Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong (31 page)

Frankie, though, was right here in Belgium and Lance was pissed. He sensed the Andreus had given me more than I was letting on. In short, he didn’t believe that Betsy hadn’t talked. To compound matters I had suggested on Irish radio that although she wasn’t named as a source she was one of a number of witnesses who would come forward in a court case and back up allegations made in the book. With Frankie still dependent upon cycling for his livelihood, Lance thought there was no way Betsy would do that.

Frankie was summoned to Lance’s room in Liège. Lance told Frankie that Bill Stapleton wanted to talk to him about the possibility of having Frankie persuade Betsy to put out a statement saying she had not been a source for the book and to generally discredit me. Frankie was uncomfortable. He knew Betsy would be reluctant to do that, but he also knew he wouldn’t have much of a life in cycling if Lance was pulling against him.

Following Bill’s call, he and Frankie agreed to meet near the start at Charleroi the next day, shortly after the Tour had pulled out of town. Stapleton came with his colleague Bart Knaggs, and they probably knew getting Frankie to put the frighteners on his wife wasn’t going to be straightforward.

The previous night Frankie had called Betsy and told her about what was happening. He was feeling the pressure. If Stapleton and Armstrong could use their influence in cycling to get Betsy to sign a statement discrediting one of the authors of
L.A. Confidentiel
, it was game, set and match to them. To Betsy’s surprise, Frankie had a plan. He intended to tape Stapleton and Knaggs the next morning. Betsy always knew that she had married a genius.

‘If it’s not taped, they’ll deny the conversation ever took place.’

She told him to be careful and wished him luck.

The next morning Frankie slipped an ordinary digital recorder into the breast pocket of his shirt and waited for Stapleton and Knaggs to come across the car park.

Stapleton got to the point quite quickly: ‘You know your wife is a source for Walsh?’

Frankie: No, no, no. My wife is not a source for Walsh. When David Walsh called the first time, I called up Lance and told him – cuz Lance said. Lance told me specific to talk [to him]. I talked with him two times and the other time when David Walsh called I wasn’t home, and that was when he asked about the hospital room [inaudible]. And then she [Betsy] said, ‘No comment. I got nothing to say.’

Bill: That’s it?

Frankie: About talking to him?

[inaudible comments]

Bill: Yeah.

Frankie: Well, yeah.

Bill: Yet he claims she’s a source for that conversation. Would she be willing to clarify that though?

Frankie: I read in the book that LeMond’s the one who gave him that story.

Bill: No. Walsh was talking to LeMond and I think LeMond told him he heard it from Betsy and he [LeMond] claims Betsy is the source.

Frankie: Greg LeMond and Betsy don’t even know each other. One hundred per cent don’t know each other . . . and Betsy did not tell Greg LeMond about the hospital.

Bill: Well, is Betsy willing to issue a statement that – or go on the record that – she didn’t give [inaudible] no comment to Walsh and was never interviewed by him?

Frankie: She’ll say that when he called she said: ‘No comment.’

Bill: About everything that she talked to him about?

Frankie: No, because there were other conversations. When I was there I talked to him and the one time I was there, there might have been some nicky picky nothing stuff, but she didn’t really talk that much, you know. I don’t know exactly, but dealing with the hospital-room thing, that is what she said.

At this point there is some discussion punctuated by inaudible sections about my radio appearance in Ireland, where I had said that, if needed, my anonymous sources would back up their version on oath. I then mentioned Betsy as one of these.
⁴⁸

Frankie: Well, I’d like to get a transcript of that [the radio show].

Bart and Bill: Okay.

Frankie: David Walsh is lying. He does not have a taped thing of Betsy saying that she would do that.

Bill: All right.

For some time Frankie sticks to the version of events that involves Betsy saying ‘no comment’. Stapleton and Knaggs are not to be diverted from their plan, however. Again and again they press.

