The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs

by Daniel Coyle

  When I saw Ufe in February, he told me some big news: he’d just bought a freezer. This was not an ordinary freezer. It was a special medical freezer, and along with some assorted equipment, it would be the foundation of a major innovation he was planning. Ufe nicknamed it “Siberia.”

  Talking even faster than usual, Ufe explained the idea: instead of the usual method of refrigerating blood—which necessitated the trips to and from Madrid every few weeks—he would start freezing the BBs. Once a BB was frozen, it would keep indefinitely. This was music to my ears. I could avoid the hassle and stress of the BB shuttle; I could make deposits at any time that suited me. And instead of being limited to two or three BBs in the Tour, I could use more.

  There were, Ufe explained, two main factors I should consider. First, Siberia would cost me more. He would have to do a lot of time-consuming work to keep the RBCs alive, slowly mixing them with a glycol solution (basically, antifreeze) that replaced the water and thus kept the cells from bursting when they were frozen. Second, the Siberia BBs would be slightly less potent than the refrigerated BBs: due to the trauma inherent in the freezing process, only 90 percent of the cells would survive—not a huge difference, but worth noting. Ufe explained that I would simply piss out the 10 percent of red blood cells that died. My urine would be rust-colored for a bit, a disconcerting side effect, but essentially harmless.

  Then came the best part. (Ufe always knew how to sell.) He told me he would not be offering Siberia to all his clients, but only to a select few: me, Ullrich, Vino, and Ivan Basso. The price tag was $50,000 for the season, plus the usual bonuses for each of my victories.

  My choice was simple, because it wasn’t really a choice. I could either let my rivals use the new freezer while I fell behind, or I could join the club. In a way, it felt fair to have all four of us together being advised by the same doctor, our blood kept in the same freezer—a level playing field. So I told Ufe absolutely, yes, and I expressed my thanks. I wouldn’t find out until later how misplaced my gratitude was.

  I’ve never been so busy as I was that spring as I worked to prepare Phonak and myself for the 2004 Tour. There were a thousand details to consider, a thousand decisions to be made. At times, I felt calm. Other times, however, it felt like life was on the verge of spinning out of control.

  I remember one visit to Ufe in particular. I’d come straight from a race; I was exhausted and toting a roller bag. Ufe kept me waiting for an unusually long time at the café. I had reservations on a flight back to Girona and desperately wanted to get home. I drank coffee after coffee. When I finally got the text—all clear—I raced in, lay down, and Ufe got to work. When I was hooked up, I flexed my hand into a fist, urging the blood to flow faster.

  When the bag was full, I hopped to my feet. I usually held my arm over my head for a few minutes, applying pressure with a cotton ball—but I had no time for protocol. I taped on a cotton ball with a Band-Aid, rolled down my sleeve, said my goodbyes, and headed for the exit. Then I was outside, on the streets of Madrid, racing down the street toward a cab, dragging my roller bag across the cobblestones, hoping I wouldn’t be late. I was maybe two blocks from his office when I felt a strange wetness in my hand. I looked down. My hand was dripping with blood. My sleeve was soaked. I lifted my hand, and it looked like I’d dipped it in red paint. I looked like I’d just murdered someone.

  Quickly I tucked my bloody hand inside my jacket, put pressure on the hole in my arm. I hailed a cab, trying to disguise my condition from the driver, while I tried to wipe the blood from my arm and hand with a Kleenex. When I got to the airport, I went to a bathroom. I threw the shirt in the trash, covering it with paper towels. I went to a sink and tried to scrub the dried blood from my palm, my wrist, from beneath my fingernails. I scrubbed and scrubbed, not just for me but also because I wanted to hide it from Haven; I didn’t want to upset her.

  When I got home, Tugboat started smelling my hand and getting agitated; he could tell something was up. Haven asked how my trip went. Fine, I said.

  Back in Girona, life at home took a twist when Lance showed up without Kristin and instead with his new girlfriend, Sheryl Crow. We’d heard that he and Kristin had suddenly divorced, but we hadn’t expected things to change quite so quickly. Sheryl seemed nice, down-to-earth, and Lance seemed happy, at least as far as we could tell.

