"The World According to Lance" - MONDAY 15 OCTOBER 2012
(Excerpt of Lance Armstrong being presented with his seventh Tour de France trophy plays)
COMMENTATOR: It is the picture we will never see again.
LANCE ARMSTRONG: And finally the last thing I'll say for the people that don't believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry you can't dream big and I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles ...
(End excerpt)
BETSY ANDREU: People say that Lance Armstrong was good for the sport of cycling because he made it so popular. What they don't realise is he irreparably damaged it with his corruption and with the doping.
KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: From cycling hero to drug cheat, the miracle that turned to dust.
Welcome to Four Corners.
Never has the weight of evidence involving drugs in sport been so complete or so damning. Never has the legend of a global sporting hero been destroyed so comprehensively. Yet, as his career disappears before his eyes, Lance Armstrong, seven times winner of the Tour de France, is still protesting his innocence.
The US Anti-Doping Agency, USADA, has drawn on the sworn statements of 15 professional cyclists, including 11 of Lance Armstrong's former team mates, and scientific evidence to reveal what it describes as the most sophisticated, professionalised, and successful doping program the sport of cycling has ever seen. It permeates the industry behind the sport.
But while Armstrong has been stripped of his titles and banned for life it still remains to be seen whether the world cycling body, the UCI, will finally act on the undeniable evidence of endemic doping which has touched Australia too.
Tonight's inside story features interviews with some of USADA's key witnesses, documenting more than a decade of fraudulent behaviour and an audacious cover up.
The reporter is Quentin McDermott.
(Excerpt of Lance Armstrong being presented with his seventh Tour de France trophy plays)
COMMENTATOR: Lance Armstrong salutes the crowd, seven times winner of the Tour de France. This most ...
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT, REPORTER: In the coming weeks, cycling's governing body, the UCI will deliver its verdict on one of modern sport's most celebrated icons: the seven-time winner of the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong.
The United States Anti Doping Agency says that Armstrong was a drug cheat, part of an organised conspiracy by the US Postal Service team to dupe the public and fool the authorities.
BETSY ANDREU: The totality of the evidence is overwhelming. You're looking at the Bernie Madoff of sport. This is the biggest fraud in the history of sport. The biggest. He couldn't have done it alone.
PHIL LIGGETT, CYCLING COMMENTATOR: When money's involved, big money, then of course the cheats come as well.
(Photograph of young Lance Armstrong on his bike is shown)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Lance Armstrong entered cycling as a brash young competitor, full of enthusiasm but limited in his all-round ability. His mentor then was the Australian racer Phil Anderson.
(To Phil Anderson): Did he strike you in those days a cyclist who could eventually win the Tour de France?
PHIL ANDERSON: For me, no. To be a good Tour rider you have to be a good time trialist and you have to be a good mountain climber, and he wasn't particularly strong in those two areas. To me he didn't have what it took in those early years.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Lance Armstrong was then with the American Motorola team. So too was New Zealander Stephen Swart.
Stephen Swart says that in 1995, when Phil Anderson had left the team, the riders complained that their European opponents were doping.
(Excerpt from Stephen Swart's sworn deposition plays)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON, ATTORNEY: Did you talk with Lance Armstrong about the need to start using EPO to be competitive?
STEPHEN SWART: We had a discussion about it, yeah.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: What did Mr Armstrong say?
STEPHEN SWART: He did say, you know, if we're going to the Tour, we've got to - we've got to perform. We need the results.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: What does - what did that mean?
STEPHEN SWART: I think he just said - you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out, you know. If we were going to be competitive, there was only one road to take.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong's deposition plays)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Was there a discussion about doping in any way with Mr Swart?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: The only aspect that is true is that he was on the team. Beyond that, not true.
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: The doping allegations arose in a case brought by Lance Armstrong against an insurer based in Dallas, Texas, who provided huge bonuses paid to Armstrong for winning the Tour de France in successive years.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: These are the cheques making the first two payments under the contract. These cheques represent when he won on the fourth and the fifth, making those payments for $1.5 million and then $3 million.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Attorney Jeff Tillotson represented the insurer, who refused to pay a further $5 million when Armstrong won his sixth Tour de France in 2004.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Obviously no-one would wanna guarantee a payment to an event that was fixed or to which someone was cheating because that's a risk no-one would take.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Well was it fixed?
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Well my client and I we think now the evidence clearly shows that Lance Armstrong was in fact using performance enhancing drugs for both the fourth, fifth and sixth Tour de France races, which are the ones my clients had risk on.
We also think the evidence we developed showed that he had been using performance enhancing drugs long before we ever got involved, and even dating back to the beginning of his career. So in my client's mind yes, those races were fixed.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong deposition plays)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Mr Armstrong my name is Jeff Tillotson, I represent ...
