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

by Daniel Coyle

  That settled it. We would drive out, leave all this behind. Fresh start. Clean break. Goodbye, cycling; goodbye, Novitzky; goodbye, Lance.

  In spring 2012 Lindsay and I moved to Missoula. We loaded up a rented U-Haul with our stuff, and we headed northwest like a couple of old-time pioneers, with Tanker riding shotgun. We rented a modest bungalow within a bike ride of downtown Missoula with a big yard for Tanks, a spare bedroom for our training-business home office, and plenty of squirrels to chase (not to mention the occasional grizzly).

  Right away, life felt different. Lighter, more spontaneous, slower. We started taking time to enjoy the simple things: eggs Benedict on a random Tuesday, an early-morning hike, a road trip to Glacier National Park, a glass of wine as we watched the sun set in the Bitterroots. Lindsay and I would occasionally look at each other and just crack up at the craziness of the whole thing: we’re living in Montana!

  The world works in strange ways. I know that old saying that when God closes a door He opens a window. I think that saying is really talking about the resilience of truth. I’ve come to learn that truth is a living thing. It has a force inside it, an inner springiness. The truth can’t be denied or locked away, because when that happens, the pressure builds. When a door gets closed, the truth seeks a window, and blows the glass clean out.

  Around the time that we moved, my cell phone started to ring. The caller ID showed that the calls were coming from Washington, D.C., and Colorado Springs, headquarters of USADA. I ignored them at first, partly because I was exhausted from all this, and partly because I had a good idea what they wanted.

  I’d heard that the Department of Justice’s civil division in Washington had joined Floyd’s case and wanted to find out if Lance and the Postal team owners had defrauded the government by falsely representing the team as clean. The DOJ investigators were assisted by the fact that civil cases are held to a different standard of proof from criminal cases: instead of “beyond a reasonable doubt,” it’s a “preponderance of evidence.”

  USADA was pursuing its own case. Unlike civil and criminal prosecutors, USADA didn’t concern itself with laws, only with the rules of the sport. Travis Tygart, the CEO of USADA, had been aware of the federal investigation from the start, participating in some meetings and providing Novitzky and Miller with background information. While neither USADA nor the Justice Department’s civil division would have access to the grand jury testimony, both would possibly have access to the proffers and the other materials the criminal investigation had produced.

  In short, it was becoming clear that the bulldozer Novitzky had started was still running. My phone kept ringing, and with each ring the message was louder: the game was still on. USADA and the DOJ wanted to know, would I be willing to cooperate? Would I go under oath and testify?

  I thought about it for a while. Then I called them back and told them yes, absolutely. I know it would have been easier to let it all go, to simply move on. But I couldn’t do that. I’d started this race, and I was going to finish it.

  In April, in separate interviews over two days, I told USADA and DOJ investigators what I remembered from my years with Postal and Lance. I gave them everything as precisely and completely as I could. I told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  I wasn’t the only one. USADA investigators conducted similar interviews with nine other former Armstrong teammates, with similar results. Every Postal rider USADA contacted agreed to speak openly and honestly. USADA did not tell me who the other teammates were, but I could make a guess. All of us, together again, just like the old days in Nice and Girona. It was a strange feeling, talking to the investigators and knowing that the other guys were telling their stories as well. I found myself remembering those old days—back when we started out, those days in the Dee-Luxe Apartment in the Sky, that moment of innocence before all this craziness started. I wondered if they were feeling it too.

  On June 12, 2012, USADA delivered: a simply worded fifteen-page letter charging Lance, Pedro Celaya, Johan Bruyneel, Luis del Moral, Pepe Martí, and Michele Ferrari with anti-doping rule violations, alleging that they had conducted a conspiracy to dope “in order to advance their athletic and sporting achievements, financial wellbeing, and status of the teams and their riders.” Lance was charged with use, possession, trafficking, administration, assisting, and covering up. USADA also said that data from blood collected from Lance during 2009 and 2010 was “fully consistent” with blood manipulation. Furthermore, Lance was immediately banned from participating in triathlon, a sport he’d returned to after his retirement.

