Authors: Jeremy Whittle
September 2004 was a busy month for Armstrong and his lawyers. In the same week, he opened proceedings against David Walsh and the
Sunday Times
and against SCA Promotions in the United States in pursuit of payment. The action against SCA Promotions was filed in Dallas by Lance and Tailwind Sports, the management company that owned his team, which, at that time was still sponsored by US Postal Service. Both cases were settled in Armstrong’s favour. But Walsh and Ballester persisted. Armstrong’s legal team said that the claims in
LA Confidentiel
were groundless and pointed to his long run of negative tests, both in and out of competition. Meanwhile, SCA hired private investigators, and with a ruling not expected for up to eighteen months, began turning over rocks to see what they could come up with. This forced some of Lance’s former confidants, such as Frankie Andreu, to choose sides.
Walsh’s campaign against Armstrong made him the black sheep of the press corps. Suddenly, he found that friends were hard to come by. When we spotted the Irishman trudging his way around Liège on his own as the 2004 Tour started, we joked as we sped past that this was because nobody wanted to be seen car-sharing with the troll king by Lance’s spies.
Incredibly, this turned out to be true.
So paranoid had Armstrong made other journalists that Walsh became a virtual exile. The combined efforts of Lance and The Entourage, his team manager Johan Bruyneel and US Postal’s press officer, Jogi Muller, aided by some press-room cronies, strong-armed others, clearly of little resolve, into distancing Walsh.
If
Walsh was spotted travelling or even talking with other journalists, Muller would scuttle back to Lance and Bruyneel. Armstrong wanted us to choose between his way and the highway. Being responsible international sports journalists with high-minded ethics, most of us just sat on the fence.
With Armstrong’s popularity at its peak, few who worked in cycling could afford to be blacklisted, and those who maintained their friendship with Walsh were tarred with the same brush. On one occasion, journalist Rupert Guinness and Bruyneel almost came to blows, when the Australian was reprimanded for being too friendly to Walsh. Guinness, one of Lance’s close confidants in the early years when he had taken his first uncertain steps in Europe, was disgusted. He too became
persona non grata
in the Armstrong camp.
Towards the end of his career, if Armstrong and his associates had been able, they would surely have printed the same press release in every newspaper and magazine. His inability to achieve total control made Armstrong increasingly surly, although his face lit up when a TV camera turned his way. Printed media he could do without, but moving pictures he loved.
That was reflected by his choice of press officer. The hapless Jorg ‘Jogi’ Muller was ill-equipped for the job. An unremarkable ex-professional, Muller spoke many languages, but showed little understanding of the subtleties of the press. Once, I emailed him a simple query on the status of Lance’s relationship with Sheryl Crow. ‘I know nothing,’ came the reply.
On another occasion, when Armstrong’s paranoia was at its height, Muller forcefully tried to persuade a leading American sports writer to hand over a tape of a conversation she and other journalists had had with Walsh. Stapleton and Armstrong scrambled to apologise.
Muller’s ability to say no to all requests became legendary, as did his inability to remember a name. Eventually, I became firmly established on the blacklist although I don’t think that Muller, with characteristic vagueness, really knew why. Somebody –
Lance
or Stapleton, or maybe Bruyneel – had just told him to add my name to it.
At the same time, Muller blithely continued his own business association with Michele Ferrari, even after the Italian was convicted of doping offences (although Ferrari was later acquitted following an appeal). Muller, while blocking yet another interview request with Armstrong, would at the same time use his contacts with the media to promote the website
53x12.com
– an online training consultancy he had set up with Ferrari.
‘Sorry,’ he’d say. ‘Lance is not available – but can I send you an email about my new website?’ Muller unashamedly publicised his relationship with the Italian even as Armstrong again defended himself against allegations of doping. Given that he was responsible for Armstrong’s relationship with the press, it was bizarre behaviour.