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Jeff Tillotson has done something USADA has been unable to do.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Whether it's a blessing or a curse, I remain the only lawyer to have actually taken sworn testimony from Lance Armstrong and to have had him deny, under oath with the penalty of perjury, that he used performance enhancing drugs.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong's deposition plays)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: You understand that although we're in the conference room of your lawyers, you are giving testimony as if you are in a court of law? Do you understand that?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Correct.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: And that penalties of perjury attach to this deposition just like they would to a court of law proceeding?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Of course...
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Did you in fact ...
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Tonight, for the first time, sworn depositions from Lance Armstrong and other key witnesses are being broadcast.
This evidence laid the foundation for later investigations, including USADA's.
(Excerpt from footage of Lance Armstrong's first Tour de France plays)
COMMENTATOR: Lance Armstrong has the advantage here, here's on the right side of these riders...
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Lance Armstrong's dream was to win the Tour de France.
(Excerpt continues)
COMMENTATOR: Now Armstrong goes, on the left of the picture.
Lance Armstrong in his first Tour de France. They all said he was too young, but he gets it on the line! Lance Armstrong ...
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In his first Tour he won a stage, but three years later, it looked like his dream had died.
In this film for his cancer charity, Livestrong, Armstrong described what happened.
(Excerpt from Livestrong film plays)
LANCE ARMSTRONG: I had excruciating headaches, blurry vision, coughing up of blood. I had been debating on whether or not I should go to the doctor for a long time, but finally went. He said 'Lance, I hate to tell you this, but you have advanced testicular cancer'.
(Excerpt ends)
(Footage of Betsy Andreu going through photos of herself, Lance Armstrong and friends)
BETSY ANDREU: Look how young we all look ... geez...
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Lance Armstrong's closest friends gathered round.
Among them, Betsy Andreu and her fiancFrankie, who was close to Armstrong and rode with him on his team.
BETSY ANDREU (pointing to each rider in photograph): Frankie, Lance ....
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Armstrong was due to consult with his doctors. What happened next shocked Betsy Andreu to the core.
BETSY ANDREU: When the doctors came I suggested we leave to give him his privacy, and he said 'that's OK, you can stay'. So we stayed. The doctor started asking Lance a couple of banal questions, and then boom, 'have you ever used any performance enhancing drugs?' Lance, hanging onto his IV, rattled off EPO, testosterone, cortisone, growth hormone and steroids.
My eyes popped out of my head and Frankie said 'I think we should leave the room', and we left the room. And Frankie and I had just been engaged six weeks previously, and I said 'that's how he got his cancer, if you are doing that I am not marrying you'.
(Excerpt from Betsy and Frankie Andreu's testimony plays)
BETSY ANDREU: The doctor asked him a couple of questions, and then came the question, 'have you ever taken performance-enhancing drugs?' And Lance said, 'Yes.' The doctor said, 'what were they?' And he said, 'EPO, growth hormone, cortisone, steroids and testosterone.'
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: What is it Mr Armstrong said in response to the doctor asking him about use of performance enhancing drugs?
FRANKIE ANDREU: I don't know how the doctor phrased the question but Lance's response was that he'd taken EPO and testosterone and growth hormone and cortisone.
(Excerpt ends)
(Photograph of Lance Armstong with celebrities and Stephanie McIlvain is shown)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Also in the hospital that day was Stephanie McIlvain, who worked as a rep for one of Lance Armstrong's main sponsors, Oakley.
BETSY ANDREU: After we were deposed, the day after, Stephanie called, sobbing. Stephanie told me that her husband was called into one of the higher ups of the company where he is vice-president of global marketing for Oakley, one of Lance's sponsors, and Stephanie was told 'if you make the company look bad you're gonna lose your job'.
And so we said 'that's it, she's gonna lie. She's gonna lie, she's not gonna say it happened'.
(Excerpt from Stephanie McIlvain's deposition plays)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Were you ever in a hospital room or other part of the hospital with Mr Armstrong, where he said anything about performance enhancing drugs?
STEPHANIE MCILVAIN: No.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Do you have any recollection of any doctor in your presence asking Mr Armstrong if he used in the past any performance enhancing drugs or substances?
STEPHANIE MCILVAIN: No.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: OK.
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Stephanie McIlvain gave her sworn deposition at Oakley's headquarters in California.
The year before, out of the blue, she'd received a phone call from an American cycling legend.
(Excerpt from taped phone conversation plays)
STEPHANIE MCILVAIN (subtitled): Hello...
GREG LEMOND (subtitled): Ah, Stephanie?
STEPHANIE MCILVAIN (subtitled): Yeah?
GREG LEMOND (subtitled): This is Greg LeMond calling.
STEPHANIE MCILVAIN (subtitled): Greg LaWho?
