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

by Daniel Coyle

  Armstrong was not just playing defense, however. In the fall of 2006, according to The Wall Street Journal, Armstrong and his agent, Bill Stapleton, began talking to potential investors about purchasing the Tour de France from its owner, the Amaury Sport Organisation, for $1.5 billion. Due to a variety of factors, including the global economic slowdown, the deal was never completed. Armstrong remained tempted by the notion of buying the Tour, describing it in 2011 as “a great idea,” but difficult to execute.

  ‖ Fuentes’s confidence appears to have been well placed. Because there was no law against doping in Spain, the Operación Puerto prosecution languished in Spanish courts. Fuentes was ultimately charged with a crime against public health; his defense filings pointed out that all the transfusions he supervised were performed in hygienic conditions under the supervision of safe, qualified personnel.

  a Landis later admitted to taking two BBs and microdosing EPO during the Tour, but maintained he had not taken testosterone.

  b After learning of his positive test, Landis said, he considered coming clean. After reflection and conversation with Armstrong, he decided to fight the charges. He wrote a book, Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France, and, through the Floyd Fairness Fund, raised several hundred thousand dollars to assist his legal challenge. “If you’re going to lie, you’ve got to lie big,” Landis said. “That’s what Lance taught me.”

  c Though Armstrong had publicly cut ties with Ferrari in 2004 after the doctor was convicted by an Italian court for doping fraud and illegally acting as a pharmacist (the first conviction was later overturned on a statute of limitations argument, the second on appeal), the two kept in touch. Armstrong said the connection was purely personal, and that Ferrari no longer coached him. However, several Postal riders reported seeing Ferrari and Armstrong training together in Girona in 2005. In addition, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Italian investigators uncovered a $465,000 payment from Armstrong to Ferrari made in 2006, two years after Armstrong publicly cut ties with the doctor.

  Chapter 14

  NOVITZKY’S BULLDOZER

  A QUIET EVENING IN the middle of June 2010, and I was at home in Boulder. I was lying on my bed watching a cops-and-robbers movie, The Bank Job. Halfway through, my phone buzzed with a text.

  I’m Jeff Novitzky, an investigator with the FDA. I’d like to talk to you; please call me at this number.

  My heart thumped. I’d heard the name, of course. Novitzky had put Barry Bonds on trial and put other dopers, including Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones, behind bars. He was often compared to Eliot Ness, the straight-arrow cop who attacked corruption during Prohibition, and he looked the part: tall, skinny, shaved head, with an intense gaze. I’d been expecting—and fearing—that he would be getting in touch with me.

  It had started a few weeks earlier, when Floyd Landis dropped a bomb: an emailed confession to USA Cycling authorities, complete with dates, names, and highly specific details about Lance and the Postal team. Soon the story was beaming around the world, and Lance was standing outside his team bus at the Tour of California making the usual moves: (1) act unsurprised; (2) call Floyd bitter, and hint that he has psychological problems; and (3) quietly start hiring expensive lawyers. It was only when New York Times reporter Juliet Macur brought up Novitzky’s name that Lance got nervous. “Why would … why would Jeff Novitzky have anything to do with what an athlete does in Europe?” he stammered.

  Lance was right to be nervous. Within days, a grand jury was empaneled in Los Angeles under the control of federal prosecutor Doug Miller, who’d worked with Novitzky on the BALCO case. Witnesses were being subpoenaed to testify, and they had to tell the truth, or risk going to jail for perjury. In short, it was Lance’s worst nightmare—a powerful, sharp-edged legal inquiry into how he had won the Tour de France.

  It was poetic and maybe inevitable that it was Floyd who finally blew the whistle: the Mennonite kid, the one who was Lance’s equal when it came to never-say-die toughness. What bothered Floyd wasn’t the doping. What he hated—what his soul raged against—was unfairness. The abuse of power. The idea that Lance was purposely depriving Floyd of an opportunity to compete.