The Swiss-German also led the increasingly creative badmouthing of those who spoke out against Armstrong. He had strong support from Armstrong’s two press-room stooges, whose meal ticket was their ‘special’ relationship with the Tour champion. The pair would squabble over which of them was closest to the Texan. I have always had a sneaking feeling that Lance secretly enjoyed this. Conversations with the stooges debating the merits of the latest allegations against Armstrong invariably ended the same way. One by one, they would shoot down Lance’s critics. The French? ‘They’re lazy.’ David Walsh? ‘He’s a crazy obsessive!’ Greg LeMond? ‘He’s washed-up and jealous!’ Filippo Simeoni? ‘A liar and a proven drugs cheat.’
It was remarkably easy to fuel the galloping paranoia of The Entourage. In the aftermath of David Millar’s two-year ban, I asked Johan Bruyneel if – given that Dave’s old mate Lance had been such a shoulder to cry on during the dark days of his drugs bust – the Belgian and his Texan team leader might consider signing Millar for US Postal once his ban had been served.
Bruyneel frowned. ‘Yes, somebody told me you’d started that rumour,’ he said.
I laughed in disbelief. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t believe all the gossip you hear, Johan,’ I said. Two years later, Bruyneel was scrabbling to sign Ivan Basso.
Exchanges like this guaranteed my place on the blacklist. But then by 2005, more of us were on it than not. Bruyneel, Muller and Armstrong had become so despised for their hostility towards the press that we wore blacklist status like a badge of honour.
Ultimately, Armstrong’s never-ending suspicions became a self-fulfilling prophecy. By the time he had won his final Tour, he certainly had enemies. After half a decade spent defending himself, he was so paranoid that every encounter became claustrophobic, heavy with suspicion. But then my feeling was that, isolated in his control tower, he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. There was now a stream of ostracised confidants; the journalists were bad enough, but then there were the embittered and resentful ex-pros queuing up to knife him, the former personal assistants demanding money, as well as – with breathtaking hypocrisy – the Tour de France directors who had fallen at his feet as the dollars rolled in.
By the end of the seven-year reign, it wasn’t just the French who felt that Armstrong had long outstayed his welcome. The notion, so eloquently expressed in Daniel Coyle’s excellent book,
Lance Armstrong: Tour de Force
, that despite all the money, cars, women and houses, Lance was secretly lonely and isolated, took root as his ‘friends’ turned on him. It was time for him to climb out of the bear pit.
PROTECTING THE INTERESTS OF THE PELOTON
THE 2004 TOUR
de France is one day away from the Champs-Elysées.
Lance Armstrong, taut and lean in the yellow jersey, strides down the central aisle of the Besançon media centre into the Tour winner’s press conference. A ripple of applause splutters into life, initiated by the American media contingent. When it is not picked up by the Europeans present, it fades away.
Armstrong, followed by The Entourage, strides purposefully towards the platform and the waiting bank of microphones and cassette recorders. Cameras flash, tapes whirr. He sits down. The questions begin.
Lance’s drawl booms out of the PA, easy, relaxed and assured. There is no Kimmage or Walsh out there, no inquisitor to face. He had dominated the Tour to secure his sixth win. Once again he has put them all in their place. The naysayers and sceptics among the media and his rivals – where are they now? After six years, Armstrong’s supremacy was complete. His multimillion dollar fund-raising efforts through his cancer foundation, the sweeping success of the Livestrong wristbands, his celebrity profile and the successful rebuttal of any attacks on his reputation, had made him appear almost untouchable. Even his bitterest critics had to admit that he was an extraordinary human being. Lance’s legendary status now transcended his sport: for many people, his good deeds – the fund-raising, the campaigning for better cancer treatment, the hope he offered the hopeless – nullified any concerns there may have been over
his
effect on his sport. How could somebody who had done so much for others be anything but a force for good?
So as he sits down in Besançon, there is a stalemate, a predictability, in the air. Nonetheless, my tape recorder runs, just in case. I stand up, stretch my legs and stroll around to the side of the low stage. The questions continue; he smiles, shrugs, jokes, bats them back. I walk around to the rear of the stage. Double doors are open to the car park and a warm breeze wafts in. The US Postal liveried station wagon with blacked-out windows is parked beyond the threshold.
Lance’s bodyguard stands there in the doorway, waiting.
‘Last question please,’ says US Postal’s press attaché, Dan Osipow. His master’s voice echoes once more around the hall. Then, job done, Lance is on his feet, making his way through the tangle of wires and speakers. He steps down from the back of the stage for the short walk to the waiting car. His minders are lagging behind as he strides towards the doors.