Bill: It would be very helpful if she would . . . was just willing to make a statement, cuz, see [Walsh] has talked to other people about her and said that she’s very courageous, and she’s willing to take a stand against Lance, [that] she knows these things about Lance. That she’s told him [Walsh].

And again.

Bill: [Walsh is] trying to take the people that gave him very little . . .

Bart: . . . and build them up . . .

Bill: . . . and make them bigger, like LeMond. LeMond’s not going to testify against Lance and all those people.

And once again.

Bill: The question . . . the question is, if she’d be willing to take a strong position that she [inaudible] didn’t give him anything about the hospital room [inaudible]. That’s very important, cuz it says that he’s lying [inaudible], he lied about sources . . . and if she’s willing to make a statement that she’d never testify against Lance: again, that makes him a liar . . .

The fascinating aspect of this conversation and the Armstrong camp’s attempt to destroy my credibility is that at no stage does Bill Stapleton attempt to convince Frankie Andreu that the hospital story is untrue, and at no stage does Bill Stapleton try to convince Frankie Andreu that he – Stapleton – had been in the room at the time. Stapleton and Lance would both later claim this to have been the case.

In the end – the conversation took about twenty minutes – Bill Stapleton sums up the overall strategy for Frankie:

Bill: Because the best result for all of us is to [inaudible] pick away at him [inaudible] enough between his witnesses that he has taken things, pieced this hodge-parcel together, and show the Sunday Times and show his publisher that it really is falling apart, and [at] that point extract an apology, drop the fucking lawsuit and it all just goes away [inaudible]. Because the other option is full-out war in a French court [inaudible] and everybody’s gonna testify [inaudible]. It could blow the whole sport.

Frankie: I agree.

That was Frankie and Betsy’s story. You grow up close to Detroit you learn how to handle yourself. They had each other.

I knew they’d be okay.

16

‘As a society aren’t we supposed to forgive and forget and let people get back to their job? Absolutely. I’m not sure I will ever forgive you.’

Lance Armstrong to Paul Kimmage, 2009

In July 2005 Lance Armstrong won his seventh Tour de France but, unlike him, I had by then grown tired of the procession around France. It was like a dull party game: pass the yellow jersey from rider to rider until it got to the guy from Texas. He’d keep it all the way to Paris.

So, I passed on the ’05 race, feeling there was nothing more I had to say, apart from three standard homilies of disapproval. Staying away denied me the privilege of hearing Lance express sympathy for the trolls of the world. ‘
I’m sorry that you can’t dream big
.’ By then, however, I suspected that even his sincerity was fake.

It wasn’t supposed to end like that: Lance, on the podium, wreathed in sunshine and smiles, delivering a two-fingered salute to those of us who had tried and failed. Heist over, he was heading for the hills.

A week before, I had been covering golf at the Open Championship in St Andrews, the delightful little town on the Fife coast in Scotland. We stayed at a house not more than a mile from the Old Course and I shared a room with Paul. Two of us. Twin beds. Like Father Ted and Father Dougal.

It was the Saturday night, our work for the
Sunday Times
was done, Tiger Woods had a two-shot lead going into the final round, and we were lying in our beds not yet ready for sleep. There was something Paul needed to tell me.

‘I want to talk to you about Armstrong,’ he said.

‘What about?’ I asked.

‘I think you’ve got to let it go. You’ve done great work, taken it so far and now is the time to move on.’

‘Why do you think so?’

‘Because it has taken over your life and I think Mary and the kids have suffered by you being so wrapped up in this.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

‘Yeah, I do. Do you realise that virtually every conversation we have now is about Armstrong? Every time you call me it’s because of something you’ve heard about him, and I’m left thinking that if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t hear from you.’

‘Have I been that bad?’

‘Yeah. And this isn’t that good for your career either. You saw what happened last year when you nearly left the paper. You have done your bit; get a bit more balance back in your working life and make sure you’ve got more time for your family. And remember too that Armstrong is only one guy, you don’t want to forget all the others.’

I didn’t argue the case. When your closest friend says something important, it is worth listening. Presume he is right and think about it. Paul was right about how much of my life Armstrong consumed.

