He had an interview with Agassi that was cut by the lawyers. There were others he mentioned too.
He also spoke about Nadal and said that he asked Nadal about doping and that Nadal denied it but he didnât have any facts and could only ask him about rumours.
I stand corrected so. What you make of lawsuit against him anyway balbec? You revised your opinion of him in recent months?
As well as being fantastic insight into doping I though âRough Rideâ was very honest portrayal in other regards. Kimmage seemed to lack work ethic of Kelly and to a lesser extent Roche anyway.
This was Kimmageâs first piece in Sindo couple of weeks back. What a writer.
Itâs taken a while for some but opinions onLance Armstrong have altered greatly, writes Paul Kimmage
When it comes to the issue of doping and cycling, Sean Kelly has never been forward in looking backward. For 18 years now, since his last professional race, his attitude has always been easy to interpret: Donât ask me to condemn the sins of others.
Three months ago, in a lengthy interview with LâĂ©quipe during the most recent Tour de France[/url], even those who know, and work with him closely, despaired when, despite a tidal wave of evidence, he expressed his continued belief in [url=âhttp://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Lance_Armstrongâ]Lance Armstrong[/url]. But it was just [url=âhttp://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Sean_Kellyâ]Kelly being Kelly â nothing if not consistent.
So it was astonishing to hear him break the habit of a lifetime last Thursday on Morning Ireland when he was rolled out behind Tyler Hamilton on the 8.35 sports bulletin. And even more astonishing that he had changed his tune on Lance: âWell, over the last number of months we were waiting for this and it was pretty much expected,â he announced.
âBut itâs horrific what weâre hearing over the last number of hours. Now we know that it was organised within the team . . . the doping with Lance Armstrong[/url] and with all the other team-mates. It was a time in cycling â and we heard[url=âhttp://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Tyler_Hamiltonâ]Hamilton saying â they were all doing it, and it wasnât the only team I believe.â
Exactly 40 seconds had passed since Kelly had seized the microphone and after this thorough dissection of the problem, it was time to announce the solution.
âSince we have our new president, Pat McQuaid, things have changed totally,â he said. âI think in the last couple of years cycling has cleaned up a lot . . . they are catching all the big names, so that is the good thing we have taken from that.â
Now, I donât wish to be unkind to Sean, but in the Concise Oxford Dictionary the word ânewâ is defined as âmade, introduced or discovered recently.â McQuaid, a lifelong friend and supporter of Kellyâs, has been president of the UCI â cyclingâs world governing body â since 2006. And I donât wish to be unkind to McQuaid, but the consensus on his six years at the helm is that the UCI has been absolutely hopeless.
But McQuaid is suing me, so donât take my word for it: take the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) report on Armstrong and the affidavit of the former Austrian professional, Jorg Jaksche.
âFollowing my admissions to public authorities regarding my doping I spent hours talking with the UCI in 2007. I spoke to UCI lawyers, to Anne Gripper, who was then head of anti-doping for the UCI . . . I wanted to be fully transparent regarding my doping and the anti-doping rule violations of others and to fully explain the level of doping of which I was aware and that was taking place on Team Telekom, ONCE, CSC and Liberty Seguros during my time in professional cycling. However, the UCI showed zero interest in hearing the full story about doping on these teams and did not seek to follow up with me.â
Jakscheâs is one of 26 affidavits or witness statements in the USADA file; some are absolutely heart-breaking; a number raise serious questions about the role of the UCI. When Kelly was waxing lyrical about McQuaid on Morning Ireland, he did not address those questions. And he wasnât challenged by the presenter, Pauric Lodge. Had Lodge read any of the affidavits? Had Kelly? What exactly did he mean by âwhat weâre hearing now?â
It was later that evening when Nicolas Roche took the baton on Prime Time and like Kelly, his godfather, he was keen to assure viewers that all the bad stuff was history. âHopefully people will understand that this situation and this story â that is on the way to be closed now â is about something that happened ten years ago,â he announced.
Unlike Kelly, he wasnât going to get an easy ride. Claire Byrne was at her sharpest. âBut itâs not so far back in our history,â she contested. âBecause Alberto Contador, the man whose team you have signed to ride with, was stripped of his very recent Tour de France.â
âObviously Contador had his troubles,â Roche conceded, âand he paid the price for what he did. And obviously there is probably going to be some more stories in the future . . . what Iâm saying is that this big one, this big chapter, is now closed. People have the answers to the questions they were asking and now letâs move on to 2013 and hopefully continue the anti-doping fight thatâs in place now with the UCI.â
Again, Byrne wasnât having it, and reminded Roche that the UCI overlords â McQuaid, and his predecessor Hein Verbruggen â had robustly defended Armstrong in the past. âDo you think that they need to leave the UCI?â she asked.
