PROFILES THE LONG RIDE

How did manage the greatest comeback in sports history?

BY MICHAEL SPECTER

couple of weeks ago, on a swelter- times in a row. (In 1995, the Spanish “I bonked,” Armstrong said later, Aing Saturday afternoon, I found cyclist Miguel Indurain became the first using a cyclist’s term for running out of myself in the passenger seat of a small to win five consecutively—a record that fuel. A professional cyclist consumes so Volkswagen,careering so rapidly around is clearly on Armstrong’s mind.) much energy—up to ten thousand calo- the hairpin turns of the French The cyclists had covered a hundred ries during a two-hundred-kilometre that I could smell the tires burning. and eight kilometres, much of it over mountain stage—that, unless some of Johan Bruyneel, the suave, unflappable mountain passes still capped with snow, it is replaced, his body will run through director of the United States Postal despite temperatures edging into the all the glycogen (the principal short- Service Pro Cycling Team, was behind nineties. Now the peloton—the term is term supply of carbohydrates the body the wheel. Driving at ninety kilometres French for “platoon,” and it describes uses for power) stored in his muscles. an hour occupied half his attention. the pack of riders who make up the Armstrong hadn’t eaten properly that The rest was devoted to fiddling with a main group in every race—was about to morning; then he found himself cut off small television mounted in the dash- start one of the most agonizing climbs from his domestiques—the teammates board, examining a set of complicated in Europe, the pass between Mont Blanc who, among other things, are responsi- topographical maps, and talking into and Lake Geneva, which is known as ble for bringing him supplies of food one of two radio transmitters in the car. the Col de Joux Plane. In cycling, climbs and water during the race. “That was The first connected Bruyneel to the are rated according to how long and the hardest day of my life on a bike,” team’s support vehicle, laden with extra steep they are: the easiest is category Armstrong said later. He was lucky to bicycles, water bottles, power bars, and four, the hardest category one. The finish the day’s stage, and even luckier other tools and equipment. The second seventeen-hundred-metre Joux Plane to hold on and win the race. fed into the earpieces of the eight U.S. has a special rating, known as hors cate- “This isn’t just a stage in a race for Postal Service cyclists who were racing gorie, or beyond category; for nearly Lance,” Bruyneel said now, as Arm- along the switchbacks ahead of us. The twelve kilometres, it rises so sharply strong approached the bottom of the entire team could hear every word that that it seems a man could get to the top slope. “He needs to defeat this moun- Bruyneel said, but most of the time he only by helicopter. tain to feel ready for the Tour.” This was talking to just one man: Lance “We start the Joux Plane with a lot time, Bruyneel made sure that the do- Armstrong. of respect for this mountain,” Bruyneel mestiques ferried water, carbohydrate We had been on the road for about said quietly into his radio. “It is long, it drinks, and extra power bars to Arm- three hours and Armstrong was a kilo- is hard. Take it easy. If people are break- strong throughout the day. They peri- metre in front of us, pedalling so fast ing away, let them go. Do you hear me, odically drifted back to our car and per- that it was hard to keep up. It was the Lance?” formed a kind of high-speed docking sixth day of the Dauphiné Libéré, a “Yes, Johan,” Armstrong replied maneuver so that Bruyneel could thrust weeklong race that is run in daily stages. flatly. “I remember the mountain.” water bottles, five or six at a time, into Armstrong doesn’t enter races like the With only a few days remaining in their outstretched arms. Dauphiné to win (though often enough the 2000 Tour de , Armstrong Last year, Armstrong won the Tour, he does); he enters to test his legs in had what most observers agreed was an for the third time in a row, by covering preparation for a greater goal—the insurmountable lead when he headed 3,462 kilometres at an average speed of . Since 1998, when he toward this pass. He was riding with his more than forty kilometres an hour— returned to cycling after almost losing two main rivals of that year: Marco the third-fastest time in the history of his life to testicular cancer, Armstrong Pantani, the best-known Italian cyclist, the event. In all, during those three has focussed exclusively on dominat- and , the twenty-eight-year- weeks in July, Armstrong spent eighty- ing the thirty-five-hundred-kilometre, old German who won the Tour in six hours, seventeen minutes, and twenty- nearly month-long Tour, which, in the 1997, and who in the world of cycling eight seconds on the bike. “Lance al- world of cycling, matters more than all plays the role of Joe Frazier to Arm- most killed himself training for the last other races combined. This week, he strong’s Ali. As they started to climb, Tour,” Bruyneel told me. “This year, he begins a quest to become the fourth Armstrong seemed invincible. Halfway is in even better shape. But the press person in the hundred-year-history of up, though, he slumped over his han- still wants to talk about drugs.” the Tour—the world’s most gruelling dlebars, looking as if he had suffered a It is, of course, hard to write about test of human endurance—to win four stroke, and Ullrich blew right by him. cycling and not discuss performance- CORBIS SABA

48 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 15, 2002

TNY—07/15/02—PAGE 48—133SC. Armstrong’s heart is almost a third larger than an average man’s; his body seems built for cycling. Photograph by Martin Schoeller.

