The greatest story ever sold.

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1999 Tour de France Stage 9 Sestrières

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HavGf-xTS_4[/youtube]

Racing starts @17:05. Prior to that, there are some interviews with Lance and Kristin Armstrong (she was his wife at the time) about cancer. Maybe you hadn’t heard he had cancer?

Also of note in this video, Paul Sherwin drops the oft repeated, but never verified, line about how Armstrong was twenty pounds lighter post-cancer @21:50. The implication being his power output remained constant, and the weight loss is what made him a Tour contender. That implication is wrong.

You cast yourself back to 2005, and I’m very acutely aware of this, there was a wall that came up against me immediately as I was trying to interpret the background data on Armstrong. There virtually was none. Before the Ed Coyle paper no one really knew for sure anything about Armstrong. Not his VO2Max, not his power output, we didn’t even know how much he weighed. All you could rely on was very loose, for example in the article that was published after his first test session in Coyle’s lab when the photographs were taken, they report him as being 77, 78 kilos. You contrast that with the data in Coyle’s paper, and he shows that the lowest body weight was 75 kilos in ’93, but in November after his first Tour victory, it was 79 kilos.

. . . It all comes back to this mystery. It’s power to body weight that determines your performance, particularly in mountain stages. It’s all power to weight ratio. If people know how much you weigh, they can then extrapolate back from your times and your speed, and get a pretty good approximation of what your power output must be. And once you know the power output and the body weight, then you can get a pretty good guess at what the VO2’s were like. And when you start plugging some of those figures back in, you see that during some of his performances at the Tour, his VO2 must’ve been through the roof.

www.nyvelocity.com…michael-ashenden (links shortened hereinafter); accord www.sportsscientists.com/…coyle-and-armstrong-research-errors. The study referenced is Edward F. Coyle, Improved muscular efficiency displayed as Tour de France champion matures, Journal of Applied Physiology, March 2005, 98:2191-96, www.edb.utexas.edu/coyle…pdf.

Short version for those who can’t waste the time at work with a half hour video below. TL;DR – Armstrong lit the race on fire and absolutely stormed up the climb to Sestrière.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiCIJ2JewPE[/youtube]

So, why is this important? Ask Tyler Hamilton. He was there. Ask him what he remembers about the 1999 Tour de France.

Everybody knew the key stages were 8 and 9: a 56-kilometer time trial in Metz, followed by a rest day, then the queen stage – a wicked triple-header of climbs of the Télégraphe, Galibier, and a mountaintop finish in the Italian ski village of Sestrière. As we rolled toward the showdown, the media used the week to whip up the plotlines, most of which revolved around a couple of questions: Was the peloton truly clean? Would Lance, who’d never been great on the long European climbs (his only Tour finish in four attempts was 36th), be able to climb with the rest of the contenders?

A couple of days before, we got prepared. We used the secret phone to calls Philippe, who zipped through the crowds and made his delivery. Since we wanted to keep the EPO out of our hotel, we usually did the shots in the camper. It worked like this: we’d finish a stage, and go straight into the camper for cleanup, get a drink, and change clothes. The syringes would be waiting for us, sometimes tucked inside out sneakers, in our race bags.

The sight of the syringes always made my heart jump. You’d want to inject it right away – get it in you and then get rid of the evidence. Sometimes del Moral would give the shot, sometimes we’d do it ourselves, whatever was fastest. And we were fast – it took thirty seconds at most. You didn’t have to be precise: arm, belly, anywhere would do. We got into the habit of putting out used syringes in an empty Coke can. The syringes fit neatly through the opening – plonk, plonk, plonk – you could hear the needles rattle. And we treated that Coke can with respect. It was the Radioactive Coke Can, the one that could end out Tour, ruin the team, and our careers, maybe land us in a French jail. Once the syringes were inside, we’d crush it, dent it, make it look like trash. Then del Moral would tuck the Coke can at the bottom of his backpack, put on aviator sunglasses, open that flimsy caper door, and walk into the crowd of fans, journalists, Tour officials, even police, who were packed around the bus. They were all watching for Lance. Nobody saw the anonymous guy with the backpack, who walked quietly through them, invisible.