  The USADA charges changed everything. While Lance might’ve accepted losing one or two Tour titles, he clearly wasn’t prepared to lose all seven, plus his future in triathlon. Lance’s “I’m not gonna fight” stance shifted 180 degrees. His lawyers cranked up the attack machine and aimed it at USADA, attempting to paint it as bitter, vengeful, smug, irrational, etc. Via Twitter and his lawyers, Lance called the process “unconstitutional,” complained about access to evidence, and issued what might rank as one of the most ironic tweets of all time: “It’s time to play by the rules.”

  While Lance has a considerable advantage in legal and PR firepower, he also had a disadvantage: USADA is not a court of law, and so is concerned only with the simple question of whether Lance and the others broke the rules of the sport. Instead of a federal trial, Lance would face an arbitration hearing; instead of being protected by a legal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt,” he would face the much lower standard of “comfortable satisfaction of the hearing panel.”†

  At this writing, the outcome is far from certain, but it’s safe to say it’s not going to be pretty. I’m sure Lance is going to do everything he can to attack my credibility, and that of his other teammates who are telling the truth. Lance provided a preview of his strategy on the day the USADA charges became official, when he leaked the identity of a previously anonymous USADA Review Board member, along with that member’s recent arrest on a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure. In addition, USADA officials told ABC News that they believed Lance had hired private investigators to follow them. The Wall Street Journal reported that Livestrong sent a lobbyist to visit U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano (D., NY), who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, in order to talk about USADA and its pursuit of Armstrong. I can see why Lance is using this strategy—after all, it’s worked in the past, and at this point he doesn’t have many other options. And perhaps it will work again; perhaps the public will keep wanting to believe him; or perhaps they’ll simply get tired of this and wish it would all go away.

  One thing’s for sure, though: the truth will keep coming out. More former racers will step forward as they get older, as they realize that it doesn’t make sense to keep living a lie. They’ll experience how good it feels to be honest; they’ll realize it’s okay to be open and let people look at all the facts, and decide for themselves. In the meantime, I’m going to keep telling my story—both in big ways, like this book, but also in my daily life.

  Just before we moved to Montana, I was riding through Boulder with my friend Pat Brown. I was wearing jeans and sneakers, riding my town bike, a heavy, beat-up cruiser with upright handlebars and fat tires. Pat and I were waiting at a streetlight when two riders in dark Lycra cruised past us on thousand-dollar racing bikes. They must’ve recognized me, because one of them turned and gave me a long, meaningful look as he passed. As he rode past I could read the words on his jersey, written in big white letters: DOPERS SUCK. I felt the old adrenaline surge. Everything in my mind concentrated into a simple urge: I wanted to catch that guy.

  Stay on my wheel, I told Pat, and I took off after them. It wasn’t a fair fight: they had a hundred-yard head start on us, and they were going hard, and I was on a heavy old bike that must’ve weighed thirty pounds. It must’ve looked pretty funny: me, going like hell in my tennis shoes and fat tires, pounding along after them like a steam engine. They looked back a couple times; they knew we
were there. But they couldn’t get away. Over a mile or so, I reeled them in.

  We caught them at a red light, and I coasted up close to them, then closer. I put my fat front tire right between their expensive bikes. They looked back, and I looked at them; I could see in their eyes they were a little bit scared. Then I reached out and took the DOPERS SUCK guy’s hand, and shook it. I gave him a friendly smile.

  “Hey, I’m an ex-doper,” I said. “But I don’t suck. Have a good ride, guys.”

  They rode off, and Pat and I rode home, and my heart was full of happiness. Because, I realized, that’s my story. Not a shiny, pretty myth about superheroes who win every time, but a human truth about one normal guy who tried to compete in a messed-up world and did his best; who made big mistakes and survived. That’s the story I want to tell, and keep telling, partly because it will help the sport move forward, and partly because it helps me move forward.

