Turning Point
The effect of the release of USADA’s “reasoned decision” and the accompanying documents has been rather like a Hollywood special-effects explosion. Debris has been raining down from the sky long after the explosion itself has ceased to reverberate. Some of us continue to wince and duck because we know there’s more in the sky than just blue. With a single download George Hincapie has gone from one of the United States’ most beloved riders, to one of its most vilified. Johan Bruyneel has gone from genius mastermind to evil genius. So many characters from the heyday of American cycling have been thrust into the role of criminal that Tyler Hamilton’s one-time team director Bjarne Riis—an enigmatic figure if ever there was one—has the enviable position of occupying a kind of moral purgatory where people aren’t really sure just how to feel about him.
Reams continue to be written about the USADA case, Travis Tygart and, yes, Lance Armstrong. Some of it, like Charles Pelkey’s recent Explainer, will be reasoned and objective. Some of it, such as Malcolm Gladwell’s piece for Business Insider, will get the conclusion wrong due to a lack of understanding of the facts; simply put, Gladwell doesn’t understand that the public wants a clean sport. Unrestrained doping results in deaths, and deaths are bad for the sponsors. Others, like John Eustice’s piece for TIME, hails from an outlook of such moral ambiguity one would prefer he didn’t speak on behalf of the sport; his attitude is a great example of what got us into this mess. This is no time for more of the same. The biggest surprise came from Competitive Cyclist’s “What’s New” blog, which is the most unapologetically ambivalent piece I’ve been able to find. Unfortunately, cycling fans don’t seem to be willing to entertain negative capability where Armstrong is concerned. As a result, no one I know is ready for nostalgia.
One wonders about the curious silence of Sally “Lance Armstrong is a good man” Jenkins, the Washington Post columnist and Armstrong biographer who has been known to take on a sports icon directly, such as when she wrote, “Joe Paterno was a liar, there’s no doubt about that now.“ And then there’s the astoundingly politician-like flip-flop of Phil Liggett who has been far more effective as a PR agent for Armstrong than Mark Fabiani was. His statement that he finds it “very hard to believe Lance Armstrong did not dope” falls rather short of the more definitive, ‘I believe Lance Armstrong doped’, was nonetheless a shocker for those who watched him on the Four Corners program on Australian television, and re-broadcast by CNN in the U.S.
No matter what faults readers may find with the print media, they cannot compare to the sin committed in the orchestrated slander of Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis by Liggett and co-commentator Paul Sherwen. In allowing Armstrong to join them as an investor in an African gold mine, they gave him their short hairs, and the last vestiges of their objectivity.
The outrage about Armstrong is really understandable. His seven wins in the Tour were a Ponzi scheme that even Bernie Madoff would admire. How Armstrong managed to do what he did, why he did it, why others aided him, all of that is easy to process. It’s a word I keep coming back to: coercion. At some level, everyone who succumbed felt pushed by forces outside their own will. What has been harder to understand is how the reception to the Armstrong story changed over time.
In 2001, almost no one wanted to hear any suggestion that Armstrong wasn’t clean. For a long time, David Walsh was treated as if he was running around in a tinfoil hat. Even in 2005, once the allegations were out there more firmly, the cycling world still seemed to have their hands at their ears, collectively yelling “la-la-la-la I can’t hear you.” But by 2009 it was apparent, based on—if nothing else—comments here on RKP, that a great many serious cyclists had come to the conclusion that Armstrong wasn’t clean. It was also apparent by that time that a great many stories had emerged of just what a domineering personality he was. I’ve often wondered just how much peoples’ dislike of Armstrong greased their ability to conclude that he was a doper. Once a villain, then why not all-in?
So while the Friday Group Ride is a few days away, I’d like to pose a few questions to you readers: When did you come to the conclusion that Armstrong was a doped athlete? If the tipping point for you came before the USADA Reasoned Decision, what served as your personal tipping point? Also, if your change of opinion came before the Reasoned Decision, did the release of those documents change anything for you, even if it was only to cause you to hate Armstrong even more? Finally, for those of you who have been outraged by what was detailed in the Reasoned Decision and its supporting documents, why did it anger you in a way the same allegations made previously did not?
Now, having asked all that, I’ll make a final request: This is meant to be a conversation, not an occasion to vent self-righteous spleen. We want to hear from as many readers as possible, so we ask that you try to keep your comments both brief and civil. Thanks.
Image: John Pierce, Photosport International
Whenever my non-cycling friends asked me “the question” I always replied with: a) lots of people have passed lots of doping tests, and been caught other ways, and b) he’s not the most tested athlete. That said, I just don’t know.
