Saddled with suspicion;Cycling;Tour de France;Interview;Lance Armstrong Source: Sunday Times Issue Date: Sunday July 08, 2001 Byline:

David Walsh

. Story Text: Cyclist Lance Armstrong is the overwhelming favourite to win his third Tour de F rance. At the American's invitation, David Walsh went to see him to discuss one subject - doping He earns $8m a year. Endorsements run to another $5m. He once held a press confe rence in New York and the billionaire Donald Trump turned up to hear him speak. Nowadays, he charges twice as much as former president Bill Clinton for speaking engagements and when not recounting history, he is creating it. Lance Armstrong is his name. He is the world's best cyclist. Yesterday, he launched his bike from a ramp in Dunkirk and set out on the Tour d e France. He is favourite to win for the third consecutive time and become only the fifth cyclist to do so. It is not solely success that draws us to Armstrong but also what his achievements symbolise. Less than five years ago he was strick en with testicular cancer that spread to his lungs and brain. Surgeons suggested he might not live but they didn't know their patient. Armstro ng has been to hell and back. First to good health, then to the famed yellow jer sey. His spirit and good drugs enabled him to make the first part of the journey . But for two years there has been endless speculation about Armstrong, his rema rkable recovery and his relationship with drugs, not just those taken to kill th e cancer but also those taken by cyclists to help them compete. Doping is a way of life in professional cycling. It is as old as the sport itsel f. Police raids on the 1998 Tour de France and on this year's Tour of Italy expo sed the enormity of the deception that is widespread. In this game, Mr Clean com petes against the majority and against the odds. Can a clean rider beat those on drugs? The search for an answer began in Indianapolis six months ago. It is a Sunday af ternoon and the Starbucks cafe is almost empty. Greg Strock, five months before graduating from medical school, tells of his short career as an elite cyclist. H e was 17-going-on-18; the coaching staff at USA Cycling told him that not since the great Greg LeMond had anybody performed better in physiological tests. But i t ended before it began. Strock claims he was told injections were necessary. Wi thin a year, he became ill and though he would return to competition, he never r egained his former strength. Ten years have passed. The memory angers him. It takes time, he says, to appreci ate fully what has happened. Strock is suing USA Cycling and his former coach, R ene Wenzel. Erich Kaiter, his teammate on the US junior team in 1990, corroborat es Strock's story of systematic doping. He, too, is suing USA Cycling. In the na tional programme, Strock and Kaiter were one year behind Armstrong. From a coffee shop in Indianapolis to a San Francisco restaurant where Dr Prenti ce Steffen tells his story. He had been team doctor with the US Postal team in 1 996; the year before Armstrong joined. Towards the end of that season, US Postal informed Steffen they would no longer need him. Steffen believes it was because he refused to help with any kind of drugs. From a doctor in San Francisco to a former professional on another continent. Th is is a man who rode with Armstrong for four years at Motorola. The team, Armstr

ong believes, was "white as snow". That is not what his one-time teammate says. This rider tells of a decision by certain members of the Motorola squad to use t he blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO) during the 1995 season: "The contrac t with our main sponsor was up for renewal and we needed results. It was as simp le as that." Nothing is so simple for the carabinieri of the Florence-based NAS team who enfo rce Italy's food and drug laws. Here in the basement of their old police quarter s in the city, the cardboard boxes are stacked 10-feet high, each packed with fi les seized from doctors alleged to have been doping their athlete-patients. The files seized from Michele Ferrari, one of the doctors being investigated, show t hat Kevin Livingston was one of those treated by Ferrari. During the Tour de Fra nce of 1999 and 2000, Livingston was Armstrong's most able equipier, a man he de scribed as his closest friend. Ferrari also kept an Armstrong file, one that ind icated a role in the rider's training. Asked whether he had ever visited Ferrari , Armstrong replied: "Perhaps." From one doping investigation in Italy to another in Paris where Hugues Huet, a journalist with the state-run television organisation France 3, tells of how, du ring last year's Tour de France, he tailed an unmarked US Postal car and eventua lly filmed the driver and his companion disposing of five plastic bags in a bin many miles from their team hotel. The rubbish contained 160 syringe wrappers, bl oodied compresses and discarded packaging that indicated use of the blood-boosti ng product, Actovegin. That led to a nine-month French investigation into the US Postal team, which will conclude later this month. So many questions. Then, out of the blue the phone rang. It was Armstrong. He had heard things, he wanted to talk. Any time, any place. The interview was arranged for two days lat er at Hotel La Fauvelaie, near the village of St Sylvain d'Anjou in eastern Fran ce. EIGHT years have passed since our last meeting. Back then, Armstrong was an ambi tious 21-year-old setting out on his first Tour de France. The years have change d him. His body is harder now, the eyes more wary. There is a sense that come-wh at-may, he will overcome. He stretches out his hand, matter-of-factly. He is awa re of your suspicions; he wants to restate his case. "Do you mind," he says, "if Bill sits in?" (Bill is Bill Stapleton, his agent an d lawyer.) "I would prefer it to be one-to-one, but your choice." "Yeah, I'd like Bill present." "I have come to discuss one subject: doping." "Okay," he says. The first part of the interview is a gentle journey through his career. In late 1992, he joined Motorola and the professional peloton. You must have been aware by then that doping was part of the culture? "I don't know the answer to that because Motorola was white as snow and I was th ere all the way through to 1996." What of the Fleche Wallonne classic in 1994 when three members of the same Itali an team Gewiss-Ballon broke away and finished first, second and third? He had be en strong that day but couldn't live with the Italians. It was unusual for three riders from the same team to break clear in a classic and suspicions were arous ed when, a few days later, the Gewiss team doctor, one Michele Ferrari, claimed EPO "was no more harmful than five litres of orange juice". Was Armstrong surpri

