Book review: The secret race

Lance Armstrong was right. It wasn't about the bike. It was about the EPO, testosterone and blood doping. After years of denials and hundreds of thousands of dollars (more likely millions) in legal bills, Mr. Armstrong gave up the fight against the USADA. As a result the UCI (international cycling body) stripped Mr. Armstrong of his record seven consecutive Tour de France titles.

Yes, I know there are those who still swear that Lance did nothing wrong (my wife is one of them). Those who still believe in Lance are either naive or blind to reality. For an inside look at the reality of bike racing you might want to take a look at The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France, Doping, Cover-ups and Winning at All Costs by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle.

Mr. Hamilton, who was busted for doping, broke the code of silence of the peleton and revealed just what the top riders in the world did to put themselves in position to win the most coveted bike race in the world.

Tyler Hamilton and Lance Armstrong were teammates on the US Postal Service team. Hamilton served as Armstrong's loyal lieutenant guiding him the mountains and protecting him from attacks from the field.

The Secret Race takes us behind the curtain and into a secretive world of doctors, science and cheating on a scale you just won't believe.

Doping was so pervasive in the late 90's and into the 2000's that the UCI has refused to name a winner for the Tour de France from 1999-2005. In the seven years that Lance Armstrong won the race, 20 of the 21 racers who wound up on the podium have been implicated in cheating.

The obvious question, however, is should it even matter that Armstrong cheated? Professional sports long ago stopped being about the sport. It's all about the marketing now. Companies are willing to spend millions of dollars to put their name on a biker's shirt or shorts (or on the driving suit of a race car driver). Television networks are willing to spend insane amounts of money to purchase the right to broadcast a sporting event because they know there are plenty of advertisers who will be more than happy to pony up a bunch of money for the privilege of running an ad during the telecast.

All of that money flowing into the sport puts tremendous pressure on athletes to find whatever edge they can in order to stay at the top of their craft. It doesn't matter whether we're talking football, baseball, track and field or bike racing, if you're not pushing the envelope and stretching the rules as far as you can, you risk being left behind.

The Secret Race will open your eyes to the secret world of bike racing, but it will also make you take a second look at the public persona of Lance Armstrong. There is the Lance you see on television and in the press - and then there's the Lance the rest of the peleton knew. I'm sure it goes with the territory but the Lance depicted in the book is egotistical, manipulative, insecure and very, very cunning.

You won't look at the yellow bracelet the same again.

Rewriting the past

If you followed the Tour de France back in the early to mid 90's then you knew who Lance Armstrong was before he became famous. He was a typical tour racer. He would win a stage here and there but he was never in the fight for the overall lead. You may even remember the image of him in the last tour he rode before being struck with cancer. He had to abandon the race as he was worn out and couldn't go any further. The last shot of him was pedaling away from the race on a dreary, rainy day.

Then came the cancer saga and a new Lance Armstrong was born. He was forced to start from scratch and adopted new training technique and methods. And then in the summer of 1999, Lancemania exploded on the scene as everyone who had no idea what tour racing was all about got hooked as Armstrong won the first of his seven consecutive yellow jerseys.

But rumors followed him throughout his seven victories. Whether it was allegations of steroids, EPO, medications or blood transfusions, the smoke was all around him. No, he never did test positive for any banned substance while riding in Le Tour, but then Barry Bonds has never tested positive either, has he?

The tests are designed to detect banned substances, masking agents and metabolites of both. As we know from baseball, the cheaters are always one step ahead. There is so much money involved in the sport that the medical directors of the teams spend their time conducting Frankenstein-type experiments to determine how to increase the number and size of red blood cells without tipping off the testers.

It's not about the steroids. Steroids might be used during training to aid the cyclists in recovering from the effects of their workouts and rides, but the game during the race has always been to get more oxygen into the riders' bodies. And the oxygen comes in via the red blood cells.

EPO was the drug of choice in the 80's and 90's. The tests couldn't detect the drug but the authorities decided that if a rider's hematocrit level (percentage of red blood cells) was over 55% (or so), then the rider was doping and he was disqualified. That's when the cheating went all high-tech.