But my turning point came with that breakaway with Filippo Simoeni. That didn’t convince me that Lance doped, but it convinced me that he was a bully, and I never felt ‘good’ about him again.
I’d love to say it came on Mont Ventoux in 2000 when he bridged across to Pantani and even Liggett and Sherwin were left virtually speechless and could only utter “unbelievable”.
But for me the turning point came when Big George spilled the beans. They were room mates after all, best buddies and side by side during all the good years. Once he confessed, I had to finally change my mind.
Sorry I meant the 2002 Ventoux stage when he let Virenque win http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/785
I was sitting with my wife watching the Tour; it must have been ’06 or ’07. Versus did a little audience poll, the call-in or comment-online type, put up onscreen on the way to the commercials, with the simple question, “Did Lance Armstrong dope?” A half-hour later they put up their results–I don’t remember the exact numbers, but I remember Phil in his chipper way, saying, “Well, there you have it, 20 percent of you don’t believe Lance and 80 percent think he was squeaky clean!”
And I don’t recall whether my wife or I said it (because we were both thinking the exact same thing), but we turned to each other and one of us said, “Well, maybe not _squeaky_ clean.” And at that point it was clear: If he wasn’t squeaky clean, he was dirty.
The links to Ferrari, after reading “LA’s War”. That for me clinched it. I had just recently learned about the famous “EPO is no more dangerous than orange juice” quote. I think this was in 2004. Then shortly afterward there was the Simeoni chase…
That was it for me. I already knew that passing the tests meant little, since I a lifelong baseball fan. But I still wanted to believe until those episodes.
My suspicions began after reading “Lance Armstrong’s War” when it was published. They grew as he came out of retirement a second time, made such a scene about intending to publish all test results, and was on the 2009 TdF podium. Floyd Landis’ e-mail released in May 2010 was the nail in the coffin.
Reading Michael Ashenden’s interview on NYVelocity.
http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/michael-ashenden
When did I first figure it out? Hard to say with precision. I distinctly remember when one of my riding buddies came home from France where he had attended the 2004 Tour and was sporting a black baseball cap with a yellow “6″ on it, and I told him, “Come on. You know he’s doping right?” I had been tallying up, on my own, the doping convictions of Armstrong’s competitors and former teammates, and as the list got longer and longer it was hard not to conclude that Arsmtrong was doping too. I also have a recollection of the “Actovegin” incident and thought, at the time, the explanations (the need for doctors to drive an hour away from the bus to dispose of trash) was suspicious. I guess the absolute tipping point was probably the L’Equipe expose, “Le Mensonge Armstrong” which detailed the after-the-fact (blind) testing of 1999 Tour urine samples using the newly developed EPO tests and the independant matching of those samples with Armstrong’s rider ID number, and the dates of the positive samples corresponding with signficant Armstrong performances in the 1999 Tour. As the reasoned decision points out, it is impossible to disregard this as conclusive evidence of Armstrong doping. [Although, somehow, the "independent" Dutch attorney hired by the UCI to investigate, came to the opposite conclusion and instead called for an investigation of the the lab that did the testing]. But Walsh’s book, LA Confidentiel, and its American version, From Lance to Landis, and the stories there of Emma O’Reilly and Besty Andreu just confirmed it. And finally, about three years ago, I published a comment on Velonews’ website questioning why Jonathan Vaughters had never been publicly candid about his time on the US Postal Service and his own expereience
“playing with the hotsauce.” Vaughters actually e-mailed me back and said, in words or substance, that he could not be candid, because he was fearful of retaliation from Armstrong and that in any event it was not useful to dwell on the past but made more sense to focus on a clean future for the sport. Whenever friends would doubt my statements that Armstrong was a doper, I would show them that e-mail, and they too would then believe.
Excellent piece.
I suspected (strongly) Armstrong was dopping shortly after his return to the sport. Just too much “smoke” not to have a fire. And I found Landis, Hamilton to be credible when they started speaking frankly about their own drug use and the teams. Just so little to gain, and at such a great expense. The often repeated claim that these men were know liers meant little to me…can people not both lie and then later tell the truth?
I started despising Armstrong when all the incidents he had with other riders, support staff and members of the media started adding up. Especially LeMond. I have no use or compassion for personalities like his. It makes me question his motives for Livestrong, addmittedly an organization filled with dedicated and caring people. Such a shame. He’s damaged so much.