sed by Ferrari's approval of EPO? He says he doesn't remember his reaction. Sure ly he wondered what EPO was? "EPO wasn't an issue for us. Jim Ochowitz (Motorola team manager) ran a clean programme." Armstrong's recovery from cancer came at a time when the sickness in his sport w as, at last, properly diagnosed. On his way to the 1998 Tour de France, Willy Vo et, a soigneur with the Festina team, was stopped by French customs officials. H is car contained 234 doses of EPO and a cargo of other banned substances. Armstr ong says he was astonished: "It was unbelievable, the contents of the car." When he returned to competition in 1998, it was with US Postal. Armstrong says P ostal's programme was clean. He insists he won the Tour de France in 1999 and 20 00 without doping. Others may have doped; he can't speak for them. Other teams m ay have used drugs; the authorities must police them. Armstrong speaks for himse lf. He has won without drugs. He is, and always has been, clean. WE NOW move on to discuss specific incidents in more detail. Armstrong rode for the US amateur cycling team in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Chris Carmichael was then a US coach and he soon became Armstrong's coach. Twelve years later, Ca rmichael remains the rider's coach. "He is my main advisor, I talk to him all th e time." Carmichael has been implicated in the case taken by Strock against USA Cycling. In his formal submission, Strock describes being taken by his coach, Re ne Wenzel, to see another US coach during a race at Spokane in Washington in 199 0. Strock tells how this second coach gave him an injection, but does not name h im. In a formal answer to the Strock suit, Wenzel recalls the same Spokane encou nter and says the other coach was Carmichael. Asked why he did not name the coach at Spokane, Strock says he is not in a posit ion to answer that question, and not in a position to say why he can't. It is be lieved Carmichael has agreed an out-of-court settlement with Strock's attorney. Carmichael says he cannot recollect the incident in Spokane and declined to comm ent when asked if he had settled out of court. Armstrong knows of the case and understands the implications. Has your coach Chr is Carmichael made any settlement with Greg Strock? "Ask Greg or Chris," says Armstrong. Didn't Chris explain whether he did or didn't? "No." Didn't you ask him? "As far as I am concerned, it was a case between Greg and his coach, Rene Wenzel ." What if Carmichael had made a settlement, would that not be a shock? "Would I be shocked? I haven't even thought about it." It wouldn't look good, would it? "Does it look good that Greg Strock just takes the money? Let's flip it around. Is this about money or is this about principle?" We talk about the professional teams for whom Armstrong has ridden, Motorola and US Postal. He insists neither doped: "There are programmes in this sport and there are athletes that are clean ." A former professional rider who was a contemporary of Armstrong's at Motorola fr

om 1992 to 1996 tells a different story. Now retired from the sport, this former professional agreed to speak on the basis that his name would not be used. Shou ld it become necessary, though, he will come forward and stand up for his accoun t of the Motorola years. "The team results in 1994 were not impressive and '95 started off the ad access to the same training as other teams, the same equipment; we me food, slept the same number of hours but, in races, we were not as e. The picture was becoming clear for the upcoming Tour de France: we to have to give in and join the EPO race. same. We h ate the sa competitiv were going