TNY—07/15/02—PAGE 49—LIVE ART R11197.CROP—133SC—CRITICAL CUT TO BE WATCHED THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PRESS RUN enhancing drugs, because at times so “He is already winning, and is ex- tronauts. “He has always wanted to test many of the leading competitors seem tremely fit. Still, people always ask that the boundaries,” she said. Armstrong to have used them. Strict testing mea- one question: How can he do this with- admits that he was never an easy child. sures have been in force since 1998, out drugs? I understand why people In his autobiography, “It’s Not About when the Tour was nearly cancelled ask, because our sport has been tainted. the Bike,” which was written with the after an assistant for the Festina team But Lance has a different trick, and I journalist Sally Jenkins, he said, “When was caught with hundreds of vials of have watched him do it now for four I was a boy I invented a game called , or EPO, a hormone that years: he just works harder than anyone fireball, which entailed soaking a tennis can increase the oxygen supply to the else alive.” ball in kerosene, lighting it on fire, and blood. But the changes have brought playing catch with it.” only limited success: just this May, Ste- ance Armstrong’s heart is almost a Armstrong was an outstanding young fano Garzelli and , two Lthird larger than that of an average swimmer, and as an adolescent he began of Europe’s leading cyclists, were forced man. During those rare moments when to enter . By 1987, when he to withdraw from the Giro d’Italia, he is at rest, it beats about thirty-two was sixteen, he was also winning bicycle Italy’s most important race. times a minute—slowly enough so that races. That year, he was invited to the Because Armstrong is the best cy- a doctor who knew nothing about him Cooper Institute, in Dallas, which was clist in the world, there is an assump- would call a hospital as soon as he heard one of the first centers to recognize the tion among some of those who follow it. (When Armstrong is exerting him- relationship between fitness and aerobic the sport that he, too, must use drugs. self, his heart rate can edge up above conditioning. Everyone uses oxygen to Armstrong has never failed a drug test, two hundred beats a minute.) Physi- break down food into the components however, and he may well be the most cally, he was a prodigy. Born in 1971, that provide energy; the more oxygen frequently examined athlete in the his- Armstrong was raised by his mother you are able to use, the more energy you tory of sports. Whenever he wins a in Plano, a drab suburb of Dallas that will produce, and the faster you can run, day’s stage, or finishes as one of the top he quickly came to despise. He never ride, or swim. Armstrong was given a cyclists in a longer race, he is required knew his father, and refers to him as test called the VO2 Max, which is com- to provide a urine sample. Like other “the DNA donor.” He has written that monly used to assess an athlete’s aero- professionals, Armstrong is also tested “the main thing you need to know about bic ability: it measures the maximum randomly throughout the year. (The my childhood is that I never had a real amount of oxygen the lungs can con- World Anti-Doping Agency, which father, but I never sat around wish- sume during exercise. His levels were regularly tests athletes, has even ap- ing for one, either....I’ve never had a the highest ever recorded at the clinic. peared at his home, in Austin, Texas, single conversation with my mother (Currently, they are about eighty-five at dawn, to demand a urine sample.) about him.” millilitres per kilogram of body weight; Nobody questions Armstrong’s excel- He was a willful child and didn’t like a healthy man might have a VO2 Max lence. And yet doubts remain: is he re- to listen to advice. “I have loved him of forty.) ally so gifted that, like Secretariat, he every minute of his life, but, God, there Chris Carmichael, who became his easily dominates even his most talented were times when it was a struggle,” his coach when Armstrong was still a teen- competitors? mother, Linda, told me. She is a de- ager, told me that even then Armstrong “It’s terribly unfair,” Bruyneel told mure woman with the kind of big was among the most remarkable ath- me as we drove through the mountains. blond hair once favored by wives of as- letes he had ever seen. Not only has his cardiovascular strength always been ex- ceptional; his body seems specially con- structed for cycling. His thigh bones are unusually long, for example, which per- mits him to apply just the right amount of torque to the pedals. Although Armstrong was talented, he wasn’t very disciplined. He acted as if he had nothing to learn. “I had never met him when I took over as his coach,” Carmichael told me. “I called him up and we talked on the phone. He was kind of rude. Not kind of rude. He was completely rude. He was, like, ‘So you are the new coach—what are you going to teach me?’ He just thought he was King Shit. I would tell him to wait till the end of a race before making a break. “You forget what the sand smells like, then you remember He just couldn’t do that. He would get and swear you’ll never leave, then you get bored.” out in front and set the pace. He would