I didn’t start following the sport closely until 2006 (yeah, I know, right?), so most of the Armstrong era for me was learned of after the fact. I obviously heard things, but didn’t know enough about the sport to put it together – there was still a very large and vocal pro-Armstrong contingent drowning out the skeptics at that point. It was Floyd Landis’ revelations in 2010 that sealed the deal for me – it had the ring of truth, and the idea that, having lied about not doping before, he now must be lying about having doped and seen Armstrong dope, never had any logical coherence, nor any relationship to actual human psychology. I believed Landis from day 1, and from that point on Armstrong’s eventual public downfall seemed to be more of a matter of time than a question of truth.
I’ve actually “met” Armstrong a few times at races (if speaking for 45 seconds and getting an autograph constitutes “meeting” someone) and he was always outgoing, engaging and friendly to me and those I was with. The first in 1993 when he showed up for a local Texas mountain bike race in his World Championship jersey. I was an awestruck bike shop employee and again – he was was this outgoing friendly professional racer who just beat “Big Mig” for God’s sake!
I dismissed Landis and Hamilton, even some of the other riders’ allegations, but when I read what Hincapie said…..that pretty much sealed the deal for me. But even now, with all the viral hatred and especially the evidence spread out for all to read, I still find myself, while not a “fanboy” or disbeliever of facts – I get he’s a doper, being a little empathetic for Armstrong based upon my personal interactions with him.
Hard to pinpoint… I think somewhere along the way, when combined with all the allegations, the number of people who were doping made it seem that the chance that he was beating a field doped to the gills while remaining clean himself was vanishingly tiny…
The more he repeated and went no further than, “I’ve never tested positive,” the more positive I became.
Personally, I started to question his results when he won #6. Why had no one else in the history of the sport won more than 5? Seemed suspicious to me. The Reasoned Decision didn’t really do much to surprise me and didn’t change my opinion of the situation.
I’ll admit, my doubts started long before I fully delved into road cycling. It was Mr. Armstrong’s testosterone positive. I was younger then, I think i was 16 and naive, but it just didn’t seem right to me. Not every allegation holds court with truth but it looked like a-, sounded like a-, and performed like a-…
Truthfully, the turning point was when Lance announced his comeback. Cycling was hot on ‘Berto’s heels, staking high claims that he was the next 7-time Tour victor for the future. Lance, the too proud Mallard, could not let that happen. He let greed get in the way of potential. Even if potential proved to swim in the same dirty ponds.
It was less smoking gun evidence, more testament to his lack of character. This was my turning point, when I started to see Lance not as an icon but as a sad figure of cycling’s dirty past.
I think I really started to think he was guilty in 2004. Everyone remembers Floyd blowing the lid off things saying everyone’s guilty, but Jesus Manzano was doing the same thing in 2004 saying the doping in Kelme was systematic.
At the same time you had Lance winning a sprint stage at the Tour of Georgia (stage 3, 2004) and then within a handful of years you had four prominent riders move away from USPS and all get busted: Heras in 2005 Vuelta, Hamilton 2004 Vuelta, Floyd 2006 Tour and Beltran 2008 Tour.
I remember thinking it couldn’t be a coincidence.
I raced against Julich in Colorado as a junior, and I think Lance & George showed up at one of our local races as well in 1989 or so, so I followed both of their careers with great interest. I remember watching 1999 rooting for both Julich and Armstrong to do well, given both of their strong grand tour results in 1998. Armstrong’s victory was more than I could have ever hoped for. By 2000 and 2001, there were some allegations making the rounds and I really hoped they weren’t true, but I was concerned. By 2004, I was getting bored of it all and wishing Armstrong would race the Giro once in awhile or return the favor to Heras in the Vuelta, but I hadn’t made my mind up about the doping allegations. The defining moment for me was the “Simeoni incident” in 2004. Lance’s actions confirmed that he was a bully on and off the bike, and I couldn’t imagine any other interpretation of his actions other than that he was a doper.
I honestly thought he was clean during the comeback. I figured he knew the sport was getting cleaner and wanted to prove to himself he could still win. The USADA evidence seems to show that he just wanted to prove he could still beat the system with the new blood passport.
There are a lot of dopers in cycling, but only some of them are true sociopaths. Lance is one of them.
By end of Tour 1999 I was very suspicious. He went from being killed in the TTs and mountains to slaying all. I figured he was clean for his ’93 Worlds win but I attributed that to a combination of weather (the rain), aggression (he took risks on the descents), and the fact that he was a non-favorite. If he’d started winning various classics and such I’d have believed it. For him to win the Tour was almost a farce, it’s like if Museeuw or Bartoli suddenly won the Tour. A non-climber, non-time trialer, out-climbing and out-time trialing the best? Come on. I stopped buying bike magazines and race tapes about that time. Only in 2006 did I feel that things were better. Yeah, oops.
