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

by Daniel Coyle

  JONATHAN VAUGHTERS: The thing to realize about Fuentes and all these guys is that they’re doping doctors for a reason. They’re the ones who didn’t make it on the conventional path, so they’re not the most organized people. So when they leave a bag of blood out in the sun because they’re having another glass of wine at the café, it’s predictable. The deadly mistake that Tyler, Floyd, Roberto [Heras], and the rest of them made when they left Postal was to assume that they’d find other doctors who were as professional. But when they got out there, they found—whoops!—there weren’t any others.

  As worried as I was about being sucked into the unfolding controversy, a small part of me had to salute him for his tactical brilliance. Ufe, you cunning bastard! You figured it out, you used the shadows of our world to play the angles like a master. Even being conservative, Ufe was making millions. You weren’t just a talented doctor. You were also a talented con man. What’s more, you knew all along that you were safe, because Spain lacked laws against sports doping.‖

  Operación Puerto, like Festina eight years earlier, hit the sport like an atomic bomb, smack on the eve of the 2006 Tour de France. Some implicated riders like Ivan Basso and Frank Schleck (who admitted to paying Fuentes 7,000 euros) would lamely claim that they hadn’t doped. Others, like Ullrich, had the good sense to retire (good idea, since DNA tests showed Ullrich had nine BBs in Ufe’s possession). The Tour went on, but it didn’t get any better: the eventual winner, Floyd Landis, whom I’d helped bring to Phonak, was popped for testosterone a couple days after the Tour ended.

  I felt for all the guys who got busted that year, but I felt most for Floyd because of how it happened. He’d won the Tour in dramatic come-from-behind fashion, accomplishing what veteran observers called the greatest single ride in Tour history, a solo breakaway on stage 17 where he outrode a chasing peloton over some of the Tour’s steepest mountains. It was the gutsiest ride I’ve ever seen, especially when you consider that testosterone has fairly minimal effect on performance.a

  After he was popped, I watched Floyd’s press conference, saw his half-hearted denials (when asked if he’d doped, Floyd hesitated and said, “I’ll say no”). I felt how trapped Floyd was. I could see he was going down the same path I did. He’d fight the test, and he’d in all likelihood lose. Watching it unfold on my laptop, I wanted to reach through the computer screen and give him a hug. I wondered how Floyd—independent, fearless Floyd—would take it.b

  I couldn’t spend too much time worrying about Floyd, however, because the fallout from the Puerto investigation was causing me problems of my own. It didn’t take long for some of Ufe’s calendars and materials to be released on the Internet. Most of it was in code, but one item that wasn’t was a handwritten bill Ufe had faxed to Haven, including mention of Siberia, that showed we’d paid 31,200 euros and still owed 11,840 euros. Anyone could see the 2003 doping calendar Ufe had prepared for me, the dates matching my race schedule, along with his scribbled notations for injections and transfusions he recommended. I denied that I was Rider 4142 and said I was innocent, but anybody with a brain could make the connection.

  Later, others would wonder why only my race calendar was released and not similar materials related to younger, active stars like Alberto Contador, who was rumored to be the client code-named A.C. I don’t have an answer for that, other than the obvious one: the sport is skilled at protecting its assets. Faced with yet another devastating scandal, it responded with a time-honored strategy: scapegoat a few, preserve the rest, and keep moving forward.

  When I was linked to Puerto, I was officially toxic. None of the big teams were returning my phone calls, and I found myself right back where I’d started in 1994: a guy on the outside, searching for a team.

  In November 2006, I signed a $200,000 one-year contract with a small Italian team called Tinkoff Credit Systems, owned by a Russian restaurant tycoon named Oleg Tinkoff. Tinkoff was a bit of a rogue who was smart enough to spot a niche: he decided to sign riders who’d been popped and whom other teams were avoiding: myself, Danilo Hondo, Jörg Jaksche (he tried to sign Ullrich, but Ullrich was still suspended).

  The 2007 Tour of Italy, in May, was going to be my first big race back. Before the race, I showed exactly how much my suspension had changed my attitude: I got hold of some EPO from an Italian racing friend, and dialed myself up to some decent levels. I might have been a cheater, but I wasn’t an idiot. With no BBs, I had zero chance at winning the race, of course; winning a stage would be victory enough.