TNY—07/15/02—PAGE 50—133SC.—LIVE OPI—A6756—133SC. burn up the field, and when other riders came alive he would be done, spent.” Still, Armstrong did well in one-day races, in which bursts of energy count as much as patience or tactical preci- sion. In 1991, after several years of in- creasingly impressive performances, he became the U.S. amateur champion, and the next year he turned pro. In 1993, he became the youngest man ever to win a stage in the Tour de France; he won the World Road Championships the same year. In 1996, Armstrong signed a con- tract with the French cycling team Cofidis, for a salary of more than two million dollars over two years. He had a beautiful new home in Austin, and a Porsche that he liked to drive fast. Then, in September, he became unusu- ally weak and felt soreness in one of his testicles. Since soreness is a part of any cyclist’s life, he didn’t give it much thought. One night later that month, •• however, several days after his twenty- fifth birthday, he felt something metal- left burns on his skin from the inside I’m quitting.’ My coaching side just lic in his throat while he was talking out. Cofidis, convinced that Armstrong’s wanted to scream.” on the phone. He put his friend on career (and perhaps his life) was over, Carmichael and Bill Stapleton, Arm- hold, and ran into the bathroom. “I told his agent while he was still in the strong’s close friend and agent, helped coughed into the sink,” he later wrote. hospital that it wanted to reconsider the persuade him that this wasn’t the way “It splattered with blood. I coughed terms of his contract. That may have to end his career. “We said, ‘You will again, and spit up another stream of turned out to be the worst bet in the his- look back on this and be disappointed— red. I couldn’t believe the mass of blood tory of sports. you are going out as a quitter,’ ” Car- and clotted matter had come from my Armstrong did recover, but his first michael told me. Armstrong agreed to own body.” attempts to return to competition ended prepare for one last race, in the United Within a week, Armstrong had sur- in exhaustion and depression. “In an States. He, Carmichael, and a friend gery to remove the cancerous testicle. odd way, having cancer was easier than went to Boone, a small town in North By then, the disease had spread to his recovery—at least in chemo I was doing Carolina where Armstrong liked to lungs, abdomen, and brain. He needed something, instead of just waiting for train. “Early April,” Carmichael re- brain surgery and the most aggressive it to come back,” he wrote. In 1998, he called. “The first day was nice. Then type of chemotherapy. “At that point, decided to make a more serious effort to the weather turned ugly. I would fol- he had a minority chance of living return to racing. Again, he couldn’t stick low behind in the car as they trained. another year,” Craig Nichols, who was with it. “The comeback was still amaz- One day, we were to finish at the top Armstrong’s principal oncologist, told ingly risky,” Carmichael told me.“There of Beech Mountain. It was a long ride, me. “We cure at most a third of the wasn’t a doctor on this earth who could a hundred-plus miles, then the ride to people in situations like that.” A profes- say that Lance Armstrong’s lungs weren’t the top. Something happened on that sor at Oregon Health Sciences Univer- fucked up, the cancer wasn’t going to mountain. He just dropped his partner sity who specializes in testicular can- come back. Nobody said, ‘You will be and he went for it. He was racing. It cer, Nichols has remained a friend and successful and, by the way, you will win was weird. I was following behind him is an adviser to the Lance Armstrong the Tour.’ He was afraid, so he just quit. in the car. This cold rain was now a wet Foundation, which supports cancer re- I was shocked. He beats cancer. Goes snow. And I rolled down the window search. Nichols described Armstrong as to hell and back. Goes to Europe. Trains and I was honking the horn and yell- the “most willful person I have ever his ass off. Trained harder than ever. ing, ‘Go, Lance, go!’ He was attacking met.” And, he said,“he wasn’t willing to In the Ruta del Sol”—a five-day race and cranking away as though we were die.” Armstrong underwent four rounds held each year in Spain—“he was four- in the Tour. Nobody was around. No of chemotherapy so powerful that the teenth. He had never done better, even human being. Not even a cow. He got chemicals destroyed his musculature before cancer, and all indications were up to the top of that mountain and I and caused permanent kidney damage; that he was on the verge of the greatest said, ‘O.K., I’ll load the bike on the in the final treatments, the chemicals comeback in sports, and he said, ‘Hey, car and we can go home.’ He said,‘Give