It was once believed a man thought about sex every seven seconds, but more recent research says the true number is twenty times a day. My Armstrong thoughts were somewhere between those two figures.

‘And, Mr Walsh,’ the immigration officer at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport would say, ‘what is the purpose of your visit to the United States?’

‘Business, sir.’

‘And what is the nature of your business?’

‘I’m a sportswriter, and I’m going to be interviewing people about Lance Armstrong.’

‘Lance Armstrong, he’s the cyclist, right?’

‘Yeah. I’m hoping to show that actually he’s a fraud, been using banned drugs to win.’

‘Oh . . . you have a good day now.’

Or I’m standing in a slow-moving line to the x-ray scanner at an airport and the stranger alongside me is wearing a yellow Livestrong wristband. ‘Do you support Lance?’ I say to entrap him. He says, ‘Yeah I do,’ and I give him the full history, the overwhelming evidence, the sense that you would have to be brain dead not to see the truth. One victim has stayed in my mind: dark business suit, white shirt, clean cut, no watch, just the wristband. He looked at me, shook his head, and forfeited ten places in the line to get away.

A wet evening in Christchurch, New Zealand, 2005, getting on a media bus after the British and Irish Lions had lost a Test match to the All Blacks. I take my seat as the much-liked
Independent
rugby writer Chris Hewett offered a little light-hearted banter: ‘Here comes Lance Armstrong.’ It earned a few giggles but none were mine. ‘Chris, what the fuck did you ever do that was worthwhile?’ Chris is a fine writer and a well-rounded man, and he must have thought I had lost it completely. Possibly I had.

Despite his warning to me, Paul wasn’t much better himself. In 2006 we were sharing a house in Augusta at the sportswriter’s dream event, the Masters. Paul is friends with Fanny Sunesson, the caddie, and Fanny had a friend over from Sweden, a 16-year-old elite amateur keen to watch every minute of Masters play. Alas he had no pass for the final day, which Fanny mentioned to Paul, who had a spare pass.

It was arranged for Fanny’s friend to come to our house early on the Sunday morning. A little after nine there was a knock on the door. He was a very impressive looking 16-year-old, over six feet tall, pencil-thin but still giving the impression of strength. And if he did make it to the pros he wouldn’t have to change his wardrobe because he was dressed in creased white slacks with a bright yellow polo shirt. Blond hair and blue eyes didn’t detract from the overall look. There was only one thing that didn’t sit well with Paul and me. The yellow wristband. Now a pass for the final day’s play at the Masters may be the hottest ticket in world sport, but if you’re getting it from Paul Kimmage free, gratis, and for nothing, don’t turn up with the wristband.

It wasn’t my pass and not my problem. All I did was open the door and stand to one side. Paul’s brain switched to overdrive.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Fanny’s friend, you’ve come for the pass?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Okay, first though, just let me see your wristband.’ The guy stretches his right arm towards Paul. ‘No, just let’s see it,’ says Paul, indicating that he wants him to remove it. He does that and hands it to Paul, having no idea why he’s doing this. I move another step back from the action. ‘Now,’ says Paul, looking at Young Swede, ‘watch this.’

He walks across to the drawer containing the cutlery and picks out a large pair of scissors. Then he takes the wristband and folds it over once, then a second time, then again, until it is a tightly wound coil of rubber. Young Swede is utterly perplexed but, as Paul brings scissors and rubber together, it becomes clear what is going to happen next.

The scissors slice silently through the rubber and the fragments are suddenly all over the kitchen floor. There is an embarrassed silence, broken then by Paul as he matter-of-factly points to the floor. ‘That guy,’ he says, ‘is a fraud. You should know that.’

The young Swede remains silent. Paul then produces the pass, smiles as he’s handing it over and says, ‘I hope you really enjoy it out there today.’

‘Thank you,’ says our new friend.

Paul was right about the story consuming more of my life than it should. But because it was unresolved, it wouldn’t go away.