Riders would sleep in portable hyperbaric chambers prior to mountain stages. The oxygen in the chambers would ramp up the body's production of red blood cells which would increase the amount of oxygen going to the muscles. Riders also used blood transfusions to pump up their performance. A rider would have a pint of blood withdrawn here and there during the offseason and it would be stored in an oxygen-rich environment - or it would be treated with a cocktail of various drugs. Prior to the Tour de France the blood would be placed back into the rider's system.

The tests now are more sophisticated but they are still playing catch up (it's much like the government is always fighting the last war or the last terrorist attack instead of looking ahead).

For years Lance Armstrong fought the allegations with as much vigor as he attacked a mountain pass. But the United States Anti-Doping Agency wouldn't go away. They had lined up a bevy of his former teammates and competitors who were willing to throw Armstrong under the bus. But let's face it, all of the well-known riders have either been caught doping or are dodging allegations themselves. The sport is anything but clean.

But now, instead of going before an arbitrator to fight the allegations, Mr. Armstrong has raised the white flag. The USADA said that his refusal to go to arbitration in the matter is an admission of guilt. And with that tacit admission of guilt, his record seven consecutive Tour de France wins disappear - at least according to the USADA.

Maybe Lance played it right. Without an arbitration hearing the public doesn't see or hear the evidence against him. There is no smoking gun. Mr. Armstrong can claim he was the victim of a witch hunt and walk away knowing that he never failed a drugs test during his riding career. The USADA can posture all they want about stripping him of his Tour de France titles, but the public will remember who crossed the finish line on the Champs-Elysees those seven years running.

My wife thinks it's all a bunch of crap. She refuses to believe that Armstrong cheated. She has bought into the deification of Lance Armstrong. Anything short of an admission that he cheated won't be enough to convince her otherwise. And she's just one of many who feel the same way.

By bowing out of the fight, Mr. Armstrong lives to fight another day. He can still claim he's never failed a test and that there is no proof that he ever cheated. There will always be just enough doubt for him to maintain his claims of innocence.

I don't know the truth, but I have long suspected that Lance Armstrong walked a very fine line after coming back from his bout with cancer. I do believe he cheated and bent the rules. I don't think he's the only one. But I can't prove it.

Going out on top

Professional athletes are driven by desire and by ego. They are fueled by ability and conditioning. At some point, however, in the life of every professional athlete, there comes a time when the ability can't keep up with ego.

We've all seen the once-great athlete hanging around one or two years too many. Willie Mays stumbling around the outfield for the Mets. Johnny Unitas running for his life with the Chargers. Richard Petty tooling around at the back end of the field for NASCAR. Miguel Indurain struggling in the Pyrennes.

I think you can add Lance Armstrong to that list. The former seven-time Tour de France champion, who went out on top, came back after a three year retirement in search of his eighth Tour title. His Astana teammate Alberto Contador put an end to that quest on Sunday in the Alps.

Lance's ego was bigger than his ability and the result was his being left in Contador's dust in the very mountains where Lance toyed with the peleton during his heyday.

The same danger confronts attorneys in trial. You've got a witness on the ropes. Your cross examination is spot on. You've exposed his motivation. You've revealed inconsistencies in his story. You've forced him to admit he might have been mistaken.

Then you ask the dreaded "one question too many." After the witness takes your question deep and out of the park you are left to wonder what went wrong. The case was yours to win and now, it's just out there.

Rarely do you know for certain whether you are about to ask that fateful question. But there are a couple of signs that might help you avoid looking like Brad Lidge after Albert Pujols crushed that homerun in the Game 6 of the 2005 NLCS.

First, is the witness smart? Or, to put another way, is the witness a person who testifies regularly? If the answer is yes, you need to be careful once things start rolling your way during cross. Keep your head about you and think about what you're doing.

Second, if the witness has just conceded a number of points and you've got the coup de gras on the tip of your tongue -- don't ask it. Save that question and pose it rhetorically to the jury during closing argument. Then you don't have to worry about being taken deep by a seasoned witness.