Review by New York Times Review
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," 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," 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. Cyclists who weren't taking it couldn't keep up. Greg LeMond, a three-time winner of the Tour de France, surrendered. In 1993, he pulled out of the race. Armstrong, just then arriving on the scene, was far more ruthless. From an early age, he showed little regard for others. He ignored the traditional hierarchy of cycling, refusing to sacrifice his performance for the team leader. He discarded anyone who was no longer of use to him: mentors, friends, girlfriends, even his wife. "He treats people like bananas," the widow of one friend told Macur. "He takes what he needs, then just tosses the peel on the side of the road." 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 (aptly named Bending Oaks) that would let him graduate despite his absences. At 19, he was pulled over for driving erratically. He refused a Breathalyzer test and enlisted a friend to help him beat the charges. Later, 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. Like other riders, Armstrong accepted whatever drugs his team offered: EPO, human growth hormone, amphetamines, steroids. But that wasn't enough. 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. We need to get on a program." He retained a freelance doping expert, Dr. Michele Ferrari, and instructed the other riders to follow Ferrari's program or get out. When one rider declined, Armstrong said he wasn't a team player. The rider lost his contract. The doping regimen was as rigorous as any training or nutrition plan. Each rider received a calendar showing which drugs he had to take on which days. Doctors monitored the rider's hematocrit - his red-blood-cell count, as a percentage of his blood volume - and prescribed EPO when the number fell too low. One team physician who refused to get involved in doping was replaced by a more amenable doctor. When the second doctor tried to limit riders' drug use, the team found a more enthusiastic successor. To clean up cycling, antidoping authorities introduced drug tests. But to Armstrong, beating the test was just another sport. Ferrari and other doctors taught the riders how to use blood thinners and saline injections to lower their hematocrit to permitted levels. They showed riders how to inject EPO into their veins, instead of just below the skin, so its traces would disappear more quickly. Armstrong kept track of every rider's hematocrit. The maximum score allowed was 50. Some riders, through boosters and thinners, maintained a score of 49.999. Armstrong organized his schedule around the drug-testing system. He skipped secondary races that might include tests, so he could use EPO while training for the Tour de France. When he had a safe lead, he stopped doping for a few days to reduce the risk of getting caught. Once, testers showed up at a race just after he had taken testosterone. He dropped out to avoid being checked. As tests became more sophisticated, so did Armstrong. In 2001, he scored suspiciously high on a new EPO test. He arranged a tutorial from the sport's governing body, the International Cycling Union, to learn how the test worked. Armstrong and Ferrari switched to autologous blood transfusions, which were undetectable. Over time, team doctors figured out how to combine EPO with transfusions to yield what testers were looking for: a normal level of immature red blood cells. Armstrong did get caught a few times, but he proved quite adept at gaming the enforcement system. In 1999, he tested positive for steroids. He and two associates, according to a witness, arranged a cover story: a backdated prescription from the team doctor for an ointment containing the banned substance. In 2001, according to his fellow cyclist Floyd Landis, Armstrong arranged a payment to Hein Verbruggen, the president of the cycling union, to bury his suspicious EPO test. A few years later, Armstrong's 1999 urine samples were examined with a new test for EPO, and they flunked. A pseudoindependent inquiry, led by a friend of Verbruggen's, dismissed the evidence. Verbruggen denies any wrongdoing, but his financial connections to Armstrong, documented by Albergotti and O'Connell, were egregious. Verbruggen's financial portfolio was partly managed by the owner of Armstrong's team. The account's broker, Armstrong's former team manager, was the godfather of Armstrong's son. HAVING BEATEN the testing system, Armstrong turned it to his advantage. Eyewitness reports of his doping couldn't be true, he reasoned, since he had "passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one." To silence the doubters, he announced a private testing program. It would be run by an expert who was ostensibly independent but in fact would be paid by Armstrong's team. Afterward, however, Armstrong backed out. He also abandoned a pledge to post his blood-test results online, arguing that natural fluctuations in his readings would confuse the public. The more Armstrong won, the more invincible he felt. When federal prosecutors and the United States Anti-Doping Agency came after him, he went over their heads, recruiting members of Congress and targeting Usada's budget. He intimidated witnesses, manipulated doctors' testimony, and used his financial and political connections to threaten the livelihoods of those who spoke out against him. 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, after donating to Armstrong's foundation as part of a promotional arrangement, couldn't get his money back when Armstrong's side canceled the deal. And when Floyd Landis admitted to doping and fell out of the sport, Armstrong refused to hire him, saying the team couldn't associate with a cheater. These three offenses proved fatal. The insurer began an investigation that laid the groundwork for Usada's case. 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 teach a sobering lesson. A talented, savage competitor - the sort of person who will exploit any advantage and ignore any rule - is often just as clever at manipulating our methods of enforcement. Everything in Armstrong's path - the drugs, the doctors, the tests, the authorities - was just another course to conquer, another race to win. That was his genius. WILLIAM SALETAN, Slate's national correspondent, is the author of "Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 20, 2014]