After the 2002 race, I started putting on “hopeful blinders.” The 2009 podium made me pretty sure. The Reason Decision made me certain, and made me understand how deep it actually went.
Simeoni; potentially the only confession we’ll ever get from Lance… Most disgusting television I’ve ever seen – interupting my favourite sport made it that much harder – there’ll be no forgiveness.
I wanted to believe it all,from 1999 to the end of the comeback.I still do. I look back now and see how naive that was. What finally made me turn the corner for good? George,Levi,Tommy D. , Dave Z. J.Vaughters and Tylers book. You can stick your head in the sand for only so long before you need to come up for a fresh breath. They were all standing there when that time came,no going back.The level of cynism and lack of moral action is astounding. Winning clean is one thing and an ideal to work twoards for all.For me to care again there needs to be a revival of sportsmanship and honarable action.
P – I had to think about this for awhile, and I realized that It was just a long downward slide.
I idolized Lance when he first won. I was 17. I worked in a trek shop and rode a 5500 with a right side STI lever and a left downtube – just like Lance. I taught myself to spin a high cadence – just like Lance. It was like one of those albums that somehow goes totally under the critical radar and changes your life – like it was made just for you and nobody else knows about it.
He won again, and this time I was talking about it with everyone – Lance was cool. My family in rural maryland started accepting that I shaved my legs and wore my purple lycra team kit -
because all of a sudden bike racing was cool. He avoided the sophomore slump and finally that band is getting the cred they deserve and you can say that you were at those first shows…
Then, the sellout. #3. Honestly, I hardly remember it, I had gone to college and life was changing. But really, it was that Lance had made bike racing boring. Everybody wanted to talk about the Tour, but only the Tour, and only Lance at the Tour. Not George at Roubaix, not even Lance anywhere else – because, in essence, he only raced the Tour. That was the first straw, he made cycling one-dimensional. The yellow wristbands were like the sex pistols on pandora radio – the original passion had been completely tamed and commodified.
But so far my dislike was all about me. It took something else for me to turn on Lance.
When I worked in the shop I rode with a guy who had been on Motorola with Lance, who knew him when he got sick. I felt like I had a tiny personal connection with him and I remember the photos of when he was in the hospital with Kristin by his side… when I first learned about him he was a symbol of how even those of us in peak physical shape are still human – so very mortal. I know it’s sappy, but there was a time when Lance was spoken of as if he were a dead man. His story (which he still sells through Livestrong) is about survival and coming together in the face of insurmountable odds, it’s about encouraging individuals and families to have hope and to persevere.
Which is why I still remember how disappointed I was when I heard that he had divorced his wife. I won’t even bother to do the google search to get the list of women that he went through after her, and I won’t do a bunch of moralizing about it. But it was a clear sign to me that something was rotten in the state of Denmark – that the story we were being sold wasn’t quite true. It was the second and final straw. When friends asked me then if I thought that he was doping – I would usually say I that I didn’t know and that he had lost 10 pounds blah blah…
But the truth was that I totally lost faith in him when he left Kristin. Everything from then till the reasoned decision has just been another nail in the coffin. Everything just another slip down that ‘greased’ slope – as you said.
Now, I’m older, married and divorced myself. It’s been touched on a few places in the wider conversation about l’affair d’Armstrong – but what toll must the doping, cheating and lying have taken on their relationship? Hindsight is 20/20 but looking back their separation really does seem like one of the first symptoms of the disease…
I felt from the time LA contracted cancer he had taken steroids, and that is why he became ill. Too many young athletes are tempted to build their bodies using drugs, and some pay a high price. I believe those who have literally built an athletic body using drugs cannot “reform”, and compete fairly, because their bodies have forever changed. To add the icing to this toxic cake, LA gets cured of cancer and thus provides the worst sort of example possible for youth entering sport. Not to mention the naked aggression he showed to anyone who opposed him, which is diametrically opposite to the values of sportsmanship I was raised on. I will be elated to bury the LA legacy.
Dr Ferrari said “EPO is not dangerous; it’s the abuse that is. It’s also dangerous to drink 10 liters of orange juice”. Lance said he worked with Ferrari. It was that simple.