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TNY—07/15/02—PAGE 51—133SC—LIVE OPI—A 7637—GUIDANCE PROOF TO ARRIVE ON FRIDAY A.M. POUCH me my rain jacket—I’m riding back.’ Armstrong replied. In other words, Vic- strong, safely tucked into a cocoon of Another thirty miles. That was all he tor Hugo Peña, a promising young teammates, can cruise just a few yards said. It was like throwing on a light Colombian climber on the team, seemed behind the leader and be “pulled” at switch.” strong enough to lead Armstrong over essentially the same speed, conserving one of the big peaks that the racers energy for later. rmstrong now says that cancer was would encounter before the Col de Joux The peloton can cover up to two hun- Athe best thing that ever happened Plane. Riders like Hugo Peña “work” dred and fifty kilometres a day without to him. Before becoming ill, he didn’t for Armstrong; they are not attempt- stopping, like a rolling army; there is a care about strategy or tactics or team- ing to win the race themselves but, “feed zone” about halfway through each work—and nobody (no matter what his rather, focussing on preventing another stage, where cyclists slow down enough abilities) becomes a great cyclist with- team from defeating Armstrong. Their to be draped with a cloth pouch, called a out mastering those aspects of the sport. job is to patrol the peloton. If a compet- musette, which is filled with fruit, power Despite Armstrong’s brilliant early start ing star tries to escape from the pack bars, and other high-carbohydrate snacks. in the 1993 Tour, for example, he didn’t in a breakaway, they must be ready to The team members take turns “work- even finish the race; he dropped out chase him down, in order to tire him out ing,” or pulling, at the front to give each when the teams entered the most diffi- and make him less of a threat later in other a rest. (Even competitors, when cult mountain phase, in the Alps. (He the race. they ride together, take turns out front, also failed to finish in 1994 and 1996.) Until it is time to sprint, climb, or at- sharing the advantages of drafting.) In As Carmichael pointed out to me, tempt a breakaway, there is usually at some ways, cycling retains an odd chiv- Armstrong had always been gifted, but least one team rider positioned in front alry that is more readily associated with “genetically he is not alone. He is near of his leader. Riding directly behind the trenches of the First World War. the top but not at the top. I have seen another man—which is called draft- During last year’s Tour, for instance, at a people better than Lance that never go ing—can save a skilled cyclist as much crucial moment in the Pyrenees, Jan Ull- anywhere. Before Lance had cancer, we as forty per cent of his energy. Asker rich veered off the road and into a ditch; argued all the time. He never trained Jeukendrup, a physiologist who directs Armstrong waited for him to get back right. He just relied on his gift. He would the Human Performance Laboratory at on his bike and catch up. Ullrich almost do what you asked for two weeks, then the University of Birmingham, has car- certainly would have done the same for flake off and do his own thing for a ried out extensive studies of the energy him. When a leader needs to urinate, month or two. And then a big race would expended by cyclists when they race. the whole pack slows down. It is an un- be coming up and he would call me up, Several years ago, Jeukendrup attached spoken but very clear element of the eti- all tense, telling me, ‘God, I have got to power meters to the bicycles of several quette of professional cycling that no- start training, and you guys better start Tour participants during critical stages. body is permitted to benefit by breaking sending me some programs.’ I would say, A power meter records a rider’s heart away while an opponent urinates (or, ‘Lance, you don’t just start preparing rate, his pedal cadence, his speed, and, worse yet, when part of the peloton is things four weeks before a race. This is most important, the watts that he gen- caught at a train crossing). Anyone who a long process.’ ” erates with every turn of the wheels. did would be unlikely to finish the race. Cycling is, above all, a team sport, (Watts provide the most accurate mea- After all, it takes little to knock a man off and the tactics involved are as compli- surement of the intensity of exercise; a bicycle, particularly at high speeds; this cated as those of baseball or basketball. heart rates vary and so does speed. The is called flicking, from the German “Ever try to explain the infield-fly rule to amount of work needed to climb a hill ficken—which means “to fuck.” somebody?” Armstrong asked me when remains the same no matter how fast Apart from the Olympics and World we were in Texas,where he lives when he you ride.) Cup soccer, the Tour is the most popular is not racing or training in Europe.“You Jeukendrup recorded the effort ex- sporting event in Europe. In France, July have to watch it to get it. As soon as you pended by a cyclist riding for six hours is a carnival, complete with thousands of pay some attention to the tactics, cycling at forty kilometres an hour in the mid- cars, buses, motorcycles, and helicopters makes a lot of sense.” dle of the peloton, shielded from the following the Tour, and daily television Riding through the French moun- wind. He compared this figure with the coverage. This year, at least fifteen mil- tains with Bruyneel, a genial thirty- power needed to propel that same man lion people—a quarter of the country’s seven-year-old who has been with U.S. riding alone. In the pack, the cyclist population—are expected to line the Postal since 1999, soon after Armstrong used an average of ninety-eight watts— highways to watch the cyclists whiz by in joined the team, I saw what he meant. which would never tire a well-trained a blurred instant. Every morning, kids (Armstrong’s athletic advisers comple- professional. On his own, however, the mass outside the team buses, begging ment each other: Carmichael is the cyclist expended an average of two hun- for autographs. If a spectator is lucky, physical strategist, and Bruyneel the tac- dred and seventy-five watts—nearly someone in the peloton will toss a used tician.) “It looks like Victor is good three times the power—to maintain the water bottle his way; it is the cycling today, so let’s save him a bit longer same speed. It is easy to see what this world’s version of a foul ball. for the Colombiere,” Bruyneel radioed means: in any race, the guy out front is The Tour de France is exactly what to Armstrong about halfway through often suffering in his attempt to lead its name suggests: a tour of France. The the day’s ride.“Sounds like a good idea,” the peloton, while somebody like Arm- race takes place over the course of three

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TNY—07/15/02—PAGE 52—133SC. weeks, with a day or two of rest, and the as helping your team win, you will get people. (At the beginning of the Tour, course is altered slightly each year, so more out of that than simply riding and Armstrong’s body fat is around four or that it passes through different villages. losing. It’s fun to be part of a winning five per cent; this season, Shaquille Each day, there is a new stage; when all team.” And it is also profitable; even O’Neal, the most powerful player in the the stages have been completed, the a journeyman cyclist can make a hun- N.B.A., boasted that his body-fat level man with the fastest cumulative time dred thousand dollars a year. (This is was sixteen per cent.) wins. (This year’s Tour will be the short- nothing like what the winners make, of The Tour de France has been de- est in its history; some people believe course; between his salary and the en- scribed as the equivalent of running this is an attempt to reduce Armstrong’s dorsements, Armstrong earned about twenty marathons in twenty days. Dur- advantage.) As a commercial and logis- fifteen million dollars last year.) Still, ing the nineteen-eighties and nineties, tical endeavor, the Tour could be com- there comes a point when a talented cy- Wim H. M. Saris, a professor of nutri- pared to a Presidential campaign or the clist no longer wants to occupy a sup- tion at the University of Maastricht, Super Bowl. Its budget is in the tens of porting role and tries to establish himself conducted a study of human endurance millions of dollars, and the winner re- as a potential leader. For several years, by following participants in the Tour.“It ceives close to four hundred thousand Armstrong’s deputy on the U.S. Postal is without any doubt the most demand- dollars. The money comes from location team was his friend Tyler Hamilton. ing athletic event,” he told me. “For one fees, paid by towns that host a stage, and This year, with Armstrong’s encourage- day,two days—sure, you may find some- from advertising revenues and broad- ment, Hamilton began riding for a Dan- thing that expends more energy. But for cast licenses. The Tour is treated as if ish competitor, CSC Tiscali, and, as one three weeks? Never.” it were its own sovereign state within of its leaders, he placed second in the Looking at a wide range of physical France: it has a police force and a travel- Giro d’Italia. activities, Saris and his colleagues mea- ling bank (the only one in the country The physical demands on competi- sured the metabolic demands made on open on Bastille Day). The entourage tive cyclists are immense. One day, they people engaged in each of them. “On includes riders, mechanics, masseurs, will have to ride two hundred kilometres average, the cyclists expend sixty-five managers, doctors, cooks, journalists, through the mountains; the next day hundred calories a day for three weeks, and race officials. Each team starts the there might be a long, flat sprint lasting with peak days of ten thousand calo- race with nine riders (though it is com- seven hours. Because cyclists have such a ries,” he said. “If you are sedentary, you mon for as many as half to drop out), low percentage of body fat, they are are burning perhaps twenty-five hun- who usually work to further the goals of more susceptible to infections than other dred calories a day. Active people might their leader, like Armstrong or Ull- rich—who injured his knee earlier this year and will not compete. Since individual excellence can get one only so far in a race of this magnitude, it is also crucial to have the right team, to provide organization, finances, and experience. U.S. Postal has all that; it is, in its way, pro cycling’s Yankees—with climbing specialists, sprinters, and a powerful bench.This is why so many cy- clists agree to work as domestiques, put- ting their success second to Armstrong’s. “You work for a teammate who is older and more experienced,” Victor Hugo Peña told me late one day between stages of the Dauphiné. I was curious why a talented cyclist would agree to play such a role. “It is an apprenticeship—you have to learn the business,” Hugo Peña said. “If you get respect, work well, and are good, you move up.” Armstrong himself worked as a domestique when he was starting out. He told me that he finds the system re- assuring. Bruyneel, who was a successful professional, and won two stages in the Tour, agreed. “What does a man gain from riding for himself and coming in fiftieth?” he said. “If you see your job “When I was your age, I was fifteen.”