  That’s all Floyd had wanted, to compete. When his suspension had ended, Floyd had tried to earn his way back into the peloton. When Lance and the sport ignored him and vilified him, Floyd was left to scuffle alone for a series of small teams. Lance could easily have landed Floyd a spot on his or another team; all it would have taken was a thirty-second phone call. The whole investigation might have been avoided if only Lance had been able to be a friend to Floyd; to reach out, to smooth things over. But you might as well have asked Lance to ride to the moon. To Lance, friendship was unthinkable. Floyd was the enemy, and enemies must be crushed, period. This approach works with most people. But not with a tough Mennonite kid who can quote the King James Bible from memory, especially Numbers 32:23: Be sure your sin will find you out. In April of 2010, Floyd contacted Travis Tygart, CEO of USADA, and began to tell him the truth about his time on the Postal team.

  Novitzky had entered the situation months earlier. His involvement started after performance-enhancing drugs were found in the refrigerator of a rented apartment in Calabasas, California, that had been rented by a former Rock Racing rider named Kayle Leogrande. On discovering the stash, the landlord contacted the Food and Drug Administration, for which Novitzky had recently begun to work, and Novitzky got in touch with USADA’s Tygart, with whom he had a long-standing relationship. All of which meant that when Floyd started talking to USADA, it wasn’t long before he was also talking to Novitzky.

  Floyd told the truth to Tygart and Novitzky, and apparently did his legal homework as well. The False Claims Act is a civil statute designed to protect the government against fraud by entitling whistleblowers to 15 to 30 percent of the recovered funds. Given that the U.S. Postal Service had paid Tailwind Sports (the management company partly owned by Lance) more than $30 million to sponsor the Postal team, the statute could potentially apply—particularly if Tailwind was proven to have violated anti-doping clauses in its contract by running an organized doping program. According to reports, Floyd filed a False Claims Act lawsuit against Tailwind Sports after he started talking to USADA and Novitzky. It was poetic: if Lance and Tailwind were proven to have defrauded the government, Floyd might be entitled to a biblical retribution.

  Floyd’s final decision was made in the weeks leading up to May’s Tour of California, the year’s biggest domestic race. Via email, he informed race director Andrew Messick that he had been speaking with USADA about his time on the Postal team. (Being Floyd, he even invited Lance to attend his meetings with USADA.) When Floyd saw that Lance and Messick were going to continue to ostracize him, he wrote the confession emails to USA Cycling, and the fuse was lit.

  Essentially, Novitzky and Miller drove a bulldozer into the bike-racing world. Before long everyone was buzzing with fear and anticipation. Witnesses were being contacted: Hincapie, Livingston, Kristin Armstrong, Frankie and Betsy Andreu, Greg LeMond, and so on. I heard Levi Leipheimer had received his subpoena at customs when he returned from the Tour de France. Armstrong’s teammate Yaroslav Popovych was served his subpoena in even more dramatic fashion: by agents in a black Suburban, who waylaid him while he was visiting Austin for an Armstrong cancer-awareness event that fall.

  Then came the night Novitzky’s bulldozer rumbled up to my door, in the form of his text message. I put Novitzky in touch with my lawyer, Chris Manderson. When Novitzky asked Chris if I was willing to voluntarily cooperate with his investigation, I gave a firm no. The old logic applied: Why would I volunteer my testimony after denying it all for so long? Why would I risk ruining whatever was left of my reputation? I wanted to get on with my life, not go backward. A few days later, Novitzky responded with a subpoena. I was ordered to appear in a Los Angeles courtroom on July 21, 2010, at 9 a.m.

  As July 21 approached, my anxiety level rose. I spent nights ly
ing awake, trying to figure out what to do. At times I’d think, Screw it, I’ll keep lying, I’ll risk perjury. At other times, I’d plan to take the “I don’t recall” approach like I’d seen corporate and government officials do on television. Meanwhile my lawyer was receiving a series of urgent calls from Lance’s lawyers, who were offering me their services, for free. It was a classic Lance move. For six years, he gives me zero support. Now, when things get tough, he wants us on the same team again. No thanks.

