Joe Bookbinder
There are very few people who have never heard of Lance Armstrong, once thought to be the greatest cyclist ever, a survivor who recovered from testicular cancer to win the Tour de France not once but seven times. This of course is common knowledge. What is less well known is the riveting story of the man who exposed Lance Armstrong as “the greatest cheat of all time”. Enter David Walsh, The Times’ chief sports writer, an impossibly modest man with a light Irish accent and twinkling eyes.
To fully appreciate Walsh’s journey you need to understand a story often stranger than fiction, one that Hollywood directors would dismiss as being too unrealistic. David Walsh first met Lance Armstrong 20 years ago, in 1993, as the rider was just breaking into the peloton. Walsh, who decided he wanted to be a sports journalist aged 6, describes how impressed he was at the confidence, drive, determination and charm of the young American. However, whilst Armstrong was a decent rider, he struggled in the mountains and was never a contender for the coveted yellow jersey.
Having taken a break from cycling due to testicular cancer, Armstrong returned to cycling in time for the 1999 tour which he won in a remarkably quick time. Whilst the majority of the media celebrated the ‘cancer survivor wins Tour clean’ story, Walsh was not convinced, he was adamant that Armstrong had doped from that moment on. His reasoning is so logical that it is a wonder no one else came to the same conclusion. The ‘98 tour had been racked by the Festina scandal where the winner had been proved to have had cheated. Armstrong, claiming to be clean, finished the ’99 tour in an even quicker time. Walsh correctly concluded that it was simply impossible for Armstrong to be clean.
From then on he pursued every available source trying to prove his convictions. Apart from a small handful of journalists and riders, no one was willing to speak openly. Those who did were ruthlessly hounded out of the sport, chiefly by Armstrong and his team – Walsh surmises that “all the people who came up against Armstrong, you say to them, what was worse the bullying or the doping? They all say his bullying. You could forgive him for the doping”.
Walsh has experienced Armstrong’s bullying first hand several times. He once began pursuing Armstrong, his team of supervisors kept tabs on Walsh – who he associated with, talked to, travelled with, to such an extent that journalists would be denied access to Armstrong for merely sitting next to Walsh in press conferences. Armstrong stopped at almost nothing to protect his secret from getting out. He regularly tried to discredit and smear Walsh, whose eldest son John tragically died in a cycling accident, by saying that Walsh “was out to get me, to get revenge for his son”. Amazingly, despite the direct threats, Walsh “never felt threatened by Armstrong”, though there were many that were.
As Walsh’s investigation began to pick up momentum, Armstrong successfully sued the Sunday Times for £1million. The paper is now counter-suing Armstrong, Walsh has had no contact with Armstrong since the revelations, a prospect he would clearly relish. It has taken Walsh 13 years of hard work to finally reach the truth, during this period he admits he became obsessed, his family and friends also had concerns. He is absolutely adamant that “I didn’t need Armstrong to be caught to feel that I was doing the right thing. I always felt that this hunt was worth it even if he hadn’t been caught”. Despite his efforts, and the patience of his editors, Walsh concedes that “He [Armstrong] always thought he would get away with it. He had so many people covering his back. And if he hadn’t made his comeback in 2009, I don’t think he would have ever been caught”.
At the height of Armstrong’s popularity Walsh alleges that his sponsors knew he was doping, everyone knew, the authorities, his team mates and rivals, even the majority of the media including the BBC. Not only did they not realise something was up, they chose to ignore it. Our conversation turns to the Oprah Winfrey interview last year. Prior to the interview Walsh had “no idea what to expect”, yet afterwards he concluded, “I felt sorry for Armstrong, I have to say. Intellectually he knew he had to be honest, but emotionally he couldn’t do it. It’s like a guy turning up to a funeral of a loved one and he wants to be sad. He wants his body language to convey grief, but there is a smirk on his face”. Walsh was also angry about the fact that Armstrong didn’t apologise to the almost countless number of people whose lives and careers he destroyed, namely an ex-masseuse for the U.S. Postal team, Emma O’Reilly, a chief witness who overheard Armstrong admitting to doping in 1996 and who Armstrong had implied was a whore.
It strikes me as odd that, despite the sheer number of people who knew that Armstrong was doping, news didn’t break sooner. Did Armstrong really think he would get away with it, knowing that hundreds of people knew his secret? “He had so many people covering his back; he really thought he would get away it”. When Armstrong finally came clean Walsh says he didn’t feel vindicated, and he didn’t celebrate; it was the anniversary of h son, John’s birthday. He would have been 30.
Prior to the interview, Walsh spoke for just under two hours to a rapt audience. He is an incredibly gifted storyteller, his positivity infectious, the auditorium hanging on to every word. It is a particularly poignant part of the talk, as a friend of Walsh’s suggested, the confession was a gift from his son, John. A question that I am bursting to ask, but wary of what the answer might be, is whether he thinks Bradley Wiggins is clean. Walsh pauses before he answers, “I think there is a case to be made that Bradley Wiggins won the tour clean, I think that case can be made totally”. Walsh has also been complimentary of Team Sky, run by mastermind David Brailsford, who he believes minimized the chances of creating a doping culture by bringing in dieticians, analysts and coaches from other sports.
We move on from cycling to wider issues in sport such as match-fixing. Walsh stresses “football is in a mess”. In a previous interview he has alluded to corruption within FIFA. This, of course, is not news and he doesn’t enlighten me further, however he has said that ‘if someone really wanted to pursue it (FIFA) they could make a good case’.
The most topical issue in sport is clearly the incident at Oscar Pistorius’ house where his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shot dead. At the time of the interview Pistorius hadn’t been granted bail, Walsh, a man of strongly held convictions, argues that people were originally willing to think the best of Pistorius –“Yeah, I think some people are rushing to his defence, I totally believe this guy murdered her. The public just do not believe that this guy jumped out of bed, did not know where his girlfriend was, when she was sleeping with him.”
As Walsh said at the start of the talk, the more you know about the story, the more you need to know. Never has this been more true, a fact I am learning quickly as more questions than I can ask pop into my head. Whether a fan of cycling or not, or even of sport in general, Walsh’s story is just as much about cycling, as it is about morality, deceit and different approaches to life.
Cycling will never forget Lance Armstrong, the once untouchable champion to the man who nearly permanently ruined the reputation of cycling . It is just as vital that David Walsh, the man who uncovered the truth, and his story, should never be forgotten. It is people like Walsh, whilst forever in the minority, who reassure us that there is hope in the often murky waters of sport.