GREG LEMOND (subtitled): Greg LeMond.
STEPHANIE MCILVAIN (subtitled): (laughs) Hi, Greg, how are you?
GREG LEMOND: How are you doing?
STEPHANIE MCILVAIN: I'm doing well, hope I'm doing ...
(End excerpt)
(Footage of Greg LeMond cycling in Tour de France wearing the yellow jersey plays)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Greg LeMond was a three-time winner of the Tour de France, who insisted he never took drugs.
(Excerpt from footage of Greg LeMond winning the Tour de France plays)
COMMENTATOR: And Greg LeMond is untroubled ...
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: LeMond had fallen out with Lance Armstrong, who he suspected of doping.
And in 2004 he and Stephanie McIlvain spoke frankly about what occurred in the hospital.
(Excerpt from taped conversation plays)
GREG LEMOND (subtitled): I heard from a source outside of the group here of what happened at the hospital. And Betsy and I have talked a little bit, but, and I, I'm not asking you to do anything you would never want to do, but you know, if it did get down to where it was a, you know, a law suit, um, would you be willing to testify or...?
STEPHANIE MCILVAIN (subtitled): If I was subpoenaed, I would.
GREG LEMOND (subtitled): Yeah.
STEPHANIE MCILVAIN (subtitled): 'Cause I'm not going to lie. You know, I was in that room. I heard it. You know and ..
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: What Stephanie McIlvain didn't know was that Greg LeMond was secretly recording their conversation.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Lance Armstrong's lawyers immediately backed off this issue and agreed in a written stipulation we presented to the panel that Stephanie McIlvain had been untruthful under oath and had told two different stories about what happened in the Indiana University Hospital room.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong's deposition plays)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: You heard her testimony regarding certain ...
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Even so, Lance Armstrong and his doctors insisted that he was never asked about performance enhancing drugs.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong's deposition continues)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Do you deny the statements that Ms Andreu attributed to you in the Indiana University Hospital?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: One-hundred per cent absolutely.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Did any medical person ask you, while you were at Indiana State University Hospital, whether you had ever used any performance-enhancing drugs or substances?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: No, absolutely not.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Can you offer or can you - can you help explain to me why Ms Andreu would make that story up?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Well, she said in her deposition she hates me.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Is it your testimony that Mr Andreu was also lying when he said that he heard you say those things regarding your prior use?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: One-hundred per cent. (Pauses) But I feel for him.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: What do you mean by that?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Well, I think he's trying to back up his old lady.
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: How has Lance Armstrong treated you following this incident?
BETSY ANDREU: Oh I mean what he's- How he has described me to people he presumed would never meet me is pretty amazing. Think of just any derogatory adjective and, you know, basically I'm nuts, just crazy, I'm really jealous, I'm hateful, I'm vindictive, I'm bitter. And so this has been a quest to clear my name, because I never, ever, ever lied about anything, ever.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Two days after the Andreus gave their sworn evidence, Indiana University announced an endowment of $1.5 million for a chair in oncology to honour the doctor whose team treated Armstrong for cancer.
The endowment was funded by the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong's deposition plays)
LANCE ARMSTRONG: I just want to be clear. These are very separate issues. And I'm endowing, I'm funding a chair for somebody who saved my life.
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Throughout the 1990s, riders and their teams worked hard to cover up the increasing use of performance enhancing drugs.
Their job was made easier by the fact that the drug of choice in the peloton at the time, the blood booster EPO, was undetectable.
So popular was EPO that the peloton invented a term for riders who didn't use it.
TYLER HAMILTON: The translation was 'riding on bread and water' and the Italian term is 'pan y agua', bread and water. So I was yeah, I guess for the first few months of the 97 season, I was riding on pan y agua, bread and water.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Tyler Hamilton's revelations about drug taking in cycling have created headlines around the world.
Like many top racers, Tyler Hamilton started out as a drug-free rider.
But when he joined the US Postal Service team he saw veteran riders getting preferential treatment; they would be given white lunch bags between races.
He wanted his lunch bag too.
TYLER HAMILTON: The doctor at US Postal Service said that, you know, I had enormous potential. So basically, eventually when I was invited to, when I was given my first white lunch bag, you know, it was a sign to me that they believe in me, they believe in my potential and they believe in me - my long term talent.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: The lunch bags contained the banned drug EPO, designed to raise a cyclist's hematocrit level.
TYLER HAMILTON: Your hematocrit's a percentage of red blood cells in your body. Your red blood cells carry oxygen to your muscles, so basically the higher your red blood cell percentage the better your muscles are gonna operate under stress. So in layman's terms, the more red blood cells you have, the faster you're gonna ride a bike, you know.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: So what was the doctor's solution to raising those levels?
