Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} L.A. Confidentiel Les Secrets De Lance Armstrong by Pierre Ballester David Walsh and that L.A. Confidentiel Case. Defamation. An intentional, false communication that damages a person’s reputation. The action encompasses both written statements, known as Libel, and spoken statements, known as Slander. The Defamation Act 2013 of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is a reformed version of the English Defamation Law, which clarifies the right to freedom of expression and the protection of reputation. It allows individuals or companies the right to sue for damage caused to their reputation from published content which makes defamatory comments about them. This modernisation of the law also covers web publishing, a topic that has been confusing in the past. “The Defamation Bill will rebalance the law to ensure those who have genuinely been defamed can still take action and seek redress, but without the threat of such action unjustifiably hindering freedom of expression. “The current system is complex, unwieldy and expensive. These reforms will provide clarity, ease the threat of long and costly libel proceedings and make it easier for trivial cases to be dismissed without undermining individuals’ ability to protect their reputation.” – Ken Clark, Justice Secretary. L.A. Confidentiel: Les secrets de Lance Armstrong written by journalists Pierre Ballester and David Walsh was published in 2004. The co- authored book, which sets out to disgrace former cyclist Lance Armstrong and contains evidence from his masseuse Emma O’Reily, sparked the beginning of a lawsuit filed in various countries against the book’s authors, the publisher Editions de la Martiniere , The Sunday Times for referencing the book, and publishers of magazine “L’Express” which printed various excerpts. This case is the definition of ‘a long and costly libel proceeding’. In other words, it’s a perfect example of just how messy it can get. David Walsh is a successful Irish sports journalist and chief sports writer at The Sunday Times. Walsh was said to be the driving force behind the ‘doping in professional cycling’ investigation, and has published a further two books concerning the controversial career of Lance Armstrong, including: From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France , and Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong, which is set to become a film. According to The Sunday Times , in the report of the lawsuit, Armstrong had denied using drugs to boost his performance as an athlete, and claimed that Walsh had an obvious “agenda” against him. He also maintained that the article printed in the newspaper, constructed from L.A. Confidentiel: Les secrets de Lance Armstrong, set out to do nothing but ruin his reputation, and said the content branded him a “liar, a cheat and a fraud.” With no means of proof to support the allegations, The Sunday Times had no choice but to settle the case, costing them a grand total of £1 million in libel costs, £300,00 going to Armstrong himself. “Two years of endless meetings, preparing statements, lining up witnesses, getting subpoenas — it was hell.” – David Walsh. Remarkably, in 2013, Armstrong admitted doping throughout the period of his career when he won an astonishing 7 Tour de France titles during a broadcasted interview with Oprah Winfrey. A bold move perhaps, but an inevitable conclusion for the former champion. The Sunday Times then decided to launch High Court action against Armstrong claiming he had been guilty of deceit, asking for the return of that £300,000 settlement plus an additional £720,000 in interest and costs. After suing for so long, he was now being sued. Talk about an ugly comeuppance. David Walsh’s reputation lived on, unharmed and better than ever before, his career as a journalist soaring to success. His contribution to the destruction of fraudster Armstrong was recognised, and he was awarded Sports Journalist of the Year 2013 and Journalist of the Year in 2012. He has also been awarded the Barclays Lifetime Achievement Award at the BT Sport Industry Awards. The investigation dominated Walsh’s life for the best part of 13 years. It was a case that got personal, aggressive and in some instances, emotionally and physically draining for Walsh. But it does prove something, it proves the extent as to which journalism can take over a person’s life. It’s also a story of determination. Walsh made little friends attempting to uncover the truth, but pushed on, knowing that one day he would be proved right. Lloyd Embley, editor of the Daily Mirror called Walsh ‘an example and inspiration to us all’, and I think he’s pretty damn right. “A good story is always worth pursuing. No matter how difficult pursuing it might be. If you’re right, good people will come out to help you. It’s ok to swim against the tide.” – David Walsh. Covering Lance Armstrong was a wild ride, but the truth came out. It was shot by a photographer we knew only as Nutan and it showed Belgian cycling champion Eric Vanderaerden worming his way through masses of fans to the start line. As he did so a man in his early 30s