BLOWING WHISTLE ON LANCE NEARLY DESTROYED MY LIFE SECTION 1, PAGE 5
At this stage, Roche might have been wiser to declare an interest, something along the lines of: âWell, actually Claire thatâs a very good question but itâs a difficult one for me to answer because my agent, Andrew McQuaid, is actually the UCI presidentâs son. And heâs not going to take kindly if I call his father a dope.â
Instead, he blustered on. âWell, I donât know all the details of the story, as you know, there is so much going on in a professional career that if you start looking into every detail and every fight that there is around, I would never be able to concentrate fully on my own career, so I just follow what I read in the newspapers.â
And, presumably, what he writes in his columns for the Irish Independent. On Friday, he was in flying form, lashing into the cheating Spaniard Ezequiel Mosquera, the cheating Frenchman Steve Houanard, and others. âIt p*****s me off that eight or ten years later, after the winning the big prize money, buying the big houses and the flashy cars, they decide to come clean when theyâre cornered into it and then still blame somebody else. If you dope, donât blame anyone else. Itâs your choice. Admit it.â
Curiously, he didnât refer to the Cancer[/url] Jesus. Nor were [url=âhttp://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Bjarne_Riisâ]Bjarne Riis[/url], his cheating manager, and [url=âhttp://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Alberto_Contadorâ]Alberto Contador, his cheating team-mate, mentioned.
His fondness for Armstrong has long been a source of curiosity for me: Last November, I travelled to his home in Italy . . .
Q. In 2005, during your first season as a professional, Armstrong won his seventh Tour de France. A month later, LâĂ©quipe published their famous front page: âLe Mensonge Armstrongâ.
A. The big lie
Q. Yes, six of his frozen urine samples from his first Tour win had shown he had used EPO. What was your reaction?
A. My first reaction was that it was another piece on doping . . . the Armstrong case is a very complicated case.
Q. Whatâs complicated about it?
A. Well, there seems to be proof coming from one and the other but none of the proof seems strong enough to confirm the doubts.
Q. Who has doubts?
A. Well the âgrand publicâ (general public).
Q. You think they have doubts?
A. I think so.
Q. You gave a radio interview to Newstalk recently and a number of people texted the show and they were curious at your defence of Armstrong.
A. Yeah.
Q. Are those people not the âgrand publicâ?
A. So you are saying that my idea is wrong about the grand public.
Q. Iâm suggesting to you that really, you have no doubts. We both know the game. And everybody in the game knows what he was up to.
A. Yes, but there is not enough to say.
Q. Whatâs enough? But wait, thatâs not the question. This is not my sport, itâs your sport. And I want to know why you donât feel as angry about what happened to it as I do?
A. Yeah, but the thing about the Armstrong case is . . . Honestly I donât understand it. I wish it would be credible but on the other hand it seems that there is a lot of information out there against him and I am kind of in the middle. So even though there is a lot of evidence against him, you hope . . .
Q. Why do you hope?
A. Because he would go from being the greatest cyclist to the greatest gangster.
âThe Greatest Gangsterâ would have made a good starting point for Fridayâs column but it was easier to put the boot into softer targets, and itâs his duty now to preach a different gospel.
âTo those young people, who are maybe thinking of taking up cycling as a sport, and to their parents who may be wary of letting them, my message is this â it is possible to race and win professional races clean.â
Weâve heard it many times before.
[quote=âlarryduff, post: 152177â]
I stand corrected so. What you make of lawsuit against him anyway balbec? You revised your opinion of him in recent months?
As well as being fantastic insight into doping I though âRough Rideâ was very honest portrayal in other regards. Kimmage seemed to lack work ethic of Kelly and to a lesser extent Roche anyway.[/quote]
Would you believe i bought Rough Ride again this week? It is a while since i read it. I want to reassess him.
The court case is a joke Larry, we all know that.
http://www.rte.ie/sport/cycling/2012/1101/343962-kimmage-lodges-criminal-complaint-against-mcquaid/
Irish journalist Paul Kimmage has lodged a criminal complaint against International Cycling Union president Pat McQuaid and honorary president Hein Verbruggen in a move which will subject the leadership of the world governing body to further scrutiny.
The UCI, McQuaid and Verbruggen last week announced they were suspending defamation proceedings against former Sunday Times journalist Kimmage pending the results of an independent report.
Now former rider Kimmage, who has been hugely critical of the UCI leadershipâs response to doping in cycling, has launched proceedings of his own as the impact of the Lance Armstrong affair shows no sign of abating.
Kimmage wrote on Twitter: "I have lodged a criminal complaint against Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid.