Knew how to get steroids when in High School, over 40 years ago. Since then PED use has tainted many sports, how about the Olympics as an example. Festina was systemic doping, right ? And speeds continued afterwards ? Article about “Big Mig” running into Armstrong in an elevator then picking Armstrong as a favorite BEFORE his TdF wins was my tipping point.
I don’t hate people, especially those I don’t know. Worked in government so it takes a cattle prod to “shock” me. Athletes are the little folks in the PED mess. Athletes are younger, poorer, less worldly than those in charge. The change needs to be made top down. Does the name Bud Selig tell you why I’m cynical this will happen ?
Fearless Kevin
2001. It was obvious to anyone paying attention with a real understanding of the sport.
Which is why many of us are so angry at the cycling “journalism” establishment for their feigned surprise these last couple months. They were either completely out to lunch or financially dependent on Lance’s success. End result was the same: They perpetuated the lie.
The possibility that Lance doped was introduced when Lance was associated with Dr. Ferrari. However, I always just assumed Lance just pushed the legal limits (e.g. hyperbaric chamber to achieve the same results as EPO/blood doping) rather than doping. It only become fully apparently to me that Lance doped the day Lance stopped fighting.
For me, it came when FL and TH confessed to their activities. I’m always willing to give a person a break and believe them when they say something, apparently sincerely. So when Armstrong said he didn’t dope (use drugs or simply save & reinject high hemocrit blood) I believed him in the absence of proof to the contrary. When FL said he didn’t dope, I believed him initially. When TH said it was phantom twins, well, I had some doubts. To me, none of these people had good reasons to dope, morally, as the risk to health and credibility was too high. But they did it, some because they felt they had to to hang with the others and some for money and some for both. It still doesn’t make much sense to me and I still want real proof (that we have now) and more than just because someone says so for me to believe any horrible accusations. I believe in innocent until proven guilty in all things. And yes, I have children.
So, I initially didn’t believe then when more and more people accused, then confessed, I had real doubts. When FL and TH both confessed and Armstrong’s reactions were so negatively strong, I felt he did dope.
For me it was Bill Strickland’s piece in Bicycling a few years ago.
By 2004 I could no longer accept that the Postal Train could be so dominate without doping. LA always seemed like the win at all cost type of guy, and PED’s fit in to well. Lance Armstrong’s War put the nail in the coffin for me. The Ferrarri connection is to much smoke.
I was always fairly sceptical as his achievements were so outlandish, but once I heard he was working with Ferrari I was convinced he was a doper. The intervening years have just been a case of waiting to see if he’d really get away with it.
Reading the other comments reminded me: Simeoni. Not only did that shameful episode confirm my suspicion that he was a doper, it made plain to me, and anybody else who was watching, that he was the biggest goon enforcer of the Omerta. With his “zipping the lips” gesture, he was sending the message that anyone who spoke out against doping, against Ferrari, would never win a stage in the Tour, and would be relegated to lousy results and second rate teams. I presumed then that it had a huge in terrorum effect against anyone else speaking the truth. The arrogance and the absurdity of Lance intimidating a rider while on world-wide television was beyond belief. I am still convinced that the refusal to invite Simeoni’s team to the Giro (when he was Italian National Champion) was based on pressure from Armstrong who had suggested he would ride the Giro that year (but likely told the organizers, “I will come, but only if you don’t invite Simeoni.”). The Simeoni incident, from my perspective, took his doping beyond the “everybody does it” level to the level of “Lance is the chief organizer and proponent of doping and serves as the dopers’ biggest protector.
I came to the conclusion slowly. I had suspicions in the early 2000s. I never quite bouhgt the then common notion that the allegations were all about French jealousy of and American winning THEIR race. I went to the tour in 2004 but remained largely in denial. The suspicions became stronger after Tyler Hamilton got busted in 2004, and then Heras in 2005. I had always bought into the notion Hamilton would be the last guy to dope. I always had thought that doping by Lance was more likely than Tyler. When Tyler got caught, I moved from accepting the idea that maybe Lance doped to the idea that Lance probably doped. But it was when I read Walsh’s Lance to Landis book in 2007 that I became fully convinced.
One of the most disturbing things for me was the way Lance (and Trek, at Lance’s behest) treated my real cycling idol, Greg LeMond.
For me, it wasn’t a single incident that made me realize Armstrong was a doper. I had strong suspicions beginning in about 2004. As top cyclists (Pantani, Jan, Basso, Floyd, Tyler) were busted, I came to believe they were all doped. Lance had doped too and, as Ben Johnson might say, “fair is fair”. After reading Kimmage’s interview with Floyd Landis on NYVelocity, I was certain that he doped.
