exists in long term memory except thoughts of a very charismatic man who is also an outstanding ambassador of our sport. Of course, I did take some photographs, but alas, most were so horrible that it would be pointless to print them.

Tour of Utah Tenth Year Edition.

Photos from top:
Enrique, a chess pal.
Two DRAPAC Professional Cycling Team (Australia) riders.  Adam Phelan (75) and team leader Jai Crawford (71) who were gracious enough to allow me to photograph them.  Thanks, guys!! 
Rob Britton (Team Smartstop)
Chris Horner
A BMC rider
Cadel Evans
The National Anthem. 

Enrique

Adam Phelan (75) and Jai Crawford (71)  DRAPAC Professional Cycling Team

Rob Britton Team Smartstop

Chris Horner Lampre

BMC Rider and DS

Cadel Evans BMC

Pledge of allegiance

Happy kids

Stage 6 Winner: Cadel Evans 4:34:31 Tour of Utah Winner: Tom Danielson

2014 Tour of Utah: Preview

The 2014 Tour of Utah will be a scenic spectacle; it is impossible to describe the breathtaking beauty of Utah's southern climes; you have to see it for yourself or see photographs; descriptions are inadequate and meaningless.  Nevertheless: the climbs this year far exceed anything in the past; the race reminds me of six days of racing in the Alps or Pyrenees during the Tour de France!  Tough hard beyond category climbs; long difficult climbs, and dizzying descents.  Stage 6 of the Tour of Utah features a leg-breaking climb over Guardsman Pass, followed by a 14-mile descent down Big Cottonwood Canyon then a six-mile climb up Little Cottonwood Canyon.  Oh!  A friend of mine and me rode up to Big Cottonwood Canyon to Guardsman Pass one fine day, but we were turned back at the gate; the road was closed buried by four feet of snow!  In May!  Whew!  We were forced to turn around and descend the fourteen miles; quickly you run out of pedals; you could spin at full speed frictionless and never gain an ounce of speed.  Damn!  The peloton screaming down that pass, especially near the base of the hill where some nasty hairpin turns are located fills me with dread and expectation.  Of course, there is a short interval before you enter Little Cottonwood Canyon, a little flat section, to get you warmed up a bit before the torture starts again.  Little Cottonwood Canyon is about the same length as L'Alpe d'Huez, about seven point five percent grade, no joke, even for the professional riders.

There is no circuit stage in Salt Lake this year. 

There is a feminine addition this year.  The women will field 12 teams, the women will ride a 2.2-mile circuit at Miller Motorsports Park on Wednesday, August 6, 2014, in Tooele, Utah.  Admission is free to the public.  I love the fact that women will be included this year.  A circuit race is a start, but I hope that the girls will have a chance to compete on the road in the future; let's see how well the ladies climb!

The men.  Who are the favorites?

BMC
Cadel Evans
Brent Bookwalter

Cadel Evans won the Tour de France!  Brent Bookwalter has competed in several Tour of Utah races and will prove a dangerous lieutenant.

Cannondale
Ivan Basso

Ivan Basso is a world-class climber and a tough competitor.  Good enough to be in the top ten in the general classification, if not win the entire race outright. 

Garmin Sharp

Thomas Danielson

Defending champion.  I am sure Mr. Danielson is a champion motivated to repeat his 2013 feat.  And let's face it, Garmin Sharp looks to have the best team.

Lampere-Merida
 
Christopher Horner

Tough journeyman pro-tour rider.  Christopher Horner has been known in the past to break away from the peloton, and succeed in not being reeled in by the peloton.  Christopher Horner could provide an unpredictability factor and shake things up.

Trek Factory Racing

Jens Voight.

Another old-time journeyman pro-tour rider.  Tough as nails and ready to win.

Jelly Belly

Freddy Rodriquez

"Fast" Freddy Rodriquez, more of a sprinter than a climber.  Everybody loves "Fast" Freddy, including me.  But he does seem a little out of place in this race.

Then there are the unpredictable.  Some of these team rosters show an amazingly large number of Colombian riders, and Colombian riders can climb like "angels of the mountains."  I imagine that some of these Colombian riders will take stage wins, and don't be surprised if they finish high in the general classification.

Past Winners Missing in Action

Levi Leipheimer
Francisco Mancebo Perez
Jeff Louder (who by the way was introduced to the crowd at stage 6 depart.  I did not see his name on the rider list, however.  Sorry about that.)