  The day before my grand jury appearance, I flew to Los Angeles to meet with Manderson and Brent Butler, one of his fellow attorneys who’d previously worked for a federal prosecutor. We sat down in a small conference room. They suggested it might be useful if I ran through some of my testimony. They started with the simplest question: Tell us about your early days on the Postal team.

  A river of images and memories flooded into my mind. Meeting Lance at the Tour DuPont, Thom Weisel’s gravelly voice, the white bags, the red eggs, Motoman and Ferrari and Ufe and Cecco. I took a deep breath and started from the beginning, as best I could. I saw Manderson and Butler go still. They sat back; they stopped asking questions, and just listened, their eyes fixed on me. It seemed like an hour, but when I looked up, four hours had passed.

  It sounds strange, but I’d never told it like that, all of it, from beginning to end. Telling the truth after thirteen years didn’t feel good—in fact, it hurt; my heart was racing like I was on a big climb. But even in that pain, I could sense that this was a step forward, that it was the right thing to do. I knew there was no going back. I understood what Floyd meant when he said that telling the truth made him feel clean, because now I felt clean, I felt new.

  The next day I went to the federal courtroom in downtown Los Angeles with Manderson and Butler. We got there early, and Novitzky met us near the door. He was big (six-seven) and clean-looking, and his bald dome made him seem intimidating. But underneath he was more of a suburban jock dad: casual body language, easygoing voice, a leather bracelet beneath the white cuffs of his suit. Below his lip, he had a tiny soul patch. His manner set people at ease and made them feel safe: the word for him was “steady.” I could see why Betsy Andreu called him Father Novitzky; he had a composure that you usually see only in priests and old people. We chatted for a while about basketball and the Red Sox. I couldn’t help notice that Novitzky’s command and confidence reminded me a little of Lance, with one difference: where Lance wielded his power like a cudgel, Novitzky carried his lightly.

  Then, as the time for my questioning approached, Novitzky’s easy smile was replaced by a businesslike demeanor that I would come to think of as his Investigator Face. He explained what was going to happen next: how I was going to be sworn in and interviewed by the prosecutor, Doug Miller. Novitzky didn’t coach me or steer me in any way; he didn’t talk about Lance or the investigation; in fact, he wasn’t allowed in the grand jury room. He told me that my only job was to answer the questions as truthfully as I could. I took a breath and walked through the door with one thought: No question is going to stop me.

  The questions began, and I answered them all in full. Instead of giving the minimum, I’d back up and tell them the background, fill in details. When they wanted me to point the finger at Lance, I always pointed it at myself first. I didn’t just want to tell the facts. I wanted them to feel what it was like to be us. I wanted them to think about what they would have done in our situation. I wanted them to understand.

  Miller did his best not to show any emotion, but occasionally I glanced over and his eyes were widening a bit. After four hours I was only partway through my story, but we’d reached the end of our court-allotted time; the grand jury was dismissed. I wanted to continue, however, and so did Miller. After talking to my lawyers, I decided to give the remainder of my testimony as a proffer, a standard legal arrangement for a cooperative witness which ensures my protection from any prosecution based on any admissions I might make—it’s not immunity, exactly, but it’s in the ballpark. I then gave three more hours of testimony in a conference room with Novitzky and my lawyers present, for a total of seven hours of testimony. When it was over, Novitzky and Miller thanked me. They tried to be objective and businesslike, but I could tell from their expressions they appreciated my honesty. They said they’d be in touch, and then I walked out the door. I was utterly exhausted, empty. But it felt good.

  Even so, Lance never seemed far away. The morning after my testimony I was out on the street in front of the Mandersons’ house in Orange County, teaching Chris’s son how to ride a bike. I was running down the street, holding the bike, when a gray SUV drove past us, then braked suddenly to a stop. The window buzzed down, and I was astonished to see a familiar face: Stephanie McIlvain, the Oakley rep who’d been a friend of mine back in the Postal days. Stephanie had been in the Indiana hospital room when Lance made his alleged confession back in 1996. By pure coincidence, she lived near the Mandersons.

