“It’s rip Lance time” Lance Armstrong used to say when he felt he was being criticised unfairly. (If he ever felt he had been criticised fairly, he never told me.) We were not friends, just friendly. Much more than acquaintances, though not intimate. A rule of journalism is that reporters should not become friends with the people they write about because it colors their judgment, distorts their priorities.
From the start, our priorities, his and mine, were the same:Lance Armstrong. He sometimes used me and I sometimes used him. The prize forme was always access, which I had to an astonishing degree until he began toreel off those seven consecutive victories in the Tour de France and begantraveling in higher circles, surrounded by bodyguards.
“I hear that you’ve written a book about Greg LeMond,”Armstrong told me when we first met in 1992. “You going to write one about me?”We had known each other about five minutes. “Yes, I will,” I replied, “if youever amount to much.” The book appeared in 2000.
At that point, I had been writing about him for years, hadspent time with him in Texas and Paris as he recovered from cancer surgery andthen chronicled his comeback to victory in the 1999 Tour de France. I had beena visitor to his homes in Austin and Nice and had discussed with him his careeroptions if a return to bicycle racing didn’t work out; I recommended that heenroll at the University of Texas and take business courses. Or go intopolitics: He was bright and articulate, I pointed out, had a beautiful wife andthree lively children and had risen from what amounted to a trailer park as achild.
He gave me what came to be called by his race rivals “thestare.” It stopped them in their tracks. I got the stare the first time in1994, just before the Tour de France began in Lille in northern France. Wearingthe rainbow-striped jersey of the world road race champion, Armstrong admittedin an interview that he was puzzled. “I’ve only experienced one Tour de Franceand it was very, very difficult,” he said. “I’m certain this year’s going to beas difficult, if not more. There’s a lot of guys that go much faster this year.A lot of riders are stronger.” His eyes hardened, but he wouldn’t amplify hisstatement. What he meant, as everybody now knows, was that the sport hadentered the EPO (erythropoietin) doping era.
The last time I had the stare fixed on me was in 2005 orperhaps 2006 on a train from Paris to Brussels, where we were both headed forsome racing ceremony. We’d bumped into each other on the platform, said helloand went to our separate cars. A while later, an Armstrong gofer appeared andsaid I was wanted for a chat up front. He gestured for me to sit opposite himand turned on the stare. “You having anything to do with the people who aredigging up dirt on me?” he asked. No, I said, first I’d heard of it. What kindof dirt? “All kinds,” he said. “They’ve called up my former wife, my formerin-laws, everybody.” “Who’s ‘they’?” “Don’t know yet, but I will.” His eyesbore into me.
“I don’t knowanything about this,” I said truthfully. “Whoever it is, I won’t help.” Nor didI when various reporters, some good friends, got in touch and said they wereworking on Armstrong doping investigations. Nor could I have helped: Although Iheard the same rumors they did, read the same books they did and listened tothe same speculation they did – and had done for years – I had nothing to addto the conversation. I reported what I knew, which was admittedly not much ifall the charges and testimony against Armstrong are true. The Internet and massmedia are in a frenzy of condemnation now. I have not yet read or heard anysorrow or compassion about a man stripped of his honor. What I do see is thestare.
This is how two wolves end a fight: When one is beaten, hebares his throat for the kill. The other wolf never goes for it. He has won.The battle is done. So, no, even now that he has implicitly admitted hiscrimes, I don’t intend to rip Lance.
Samuel Abt covered bicycle racing for theInternational Herald Tribune and The New York Times for more than 30 years