When he came back in 2009 I believed the peleton was much cleaner than it was in 2005. I believed that his real reason for the comeback was to prove that he could win the TDF “clean”. But after the statements from USADA and Ashenden regarding his blood values in 2009-10, I feel disgusted that he came back to a cleaner peleton, and immediately cheated.
For me there was always the question, but I was one of those who looked for the positive test result. I also felt that Landis was just out for money or revenge and Hamilton, well I don;t know. I guess I just wanted to believe. It was Hincapie’s blog post that sealed the deal for me.
I don’t hate Armstrong, I hate what he did, I hate how it is affecting our sport, I hate the fact that so many riders were caught up in the whole mess. I do have to say though that like it or not if it weren’t for Lance there would be a whole lot fewer folks riding bikes right now. I only wish …
First, I enjoyed watching Lance’s run. Those images are real and forever a part of cycling but I’ve always believed the Andreus’ account in their (2005/’06?) depositions. Armstrong’s legal team has always countered their, and all-comers, point with name-calling. That reaction is juvenile, groundless and off base in regards to truth seeking. Betsy Andreu’s published statements and interviews reveal her to be intelligent and incapable of BS. She was not to be intimidated and I applaud both of them.
I can accept a flawed competitor. Our culture has difficulty embracing reality, or a “hero” who competes at a high level but brings some baggage. Baggage that in a lot of cases speaks to the hero’s willingness to win at high costs.
I remember the allegations that the Postal team had dumped medical waste. I hoped that Lance Armstrong wasn’t doping, but I didn’t know. The turning point for me was when the anonymous 1999 samples tested positive. I was disappointed but went to the ‘everyone else was doing it too’ camp.
Floyd Landis’s point about the Swiss test was the first outrage I felt. (of course I felt the Floyd Fairness Fund was a bit too far already). Doping is frustrating and probably inevitable, but getting caught and paying your way out is just too much.
I had read enough in the Cycling News Clinic forum so that Tyler Hamilton’s book and the Reasoned Decision were more explanatory than shocking.
I wouldn’t say I hate Lance Armstrong (confession: I stopped at Mellow Johnny’s in June) but I just cannot stand the rhetoric, lies, and BS from his camp and followers, especially the immoral and arrogant “winners can cheat because they’re winners” excuses. Reading the pro-Lance anti-USADA bile that’s come out this year makes one wonder how bad it was back when Lance was on top.
I couldn’t read “It’s not about the bike” without coming to the conclusion that Lance had to be a calculating, systematic doper.
The aggression and obsession that oozed from the pages told me there’s no way this guy would sit by while all his competitors got juiced to the eyeballs. He had the killer instinct, million dollar bikes (that were thrown in the trash) weren’t off limits, so why would drugs be?
His story coming back from cancer to win the TdF after he had not even come close to winning it before he got cancer was always to good to be true for me. So, I was pretty sure that he was not riding “clean” right from the beginning of his “era”.
But the point when I lost any doubt about it was the day in 2001 when he won a TdF stage up to L’Alpe d’Huez for the first time. I knew that climb very well, I had witnessed the race from the side of the road (and on TV, of course) coming up numerous times and I knew the winning times that where achieved before and after 1991. I had often compared my best times on that climb to them.
LA’s time in 2001 was some 38 minutes compared to 41 something minutes ridden by Lemond and Fignon in 1989 when they were also really racing up that climb. Then I knew without any hint of a doubt that Lance was one of those guys with high octane gas in his venes. There simply was and still is no other explanation for such an tremendous increase in power to weight ratio over the time of just one decade.
Interestingly when Pierre Roland won in 2011 at the end of a rather short stage he also only managed a time of 41:xx minutes. Back to the level of performance from 20 years ago despite all the undeniable progress in technology and the science of training, nutrition, etc.
The revelations of the USADA report and from Tyler’s book have not made me angry or changed my attitude towards Lance in regards to his sporting achievements since it only confirmed what I was already sure of.
But especially Tyler’s book revealed something that – astonishingly in hindsight – I had not understood before: I’m pretty sure Lance Armstrong is a psychopath because of some typical signs of this “illness” in his behaviour.
And that insight made me feel for him in a way when before I was predominantly feeling a strange mixture of callousness and admiration for him.
I really hope our beloved sport manages to get some trust back from the broader audience. Because the development of the last three or four years shows that a real change is going on. But so far this development has not been noticed by the bigger public. Hard to believe that will change in a few years’ time after that story came out.