  I want to tell it to people who think that dopers are bad, irredeemable people. I want to tell it so people might focus their energy on the real challenge: creating a culture that tips people away from doping. I want to tell it because now I need to tell it, in order to survive.

  Before we left for Montana, I had to deal with one final chore. Nine chores, actually: big plastic totes that I kept in the garage, which contained my past, in the form of photos, files, letters, race numbers, trophies, magazines, T-shirts. I’m a bit of a hoarder, and this was pretty much everything I’d ever gotten in my career (I even kept a matchbook from a French hotel). As I went through the containers, I was startled to see how much was contained inside.

  I pulled out the artifacts: My race number, #42, and a course map from my first big race, back at the 1994 Tour DuPont, the day I broke through. T-shirts from the 2003 parade in Marblehead that said TYLER IS OUR HERO. A shiny orange Wheaties box with Lance on the front in his yellow jersey. Baseball-type cards with our pictures on them, with all of us looking like superheroes. Wrinkled old race numbers, the ones that were pinned to my jersey. A big shoebox full of letters from fans, condolence letters about Tugboat, letters from MS patients telling me their stories.

  Most of all, photos. Faces. Kevin’s wild grin, Frankie’s flinty, commanding gaze. Eki lifting a glass of champagne, his face cracking with an unlikely Russian grin. George and I, arm in arm, having a beer after the Tour, Christian’s sly grin. The whole team standing together in the sunshine on the Champs-Élysées. My parents, standing proudly on the side of the road with a sign that says ALLEZ TYLER.

  I thought I would hate looking through that stuff. I thought I would wince and want to bury it. And I was right—it did hurt, it hurt a lot. But I kept looking, pushing through, until I came to the simple truth: All this stuff is my life. All this crazy, messy, amazing, terrible, real stuff, that’s my life.

  I’m happy to see my sport cleaning itself up over the past few years. It’s far from 100 percent clean—I don’t think that’s possible, as long as you’re dealing with human beings who want to win—but it’s significantly better, and slower. The winning time up Alpe d’Huez in the 2011 Tour was 41:21; back in 2001, a rider with that time would have finished 40th.‡ The improvement is mostly due to better testing, better enforcement, and the “biological passport” program where riders’ blood values are more closely monitored. There’s still no test for BBs, and if you believe the rumors (I do), riders who are determined to dope are resorting to smaller, less effective BBs.

  Overall, though, things are moving in the right direction. You don’t see whole teams dominate entire races as often as they used to. What’s more, individual riders are having ups and downs; you can see that big efforts carry costs, exactly as they should. I like that kind of racing partly because it’s more exciting, but mostly because I think it’s honest. After all, it’s the humanity we love in these races. Every day brings risks and rewards. You might win. You might lose. That’s the point.

  Now I spend my time training people, helping them on the journey, seeing their hard work pay off. Whether they are Olympic-level athletes or regular folks who want to lose a few pounds, I treat them the same. Along the way, I try to tell them a bit of my story, try to tell them what I’ve learned: that the person who finishes toward the back is often more courageous than the one who wins. I feel like I’m returning to my early days on the bike, to the person I used to be. I’m excited about the second half of my life.

  One last story. It happened the night before the 60 Minutes interview in Southern California. I was hanging out on the balcony restaurant of the hotel when some guests approached me, wanting to chat. They were huge bike-racing fans; they watched the Tour fervently every year. They knew all about my career, they had my poster on their wall, and they said they supported me, which I appreciated. Of course, they had zero idea that in a few hours I was going on 60 Minutes and would be telling the truth to the world. Then one of the guests, a fit, forty-something guy named Joe, spoke up.

  “Could you stay right there for one minute?” Joe asked. “There’s someone I really want you to meet.”

  Joe left and shortly returned accompanied by a dark-haired boy in a Cub Scout shirt, obviously his son. The boy, who was about ten, stood tall and proud; his sleeve was decorated with merit badges.

