The
doesn’t just say he that doped. It says he was the ringleader of the grandest doping
scheme in recent team sports history and that he intimidated his teammates and involved his wife in an illicit quest to win.
Two of the earliest examples of Armstrong's role as a doping kingpin in the USADA report come in 1998, the year he signed with the U.S. Postal Team after beating cancer. The instances demonstrate that he relied on cortisone as a doping substance and helped others on his team do the same.
During the World Championships at Valkenberg in the
Netherlands, Armstrong asked his wife Kristin to wrap cortisone tablets in
tinfoil. She did, then handed them to him and his teammates. “Lance’s wife is
rolling joints,” one teammate said.
After a tough day of riding during the Vuelta a España, Armstrong
asked teammates Jonathan Vaughters and Christian Vande Velde to go to the car
and get a cortisone pill for him. When the pair found no such pill, they came
up with a placebo, whittling down an aspirin, wrapping it in tinfoil, and
giving it to Armstrong.
In 1998, Lance Armstrong had not yet won his first Tour de
France. Yet, even at this point in his career, he was already doping, involving
his wife in his doping, and had his teammates in a position where they felt
compelled to lie to him in order to satisfy his desire for drugs. The USADA has
piled up loads of examples demonstrating that Armstrong and his team doped
during each of the seven successive years he won the Tour de France. The
quasi-governmental agency said the evidence was enough to prove, “a massive
team doping scheme, more extensive than any previously revealed in professional
sports history.”
The full USADA report is roughly 200 pages. Because you may not
have time to read it all, we’ve included some of key findings below, focusing on the
numbers.
11: Teammates who offered testimony against Armstrong. Nine
of those teammates were clients of banned Armstrong associate Dr. Michele Ferrari, and they offered firsthand knowledge of Armstrong’s doping practices.
7:
Consecutive times, from 1999 through 2005, Armstrong won the Tour de France.
7:
Years Armstrong won the Tour de France in which multiple teammates and
additional witnesses testified that he doped in the USADA report.
20:
Number of the 21 podium finishers in the Tour de France during the seven
years that Armstrong won who have been directly tied to likely doping through admissions,
sanctions, public investigations or by exceeding the UCI hematocrit threshold.
1
out of 3, or 1 out of 4: Days that Armstrong, Tyler Hamilton, and Kevin
Livingston took EPO during the first two weeks of the 1999 Tour de France,
Armstrong’s first win.
$1,029,754.31:
Money paid by Lance Armstrong to Dr. Michele Ferrari, an Italian doctor
suspected of helping cyclists dope. Armstrong said he would no longer
work with Dr. Ferrari on October 1, 2004. The USADA listed records of two large
payments from Armstrong to Ferrari in 2005 and 2006.
3:
Times the word “liar” is used in the USADA report. Though “lie” and “fabrication” are
used to describe instances directed at Armstrong, the word “liar” only appears
in reference to accusations by Armstrong against Floyd Landis and Tyler
Hamilton.
FLOYD LANDIS
“As is well known, Floyd
Landis tested positive for testosterone during the 2006 Tour de France. Landis
denied doping for several years, from 2006 through 2008 while he fought USADA’s
case against him and even after until early 2010. After Floyd Landis made his
allegations of Armstrong's doping public, Armstrong and his representatives
described Landis as, among other things, 'a bitter and scorned Landis who,
quite simply, has zero credibility,' and 'a person with zero credibility and an
established pattern of recanting tomorrow what he swears to today' and more
recently as 'an admitted, proven liar.'”
TYLER HAMILTON
“As discussed previously,
Hamilton was the ultimate insider on Armstrong’s first three Tour winning
teams. However, since his accusations of Armstrong’s doping have become public,
Armstrong or his representatives have called Hamilton a 'proven liar.' It is,
of course, true that Armstrong also doped and, as explained in this Reasoned
Decision, USADA has proved that he lied. Therefore, Armstrong's aspersions do
not provide any basis for discrediting Hamilton that does not also discredit
Armstrong. Moreover, Hamilton's accusations are thoroughly corroborated by many
other riders who rode with Armstrong over the years.”
5: Specific moments
referenced in which the words humor, joke, laugh, or smile were used in
relation to Armstrong or his teammates referencing drugs or doping.
LIQUID GOLD DELIVERY
“Betsy Andreu observed a
delivery from Marti to Armstrong following a dinner at the Villa d'Este
Restaurant in Nice in 1999. The dinner involved Lance and Kristin Armstrong,
Betsy Andreu, Kevin Livingston and his fiancé, and Pepe and his girlfriend.
Dinner was held later than usual. The explanation Andreu was given was that
dinner was so late because the purpose of Pepe's attendance in Nice was to
bring EPO to Lance, and it was safer to cross the border at night. After the
dinner the Armstrongs took Andreu home. Andreu saw Pepe give Lance Armstrong
a brown paper bag and as Armstrong opened the car door for Andreu he smiled,
held up the bag and commented, 'liquid gold.'”
THE FASTEST TRANSFUSION
“Tyler Hamilton testified
that he, Armstrong and Kevin Livingston received a blood transfusion on the
evening of Tuesday, July 11 in the Hôtel l'Esplan in Saint-Paul-Trois-
Châteaux near Mount Ventoux. Hamilton recalled:”
“The whole process took
less than 30 minutes. Kevin Livingston and I received our transfusions in one
room and Lance got his in an adjacent room with an adjoining door. During the
transfusion Lance was visible from our room, Johan, Pepe and Dr. del Moral were
all present and Dr. del Moral went back and forth between the rooms checking on
the progress of the re-infusions. Each blood bag was placed on a hook for a
picture frame or taped to the wall and we lay on the bed and shivered while the
chilly blood re-entered our bodies.”
