Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong by Juliet Macur Read Free Book Online

shots and IVs for recovery and a pre-race boost of energy. On the eve of the road race at the 1992 Olympics, fellow Olympian Timm Peddie walked into Armstrong’s hotel room and saw Neal, United States national team coach Chris Carmichael, national team soigneur Charlie Livermore and a gaggle of USA Cycling officials standing around Armstrong as he lay on a bed, hooked to an IV. Peddie was astonished at the openness of the procedure. Everyone there stared at the unexpected guest until Peddie left as quickly as he had come in. He hadn’t been sure what he had seen. Maybe a blood transfusion? An infusion of electrolytes or proteins? He only knew that he himself had never received an IV of anything before a race. Armstrong was, evidently, special.
     
    In the early 1990s, U.S. cycling had a single star, Greg LeMond, who in 1986 became the first American to win the Tour de France, a feat he would repeat in 1989 and 1990. But his victories had little impact on the sport in the United States. LeMond had ridden for a European team and his success came primarily in Europe, out of sight of America’s sports fans.
    Armstrong, however, came into the sport with the dramatic backstory—the struggling single mother who had dropped out of high school to raise him—and he raced for an American team, Motorola, starting in 1992. Young and charismatic, he was set to be a star, and he wanted fame badly.
    He insisted that Steve Penny, the managing director for USA Cycling, sell the hell out of him to raise awareness of the sport. News about cycling had rarely gotten much past the sports pages’ agate section.
    Penny persuaded Descente, the federation’s new clothing sponsor, to produce a poster of four top athletes on the national team: Armstrong, Hincapie, Bobby Julich and the 1991 junior road cycling world champion, Jeff Evanshine. The poster featured a dramatic photo of Pikes Peak behind the riders, each of whom carried a look of grim determination on his face. All would go on to admit doping or serve a suspension for breaking anti-doping rules. In the lower left-hand corner of the poster was a list of the “U.S. Team Rules.”
    RULE #1: Don’t mess with Lance, Bobby, George and Jeff.
    RULE #2: No Whining.
    RULE #3: It doesn’t count unless you do it under pressure.
    RULE #4: There is no “Back Door.”
    RULE #5: There are no rules: Winning the Gold in Barcelona is the only thing that counts.
    As much as Armstrong loved being a star, his devotion to celebrity may have run a distant second to his hunger for money. J.T. Neal sensed that early on.
    He saw Armstrong driven by money—how to get it, how to keep it and what he had to do, ethically or unethically, to get more of it.
     
    In 1993, Armstrong chased a million-dollar bonus. The pharmacy Thrift Drug offered the prize to a rider who won three big American races—the Thrift Drug Classic in Pittsburgh, the Kmart Classic in West Virginia, and the CoreStates USPRO national championship in Philadelphia. Each required a different strength: Pittsburgh’s was a demanding one-day race, West Virginia’s a grueling six-stager that rewarded the best climbers and Philadelphia’s an event geared toward sprinters.
    Armstrong, only twenty-one, won the first race and surprised everyone. Five stages through the second race, he was among the favorites to win. So, with the possibility of a million-dollar payout dangling in front of them, several riders on the Motorola team devised a plan to guarantee victory.
    Motorola rider Frankie Andreu allegedly approached a Coors Light rider, Scott McKinley, to propose a $50,000 deal: a flat fee if the Coors Light team would help Armstrong win the million-dollar prize by not challenging him for the victory in the rest of that second race and the entire final race. Coors Light was a strong team with riders who also were among the top contenders.
    Later that night, several riders from each team discussed the deal in the hotel room Armstrong shared with his