TYLER HAMILTON: Yeah, a couple of months before, maybe a month and a half before my first Tour de France, it was EPO.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Under UCI rules at the time, riders were allowed a hematocrit level of 50 per cent, but no higher.
Tyler Hamilton says doctors would tell riders what their 'glow-time' was with different drugs.
TYLER HAMILTON: You were given the limits on you know what product would, how long you'd, you glow for, how long you'd test positive for. So as long as you'd play by what the team doctors told you, you know, it was more or less pretty, at the time it was pretty easy to pass these tests.
You know I passed a couple of hundred doping controls myself you know.
(Footage of Lance Armstrong riding with the US Postal Service team in 1998 plays)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: When Lance Armstrong joined the US Postal Service team in 1998, following his recovery from cancer, he shared a room with Tyler Hamilton.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Did you both talk about drugs together?
TYLER HAMILTON: We did, we did, you know, it didn't, didn't, it wasn't... Every conversation wasn't about drugs, but yeah, we talked about it, you know, behind closed doors, absolutely, absolutely. Ninety-eight I was pretty green, so I asked a lot of questions and, you know, I learnt a lot.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Tyler Hamilton says Lance Armstrong was surprisingly relaxed about where he kept his EPO.
TYLER HAMILTON: When I was at his house in Nice, France, I asked him for some and he kindly said 'yeah, no problem'. And it was just on the inside door of his refrigerator, just in the box that it came in. And you know I was surprised that it was right there and kinda out in the open.
(Excerpt from 1998 Australian news report is plays)
NEWS REPORTER: French police began investigations into Festina after banned drugs, including steroids, were found in one of the team cars on July 8th. Festina's doctor, Eric Rijckaert, was questioned and later charged under France's anti-drugs act.
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: As the 1998 Tour de France got underway, the lid was blown off systematic doping in the peloton.
DICK POUND, FORMER PRESIDENT, WORLD ANTI-DOPING AGENCY: It was pretty clear that there was a major problem. You know, the French police are arresting team members or followers with industrial quantities of doping substances and equipment.
(Footage of Lance Armstrong from 1999 Tour de France plays)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: The following year, the Tour de France was billed as the 'Tour of renewal'.
Teams were terrified of being raided, but Lance Armstrong came prepared, with a delivery man in tow called Motoman.
TYLER HAMILTON: Motoman was this gardener slash handyman for Lance Armstrong. The team I was on didn't carry performance enhancing drugs.
(Photograph of Lance Armstrong with Motoman (face obscured) is shown)
So to get EPO for the Tour de France, we came up with a plan. And the plan had Motoman involved where he would follow the race, always stay within probably a half hour drive of our, motorcycle drive, from our hotel. He basically had, you know, the container filled with EPO and he would basically just wait for a phone call on a secret phone, and when he had to do a delivery, he'd do a delivery.
(Excerpt from coverage of the 1999 Tour de France Prologue Le Puy du Fou plays)
COMMENTATOR: And Armstrong coming up now; now can he get off to a great start in the Tour de France? He is aiming at eight minutes and nine seconds; he's certainly ahead of Chris Boardman at this point. My goodness me, 8.02.51. Lance Armstrong, with that performance, Paul, I think may have done enough.
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: This is where the legend began.
On the very first day of his comeback Tour de France, Lance Armstrong won the Prologue.
(Excerpt from coverage of 1999 Tour de France with Lance Armstrong receiving the yellow jersey after winning the Prologue plays)
COMMENTATOR: Lance Armstrong has delivered a great blow ...
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Three weeks later, less than three years after being diagnosed with cancer, he won his first Tour de France.
It would be the first of seven.
PHIL LIGGETT: He came back again and again and again, winning Tour after Tour. And he did it seven times, and of course it's a record and nobody's ever done it. And it's for many people it was unacceptable. It was impossible to do that without taking drugs.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Well what do you think?
PHIL LIGGETT: I, look, I admit I've, I've been very proud to commentate on Armstrong over these, over these years because I've seen a man and I've seen how he's battled the elements and I've seen how he's come forward, and I'm very sad. What do I think? Everybody else did it, so I find it very difficult not to think that Lance did it
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: The evidence suggests Lance Armstrong was doping big-time.
(Footage of the Tour de France plays)
Tyler Hamilton says that after finishing a stage, he, Armstrong and their team-mate Kevin Livingston would inject themselves with EPO in the team's camper, just metres from the excited fans outside.
(Footage of US fans watching the Tour de France plays)
TYLER HAMILTON: That was nerve wracking, 'cause you were right there in the heart of the Tour de France, you know, thousands and thousands of people around your - hovering around your the team camper, and we had this performance enhancing drug. So I remember just trying to get rid of it as quickly as possible because you know there was one for Lance, one for Kevin and one for myself. And you know you quickly just stuck it in, got rid of it. And then it was quickly hidden away, typically in like a Coke can. All three vials would go into a Coke can and crush it, give it to a team doctor to dispose.