Anyway, come on out, you can see great scenery and great racing all at the same time!

Seven Deadly Sins: Book Review

Seven Deadly Sins, David Walsh, Atria Books, 2012.

David Walsh characterizes himself as a "troll," who expectorated into the soup of cycling expectations of reforms, which were being promoted after the disastrous fallout from the Festina Affair during the 1998 Tour de France.  During the 1998 Tour de France, in an overreaction to what was perceived as blatant performance-enhancing drug abuse, midnight raids were conducted on team hotels at random by the French police.  The riders protested these "outrageous" raids by plucking bibs off backs while riding, (thereby invalidating the stage results), laying down their bikes refusing to ride, strike! teams packed up and exited the race, en masse.  In an attempt to salvage the catastrophic reaction by furious cycling fanatics to the 1998 carnage, the 1999 Tour de France was proclaimed by Jean-Marie LeBlanc as the "Tour of Renewal."  Mr. LeBlanc promised the peloton would refrain from doping and ride at a slower pace.  The 1999 Tour de France had an additional unexpected attraction: Lance Armstrong, a man who had overcome long odds of survival fighting an aggressive form of testicular cancer, a Cinderella story waiting to be written.  Astonishingly enough, the miracle return of Lance Armstrong could not have been choreographed better, as Lance Armstrong unexpectedly won the 1999 Tour de France prologue.  Cycling had not seen anything more dramatic since Greg LeMond made his miraculous comeback after being shot by his cousin, by winning the 1989 and 1990 Tours. Incredibly, Lance Armstrong's surprising performance during the 1999 Tour de France; considering his dismal race results when riding for Motorola; shocked anyone who was paying attention, and David Walsh suspected foul play.  There were other reasons to be concerned.  The tempo of the 1999 Tour de France was faster than the pace of the 1998 Tour, not slower.  Also, during the 1999 Tour de France, Lance Armstrong tested positive for a corticosteroid that was on the prohibited list.  Lance Armstrong claimed that he had a medical certificate, a prescription from his doctor to treat saddle sores, before the Tour started, although there is proof that previous to the Tour, Lance Armstrong claimed on his original therapeutic use exemption form filed with the International Cycling Union (UCI) that he was not using any sanctioned drug for any medical reason.  Of course, the prescription was written and backdated after the positive test, but this practice was common and even condoned by the UCI.  Evidence of this UCI chicanery was testified to during the Festina affair trial in Lille France:

"Laurent Brochard, a Festina rider, told how he won the World Championship road race in 1997, subsequently tested positive but an official from the UCI informed his team manager that a backdated medical certificate would get him off." P.109

David Walsh suggests that the UCI knew of and approved a backdated medical certificate for Lance Armstrong during the 1999 Tour de France. But because the UCI refused to enforce the law, a long period of sports fraud on cycling was about to commence.  This fraud would result in a long litany of crimes by Lance Armstrong.  The UCI and Hein Verbruggen allegedly would attempt to suppress public knowledge of these crimes by illegal cover-ups and acceptance of cash gratuities.

David Walsh states his case and suspicion of Lance Armstrong most succinctly:

"We knew that the '99 Tour de France was ushering in the reign of a great pretender but were powerless to do much about it.  It wasn't just the feeling that [Lance] Armstrong had doped and won, what most rankled was the confederacy of cheerleaders which protected him: the UCI bosses who knew about the uniformly elevated haematocrit values, especially in the U.S. Postal team, and decided that was a part of the story best-kept secret, the journalists who saw poor Christophe Bassons being bullied out of the race and thought, 'That's okay, he's only a small rider', and the Tour de France organizer who decreed that Armstrong had 'saved' the Tour." P.86.

David Walsh insists that if Jean-Marie LeBlanc and the UCI would have had a spine, the reign of the pretender could have been nipped in the bud.  Instead, the UCI shirked their responsibility, so it became an arduous process of the few responsible journalists who refused to imbibe the Lance Armstrong myth to bring down the greatest fraud in cycling history with investigatory journalism: trolls who would expectorate in the soup, much to the disdain of the suckers.

Michele Ferrari: Boom Goes the Dynamite!

