by David Walsh
A response was necessary. It first appeared on Armstrong's website. "I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken performance-enhancing drugs. Unfortunately the witch hunt continues and the article is nothing short of tabloid journalism. The paper even admits in its own article that the science in question here is faulty and that I have no way to defend myself."
The L'Equipe piece did not say the science was faulty but pointed out that because the tests were carried out on B samples of urine originally taken six years before, another test to confirm the veracity of the B sample results would not be possible. When the A sample was originally examined in 1999, there was no test for EPO.
One scientific option is open to Armstrong. In at least two of his six samples that contained synthetic EPO, there is enough urine left over (20ml) for him to have it DNA-tested to confirm that it is in fact his. So far there has been no indication that he will have this done.
Armstrong has been busy defending himself in America. On Wednesday he spoke to journalists on a video link-up from Washington. On Thursday he appeared on CNN's Larry King Live. King immediately confronted him with a quote from Jean-Marie Leblanc, the race director of the Tour de France.
"For the first time," Leblanc had said, "these are no longer rumours or insinuations, these are proven scientific facts ... He owes explanations to us, to everyone who followed the Tour. L'Equipe have shown that I was fooled, we were all fooled."
Armstrong said he was shocked by Leblanc's comments and told how the two men had spoken over the telephone. According to Armstrong, Leblanc just hemmed and hawed, and said he was surprised but didn't spell out his disappointment.
Asked why he should be the target of continual doping allegations, Armstrong looked beyond cycling. "If we consider the landscape between Americans and the French right now, obviously relations are strained. But this has been going on for seven years."
He also offered the view that the French were sore losers. "Couple that (US-French relations) with the fact that French cycling is in one of its biggest lulls it has ever been. I don't know, I think it's been 20 or 25 years since they won the Tour de France."
In every interview he has done since the story broke on Tuesday, Armstrong was asked if he would sue L'Equipe: "It's a possibility ... You know, lawsuits are two things: they're very costly and they're very time-consuming."
After the publication of LA Confidentiel, Armstrong sued The Sunday Times for an article relating to the book, he sued the French publishers, La Martiniere, the authors and L'Express magazine for publishing extracts.
The apparent finding of EPO in six of Armstrong's samples from the 1999 Tour de France occurred quite by chance. It was December last year and Professor Jacques de Ceaurriz, head of the French national laboratory, and his colleague Dr Francoise Lasne had been working to improve the EPO test developed at Chatenay- Malabry in the late 1990s and approved for use at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Their aim last December was to find synthetic EPO in urine by three distinct methods. They used the 1999 Tour de France samples, which had been kept frozen at the laboratory, for a simple reason: they knew that many cyclists used EPO freely through the 1990s as there was no means of detecting it. From the samples, they found 12 that contained EPO.
For the scientists, the discovery of EPO was not important. Their objective was solely to measure the veracity of their refined test. They did not plan to make public the results and even if anybody at the laboratory had wanted to name the riders with EPO in their urine, they could not have done so. The laboratory worked only with anonymous numbers.
Somewhere during this process, L'Equipe journalist Damien Ressiot learnt these tests had been carried out and that there were 12 positives. Through sources at the laboratory, he received the documentation for each positive test with the number relating to each rider who had provided the sample.
Ressiot's task was at once straightforward and formidable. He had to find the documentation that showed both the name of the rider and his number for each sample. Three agencies -the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the French Cycling Federation and the French sports ministry -had all received copies of that documentation.
From documents reproduced in L'Equipe, it is clear that Ressiot obtained the UCI's copies of these documents. This is ironic because of the speculation in the US about a French conspiracy to bring down the American champion. The UCI is based in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Once Ressiot received these documents, he cross-checked them against the laboratory documentation. He then knew he had a sensational story on his hands.
The investigation, lasting four months, had reached an end and resulted in L'Equipe devoting four pages to the story on Tuesday and 3A pages to its follow-up on Wednesday.
But questions remain. L'Equipe has not convincingly explained why it took so long to get the story into print: the tests were done in December, the story appeared eight months later. Had the story been published two months earlier, shortly before the start of the Tour de France, it would have greatly damaged the race. L'Equipe and the Tour are both part of the Amaury group of companies.
Neither has the newspaper explained why the riders who produced the other six positives found at Chatenay-Malabry from the 1999 samples have not been named.
Sources say the paper does not have those names. This raises the possibility that the leaked documents from the UCI were specifically designed to bring down Armstrong.
Previous allegations against Armstrong mostly involved testimony of former employees, teammates and others involved in the sport of cycling. Although they cannot be easily dismissed, they lacked the documented evidence in L'Equipe's story. "I've dealt with it for seven years," Armstrong told Larry King. "This is perhaps the worst of it."
Because of his inspirational comeback from cancer and his athletic prowess, he remains an iconic figure to many Americans. His is a story that millions of them want to believe. Many still do, but not all. Following L'Equipe's story, many American commentators have openly expressed doubt.
