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

blood-doping programme that he ran. Its significance lies in the fact that while doping athletes, Conconi was funded by CONI and the IOC.
    He and Belgium's Prince Alexandre de Merode, chairman of the IOC medical commission, have long been friends, and despite the two-year-long investigation into Conconi, the IOC refuses to denounce him.
    The case against Conconi will also embarrass some of Europe's top sportsmen and women of the Nineties. Many of the great cyclists worked with Conconi or his team of doctors, and one particular file will allegedly involve riders such as Gianni Bugno, Claudio Chiappucci, Stephen Roche and many others.
    Canoeist Beniamino Bonomi, who won an Olympic gold medal in Sydney, is another name believed to be on the Conconi files, and Soprani's case will seek to prove that many others availed themselves of the professor's expertise.
    If there is a bottom line from the judicial investigations in France and Italy, it is that sport's governing bodies have been guilty of the great doping conspiracy. In some cases they have funded the cheating and abetted the cheater. But it is not just the athletes, organisers and administrators; journalists too have turned a blind eye, or even worse, to a problem they know about.
    Yesterday's Corriere della Sera newspaper in Italy carried a story which claimed that Soprani knew who tipped off the cycling fraternity about a policeraid on the Giro d'Italia in 1996. According to the prosecutor, it was the Italian sports newspaper Gazzetta della Sport.
     
     

Saddled with suspicion
    David Walsh
    July 8, 2001
    "
    I have come to discuss one subject: doping
    "

He earns $8m a year. Endorsements run to another $5m. He once held a press conference in New York and the billionaire Donald Trump turned up to hear him speak. Nowadays, he charges twice as much as former president Bill Clinton for speaking engagements and when not recounting history, he is creating it. Lance Armstrong is his name. He is the world's best cyclist.
    Yesterday, he launched his bike from a ramp in Dunkirk and set out on the Tour de France. He is favourite to win for the third consecutive time and become only the fifth cyclist to do so. It is not solely success that draws us to Armstrong but also what his achievements symbolise. Less than five years ago he was stricken with testicular cancer that spread to his lungs and brain.
    Surgeons suggested he might not live but they didn't know their patient. Armstrong has been to hell and back. First to good health, then to the famed yellow jersey. His spirit and good drugs enabled him to make the first part of the journey. But for two years there has been endless speculation about Armstrong, his remarkable recovery and his relationship with drugs, not just those taken to kill the cancer but also those taken by cyclists to help them compete.
    Doping is a way of life in professional cycling. It is as old as the sport itself. Police raids on the 1998 Tour de France and on this year's Tour of Italy exposed the enormity of the deception that is widespread. In this game, Mr Clean competes against the majority and against the odds. Can a clean rider beat those on drugs?
    The search for an answer began in Indianapolis six months ago. It is a Sunday afternoon and the Starbucks cafe is almost empty. Greg Strock, five months before graduating from medical school, tells of his short career as an elite cyclist. He was 17-going-on-18; the coaching staff at USA Cycling told him that not since the great Greg LeMond had anybody performed better in physiological tests. But it ended before it began. Strock claims he was told injections were necessary. Within a year, he became ill and though he would return to competition, he never regained his former strength.
    Ten years have passed. The memory angers him. It takes time, he says, to appreciate fully what has happened. Strock is suing USA Cycling and his former coach, Rene Wenzel. Erich Kaiter, his teammate on the US junior team in 1990,