1994 Fleche Wallonne Classic.  Three Gewiss riders do an impossible breakaway in a classic race and all three make the podium.  Moreno Argentin, first. Giorgia Furlan, second. Evgeni Berzin, third.  But news emerged that Team Gewiss had hired suspected blood doping doctor Michele Ferrari, and the Fleche Wallonne Classic results were directly related to a new blood-boosting and performance-enhancing drug recombinant erythropoietin (rEPO).  Michele Ferrari was referred to by the cycling community as "Doctor Blood" the wizard of EPO physiology, who was also accused of doping other professional riders.  Michele Ferrari also had a nasty reputation: he stated in an interview that recombinant erythropoietin (rEPO) was no more dangerous than drinking ten liters of orange juice.

In 2001 David Walsh, with the help of the Carabinieri, linked Lance Armstrong to Michele Ferrari: the result was an investigatory story: Saddled With Suspicion.  In a panic, Lance Armstrong attempted to blunt the impact of the David Walsh story by doing an abortive end run by inviting La Gazzetta Dello Sports writer Pier Bergonzi to an interview.  In the interview with Pier Bergonzi, Lance Armstrong reportedly said, "you have not asked me about Michele Ferrari?"  Surprised, Pier Bergonzi asked, "Should I have?"  Lance Armstrong replied:  "He and I are working together because we're going to make an attack on the one hour record." PP.151-152.  David Walsh sarcastically comments that he knew there would never be any attempt by Lance Armstrong to beat the one hour record, and there never was.  The Pier Bergonzi interview backfired; people were wondering "why a rider who says he is clean and opposed to doping would work with a doctor who has the dirtiest reputation in cycling and is about to go on trial for doping professional riders?" P.166.  The David Walsh story generated international headlines, was the magic man, Lance Armstrong, really riding clean or was he Michele Ferrari's Frankenstein dope-fueled monster?

Lance Armstrong's Iron Shield Begins To Crumble?

Then rumors began to surface from unexpected places about doping going on at U.S. Postal.  Greg LeMond's old mechanic Julien De Vriese, who was also Lance Armstrong's mechanic, hinted that there was a culture of "secrecy" at U.S. Postal that was masking a doping program. P.169.  Then there was the notorious telephone call between Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong.  The text of the conversation was provided by Greg LeMond.  Note: Lance Armstrong claims that Greg LeMond was intoxicated from alcohol at the time of the conversation and Armstrong insists Greg LeMond was offended because Lance Armstrong had not invited him to attend the Ride of the Roses, and for most of the conversation Greg LeMond berated Lance Armstrong in a drunken hysterical rage.  Alas: will we ever know the truth here?  Nevertheless: Greg LeMond's version deserves some comment.

Armstrong to LeMond: "Well your comeback in eighty-nine was so spectacular.  Mine was a miracle, yours was a miracle, you couldn't have been as strong as you were in eighty-nine without EPO."

 LeMond: "It is not because of EPO that I won the Tour-my hematocrit was never more that forty-five-because I had a VO2 max of ninety-five. Yours was eighty-two.  Tell me one person who said I did EPO?"
 Armstrong: "Everyone knows it."
 LeMond: "Are you threatening me?"
 Armstrong: "If you want to throw stones, I will throw stones."
 LeMond: "So you are threatening me?  Listen, Lance.  I know a lot about physiology; no amount of training can transform an athlete with a VO2 max of eighty-two into one with a VO2 max of nine-five, and you have ridden faster than I did."
 Armstrong: "I could find at least ten people who would say you did EPO.  Ten people would come forward."
 LeMond: "That's impossible.  I know I never did that.  Nobody can say I have.  If I had taken EPO, my hematocrit value would have exceeded forty-five.  It never did.  I could produce all my blood parameters to prove my hematocrit level never rose above forty-five.  And if I have this accusation leveled against me, I will know it came from you." PP.172-173; italics added.

Then Greg LeMond plays his ace in the hole card: "What Michele Ferrari did in the nineties changed riders."