(Photograph of Lance Armstrong riding in the Tour de France is shown)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: But it didn't all go to plan. Lance Armstrong was tested for drugs during the Tour, and one of his samples revealed a significant level of a banned corticosteroid.
(Footage from team home video of Lance Armstrong and Emma O'Reilly during the Tour de France plays)
Emma O'Reilly was a soigneur on the team, whose duties included giving Armstrong a massage after his rides.
During one of these massages, she says, an urgent discussion took place between Armstrong and the team's management.
EMMA O'REILLY: The conversation that was occurring really was 'what are we gonna do? Here's the problem, we need a solution and how do we act upon the solution? And are we happy with the solution?' So it was - the problem was Lance had tested high in cortisone. The solution was potential prescription. 'What was the prescription for? Why was he taking it? Are we all happy with that? Yeah, we're happy with that. Right, let's go down then and speak to Luis', who was the team doctor, 'and get him to write the prescription'.
(Photograph of Dr Luis Del Moral is shown)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Dr Luis Del Moral has now been issued with a lifetime sporting ban by the US Anti-Doping Agency, USADA.
Emma O'Reilly says the doctor issued a prescription to Armstrong for a cortisone cream for saddle sores, and backdated it.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Had he complained to you about saddle sores?
EMMA O'REILLY: No, no, no. No, it wasn't about saddle sores. The whole thing was just a backdated prescription to help kind of explain his elevated cortisone level in the test at the Prologue.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Of course if he, if he had been prescribed this cream, then it should have been listed on the therapeutic use exemption . . .
EMMA O'REILLY: .... Absolutely yeah, yeah...
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: ...What...
EMMA O'REILLY: ....And it wasn't because he wasn't taking the cream. You know, it was just purely backdated to cover up that cortisone elevation, yeah. The backdated prescription was rigged to suit the test.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: When she was subpoenaed to give sworn evidence, Emma O'Reilly insisted that her memory was clear.
(Excerpt from Emma O'Reilly's testimony plays)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Is there any doubt in your mind as to what happened and what you heard?
EMMA O'REILLY: None whatsoever, at all. I can still, to this day, picture the whole scene vividly.
(Excerpt ends)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: She was labelled a traitor by Lance Armstrong, she was told she'd never work in the business again by the Armstrong group. We found her to be extremely credible on the issues in which - and the things she said she'd seen and done.
(Photographs of Lance Armstrong riding in the Tour de France are shown)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Lance Armstrong escaped being sanctioned for having a banned corticosteroid in his system.
In 2000 a test was introduced for EPO.
Tyler Hamilton says that he and Lance Armstrong continued to dope, using micro-doses of EPO which would pass through the body more rapidly, and an undetectable type of doping - blood transfusions.
Under this procedure, blood would be taken from a cyclist, stored in a refrigerator, and then reinfused at a later date, boosting the cyclist's red blood cells.
TYLER HAMILTON: It seemed kind of, sort of caveman-like, you know, takin' out your own blood, not seeing it for three or four weeks and then getting it back in, reinfusing it back in.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Who was organising all that?
TYLER HAMILTON: Lance and Johan Bruyneel and the doctor, Del Moral, Dr Del Moral.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Tyler Hamilton says that after Stage 11 of the 2000 Tour de France, he, Lance Armstrong and Kevin Livingston had their blood reinfused.
Everything was laid on by the US Postal team management.
TYLER HAMILTON: We were in this small hotel. It was pretty wild, I arrived in my room and it was, you know the staff had sort of prepared everything, the doctors, and there was a blood bag up, taped up on the wall, hanging from the wall and you know a red tube comin' down. A red tube filled with blood comin' down. And basically they, you know, injected me here (points to the crook of his left arm). I have pretty small veins so, the one place I've always worked was right there, and it's, you can see the scars today.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Tyler Hamilton says the three riders lay on beds in adjoining rooms, with an open door between them.
(To Tyler Hamilton): Could you see Lance Armstrong?
TYLER HAMILTON: Yeah, yeah, you know that's a questions been asked a lot. Yeah I saw him, I saw that this bag of blood and saw it in his arm, yeah.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: They were taking a huge gamble.
TYLER HAMILTON: I'm glad we didn't get caught, you know, I woulda been (puts his wrists together as if handcuffed), we all woulda been.
Serious stuff, and like now looking back, oh my God, what was I doing? But you're so deep into it, you know, you don't even have time to take a half step back and look at the big picture.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In 2005 Lance Armstrong denied, under oath, ever having received a blood transfusion.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong's deposition plays)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: You've never used your own blood for doping purposes, for example?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Abso - that would be banned.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: OK, not trying to agitate you, I'm just making sure your testimony is clear OK?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: OK.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Alright.
