If we thought we knew all about the Lance Armstrong’s story, the new book “Dope on wheels” by Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O’Connell tells in detail of a life dedicated to the fraud.
The women – Armstrong never hid his doping from the (many) women in his life. His first wife, Kristin Richard, distributed cortisone tablets to the USPS Cycling team and stored Lance’s EPO in their refrigerator. When she and Armstrong divorced, she signed a nondisclosure agreement as part of a $15 million settlement.
The sex – Lance Armstrong was a notorious lothario; his teammates dubbed him FedEx, because the company’s slogan “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight,” described his outsized appetite for podium girls, female fans, and cycling groupies—even during his marriage. His teammate Floyd Landis remembers one night out during training camp where Armstrong ended the night in a private room of a strip club with two naked dancers and a pile of “what looked like cocaine.”
Greg LeMond – He has always had a contentious relationship with Armstrong, whom he believed was doping from the very beginning. Armstrong, in turn, would always resist comparisons to the three-time champion, and once called him a “fat ass.” Jeff Garvey, a longtime friend of both men, resigned as president of the Lance Armstrong Foundation because attacks on the character of the retired cyclist were such routine part of the corporate culture.
UCI and a Culture of Cheating -Kathy Lemond testified that in 1999, Armstrong’s sponsor Nike paid off UCI president Hein Verbruggen to cover up a positive test. Armstrong then tested positive for the banned substance EPO two years later, but again bribed UCI into silence. During the 2006 Tour, he offered a $20,000 bounty to any rider who could ensure that Floyd Landis—now racing for a rival team—would not win.
The team - Armstrong was the de facto leader of the USPS cycling team, and he was often tyrannical and abusive. He would not allow his other teammates access to the best equipment, but was insistent that every cyclist dope. Armstrong was also paranoid about his teammates revealing his use of banned substances; he once said to his roommate Jonathan Vaughters, “now that you are doing EPO too, you can’t go write a book about it.”
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