Greg LeMond's logic is perfect.  Lance Armstrong admitted to using EPO!  Lance Armstrong threatened Greg LeMond!  Lance Armstrong had a lower VO2 max so he couldn't have outpaced Greg LeMond!  Greg LeMond refused EPO because his hematocrit level never exceeded forty-five!  EPO was used in the peloton in 1991, not in 1990, but in 1991!  Well now.  Does the fact that Greg LeMond's hematocrit level never exceeded forty-five proof that Greg LeMond never used EPO?  Nonsense!  The UCI used to tip the riders off during Greg LeMond's reign that the vampires were on the way!  A simple saline solution dilutes hematocrit levels.  Haematocrit levels decline under strenuous exercise like riding in the Tour de France.  Then there is this statement Floyd Landis made in a letter to the UCI and USA Cycling on May 6, 2010, that is very pertinent.  Floyd Landis was selected as a rider to support Roberto Heras during the Tour of Spain.  Floyd Landis remarked in his letter:

"EPO, EPREX by brand and it came in pre-measured syringes.  I used it intravenously for several weeks before the next blood draw and had no problems with the tests during the Vuelta.  Again during the Vuelta, we were given Andriol and blood transfusions by the team doctor and had no problems with any testing!" P. 360; italics added.

Micro-dosing EPO intravenously, if done properly, will never raise your hematocrit level above forty-five.  What do think of that Greg LeMond?  Also, according to The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA): [Update: This web site has been removed.  Wonder why?  Nevertheless, this statement was published by WADA and is not a fabrication.]

"While the fight against stimulants and steroids was producing results, the main front in the anti-doping war was rapidly shifting to blood doping. "Blood boosting," removal and subsequent re-infusion of the athlete's blood in order to increase the level of oxygen-carrying hemoglobin, has been practiced since the 1970s. The IOC banned blood doping as a method in 1986."
"Other ways of increasing the level of hemoglobin were being tried, however. One of these was erythropoietin (EPO). EPO was included in the IOC's list of prohibited substances in 1990, however, the fight against EPO was long hampered by the lack of a reliable testing method. An EPO detection test (approved by WADA) was first implemented at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000."

Thus, EPO was commercially available by prescription in 1989, 1990, and 1991* and who is to say that the entire peloton was not micro-dosing EPO and re-infusing their own blood at the same time?  EPO could not be detected at the time.  Greg LeMond uses the same old trite argument, I was below the threshold therefore, I am innocent.  Lance Armstrong used the exact same argument, I was tested 2000 times, there was never a positive test, therefore, I am innocent.  But Greg LeMond goes further.  Greg LeMond says in a single year, in the 1991 Tour de France, the peloton went from clean to doped on EPO, even though EPO was available in 1989 and 1990.*  Greg LeMond reasons that he finished seventh in the 1991 Tour de France @13 minutes 13 seconds behind Miguel Indurain because of widespread use of EPO within the professional peloton. It was obvious, Greg LeMond had a superior VO2 max, so Miguel Indurain could have never outpaced him without EPO.  This would be considered excellent logic except that during the EPO era, which apparently included the 1991 Tour de France, all of the riders in the top ten were considered to be using EPO, and this would include of all people Greg LeMond!

So here is a perfect example of how twisted logic can skew the data. I have warned everyone about the fallacy of trying to fail an athlete for performance-enhancing drug use on the bases of anecdotal or longitudinal evidence that is based upon probabilities for years.  My objections have fallen on deaf ears.  Furthermore, careers of athletes should not be terminated without concrete proof that a performance-enhancing substance is present in the sample.  But who cares?  Non-analytical positives are all the rage these days.

Then, of course, there is Lance Armstrong's former Motorola teammate Stephen Swart who claimed Lance Armstrong and the Motorola team were using EPO in 1995.  Stephen Swart claimed the team had a portable blood centrifuge and the team routinely measured their hematocrit in the field, and that Lance Armstrong scored consistently above the UCI maximum of 50%.  Stephen Swart also claims he went to a Switzerland pharmacy and purchased EPO, which he used during the 1995 Tour de Suisse.  Stephen Swart also claims his EPO supply ran out during the prologue of the 1995 Tour de France, but Stephen Swart claims EPO did nothing to improve his performance.  David Walsh claims Stephen Swart used EPO during the Motorola period to comply with the Lance Armstrong philosophy, "if you are not doping, then you are not a team player." P.254.

Then there is Emma O' Reilly, former U.S. Postal Service soigneur, and personal masseuse for Lance Armstrong during the 1999 Tour de France.  Emma O' Reilly made a series of startling statements. She claimed she saw Doctor Luis Garcia del Moral backdate a corticosteroid medical prescription for Lance Armstrong for saddle sores she claims never existed.  Emma O' Reilly also stated she disposed of used syringes the team had placed in a crushed Coke can.  Emma O' Reilly also stated she had been employed as a 'drug mule,' claiming she picked up a shipment of testosterone for George Hincapie.  Emma O' Reilly also claims she used some cosmetics to hide needle marks when Lance Armstrong reported for his pre-race physical for the 1999 Tour de France.  And a litany of other egregious outrages. P.253.