From under the brim of his baseball cap, he clocks me. I see a flicker of recognition but he keeps walking, keeps looking straight ahead. I take a step forward. He adjusts his cap.
Before I realise it’s happened, he’s past me and out through the doors, into the evening sunshine and a throng of adulation.
In the 2004 Tour, Armstrong was more dominant than he had ever been. He won by six minutes, he won six stages, he sneered at the boo boys, he hobnobbed with George W. Bush and John Kerry. He kissed Sheryl Crow. He drank Château de Fieuzal 1998 when victory was assured. He flung his supremacy in the face of his critics. Even as the doping scandals clouding the achievements of lesser riders multiplied, he remained the Tour’s feudal king.
There was, however, one thing that displeased him: an Italian rider, Filippo Simeoni, who had testified against Michele Ferrari in an Italian courtroom and who continued to speak out against doping. Armstrong brushed him aside. ‘He is like a child killing
ants,’
observed former French professional Laurent Jalabert, during the Tour. And it wasn’t the first time that Armstrong had invoked the power of the
omerta
to assert his authority.
During the 1999 Tour, French professional Christophe Bassons had endured a brief feud with Armstrong. The Frenchman, then twenty-five, was riding for the La Française des Jeux team, a contract he’d secured after leaving the Festina team. When Festina had crashed and burned twelve months earlier, even his shamed teammates had universally acknowledged that Bassons was an intransigent non-doper.
That status ensured his notoriety. In a column he was writing for
Le Parisien
, in July 1999, Bassons questioned the ethics of the peloton and insisted that doping was still a significant problem. When he heard what Bassons had said, Armstrong, heading towards his remarkable first victory, sought him out. Armstrong later confirmed that, in a brief mid-race conversation, he had told Bassons that what he was saying was not good for the sport and that maybe, if he was so disenchanted with cycling, he should seek another profession. Bassons agrees with the gist of this account, but his version of the exchange is more blunt.
‘Lance said, “Why don’t you fuck off?”’ Bassons recalled.
The encounter with Armstrong proved catastrophic for Bassons’ career. Within hours some colleagues were ignoring him, while others implored him to keep his mouth shut. Even his own team manager, Marc Madiot, these days a voluble proponent of clean sport and leading light in the Movement for Credible Cycling, rounded on him. It was too much for Bassons and he quit the Tour in a shattered and distraught state. His career never truly recovered. Bassons moved to Bordeaux to work for the French Ministry for Sport and Culture.
Six years later, history repeated itself. At the 2004 Tour, Lance tackled a second whistle-blower.
Filippo Simeoni was a lowly Italian rider, best known for a stage win in the Tour of Spain, at which his maverick streak
had
first showed itself. As he rode towards victory and entered the final hundred metres, he stopped short of the finish and then walked across the line, triumphantly carrying his bike above his head. Later, he claimed this gesture was in tribute to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and in support of world peace. Showing their usual indulgence of rider eccentricities, the UCI fined him heavily.
Simeoni’s unconventional behaviour was long forgotten by July 2004 when he raced in the Tour de France for the Domina Vacanze team. Established as a very able
domestique
, his presence at the Tour, riding in the same peloton as Armstrong, created a stir among the riders. He wasn’t seen as a joke any more, but more as a loose cannon. He had spat in the soup in an Italian courtroom. He had broken the
omerta
.
Questioned by the Italian police as part of a detailed and comprehensive investigation into Michele Ferrari, Simeoni had agreed to testify. As Armstrong vigorously defended his relationship with Ferrari, Simeoni told the investigating judge that Ferrari had advised him on the use of banned substances, including EPO. He also confessed to doping himself.
Armstrong was enraged. Simeoni, he said, was not a credible witness. He described him as an ‘absolute liar’ in an interview in
Le Monde
. Few had imagined, however, that this bitter feud would be so publicly played out on the road during the Tour de France.
At first nothing happened. As he and Simeoni rode side by side in the peloton, Armstrong was at first merely dismissive towards the Italian, feigning a lack of interest in his presence. Then when Simeoni made plain his intention to win a stage, things got personal.