The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour De France: Doping, Cover-Ups, and Winning at All Costs: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour De France: Doping, Cover-Ups, and Winning at All Costs (31 page)

I was nervous, but I was reasonably confident I wasn’t being busted. I knew there were new tests for blood doping. The tests, called the off-score, measured the ratio of total hemoglobin to the number of young red blood cells, called reticulocytes. The higher the off-score, the more likelihood that a transfusion had taken place (since receiving transfusions gives you a disproportionately high number of mature red blood cells). A normal off-score was 90; the UCI rules suspended any rider who exceeded a score of 133. I knew that my score, back in April, had measured 132.9. A near miss, for sure, but I was in the safe zone.

Mostly, I was confident because I was sure I wasn’t doing anything my rivals weren’t doing. I wasn’t transfusing five BBs at once, or taking boatloads of Edgar, or trying perfluorocarbons or some other whiz-bang stuff. I was professional. My hematocrit was below 50. I was playing by the rules.

The town of Aigle, home of the UCI, is located in a scenic valley right out of
The Sound of Music
: cute Alpine cottages, farms, meadows. The UCI headquarters turned out to be the town’s single modern feature: a glass-and steel building located next to a pasture
with cows grazing. It was jarring. Until that moment, I’d always thought of the UCI as a major, state-of-the-art organization. In fact, it looked a lot more like a moderately nice office park.

Dr. Mario Zorzoli, the UCI’s chief medical officer, met me at the door. Zorzoli was a decent guy: open-faced, smiley, radiating a doctorly concern. He showed me around, and we stopped in Hein Verbruggen’s office. Verbruggen seemed pleased to see me; we made small talk. Then Zorzoli and I went to his office. He closed the door.

“Your blood tests were a little off,” he said. “Is there anything we should know about? Have you been sick?”

I told him I’d been sick earlier that spring, but now I was fine; that I was sure my scores would soon return to normal. Zorzoli showed me the data from my blood test, and he said it indicated that I may have received a blood transfusion from another person. My heart pounded, but I kept my composure—mostly because I knew I’d only received transfusions of my own blood. So I told Zorzoli that his data must be in error, impossible, and Zorzoli nodded, saying that perhaps there were other medical reasons for the result. He told me not to worry, and to keep racing as normal.

Then Zorzoli changed the subject, asking about the out-of-competition tests run by USADA. He was curious to know how they worked, and started asking questions: How did athletes notify USADA of their travels? How did athletes update changes? Did we use a website, or fax, or texting? He said he wanted to know because the UCI was going to be implementing its own out-of-competition tests soon.

The entire meeting lasted forty minutes, and left me puzzled. For the first and only time in my career—the first in anybody’s career, as far as I know—the governing body of my sport asks me to make a special trip to their headquarters as if it’s some five-alarm emergency. Then, when I get there, nothing much happens. It felt strange, anticlimactic, as if the UCI had called me in just to be able to say they called me in.

When I got back to Girona, a letter from the UCI was waiting for me, repeating Zorzoli’s warning: they would be watching me closely. I noticed the letter was dated June 10, the same day as the Ventoux time trial. It would be a few weeks before I understood why.

As the 2004 Tour approached, my numbers were lining up perfectly. I dropped the last ounces of weight: my jersey sleeves started flapping happily. I rode easy, careful not to burn too many matches. The last days around Girona were thankfully peaceful: Lance was somewhere in the Pyrenees with Ferrari and a few teammates doing their usual pre-Tour preparation.

After our success on Ventoux, the biggest physical challenge was how to dial things down. Doping or not, you’ve only got so many days of great form, and I didn’t want to waste them. Since most of the big climbs were stacked in the third week, I wanted to go in easy: to arrive at the prologue at 90 percent, then reach 100 percent by crunch time. Ufe and I worked out a plan: three BBs, one before the race, one on the first rest day after stage 8, then one after stage 13, between the Pyrenees and the Alps. Everything was set.

On the home front, Haven and I were dealing with a sad development: our beloved Tugboat was sick. Not a little sick, either. He had lost all his energy, and suddenly could hardly make it up stairs or go out for a walk. The vet told us it was internal bleeding. The best-case scenario was ulcers, but even then we knew in our hearts it was something more. It felt like our child was sick; we did all we could to make him comfortable and started him on a course of medicine. It was frightening to see the change: he’d been so happy, so healthy. As I left for the Tour, it was touch and go. I told Tugs goodbye, and that I’d see him when I got back.

I went to Madrid for the BB and then to the Tour, where Lance kept up the silent treatment he’d started back in the Dauphiné.
However, he wasn’t being silent with other riders. I’d heard from several friends in the peloton that Lance was talking a lot about Phonak, complaining that our performance was not normal, saying we were doped to the gills, hopped up on some new Spanish shit. It wasn’t true—we were doing the same things he’d done—but of course there was no way to prove that, or do much of anything except give him the silent treatment in return. He and I spent the first few days four inches apart at times, knuckle to knuckle, staring straight ahead, not saying a word. We were both being stubborn. It felt like we were in the fourth grade.

The Tour organizers like to spice the flat stages with challenges; this year they were serving a generous helping of Belgian cobblestones on stage 3. It was a flashback to the Passage du Gois from 1999—narrow, nasty sections that were destined to cause panic and crashes. The key to staying safe, as always, would be to get your team to the front and fight to stay there. Getting to the front early in the Tour is not a small thing. Everyone is fresh and ambitious; everyone is in tip-top shape. It’s like two hundred starving dogs racing for a bone; nobody backs down. For the last few years, Postal had treated the front of the race like their own private space. But now that was going to change. Before stage 3, I gathered my Phonak teammates and told them the goal.
Todos juntos adelante—
all together, all to the front.

