of the Motorola team to organise his own doping programme, to get his own supply of EPO?" A: "Yeah, that's right. We weren't doing it as a team, it was up to everyone to organise it for themselves." Q: "Was that difficult?" A: "No. You just go to Switzerland. I don't know how the other guys organised their supply but I mean to say, whatever I used, I purchased myself." Q: "Did you use Human Growth Hormone as well as EPO?" A: "No, not hGH. I'd read and heard things about the side effects of hGH, how your head could grow and your teeth widen, and I didn't want to use any of that ####." Q: "Was it only EPO you were using?" A: "It was the biggest thing we were doing. I mean cortisone was pretty much standard issue for most races. EPO was the most far out thing. Cortisone wasn't a big deal, it was kept in the truck, standard issue. On hand whenever you wanted it really. It helped you recover but you also used it prior to the race. We knew that if we used it for long periods, it would eat away your muscles, so you didn't use it day-in, day-out." Q: "When did you first start to use EPO?" A: "For the 1995 Tour of Switzerland." Q: "How much did it cost?" A: "It was between 600 and 700 swiss francs for a box, that was about 1000 kiwi dollars which was a lot of money to have to shell out." Q: "How did you know how much to take?" A: "We mapped it out in advance. We were going to take a certain number of units for ten days and take it on alternate days for a further week. By the time we were into the Tour de France and depending on our haematocrit levels, we would just take one or two injections a week after that." Q: "Did you tell your wife Jan what you were doing?" A: "Yeah, I did tell her. She wasn't jumping up and down for joy. She realised it wasn't the cleanest sport and what we had to do wasn't the cleanest. But we had decided as a team that whoever was riding the Tour would have to do it. There was one guy in our team that had no part of it; that was Kaspars Ozers from Latvia. He never really mingled with the rest of us and he was just out of the loop. I'm not sure about Alvaro [Mejia] either." Q: "Did you use EPO through the 1995 Tour of Switzerland and the Tour de France?" A: "No, I mean to say I started in Switzerland but once we hit the bigger mountain stages, it knocked me for six. I had to pull out. I was just exhausted, didn't know what was going on." Q: "How precisely did you feel?" A: "I just felt like all my form had gone out the window. I had the Tour de France coming up and I wasn't sure I would be able to start; I felt that flat. There was over a week in between the two races and I stuck with the [EPO] course, so many units every second day. I continued into the first or second day of the Tour and then I knocked it on the head. I thought ?I've got nothing to lose, it's not like I am going to start winning stages of the Tour de France'." Q: "Were there no benefits at all?" A: "No, there were. On the first couple of stages of the Tour, the really quick stages, after the first hour, you felt like you hadn't even ridden. And at the end of the day, your recovery rate was fantastic. But it wasn't like you were winning or doing extraordinary things in the race. I didn't feel that it actually changed anything." Q; "That feeling of well-being, of quick recovery, was that not a big benefit?" A: "Yeah, but I had heard from people that the benefits of EPO stay with you for some time after you stop taking it. I didn't believe I had to keep taking it during the Tour de France. Not only that but I had run out of the stuff and I wasn't going to shell out another thousand Kiwi dollars for more." Q: "Motorola's director sportif Jim Ochowicz could hardly have been unaware of the decision the riders had taken?" A: "He would have to have been pretty naïve if he didn't know but if anyone didn't know, Jim would probably be the one. As far as the soigneurs are concerned, the head soigneurs knew." Q: "Was Lance Armstrong convinced there was no other option to EPO?" A: "Yeah, basically it was a case of ?we have to do it'. We had to get results. Motorola was throwing all this money at the team and we had to come up trumps." Q: "This feeling of having to join cycling's doping race, no one was more committed to this than Lance?" A: "Yeah, and I feel he became even more like that as time went on, because it was around this time his involvement with Ferrari began. I remember sitting at home in New Zealand the following year and keeping an eye on the results. There was a big difference between 1995 and 1996 with Lance. At the beginning of 1996, he was flying." Q: "Ninety-eight per cent of people believe Armstrong is a true sporting champion?" A: "Yeah, but 98% of people were never