âI have initiated these proceedings not for myself - this is not about Paul Kimmage, but on behalf of the whistle blowers - Stephen Swart, Frankie Andreu, Floyd Landis, Christophe Bassons, Nicolas Aubier, Gilles Delion, Graeme Obree and every other cyclist who stood up for truth and the sport they loved and were dismissed as âcowardsâ and âscumbagsâ by Verbruggen and McQuaid.â
A statement released by Kimmageâs lawyers, Bonnard Lawson, said the complaint had been lodged with the public prosecutor in the Swiss town of Vevey.
The statement added: âPaul Kimmage complains, among other things, that he was dragged through the mud, that he was called a liar in public and accused in public of committing offences against the honour after he had obtained the publication of an interview by Floyd Landis in which the latter denounced the conduct of the highest officials of the International Cycling Union (UCI).â
Armstrong was formally stripped of his seven Tour de France titles last month by the UCI who ratified the United States Anti-Doping Agencyâs decision to ban the American from cycling for life for doping offences. Armstrong denies doping.
This is just sinking in for me. Fucking awesome stuff from Paul.
My lawyer, Cedric Aguet, works for Bonnard Lawson in Geneva. I call him Maximus. He has just unleashed hell.
The man should be brought to the Aras and given whatever the national honour is. Heâs a fucking hero. I remember reading Rough Ride almost 15 years ago and feeling the tone of sadness and defeat as he told of being ostracized, Marc Madiot (I think) dismissing him as just another guy who wasnât very good. And now heâs taking on the cunts big time, with the backing of thousands and thousands of people. Fuck yeah.
Paul Kimmage.
I heard him do a radio interview a few months back where he was on for about 25-30mins and it was enthrallng stuff (this coming from someone with no interest in cycling).
This is far bigger than cycling. Itâs a journalist, ridiculed on TV, sued by multi-millionaires, who has lost jobs for telling the truth, finally getting at the big wigs who helped protect the whole rotten system which ruined his dreams of being a professional sportman and, for the moment, a working journalist. Itâs inspirational. Heâs a credit to the nation.
When I was 18 years old, I had a very bad accident straight over the handlebars of my bike while travelling about 40kms down a hill. I landed on my face, breaking 9 teeth and completely fucking up my face. I couldnât eat properly for 3 weeks and I was in agony for months afterwards. During my recovery I read the newly published Rough Ride. One of the most remarkable books Iâve ever read. Kimmage has balls of steel. Fair fucking play to him.
This should be a warning to sports administrators the world over that the corruption of sport is getting a big spotlight shone on it.
I remember reading this in Cycle Sport in 99. Didnât cop the doping allegory at all at the time, but I suppose I was only 17 at the time.
JV seems a good guy.
Kimmage should be given a medal. Hopefully when he is finished with cleaning up cycling and exposing the fuckers, he will turn his attentions to the rotten core of Irish politics and sort those fuckers out as well.
Lance, the lies and me
The Armstrong scandal ended in vindication for the journalist who first cried âcheatâ. He reveals that the memory of his son, who died cycling, helped him
David Walsh Published: 4 November 2012
It is 3.30 on a grey Monday afternoon, at a Starbucks off the M25 and I look at a phone that is going to ring. It hasnât stopped. It wonât stop. âAbout Lance Armstrong and todayâs news, are you available to do an interview?â Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, the US, Ireland, Holland, Belgium and so many closer to home. No, no, no, yes, no, no, no, no, yes, no, no, no, yes, no, no, no, no.
Seven requests are from the BBC: Radio 4, Radio 5 live, Radio 2, BBC Radio Foyle, BBC Belfast, Newsnight, World Service. There was a time when the Armstrong Story had black circles on its body from the BBC touching it with a 40ft barge pole. But this is the day, October 22, 2012, that he has been officially declared an outcast, banished from the sport by his own people â cyclingâs governing body, Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). Its president, Pat McQuaid, said the former seven-time Tour de France winner âhas no place in cyclingâ.
Armstrong himself is to change the profile on his Twitter page, removing the five words â7-time Tour de France winnerâ. Heâs history now, another ageing story of cheating and lying and doping and bullying and sport that wasnât sport. An icon until the mask was taken away. âThe greatest heist sport has ever seen,â says Travis Tygart, chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency.
For 13 years, this story has been a central part of my life â from the moment on the road to Saint-Flour in the Auvergne during the 1999 Tour de France that it became clear Armstrong was a fraud.
That morning, the 25-year-old French rider Christophe Bassons, nicknamed âMonsieur Propreâ for his anti-doping stance, left the Tour â although it is more true to say the Tour abandoned him. They were dirty, he was clean, but he was the problem. They ground him down, ran him out of town.