Approaching the first big cobblestone section, the race started to get chaotic. The road was narrowing, our speed was increasing, and the number of riders at the front was multiplying: us, Postal, Mayo’s Euskaltels, Ullrich’s T-Mobile team. About nine kilometers from the cobbles, we decided to go for it:
todos juntos adelante
. Postal tried to reply, and one of their guys, Benjamin Noval, touched handlebars with someone else, and there was a crash. We took inventory: our guys made it through, so did Ullrich’s, and so did Lance’s. But Mayo didn’t. He crashed, and was left behind; lost nearly four minutes by day’s end. A lesson for us all.

Lance was furious. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it. We were every bit as strong as Postal, which we proved the following day at the team time trial. Postal had a flawless run. And even though we had four blown tires, one broken handlebar, and three teammates left behind, we still finished second, 1:07 behind Postal. It was a message: even when we mess up, we’re right next to you.

The next day, early in the race, Floyd Landis and I were riding next to each other. I still liked Floyd, and I think he felt the same about me. We shot the breeze for a minute. Then Floyd looked around.

“You need to know something.”

I pulled in closer. Floyd’s Mennonite conscience was bothering him.

“Lance called the UCI on you,” he said. “He called Hein, after Ventoux. Said you guys and Mayo were on some new shit, told Hein to get you. He knew they’d called you in. He’s been talking shit nonstop. And I think it’s right that you know.”

For a second, I was confused—how did Floyd know the UCI had called me in? I’d told no one about the meeting; only Haven and a couple people in Phonak management knew. But Floyd knew. Because, I realized, Lance had told him.

I don’t get mad very often. But when I do it’s for real: time slows down and I can feel myself rising out of myself, almost like I’m looking down on this other person through a red mist.

Now it all made sense: the trip to Aigle, the weird meeting with Dr. Zorzoli. It had all been because of Lance. Lance had called the UCI on June 10, the day I’d beaten him on Ventoux, the same date they told me to come in, the same date of the warning letter they’d sent to Girona. Lance called Hein, and Hein called me.
^†

The bike race seemed to disappear. I felt years of pent-up anger cracking loose inside me. I felt heat, rising up.

Lance called the UCI on you.

Told Hein to get you.

He’s been talking shit nonstop.

I rode up next to Lance. Together again, a few inches apart. He could see I was pissed, so he opened his mouth to say something. He didn’t get far.

—Shut the fuck up, Lance, you piece of shit, shut the fuck up. I know you. I know what you did. I know you’ve been ratting me out, talking shit about our team. Worry about yourself, because we’re going to fucking kill you.

Lance’s eyes got wide.

“It’s not true. I never fucking said a word. Who told you that? I didn’t say anything like that. Who said it? Who the fuck said I did?”

—Never mind who said it. You know it’s true.

A circle slowly widened around us. He was almost frantic; he insisted he was innocent, and wanted to know who’d told me.

“I didn’t say fucking anything. Who said I did? Who? Fucking tell me who.”

I didn’t say a word.

“Who? Tell me who. Who?”

—Fuck you, Lance.

I felt like I’d been waiting to say those three words for the past six years. I rode off and joined my teammates. At the front.

I think it’s my destiny to have good things and bad things happen close to each other. Because later in that stage, I crashed. Actually, pretty much everybody crashed. The Tour organizers laid out a course custom-made for disaster. With one kilometer left, the road narrowed and turned, then narrowed again. We were all
going like hell, hitting that bottleneck at 65 kilometers an hour. Then kaboom—as if a land mine had gone off, people flying everywhere, bikes crumpling, scraping, people thudding, flying. Including me. I went straight into the jagged pile, flipped, and smashed down on my back. Hard.

I lay there a second, unable to breathe, convinced I’d broken my back. I felt my limbs tingle; moved gingerly, took inventory. My helmet was cracked; my bike was rideable. I climbed on, numb.

With my teammates’ help, I managed to cross the line. I spotted Ullrich and Lance; they’d been caught up in it, but looked unscathed. I felt my back, and I could feel damage. Deep damage. I was missing meat on my lower spine.

That night everything began to tighten up. Like a ratchet, tighter and tighter, until I had trouble breathing. I felt little lightning bolts of pain shooting in strange places. I called Haven. This wasn’t a normal crash. This was serious. Kristopher, the team physiotherapist, examined me. He started talking about nerve damage, possible organ damage. I cut him off.

“Be honest with me,” I said. “Is my back fucked?”

“Your back is fucked,” Kristopher said.

I managed to ride the next couple of days, which thank God weren’t big mountain stages, to make it to the rest day in Limoges. Then things got worse. Haven phoned and told me Tugboat was dying, and we decided it would be best to put him to sleep. With a heavy heart, Haven loaded Tugs into the Audi wagon and drove north to Limoges so I could say my goodbyes.

I decided to go ahead with the BB, just in case. Ufe had scheduled the transfusion for 1 p.m. at the Hotel Campanile on the north side of Limoges—a good hotel, nondescript, sort of a Holiday Inn. As it happened, Ufe wasn’t there, so the Phonak team doctors handled the transfusion; it went smoothly. I went back to my hotel room to wait for Haven and Tugs to show up. But a few minutes after I got
there, I started feeling bad. I got a headache, and felt my forehead: I was burning up.