In the stage 8 time trial Lance did well, winning over Zulle by nearly a minute (I didn’t do too badly, finishing fifth). But it was stage 9 that everybody was waiting for – the climb to Sestrière. The first big climb of the Tour is a coming-out party, the moment the race really begins. Everybody’s watching because this is when the Tour contenders finally show their cards.

The morning was cold and rainy. The early part of the race brought lots of attacks; everybody was trying to prove himself. Frankie did a magnificent job as road captain, watching the potential breakaways like a hawk, making sure we didn’t let any contenders get away. We protected Lance as long as we could, then fell back, leaving him with an elite group of contenders. A few long-shot guys broke away; then Escartín and Gotti, who were thought of as the best climbers, took off after them. The script of the race looked clear: Lance had done well, but now it was time for the real climbers to take over. Escartín or Gotti would most likely win.

Then, with about eight kilometers left, something unexpected happened: Lance attacked, rode down Escartín and Gotti, and soloed away to take the stage win. I knew Lance was going well; I could hear the roar ahead of me on the road, and I could hear Johan and Thom Weisel shouting jubilantly over the team radio. But it wasn’t until that night, when I saw the highlights on television, that I realized how strong Lance had been.

“Armstrong has just ridden across like they were standing still!” commentator Paul Sherwin shouted. Lance’s attack on Escartín and Gotti was even more impressive because of the way he did it – not standing, as most attackers do, but sitting down. His cadence barely changed. He just kept riding, churning that gear, and the other riders fell away. I knew how strong Lance was – we’d trained next to each other, day after day. But this got my attention, just like it got everyone else’s. This was a new Lance, one I hadn’t seen before. He was on a different level.

Tyler Hamilton & Daniel Coyle, The Secret Race 91-93 Bantam (2012).

Meet the new Lance – same as the old Lance.

About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

87 Replies to “The greatest story ever sold.”

  3. “Lance’s attack on Escartín and Gotti was even more impressive because of the way he did it – not standing, as most attackers do, but sitting down.”

    Nope, watch the video(2:08-2:22 specifically). He stood and attacked one group, bridged up to Escartin and Gotti, sat and pedaled but when he dropped them he was certainly standing. I’m not saying the book is full of shit or anything but there are apparently some inconsistencies.

  4. As Brian pointed out… inconsistencies with quoted text vs. clear video to the contrary. I see a shit load of standing and attacking over the final 8K. That pisses me off because the Pharmstrong Cock Ring Brigade will jump all over that shit and claim it’s enough to discredit the entire fucking book!

    Which of course it’s not, but still…

  5. standing up or not, he still dropped Zulle like a bad habit…and that guy was straight out of the Festina scandal and admitted to being doped to the gills. Good times.
    Lie to me Lancey Pant…Keep lying to me, you scumbag

  6. More so, if ever brought to a “real” court or escalated to CAS it draws into question the integrity of at least one witness to this whole fiasco.
    Further, with at least some of the rest either admitting to or being outted for doping by their boss it will certainly draw scrutiny to the situation as a whole.

    Watch out, Lance is smart enough to use Tyler’s big mouth as a tool.

  8. It’s all a load of old bollocks!
    A complete waste of time & money going after Lance & others especially using discredited dopers like Hamilton & Landis.
    Everybody doped in those days so how do you work out who was clean & who wasn’t? So do we just scrub all the results from the mid 60s on? Who even cares anymore?

    It’s been time to DRAW A LINE IN THE SAND for a while now lets do, BEFORE is the PAST , AFTER if you’re caught it’s a life BAN!

    JUST DO IT…

  9. Lance had the biggest hammer, lost a nut and was such a nice guy, he also helped people with cancer have hope.

    Usada misused money attacking him that could have been used for public healthcare or providing id’s for voters who dont have one, or simply making a huge lance statue out of marble for display in washington.