MIKE ASHENDEN, SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY AGAINST BLOOD DOPING: The whole point of blood doping is to increase the number of red cells in your circulation. The blood transfusions have the advantage of not being detectable. Even today, we don't have a foolproof method of establishing when an athlete has re-infused their own blood.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: So does that mean that athletes now, and cyclists now, are transfusing their own blood back into themselves?
MIKE ASHENDEN: There's no doubt. There's no doubt that's happening.
(Footage of Lance Armstrong on the podium after winning the 2005 Tour de France plays)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: That same year Lance Armstrong left the stage to huge acclaim, following his seventh straight victory in the Tour de France.
But a month later the EPO which Motoman had delivered during his first tour victory came back to haunt him.
(Copy of L'Equipe front page is shown. Headline reads: 'Le Mensonge Armstrong' (Translation: 'The Armstrong Lie'))
In a sensational scoop in the French newspaper L'Equipe, Lance Armstrong was accused of lying about performance enhancing drugs.
DAMIEN RESSIOT, L'EQUIPE: 'Le Mensonge Armstrong', in French, it means that yes, he is a liar, but that all his story is a lie. All his story - a double sense in French.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Damien Ressiot, an investigative journalist for L'Equipe, had written a story claiming the newspaper had proof that Lance Armstrong took EPO during the 1999 Tour de France.
DAMIEN RESSIOT (subtitled): His victory, and I am very clear on this, was 'dirty'. By this I mean that here at L'Equipe, we established that he won the 1999 Tour de France using EPO. That's indisputable. It's been scientifically proven. He didn't want to discuss it when I wrote the story and when I published my investigation, there was no legal action. We know that Mr Armstrong always has 20 lawyers around him but they didn't try to sue L'Equipe or me. The only thing he said was: "It's not true. I never took EPO". That's all. But we know, and it's been demonstrated, that he took EPO in 1999.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Lance Armstrong swears he has never taken performance enhancing drugs, and that in over 500 tests throughout his career, he never once tested positive. But the strongest scientific evidence that he was doping comes from this highly specialised French laboratory.
Testers here found clear evidence of EPO in samples which were later identified as Lance Armstrong's.
During the 99 Tour, which Armstrong won, urine samples from the riders were sent to this lab on the outskirts of Paris to be tested.
(To Francoise Lasne in the facility): So what is this room?
FRANCOISE LASNE, NATIONAL ANTI-DOPING AGENCY, FRANCE: This room is the EPO room. In this room we perform the anti-doping analysis for EPO.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: At the time, a test for EPO was still not ready.
FRANCOISE LASNE: The test for detection of EPO was developed in this laboratory. So I personally performed the development of this test and it took a very long time. It took about six years to develop this test, and it was ready in 2000.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Four years later, as part of the lab's research, but not as part of a formal testing process, the 1999 samples were re-examined, and some were found to contain the banned drug.
Six samples given by Lance Armstrong were found to contain EPO.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Why was it only revealed years later that these samples belonged to Lance Armstrong?
MIKE ASHENDEN: It was only a coincidence of events. A journalist requested from the cycling governing body, the UCI, to have access to some of Lance Armstrong's doping control forms. The UCI voluntarily gave all of Armstrong's forms from that race to the journalist who then cross matched the lab numbers that were on those forms with the samples that had been analysed quite separately by the laboratory. And he was the one that matched the lab numbers to the samples that contained EPO.
(Explaining the process of EPO testing to Quentin McDermott): The lines here are delineation between ...
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Mike Ashenden is a former independent expert for the UCI who helped develop a blood test for EPO for the Sydney Olympics.
(To Mike Ashenden): Which of these samples belongs to Lance Armstrong?
MIKE ASHENDEN: Well if we go to the doping control form, we see 160297, and that corresponds with this sample here, 160297. And we see that for that sample there was 100 per cent basic isoforms, which tells us that the system was flooded with synthetic EPO when that sample was provided.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: At what stage in the Tour was that taken?
MIKE ASHENDEN: That was the Prologue, that was the first day of the 99 Tour.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Francoise Lasne): Is there any doubt in your mind that the positive results for EPO were scientifically correct?
FRANCOISE LASNE: Yes they are scientifically correct.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong's deposition plays)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Do you know whether or not the samples which ...
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: When questioned about this under oath, Lance Armstrong put forward an alternative explanation.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong's deposition continues)
LANCE ARMSTRONG: I can only believe that they are either not mine, or have been manipulated. Because when I pissed in the bottle, as I told you earlier, having never taken performance enhancing drugs, when I pissed in the bottle there was not EPO in that piss or urine.
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Lance Armstrong, when he criticised those results, alleged that maybe those samples had been spiked or manipulated. Is there any truth in that?