“Hamilton said that the
riders 'joked about whose body was absorbing the blood the fastest.'”
SMUGGLING IN SALINE
“Armstrong, Vande Velde,
Vaughters and Celaya stayed at a bed and breakfast for the 1998 World
Championships. Their bedrooms opened into a common area. One morning a UCI
drug tester appeared and started setting up in the common area. This prompted
Dr. Celaya to go outside to the car and retrieve a liter of saline which he put
under his rain coat and smuggled right past the UCI tester and into Armstrong's
bedroom. Celaya closed the bedroom door and administered the saline to
Armstrong to lower his hematocrit, without alerting the UCI tester to their
activities. Vaughters recalled that he and Dr. Celaya later 'had a good laugh
about how he had been able to smuggle in saline and administer it to Lance
essentially under the UCI inspector’s nose.'”
PURPLE HAZE
“David Zabriskie has a
dry but apparent sense of humor. In his interview with USADA he described a
funny and, at the same time, revealing anecdote of life on the U.S. Postal
Service team bus. Zabriskie recounted being at the front of the bus singing to
Johan Bruyneel about EPO use to the tune of Jimi Hendrix’s song Purple Haze.
Johan laughed along as Zabriskie sang:”
EPO all in my veins
Lately things just don’t seem the same
Actin' funny, but I don’t know why
'Scuse me while I pass this guy
BURIED IN THE WOODS
“Zabriskie also recalled
an occasion when on the team bus during the Tour of Luxembourg the riders were
told that police were at the team hotel and a team official advised that if any
rider had any drugs in his bag that he should get rid of the drugs. After a
rider's drugs were buried in the woods, a team employee commented that, 'those
trees will be big in a few years.'”
1: Instances in which witnesses
testified that Armstrong said he was going to take down and shut up former Tour
de France champ Greg LeMond.
“A few weeks later
Armstrong had won his third Tour and the Armstrongs were having dinner in
Villefranche, France with a few friends, including the Andreus. The Andreus
recall that during the dinner the conversation turned to some unflattering
comments Greg LeMond had recently made about the Ferrari controversy.
Armstrong was incensed with LeMond and vowed to exact revenge, saying 'I'm
going to take him down' and that Armstrong could make one call to the owner
of Trek bicycles, which carried a line of LeMond bicycles, and 'shut him up.'”
1: Video showing Armstrong making a “zip the lip” gesture to cyclist Filippo Simeoni, who
had testified against Dr. Ferrari.
“On July 23 in the 18th
Stage at the 2004 Tour de France, Simeoni joined a breakaway. However,
Armstrong rode him down and threatened if Simeoni did not return to the peloton
Lance Armstrong would stay with the break and doom it to failure. As a
consequence, Simeoni retreated to the peloton. There was no potential sport
or cycling advantage for Armstrong's maneuver. In fact, it was dangerous and
impetuous, as Armstrong rode away from his supporting teammates to catch
Simeoni, wasting valuable energy and unnecessarily incurring greater risk of a
mishap while riding without assistance.”
“As Simeoni and Armstrong
fell back to the peloton, Armstrong verbally berated Simeoni for testifying in
the Ferrari case, saying, 'You made a mistake when you testified against
Ferrari and you made a mistake when you sued me. I have a lot of time and money
and I can destroy you.' Armstrong was captured on video making a 'zip the
lips' gesture which underscored what Armstrong had just said to Simeoni about
how Simeoni should not have testified against Dr. Ferrari. A copy of a video of
this sad moment in the history of cycling is provided as part of Appendix B.
Thus, Filippo Simeoni has provided to USADA corroborated testimony of an act of
attempted witness intimidation by Armstrong, which is in and of itself an
anti-doping rule violation pursuant to Article 2.8 of the Code and is also
potentially relevant both to impeach Armstrong's claim not to have participated
in doping with Dr. Ferrari and in consideration of whether Armstrong should not
be deprived of reliance upon the statute of limitations due to wrongful and
egregious acts in which he engaged to attempt to suppress the truth about his
doping and that of others associated with his team.”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/taWGQNKUgQQWatch Lance Armstrong make a “zip the lips” gesture to Simeoni.
1: Reference to Armstrong as a “schoolyard bully.”
“During the stage to Alpe
d'Huez Armstrong rode up to Christophe Bassons, and berated him, calling him a
disgrace and telling him he should get out of cycling. Armstrong's verbal
attack on Bassons in the 1999 Tour echoed Armstrong's anger after a Bassons
stage win earlier in the year at the Dauphiné Libéré.”
“Jonathan Vaughters recalled, 'Lance did not like Basson's outspokenness about doping, and Lance frequently
made fun of him in a very merciless and venomous fashion, much like a
playground bully.' In addition to reacting to Bassons' comments about
Armstrong's dominant performance on the Sestriéres stage win, in attacking
Bassons Armstrong acted in accordance with a consistent pattern he has
demonstrated of attacking those who speak out against doping in cycling.”
Click
here for the full report, ” .”
For more on Lance Armstrong, check out the collection of stories in the archive, “ϳԹ on Armstrong and Drugs in Cycling.”
—Joe Spring