involved in the sporting arena." Q: "Armstrong says Motorola hardly discussed doping, does that make you laugh?" A: "Pretty much, yeah. I think ?ah man, you're full of ####." Nine years have passed since Stephen Swart rode a bike for a living. He now runs a construction business back in his native New Zealand. Sometimes in the middle of an Auckland winter, the Tour de France will appear on the television and he will allow himself be transported back to the world he once knew. He is amazed that Armstrong has become so dominant in the Tour. Because he knows how hard it is. Then another voice speaks up: ?come on Steve, you know no wins this bike race on mineral water'. What bothers him is the insistence with which Armstrong protests his innocence, as if he is as pure as the driven snow. "I felt that when he got his cancer, he had an opportunity to tell the world ?I did wrong' and if he had done that and come back to a good level, I would see him in a different light. He had the opportunity to do something positive for the sport. Instead all he is doing is helping to keep the sport in the same situation it was in before he got his cancer. There was the scandal of the 1998 Tour de France and what did it change? Nothing. Just made the culture of doping more sophisticated. "My feeling is that he is actually defrauding people, the survivors of cancer. He is a spokesperson for them but he has actually got this chequered past and he is not as pure as he makes himself out to be. Sure he was a victim of cancer but did he help to bring it on himself? Personally, I have more respect for a rider like Alex Zulle, at least he put his hands up and said ?I did it, I'm sorry.' Lance had the opportunity to be honest. On his recovery from cancer he could have helped the sport in some small way but he chose not to." After the elements of the story concerning Stephen Swart were written, they were sent to him: an opportunity to consider again what he wished to say. He replied by email: "I have read and re-read the material. As far as my memory serves me, it is as close to what I experienced and saw in my time as a professional cyclist as I can make it. I would like to ask for one addition to what is already written. It is this: if all things were equal and there was no doping in cycling, it is my opinion that Lance Armstrong would have been a champion cyclist." ---------line break--------line break---------line break-------- In a conversation with one of the authors early in 2001, the three-time winner of the Tour de France Greg LeMond talked about Armstrong. LeMond wanted to believe in Armstrong's successes in the 1999 and 2000 Tour de France and to believe that the improvement in his performance since his cancer made sense. LeMond's view was that if Armstrong had, as reported, lost 10 kilos in weight, then it was physiologically possible for him to make enormous progress. But LeMond had heard Armstrong was working with Dr. Michele Ferrari, who was standing trial on doping charges in his native Italy. That bothered LeMond. He had also heard a rumour Armstrong once admitted to doctors at Indiana Hospital that he used banned performance-enhancing drugs. "I don't really believe it's true," said LeMond at the time. "The only reason it stayed in my mind is that the person who told me is a pretty reliable guy." There was indeed a rumour that Armstrong had made this admission to two doctors during a consultation in a meeting room in Indiana Hospital. The meeting with the doctors was said to have taken place after Armstrong underwent surgery to remove lesions from his brain in late October 1996. Six of his then close friends were reputed to have been in the room when the conversation with the doctors took place. They were Chris and Paige Carmichael, Frankie and Betsy Andreu, Stephanie McIlvain and Lisa Shiels. Chris Carmichael was one of Armstrong's trainers and had been involved with Armstrong since he was a junior international on the US team. Frankie Andreu was a team-mate and a good friend. Stephanie McIlvain worked for Oakley, one of Armstrong's main sponsors, but she was also a good friend. Lisa Shiels was Armstrong's girlfriend at the time. According to the story, one of the doctors asked Armstrong if he had used performance-enhancing drugs and the rider replied he had and listed a number of doping products, including EPO, human growth hormone and corticosteroids. We asked Betsy Andreu and Stephanie McIlvain about this alleged admission. First Andreu: Q: Did you visit Lance when he was Indiana Hospital in October 1996? A: Yes, I did. Q: Were you in a consulting room with your husband-to-be Frankie Andreu, Chris and Paige Carmichael, Stephanie McIlvain and Lisa Shiels when Lance