,rIer .oeattrIng. cancer I \ I rr ii \ tlq,_Uinning t?1e, .four )attlL,,W"H ffIfi$%TO5F LqIF iEig nt a[egdgtio n s qE- qqgg Fqrrbrrn- ,ncet?! -e n nanclng: cirugtrIs, ra,nce: Ssayq h.ers YiAd r"'Tr\rr,\rGLrJ }{tJ*, se*=W#:s?'--alf.q Mind-Blowinq lmages Oyef ttfe fronn Hurricane Katrlna PAGE 128 gffinF"ffgfs=ffifficrrlet'mnt. nis silaiowv Qcqsgrs ln courtqaornb #"qmfgna J.egaJ- Droceeclnps ,nd, ] - rreru#,sa#_ e# b:*flffiffi #*#ff 1r rerffiT { _ = # ud**H3ffi-ru *{trffiffit;ffiffiE &rytr#? ,; JtAcqw*u'l^t-- J-- oy Joe t cse On Septenber 5, seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstron$ made a The story went off like a bomb. Some observers said th= ,:-*--:s. remarkable announcement: He said that he was thinkin$ of end- was a grave one and that the case lbr Armstron$'s $ui1t \1 :: : r:. ing his retirement, at that point a mere six weeks old, and re- pelling. Others raised a flurry of criticism attacking rh- .---r joining his Discovery Channel team for a rufl at another title. and legality of leaking confidential lab results, the motn'e: -r-u Although Armstrong, 34,had previously said "only an absolute journalists and sources involved, and the aceurac), oi rhe :-: n miracle" would get him to race afain, his rationale for a return in question. As happens whenever Armstrong is accuse,l : -:- 2006, as published in theAustinAmerican-Statesman, was loud thin$, many of the reactions on both sides were characrer_.: :." and clear: "I'm thinking it's the best way to piss [the French] off." Sreater certainty than the available evidence seemed ro {-:-:r-:r. Armstron$'s motivation for wantin$ to anger the French was Jean-Marie Leblanc, the Paris-based director of the Tou:. ,.-.,l equally clear: It would be payback for the publication, on Au- the story "meticulous," addin$ later that "we were all ic,- ,-:' - g,ust 23, of a controversial story in l'd quipe, aParis-based sports Armstron$'s declarations that he had raced clean. Dick . *rr daily. Under the headline "Le Mensonge Armstron!," ("The chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency (\\aDA r. .:: r. Armstron$ Lie"), investi$ative journalist Damien Ressiot, 41, pendent Montreal-based operation established b1, the i:_:=::-s alleged that he had proof that Armstrong had used a banned tional Olympic Committee to set testing policies ior r: .: performance-enhancing drug during his first Tour victory, in the lvorld's sports federations, rvas more circumspr-- - : 1999. "The facts are indisputable," he wrote. would not commit to a direct accusation a$ainst -\rr::.--: :u ::--r:ogra,IlFh by Harry i:ord.en LEquipe's proof, Ressiot reported, had been obtained by com- but declared that the L'Equipe report showed rhere r'-. 'i parin$, the anonymous results of urine testing conducted by very high probability of performance-enhancin!-drug 3.:- - -- France's top anti-drug lab,theLaboratoire National de D6pistage at the 1999 Tour. du Dopage (LNDD), with identifying numbers from slx separate In Armstrong's defense, Gerard Bisceglia, CEO oi L:-.- doping control 3. reports naming Armstrong---one of which could cling, American cycling's Colorado Springs, Colorad,--' -..; :,* be identified as having come from Union Cycliste Internationale $overnin$ body, called the paper's story "preposterous." .----:rrt- (UCI), pro cycling's Aigle, Switzerland-based governing body, that "this kind of years-ago testing of a single sample \\r--r, r:,r which sanctions races, licenses riders, and runs its own anti- technology is completely u4thout credibility." doping procedures. The doping lab had evaluated the urine sam- Bisce6llia's reference to "a sinf,le sample" pointed to li -:--tr-r::rr t ples, taken from Tour riders in 1999 by the UCI and frozen for fact: It's an ironclad rule of current anti-doping re$imen= '-::rr- years, five in the course of a2004451aboratory research project the auspices of WADA that a sanction against an athlete r> - u. to refine a new testing method. The tests, according to the able only when two samples from a sin$1e urine or blo,-.: ::,."-- i,v'S*Isi1 , rexmaips^ unrepentant - abouut ^t::e aJ-J"egat].ons- put lorward In n1s 0ool(. "1- l in: lt i;ffir*.,1* selr*v* a pelsop" coUICj reai..oU= 33$5,'tf[t"8fi eifi%i'f5 L'Equipe article, showed that some of the"o#,F#vStii&1T&"iH,ifi urine samples con- men-known as A and B samples-both conlirm a resuh. : *: ::u tained traces of erythropoetin (EPO), a red-blood-cell booster test in question had been conducted entirely with B samp,:> :tc first used in the late eighties to increase -. endurance. Six of the A samples from the 1999 Tour had long since been desrr =- samples that tested positive, Ressiot charged, were Armstrong's. In fact, the lab's real purpose wasn't to determine eviJ=:--: , No official liom the LNDD or any other anti-doping body had doping in a past event but to refine the test itself. The s::: *:r*l identified Armstrong; the research was not part of an1, enforce- EPO urine test used today lvorks via electrophoresis. s'hr::_ _ * '- F *+4fj, ment protocol. Consistent with standard procedure, the lab had duces a kind of electrically charged photograph rhai - .