Read Lanced: The Shaming of Lance Armstrong for Free Online Page A

the court on Friday evening he felt that finally he was getting his message through. Before setting out for home he asked if he could be excused from attending this week's continuation of the trial, as he had no wish to hear cycling officials defend what he sees as indefensible. The judge agreed.
    Outside the courtroom, Virenque spoke to reporters, and Vayer slowed down to hear what he was saying. "I am a bit afraid," the rider said, referring to the testimony of Vayer and the doctor on the likelihood of health problems for those who took drugs. "I don't want to think about the bike now, I just want to go home and see my family. Most of all I want to see them grow up."
    Richard Virenque, the incomparable mountain climber and untouchable drug cheat, was no more. Torn from his pedestal, he was more to be pitied than laughed at. This was Virenque diminished...and yet somehow redeemed. Vayer felt that at last they were almost on the same side. WITH so much evidence of doping in professional cycling, it is natural to wonder why the latest revelations are important. But it does matter that the last of the Festina cheats admitted their wrongdoing publicly and are disgraced in the eyes of those who love sport.
    The significance of what happened in Lille, however, goes beyond the shaming of Virenque and his friends. By their testimonies, Virenque, Herve, Brochard, Davy and Erwin Mentheor implicated most riders in the peloton, especially those who compete at the highest level.
    "Even though I doped, I did not have an advantage over my rivals," said Virenque in a deliberate reference to the ways of the peloton.
    Just as important was the courage shown by Vayer. Many coaches and trainers look at achievements in their sport and privately say that they could not be achieved without doping.
    There is much whispering about the staggering number of exceptional men's marathon times over the past two years, but nobody publicly questions them. Vayer has now drawn a line and insisted that as a sports scientist he doesn't accept that a clean cyclist can do 54kph in a Tour de France time trial, as the dual Olympian Armstrong did.
    The 29-year-old American refuses to respond to the accusation, but he cannot miss its implications. We may not be convinced that he dopes, but as the champion professional cyclist, we cannot be sure that he doesn't.
    WHILE Delegove was extracting the truth from cyclists in France, the wheels of justice were turning against dopers in Italy. After an investigation that has lasted more than two years, prosecutor Pierguido Soprani delivered his report on systematic, state-funded doping. His report, which runs to more than 20,000 pages, recommends that Professor Francesco Conconi and seven others be sent for trial.
    Conconi, a former member ofthe International Olympic Committee's (IOC) medical commission, is accused of criminal association, sporting fraud, administration of medicines in a dangerous way and professional malpractice. This case will be bigger than the Lille trial, and will implicate the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) and the IOC in blood doping.
    In his report to the Italian chief magistrate, Soprani has written about two past presidents of CONI, Franco Carraro and Arigo Gattai. "There is evidence," he wrote, "of a special contract between Professor Conconi and CONI." The prosecutor alleges that the agreement was to provide blood doping for Italian athletes.
    Soprani also accuses Carraro and Gattai of indifference to the health of athletes during their terms of office with CONI: "Under Italian law I cannot ask for Carraro and Gattai to be prosecuted, but it is clear they did some bad things." The two officials escape prosecution because they had to be charged within five years of committing the alleged offences.
    Carraro is now president of the Italian Football Association and is on the IOC executive committee.
    Soprani's case will deal in detail with Conconi's work at the University of Ferrara and the