I was late to the game. If I’m fully honest, it was only during his comeback that I began to let myself believe he had doped. More than anything else it was the combination of seeing that so many of his old top rivals had tested positive for drugs and his own dominance over those very people who were doping that made me no longer able to believe the myth.
Everyone: Thanks so much for your comments. It’s been terrific to read about the personal journey each of you traveled with regard to him. This is a great example of how the comments section can really host an enlightened conversation rather than devolving into invective and name calling.
Paul Kimmage’s interview with Floyd Landis changed my opinion about the entire sport, including Lance. But it wasn’t until the Reasoned Decision that I gained perspective that it was so much more serious than “one doper among many.”
I tried to bury my head in the sand. I never spoke up to contradict my cycling friends because I knew I would have come off as stupid. When non-cyclists asked my opinion I always replied “innocent until proven guilty.” I was hoping against hope that Lance was telling the truth, that his detractors had dispicable motives, that there was some some explanation, and that a cancer survivor, not matter that I would wan’t him as a friend, really could come back and win 7 tours clean.
I couldn’t find the exact post, but I think it was 2009 or maybe 2010… A discussion at “Cozy Beehive” blog (http://cozybeehive.blogspot.jp/) helped me realize I was sticking my head in the sand, although I had had a moment of doubt before in 2004 when I watched the now infamous incident with Simeoni in Stage 18 of Tour de France that year.
Reading “Reasoned Decision” didn’t make me hate Armstrong more or less, but I just can’t help but wonder that his characterization of his accusers such as Betsy Andreu, Floyd Landis or Tyler Hamilton as vindictive, bitter, vengeful, jealous, liar, etc. seems perfectly match his own personality traits. Did he chose those words because he is?
I came to realize Armstrong doped after reading “it’s Not About the Bike” and talking to my niece’s oncologist. In the book he talked about the great care his doctors took to assure the drugs they provided him did not leave long term side effects. After discussing that with the oncologist he came straight out and told me what was truly implied in the way the book was written, was there was a clear indication of not only EPO use, but other drugs he mentioned I don’t recall.
I raced against LA when he was coming up the ranks…more personality than talent. Changes like he went through dont happen overnight. It’s like when Tommy D, who i raced against when he was Ft Lewis college became a superstar almost overnight. I remember keeping him in the gutter and the next season we couldn’t even touch him.
The Simeoni thing and the way he defended Ferrari planted the first seeds of doubt for me. Then, I wondered how he could utterly dominate the Tour for seven straight years, never an injury, never in the hurt box, all too easy. All the acts of witness intimidation over the years – in my business (criminal defense lawyer), only guilty people do that. His arrogance during the comeback pretty much convinced me. But the tipping point didn’t come until the release of the USADA brief, particularly the testimony of so many teammates and the ongoing connection to Ferrari (over $1,000,000.00!!). Guilty. And I don’t buy the ‘everybody did it’ defense. Not everybody did do it. He was the ringleader of a massive decade-long fraud and he was and is a pathological liar. For the life of me I do not understand why the US Attorney did not follow through with a criminal prosecution. I wonder what the USPS and Discovery knew when they withdrew as sponsors.
I’d like to add that when my mom “visited” me in Sept 2000 from Spain to see a doctor she asked me if I could lend her a book. I had mostly WW2 and Tom Clancy-type books but I did have an advance copy of “It’s Not About The Bike” that my bookstore brother sent me (complete with typos and such). I don’t remember exactly when I gave it to her but it was at night, in the hallway, and I think it was the evening she flew in with my dad.
I should point out that when she talked to her physician/surgeon (an extremely close friend – he and his family were designated our guardians if my parents died) he told her to meet her at the hospital before she came to my house. Dutifully we went to the hospital on the way back from the airport and he ran some tests (on a Friday night – 7 or 8 or 9 PM – at the start of Labor Day weekend). I figured she had some virus or something and she wanted to see our family friend doctor instead of seeing some unknown in Spain.
Absolutely clueless I lent her Armstrong’s book that evening.
I didn’t realize that she had a very good idea that she had some kind of cancer, and she was right. After a few days of intensive testing – I drove her to maybe 10 labs/doctors over Labor Day weekend – we had a diagnosis: super advanced colon cancer.
Armstrong had just won his second Tour earlier that year and there was this huge Armstrong craze going on. She asked me, while reading the book, if I thought Armstrong was doping. I told her that she should focus on the things he shared about cancer, that his riding was not relevant. I hated that I couldn’t tell her that, yes, I thought he was doping, but I know she knew. I’m her son after all.