held a baby in his left arm, and with his right hand he stretched the child's left hand forward until the infant's fingers touched the cyclist's back. Devotion to a sport had never been so poignantly expressed. Twenty years later, I was back in Place Saint Lambert. It was a Friday evening the day before the start of the 2004 Tour de France, and the innocence with which I'd come to this square in '84 was long gone. This would be Lance Armstrong's sixth Tour de France victory, and though present to cover this race, I had come also to defend a book I'd co-authored with French journalist Pierre Ballester, L.A. Confidentiel -- Les secrets de Lance Armstrong. The book would sell more than 100,000 copies and reach No. 2 on the French bestsellers' list, but to Armstrong and those around him it was the Satanic Verses. In the Salle de Presse the previous day, U.S Postal team director Johan Bruyneel saw me arrive and said at the top of his voice: "Hey, Mr. Walsh, good job, good job eh!" L.A. Confidentiel offered a portrait of Armstrong that was far from the consensus view at the time. Our conviction was that Armstrong doped and that within his team and the sport in general, he was an advocate for doping. Sixteen days before, he had addressed the book's allegations at a news conference announcing a sponsorship deal with the Discovery Channel. "I can absolutely confirm that we don't use doping products," he said. Questioned about accusations made by former masseuse Emma O'Reilly, Armstrong said O'Reilly had been fired "for inappropriate issues" before adding it wasn't his style to attack her. Judith McHale, then president of Discovery Communications, said there was no better ambassador "for quality and trusted information" than Armstrong. Now, in Liege, he would deal again with L.A. Confidentiel. The press was sympathetic to Armstrong and journalists were afraid to ask the first doping question. After an embarrassing number of endearing enquiries, Dutch TV journalist Marc Belinfante asked Armstrong about allegations in L.A. Confidentiel. Here was Armstrong's response: "I will say one thing about the book, especially since our esteemed author is here. In my view, I think extraordinary accusations must be followed up by extraordinary proof. And Mr. Walsh and Mr. Ballester worked four, five years and they have not come up with extraordinary proof." Armstrong went on to say he would spend whatever it cost "to bring justice to the case." Belinfante then asked about specific allegations made by former teammate Stephen Swart. "Ah, no comment," replied Armstrong. Later Belinfante tried ask him about Emma O'Reilly. "Next question," Armstrong said. Belinfante didn't cover cycling, didn't understand the omerta that operated within the sport and couldn't relate to the general passivity. Midway through the press conference, I raised my arm to ask a question. It was ignored. That afternoon I was supposed to travel by car with an English journalist, but he told me he couldn't carry me. He feared being denied access to Armstrong if I was seen in the same car as him, though I had traveled with this journalist since 1984. He would later write a book, LANCE: The Making of the World's Greatest Champion. "That leaves me on the side of the road," I said. He shrugged his shoulders. Walking through Place Saint Lambert the following evening, I thought about the events that had taken me to this place. How Armstrong had struck me during a three-hour interview in Grenoble at his first Tour de France in 1993. A kid then, so Texan and impressive: "Physically," he said, "I'm not any more gifted than anybody else but it's just this desire, just this rage, I'm on the bike and I go into a rage when I just shriek for about five seconds. I shake like mad and my eyes kinda bulge out. I swear, I sweat a little more and the heart rate goes like 200 a minute." This desire helped him through cancer, got him back to the Tour in 1999 but from there, we went our separate ways. A young French rider Christophe Bassons came between us. Bassons had just turned 25, was talented and ambitious but was not prepared to dope. To anyone willing to listen during the first week of the '99 Tour, he said you couldn't be in the top 10 without doping. Armstrong went after him, literally, and began the bullying that would see Bassons railroaded out of that summer's Tour. On a quiet country road about 60 miles from Saint Flour on stage 13 a banner was draped across the road: FOR A CLEAN TOUR YOU MUST HAVE BASSONS. Bassons was back home by then, beaten into submission. Ten days would pass before Armstrong arrived on the Champs Elysees clad for the first time in the maillot jaune, but I knew he was doping. No clean rider would have turned on Bassons as he had. The champion wasn't what he seemed. Through the 13 years that have passed since then, Armstrong has been a central part of my journalistic life. How to prove what you knew to be true, that was the challenge. He called me "the worst journalist in the world," referred to me as "the little f------g troll," tried to pressure Betsy Andreu (a source for L.A. Confidentiel) into discrediting me and, of course, he sued me. That