  The day before the race started, the UCI, in one of its patented “let’s-pretend-to-clean-up-the-sport” moves, pressured the teams not to start any riders who were associated with the ongoing Operación Puerto investigation. Jörg Jaksche and I were booted from the Tour, Tinkoff stopped paying me, and I started looking for another team.

  That fall I signed a $100,000 contract with Rock Racing, a new American team started by a charismatic fashion magnate named Michael Ball. Ball was out to create a team with a rock-and-roll vibe, and he knew that infamy can sell, if it’s packaged right. Along with me, he signed fellow Puerto refugees Santiago Botero and Óscar Sevilla. With a roster like that, we knew we weren’t going to get invited to the Tour de France. But we were good, and we had fun. In fact, we kind of relished being the bad boys of the sport; we grew our hair longer, we had cool uniforms, Ball threw big parties and drove fast cars. It felt good to let loose.

  It was ironic. During my career, I’d looked like a Boy Scout and doped; now, in my comeback, I looked like a rock-and-roller and raced mostly clean, without Edgar. (I did take testosterone a couple of times.) Be assured: it wasn’t some kind of moral stand. I’m sure that if somebody had offered me Edgar, I would have taken it, no questions asked. I knew the world hadn’t changed—the guys at the top were still playing the game the same as they ever had, though with a bit more scrutiny from the testers. I just didn’t have the connections anymore and besides, we were racing shorter races, mostly in the U.S., against lesser competition. I did find it gratifying that I could still get results riding on bread and water, just as I had when I was a neo-pro.

  One thing that was less gratifying was the way some riders acted when I rejoined the peloton for bigger races like the Tour of California. I’d always had a lot of friends in the peloton; I’d always prided myself on the way I treated people. I didn’t expect to be treated like a conquering hero, but I did expect riders to at least say hello, to be somewhat friendly. A few guys were great—I remember Chechu Rubiera was warm and welcoming. But on the whole, the peloton didn’t exactly welcome me back.

  One time early in my comeback, I was in a race with Jens Voigt. Jens is one of the best-liked guys in the peloton. He’s funny, outgoing, and we’d always gotten along well. I was excited to see him, so I rode up next to him, expecting a chat. I saw him glance at me, then stare straight ahead. I wasn’t sure what to do. We rode that way for a solid minute, inches apart.

  Maybe he’s kidding, I thought. Maybe it’s a joke, and he’s about to crack a smile.

  Nope.

  “Hey, Jens,” I finally said, trying to sound cheerful. “How you doing today?”

  He didn’t look. “Just trying to follow the wheel in front of me,” he said emotionlessly.

  I waited, not quite able to absorb it. Then, shaking my head in sadness, I rode away. I tried not to take it personally. Maybe Jens was just afraid of being associated with me. Maybe I was an unwelcome reminder of what might happen to him if he got popped. Maybe it’s just the way the brotherhood works. You’re in or out. No in between.

  Back home, Haven and I continued to drift apart. For much of 2007 I trained in Italy with Cecco, while Haven stayed in Boulder, earned her real-estate license, and got her career going again. When I was away, we didn’t talk much, and when I returned, I was no picnic to live with, dealing with the stress of the comeback as well as my depression. Also, when you have to try to explain to your wife’s parents why their last name was on a fax from a notorio
us Spanish doctor, that’s tough. Our house in Sunshine Canyon began to feel like a museum of the hopes we no longer had. We were zombies, going through the motions, and at some point it became clear that it wasn’t going to work anymore. By fall 2008 we had divorced. We kept it simple and cordial: one lawyer, everything split down the middle, no muss, no fuss, lots of good wishes for each other. It felt like we were climbing out of the wreckage, shaking hands, and heading our separate directions.

  In early 2008 Rock Racing was invited to the Tour of California: a big race, a chance for me to show what I could do. Then, as at the Tour of Italy, organizers jerked the rug out from beneath us, excluding any riders tainted from Operación Puerto. It wasn’t fair—I’d served my suspension, and should have been free to ride. Plus we had Botero and Sevilla, both of whom had flown thousands of miles to be there. We decided to stay with the team out of protest, hoping that other riders would speak up for us. But nobody did. They were afraid that they’d sully their images by supporting “known dopers.”