--:" ***;*u** -"' no knowledge of whose samples it was testin$, and the samples between isoforms-functionally prorer:. $uishes similar -:,1 # f were identified only by numbers. Ressiot claimed that he had the have different genetic codes. On the snapshot, the bodr . :---- fl six doping control records-including the UCI file-that linked rally occurring EPO looks different from artificial EPC). l .-,, Armstrongi to the identifying numbers on the samples, and that positive for doping, at least B0 percent of the isofor-nts .-j : l the LNDD had used the same numbers to identify the positive show markers that appear consistent with manufacrur=: ::,' samples from the LNDD test. An unnamed source or sources pro- and the sample must satisfy visual and mathematical drrr- :: I vided Ressiot with the evidence he used to make the link. was hoped that a refined test could provide a qualitati... :' .. Ressiot's talent for collecting this type of information has tive-one that would be based not on a threshold bur , : : ,r' r prompted a separate investiflation of his methods: On October exactly, manufactured EPO isoforms look. }' 13, French authorities announced they were looking into his use The standard test, first developed in 2000 bv L\DI -: of confidential police interviervs in an April 9, 2004, L'Equipe no means lock-tight, since its subjective nature ral:.: - story about alleged doping by members of the French Cofidis possibility of false positives. In fact, trvo weeks b.i :. :. Davld l{alsh, co-author of cycling team. But he makes no apologies about his reporting L'Equipe story was published, elite triathlete Rurq-: : .,.,, L.A. Confldentle.l and f,ance Almstrongrs chlef style, and in an interview withBicyclinS maSazine, he has char- got a 2001 positive EPO reading thrown out on appc"- - " - antagonlst, at home acterized his Armstron$ story as "black-and-white evidence." Flemish Disciplinary Commission when he demc,::. .:.- . - outside Cambrldge, 3ngIand. 142 OUTSIDE DECEMBTR 2OO5 -.# -iffi -'. Ttr:'., .-- J'ACCUSE CONTINUED :: J: ln the fourth legal dispute that includes thathe had.naturally produced proteins that could trig{ler a definitive answer to the question that has dogied Armstrong for I Times, English, and \\'a1:h ri: rir lcrL- doping allegations, Armstrong is the de- positive result. seven years: Did he rely on dopint, to win the Tbur de France- 1 dants in a suit seeking clAnrri!.: t, r ltircl fendant in a civil case scheduled for trial Lbquipe's story also raised questions about athletes' right to or has he been the victim of a callous and vicious witch hunt? l and an injunction to rcsirrrin th. .lcicn- as early as December 5 in Travis County be tested and judged by the rules, not by a newspaper sting that t dants from restating the ell..l-.1 -ri-cls. District Court in Austin. The ori$,inal suit wouldn't hold up under the standards of the official anti-doping IA$CE ARI'ISTROI\IG M.lrY have decided, at least for now, to S Orig,inallv schedulecl tor rr \, ,i cnrhqr' (). was filed on January 5, 2005, by Mike An- Nikon. protocol. Another criticism of the expos6 was that Armstrong shrug off the Lhquipe expos6, just as he's dismissed many jour- J 2005, trial dzrte, the case hrr: :inec hccr.r derson-Armstron$'s personal assistant Atthe l)eattol the inage- was the only cyclist to be named, despite evidence of other nalistic skirmishes in the past. Yet over the past year and ahalf postponed until earlv s|ri11i llt r11 and mechanic from December 2O02 :until riders testing positive. (T\roo and a half weeks after the LEquipe he has taken a much more a4i6iressive stance against his accus- l The ori$inal complair-rt in rh. I.r,ndon Armstrong fired him on November 16, story broke, the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche ers. While it may be true that a lawsuit "keeps a bad story alive court ancl Armstronq s s, rlie it,,r: sLrbse- 2004. Anderson alleges that Armstrong published a story naming three other cyclists whose samples forever," the former cyclist is nonetheless currently involved in quent Februarv 1S.:t)o5. rcplv tr-r the defamed him when Armstrong's agent, allegedly tested positive during the LNDD research project.) four separate cases in France, Enf,,land, and the U.S., three of clefense statemellts qivc lr stronq inciica- Bill Stapleton, told the Austin Am,erican- The UCI, which has jurisdiction in the matter because it was which he initiated.