At the head of the lynch mob, lacking only a white hood and length of rope, was Armstrong. He enjoyed his enforcer role, chasing Bassons down the day after the finish to Sestriere: âHe spoke to me in English,â said Bassons, âbut I understood. âThatâs enough. You are bad for cycling. It would be better if you went home. Give up the sport. You are a small rider, you know. F*** you.ââ
In this fight, I knew the side to be on.
On the day Armstrong won his first Tour de France, I wrote a piece for The Sunday Times suggesting the achievement of the cancer survivor should not be applauded: âThere are times when it is right to celebrate, but there are other occasions when it is equally correct to keep your hands by your sides and wonder⊠[and in this case] the need for inquiry is overwhelming.â
Many readers were unimpressed.
âI was disappointed by your coverage of the Tour de France⊠I am mystified why you chose to feed readers a mixture of rumour, suspicion and innuendo,â wrote Ed Tarwinski of Edinburgh. Not one appreciated our sceptical reaction to Armstrongâs victory.
But right now, in this Starbucks, I feel no joy. Today would be the 30th birthday of our son John who was killed on his bicycle 17 years before, on June 25, 1995, just an hour before I reached home after five weeks at the Rugby World Cup in South Africa. He was 12. The day before, heâd watched the Springboks beat the All Blacks in the World Cup final, taped the game for me on a VHS cassette and filed it away with all the others he knew Iâd want to watch on my return.
Liverpool was his football team, and heâd lost his life cycling home after playing a Gaelic football match that morning. He should have stayed for soft drinks and sandwiches, but his team lost and he wouldnât have wanted to hang around. Since then his birthday has always meant more than the anniversary of the day he died, though it is intensely sad to wonder what your 12-year-old would have been like at 30. For 17 years flowers have arrived at our home from a dear friend who understands.
John was a particular kid; bright, hard, questioning, truthful, stubborn. When he was seven, his teacher, Mrs Twomey, read the story of the Nativity to the class. âAnd when Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus went back to Nazareth, they lived a simple life, because Joseph was just a carpenter and they had very little.â
Our son couldnât let that pass. âMiss,â he asked, âyou said Mary and Joseph were very poor, but what did they do with the gold they got from the three kings?â The poor teacher had read this story for more than 30 years and nobody had ever asked about the gold. âTo be honest, John,â she said, âI donât know.â
That story stayed with me; funny, comforting, reassuring even. Something didnât add up and John asked the question. Though I feel the sadness that always comes on this day and the phone wonât stop ringing, I remember that old story and know Iâve been inspired by it. That the legend of Lance Armstrong should have been officially cremated on this day seems to me anything but coincidental.
The thing about the Armstrong scandal was that, even in 1999, the year of his first victory, you didnât need to be Woodward or Bernstein to get it. On the afternoon the American delivered his first great performance in the Alps, the stage to Sestriere, many journalists in the salle de presse laughed at the ease with which Armstrong ascended. He climbed with the nonchalance of the well-doped.
I walked through the hedgerows of journalists, stopping to speak with Philippe Bouvet, chief cycling writer of the sports daily LâEquipe, whose father, Albert, had been a pro. âDoping,â said Bouvet, âis an old story in cycling. Over the last few years the manipulation of ridersâ blood has changed the nature of competition. What we are getting now is a caricature of sport. It is killing cycling.â BenoĂźt Hopquin, a journalist with the French newspaper Le Monde, was tipped off that Armstrong had tested positive for cortisone, and that it had been covered up. Cortisone is a banned drug, but can be used by riders with a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE). Le Monde had been shown Armstrongâs doping control form, and he didnât have a TUE. They ran with the story.
UCI denied there had been a positive test, and said Armstrong had a TUE because of a saddle sore. At a news conference Hopquin tried to pin down Armstrong on whether he had this exemption and when it had been issued: perfectly reasonable questions, but dismissed with disdain by Armstrong. âMr Le Monde,â he said to Hopquin, referring to him by the name of his newspaper, âare you calling me a liar or a doper?â
The truth was he was both, but at that moment he wore the maillot jaune, the famed yellow jersey â and Hopquin was intimidated. He didnât reply. Not one person in a room full of journalists had a follow-up question; instead there were smiles and appreciation for the authority with which Armstrong had shot down the journalist.
The bullying of Bassons and Hopquin spoke of arrogance: Armstrong needed to be aggressive because, a year before, French customs and police had targeted the Tour and found stashes of banned drugs almost everywhere they looked. Shamed, Tour de France organisers said the 1999 race would be âThe Tour of Renewalâ, echoing pledges that the sport has always been too quick to give.