lawsuit now seems as close as you can get to an "Oscar" in our game. It's been a good journey because the truth was never hard to find in this story. You only had to be interested in looking. What made it interesting was how many people Armstrong had watching his back. At that press conference in Liege he thanked the journalists who had reached out to him and told him he had nothing to worry about. In the highest places he had friends. But he couldn't stop Andreu, O'Reilly, Swart and others from telling stories that contradicted his, and you had to spend only 10 minutes in their company to know they weren't lying. They couldn't be bullied into silence. I think now of how unreal it all was: "The Blue Train" zooming up the early slopes of the Col de Telegraf in 99, Armstrong on the climb to Hautacam in 2000. "He came upon us like an aeroplane," said Richard Virenque, a rival who also doped. In 2001, Rudy Pevenage, a rival team manager, said: "When others gasp for air with open mouths, he rides with a closed mouth, as if there is nothing to it." That was how it was in the era of Armstrong, unreal. Writing in the French newspaper, Liberation, three days before the end of Armstrong's third Tour, Robert Redeker spoke of the disconnect between Armstrong and many of the sport's oldest fans. "The athletic type represented by Lance Armstrong is coming closer to Lara Croft, the virtually fabricated cyber heroine . . Robocop on wheels, someone with whom no fan can relate or identify." And at Liege through that weekend in 2004 we were still in the grip of Robocop's domination. Belinfante could see I was a black sheep of the cycling family. Pitying me, he asked if I'd like to do an interview for his television station. He sent a link to the piece last week, recalling a time and a Tour de France that wasn't much fun as it happened. The last question he asked was if I thought Armstrong would win the 2004 Tour. "This is a strange answer," I said, "but I mean it: I don't care. I don't care who wins the race, what I care about is clean sport. We must come back to the Tour believing in it more than we do now. This is a bad time for cycling but I hope the times will get better and they will get better if we're honest." 11 Allegations Against Lance Armstrong in Daniel Coyle’s Books. Author Daniel Coyle made a host of doping claims against the cyclist in two bestsellers. See the biggest. The Daily Beast. Bas Czerwinski/AP,Bas Czerwinski. In 2005’s bestselling Lance Armstrong’s War , author Daniel Coyle was able to gain somewhat intimate access to Armstrong and his team during the 2004 Tour de France. The book touched on doping allegations but was not critical of the cyclist. Then Coyle gained wide access to the cycling world when he wrote 2012’s The Secret Race with Armstrong teammate Tyler Hamilton. The accusations and evidence against Armstrong flowed. Here are the biggest revelations. From Lance Armstrong’s War. Coyle closely observed Michele Ferrari, the infamous Italian sports doctor who was dubbed “Dr. Evil.” Coyle was able to talk to Ferrari in part because the writer agreed he wouldn’t ask about doping. Ferrari was Armstrong’s trainer until he was found guilty of sporting fraud and abusive exercise in October 2004, though he was acquitted in 2006. But Ferrari is famed in the cycling world for his alleged ability to hide doping, and Coyle writes that Ferrari worked far more closely with Armstrong than previously thought. Last June, the USADA charged the doctor with administering and trafficking prohibited substances; he decided not to contest the charge and was issued a lifetime ban from the sport. Doping’s History. Philippe Gaumont of the French Cofidis team once admitted to blood doping, which involves blood transfusion to boost red blood cells, and said he would rub salt on his testicles until they bled so he could get a doctor to issue him banned cortisone. Ex-Kelme rider Jesus Manzano provided a list of 29 drugs he said his team told him to take. He nearly died during the 2003 Tour de France when he was accidentally given someone else’s blood. Doping wasn’t illegal in the early days of cycling, and Jacques Anquetil, who won the Tour five times, said, “Only an idiot thinks that a professional cyclist who rides 235 days a year can hold himself together without stimulants.” In the 13 months leading up to the 2004 season, seven riders died of heart attacks. It’s often repeated that Armstrong could not have been the only one clean in such an atmosphere. Floyd Landis. Landis, who was primed to succeed Armstrong, worked closely with Ferrari and Armstrong during the 2004 tour. In one colorful exchange, Landis and Ferrari joked about doping. “Naps are illegal, right, Michele?” Landis said. “Spaghetti too, of course,” Ferrari said. Landis and Armstrong became close friends, as the two had a similar ultracompetitive personality. But there was also tension. “I would love to know what’s going on inside his head,” Landis told Coyle of Armstrong. “Lance doesn’t want a hug. He just wants to kick everyone’s ass.” Landis would go on to be stripped of his 2006 Tour win after testing positive for drugs. In 2010, he admitted to