Read Online Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong by David Walsh - Free Book Online
Authors: David Walsh
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the mountains, and often that first venture into the Alps or Pyrenees is the favourite’s greatest test.
Over a 56.6km circuit in the eastern city of Metz, Armstrong won the time trial and regained the yellow jersey he had claimed on the first day but then given up on the second. His victory in the race against the clock was emphatic and it gave him a lead of 2 minutes and 20 seconds over second-placed Christophe Moreau. From being a contender, Armstrong became everyone’s idea of the Tour winner.
To me, the time-trial performance was puzzling at best, downright suspicious at worst. He had ridden the Tour de France four times before falling ill with cancer in ’96 and recorded remarkably consistent results the three times he rode it. 5 In ’93 he finished 6.03 minutes down on the winner, 6.23 minutes in ’94 and 6.24 minutes in ’95. He wasn’t bad but nowhere near the best. To go from there to being the best was a staggering leap.
But two days later, Armstrong would go into the mountains for the first time and tell us whether he was going to win the Tour or be an adornment. The mountains shouldn’t have been his favoured landscape by any means. The form sheet was there. In his previous Tours Armstrong’s best placing on a mountain stage was 39th on the Saint Etienne to Mende leg of the 1995 Tour. In the other eight mountainous races he’d ridden, his placings were much worse and the deficits far greater.
Yet in the press room in ’99 there is an expectation among his growing number of disciples that this new edition Armstrong will be different as he’d ridden well in the previous year’s Tour of Spain and, post-cancer, he was much stronger. From being a man who might finish 8 or 28 minutes behind, he has become the peloton’s mountain goat. The way is being prepared for Clark Kent’s next deed. No need to wonder, folks, it can all be logically explained.
Me?
My instinct says, ‘Don’t believe it. This is all about as logical as the Tour being led by a lobster on a bike. A lobster complete with helmet and a moving backstory about a last-minute escape from a pot of boiling water.’
The first mountain stage is a brutally tough 213-kilometre race to Sestriere over the border in Italy. Sestriere is an iconic climb of both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. Taken alone it is not an especially long ascent, nor a particularly hard and punishing one, but it is beloved because of its location and its history and because of the style of the men who’ve conquered it.
It was here that the charismatic Fausto Coppi broke clear and stole almost 12 minutes on his eternal rival Gino Bartali on his way to the 1949 Giro. Coppi also won the Tour that year. His first double.
Three years later, Sestriere first appeared on the Tour route. Sestriere was stage eleven but stage ten, two days earlier, was the first stage to finish at the summit of Alpe d’Huez. Coppi, on his way to another Giro–Tour double, took the yellow jersey on Alpe d’Huez and then came out and massacred the field with a heroic solo ride through wind and rain to the summit finish at Sestriere.
For those present on this day, there was a memory for life. Coppi was a character and stories about him were once told around the fireplace or at the foot of a bed and they created a romance that wrapped itself around the Tour and kept it warm.
One of the Coppi stories goes back to when he was a prisoner of war in 1943, having been captured by the British in Tunisia. In captivity he shared his food bowl with another prisoner, an amateur racer called Arduino Chiappucci. Coppi had gone to war as a great hero of Italian sport and such was the affection in which he was held that the Italian army tried to keep him away from danger for as long as possible.
In captivity Chiappucci grew close to his idol Coppi and often gave him his own food in order to keep up the great man’s strength and morale. When the war ended Coppi and Chiappucci went their
Over a 56.6km circuit in the eastern city of Metz, Armstrong won the time trial and regained the yellow jersey he had claimed on the first day but then given up on the second. His victory in the race against the clock was emphatic and it gave him a lead of 2 minutes and 20 seconds over second-placed Christophe Moreau. From being a contender, Armstrong became everyone’s idea of the Tour winner.
To me, the time-trial performance was puzzling at best, downright suspicious at worst. He had ridden the Tour de France four times before falling ill with cancer in ’96 and recorded remarkably consistent results the three times he rode it. 5 In ’93 he finished 6.03 minutes down on the winner, 6.23 minutes in ’94 and 6.24 minutes in ’95. He wasn’t bad but nowhere near the best. To go from there to being the best was a staggering leap.
But two days later, Armstrong would go into the mountains for the first time and tell us whether he was going to win the Tour or be an adornment. The mountains shouldn’t have been his favoured landscape by any means. The form sheet was there. In his previous Tours Armstrong’s best placing on a mountain stage was 39th on the Saint Etienne to Mende leg of the 1995 Tour. In the other eight mountainous races he’d ridden, his placings were much worse and the deficits far greater.
Yet in the press room in ’99 there is an expectation among his growing number of disciples that this new edition Armstrong will be different as he’d ridden well in the previous year’s Tour of Spain and, post-cancer, he was much stronger. From being a man who might finish 8 or 28 minutes behind, he has become the peloton’s mountain goat. The way is being prepared for Clark Kent’s next deed. No need to wonder, folks, it can all be logically explained.
Me?
My instinct says, ‘Don’t believe it. This is all about as logical as the Tour being led by a lobster on a bike. A lobster complete with helmet and a moving backstory about a last-minute escape from a pot of boiling water.’
The first mountain stage is a brutally tough 213-kilometre race to Sestriere over the border in Italy. Sestriere is an iconic climb of both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. Taken alone it is not an especially long ascent, nor a particularly hard and punishing one, but it is beloved because of its location and its history and because of the style of the men who’ve conquered it.
It was here that the charismatic Fausto Coppi broke clear and stole almost 12 minutes on his eternal rival Gino Bartali on his way to the 1949 Giro. Coppi also won the Tour that year. His first double.
Three years later, Sestriere first appeared on the Tour route. Sestriere was stage eleven but stage ten, two days earlier, was the first stage to finish at the summit of Alpe d’Huez. Coppi, on his way to another Giro–Tour double, took the yellow jersey on Alpe d’Huez and then came out and massacred the field with a heroic solo ride through wind and rain to the summit finish at Sestriere.
For those present on this day, there was a memory for life. Coppi was a character and stories about him were once told around the fireplace or at the foot of a bed and they created a romance that wrapped itself around the Tour and kept it warm.
One of the Coppi stories goes back to when he was a prisoner of war in 1943, having been captured by the British in Tunisia. In captivity he shared his food bowl with another prisoner, an amateur racer called Arduino Chiappucci. Coppi had gone to war as a great hero of Italian sport and such was the affection in which he was held that the Italian army tried to keep him away from danger for as long as possible.
In captivity Chiappucci grew close to his idol Coppi and often gave him his own food in order to keep up the great man’s strength and morale. When the war ended Coppi and Chiappucci went their
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