On the eve of the Tour, the organiser, Jean-Marie Leblanc, said the scandal of the drug-addled â98 race would inspire a better future. With less doping, speeds would be reduced and we would again be able to believe in the Tour de France. Long before Armstrong would ride down the Champs-ElysĂ©es in the yellow jersey, it was certain the â99 race would be the fastest in history. Through the first two weeks of the race, virtually every French newspaper reflected the scepticism that was everywhere. Each day, LâEquipe found a new way of saying it didnât believe in Armstrong. It referred to him as âThe Extra-Terrestrialâ â and not as a compliment. But LâEquipe is owned by ASO, the same company that owns the Tour de France, and after Armstrong had been subjected to a tough Pierre Ballester interview, Leblanc arranged a meeting with Jean-Michel Rouet, LâEquipeâs cycling editor.
Leblanc felt the Ballester interview read like a police interrogation, and made his feelings known to Rouet. From that moment, LâEquipe softened its attitude to Armstrong. Bouvet, Ballester and Rouet, however, wouldnât change their view that he was doping.
Before the race reached Paris, Leblanc declared that Armstrong âhad saved the Tour de Franceâ. In the clamour to acclaim the cancer heroâs journey to victory, a tidal wave rolled over the dissenters. The positive cortisone test was forgotten, the record speed was mostly not mentioned; Christophe Bassons, too, forgotten. But if you listened carefully there were some truthful voices.
Vincenzo Santoni, team director of the Italian Cantina Tollo team, shook his head sadly. âI hope we can find a way out of the mess that cycling is in,â he said during that â99 Tour. âUntil that happens, we can forget the joy of the victory.â
You could only believe in this story if you werenât bothered what Mary and Joseph did with the gold.
Already, my relationship with Armstrong had become personal. Six years earlier, I had interviewed him in the first week of his debut Tour. In a book that I wanted to be a Canterbury Tales of the Tour de France, his story would be The Rookieâs Tale. We talked for three hours in a hotel garden outside Grenoble and got on well. He was a Texan in France, so uncool you warmed to him: if his American gaucheness didnât win you over, his ambition did. Nothing was going to get in his way.
I would follow his results in the next three Tours and it wasnât hard to tell what kind of rider he was; strong on flat roads, decent on the shorter climbs, but average in solo races against the clock and physiologically unable to climb with the best in the high mountains. In four shots at the Tour â before being diagnosed with testicular cancer in late 1996 â his best finish was 36th.
I hoped he could recover and return to the sport. But when he came back, and rode much better in the mountains than heâd ever done before, I didnât believe it. At The Sunday Times there was initial excitement at the cancer victim doing so well, but once Iâd made the case for scepticism, the newspaper encouraged me in every way. On the day Armstrong won his first Tour de France the headline in this newspaper was âFlawed fairytaleâ. I was pleased, but not our readers.
From the 45 letters received, one offered encouragement. From the other 44, Keith Millerâs take touched a nerve: âI believe Armstrongâs victory was amazing, a triumph in sport and life. I believe he sets a good example for all of us. I believe in sport, in life, and in humanity⊠Sometimes we refuse to believe, for whatever reason. Sometimes people get a cancer of the spirit. And maybe that says a lot about them.â
That expression haunted me â âCancer of the spiritâ.
By the time the 2000 Tour de France was ready to roll, the Armstrong camp had identified me as trouble. Bill Stapleton, Armstrongâs attorney, manager and friend, turned up in the press room at the end of the first stage.
âDavid,â he said, âcould I have a word? Iâm Bill Stapleton.â
âYes, Bill?â
âLook, we know what youâve been writing about Lance, and youâre getting this wrong. If you were to be fairer to Lance, that could work for you in terms of access. On the other hand, if you keep writing what youâre writing, we will take action.â
âIs that a threat, Bill?â
âIt is,â he said.
Stapleton made me want to try harder, to prove what I knew to be true. The Sunday Times continued to encourage me: âPharmacy on wheels becomes a sick joke,â was the headline about the 2000 Tour. Not discouraged by the salle de presse conversation in 2000, Stapleton called me in April the following year: âDavid, I want to offer you a one-on-one interview with Lance.â Armstrong was gold dust back then; a two-time Tour winner, author of the phenomenally successful autobiography Itâs Not about the Bike, cancer icon and beacon of hope to so many.
âWhere and when?â I asked.
âIf you can get to France this week, itâs on,â he said.
We met at the Hotel La Fauvelaie near the village of St-Sylvain-dâAnjou in eastern France. He came with Stapleton.
I asked if heâd ever visited Dr Michele Ferrari, who was due to go on trial for doping that summer.
âHave I been tested by him, gone there and consulted on certain things? Perhaps,â he said.
Two months later an Italian police source would provide chapter and verse on Armstrongâs visits to Ferrari: two days in March, 1999; three days in May, 2000; two days in August, 2000; one day in September, 2000; three days in April, 2001. More than âperhapsâ.