  Lance and I didn’t see each other much, beyond occasionally passing each other in the gateway of our building or in front of the coffee shop across the street. But we were watching each other in different ways. The cycling media was buzzing with the Lance versus Tyler story; you couldn’t turn around without seeing a website or a magazine cover anticipating our showdown at the Tour de France. In public, I was my usual deferential self, talking about how I was hoping for a podium spot at the Tour. But in private, with my new teammates, I was aiming higher. I was aiming to win.

  We started out poorly. But we slowly got better. I was 12th at Critérium International, 14th at the Tour of the Basque Country, and ninth defending my title at Liège–Bastogne–Liège, before which I took a BB. Each race, I became a little more vocal, more decisive. For example, when we practiced the team time trial and guys weren’t riding in tight formation, I had no patience. The old me would have made a joke or tried to be gentle. Now, however, I told them in no uncertain terms: Dammit, guys, get your shit together.

  It started to come together at the Tour of Romandie in late April, where we had three riders in the top six on the overall, and I won. We gathered at the finish, hugging, laughing, having a blast together. It felt fantastic: a Postal-quality victory, but on our own terms, accomplished with a smile instead of a grimace.

  Our big pre-Tour target, however, was the Dauphiné Libéré, the last big tuneup before the Tour. Most of the big names would be racing: Lance, Mayo, Sastre, Leipheimer. To perform well would send a message that Phonak was a force to be reckoned with.

  Before the Dauphiné began, a handful of teammates and I flew to Madrid for a transfusion. We kept it simple: we stayed at a hotel near the airport; Ufe and Nick came to meet us and give us each a BB in our respective rooms. It felt strange to be doing this all together, like we were back in the days before the Festina Affair, in the days of team-organized doping. I didn’t like my teammates knowing the details of what I was doing, and I certainly didn’t want to know what they did; I felt naked, exposed. But I also wanted us to race well, so I didn’t protest. Once the BBs were inside us and Ufe was gone, it felt great. We headed to the Dauphiné feeling quietly excited, secure in the knowledge that we were going to do well.

  It was usually possible to guess which teams had prepared for a race by seeing who did well in the prologue. By the same token, it was possible to guess which teams had been donating BBs before a race, because their performance suffered (as mine did so dramatically in the Route du Sud after my first transfusion in 2000). We had a phenomenal prologue: five Phonak riders in the top eight, while Postal’s riders finished 12th, 25th, 35th, and 60th. In the first few days of the race, I noticed Lance looked worried. Normally he’d talk with me during the stages, do his usual intimidation, send a few pointed messages. Now it was the silent treatment.

  The big day was stage 4, the individual time trial up our old friend Mont Ventoux. This was the day when we would all be showing our cards for the Tour. It was a Tour-like atmosphere that morning in the start town of Bédoin. Flags, tents, pennants, hundreds of people buzzing. There were lots of rumors going around about Lance, most of them connected to a new book being released by David Walsh that was going to include new evidence alleging Lance had doped. Things over at the Postal bus were tense. Heads down, nobody talking, everybody walking on eggshells around Lance. Seeing their tight expressions, the wary glances, I felt a huge sense of relief that I wasn’t part of that anymore.

  Around our bus, everything was calm and under control; everybody was doing his job. I was on a new climbing bike—light as a feather, jet black, with no logos, like it was some kin
d of secret test plane. I warmed up on the rollers. You can feel when you’re going to be good, and I was feeling it: my legs felt springy and responsive. We would start in reverse order of the standings, leaving at two-minute intervals and riding alone up the mountain. First, Lance. Then me. Then Mayo.

  The lower slopes of Ventoux last forever: it’s a steep climb through a shadowy pine forest. Ahead, I could hear the roar as Lance passed by. I pushed, wanting to draw that roar nearer. I emerged onto the famous moonscape of white rock; it felt like waking up, like being born. I felt good: I went to the limit and held it there, then pushed a little more. The crowd roar was getting closer now; I could see Lance up ahead. He was standing, as he usually did when he was at his limit. I could see by his body language that he was going full bore. And I was catching him. In my earpiece, I heard my time splits. By two-thirds up the climb, I had put forty seconds into Lance. I tried to relax—no sense getting excited yet—and pushed even harder.

