Lanced: The Shaming of Lance Armstrong by David Walsh, Paul Kimmage, John Follain, Alex Butler Read Free Book Online Page B

well as believing Motorola was clean, Armstrong says he has proof that US Postal runs a clean programme. He points to the team's three weeks of drug-free urine at last year's Tour de France. To the suggestion that the Tour's tests find only detectable drugs, he replies that there will always be "cynics and sceptics and zealots".
    We talk about Prentice Steffen, team doctor for US Postal in 1996, the year before Armstrong joined the team. Steffen had been with the team since 1993, when it was Subaru-Montgomery, and continued as team doctor in the first year of US Postal's involvement. With Postal's backing came the ambition to compete against Europe's best. In 1996 they entered the Tour of Switzerland.
    "We were wiped out," said Steffen. "Two of my riders approached me saying they wanted to 'talk about the medical programme'. It was said that as a team, we weren't able to get to where we wanted to go with what I was doing for them. I said, 'Well, right now I am doing everything I can.' They might have come back with 'more could be done' and I said, 'Yeah, I understand, but I am not going to be involved in that'."
    Steffen is sure he was being asked to help two riders to dope. After that informal discussion, relations cooled between the doctor and his riders. Four months later, a message was left on Steffen's voicemail saying the team no longer needed him.
    In November 1996, Steffen received a letter from firm Keesal, Young and Logan, attorneys for the US Postal team. The letter said his suspicions about his departure were incorrect but he would be held responsible for his comments if he made them public. Until now, Steffen has not spoken out in public. Armstrong says he is surprised by the doctor's story. But is it not a serious accusation against the team? "If it's so serious and so sincere, I would think I would have heard that [before now]."
    OUR conversation turns to Kevin Livingston, Armstrong's first lieutenant and close friend on the US Postal team during the Tour de France victories. Livingston has been listed as one of 60 riders treated by Ferrari, the Italian doctor awaiting trial on doping charges.
    Ferrari is accused of treating riders with EPO, the drug that increases the blood's oxygen-carrying red cells and enhances the rider's endurance. For most humans, red cells account for 43% or 44% of the total blood volume, a measure known as the haematocrit level. To counter the abuse of EPO, the authorities now ban riders whose haematocrit exceeds 50%. The Sunday Times has seen pages from Livingston's file at Ferrari's office. The readings for his blood parameters are unusual. In December 1997 Livingston's haematocrit is recorded at 41.2%. Seven months later, a few days before the start of the 1998 Tour de France, Livingston's haematocrit is 49.9%. Such a variation in a seven-month period is uncommon.
    Did you know Kevin was linked with the doping investigation?
    "Yes."
    Did you talk with him about it?
    "No."
    Never?
    "No. You keep coming up with all these side stories. I can only comment on Lance Armstrong. I don't speak for others."
    This was your best friend?
    "But I don't meddle in their business."
    So we speak of Lance Armstrong and Michele Ferrari. Did you ever visit Dr Ferrari?
    "I did know Michele Ferrari."
    How did you get to know him?
    "When you go to races, you see people. I know every team's doctor. It's a small community."
    Did you ever visit Ferrari?
    "Have I been tested by him, gone there and consulted on certain things? Perhaps."
    Sources close to the investigation of Ferrari are more precise about Armstrong's relationship with the doctor. They tell of a series of visits by the rider to Ferrari's practice at Ferrara in northern Italy: two days in March 1999, three days in May 2000, two days in August 2000, one day in September 2000 and three days in late April/early May of this year. While he was in Ferrara, Armstrong stayed at the five-star Hotel Duchessa Isabella and at the four-star Hotel