    The single biggest infulence on cycling in America…now the cops pull me over to search me for drugs while riding in my team kit…it is amazing like jersey shore, what next for lance? A cooking show featuring tex mex?

  10. if you don’t want to go ride after watching that stage, you is a limp dick wussy and should get into competitive Bogel

  11. …gnomer ftw…bwaha !!!…

    …1999 wasn’t a time of innocence but god-damn it was exciting & it’s a shame it’s all down to the shitshow it’s become…

    …i read that above report & i can both picture & feel that excitement…this was armstrong coming back from cancer, this was a reconstructed & stronger us postal team & ya, it wasn’t their 1st invite to the tour but bruyneel had plans for his lads to step up (now we know why & how)…

    ….i can ‘see’ frankie, in red, white & blue, working his ass off as road captain amongst the vibrant colors of the euro-teams w/ big george, tyler, ekimov, livingston, all doing their best to control that colorful bunch whilst limiting attacks to protect their leader & when this dynamic motherfucker who we’d seen rise from his deathbed, (“…golf ball sized tumors…”) again rose to the occasion, hammering on those pedals, i’m not gonna lie, it was not only exciting but i had tears in my eyes a few times…

    …cycling was in the headlines & on the lips of mainstream america & our sport was being appreciated like never before…

    …it’s still in the headlines but what a sad fucking deal it’s all become…

  12. Dude could ride. Aggressive. Ruthless killer instinct. You buttholes can have your soap opera. I’m barely a roadie fan and that is fun to watch.

    The greats are always world class assholes with the temerity to hit everyone else in the mouth and dare them to hit back. Easy to mock Mike Tyson or Michael Jordan now, but they fucked up everyone they encountered for a long time and the swagger was as vital to their dominance as the raw talent and obsessive work ethic. Time catches up and what not…Tyson is a tragic clown and Jordan shills underpants. Seems like Armstrong will grind his way to enduring respect despite the cottage industry that’s developed to tear him down.

    Anyway, that’s some swag riding right there. Blast from the past.

  13. Ever notice Lance was always non-emotional and all business at finish line of his stage wins? I wonder if he felt a little guilty for dominating stages knowing his body and team were doped up and firing on on cylinders?

    I believe Tyler Hamilton (and his twin). I believe Frankie Andreau (and his wife). Most of all, I believe Floyd Landis, a guy that had awesome talent, made the decision to dope, won the Tour, then lost everything…including his credibility with the general public. I hope the general public starts to notice Lance had them all fooled.

  14. Not trying to play fanboy, or say Lance didn’t dope, b/c we all know the truth, but I can tell you, LA weighed far less than 79 kilos in 99.
    I was in Austin in May of 99 for The Ride for The Roses. I spent a bit of time with, and around, Lance.
    After a full year of commuting, a Winter of training, and a Spring of racing, I was a lean (for me) 80 kilos (at 6’1″). For reference, I played lacrosse in college at 92-ish kilos…
    Standing next to Lance, I looked like I was working security. No way he weighed just 1-2 kilos less than me…no way. He was easily 5-7 kilos lighter. His clothes hung on him like he was a skeleton…

  17. I love when Phil shouts, “he is out of the saddle sprinting up the mountain!”. Anyone try that? These videos look like a cartoon to me.

  18. What MM said…+1

    This is a totally unfounded conclusion:
    “The implication being his power output remained constant, and the weight loss is what made him a Tour contender. That implication is wrong.”

    Good post!

  21. What a joke. Must be nice to go up a mountain so f’ing fast that you almost miss a turn.

    Read Hamilton’s book and I’ve been in porta potties at 3am at the Old Pueblo that stunk less than pro cycling from early 90’s on. Total f’ing mess.