In the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday, Gwen Knapp compared Armstrong to baseball's Barry Bonds, the record-setting hitter who has been linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (Balco), the California steroid factory. She wrote that Bond's disgraced trainer, Greg Anderson, who has pleaded guilty to two federal charges in the Balco case, is not much different from Armstrong's former trainer Dr Michele Ferrari, who has been convicted on doping charges in an Italian court.
"Both athletes can say they have never tested positive," wrote Knapp, "although Bonds can say it more convincingly. Traces of a banned corticosteroid turned up in Armstrong's 1999 tests. He then produced a medical certificate, saying that he was allowed to use the substance to treat saddle sores ...
"The thing that definitely separates Armstrong and Bonds has nothing to do with science or law. It's a popularity contest and Armstrong can't lose. As the cancer survivor who launched 50m yellow bracelets, he has an aura that transcends sports.
Bonds, cranky and condescending, may be the most disliked of athletes. As a cyclist, Armstrong never threatened any records held dear by Americans."
Armstrong himself is aware of the damage caused by L'Equipe's story and how it will affect how he is perceived. "It's always going to be a case of did he or didn't he?" he said.
"But it has always been a case of did he or didn't he? I mean, this is not the first time somebody's come along and said, 'Ah, he's doped. Ah, he rode too fast. Ah, his story's too miraculous -no way, he's doped'. This has been going on for seven years. And I suspect it will continue."
What they said...
In Europe
'For the first time these are no longer rumours or insinuations, these are proven scientific facts. L'Equipe have shown that I was fooled, we were all fooled' - Jean-Marie Leblanc, director of the Tour de France, inset.
'Lance Armstrong has fallen. He is not the person he pretended to be ... The American can no longer be c
onsidered as a sporting legend' - Le Monde
'Armstrong has betrayed us ... today the king is naked a the American should be stripped of his titles, at least the victory in the 1999 Tour' - Le Figaro
In America
'They [the French] don't mind us when we're buying their wine or storming German pillboxes, but they have never been able to accept their jewel being dominated by an American' - Mike Lopresti, USA Today
'France cannot accept that Armstrong has dominated their national sporting event for the past seven years. It's tempting to wonder why, since the French are rather experienced at accepting defeat. It must have something to do with Armstrong being an American - and a Texan' - editorial in the Austin American-Statesman, Armstrong's home-town newspaper
'A firm denial has lost its credibility when every culprit claims innocence, when the sprinter Kelli White denies and then confesses, when Rafael Palmeiro [the Baltimore Orioles baseball star] shakes a finger at Congress to underscore his goody-goody stance on a steroid-free body, but his positive test is revealed a few months later' u Selena Roberts, The New York Times
'It's too bad that athletes are now considered by the public to be guilty until proven innocent. But their forebears have lied so often in the same situations that they can't be trusted solely on their word any more. That's the unfortunate world Armstrong now lives in' - David Steele, Chicago Tribune.
The clean machine
Paul Kimmage
June 29, 2008
"
Here I am, on this team that is really trying to stick by the books and this guy is making fun of us for playing by the rules
"
Jonathan Vaughters is telling me a story about the pivotal moment of his life as a professional cyclist. It happened on a sunny Tuesday morning in the city of Pau, as he prepared for the start of the 14th stage of the 2001 Tour de France. Spirits were high in the peloton that morning; the last of the high mountain peaks had been crossed two days before and there were just six stages to race before the chequered flag in Paris.
Vaughters had never made it to Paris. In 1999, his Tour debut, he had been brought down in a spectacular pile-up on the second stage. A year later, he crashed out again, overshooting a corner at speed on a descent in the Pyrenees. His third appearance in the race had been the best to date. He had experienced the thrill of winning (his team, Credit Agricole, had the team time trial), survived the Alps and Pyrenees, and was nailed-on to make his first Tour finish.
And then, incredibly, the curse had struck again.
The previous afternoon, while out on a leisurely ride with his teammates during the rest day in Pau, a wasp had become entrapped in his sunglasses and stung him in the eye. Vaughters was allergic to wasp stings and by the time he had returned to the team hotel, his eye was the size of a golf ball. The pain was only beginning.
"The only thing that's going to reduce that swelling is a cortisone injection which, as you know, is proscribed," the team doctor announced. "Take it and you'll test positive."
Vaughters was distraught. "But that's ridiculous...I can't see! I can't ride my bike! How will I finish the race?"
"I'm sorry Jonathan," the doctor replied. "I can give you the injection but you will have to abandon the race. There are no exemptions for allergies. We have to do this by the book."
"I understand," Vaughters conceded, "but I'm not going to abandon. We'll see how it is in the morning."
Sleep did not come easily that night to the 29-year-old American. Here he was, trying to compete clean against rocket machines, juiced on (undetectable) EPO, growth hormone and testosterone and he was the guy at risk of being exposed as a cheat! The irony was sickening.
The morning brought no respite. He ate breakfast with his teammates, changed into his racing kit and stepped off the team coach in Pau looking like the Elephant Man. His Tour was effectively over but as a gesture to highlight the absurdity of the doping laws he had decided to sign-on as normal, line-up for the start, and climb off his bike as soon as the flag dropped.