  Riding Ventoux is a strange experience, especially as you near the peak. Without any perspective—no trees, no buildings—distances can fool you. At times you can feel like you’re going fast, other times like you’re standing still. Now, it felt like I was flying. I could see Lance up ahead through the heat shimmer. For a moment, it felt like I was going to catch him and pass him. I almost did. When I crossed the line I had ascended Mont Ventoux faster than anyone else in history. I’d put 1:22 on Lance in less than an hour—a big number. More important, five of my Phonak teammates finished in the top thirteen; aside from Lance, the Postal guys were in the middle of the pack.*

  I saw Lance for a second at the top. His face was tight. He had a towel around his neck. He didn’t say a word to me or anybody; I saw him pedal away toward a team car. He looked scared. He’d ridden Ventoux faster than he’d ever ridden it, and we’d throttled him. The Tour was in three weeks and everything was on the line: the possibility of a record sixth consecutive victory, his status as the all-time greatest Tour winner, not to mention the millions in bonuses he stood to make from Nike, Oakley, Trek, and his other sponsors. I knew he would attack; I just wasn’t sure how he’d do it.

  That evening, three hours after the Ventoux finish, our Phonak team management received a call from the UCI with a highly unusual request: as soon as the race finished, I was to come to their headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland, for a special meeting. I was confused and a little worried. I’d never heard of any rider being called in to speak with the UCI at their headquarters. It felt like I was being called to the principal’s office—Hein Verbruggen wants to see you. The question was why.

  I was nervous, but I was reasonably confident I wasn’t being busted. I knew there were new tests for blood doping. The tests, called the off-score, measured the ratio of total hemoglobin to the number of young red blood cells, called reticulocytes. The higher the off-score, the more likelihood that a transfusion had taken place (since receiving transfusions gives you a disproportionately high number of mature red blood cells). A normal off-score was 90; the UCI rules suspended any rider who exceeded a score of 133. I knew that my score, back in April, had measured 132.9. A near miss, for sure, but I was in the safe zone.

  Mostly, I was confident because I was sure I wasn’t doing anything my rivals weren’t doing. I wasn’t transfusing five BBs at once, or taking boatloads of Edgar, or trying perfluorocarbons or some other whiz-bang stuff. I was professional. My hematocrit was below 50. I was playing by the rules.

  The town of Aigle, home of the UCI, is located in a scenic valley right out of The Sound of Music: cute Alpine cottages, farms, meadows. The UCI headquarters turned out to be the town’s single modern feature: a glass-and steel building located next to a pasture with cows grazing. It was jarring. Until that moment, I’d always thought of the UCI as a major, state-of-the-art organization. In fact, it looked a lot more like a moderately nice office park.

  Dr. Mario Zorzoli, the UCI’s chief medical officer, met me at the door. Zorzoli was a decent guy: open-faced, smiley, radiating a doctorly concern. He showed me around, and we stopped in Hein Verbruggen’s office. Verbruggen seemed pleased to see me; we made small talk. Then Zorzoli and I went to his office. He closed the door.

  “Your blood tests were a little off,” he said. “Is there anything we should know about? Have you been sick?”

  I told him I’d been sick earlier that spring, but now I was fine; that I was sure my scores would soon return to normal. Zorzoli showed me the data from my blood test, and he said it indicated that I may have received a blood transfusion from another person. My heart pounded, but I kept my composure—mostly because I knew I’d only received transfusions of my own blood. So I told Zorzoli that his data must be in error, impossible, and Zorzoli nodded, saying that perhaps there were other medical reasons for the result. He told me not to worry, and to keep racing as normal.

  Then Zorzoli changed the subject, asking about the out-of-competition tests run by USADA. He was curious to know how they worked, and started asking questions: How did athletes notify USADA of their travels? How did athletes update changes? Did we use a website, or fax, or texting? He said he wanted to know because the UCI was going to be implementing its own out-of-competition tests soon.