doping and accused Armstrong of the same, which helped the USADA’s case against Armstrong. L.A. Confidentiel. David Walsh, who covered cycling for many years and admired Armstrong in the beginning, questioned him in 2001 about why the cleanest cyclist in the world was working so closely with Ferrari. When Armstrong found out Walsh was writing about him for a Sunday Times article, Walsh said, Armstrong tried to undermine their story by leaking it to a newspaper. In 2004, Walsh and French journalist Pierre Ballester released L.A. Confidentiel: Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong . In it, Walsh interviewed Emma O’Reilly, Armstrong’s personal masseuse, who said she would lend Armstrong makeup to cover up needle bruises on his arm. Some of the allegations were referenced by The Sunday Times , and Armstrong immediately filed suit against the paper, and against Walsh and O’Reilly as well. The emotional toll on O’Reilly would become severe. In 2006, The Sunday Times settled with Armstrong and issued an apologetic statement. In 2012, the paper said it would attempt to recover the money lost in the settlement. Masked Guilt. Coyle reiterates many of the accusations against Armstrong, which, he says, were nothing new to the rider. But he notes that Armstrong had been “treated with unparalleled levels of suspicion” even though he “came up clean each time” despite having been tested 30 to 40 times a year. He noted that Armstrong cooperated with the French authorities and the USADA, and even donated money to testing programs. Many have pointed out since that such tactics were designed to mask his guilt. Coyle’s book with Tyler Hamilton, Armstrong’s longtime teammate, starts much earlier, encompassing Armstrong and Hamilton’s entire careers. One day in the fall of 1996, when Armstrong was still recovering from cancer, his friend and teammate Frankie Andreu and his wife, Betsy, visited him in hospital. Two doctors entered the room and asked Armstrong if he’d ever used performance-enhancing drugs. Hamilton writes that, in front of the Andreus, Armstrong said yes, matter-of-factly. “He’d used EPO, cortisone, testosterone, human-growth hormone, and steroids . This is a classic Lance moment, being cavalier about doping . He wants to minimize doping, show it’s no big deal, show that he’s bigger than any syringe or pill.” Betsy Andreu has talked about this encounter many times, including testifying under oath. Armstrong also denied it under oath and has attacked Andreu repeatedly. EPO in the Fridge. In the spring of 1999, Armstrong assembled his inner circle at his French villa in Nice to map out the plan for the Tour. When Hamilton arrived, he and Coyle write, he badly needed some EPO, and he asked Armstrong for some. “Lance pointed casually to the fridge. I opened it and there, on the door, next to a carton of milk, was a carton of EPO . I was surprised that Lance would be so cavalier.” For the 1999 Tour, Hamilton says Armstrong sketched out the plan: he would pay his gardener and handyman Philippe, a.k.a. Motoman, to follow the Tour on his motorcycle, carrying a thermos full of EPO for Armstrong, Hamilton, and a third teammate, Kevin Livingston. The riders would call him on a secret prepaid cellphone, and he would make a drop-off. They dropped used syringes in an empty soda can: the Radioactive Coke Can. Armstrong won the “Tour de Fucking France,” a feat hailed as a miracle for the cancer survivor. President Clinton phoned him. But he had tested positive for cortisone after the prologue stage. Hamilton writes that U.S. Postal made up a cover story and said Armstrong had a saddle sore, backdating a prescription for a cortisone skin cream. UCI was not serious about testing or getting Armstrong, so the issue went away. When they had extra EPO, Armstrong suggested giving it to other teammates who were not in on the Motoman drop. Just before the 2000 Tour, team director Johan Bruyneel flew Armstrong, Hamilton, and Livingston to Spain to have their blood drawn by Spanish doctor Luis Garcia del Moral and his assistant, Pepe Marti, Coyle and Hamilton write. “It would be like taking EPO, except better . You’re watching a big clear plastic bag slowly fill up with your warm dark red blood. You never forget it.” This blood transfusion was called BBs, or blood bags, and had to be done in the days leading up to the race, as red blood cells can only live for about 28 days, and giving blood is also very draining. Before the crucial stage 12 on Mont Ventoux, where Armstrong’s nemesis Marco Pantani would attack, the riders entered their hotel room to find their blood bags taped to a wall above their beds, ready for transfusion. Two days later, Armstrong blew by Pantani on the summit. Microdosing. To prepare for the 2001 Tour, Armstrong rode in the Tour of Switzerland. Ferrari advised Armstrong to sleep in an altitude tent and to drip EPO into his vein all night, according to the book, so it would go straight into the bloodstream and then go away. “In this, as in other things, Lance was blessed: he had veins like water mains.” Hamilton says it took the authorities years and millions of dollars to develop a test for EPO, and “it took Ferrari five minutes to figure out how to evade it . The tests are easy to beat. We’re way, way ahead of the tests. They’ve got their doctors and we’ve got ours, and ours are better. Better paid, for sure.” But Armstrong tested positive for EPO during that Tour of Switzerland. “I know because he told me,” Hamilton writes. “No worries, dude,” he says Armstrong told him. “We’re gonna have a meeting with them. It’s all taken care of.” According to sources within the FBI, a UCI official had intervened in the test and stopped it. Armstrong later made two donations totaling $125,000 to the UCI. 60 Minutes. In March 2011, 60 Minutes contacted Hamilton and asked for an interview; he agreed. He repeated many of his confessions and accusations against Armstrong. The segment aired in May. In June, the owner of Armstrong’s favorite restaurant in Aspen, his new home, called him to tell him that Hamilton was having dinner there; Armstrong rushed over. Hamilton says Armstrong told him: “I’m going to make your life a living . fucking . hell.” A History of Lance Armstrong's Doping Allegations. The controversial cyclist is the subject of ESPN's new documentary Lance . ESPN has followed the popular Michael Jordan docuseries The Last Dance with a film that centers on another American athlete who might be equally well-known, and even more divisive: cyclist Lance Armstrong. While he broke records in 2005 when he won the Tour de France for his seventh time in a row, Armstrong would eventually be stripped of a number of his titles following a doping scandal which saw his reputation shattered. The two-part documentary, titled Lance , covers the allegations and eventual investigation into doping, as well as other areas of Armstrong's life which have led to him denouncing the accuracy of the film ahead of its release (despite his own participation in interviews). Rumors of doping surrounded Armstrong for years, from his very first Tour de France victory, and he repeatedly clashed with sports journalist Paul Kimmage and cyclist Christophe Basson on the subject. Armstrong's public stance was that it would make no sense for him to use performance-enhancing drugs when he lived in France, which had such strict anti-doping laws and where he would be at the greatest risk of prosecution. In 1999, a urine sample revealed that Armstrong had traces of steroids in his system, however Armstrong had a prescription for a saddle sore cream at the time, of which corticosteroids were an ingredient. In 2004, reporters David Walsh and Pierre Ballester published a book called L.A. Confidentiel: Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong , which alleged that Armstrong was using performance-enhancing drugs, based on interviews with his masseuse, Emma O'Reilly. O'Reilly stated that she had made numerous clandestine trips to collect and deliver drugs for Armstrong, and was even asked to dispose of used syringes. She also alleged that Armstrong didn't have saddle sores in 1999, and that he had been able to acquire a fake prescription with the help of team officials and a willing doctor. The claims in L.A. Confidentiel made SCA Promotions highly reluctant to pay out the $5 million bonus following Armstrong's sixth Tour de France win. In 2006, American cyclist Frankie Andreu and his wife Betsy alleged that Armstrong had admitted to taking steroids during his cancer treatment in 1996. While no solid proof was found that this was true, and SCA ultimately paid Armstrong and his team $7.5 million, the controversy was enough to trigger an official investigation. From 2010 to 2012, federal agent Jeff Novitzky led an investigation into the allegations against Armstrong. In addition to taking statements under oath from several of Armstrong's former team, prosecutors also enlisted the help of cyclist Floyd Landis, who wore a wire during conversations with Armstrong. The case ultimately came to nothing, and the case against Armstrong was dropped without charges in 2012. Shortly later that same year, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) brought its own accusations against Armstrong, adding drug trafficking to the use of banned substances. Initially, Armstrong did not contest the charges so as not to bring any more public attention to the case, but USADA eventually ruled that he be stripped of all the titles he won after the date of August 1, 1998, and be issued a lifetime ban from competing. Armstrong consistently denied any and all accusations of doping until 2013, when he confessed during an interview with Oprah Winfrey to having taken the blood-booster erythropoietin, human growth hormone, and diuretics, and falsifying blood test results. "Nobody dopes and is honest," says Armstrong in the new film. "You're not. The only way you can dope and be honest is if nobody ever asks you, which is not realistic. The second somebody asks you, you lie. It might be one lie because you answer it once. Or in my case it might be 10,000 lies because you answer it 10,000 times." CYCLING; Armstrong Is Suing Accuser. Lance Armstrong, who will be seeking a record sixth consecutive Tour de France victory next month, said yesterday that he