"Lance was a key spokesperson when EPO was the topic. From the riders' point of view, we felt the mounting pressure not only from within the team but also from what was being said and written about us as a team. No one starts out wanting to dope but you become a victim of the sport." As well as believing Motorola was c lean, Armstrong says he has proof that US Postal runs a clean programme. He poin ts to the team's three weeks of drug-free urine at last year's Tour de France. T o the suggestion that the Tour's tests find only detectable drugs, he replies th at there will always be "cynics and sceptics and zealots". We talk about Prentice Steffen, team doctor for US Postal in 1996, the year befo re Armstrong joined the team. Steffen had been with the team since 1993, when it was Subaru-Montgomery, and continued as team doctor in the first year of US Pos tal's involvement. With Postal's backing came the ambition to compete against Eu rope's best. In 1996 they entered the Tour of Switzerland. "We were wiped out," said Steffen. "Two of my riders approached me saying they w anted to 'talk about the medical programme'. It was said that as a team, we were n't able to get to where we wanted to go with what I was doing for them. I said, 'Well, right now I am doing everything I can.' They might have come back with ' more could be done' and I said, 'Yeah, I understand, but I am not going to be in volved in that'." Steffen is sure he was being asked to help two riders to dope. After that inform al discussion, relations cooled between the doctor and his riders. Four months l ater, a message was left on Steffen's voicemail saying the team no longer needed him. In November 1996, Steffen received a letter from firm Keesal, Young and Logan, a ttorneys for the US Postal team. The letter said his suspicions about his depart ure were incorrect but he would be held responsible for his comments if he made them public. Until now, Steffen has not spoken out in public. Armstrong says he is surprised by the doctor's story. But is it not a serious accusation against t he team? "If it's so serious and so sincere, I would think I would have heard th at (before now)." OUR conversation turns to Kevin Livingston, Armstrong's first lieutenant and clo se friend on the US Postal team during the Tour de France victories. Livingston has been listed as one of 60 riders treated by Ferrari, the Italian doctor await ing trial on doping charges. Ferrari is accused of treating riders with EPO, the drug that increases the bloo d's oxygen-carrying red cells and enhances the rider's endurance. For most human s, red cells account for 43% or 44% of the total blood volume, a measure known a s the haematocrit level. To counter the abuse of EPO, the authorities now ban ri ders whose haematocrit exceeds 50%. The Sunday Times has seen pages from Livings ton's file at Ferrari's office. The readings for his blood parameters are unusua l. In December 1997 Livingston's haematrocrit is recorded at 41.2%. Seven months later, a few days before the start of the 1998 Tour de France, Livingston's hae matrocrit is 49.9%. Such a variation in a seven-month period is uncommon.

Did you know Kevin was linked with the doping investigation? "Yes." Did you talk with him about it? "No." Never? "No. You keep coming up with all these side stories. I can only comment on Lance Armstrong. I don't speak for others." This was your best friend? "But I don't meddle in their business." So we speak of Lance Armstrong and Michele Ferrari. Did you ever visit Dr Ferrar i? "I did know Michele Ferrari." How did you get to know him? "When you go to races, you see people. I know every team's doctor. It's a small community." Did you ever visit Ferrari? "Have I been tested by him, gone there and consulted on certain things? Perhaps. " Sources close to the investigation of Ferrari are more precise about Armstrong's relationship with the doctor. They tell of a series of visits by the rider to F errari's practice at Ferrara in northern Italy: two days in March 1999, three da ys in May 2000, two days in August 2000, one day in September 2000 and three day s in late April/early May of this year. While he was in Ferrara, Armstrong staye d at the five-star Hotel Duchessa Isabella and at the four-star Hotel Annunziata . Is Ferrari a good trainer? "Regardless of what goes on," he replies, "these guys that are under a lot of pr essure, guys like Conconi, Cecchini, Ferrari; these Italian guys, they are fanta stic minds, great trainers. They know about physiology." Francesco Conconi and Ferrari have been investigated on doping charges and the p rosecuting judges have recommended that both be sent for trial. The case against Luigi Cecchini was dropped. WE speak about the French investigation Tour de France two staff members of the sts from the TV station, France 3. They team hotel and put them in an unmarked into the US Postal team. On last year's US Postal team were followed by journali were seen to carry rubbish bags from the car. The journalists followed.

The chase lasted for five days. Thirty miles from Morzine, the US Postal employe es dumped the bags in a bin by the side of the road. Tipped off about the discov ery of the blood-boosting drug Actovegin in the medical waste, French police ope ned an investigation.

Seven months later, the inquiry has not been completed. Armstrong says that anal yses of blood and urine samples provided by the team to the investigation are cl ean. The judge leading the inquiry, Sophie-Helene Chateau, says such a conclusio n is premature. Who were the team members who dumped that rubbish? "One was a team doctor, the other was our chiropractor." Names? "That's not important." US Postal said it carried Actovegin to treat riders' abrasions and to treat a st aff member who suffers from diabetes. Who was the staff member? "That is medical privacy," says Armstrong. For more than an hour and a half, we traded punches. At times he was generous an d charming; at others confrontational. Wearied by my scepticism, he reached for the put-down: "There will always be sceptics, cynics and zealots." But he knows it is not that simple. He knows, too, that for the next three weeks on the Tour de France, the questions will follow him. Not having the answers won't bother him. What matters is that his urine and his blood are clear. Those who expect him to falter, either on the murderous road to Alpe d'Huez or u nder the weight of public scepticism, may be in for a long, long wait.