TNY—07/15/02—PAGE 53—LIVE OPI—A7589—133SC. “I have seen people better than Lance that never go anywhere,” his coach said. “Before Lance had cancer, we argued all the time. He burn as many as thirty-five hundred.” than five. In fact, only four species are raise money for the Lance Armstrong Saris compared the metabolic rates known to have higher rates on Saris’s Foundation. This required him to take of professional cyclists while they were energy index than the professional cy- the Concorde from Paris to New York, riding with those of a variety of animal clists in his study: a small Australian pos- change planes, and, once he’d landed in species, and he created a kind of energy sum, a macaroni penguin, a large seabird Austin, drive to an afternoon photo index—dividing daily expenditure of called a gannet, and one species of mar- shoot. Then he signed books, cycling energy by resting metabolic rate. This supial mouse. jerseys, and posters for cancer survivors figure turned out to range from one to and sponsors of the foundation. After seven. An active male rates about two on his spring, Armstrong, who doesn’t that, he went to a fund-raising dinner. A Saris’s index and an average professional Trelax much to begin with, was few hours later, the foundation’s annual cyclist four and a half. Almost no species spending up to thirty-five hours a week charity weekend, the Ride for the Roses, can survive with a number that is greater on his bicycle. When I met him, in would officially begin, with an outdoor than five. For example, the effort made April, he had just flown to Austin from rock concert at the Austin Auditorium by birds foraging for food sometimes Europe, where he had been racing, for a Shores arena. But Armstrong was feel- kills them, and they scored a little more forty-eight-hour “drop-in,” in order to ing restless; he hadn’t been on his bicycle NEBINGER/NKO/SIPA