Then there is Betsy Andreu and the Indiana University Hospital statement that Lance Armstrong allegedly made to a group of doctors who were inquiring into his medical history.  The doctors asked Lance Armstrong if he had taken any performance-enhancing drugs, and Lance Armstrong, according to Betsy Andreu, stated he had used a number of performance-enhancing drugs.  There is a great deal of witness inconsistency with this account, however.  Stephanie McIlvain, who worked for Oakley, testified under oath at the Sports Contest Associates (SCA) arbitration hearing, she did not hear Lance Armstrong make any admission to using performance-enhancing drugs, although she was in the room at the time. P.314-315.  However, later, in a taped conversation with Greg LeMond, Stephanie McIlvain claimed she heard Lance Armstrong admit to former drug use in the hospital room conversation.  Adding to the confusion, Lance Armstrong's former girlfriend Lisa Shiels, when asked if she heard Lance Armstrong admit to drug use, claims she heard nothing of the sort, although she was present in the room at the time. P.316.  I wonder if Greg LeMond and Betsy Andreu, "the crazed bitch" didn't employ intimidation tactics on Stephanie McIlvain to force her to change her recollection.  But, this episode gets even more bizarre:

"Dr. Craig Nichols, one of the doctors who had supervised Lance Armstrong's case and who was now chief of hematology, oncology at Oregon Health and Science University, said in a sworn affidavit that he had 'no recollection' of any statement by Lance Armstrong while in treatment confessing to the use of performance-enhancing drugs.  He added: 'Lance Armstrong never admitted, suggested or indicated that he has ever taken performance-enhancing drugs.'" P.332.

However, in an ironic twist:

"On 27 October, Indiana University announced that the Lance Armstrong Foundation had funded a 1.5 million endowed chair in oncology.  Craig Nichols affidavit was signed on 8 December." P.332.

 The implication, of course, was that Lance Armstrong bribed the oncology department, payola for silence.  Lance Armstrong declaimed a furious response:

"It was a million and a half dollars, and I understand that's a lot of money.  But to suggest that I funded that chair to get an affidavit or to get some clean medical records or some sanitized records is completely ridiculous." P.332.

Floyd Landis: Letter to the UCI and USA Cycling.  The Final Nail in the Coffin.

The come back of Lance Armstrong to the Tour de France in 2009 infuriated Floyd Landis.  Marooned on the Ouch team in the continental United States, Floyd Landis wanted nothing more than to return to the European UCI Pro Tour team circuit.  Abandoned and unable to secure a contract, Floyd Landis watched the doper and chief Lance Armstrong return in third place on the Tour de France podium; while Floyd Landis was forced to compete in the Tour of Utah.  When Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel formed Team Radio Shack, Floyd Landis swallowed his pride and phoned Johan Bruyneel begging for a position on the team.  Johan Bruyneel sarcastically replied there was no position available because Floyd Landis was "radioactive," and a public relations nightmare.  In response, and with nothing to lose, Floyd Landis penned the immortal letter that would end history's "greatest sporting fraud."  In the letter to the UCI and USA Cycling, Floyd Landis outlined in shocking detail a number of pertinent doping topics, including the rumor Lance Armstrong had tested positive for rEPO during the 2000 Tour de Suisse, and the allegation Lance Armstrong had paid a gratuity to the UCI to cover up the result:

"He [Lance Armstrong] later, while winning the Tour de Suisse, the month before the Tour de France, tested positive for EPO, at which point he [Lance Armstrong] and Mr. [Johan] Bruyneel flew to the UCI headquarters and made a financial agreement with Mr. [Hein] Verbruggen to keep the positive test hidden." P.357.