FRANCOISE LASNE: No. It makes no sense because these analyses were performed for our research.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Cycling's governing body, the UCI, has never sanctioned Lance Armstrong, following the revelation by L'Equipe that six of his samples from the 1999 Tour de France contained EPO.
(To Mike Ashenden): How did the UCI react to these results?
MIKE ASHENDEN: In a way that I feel ashamed of. Rather than open their doors and say 'let's try and understand what's going on here inside of our sport', they instead, as far as I could work out, tried to, to shut the case down.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Dick Pound): Should the UCI have acted on those results?
DICK POUND: In my view? Of course they should have. They had the power to, to say 'alright, you doped, you're out'.
(Photograph of Lance Armstrong from 2001 Tour of Switzerland is shown)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: On one other occasion, the UCI chose not to act.
In 2001, Tyler Hamilton alleges, Lance Armstrong tested positive for EPO.
TYLER HAMILTON: Luckily we had the right people on our side.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: The test occurred during that year's Tour of Switzerland.
Tyler Hamilton says Lance Armstrong's advisor on doping, the Italian Dr Michele Ferrari, had told Armstrong to take micro-doses of EPO, to ensure he didn't test positive.
(Photograph of Dr Michele Ferrari is shown)
USADA says that in all Lance Armstrong paid Dr Ferrari more than $1 million for his doping advice.
But on this occasion, it went wrong.
TYLER HAMILTON: He told me he had a positive test for EPO, which was very surprising because, you know, it seemed like it was foolproof.
MIKE ASHENDEN: My understanding is that a sample had been provided and analysed by the laboratory and they had found that there was evidence of synthetic EPO in that sample.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: The UCI says Tyler Hamilton's allegations are completely unfounded.
But less than a year after the Tour of Switzerland, Lance Armstrong wrote a personal cheque to the UCI for $25,000, and his company gave a further $100,000 in 2005.
In his sworn evidence, Armstrong's recollection of his donations was vague.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong's deposition plays)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: You have made a contribution or donation to UCI, have you not?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: I have, yeah.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: And would you know when that was made?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Some years ago. I don't recall exactly.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Well, 2000 for example?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: I don't know.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Was it - was there anything that occasioned that, that you recall? Like I'm doing it because of X or Y or Z?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: I'm doing it to fund the fight against doping.
(Excerpt ends)
MIKE ASHENDEN: For an athlete to be paying money to the people who police him is, it's unconscionable.
DICK POUND: To have somebody who's at the centre of the controversy make this kind of a donation to the organisation that has the power to sanction him, it sets up an impossible conflict of interest.
(Photographs of Jan Ullrich, Alberto Contador, Floyd Landis are shown)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Lance Armstrong is not alone among drug cheats. Since 1998, more than a third of the top 10 finishers in the Tour de France have been linked to doping.
But the will of the UCI to shut down the doping networks is being questioned, not least, by the former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Dick Pound.
(Photograph of Hein Verbruggen and Lance Armstrong is shown)
Mr Pound cites a conversation he had with the former UCI president, Hein Verbruggen.
DICK POUND: I said 'Hein, are you, you guys have a huge problem in your sport'. He said 'what do you mean?' I said 'the doping'. 'Well', he said, 'that's really the fault of the spectators'. And I said 'I beg your pardon, it's the spectators' fault?' Well' he said, 'yes, if they were happy with the Tour de France at 25K, you know we'd be fine. But', he said, 'if they want it at 41 and 42', he said, 'the riders have to prepare'. And I just shook my head and said 'well, you heard it here first, you got a big problem'.
(Photograph of Joerg Jaksche is shown)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Joerg Jaksche is a former cyclist who also questions the UCI's commitment to stamp out systematic doping in the peloton's top teams.
From his earliest days as a professional he was told how the system works.
JOERG JAKSCHE: The team manager, one day he took me by his side like a father, kind of a father thing, and said 'listen, I have to explain you why this, that you are permanently dropped, and this is the solution. So if you want to do it, we can do it. Everyone in our team does it. The team pays for it'. And, yes, so I was confronted with the situation that there is organised doping in cycling.
(Video footage from the Spanish police raid plays)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Joerg Jaksche and Tyler Hamilton came unstuck when in 2006, Spanish police conducted a raid on a doctor in Madrid and found blood bags, drugs and paperwork implicating them, and other cyclists.
Later Joerg Jaksche gave sworn evidence to the German authorities.
(To Joerg Jaksche): In the end why did you decide to come clean?
JOERG JAKSCHE: I didn't like the hypocrisy in the sport. So these, the Operaci Puerto, which was this Spanish drug operation in which I was implicated also, and in which a lot of riders were implicated, they kind of showed me the real face of people running the cycling system.