Every sense I had of Armstrong being dishonest was confirmed by the interview. In June 2001, The Sunday Times published my investigation into Armstrong and headlined it âSaddled with suspicionâ. That investigation included evidence from Stephen Swart, a New Zealand rider and former team-mate, who said that in the Motorola team of 1995-96, Armstrong was the strongest advocate for the team getting on a doping programme.
But leaving Hotel La Fauvelaie on that April afternoon in 2001, it was clear to me that Armstrong would not be caught easily. Already, he had worked out that the world wanted to believe his story of hope and, where possible, they would protect the story. Before the end, my questions had begun to irritate him.
âThere will always be sceptics, cynics and zealots,â he said, wanting me to know that, in the end, this sound-bite would be enough. âSaddled with suspicionâ ran on the eve of the 2001 Tour, and the last line reflected how I felt about his story: âThose who expect him to falter, either on the murderous road to Alpe dâHuez or under the weight of public scepticism, may be in for a long, long wait.â
The good thing about investigating Armstrong was that there werenât many rivals trying to beat you to the story. More than that, journalist friends would hear things, but rather than run with them, they passed them on. James Startt, an American photojournalist in cycling who worked out of Paris, knew Betsy Andreu, the wife of Armstrongâs long-time team-mate, Frankie.
Startt sensed there wasnât an appetite in his own country for the story that Betsy wanted told. He gave me her number. Then a cycling journalist working for a London-based newspaper told me that Emma OâReilly, Armstrongâs former masseuse, was ready to talk. These two women would be the two most important witnesses in the case against Armstrong, because they and Swart were the first to offer direct evidence.
Betsy Andreu heard Armstrong say in Indiana University Hospital that he used performance-enhancing drugs before his testicular cancer. She said her husband, Frankie, and her then friend Stephanie McIlvain were two of the six people in the room at the time, the others being Armstrongâs coach Chris Carmichael and his then fiancĂ©e, Paige, and Bill Stapleton. Frankie Andreu and McIlvain confirmed Betsyâs account of the hospital room incident.
OâReilly told about doping in the US Postal team, and especially about Armstrongâs involvement. We spoke for seven hours and the transcript came to almost 50,000 words. It was packed with evidence of Armstrongâs doping. Around this time, the French journalist Pierre Ballester and I agreed to co-author a book about Armstrong. It would be called L.A. Confidentiel: les Secrets de Lance Armstrong.
No publisher in the UK would take it, because of Britainâs libel laws. Once the book came out, Armstrong issued writs against The Sunday Times for a piece written by deputy sports editor Alan English about allegations made in L.A. Confidentiel.
His London lawyers, Schillings, then put the frighteners on every British newspaper and broadcaster, warning that anyone repeating the allegations contained in L.A. Confidentiel would be sued.
That was just the stuff he left to his lawyers. Armstrong would also deal personally with those who had crossed him.
At a news conference at Silver Spring in Maryland on June 15, 2004, to announce a new sponsorship deal with the Discovery Channel, he was asked about OâReillyâs allegations: âI know that Emma left the team for other reasons. And even as evil as this thing has come out to be, itâs not going to be my style to attack her. I know there were a lot of issues within the team, within the management, within the other riders that were inappropriate, and she was let go.â
OâReilly was a physical therapist and he knew what he was doing when speaking of issues with riders that were âinappropriateâ. It was untrue and scurrilous allegation, and he could say it without being asked to substantiate it. About Swartâs recollection of the use of EPO â a hormone used as a performance-enhancing drug that boosts a riderâs red-blood-cell count â he didnât address the charge but spoke vaguely about Swartâs family background and some issues there. That was his style.
In an interview with the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, he spoke about me â and, for once, forsook innuendo. âWalsh is the worst journalist I know. There are journalists who are willing to lie, to threaten people and to steal in order to catch me out. All this for a sensational story. Ethics, standards, values, accuracy â these are of no interest to people like Walsh.â
Two days later, a letter from Schillings was couriered to The Sunday Times, reminding the newspaper that Armstrong had never taken performance-enhancing drugs and if we dared suggest he did, we would be sued. We didnât back down and we were sued. Two years of endless meetings, preparing statements, lining up witnesses, getting subpoenas â it was hell. Our case was destroyed by a ruling that said we would have to prove Armstrong doped, as opposed to showing we had the right to ask questions. Emma OâReilly spoke with journalists from the US, France and the UK. âBritain, the country where I am a citizen, is the only one where I feel I canât tell the truth. Well, I could, but I would be sued and Iâd lose. So I stopped telling the truth here; just didnât say anything.â
Britain was the only country where Armstrong allowed a libel case to proceed beyond the initial, sabre-rattling writ. Our managing editor at the time, Richard Caseby, negotiated the settlement with Armstrongâs attorney, Tim Herman, who was on his way to Scotland to play golf.