  “Hi, I’m Tyler,” I said, shaking the boy’s hand.

  “My name’s Lance,” the kid said.

  I must have looked bewildered. Joe touched me on the arm. “He was born in 2001,” he said helpfully.

  “Oh,” I said, still absorbing the name, still staring at this kid who’s looking at me like he knows something’s up. I have no idea what to say or do, except to put my hand on the kid’s shoulder and give him a smile. He smiled back.

  We made some small talk, and all the while I’m feeling like shit. I’m thinking, I’m sorry, kid. I’m sorry that in a few hours, I will be hurting you and your family, busting up the nice feelings you’ve got for your name. I’m sorry, but the truth is the truth. I hope you can understand.

  We talked. Young Lance and I shot the breeze about the Scouts, merit badges, pelicans, astronomy. The kid knew his constellations, and he showed me some; he knew how far away they were, how many years it took for the light to reach us. As we talked, I found myself comforted by this kid. I liked the methodical way he thought about stuff, figuring it out, and the role his father had in his life, guiding him. He was strong and smart; he was going to be okay.

  I thought I would leave young Lance with a word of wisdom to tuck in his pocket for later, when all this came out, so he might understand. But of course when the time for goodbyes came, my mind was a blank; I couldn’t think of anything. Only later did it come to me what I wanted to tell him, the same thing my parents told me so long ago.

  The truth really will set you free.

  * According to reports, sources within the FBI, the FDA, and the U.S. Postal Service were “shocked, surprised, and angered” at the unexplained closure. One source said there were “no weaknesses in the case.” ESPN reported that prosecutors had prepared a written recommendation to indict Armstrong and others. A source close to the investigation said that Sheryl Crow had been subpoenaed a few weeks before the closure, and that she’d been a “star witness.” Crow did not respond to interview requests.

  Four possible factors behind Birotte’s decision to close the case:

  1. Birotte, who’d been appointed just 11 months before, wanted to protect President Obama from the potentially ugly spectacle of indicting an American hero during an election year.

  2. Sports-doping cases were not going well for the government. Neither the Bonds nor the Clemens cases had as yet delivered any meaningful results, and had been closer to train wrecks than triumphs for the government. The Armstrong case was huge and expensive; why risk a loss?

  3. Birotte was wary of the cancer lobby. A controversy had recently erupted when the Susan G. Komen Foundation withdrew $700,000 in funding for Planned Parenthood for what appeared to be pressure from the political right
(which opposed Planned Parenthood’s support of abortions). On Friday, February 3, the same day the case was dropped, the Lance Armstrong Foundation donated $100,000 to Planned Parenthood to fill the funding gap, providing a clear signal of the LAF’s support of the Obama administration’s stance on reproductive rights, as well as a connection to the millions of women who objected to the Komen Foundation’s decision.

  4. Birotte may have received the results of an internal leak investigation, and had decided those results would potentially embarrass the Department of Justice, if it showed government employees leaking to the media.

  While some are inclined toward conspiracy theories, it makes more sense that Birotte made a political judgment that the risks of the criminal prosecution outweighed the rewards.

  † If he loses his titles or is sanctioned for doping, Armstrong faces the possibility that other parties could take action against him. SCA Promotions, which had unsuccessfully battled Armstrong in 2005 over its obligation to pay $5 million in bonuses for winning the 2004 Tour de France, said it was planning to investigate the possibility of suing to recover its money. “We basically told him that we will be monitoring the case and that we’re going after our money if he is stripped of the title,” Jeffrey Tillotson, an SCA lawyer, told The New York Times. “They responded: ‘Tough bones, it’s not happening. I never cheated.’ It was just the usual Lance: I’m 100 percent right, and you’re 100 percent wrong.”

  ‡ The UCI’s internal testing numbers reflect this change. In 2001, 13 percent of riders were classified as having abnormally high or low levels of reticulocytes, or newly formed red blood cells (signs of EPO use and/or transfusion). By 2011, that number had dropped to 2 percent.