And the same people that first brought me to Fuentes or asked me to do EPO doping or use other performance-enhancing drugs, they were the same people that suddenly started a movement for the credible cycling and were pointing the finger at us riders.
(Walking and talking to Quentin McDermott): I don't have a chance to come back as an athlete ...
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Joerg Jaksche had raced with several different teams, but when he met the UCI to tell them everything he knew, they failed to act on his detailed revelations.
JOERG JAKSCHE: As far as I know, no-one of my team managers, of my team doctors, got questioned by the UCI. There was no written accusation, nothing.
It's like having a deceased body, a dead body, in your basement. It stinks a little bit after a while and it's gonna come up more and more and more. And one day the police is gonna find it.
And the information is there, the UCI did very little or nothing about it, so it's their problem if the basement stinks.
(Footage of Tyler and Lindsay Hamilton walking their dog with Quentin McDermott plays)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: How has Tyler changed through all of this?
LINDSAY HAMILTON: There's been a huge transformation. There is definitely a guard lifted, a weight lifted.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: What do you think brought that about?
LINDSAY HAMILTON: Telling the truth, telling the truth.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Do you think that what he's done has been good for the sport?
LINDSAY HAMILTON: Of course. I think you need to go back a little bit before you can go forward. So I'm very proud of him.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Now more than ever, it's not about the bike, it's about the truth.
TYLER HAMILTON: I was kicking and screaming when I had to tell the truth but little did I know it was the best thing I ever could have done.
BETSY ANDREU: What Lance never had was the truth, which is more powerful than the corrupt athlete.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong's deposition plays)
LANCE ARMSTRONG: How could it have taken place ...
(Excerpt ends)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Whether Lance Armstrong will ever confess to doping, remains to be seen.
In 2005 his denials were passionate.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong's deposition continues)
LANCE ARMSTRONG: How many times do I have to say it?
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: I'm just trying to make sure your testimony is clear.
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Well, if it can't be any clearer than I've never taken drugs, then incidents like that could never have happened.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: OK.
LANCE ARMSTRONG: How clear is that?
(Excerpt ends)
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: It was really hard for us to tell if Lance actually believed what he was telling and had convinced himself that he hadn't done these things or that he was just a very persuasive liar.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Attorney Jeff Tillotson and the insurer eventually agreed to pay Lance Armstrong his bonus.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: We had one problem, we had a bad contract. Our contract said we will pay him the bonus if he is declared the official winner of a Tour de France race, and he most certainly was. And so that's why we ultimately stopped the case, made the payment, and waited until the regulatory agencies did their investigation.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In Lance Armstrong's home town of Austin, Texas, he still has many loyal supporters.
At Mellow Johnny's, his bike shop, customers are sanguine about the idea of their hero being a cheat.
(Footage from inside Mellow Johnny's plays)
MALE FAN: Lance passed 500 and some tests, right? (Laughs) And hasn't shown a positive yet, right?
You know, just as a big cycling fan myself, and watching a lot of the races, some sort of cheating probably goes on and is probably pretty widespread but that, that just kinda comes with the territory.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: The seven yellow jerseys on the wall at Mellow Johnny's are unlikely to be taken down anytime soon.
Lance Armstrong says he's moving on, and will not be distracted from his work with Livestrong and the fight to beat cancer.
The stakes could hardly be higher.
PHIL LIGGETT: I know the power of this man when he walks into the room and I know the hope he gives cancer survivors. I mean I don't know if he is proved to be, to have taken drugs how he can face any of these people. Because I mean he can, he can call up Barack Obama, he has his cell phone number on his cell phone, and how can you call up these people knowing that you've taken drugs all your life, to cheat to seven Tours? It's a problem I wouldn't want.
(Excerpt from Lance Armstrong's deposition plays)
LANCE ARMSTRONG: If you have a doping offence or you test positive, it goes without saying that you're fired from all your contracts. Not just the team, but there's numerous contracts that I have that would all go away.
JEFFREY TILLOTSON: Sponsorship agreements, for example?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: All of them. And the faith of all the cancer survivors around the world. So everything I do off of the bike would go away too.
And don't think for a second I don't understand that. It's not about money for me. Everything. It's also about the faith that people have put in me over the years. So all of that would be erased.
So I don't need it to say in a contract you're fired if you test positive. That's not as important as losing the support of hundreds of millions of people.
KERRY O'BRIEN: And Lance Armstrong is still protesting all the way out the back door.
Now we wait to see if the International Cycling Union is actually capable of getting a very dirty house in order.
The UCI, USADA and Lance Armstrong all declined to be interviewed for the story.
There's a special online presentation on our website featuring the key players in tonight's program.
Next week on Four Corners the story behind the Federal Government's change of heart in refusing access to the Dutch super trawler to fish in Australian Waters.
Until then, goodnight.
END