Read Lanced: The Shaming of Lance Armstrong for Free Online

training methods. A good doctor, they knew, would beat a nutty professor any day. Within the powerful Festina team Virenque was the star. Vayer was a nuisance.
    But then Virenque, Festina and professional cycling got caught. Four hundred phials of drugs were found in a team car bound for the Tour de France. More than two years have passed since French Customs made the discovery, and in that time a number of Festina riders served short suspensions before quickly returning to competition. The Tour de France organisers spoke earnestly of the need for renewal, but, fundamentally, nothing changed.
    Virenque swore that he had not knowingly used drugs, and for two years he lied shamelessly. At the 1999 Tour de France he was acclaimed wherever the race went; it was as though the purge of the previous year had been futile. Virenque, his fellow riders, the sport's governing bodies and its public would not address the truth. Vayer was considered a marginal figure, obsessed with doping.
    Virenque turned up at the trial last week determined to stick to his story. On Monday he testified under oath that he had never knowingly used banned substances. Some time between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning Judge Daniel Delegove convinced him the lying could not go on. And on Tuesday morning Virenque agreed. As soon as he did, a dam broke and the truth poured through.
    His friend Pascal Herve also admitted being part of Festina's systematic doping programme and said he would have admitted it earlier if it had not been for the fact that "just us nine idiots were caught". Other testimonies were similarly revealing. Laurent Brochard told how he had become cycling world champion in 1997 but had subsequently tested positive. According to Brochard, an official with the sport's world governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale, told his team manager that a forged medical certificate would get him off.
    Frenchman Thomas Davy, who rode in the same team as five-time Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain in the mid-Nineties, testified about his experiences in the sport.
    "At Banesto there was systematic doping, under medical supervision," he said. "Did everyone in the team use drugs?" asked the judge, curious about Indurain's stance. "I don't know. I didn't go round all the rooms, but I think so," said Davy.
    On Tuesday, Vayer testified for the first time. He made sure the trial would not pass without a consideration of the Tour's latest champion, American Lance Armstrong. "Armstrong rides at 54kph (33mph)," Vayer said. "I find it scandalous. It's nonsense. Indirectly it proves he is doping."
    This was the key statement. Vayer had considered it carefully beforehand. His training is in physiology and he claims that scientific tests can accurately establish the capacity of the human body; that is, the capacity of a clean athlete. "What is being achieved in professional cycling these days is a joke. It is way beyond man's natural capacity," he added.
    Paul Kimmage, who rode in the peloton from 1986-89 and wrote a definitive book on doping in professional cycling, shares Vayer's view: "The cycling that I watch now in the Tour de France bears no relation to the sport I competed in. The speed at which they now race up mountains makes a joke of the sport."
    On Friday, Vayer returned to the witness stand and to the same theme. He spoke of a rider tackling the steep 13km climb to the Pyrenean ski station at Hautacam in this year's Tour: "He's goes quick at the beginning, then faster, and faster again all the way to the top. It is just not possible to do it like that." It was Armstrong who dominated the Hautacam ascent this year, and his power amazed seasoned Tour observers.
    Judge Delegove asked a medical expert if Vayer's analysis made sense. The doctor said it made complete sense. Then Vayer detailed the health risks involved in the abuse of banned substances, making the point that many of today's riders would suffer in the future. And so when Vayer left