World War Cycling: The United States of America

Perhaps it is fitting the United States Anti-Doping Authority ultimately pinned Lance Armstrong for his years of drug use, since no country benefited more publicly from doping than the USA, and no country’s heroes have had a greater downfall.

Upon the completion of the 2006 Tour de France, the United States of America had become the dominant force in world cycling, with three Tour winners and 11 Tour titles to the nation’s credit in the space of 20 years.

Now, almost 10 years later, that record reads one Tour winner with three titles.

Check out the rest of World War Cycling
PART 1: World War Cycling: The Prologue
PART 3: World War Cycling: Italy
PART 4: World War Cycling: Doping learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan
PART 5: World War Cycling: Spain
PART 6: World War Cycling: Germany and Denmark

While once upon a time teams in the Tour de France were based on national allegiances, for decades now cyclists have ridden for the team that offers the best chance at victory, or the highest salary.

Yet still many teams have a strong national identity, based on the country in which the team is registered or the nationality of prominent sponsors.

Arguably no team has had a stronger national identity than the US Postal Service, the team that USADA said in its reasoned decision “ran the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen”.

Helping reach that conclusion was the evidence of eleven of Lance’s former teammates, of whom nine were American US Postal riders, and all of who admitted to doping in their careers.

And while many of these teammates have painted Lance as the bully who made it clear that they either ‘got with the program’ or wouldn’t make the team, that excuse only works to a certain extent.

The first prominent American cyclist to get caught for doping was Tyler Hamilton. Lance’s former lieutenant departed US Postal in 2001 to fulfil his own ambitions of winning the Tour.

Instead he got caught doping. Twice.

Hamilton’s 2012 book The Secret Race, which preceded USADA’s reasoned decision by a number of months, outlined in great detail his own drug use. Hamilton has made it clear that Postal were juicing long before Lance joined the team. Furthermore, when Hamilton joined Team CSC in 2002 to chase his own Grand Tour dreams, CSC too had an established doping program.

Floyd Landis was the next American to go. Lance’s former super-domestique had also left US Postal in search of greater glory, and in 2006, the first Tour of the post-Lance era, he attained it, winning the Grand Boucle.

Days later it was announced he had tested positive for testosterone, and his title was stripped, with second place Oscar Pereiro inheriting it.

Levi Leipheimer admitted to doping on four different teams, and in 2012 his third place at the 2007 Tour was stripped for doping.

Johnathan Vaughters admitted in a sworn affidavit that he began using EPO in the mid-90s while riding for Spanish team Porcelena Santa Clara.

George Hincapie, who rode on all seven of Lance’s Tour winning teams, had results stripped from May 31, 2004 to July 31, 2006. He also admitted to having first used performance-enhancing drugs in the mid-90s.

Frankie Andreu was another to confess to his own drug use before joining USPS. And while both Hincapie and Andreu began doping while riding with Lance on Team Motorola, they also said it was a “team decision”. Lance had been fine with it, but he had hardly been the ringleader.

Lance may have helped see to it that some of the riders on US Postal started to dope. But he wasn’t the instigator for many more, nor was he the force driving them to dope throughout their careers.

No, the driving force was money. And thanks to Lance Armstrong, there was an absolute fortune to be made from cycling.

In February 2013, The New York Times estimated Armstrong’s personal wealth at $US125 million. The Lance Armstrong Foundation (now Livestrong), which Lance founded in 1997, has raised in excess of $500 million.

But to say Lance was riding a gravy train is not entirely correct – the cancer-surviving champion was the gravy train.

In their book Wheelmen, Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O’Connell of the Wall Street Journal discuss what they call ‘The Lance effect’:

“Between the time he began winning the Tour de France and his retirement, companies that made everything from bikes to helmets, cycling shoes to pedals, saw tremendous growth.”

Trek bicycles, the American company that supplied Lance’s bikes for all seven Tour victories, had global sales of around $320 million in 1998. By 2005 this had almost doubled to $600 million. Today global sales are in excess of $1 billion.