She was really bad off. The surgeon (my mom asked him to operate on her) had an ob/gyn stand by, the idea being that if there were a lot of cancer cells in her uterus and/or ovaries they’d remove them and whatever else. Well when they opened her up all her internal organs were just gray, not pink like they should have been. The ob/gyn just looked helplessly at the surgeon and left. The surgeon removed only the major tumors but had to leave a lot because, in his words, “there would have been nothing left if I removed all the cancerous cells.” The surgeon/friend actually pulled us family into the “death room” (my name for the conference rooms near ICU rooms) to let us know that my mom may not make it through the night.
Incredibly she survived that night.
She had many of the same experiences as Armstrong – snow storm x-rays, brain and lung tumors, no nausea or hair loss with some treatments, hair loss and nausea with others, veins burning from the inside, weakness, exhaustion, EPO (yes she had to take EPO once), it was all stuff that was in Armstrong’s book. She focused on his battle with cancer, his determination, his battle to recover.
She ended up living at my house for a couple years before moving back to our childhood home (one town over) when the end was inevitable and she would require hospice care. She died in August 2003.
I was suspicious after victory number 2 or 3, but when Big George won at Pla d’Adet in 2005 it really hit me that everyone on that team was juiced.
For me the revelations about “unrealistic” results in professional cycling began in the early 1990′s with the Gewiss team(s). It continued through the Mapei years all the way to Museeuw’s so called confession that he only cheated in the final years of his career. Right. So much of this is chronicalled in the many World Cycling productions I own including the Ardennes Weekend performances of the Motorola Cycling Team that included LA and others we still know. The year was 1995, the year before their sponsorship ended.
Specific to Armstrong, I was motivated and excited by his comeback year from canser and the toughness he had shown. I bought the screen of how meticulously he trained, ate, studied the parcours and his competition, and finally surrounded himself with the best people similar to Michael Schumacher. How could one argue with that? He made everyone else, especially his arch rival Jan, look like ameteurs.
Any suspicions were confirmed after reading David Walsh’s book LA Confidential. I thought that if even ten percent of what he found and wrote about was true, Lance was guilty. I continued to watch him compete and enjoy the performances just like I watched Museeuw and his team(s) all this years. If anything, all tihis recent enlightenment hasn’t jaded me as much as helped me enjoy my own cycling performances (as human as they may be).
For me it was a fairly gradual process, and I was still conflicted about it up to the very end. Initially I was sure he was clean, that he was just a fantastic athlete with some ground-breaking training methodologies. I bought into all the stories about his high abnormally lactic-thresholds, his unique focus on the Tour, his revolutionary collaboration with his equipment sponsors. And of course there was some of the “support the home team” mentality, which helped me to dismiss the early doping allegations as jealousy.
As I became more serious about cycling, I watched all the old Tour footage while training in the winter (I’d largely ignored the Tours while Lance was actually winning them), and the 2003 Tour where he battled with Ulrich became my favorite edition, which I’d watch once or twice a year. At the same time, though, I began to hear more disturbing stories about Armstrong from the people I was riding with: about his arrogance, his capability for viciousness, and his colleagues getting busted for doping. I still thought he was clean and a fantastic rider, but some moments of doubt started creeping in about his integrity. Over the next couple of years as more and more of his peers were either caught, or admitted their use of banned substances, I realized one day that I didn’t really believe that he was clean anymore. But I still wanted to believe; I still loved the story. I still didn’t think badly of Armstrong, either: I wasn’t fully prepared to admit to myself that he’d doped, and I cut him some slack because of how endemic doping was during the era he raced in.
Ultimately, by the time all of the rumors about the investigation started coming in, and Vaughters and several others publicly admitted their doping, I was positive he wasn’t clean. I told myself that the expected testimony from Hincapie would be the final nail, but I already knew. So I wasn’t surprised in the least when the USADA announced it’s verdict, although oddly I was irritated they were pursuing him at all. I felt like they were chasing him down just to bag a big name, and were dragging up things from over 6 years ago with little solid proof.
When the Reasoned Explanation came out though, I was genuinely surprised and angered. The one thing I hadn’t expected was that Armstrong was still doping during his comeback – I thought for sure he’d recognized that he was coming back into a cleaner peloton with far better doping controls, and that he’d try to do things the right way. I just couldn’t believe he had the audacity to drag his old practices into what I’d thought was a new era.
I do still miss that fantastic story. But some things are just too good to be true.