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TNY—07/15/02—PAGE 54—LIVE ART R11204—133SC—CRITICAL CUT TO BE WATCHED THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PRESS RUN—#2 PAGE and to adhere so rigidly to his training ing right off him,” he said.“When Lance schedules. “Depends whether you want shows up, people are delirious.They love to win,” he replied. “I do. The Tour is a the guy. His life is like an Alamo-level two-thousand-mile race, and people myth, and everybody loves a myth, par- sometimes win by one minute. Or less. ticularly in Texas.” One minute in nearly a month of suffer- Armstrong tries to resist being de- ing isn’t that much. So the people who scribed as a hero of any kind.“I want my win are the ones willing to suffer the kids to grow up and be normal,” he told most.” Suffering is to cyclists what poll me, backstage at the concert, as he ten- data are to politicians; they rely on it to tatively ate exactly two Dorito chips. He tell them how well they are doing their and his wife, Kristin, have three chil- job. Like many of his competitors in the dren: a son, Luke, who is two, and twin peloton, Armstrong seems to love pain, girls, Isabelle and Grace, born last year.“I and even to crave it. want them to think their father worked “Cycling is so hard, the suffering is so hard for what he got, not that it was the intense, that it’s absolutely cleansing,” he result of some kind of magic,” Arm- wrote in his autobiography. “The pain strong said. is so deep and strong that a curtain de- scends over your brain. . . . Once, some- hree types of riders succeed in long one asked me what pleasure I took in Tstage races like the Tour de France: riding for so long. ‘Pleasure?’ I said. ‘I those who excel at climbing but are only don’t understand the question.’ I didn’t adequate in time trials, in which a cyclist do it for pleasure. I did it for pain.” Arm- races alone against the clock; those who strong mentioned suffering (favorably) can win time trials but struggle in the in each of my conversations with him. mountains; and cyclists who are moder- Even his weekend in Texas, which was ately good at both. Now there appears ostensibly time off from the grinding to be a fourth group: Armstrong. He has spring training schedule, seemed de- become the best climber in the world, al- signed to drive him to the brink of ex- though he wasn’t much of one in his haustion; there were dozens of meet- early years. And there is no cyclist better ings with donors, cancer survivors, and at time trials. He lost nearly twenty friends. On Sunday, he led the founda- pounds when he was sick, but he is no tion’s annual ride with his friend Robin less powerful and is therefore faster. Still, Williams, a surprisingly fit and aggres- many people have wondered how, so sive cyclist. Williams and Armstrong soon after a nearly fatal illness, he man- rode at a fairly rapid pace for about two aged to take such complete control of hours, at which point a car suddenly the sport. pulled up alongside them on the high- “After the cancer, Lance got a second way. Armstrong hopped off his bike, chance,” Carmichael explained to me. climbed in, and was driven to the air- “It was that simple. You get a second port to catch a plane for New York and chance at something that you took for then Paris. During his forty-eight-hour granted before and all of a sudden you never trained right. He just relied on his gift.” drop-in, the Lance Armstrong Founda- see everything you could have lost.When tion raised nearly three million dollars. he came back, he just went into a differ- for nearly a day. So he changed, and In Austin, Lance (other than Dubya, ent zone. He works as if he is possessed. went for a thirty-five-mile spin. At he is the only one-name Texan) has a It’s a little bit nutty, in fact, what he puts eight-thirty that evening, he was stand- more devoted following than Bush, Lyle himself through so that he can win the ing backstage at the benefit concert, Lovett, and the Texas Longhorns foot- Tour de France each year.” As a young which featured Cake and the Stone ball team combined. One night during man, Carmichael was an Olympic cy- Temple Pilots. I met up with him there; my weekend in Austin, I drove over to clist himself, but he almost died in a Armstrong, who is surprisingly slight, Chuy’s, an informal Tex-Mex place that is freakish skiing accident, in 1986. He re- wore jeans, sandals, and a Nike golf cap. one of Armstrong’s favorite local restau- turned to competition, but something He didn’t seem a bit tired. rants. (It was famous locally even before was gone. While he was trying to figure Every ounce of fat, bone, and muscle a hardworking bartender carded Presi- out what to do next, he took a job coach- on Armstrong’s body is regularly inven- dent Bush’s nineteen-year-old daughter ing the United States national team. He toried, analyzed, and accounted for. I Jenna.) Armstrong has a weakness for has now been training people for fifteen asked him if he felt it was necessary to Chuy’s burritos. I asked my waiter what years. He works with many élite athletes endure the daily prodding and poking he thought of Armstrong. “When he in addition to Armstrong—runners, required to provide all this information, walks in here, you can feel the buzz com- hockey players, even one Indy driver—

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TNY—07/15/02—PAGE 55—LIVE ART R11204—133SC—CRITICAL CUT TO BE WATCHED THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PRESS RUN and also with thousands who just want home about five or six o’clock, in time for scheduled a rest day and urged Arm- to ride faster every Sunday with their a quick dinner—a protein-carb smoothie, strong to stay off his bicycle.“He almost local club. He has a company, Car- a little pasta. Then it is time for bed.” never listens when I tell him to do that,” michael Training Systems, based in Col- During the cycling season, Arm- Carmichael said. “But I tell him any- orado Springs, that employs more than strong calculates each watt he has burned way.” Tuesday was an easy day: a two- seventy-five coaches; his clients, includ- on his bike and then uses a digital scale hour ride, maintaining an approximate ing Armstrong, log on to the company to weigh every morsel of food that heart rate of a hundred and thirty-five Web site to find their latest training passes his lips. This way, he knows ex- beats a minute. The next day was more instructions. actly how many calories he needs to typical: five hours over rolling terrain, Carmichael believes that rigorous get through the day. When he is racing, with a heart rate of about a hundred and training is what ultimately turns a tal- his meals are gargantuan. (It took three fifty-five beats a minute and an average ented athlete into a star.“Who hits more men to lug the team’s rations—boxes effort of three hundred and twenty watts. practice balls every day than any other full of cereal, bread, yogurt, eggs, fruit, Friday was a slow ride for two hours. golfer?” Carmichael asked.“Guess what? honey, chocolate spread, jam, peanut Then, on Saturday, Armstrong rode for It’s Tiger Woods. Well, Lance trains butter, and other snacks—into the hotel four hours with two climbs, each lasting more than his competitors. He was the breakfast room during the Dauphiné.) about half an hour, during which he kept first to go out and actually ride the impor- On days when a race begins at noon or a heart rate of a hundred and seventy- tant Tour stages in advance. He doesn’t later, Armstrong will eat two heaping five beats a minute with a power expen- just wake up in July and say,‘God, I hope plates of pasta and perhaps a power bar diture of about four hundred watts. I am ready for this race.’ He knows he is three hours before the race, after having After that, Carmichael had him draft at ready, because he has whipped himself had a full breakfast. a fast rate behind a motorcycle for two all year long.” When I visited Carmichael in Col- hours without a break. In addition, Armstrong describes his bike as his orado Springs, he showed me Arm- Armstrong always stretches for about an office.“It’s my job,” he told me.“I love it, strong’s training schedule for a few hour a day, and during the off-season he and I wouldn’t ride if I didn’t. But it’s in- weeks this spring. On April 28th, a spends hours in the gym, improving his credibly hard work, full of sacrifices. Sunday, Armstrong competed in the core strength.“Nobody else puts himself And you have to be able to go out there Amstel Gold, a one-day annual World through this,” Carmichael said.“Nobody every single day.” In the morning, he Cup race in Holland. He finished fourth, would dare.” rises, eats, and gets on his bike; some- covering the two-hundred-and-fifty- times, before a particularly long day, he four-kilometre course (which included have been riding a bicycle since I waits to eat again (in order to store up thirty-three climbs) in six hours, forty- I was a boy, and over the years, as the carbohydrates) before taking off. “We nine minutes, and seventeen seconds. technology improved, I kept trading up, schedule his daily workouts to leave late His average speed was 37.32 k.p.h., the from heavy steel to aluminum, and then in the morning, so that he can ride for six same as that of the winner, who beat to titanium. Only once have I travelled hours,” Carmichael said. “He returns him by about three feet. Carmichael more than a hundred miles in a day; I have never entered a race (or wanted to), and I don’t ride particularly fast. Yet, like a lot of middle-aged cycling enthu- siasts, I now have a bicycle that is far better than I am and I have become a fetishistic devotee of the sport. I have never quite permitted myself to attend bicycle camp or to take lessons from a bicycle mechanic (though I have con- sidered both). But I have never seen Campagnolo gears, an aerodynamically advanced set of wheels, or a compli- cated cycle computer that I didn’t want to buy. My apartment is littered with catalogues advertising “carbon titanium supercycles,” and bicycling magazines with stories about obscure pro races. Every month or two, Carmichael tests Armstrong’s capacity to generate power—or watts—and, when I told him that I rode a lot, he suggested that if he tested me in the same way I might have a better sense of what these measures re- ally meant.