  23. According to Luigi Cecchini, to win the Tour you needed only three qualities.

    1. you have to be very, very fit.
    2. you have to be very, very skinny.
    3. you have to keep your hematocrit up.

    1+2+3=not normal

  24. Ahhhh. The good old days. When sprinters like Jalabert and one day riders like Hincapie and Armstrong outclimbed the grimpeurs. When everyone who was anyone was sticking themselves every fucking chance they got.

    Why does society shun people who shoot up to get high and call them junkies while worshipping these assholes who shoot up to cheat some other asshole out of a place on the podium and call them heroes?

    The man behind the curtain, the enabler, the man who said epo was no more dangerous than orange juice is the real winner here.

    Give Michele Ferrari, the greatest dope dealer in the history of cycling, all of Pharmstrong’s TDF trophies. He earned them.

  25. …i hope someday we get to hear the REAL story of how this went down…if we can eventually get over the ‘lance armstrong fixation’ & yes, first & foremost, he needs be held accountable, but there is an incredible tale to be told & as of yet, there are so many missing pieces to that journalistic puzzle…

    …from the days of eddy b & alexi grewal & the blood doping that proceeded the ’84 olympics to the formation of the amateur ‘sunkyong’ squad in ’88…

    …was usacycling in on the blood doping deal or was it all eddy b ???…

    …thom weisel, a masters national & world champion, who’d seen the effect of the ‘7-11’s” in europe, steps up & seizes the mantel in ’92 with his montgomery securities funded team, a bold step, until such time as the bigger u.s.postal service is willing to make a go of it in ’96…

    …perhaps w/ not the purest of intents but an understanding of how the game was played, thom weisel, a guy who i honestly believe loves cycling, WAS willing to put his money where his mouth is & as the “chief executive” of an investment banking firm, you don’t undermine a financial institution or your customers confidence by intentionally backing a losing effort…so…

    …i’d have to believe usacycling became complicit at some point by understanding that while the amateur ranks needed to be keep clean (they weren’t), the only way the big boys were gonna compete was to do the doping thing even better than the euros ???…

    …if so, when did usacycling acquiesce & turn a blind eye ???…

    …i remember hearing of winter meetings once the u.s,postal juggernaut got rolling w/ ochowitz, weisel, armstrong & usacycling in tiburon, just across the bay from sf, no more than 10 miles from where i’m sitting…

    …if “i”, a local schlub cyclist, heard about them, maybe they’d been going on for years & what was the real intent ???…

    …it’s pure speculation on my part but WHAT IS the real story ???…“…look guys, ya wanna go big or ya wanna go home ???…you guys are great but we know we can take u.s. cycling to a new level, all on the big stage, particularly in the ‘tour de france’, the one race americans know about & we guarantee that ultimately everybody benefits & that includes verbruggen & the uci, so what a’ ya say, do you wanna play ball with us…???”…

    …i’m now led to assume that while the armstrong/doping scenario is huge, it’s still really just the tip of the iceberg…

    …you guys wanna fixate on lance, go ahead, he needs to be held accountable because there’s no way to justify his behavior towards ex-teammates & employees no matter what he institutions he thinks he’s preserving or saving but i’m beginning to see a bigger picture…

    …the ‘lancer of cancer‘ is big & center page right now but there WILL be a day when we’ll know even more…you’d be dumb to believe anything less…

    …mark my words…

    …& yes, admittedly, i was dumb about armstrong for a long time…

  27. This whole doping “controversy” has devolved into a conspiracy theory. Why would “fans” of cycling be so gleeful about tearing down their own sport?

    It’s all hearsay and inference.

    You really prefer to see some other doper “win” those seven Tours?

    That’s fucking stupid.

  29. …fuck, hack, is that the full movie…gonna have dedicate a couple a’ hours to watch that soon…

  30. While Eddie B was known for bringing Eastern European “training” methods into the USA for the ’84 Olympics, Tyler Hamilton and Andy Hampsten claim the 7-11 team under Eddie B was clean. There was doping in the 80s and early 90s (mostly with amphetamines), but Hampsten said it was still possible to race clean and win.