  I channeled my anger and won a couple of big races, the Tour of Qinghai Lake in China and, in August, the U.S. National Road Race Championship. It felt good to have some measure of redemption—especially in the latter race, when I beat my old roommate George Hincapie and a large crew of top American pros.

  But the satisfaction was short-lived. Every victory was shadowed by a sense of how much had been lost, every interview echoed the story of my positive test, reminded me that there was no way to escape my past. The fact was, I was damaged goods, a thirty-seven-year-old bike racer with a tainted reputation, bouncing from race to race, with no wife, no home, no future prospects. I started drinking too much; my depression got worse.

  In the fall of 2008, Lance surprised the world by announcing he was coming out of retirement and making a comeback. He said he was coming back to help raise cancer awareness, but to me the real reason was crystal clear: with all the scandals, his legacy was being battered, and he wanted back in the game, to take control of the story again. Why not? He could beat the tests, work hard, and play the old game. As ever, he had that old itch to raise the stakes. A big win, and everybody would shut up.c

  As Lance was coming back, I was headed in the opposite direction. In early 2009 I tested positive again. I was trying to find a natural substitute for my depression meds, and in doing so tried an over-the-counter herbal antidepressant that contained DHEA, a banned substance which is not performance enhancing. I knew perfectly well that DHEA was banned, but I was desperate for help and I figured that the odds of my getting popped were remote. Of course, that was the one time in my career when the testers did their job—they caught me off guard (now that I was living alone, I didn’t have the usual early-warning system).

  I think down deep I wanted to get caught. When I was called for testing at 6:30 a.m., I didn’t even care enough to pee beforehand, which would’ve cleaned out my system and diluted my urine sample. When I was informed I’d tested positive, I felt an overpowering reflex to fight the test, to prove they were wrong (funny how strong habits are). But after talking to some friends, I had a moment of insight. I decided to try a strange new tactic: I’d tell people what really happened.

  So I did. I called a press conference, took a deep breath, and laid out the facts. For the first time in my life, I talked openly about my depression. I talked about how I hadn’t wanted to admit the condition because I was afraid people would see it as a weakness. I talked about my attempt to go off my prescription medication (which had recently been diminishing in its effectiveness, as happens with anti-depressants), and how I’d found the herbal antidepressant. I told them that yes, I’d taken the supplement, and yes, I’d known it contained DHEA.

  I also told them that I was retiring, effective immediately. As I talked, I felt my heart lift: I didn’t have to hire lawyers, I didn’t have to strategize or pick my words or carry around secret knowledge. I could just tell what happened, just as it was. In the days afterward, I felt some part of me open up, like a fist that was starting to unclench.

  I began reconnecting with family. The previous fall my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and I started spending more time helping her with her recovery. I began to see a therapist in Boston, and the sessions were a huge help. He helped me start to pull back and look at life from a new point of view. I began to let go of some of the guilt I’d felt, to see just how crazy my life had been. I connected with old friends. Went to Red Sox games. Spent time with my parents, with my sister and brother and their families.

  In January of 2010, I moved back to Boulder and started a small training business. I kept things simple: we didn’t use a lot of computer-based training; instead, with the help of my friend Jim Capra, we outlined individual training programs and helped people toward their goals, whether it was to make the Olympic team or to lose fifty pounds. We got a few dozen clients, ranging from top prospects to newbies. I kept up the charity work with MS; my father and I continued organizing our yearly fund-raising ride called MS Global.

  Best of all, I was dating a wonderful woman named Lindsay Dyan. Lindsay was beautiful, whip-smart, witty as hell, and had a spontaneity about her that I loved. We’d met in Italy during my comeback; we’d kept in touch and now we found ourselves arranging our schedules so we could be together. She was a true Bostonian, from a close-knit Italian family, earning her masters in international affairs and ethics from Suffolk University. She brought a lightness to my life that felt fresh and new, a sense that every day held new possibility. Just for fun, I once tried to capture Lindsay’s personality on a Post-it note, and came up with three words: NUTTY. FUN. ALERT. And it’s true. Once, she fell in love with a vintage 1979 Jeep Grand Wagoneer on eBay; the next thing I knew, we were flying to Texas to pick it up and drive it back to Boulder. We dubbed it the Green Machine, and we used it to explore the mountains around town. I think Lindsay thought of me like that truck: high mileage, a few dents, but worth taking a chance on.