TNY—07/15/02—PAGE 56—LIVE OPI ART A7632RD—133SC.—GUIDANCE PROOF TO ARRIVE ON FRIDAY A.M. POUCH michael what I should do when I reached the top.“You won’t be seeing the top,” he TO ASHES had said.) I turned the bike around and met up with Carmichael, and we coasted All the green trees bring most of the way back to the office.Then their rings to you we looked at my data: I had generated an the widening average of two hundred watts on the circles of their years to you test, and had climbed exactly one mile. late and soon casting Carmichael told me that a decent pro down their crowns and into cyclist would have put out at least four you at once they are gone hundred watts, and that the stragglers not to appear at the end of the peloton (known as the as themselves again gruppetto) would clock in at perhaps three hundred and fifty. Armstrong—in oh season of your own top Tour shape—would have come close to five hundred. from whom now even I stared at the graph of my perfor- the fire has moved on mance, which Carmichael and his col- out of the green voices leagues had printed out for me. I had and the days of summer managed to generate four hundred and out of the spoken seventy watts for just ten seconds.That’s names and the words between them about average for Armstrong over the the mingled nights the hands course of a four-hour ride. the hope the faces After that humbling experience, I those circling ages dancing went across town to see Edmund Burke, in flames as we see now a former physiologist for the U.S. Olym- afterward pic cycling team, who has written sev- here before you eral books on training for cyclists (in- cluding one with Carmichael). “I think oh you with no the genius of Chris is that he under- beginning that we can conceive of stands how much small gains matter,” no end that we can foresee Burke said. “In fact, small gains are all you of whom you will ever see. People will say, ‘You once we were made have shown only half a per cent of before we knew ourselves improvement.’ Well, half a per cent is huge. I am not talking marketing or sales in this season of our own here. I am talking about élite athletic performance.” —W.S. Merwin Carmichael takes nothing for granted and relies heavily on technology. (He noted with approval, for instance, that Our plan was to cruise up into the go. Carmichael got off his bike. “Now Greg LeMond won the Tour by just mountains not far from Carmichael’s of- the test begins,” he said. He pointed at eight seconds, on the last day of the race, fice, in a converted grain barn in down- the mountain slope—it wasn’t as steep in 1989. He was the first cyclist in the town Colorado Springs. The wind was as some of the slopes in France, but it Tour to use aerodynamically tapered strong enough so that he asked if I looked unconquerable nonetheless— handlebars for the final time trial. “It wanted to reconsider. The answer was and said, “I want you to ride as fast as made all the difference,” Carmichael yes, of course, but that’s not what I said. you can up that road for ten minutes said. “Technology might not win you We rode for about five miles through and then come back.” the Tour. But why wouldn’t you want the thin air six thousand feet above sea I was seriously winded within two to have the best chances possible?”) level. Carmichael chatted the whole minutes. My legs were burning within Every few months, Armstrong trains in time—about pedal motion, femur length five. I remember watching four men and a wind tunnel, which allows Carmichael (the longer the better, since length im- women climbing a steep rock face and to measure his aerodynamic efficiency proves leverage), gearing choices, and the rappelling down.They waved at me, but under a variety of conditions. He will finer details of carbon-fibre technology. I was far too light-headed to risk lifting push his seat back a centimetre or his I gasped and answered only when I an arm from the handlebars. Finally, I stem up a few millimetres. (Each ad- had to. We rode into North Cheyenne couldn’t take it anymore. (I managed to justment is a trade-off between power Cañon until, finally, it looked as if we continue for eight minutes and thirty- and speed; when you sit farther back, had ridden as far as he could ask me to two seconds. Naïvely, I had asked Car- you can use more of your leg muscles,