Later, in Seven Deadly Sins, a comical conversation occurred between Lance Armstrong and attorney Jeff Tillotson during Lance Armstrong's Sports Contest Associates (SCA) deposition.  Jeff Tillotson attempts to link the $25,000 donation given to the UCI by Lance Armstrong to suppress the positive 2000 Tour de Suisse synthetic EPO test: money that was allegedly used to bribe Hein Verbruggen to silence.  Of course, Lance Armstrong attempts to skate around the issue the best he can while looking like a total fool. Lance Armstrong can't remember what the $25,000 donation was for, how the money was spent, or whether the donation was related to any specific event.  At one point, an exasperated Jeff Tillotson asks Lance Armstrong: "Why the UCI?  I mean, why give money to the UCI?"  Always good for a laugh, giving money to the UCI to combat doping.  Of course, the official reason given by the UCI for the donation was the purchase of a highly sophisticated blood diagnostic unit that could aid in the detection of performance-enhancing drugs: specifically synthetic EPO.

But back to Mr. Landis;

"I had learned at this point how to do most of the transfusion technicals and other things on my own, so I hired Allen Lim as my assistant to help with details and logistics.  He [Allen Lim] helped Levi Leipheimer and I prepare the transfusions for Levi and me and made sure they were kept at the proper temperature." P.363; italics added.

Allen Lim followed Floyd Landis around in Spain during his training rides, helping Floyd Landis reach the Michele Ferrari magic plateau of six watts per kilogram, the power output needed to win the Tour de France. Floyd Landis referred to Allen Lim as a walking machine, a human calculator.  Allen Lim spent time calculating the proper blood transfusion temperatures for Floyd Landis and Levi Leipheimer.  Where is Allen Lim today, still designing ice filled time trial jerseys?  Allen Lim is another example of people who should be banned from cycling.  How does our sport maintain a set of ethical principles when a person like Allen Lim is permitted to be employed by cycling teams after his involvement in scheduling doping products for riders?

 Go read Seven Deadly Sins.  You are bound to learn something new if you are a neophyte doping researcher or a seasoned professional sleuth.  Seven Deadly Sins does tie up most loose ends.  I give Seven Deadly Sins my highest rating.

Conclusion:

We all know how the episode ended.  Not to be outdone by Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton raced to the airwaves and did an incoherently manic interview on 60 Minutes. The U.S. government was not far behind.  Jeff Novitzky launched a criminal probe trying to link the expenditure of U.S. Postal Service money to drug trafficking.  The subpoena mill started churning, ex-teammates of Lance Armstrong were whisked off the streets, held for affidavits and depositions.  Grand Jury testimony was heard.  Although the criminal probe was dropped, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) quickly launched an investigation which terminated with civil complaints against several ex-members of the U.S. Postal Service team, including Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, Luis Garcia del Moral, and Pepi Marti.  Michele Ferrari "doctor blood" was also charged with facilitating the use of performance-enhancing drugs on the U.S. Postal Service team. In response, Lance Armstrong filed a legal challenge in U.S. Federal Court against USADA over jurisdictional issues. Lance Armstrong insisted that USADA had no jurisdiction because his cycling license came under the jurisdiction of the UCI, therefore USADA had no standing. U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks dismissed this argument as facetious stating that when Lance Armstrong was issued his license by USA Cycling, he agreed to be tested by USADA, therefore he fell under USADA jurisdiction in all doping compliance issues.  In a second amended court challenge, Lance Armstrong contested the validity of the arbitration process as an unfair kangaroo "star chamber" proceeding. Judge Sam Sparks dismissed Lance Armstrong's argument, ruling that the current arbitration structure provided adequate due process protections.  After this ruling, Lance Armstrong, in a surprise move, announced that he would not contest the USADA charges in arbitration.  There exists a stipulation in the USADA bylaws (some might call it a loophole) that states: if an athlete decides to wave the arbitration process then USADA is free to impose an award; including a lifetime ban if the ban is agreed to by the UCI and WADA.  Travis Tygart imposed a lifetime ban on Lance Armstrong and Michele Ferrari both of whom waived arbitration.  Pat McQuaid announced that the UCI would not contest the Reasoned Decision: a compilation of evidence and testimony gathered by USADA as the bases of their complaint.  The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) soon followed suit.  Then, of course, there was the Oprah confession which ended all doubts of everyone for all time and proves that Lance Armstrong was nothing more than a joke.  Thus ended the "greatest fraud in cycling history."  Investigatory journalist David Walsh was vindicated.  David Walsh, who from the start stated that the Lance Armstrong was Griska Otrepyev, or the false Dmitri, the son of Ivan the Terrible who was assassinated by Boris Godunov, or the false Czar, or pretender to the throne, was proven correct.  In a curious aside, Griska Otrepyev was assassinated after one year of rule, his body was cremated, and his ashes were fired out of a cannon.  Lance Armstrong was merely burned in effigy, the only thing missing was the cannon!

