This is the 2nd piece of our blog on David Walsh's excellent book 'Seven Deadly Sins' with the subtitle: 'My pursuit of Lance Armstrong' which truth be told, was relentless.
Sporting Greats have no need to be pleasant to be successful or to be legends. However, how bitterly sanctimonious now appear Armstrong's 2005 statements in Paris after winning 'another' TdF :"I'm sorry you can't dream big" and his repeated carping about hard work being the key as if everyone else was smoking cigars, drinking fine wine and kicking back in the off season riles sticks in the craw somewhat. The almost religious and pious manner of his interviews play to a bigger audience, such that the sporting and cycling viewing populations are feverish in their defences or attacks, and as British cycling commentator Gary Imlach says: "an argument about Lance Armstrong is almost a faith-based matter".
In contemporary interviews just before his 2nd TdF in 1994: "It's harder to race this year, cycling is harder now. I hate to point fingers and I'm not going to do that. But there a lot of guys who are a lot better and a lot faster than last year." Then revealingly, in the 'From Lance to Landis book', Frankie Andreu described how Armstrong had been outraged when he was getting beaten by those he did not think worthy: "This is bullshit...these guys are flying...I should be killing these guys."
The text includes further evidence of cycling not being a level playing field beyond simply blood doping or the taking of drugs ('liquid gold' as Armstrong had called EPO). Armstrong is also noted making payments to conceal positive drug tests (a key detail in his oft-quoted defence of never having failed) or buying off other teams to prevent attacks in the race to ensure victories.
A page turner of a factual book, it is to Walsh's credit (amongst others-a very few in cycling media circles) that he has kept the story alive for so long despite the personal & systematic abuse-Armstrong can be read of ambiguously describing journalists in disease terms without irony should anyone ask about doping in cycling, even if not directly accusing Armstrong himself (but losing the plot when he was famously accused of being a 'cancer in remission' by Paul Kimmage in California on Armstrong's comeback in 2009). There are a band of others whom were key to the evidence whom have stories to tell: Betsy+Frankie Andreau, Emma O'Reilly, Pierre Ballaster, Paul Kimmage, Stephen Swart, Greg LeMond ('discouraged' to give evidence by the bike manufacturer Armstrong & he shared-Trek), and the 1999 TdF cyclist who refused to dope, and was shunned by the peleton until he withdrew, Christophe Bassons.
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| Armstrong's defiant tweet with him just layin' around with his 7 yellow jerseys |
Walsh chronologically makes sense of the pharmaceutical jungle from amphetimines to steroids to blood doping such as EPO. He namechecks the earlier riders and their own stimulant drug choices, all the while managing to convey how dismayed this Irish passionate lover of cycling (who also describes how he lost a son to a bike accident) falls out of love with the sport and his idols, from Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche to those who have more recently shamed the sport, even when pleading for some kind of redemption as a result (unlike Armstrong it should be noted currently).
Whilst we can look forward to the 2013 Tour with Union Jack tinted-spectacles hoping for more Wiggo inspired riding (or from the less-heralded Chris Froome), those whom have followed the evidence since October 22nd or having read the book will no doubt cast more wearied eyes on an undoubtedly tainted spectacle. Here's to a new era of clean cycling, to Dave Brailsford and the Team Sky crew, but to a winning team we can all believe.
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