admitted to his doctors that he used banned performance-enhancing drugs? A: [long pause] Q: Betsy, are you there? Did you hear Lance admit using banned performance-enhancing drugs? A: I have no comment to make on that. You ask Lance that question, not me. Q: But did you hear him admit to using banned performance-enhancing drugs? A: I told you. I have no comment on that. We later spoke with McIlvain: Q: Did you visit Lance at Indiana Hospital in October 1996, after he had undergone surgery for testicular cancer? A: Yeah, I was there. Q: Were you not in a consulting room with Chris and Paige Carmichael, Frankie and Betsy Andreu and Lisa Shiels when Lance admitted to his doctors that he used banned performance-enhancing drugs. A: I am sorry David. I have no comment on that. That's Lance's business. I am not talking about that. Q: Did you or did you not hear him admit to using banned performance-enhancing drugs? A: Sorry, no comment. If you have any questions you need answered, talk to Lance. -------line break---------line break--------line break------ Through the last three months of 1996 and all of 1997, Lance Armstrong fought and then overcame cancer. He returned to competition with the US Postal Service team in early 1998, only to discover he hadn't regained his full strength. So he went away and trained some more and when he returned again, he quickly rediscovered his form. Remarkably, the debilitating effects of cancer and four courses of chemotherapy had not diminished his powers. Seven months into his comeback he finished fourth in the competitive Tour of Spain and that performance suggested he could be as good as he was before. He also moved through the US Postal team like a tornado, sweeping to one side those he felt weren't up to it. The then director sportif Johnny Weltz was one of the first casualties. By the middle of his first season with US Postal, Armstrong decided the team had to have a new director sportif. At the Tour of Spain in September, he initiated the talks that led to the appointment as director sportif of the Belgian, Johan Bruyneel. Emma O'Reilly, a Dubliner who had worked with the team since 1996 and was Armstrong's massage therapist, watched the courting of Bruyneel. "It happened during the Tour of Spain. Lance started to speak of Johan. Though he was still riding, it was know Johan was in his last season. Lance told me they were going to meet up and have a chat. During the race they spoke and I remember Johan coming to our hotel one evening. After the meeting, Johan wrote Lance an email and after receiving it, Lance told me how the guy was ?pure class' because he could see Lance in the yellow jersey on the Tour de France podium the following year and in the rainbow jersey (of world champion). That was just what Lance wanted to hear. Johan knew how to get through to him. He had the job there and then." "The hiring of Johan was proof that Lance ran the team," says Jonathan Vaughters, a US Postal rider at this time. "I mean Johan was the guy who gave Lance the confidence that he could win the Tour de France. He was the first person that could see Lance win the Tour and I think Lance is tied to Johan because of that. Even with Johan on board now, de facto Lance still runs the team, just as he did back in 1998." Armstrong was a natural, if not always popular leader. The experience of surviving cancer strengthened his resolve and added a new layer of confidence. In the throes of recovery from his illness he addressed 200 guests at a black tie dinner in Hollywood to honour those Americans who had won Olympic medals in cycling. "What do you think?' he asked, pointing to the black beret on his head. (1) "With?" He waited a couple of seconds before removing it and showing the bald pate of the chemotherapy patient. "Or without?" Sensing his audience's discomfort, he continued. "What do you think?" He put the beret back on and pointed again. "With?" He removed it again. "Or without?" "Take it off! You don't have to wear it," a voice called from the audience. He smiled and removed the beret. His point had been eloquently made: the fear that cancer instils must be addressed and by addressing it, we diminish it. As the 1998 season progressed and Armstrong had less and less time for Weltz, he spoke often with O'Reilly. "At the time I genuinely liked Lance and part of me still does," she says. "He would shoot me for saying this but there is something vulnerable about him. You know it's because of baggage he's carrying. His father left before he ever got to know him and he had a bad time with his stepfather. Because of this, he's on this mission to defeat every rival and anyone else who gets in his way. "The sense of a man on a mission was there befor