âRichard,â Herman said, âwe were never going to let this go the whole way. Lance is going to go into politics.â
In early 2004 an American writer, Daniel Coyle, began researching a book that would be published in 2005. Lance Armstrongâs War was the story of Coyleâs year inside the US Postal cycling team, and though the book would become a bestseller in America and Britain, the author wasnât allowed inside the teamâs doping sanctum. He understood that, and this was perhaps one of the reasons he ended up at my door. He would call the chapter The Crusader, and it was a flattering account of my attempt to expose Armstrong as a fraud.
During the interview, he asked about our son John. âPeople say you love all your children equally, but I donât think thatâs true,â I said. âYou love them all, but differently. And this kid, I loved more than any person Iâve ever known.â
Iâve never been good at understatement when it comes to John. We have six other children, and Johnâs sister Emily says I would be the same about each of them if they had been the one to suffer Johnâs fate.
Towards the end of his book, Coyle describes the moment he brought Armstrong a draft of the manuscript:
âOK,â Armstrong says. âWhatâs in there thatâs going to piss me off?â Before I can answer, he leans forward.
âThe Walsh stuff is not going to piss me off if itâs factual,â he says. âDonât call him the award-winning world-renowned respected guy.â
I outline whatâs in the book, mentioning that Walsh seems motivated, at least in part, by the memory of his dead son, who he said was his favourite.
Armstrongâs eyes narrow. He cracks his knuckles, one by one.
âHow could he have a favourite son? That guyâs a scumbag. Iâm a father of three⊠to say âmy favourite son,â thatâs f*****. Iâm sorry. I just hate the guy. Heâs a little troll.â
His voice rises. I try to change the subject but itâs too late. Heâs going.
âF****** Walsh,â he says. âF****** little troll.â
Iâm sitting on the couch watching, but itâs as if Iâm not there. His voice echoes off the stone walls â âtroll, casting his spell on people, liarâ â and the words blur together into a single sound, and I find myself wishing he would stopâŠ
A bird-like trill slices the air; Armstrongâs eyes dart to his phone. The spell is broken.
âListen, hereâs where I go,â Armstrong says after putting down the phone. âIâve won six tours. Iâve done everything I ever could do to prove my innocence. I have done, outside of cycling, way more than anyone in the sport. To be somebody whoâs spread himself out over a lot of areas, to hopefully be somebody who people in this city, this state, this country, this world can look up to as an example. And you know what? They donât even know who David Walsh is. And they never will. And in 20 years nobody is going to remember him. Nobody.â
After reading that section of the book, I rang Coyle and said it had deeply upset me to read Armstrong mouthing off about my relationship with my son. Coyle said Armstrong had said far worse things that he hadnât included. âYou shouldnât have included any of the stuff about John,â I said. He apologised and it was clear he meant it.
And now on this day, as I sit in this Starbucks, Armstrong has finally gone down. October 22, Johnâs birthday. I ring Betsy Andreu, in whose slipstream I have travelled in pursuit of the truth. I tell her itâs Johnâs birthday and though sheâs far away in Michigan, I can feel her sadness.
âItâs his birthday,â she says in a whisper. âThis is his little gift to you.â
Itâs a nice thought.
The British journalist?
[size=3][font=Arial]Australian company SKINS is suing the UCI, alleging the organisation harmed the companyâs image by failing to run a clean sport.[/font][/size]
There is no end to this. How is McQuaid hanging on?
Anyone following Jonathan Vaughterâs jousting with some poster called âDear Wiggoâ over on the Clinic? Fair play to Vaughters for engaging with a forum like that, itâs an interesting discussion.
Lemond wants McQuaid out now, proposing himself as an interim presidency and Dick Pound as a long term solution, which sounds good to me. Amazing McQuaid is still holding on.
LeMond calls on McQuaid to resign
http://www.irishtimes.com/sports/images/tile/2012/1203/1224327431910_1.jpg?ts=1354584727Greg Lemond has called on UCI president Pat McQuaid to step down. Photograph: Peter Kramer/Getty Images
Cycling: Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond has called on International Cycling Union (UCI) president Pat McQuaid to step down for the good of the sport.
The American is prepared to run for the presidency of the UCI in the short-term but has suggested former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency Dick Pound as a long-term alternative.
The 51-year-old believes a change is needed at the top in the wake of a number of doping scandals, that culminated in Lance Armstrong being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles after the United States Anti-Doping Agency accused him of orchestrating the most sophisticated doping programme in sporting history.
