Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong by David Walsh Page B

been shaken by his conversation with Leblanc, I read every piece in the newspaper through the remaining five days and it wasn’t difficult to detect a shift in L’Équipe ’s position. They were softer on Armstrong, more accepting of him as the Tour de France champion.
    I don’t know how much influence the Tour de France organiser was able to exercise over what appeared in L’Équipe , or what consequences (if any) were threatened or hinted at; but the questions were no longer phrased in headlines and the newspaper somehow seemed to suspend its disbelief. They never descended to cheerleading, and Bouvet, Rouet and Ballester stayed true to their disbelief, but no longer could you say, ‘ L’Équipe doesn’t believe Armstrong.’
    I was learning lessons, and the first was that with a drugs story you know you are onto something when somebody in control warns you to stop and perhaps gently suggests you remember who puts the butter on your croissant.
    Almost ten years earlier, when Paul had quit the peloton and written Rough Ride , the chorus of disapproval from his old comrades was loud and aggressive. One of his old teammates tried to physically assault him. He had spat in the soup. Many of his new colleagues in the press tent weren’t a lot better. They were sipping from the same bowl.
    Armstrong’s last important challenge in the race didn’t come in the Pyrenees or in the individual time trial at Futuroscope on the penultimate day, but from an investigation by the journalist Benoît Hopquin of Le Monde that showed he had tested positive for a banned corticosteroid earlier in the race. Such drugs can be permitted under prescription, but Armstrong didn’t mention he had one when signing his doping control form. At a press conference in Saint-Gaudens, Hopquin asked what had happened.
    Without so much as a quiver of doubt, Armstrong pressed the ‘attack’ button and called Le Monde ‘the gutter press’ and then, turning on Hopquin, said, ‘Mr Le Monde , are you calling me a doper or a liar?’ The journalist was taken aback by Armstrong’s aggression, and every other journalist in the room remained silent, instinctively fearing any intervention would draw the wrath of Armstrong upon them.
    Le Monde would run the cortisone story saying he had tested positive, but the UCI quickly released a statement saying it was not a positive test, clarifying that it had received a prescription for the drug found in Armstrong’s urine and reminding journalists to exercise caution before writing about this story. In its communiqué, the UCI did not specify when it received the prescription from the US Postal team. 12
    The Tour rolled on to Paris. And Lance Armstrong, for whom the years since his last Tour had been spent in part having a testicle, lung cysts and brain lesions removed from his body, showed not a hint of vulnerability. On the morning of the final stage, riders transferred by train from Futuroscope to Arpajan, south of Paris. Only three of us made that journey in the car as John got a one-on-one interview with Lance and travelled as his guest on the train.
    Already the story had divided the salle de presse , even split our little group of four. A Dutch journalist complained to me of the French: ‘There is no evidence and in Holland everyone gives Armstrong credit.’ I asked what if the suspicions of doping turned out to be true. He looked at me with pity. ‘Everyone knows Tour de France riders are doped. If you don’t accept that you shouldn’t be covering the sport.’ And we, the guys asking the questions, were the cynics?
    Armstrong’s control of the race was absolute and for a diminishing few in the press tent this was disturbing. For others their sense of admiration made any suspicions or questions a trespass. Some of those who knew the most about what we were seeing said the least.
    In my mind the pro-Lance masses were cheerleading a great sport all the way to the hospice. Close to Paris Jean-Marie