The US Postal Service did plenty of business out of Lance as well:

“The Postal Service’s senior vice president Gail Sonnenberg estimated that it had gotten ‘millions and millions’ of dollars’ worth of new business specifically because of its association with Armstrong and sponsorship of his team.”

Yet despite making “millions and millions” for the Postal Service, the US government joined Floyd Landis in a False Claims Act against Armstrong in 2013.

The thrust of their case is that Armstrong defrauded the US public – the Postal Service being owned by the United States government – by using taxpayers’ money to cheat his way to victory. Armstrong stands to lose upwards of $100 million in the suit.

So what’s his defence? According to USA Today, “Armstrong’s legal team will argue that the government knew or should have known about doping on the U.S. Postal Service cycling team – but did nothing to stop it.”

Which opens up the whole issue of who knew. Because if, as Lance says, “everyone was doing it”, then by implication “everyone” knew he was doing it.

Obviously ‘everyone’ is a step too far, but there are plenty who appear to have been in the know.

Key sponsors Oakley were quick to drop Armstrong in the wake of his stripped titles, but it has been alleged company founder Jim Jannard knew what was happening.

Greg LeMond (now, once again, America’s only Tour champion) recorded a phone conversation with Lance’s representative at Oakley, Stephanie McIlvain, in which she said, “I already told Jim Jannard what was going on and I told him I won’t lie…”

“And he says, ‘well you know there’s certain ways to get around it’.”

A great way to ‘get around’ allegations of doping is to never have tested positive, and for the better part of 15 years this was the bedrock of Lance’s clean image.

However, Lance’s 100 per cent record with doping controls has been called into question on a number of occasions, with allegations positive tests were covered up by the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale).

Specifically, it has been alleged that Hein Verbruggen, the UCI president from 1991 until 2005, was aware of Armstrong’s doping, but with cycling seeing an international boom on Lance’s back it was in the sport’s best interest to help the Texan maintain his image.

“The UCI clearly prioritised at the time covering up and defending the so-called reputation of the sport rather than catching people who were cheating,” current UCI president Brian Cookson said in March after the publishing of a report into doping by the Cycling Independent Reform Commission.

However, if Verbruggen knew and didn’t act, it may not have been purely to help the sport’s growth.

The ownership structure of a cycling team tends to be highly complex, but if you were to say anyone ‘owned’ the Postal Service, it would be American businessman Thomas Weisel.

Weisel made his fortune as an investment banker, and in 2001 Jim Ochowicz – who is now the manager of BMC Racing Team – was hired as a broker for Weisel’s firm.

Ochowicz brought to Thomas Weisel Partners a significant client: Verbruggen.

And while Ochowicz has denied that Weisel ever had access to Verbruggen’s accounts, USADA chief executive Travis Tygart told the Wall Street Journal this represented a conflict of interest:

“To have the head of the sport, who’s responsible for enforcing anti-doping rules, in business with the owner of the team that won seven straight Tours de France in violation of those rules – it certainly stinks to high heaven, particularly now, given what’s been exposed that happened under [Verbruggen’s] watch.”

Lance has claimed that Weisel knew about doping, and Hamilton’s book certainly implies as much as well. Weisel has denied any knowledge.

Today all of Lance’s former teammates have served their bans, most having done so retroactively. And while their careers as pro cyclists are over, many work in cycling as coaches, managers or pundits. Lance never will again.

Meanwhile, Verbruggen is still the honorary president of the UCI, and while Weisel no longer owns a cycling team, his billions are in no danger, having washed his hands of the team-wide conspiracy that occurred on his dime.

But finance-wise, you get the feeling Lance Armstrong will be OK. His personal fortune has been decimated, but it’s hard to feel too bad for a guy whose sob story is ‘I had to sell my mansion and private jet’.

Particularly when one of his most famous cycling rivals was found dead of a drug overdose aged 34.

Next week: Italy, Dr Michele Ferrari and the tragic death of Marco Pantani.