    The advent of EPO in the 90s was the game changer. Posties tried to race clean when they first went to Europe in 1996, and they lost every race, and badly. Weisel fired team doctor Prentice Steffen and hired Dr Pedro Celaya in 1997 and that’s when they started winning a stage here and there in France. I get the impression that Eddie B was kind of kept out of the loop on this stuff.

    Hamilton says only the “A” team (Armstrong, Ekimov, Hincapie and eventually Hamilton, Kevin Livingston, Frankie Andreu, etc) knew about the doping; the domestiques generally were out of the loop on that stuff.

    But yeah, Weisel certainly knows about the doping. He’s the guy who hired the European doctor to replace Steffen. Steffen wrote a sharp letter to Gorski after he was let go, asking “What can a Spanish doctor offer that I can’t or won’t? Doping is the obvious answer.” Steffen is now the team doctor for Garmin-Barracuda.

  31. …dunno who you’re directing that at, mikey but in a way, most appropriately, it’s like the events of 9-1-1 wherein you’re got two camps with completely different assertions as to what happened that day & in truth, the answer likely lies somewhere in the middle…

    …‘who knew what, how much did they know & how much was allowed to transpire ???’ is something we seem learn in smidgens but 11 years later, the events are still essentially clouded in secrecy & speculation…certainly questioning ‘official’ sources does not a conspiracy theorist make…

    …that’s all i’ve got other than to say my heart still goes out to the innocents…

  32. @Mikey

    I’m not sure if you’re being ironic, but surely you can’t be serious.

    The current state of road cycling is all about who has the best “program” and the most money for pharmaceuticals and the most knowledgeable drug dealer/doctor. Personally, I’d gladly tear down this freak show.

    The question is what do you replace it with?

    Maybe just legalize all drugs and the riders can advertise themselves as “Lance Armstrong powered by Michele Ferrari and Amgen” or “the cycling robot known as Alberto Contador powered by Clenbuterol”

    I know I’m a dreamer but I still remember the days when drugs didn’t decide the outcome of every race. And those of you who think that the results would be the same without drugs just a few minutes slower, If you believe that I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEvsSLOd0oM

  33. You guys can’t see the forest for the trees here. We see the sport of cycling tearing down its history— some of its best races ever— solely on hearsay and inference, fifteen years after the fact. The dude never failed a doping test! The SYSTEM failed, not Lance Armstrong.

    Who wins? Lance haters, driven by emotion… the USADA, driven by ego… and everyone else loses. That’s fucking stupid.

  34. …richard ‘fritz’ masoner is someone who i trust explicitly when it comes to sussing out information & sources…

    …& fritz, i’d believe everything you suggested to be true but i’m betting there are even more pieces to the puzzle that will eventually dovetail in to complete the picture…

    …personally, i see getting the truth out as a chance to clean up the sport…

    …lance is a dick & lance is a fraud but certainly not the only one, perhaps just the biggest one in cycling…

    …nonetheless, i say, he keeps his jerseys because no matter what he took, no matter how protected he was, he’s still a damn good bike racer & he did ride his bike through it all & placed first…7 fucking times in a row…

    …life is not black & white…neither is this situation…

  35. Armstrong DID fail at least one doping test in 1999 for corticosteroids but the powers that be let him file a backdated TUE.

    The facts prove that Armstrong doped. If you choose to believe what you want, so be it. I’ll believe the truth.

  36. …the system didn’t fail, mikey…it was re-geared to support lance armstrong & that’s why he never failed a drug test…

    …lance was the golden boy…

  38. @Cap’n Tony— WAKE UP dude, they ALL doped. Why hate specifically on Lance? So some other doper can “win” a fifteen year-old race? That’s just dumb.

    @bgw— read your own words in #36, conspiracy theory all the way. Hearsay and inference, fifteen years later.

    You guys claim to be fans of the sport, yet you’re tearing it down. That’s just dumb.