  I was immediately wary, because I wasn’t sure whose side Stephanie was on. In public, and under oath, she’d said that she hadn’t heard Lance admit to drug use in that hospital room. But in private, she’d told a different story—she admitted that she’d indeed heard Lance’s confession, and that he’d pressured her to keep quiet.*

  Stephanie seemed eager to talk. She asked for my phone number, and I gave it to her. An hour later, she started texting me, urging me to come over so we could visit some more. I begged off, saying I was busy. Then Stephanie sent another text. And another. Then another. Then she told me that another old friend, Toshi Corbett, who’d worked for the helmet company Giro, had come over and I should see him.

  That made me even more wary. I presumed Toshi was firmly on Lance’s side. I began to wonder if Stephanie and Toshi wanted me to come over so they could gather some intelligence and report it to Lance.

  So I didn’t text Stephanie back. I felt bad ignoring her, but I didn’t want to take any risks; I didn’t want Lance to know about my testimony. The next day, I headed back to Boulder, feeling like I was being watched.

  I was now in the middle of things, smack between Novitzky and Lance, the hunter and the hunted. Not a day went by that I didn’t think about both of them, picture their faces, or feel their presence in my life. They were playing chess, and I felt like one of the pieces.

  In November 2010, Novitzky and his team traveled to Europe to gather evidence. They met at Interpol headquarters in Lyon with cycling and doping officials from France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain; the officials pledged they would help. To close the case, Novitzky was apparently seeking the original samples from the 1999 Tour, still frozen in a French laboratory. For me, it was surreal: Novitzky was hunting down that same EPO we’d used in 1999, the same molecules that had traveled across France on Motoman’s motorcycle, the same batch of EPO that I’d shared. This made it clear to everyone that this wasn’t an ordinary investigation, and Novitzky wasn’t an ordinary investigator. “The Justice Department would not ordinarily spend [this] type of time and money without an extreme seriousness of purpose,” said Matthew Rosengart, a former federal prosecutor.

  Lance got the message. He also got out the checkbook and started loading up his team, hiring the guy known as the Master of Disaster, Mark Fabiani, who had defended President Bill Clinton during the Whitewater scandal and Goldman Sachs during its SEC fraud case. He also hired John Keker and Elliot Peters, trial lawyers who’d gone up against the government in major-league baseball drug cases, and they joined a team that already consisted of guys like Tim Herman, Bryan Daly, and Robert Luskin, who had defended President George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove in the Valerie Plame leak case. In short, Lance brought in the best lawyers money could buy.

  This was his new Postal team, and it appeared that he was driving them hard, just like he’d pushed us. They issued statements wondering why the U.S. government should care about ten-year-old bike races in France, and complaining about the waste of taxpayer money. Meanwhile, Lance kept applying pressure th
rough the media and his connections. He golfed with Bill Clinton and never missed an opportunity to meet a head of state, a celebrity, or a CEO. He invited influential members of the cycling media to his house for private conversations, and he kept sending upbeat tweets to his more than three million followers. The strategy was one that media advisers call “brazening it out”: you simply keep going, pretending that the investigation doesn’t exist.

  Occasionally, though, Lance’s old instincts got the better of him. When Novitzky traveled to Europe, Lance sent out a tweet: Hey Jeff, como estan los hoteles de quatro estrellas y el classe de business in el aeroplano? Que mas necesitan? (Translation: How are the four-star hotels and business class in the airplane? What more do you need?) Classic Lance: kinda funny but a couple notches too cocky, especially considering that Novitzky was flying coach, and staying in such inexpensive hotels that one of his fellow investigators slept in his suit rather than risk getting bedbugs.

  The trickle kept coming. In January, Selena Roberts and David Epstein of Sports Illustrated did a major, well-sourced story on the investigation that uncovered some interesting new material, including:

  • An account from Motorola teammate Stephen Swart of how Lance urged the team to begin taking EPO in 1995. Swart also recalled that Lance had a hematocrit of 54 or 56 on July 17, 1995, four days before he won a Tour de France stage.