had filed a libel suit in London against the British co-author of a new book that accuses him of having used banned performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong said he had been accused of drug use over the years, but he had never before taken legal action against his accusers. An official French investigation of his team, which began three years ago, found no violations. He made the comments during a news conference in Maryland to announce that the Discovery Channel will become the title sponsor of Armstrong's cycling team for three years, starting in 2005. ''But we reached a point where we can't really tolerate it anymore, and we're sick and tired of the allegations,'' he said at Discovery's headquarters in Silver Spring, Md. ''We'll do everything we can to fight them. They're untrue. ''Enough is enough. I'm personally very frustrated.'' He added: ''It's unfortunate. It's a few journalists who took this on as a personal mission. Again, enough is enough.'' Armstrong said he had sued David Walsh, the co-author of ''L.A. Confidentiel: Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong,'' which was published this week in France, along with The Sunday Times of London, where Walsh is the chief sportswriter and which published a news report about the book. Reached by telephone in Portugal yesterday, Walsh said, ''My newspaper said it will fight this vigorously.'' He said that he would ''stand on everything I said.'' Armstrong said another lawsuit would be filed soon in France against Walsh and his co-author, Pierre Ballester, and the publishers of L'Express, the French weekly magazine that published a 10-page excerpt from the book. Some of the doping allegations in the book were made by Emma O'Reilly, a former masseuse for Armstrong's United States Postal Service team. During the 1999 Tour de France, she was Armstrong's personal masseuse. O'Reilly is quoted in the magazine excerpt as saying that in 1999 Armstrong asked her for makeup to cover bruises on his arm before a pre-Tour medical examination. She is also quoted as saying that during the 1999 race Armstrong tested positive for a steroid that he had apparently taken a month before, at the Route du Sud race. Armstrong attributed the positive test to a cream he used to treat saddle sores. Armstrong said yesterday that he had had a ''very good working relationship with Emma.'' ''Emma left the team for other reasons, and evil as this thing has come out, it's not my style to attack her,'' he said. Armstrong said he had not heard from her in years. He was vague about whether he would sue any individuals who are cited as sources in the book, including O'Reilly. ''Right now we're talking about authors and publishers and papers that have excerpted it,'' he said, ''but we won't discriminate.'' In an interview earlier this week with The International Herald Tribune, Walsh said that the book offered ''all circumstantial evidence.'' ''We don't actually prove anything,'' he told the newspaper. ''We just set out the facts and let the reader decide for himself who's telling the truth.'' As he has over the years, Armstrong, who recovered from testicular cancer to win the 1999 Tour, reiterated that he was clean. ''I think the people who know cycling know we're the most passionate, fanatic, crazy team, in the right way,'' he said. ''We spend more time on training, and on legal methods, than anybody else.'' Armstrong's team has been seeking a new title sponsor to replace the United States Postal Service, which decided in April to drop out at the end of this year. It had sponsored the team since 1996. Its current four-year deal with Armstrong's team, known formally as the Pro Cycling Team, is worth $25 million. Financial terms of the team's three-year deal with the Discovery Channel's parent, Discovery Communications, were not disclosed. ''It was very important to have this deal done now,'' Armstrong said. ''The Tour de France is the granddaddy of them all, but it's also the place where riders showcase their best skills. If we didn't have Discovery, then I would have had guys at the Tour thinking they might not be my teammates any longer.'' Armstrong will appear on Discovery's numerous networks in the United States and throughout the world, among them the Travel Channel, Discovery Health, the Science Channel and FitTV. ''Even my Wings channel was interested in having Lance do something,'' said William M. Campbell, the president of Discovery Networks, U.S., referring to a network devoted to flight. A Discovery Channel patch will be placed on the cycling team's uniform for the rest of the season, and the uniform will be overhauled next year. (The New York Times Company became a 50-50 partner in the Discovery Times Channel two years ago with Discovery Communications.) ''Lance and the team will also serve as ambassadors for Discovery in the U.S. and the world,'' Campbell said. Armstrong said that he would not have won the Tour de France races without the support of the Postal Service. He said he also wondered to himself: ''If we didn't find a new partner, would I retire? I'm glad I don't have to retire. I'm glad I'll be around for a year, maybe two.''