  The entire meeting lasted forty minutes, and left me puzzled. For the first and only time in my career—the first in anybody’s career, as far as I know—the governing body of my sport asks me to make a special trip to their headquarters as if it’s some five-alarm emergency. Then, when I get there, nothing much happens. It felt strange, anticlimactic, as if the UCI had called me in just to be able to say they called me in.

  When I got back to Girona, a letter from the UCI was waiting for me, repeating Zorzoli’s warning: they would be watching me closely. I noticed the letter was dated June 10, the same day as the Ventoux time trial. It would be a few weeks before I understood why.

  As the 2004 Tour approached, my numbers were lining up perfectly. I dropped the last ounces of weight: my jersey sleeves started flapping happily. I rode easy, careful not to burn too many matches. The last days around Girona were thankfully peaceful: Lance was somewhere in the Pyrenees with Ferrari and a few teammates doing their usual pre-Tour preparation.

  After our success on Ventoux, the biggest physical challenge was how to dial things down. Doping or not, you’ve only got so many days of great form, and I didn’t want to waste them. Since most of the big climbs were stacked in the third week, I wanted to go in easy: to arrive at the prologue at 90 percent, then reach 100 percent by crunch time. Ufe and I worked out a plan: three BBs, one before the race, one on the first rest day after stage 8, then one after stage 13, between the Pyrenees and the Alps. Everything was set.

  On the home front, Haven and I were dealing with a sad development: our beloved Tugboat was sick. Not a little sick, either. He had lost all his energy, and suddenly could hardly make it up stairs or go out for a walk. The vet told us it was internal bleeding. The best-case scenario was ulcers, but even then we knew in our hearts it was something more. It felt like our child was sick; we did all we could to make him comfortable and started him on a course of medicine. It was frightening to see the change: he’d been so happy, so healthy. As I left for the Tour, it was touch and go. I told Tugs goodbye, and that I’d see him when I got back.

  I went to Madrid for the BB and then to the Tour, where Lance kept up the silent treatment he’d started back in the Dauphiné. However, he wasn’t being silent with other riders. I’d heard from several friends in the peloton that Lance was talking a lot about Phonak, complaining that our performance was not normal, saying we were doped to the gills, hopped up on some new Spanish shit. It wasn’t true—we were doing the same things he’d done—but of course there was no way to prove that, or do much of anything except give him the silent treatment in return. He and I spent the first few days four inches apart at times, knuckle to knuckle, staring straight ahead, not saying a word. We were both being stubborn. It felt like we were in the fourth grade.<
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  The Tour organizers like to spice the flat stages with challenges; this year they were serving a generous helping of Belgian cobblestones on stage 3. It was a flashback to the Passage du Gois from 1999—narrow, nasty sections that were destined to cause panic and crashes. The key to staying safe, as always, would be to get your team to the front and fight to stay there. Getting to the front early in the Tour is not a small thing. Everyone is fresh and ambitious; everyone is in tip-top shape. It’s like two hundred starving dogs racing for a bone; nobody backs down. For the last few years, Postal had treated the front of the race like their own private space. But now that was going to change. Before stage 3, I gathered my Phonak teammates and told them the goal. Todos juntos adelante—all together, all to the front.

  Approaching the first big cobblestone section, the race started to get chaotic. The road was narrowing, our speed was increasing, and the number of riders at the front was multiplying: us, Postal, Mayo’s Euskaltels, Ullrich’s T-Mobile team. About nine kilometers from the cobbles, we decided to go for it: todos juntos adelante. Postal tried to reply, and one of their guys, Benjamin Noval, touched handlebars with someone else, and there was a crash. We took inventory: our guys made it through, so did Ullrich’s, and so did Lance’s. But Mayo didn’t. He crashed, and was left behind; lost nearly four minutes by day’s end. A lesson for us all.

  Lance was furious. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it. We were every bit as strong as Postal, which we proved the following day at the team time trial. Postal had a flawless run. And even though we had four blown tires, one broken handlebar, and three teammates left behind, we still finished second, 1:07 behind Postal. It was a message: even when we mess up, we’re right next to you.