David Walsh makes several references to LA Confidential, but since I have not read the book I will not comment here.  But I have read From Lance to Landis!  No comment here either, make of it what you will.

Update

*According to a American Society of Hematology paper, The Story of Erythropoietin, "In 1983, scientists discovered a method for mass producing a synthetic version of the hormone".  According to the Washington Post, "Amgen and Johnson and Johnson earned billions on the trio of anemia drugs Epogen, Procrit, and Aranesp since their introduction in 1989". "June 14, 1989: The FDA approves use of a new anemia drug, erythropoietin alpha, in patients with kidney disease. It will be marketed as Epogen and Procrit".  The 1989 Tour de France ran from July 1 - July 23, 1989. So technically, synthetic EPO could have been used by the professional riders during the 1989 Tour de France.

2014 Tour de France: Dope Free!

Yeah, I had to emerge from my cave, cause it is time for the Tour de France, all reformed from the chronic days of dope, dope, dope!  Sure enough, the riders will go through the sham physical to measure their fitness levels, three thousand miles of hammering throughout the state of France with variable weather and terrain features are no joke!  It would be great if the physicals also collected urine from the entire peloton and farmed out to those infallible WADA laboratories for examination, prior to the grand depart, then there would not be so many rest day surprises. There always seems to be somebody who tests positive during a rest day test, much to the chagrin of the teams who end up packing their bags for an unceremonious exit.

Not to worry, though.  The UCI has swept the garbage out the door, the days of bribery and cover-ups have gone through a state of metamorphoses.  The old UCI was best compared to rats emerging from a sewer.  But behold, the new and improved UCI is now praised as a shining beacon of truth, straightforwardness, and transparency!  The UCI mantra is zero tolerance and eternal vigilance.  Don't dare to dope!  Vampires are waiting, and if we don't detect you with a urine or blood sample, there is always the UCI Biological Passport waiting in the wings; and as everyone knows, the UCI Biological Passport is superior in all aspects to positive tests.  Trends and tendencies take precedence over solid, indisputable evidence.  If you don't believe me go ask USADA, who claims that in 2009 and 2010 longitudinal data prove  Lance Armstrong used performance-enhancing substances during those years.  Of course, Lance Armstrong claims that he used nothing post-2005, but who are you going to believe, Lance Armstrong or the UCI Biological passport?

So watch out Christopher Froome and Team Sky, we are ready to "pounce" on you if we detect the slightest variation in your physiology; not that we suspect you and your team of doping!  Three years of dominance by the same team in the Tour de France seems impossible without artificial aid of pharmaceutical origin; but maybe I am being cynical, being burned and lied to by my past heroes time and again.  There is nothing worse than watching a breathtaking performance on the bike by a professional rider in a physically demanding race.  You are mesmerized, transfixed with attention, heart pounding, zealously applauding your hero as he drops the group at a fatal moment up some beyond category col; the deciding moment! only to have the whole performance exposed as a charade fourteen years later.  These episodes are devastating to pure cycling fanaticism, and are perhaps not singular, either.  But they certainly don't catch every Tour de France champion who used performance-enhancing drugs, or do they desire to expend the effort to investigate every case, the trail does grow cold after years of inactivity, cold cases do prove hard to solve, but there is plenty of antecedent evidence available if one were inclined to play the sleuth.

After all, doping didn't start in 1999 and end in 2010, give me a break!  Ever done leg breaking intervals up to a steep incline in a large gear in thirty plus degree Celsius heat?  Sweat streams off your face in buckets, you feel like you are going to die.  Try doing that for four straight hours over a hundred hard mountain miles; category three, two, one, HC, cols: how do those professional riders recover from such demanding physical tasks without taking a daily saline solution to re-hydrate?  How do these riders replenish their glucose stores in one day after such demanding physical tasks?  Pasta and meat chunks?  The feed zone?

Mitochondria works best with oxygen, baby!  What's the best way to provide oxygen to the mitochondria?  A blood transfusion with your own stored blood.  You reduce the risk of infection and the vampires can't detect a thing.  By the way, blood transfusions used during the Tour de France didn't start in 1999 and end in 2010!

So get ready to play the sleuth.  We may not have justice for past crimes that will never be punished, but we sure can "pounce" on the crimes that have yet to be committed.

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".