The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
Twenty-one years ago today Lance Armstrong, then 27, won the Tour de France – the first of seven victories. Then came his downfall
Joe Shute on the truth behind ‘the greatest story in sport’
Nowadays it seems like a scene from a heist. Lance Armstrong, the Texan cowboy, riding down the Champs-elysées with the stars and stripes in his hand and the yellow jersey on his back.
The 1999 Tour de France marked Armstrong’s stunning return after being diagnosed three years previously, at the age of 25, with advanced testicular cancer, which had spread to his lungs, abdomen and brain. Doctors had feared he might never recover, let alone compete professionally again. But that summer he roared back to the top, winning the first in a record seven consecutive Tour de France victories.
An exciting young rider prior to his diagnosis, the Lance who reappeared was an altogether different proposition: leaner, meaner, and propelled by what investigators later described as ‘the most sophisticated doping programme that sport has ever seen’.
In time trials his cadence (the rate at which a cyclist pedals) was so much higher than those of rivals, it seemed as if he was racing on a different course. Never previously known for his climbing ability, suddenly he was untouchable in the mountains. His famous victory in the Alpine ski village of Sestriere, where he dropped all the specialist climbers and opened up an unassailable lead, was the stuff of Tour legend. ‘It just means my legs were strong today,’ Armstrong deadpanned at the end of that stage.
Armstrong was in fact racing on a cocktail of performanceenhancing drugs: testosterone, which builds muscle and aids recovery, administered orally mixed with drops of olive oil; and the blood-boosting agent EPO, known among riders as ‘liquid gold’.
According to anti-doping investigators, during the first two weeks of the 1999 Tour, Armstrong and his US Postal Service teammates Tyler Hamilton and Kevin Livingston used EPO every third or fourth day. They travelled in their own camper van, where they would inject the drug (smuggled in by Armstrong’s handyman and gardener on a motorbike). Medical staff quickly disposed of the syringes in a bag or Coke can.
A few days into the 1999 Tour Armstrong actually recorded a positive drug test for a corticosteroid, a chemical that helps regulate inflammation, metabolism and electrolyte levels, although this was explained away by a cream he had supposedly been prescribed to treat a saddle sore. As for the EPO, doctor Michele Ferrari developed technique of microdosing to reduce the ‘glow time’ in which it might show up in a drug test.
Armstrong got away with it for so long due to his iron grip on his team and the entire peloton. Riders and staff were terrified that if they spoke out, Lance would crush their careers. And he was protected by his own legend. His was ‘the greatest story in sport’, and one we all wanted to believe.
It would take until 2012 for an investigation to reveal the truth – and for Armstrong to lose everything. The International Cycling Union stripped him of all seven Tour de France titles and banned him for life.
Today, he still commentates on the Tour via his podcast. And in 2016 he insisted that he will keep his yellow jerseys hanging on his wall. The Tour, he said, is too ‘grand’ not to have a winner. And the infamy is his to bear.