  This was going to be my new life. I tried to live under the radar. I didn’t watch any of the Tour. I spent time with friends and took long runs in the mountains with Tanker, my new golden retriever, who was Tugboat’s equal when it came to endless energy. I played indoor soccer, and I ran the business, and steered clear of Boulder’s ultra-competitive bike-racer scene. I didn’t really have a clear view of the future, except that I’d keep trying to have more good days, to move forward and be a normal person.

  I thought that was the end of it. I thought all the drama with Lance was over and done with and buried. But as I was about to find out, the past wasn’t dead. It wasn’t even past.

  * If Hamilton had immediately confessed, it would have been a first. Cycling history contains zero examples of high-level racers who, having tested positive for doping, offered an immediate and complete confession. Even those who eventually come clean, like former world champion David Millar, spend months denying or claiming they’d only doped once or twice. Part of the reason is legal, but the larger part seems psychological: they don’t feel like they’ve done anything wrong, so there’s nothing to confess.

  † About $25,000 in all, which according to Hamilton was never used in his defense. “I didn’t feel comfortable using it, so we finally put it in the Tyler Hamilton Foundation.” Bereft of support, the foundation closed in 2008 with a negative balance on the books.

  ‡ The big question: Presuming the blood test was accurate, how did someone else’s blood get inside Hamilton’s body? Some theories suggested that Hamilton’s blood had been mixed up with that of Phonak teammate Santiago Pérez, who was busted just after winning the 2004 Tour of Spain for the same offense. (This didn’t turn out to be possible, due to differences in blood type.)

  Dr. Michael Ashenden, the Australian scientist who helped develop the test and who testified in Hamilton’s USADA hearing, suggests that there could have been a mix-up somewhere in Fuentes’s transfusion procedure. Freezing blood is a multi-step procedure that includes several transfer
s and mixings with progressively stronger concentrations of glycol with a mixing machine called an ACP-215. Because the cells are alive, you have to babysit this machine for hours at a time, and keep everything straight. In a situation where Fuentes and his assistant, José Maria Batres (aka Nick), were handling the blood of dozens of riders, it would be possible to envision a scenario where Hamilton’s and another racer’s blood were accidentally mislabeled and/or mixed. In addition, according to Spanish newspaper reports in 2010, Batres was suffering from dementia.

  While Hamilton has never reduced his criticism of the test, which he regarded as “clearly not ready for prime time,” he gradually grew to accept the possibility that his positive might have resulted from a simple accident. “At times, Nick [Batres] did seem a little mixed up,” he says. “I always had to remind him of my code name.”

  It’s also interesting that Dr. Ashenden, in the wake of the confessions of Hamilton, Landis, and others, had gradually come to understand doping from the bike racer’s point of view. “Before, I saw them as weak people, bad people,” he said. “Now I see that they’re put in an impossible situation. If I had been put in their situation, I would do what they did.”

  § Not quite, of course, because Armstrong was also fighting his own handful of legal battles, among them:

  (1) a lawsuit against Mike Anderson, a former personal assistant who said he had been fired because he had accidentally discovered doping products in Armstrong’s Girona apartment. Armstrong filed suit against Anderson; the case was later settled out of court.

  (2) libel suits against, among others, La Martinière, the French publishers of David Walsh and Pierre Ballester’s L.A. Confidentiel, and the London Sunday Times. Armstrong eventually dropped the suit against Martinière, and won an apology from the Sunday Times.

  (3) a lawsuit against SCA Promotions, the insurance company contracted to cover Armstrong’s bonuses for winning the Tour de France. In 2004, after SCA executives grew suspicious about Armstrong’s possible doping, the company withheld Armstrong’s $5 million bonus. Armstrong filed suit, and an arbitration hearing was held in the fall of 2005, in which Armstrong, Greg LeMond, Frankie and Betsy Andreu, and others were deposed under oath. As the law focused solely on the terms of the original contract—that is, if Armstrong won, SCA had to pay regardless of any questions over what methods he might have used to win—SCA eventually settled, paying the $5 million plus $2.5 million in interest and lawyers’ fees.