Uncovering a fierce competitor’s world
Last year, after admitting he had used performance-enhancing drugs during his professional cycling career, Lance Armstrong sat down with the New York Times reporter Juliet Macur to defend his legacy. He reminded her that many riders had used such drugs. What distinguished Armstrong, in his view, was his competitive will. “I definitely wanted to win at all costs,” he told Macur.
In “Cycle of Lies” (Harper, $27.99), Macur portrays Armstrong as a vicious, pathological liar. But she duly paraphrases his version of the story. According to Armstrong’s narrative, he won “by organizing his team better — training harder and more ruthlessly, and with meticulous attention to detail,” she writes. “He ran his team like a high-powered corporation.”
That account isn’t wrong. It’s just incomplete. Macur’s book documents the role of drugs in Armstrong’s victories. So does “Wheelmen” (Gotham Books. $27.50), a similar exposé by Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O’Connell of The Wall Street Journal. But what makes the story fascinating isn’t the dope. It’s Armstrong himself. He was the perfect predator, more aggressive and proficient than any of his competitors at exploiting chemical technology.
Drugs that can boost energy or blunt pain — cocaine, strychnine, amphetamines, morphine — have been used in cycling for more than a century. In the late 1980s, synthetic erythropoietin (EPO), which stimulates production of red blood cells, began to revolutionize the sport. It could inflate an athlete’s aerobic capacity by 8 percent.
Armstrong grew up in a culture of cheating. When he was 14, his parents doctored his birth certificate to qualify him for a race. His mother, unwilling to comply with a school attendance law, shopped around till she found a private school that would let him graduate despite his absences.
As a pro cyclist, Armstrong joined in the sport’s custom of bribing competitors to lose. Macur’s sources describe two such incidents, one in 1993 and another in 1995. And like other riders, Armstrong accepted whatever drugs his team offered: EPO, human growth hormone, amphetamines, steroids. In 1995, after losing a race, he told his teammates: “I’m getting my ass kicked and we’ve got to do something about it.” He retained a freelance doping expert, Dr. Michele Ferrari, and instructed the other riders to follow Ferrari’s program or get out. To Armstrong, beating the test was just another sport. He proved adept at gaming the enforcement system.
Eventually, Armstrong made too many enemies. He ripped off an insurer, doping his way to a sixth Tour de France victory and suing to collect a $5 million bonus that had been negotiated. He blew off a businessman who had donated to Armstrong’s foundation as part of a promotional arrangement. And when Floyd Landis admitted to doping, Armstrong refused to hire him, saying the team couldn’t associate with a cheater. These three offenses proved fatal. The insurer began an investigation. The businessman gave Landis the financial backing to risk his future and testify against Armstrong. The evidence became overwhelming.
“Cycle of Lies” and “Wheelmen” tell the story in different ways. Macur’s focus is personal and brutally unsparing. Albergotti and O’Connell deal with the broader business conspiracy. Together, the two accounts reveal a talented, savage competitor. The drugs, the doctors, the tests, the authorities were just another course to conquer.