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TNY—07/15/02—PAGE 57—133SC. but you also expose more of your body is clear; in 2000, he made a television ad good, you have to let him go.”) It would to the resistance of the air.) for Nike in which he said, “Everybody have been understandable—maybe even Carmichael takes the same radical wants to know what I’m on. What am I smart—for Armstrong to take it slow approach to the physical limits of en- on? I’m on my bike, busting my ass six just a few weeks before the Tour. Yet durance. It had long been assumed, for hours a day. What are you on?” clearly he wasn’t going to be satisfied un- example, that aerobic power doesn’t vary If the French don’t approve of Arm- less he also took this stage. greatly in adults. Carmichael refutes this strong, it is not only—or even princi- “Good job, Lance!” Bruyneel cheered emphatically.“Look at Lance,” he said to pally—because they suspect him of into the radio.“Go! Go! Go!” Armstrong me in his office one day. Over the past using drugs. They don’t believe that he picked up speed; he was dropping his eight years, through specific programs suffers enough. French intellectuals love opponents one by one.“Moreau is done, aimed at building endurance and speed, the agony displayed on the roads each Lance, he is over!” Bruyneel shouted into Armstrong has increased this critical July in the same way that American the radio as Armstrong whizzed by value—his aerobic power—by sixteen writers love to wail over the fate of the Christophe Moreau, the lead rider for per cent. That means he saves almost Red Sox. Thirty years ago, before much Crédit Agricole. “Go if you can. But, four minutes in a sixty-kilometre time was known about sports nutrition, riders remember, the mountain is not your trial. would finish the race—if they could— friend.” In fact, Armstrong is superior to having lost twenty pounds, their eyes “Kivilev is dropped, Kivilev is other athletes in two respects: he can vacant even in victory. Armstrong rep- dropped!” Bruyneel screamed, as Arm- rely on his aerobic powers longer, and resents a new kind of athlete. He has strong began to pedal faster. “Lance, his anaerobic abilities are unusually high been at the forefront of a technological get on Menchov’s wheel. He is a great as well. When muscles begin to work renaissance that has made European cy- train to the top.” Denis Menchov, of beyond their aerobic ability, they pro- cling purists uncomfortable. Referring the Ibanesto.com team, is a fine climber. duce lactic acid, which eventually accu- to the gulf that now exists between the Bruyneel had hoped that Armstrong mulates and causes a burning sensation race and the racers, the French philoso- would glide in behind him and con- well known to anyone who has ever run pher Robert Redeker has written, “The serve energy on the way up. Instead, too far or too fast. Somehow, though, athletic type represented by Lance Armstrong blew past Menchov, and Armstrong produces less lactic acid than Armstrong, unlike or Jean then overtook the last two men be- others do, and metabolizes it more ef- Robic”—two cycling heroes from a tween him and the summit. He wove fectively. “For whatever physiological generation ago—“is coming closer to through the fans gathered at the top of reason—and science can’t really explain Lara Croft, the virtually fabricated the mountain. it, because we don’t know that much cyber-heroine. Cycling is becoming a Armstrong shifted into a higher gear about what is occurring—the effect is video game; the onetime ‘prisoners of to descend, and suddenly he was in trou- clear,” Carmichael said. “Lance goes on the road’ have become virtual human ble. His radio stopped working, his leg when others are done.” beings . . . Robocop on wheels, some- began to cramp, and Kivilev and Moreau one no fan can relate to or identify were gaining on him. ‘Twenty-seven t the end of last year’s Tour, the with.” seconds,” Bruyneel said. He was scream- AFrench sports newspaper L’Équipe “It’s so funny to hear people talk that ing.“Lance, they are gaining!” We could ran an article with the headline “SHOULD way about Lance,” Craig Nichols, Arm- see the little ski resort of in the WE BELIEVE IN ARMSTRONG?,” suggest- strong’s oncologist, told me. “The fact is near distance. Chalets were built every- ing it was time to consider the possibility that no cyclist can have seen more pain where into the steep slopes of the moun- that, since Armstrong has never been than he has. The hard work and the in- tain. The thickening wall of fans sug- found guilty of doping, he may indeed convenience of the Tour just can’t scare gested that we must be near the end, but be innocent. him, because he has been through so we were driving so fast that it was hard After I watched Armstrong train and much worse.” to tell. spent time with his coaches, the only Incredibly, Bruyneel drove right up way I could be convinced that he uses il- espite Bruyneel’s warning not to beside Armstrong. He was in pain and legal drugs would be to see him inject Dpush himself on the treacherous was massaging his thigh while pedalling them. After all, the doubts about him slope of the Col de Joux Plane, Arm- as fast as he could. “Six seconds!” Bruy- have always been a function of his ex- strong was spinning the pedals a hun- neel shouted out the window at full cellence. Greg LeMond, America’s first dred times a minute, faster than any speed. “Move!” Tour de France champion (he has also other competitor. (This cadence is a Armstrong barrelled across the finish won three times), put it well, if some- technique that he, Carmichael, and Bruy- line, six seconds before his rivals. He got what uncharitably, after Armstrong won neel have been working on for years.) off his bike and hobbled directly into a the 2001 Tour: “If Lance is clean, it is With just two days to go, Armstrong tent that had been set up for drug test- the greatest comeback in the history of was in the lead of the Dauphiné Libéré, ing. When he emerged, he came over to sport. If he isn’t, it would be the greatest and there was little doubt that he would say hello. I congratulated him on win- fraud.” It is impossible to prove a nega- go on to win the race. (“There are not so ning the stage. “It’s always fun to win,” tive, and so Armstrong can do nothing many guys left,” Bruyneel said to me he said, smiling broadly.“But, man, I am to dispel the doubts. But his frustration with a smile and a shrug. “If he feels in such agony.”

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