  40. …be patient, mikey…the truth WILL come out if it hasn’t already…sometimes it needs be bolstered before people wanna believe it…

    …& the sport of cycling is gonna survive long past you, me n’ cap’n tony, despite a lousy economy…

    …the fact that we’re willing to dissect it doesn’t mean shit in the long run…

    …we’re not ultimately gonna affect the status quo & that’s guaranteed…

    …there’s always a winner at the end of the day or the race & people find enjoyment in that, both the spectacle & the process & people live vicariously through their winners…

    …i say “…the song remains the same…”…

  41. “Mikey, why do you continually repeat the phrase “hearsay and inference”? I’m serious.”

    Jonny—

    Hearsay: yellow-journalism tell-alls by Hamilton, Landis, Andreu and others.

    Inference: your post above, citing body weight and power output.

    You guys are still missing the point. IT DOESN’T MATTER whether Lance doped or not. It was a dope-fest bike race fifteen years ago, and he rode like a fucking bad-ass. That’s entertainment. You’re tearing down the sport for no reason at all, and that’s just dumb.

  42. PS— Jonny, I understand your personal bent here, coming through law school and taking the doping controversy in cycling as a Serious Issue [sic] to pontificate upon, so “no reason at all” is a bit strong. I dig reading your posts, they’re well put together. And I know, in your heart, you agree that Lance rode like a fucking bad-ass in France those many tainted years ago. That’s entertainment. Rubber side down, brother.

  43. …”the fact that we’re willing to dissect it doesn’t mean shit in the long run…

    …we’re not ultimately gonna affect the status quo & that’s guaranteed…“…

  45. OK, Mikey. I get your point. Thanks for the clarification. Thanks.

    Lance, Hamilton, Ullrich, Pantani, Riis… They all rode like bad-asses. And it was very entertaining. Unfortunately, whether something was merely “entertaining” is not the whole story.

  47. I don’t see how having the true story be told is tearing down the sport as Mikey keeps iterating. There’s a lot of voices here violently agreeing that cycling has been a dope fest for over a decade so what’s wrong with wanting to know how deep the story goes? Having the truth be told is not going to shut down the UCI, it’s not going to mean there will be no more classics, no more grand tours, no more club rides or that I’m not going to ride my mountain bike tomorrow. It could be a huge reboot on the whole system. Who wouldn’t want to see a similar douching of the US government take place? Sign me up for that one.

    I could give a shit about the titles, LA can keep them for all I care. Dude was a baller and rode the wheels off a supercharged peloton for years. Now I just want to know the whole story, all of it. And all the people who still believe in Lancea Claus can make up their own minds how they feel about the man and his foundation. And what if the truth comes out and his foundation doesn’t survive? If it came to that then well I guess the story really is as bad as some conspiracy theories that are floating out there.

    Popcorn at the ready for Johan’s arbitration hearing this Fall.

  48. Mikey, you are a douche. I read the book and Landis puts it right. Why should Lance get away with it?

    I have a friend that worked in Coyle’s lab and the guy was a fucking joke. Read Ashenden’s article, Lance is a fucking myth top to bottom. He just doped better and was on the cutting edge. You don’t finish DFL in San Sebastian your first year then win the next. Does not happen.

    Schumi even thought he caused his cancer. What fucking narcissistic dumb ass dopes himself to cancer, beats it then is so full of himself that he comes back and does it again?

  49. 1) If one witness account is corroborated by secondary, tertiary, quaternary etc. accounts, it is not hearsay.

    2) ‘Everyone dopes’ equals a level playing field is a fallacy. Even if the drugs affected everyone the exact same way, and they most certainly do not (pharmacotherapy is a highly specific), you cannot discount obvious discrepancies to drug access and usage guidance (Ferrari had a non-compete agreement w/ Lance).

    3) The question of to whom TdF titles should be transferred is unrelated to sanctioning a rider who is found to have cheated.