âIt is now or never to act,â said LeMond, who was asked to run by Change Cycling Now, a newly-formed pressure group which held a conference in London over the weekend. âAfter the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case, another chance will not arise. Iâm ready. I was asked and I accepted. If we want to restore public confidence and sponsors, we must act quickly and decisively otherwise, cycling will die.
âRiders do not understand that if we continue like this, there will soon be no money in cycling.â
LeMond, now the only American recognised to have won the Tour de France, questioned whether Irishman McQuaid, president since 2005, was the best candidate.
âI am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term,â he added in an interview with French newspaper Le Monde . âI think someone like Dick Pound is perfect in terms of ethics, who has real experience in the fight against doping and corruption.
âIf Pat McQuaid really loves cycling, as he claims, he would have resigned. He could say, âOkay, I made mistakes, but now I quit to find a new leader for the UCIâ.â
Interesting thereâs a documentary crew following him at the momentâŠ
In the end, the truth beat Lance to the line
By Ken Early
Friday, December 21, 2012
Many readers will guess that picking Lance Armstrong as Sportsman of the Year must be a juvenile wind-up. Sports Monster of the Century more like.
Still, if the power of sport is in the stories it tells, then you have to salute a man who became the sports story of the year without competing in a single race.
Umberto Eco wrote that âthe fascination of Casablancaâ â âaesthetically speaking⊠a very mediocre filmâ was that it threw together dozens of stock storylines in a way that collectively transcended kitsch. Casablanca takes several archetypal themes, any one of which would be enough to propel an ordinary movie â Unhappy Love, the Promised Land, the Love Triangle, Civilisation against Barbarism â and fuses them into something that takes on a mysterious, resonant power.
âIt is not just one film. It is many films, an anthology⊠Two clichĂ©s make us laugh. A hundred clichĂ©s move us⊠the height of banality allows us to catch a glimpse of the sublime.â
The power of Armstrongâs story owes something to the way it combines many classic genres. The endgame as the investigative web closes in is a compulsive crime thriller, with characters like the dogged federal agent Jeff Novitsky and the Cato-like David Walsh, whose arc moves from Prophet Screaming in the Wilderness to Journalist of the Year.
The details of the doping read like science fiction. Red eggs, Edgar, blood bags â how 21st century science creates a Frankenstein athlete. Armstrongâs witch-doctor Michele Ferrari is a Gothic presence on the periphery.
The broad outline of the saga is a Faustian fable: the hero does a deal with the doping devil and enjoys seven Tour de France victories before losing his soul. A curious thing about the many versions of the Faust story is that more often than not, God takes pity on Faust and he gets away with it. So far there seems little appetite for forgiveness from those who suffered at Armstrongâs hands, and there is no sign of remorse from Armstrongâs side.
Armstrong, the insistent atheist, never subscribed to the Christian world view. He understood his sport as a battle for glory between men of action, âthe toughest event in the world, where the strongest man winsâ. When glory is all there is, the concepts of sin, penitence and redemption have no relevance.
We need to remember an older model of human motivation. At the beginning of Western storytelling you find the Iliad, centred on a character whose outlook would be familiar to many modern athletes. Destiny forces Achilles to choose between âkleosâ and ânostosâ: glory, or homecoming. Either he wins eternal fame by dying at Troy, or he goes home to live out his days in peaceful obscurity.
Achilles chooses fame, which means death. If you believe that sort of thinking has gone out of fashion, remember that in 1996, Sports Illustrated asked athletes competing at the Atlanta Olympics whether theyâd take a drug that would let them win every event they entered for the next five years, even if they knew it would then kill them. Half of those surveyed said yes.
Achilles is not a good man in the Christian sense. His chief character traits, pride and wrathfulness, are two of the seven deadly sins. What the Greeks demanded of a hero was not that he be good but that he be larger than life.
Like a Greek tragic hero, Armstrong brought about his own downfall. Coming out of retirement was an act of hubris that reaped the whirlwind of the federal investigation. Unconsciously he may have wanted the world to discover the trick he had played on it. The doping programme was so sophisticated that he must have been proud of it; not being able to tell people about it must have been a strain.
Sigmund Freud wrote that âno mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every poreâ. In the public domain Armstrong mercilessly pursued those who told the truth about him, but he seemed to have a compulsion to take other insiders into confidence, most damagingly for him when he told Betsy Andreu to stay in the room while he recounted his past drug use to a doctor.
Opinion on Armstrong now falls mostly into three camps: those who see him as a cheat, those who think his worst crime was to be a bully, and those who canât quite decide. As for the fallen hero himself, he got what he always wanted. Nobody will forget the name of Lance Armstrong now. Despite his disgrace, you wonder what he would say if you could offer him the chance to go back and do it all over again. I suspect he wouldnât change a thing.