As he made his way to the start line, aching with disappointment, he crossed the path of a chap he describes as "a famous rider". Most of the other racers had greeted him with sympathy that morning but this particular rider didn't do sympathy. No, his speciality was contempt.
"Poor Jonathan and his stupid little team," he spat. "What the f*** are you like? If you were on my team this would have been taken care of, but now you are not going to finish the Tour de France because of a wasp sting."
Vaughters was gutted.
"I thought, 'F***! Here I am, on this team that is really trying to stick by the books and this guy is making fun of us for playing by the rules'," he says. "My heart just left me after that. It just made me sad, just irrevocably sad. I raced (the following year) in 2002 but that was the moment that effectively ended my career. Phew! (sighs) I was done. I didn't want to race any more. It just didn't seem to matter to me after that."
He returned to his native Colorado with his wife, Alisa, and son Charlie and applied his considerable intellect to the business of selling real estate. He wrote wine columns and antique furniture reviews for specialist magazines and dabbled in stocks and shares. The transition to normal life was seamless. Almost everything he touched turned to gold. And then he did something that completely defied logic. He began floating the notion of an anti-doping cycling team that would compete in the Tour de France.
The cynics went to town on him: "What was Jonathan on?" But he wouldn't be denied and next Saturday, when the Tour begins in Brest, "Team Clean" (aka Team Garmin-Chipotle) will join the circus on the grid. Why has he returned? What does he hope to achieve? This is the story of the revenge of Jonathan Vaughters.
It is often said that before you judge a man, you should walk a mile in his shoes. I have walked that mile with Jonathan Vaughters; I have spent four days in his shoes but don't ask me to judge him. And I definitely can't explain him. We have returned to the pivotal moment of his career - the exchange with the famous rider in 2001 - and I've been wrestling with the word he used to describe how he felt.
"You used the word 'sad'," I observe.
"Yeah," he replies.
"Not anger?"
"No."
"There was no element of anger at all?"
"I'm not saying there was no element of anger but it was definitely more sad...yeah, I will stick to that."
"No resentment?" I press.
He sighs.
"...At the injustice of it all?"
"There was some, of course," he replies, dispassionately. "The wasp sting really brought to a head a lot of the conflict I had going on inside of me. It really brought home the fact that, 'Okay, maybe there just isn't justice'."
He crosses his legs and awaits the next question. The chime of a carriage clock fills the void. His calm is unnerving. What does it take, I wonder, to get Jonathan Vaughters mad?
I'm trying my best. The interview has entered its fifth hour and the discussion has turned to his experiences of doping.
"Did you have any first-hand experience of doping in the States?" I ask.
"No, not in the US," he replies.
"Not at all?"
"No, racing in the States is much less...I mean half the guys you are racing against have full-time jobs. You know? It is much, much less demanding."
"What about when you joined the US Postal Service team in 1998?"
"In '98? Why do you need to know that?" he laughs.
"I need to know when you witnessed it first-hand," I explain. "I'm asking whether it was in '98 that you witnessed it first-hand."
"I know," he laughs. "And I am asking you: Why do you need to know that?"
"I would have thought it was a logical extension of what we have been talking about."
"Well, no," he disagrees. "Essentially, you are leading me down a path where I end up having to answer questions that I can't back out of."
"I'm not leading you down any path," I counter. "I'm trying to explain how
you founded Team Clean. I am asking you about your experiences of doping in cycling."
"No, that's totally understandable," he concedes.
"I'm not asking you anything I didn't ask Greg LeMond."
"No, of course, and I wouldn't expect that. I guess I would just say that my time at US Postal Service was...I kind of almost have to leave that as a 'No comment'. And you can take that however you would like."
"Okay, fine. You are painting me a picture and I'm reading between the lines."
"And you're welcome to read between the lines," he says. "I'm completely okay with that."
"My perception is that you doped."
"You're an intelligent person," he smiles. "So your perception is ... (laughs)"
"I want a 'yes' or a 'no'."
"I know you want a 'yes' or a 'no'."
"I want to know: Did you dope? I want to know: Why did you dope? And I want to know how you felt about doping?"
"And what I will tell you is that people are free to make the judgments they want out of my cycling career," he insists.
"Jonathan, I don't understand what your problem is here," I reply, exasperated. "It's a valid question. I'm not going to walk away from it."
"I'm not asking you to walk away from it," he says. "I can see that you are trying to establish a background and that's fine but what I'm saying is that I'm just not going to talk about it and that's it. You can take that however you want."
I take it badly. He doesn't flinch. Later that evening, I'm venting my frustrations to his wife, Alisa, at dinner when she suddenly makes sense of him. "The thing you have to remember about Jonathan," she smiles, "is that he's the son of an attorney."
An only son, Jonathan Vaughters was born and raised in Denver, Colorado.
His father, Jim, was the attorney. His mother, Donna, was a speech pathology professor. A small, wiry, boy, it wasn't a conventional childhood. His bedtime stories were Thomas Jefferson quotes from the American Bill of Rights and his most vivid childhood memories were of watching his father in court.
