"Would you raise your right hand, please?" "Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth" " and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" " Yeah." "Would you please give us your full name?" "Lance Armstrong." "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?" " Correct." "And that penalties of perjury attach to this deposition" " just like they would to a court of law proceeding." " Of course." "There's been allegations regarding what has been alleged to be a steroid or cortisone in connection..." " What do you mean, a steroid or a cortisone?" " Cortisone, I apologise." " Because they're different." " I understand, believe me." "One is actually anabolic and one is actually catabolic." "Know what they've done with the money?" "I just told you I don't know." " Was it earmarked..." " Which part of "I don't know" do you not understand?" " I'm just trying to make sure your testimony is clear." " How many times do I have to say it?" "It can't be any clear than "I've never taken drugs."" "How clear is that?" "His name is Lance Armstrong, and today, if his legs feel strong, this 21-year-old Texan can become cycling's first million-dollar baby." "Regardless of the million-dollar prize, it's been a race that I wanted to win all year long and now with that staring me in the face, it's an even bigger race." "He's going for his third consecutive victory with only today's four states championship standing in the way of winning the Thrift Drug Triple Crown - look out Philadelphia," "Lance is coming to town!" "There was this million-dollar prize, if Lance Armstrong could win, so all the pressure was on him, it was on the team." "Thing is, he was the favourite going in - he was strong, he was beating up on everybody." "I'll be disappointed with anything but a win." "Lance had the chance to win it." "But he knows, the man to beat that day, it was me." "Philadelphia - it was my race, every year I was preparing for that race." "And Frankie Andreu of Motorola who has slowed down the brakes..." "I remember Lance made a deal with some Italians." "Stephen Swart," "Davis Phinney, Tommy, the team have this deal with Lance." "Lance Armstrong is flying up the wall, making it look almost effortless!" "The last three laps is when the race is decided." "That's when Lance starts talking to me, he wants to make sure that I was in the plan, didn't want to take any risk." "And he say, "We make a deal, and I know you're the only one can come with me, but don't come with me."" "And right on cue, Lance is out of the saddle, pushing himself into a higher gear." "On my heart, on my deep heart, I don't want to do it, but when you have eight team-mates, you can't go against the team." "The group could do nothing but watch Lance dance away into the lead as they, compared to Lance, seemed to be standing still." "And so I pulled back and see him going." "And he went." "And true to form, Lance doesn't disappoint them." "Cycling's first million-dollar man, US Pro champion!" "Deep inside, I feel terrible, because I know I could have," "I could have won it." "For Lance, a joyous celebration with his mother." "The success that Lance has seen and will continue to see of course makes me very proud, there's not a better gift." "Lance has rolled the dice and come up a winner." "It's a big day for me but I think it's a bigger day for cycling, everybody won today." "As far as I know, Philly's been going around for 30 years and I don't think that's ever been done before." "So, that's a huge chunk of change." "After the race, Lance come to my room, with a cake box, a metal cake box, a Panettone and he just gave it to me and say "Merry Christmas."" "It was, like, $100,000." "Cash." "This was a..." "This was a Lance Armstrong specialty." "I really want to win a classic." "I mean, if you're going to put a lot of time into it, if I'm going to be 18, 19, 20 years old and I'm going to give up an education," " if I'm going to give up..." " That is what you did?" "Yeah, if I'm going to give up time at home, sure, it better be rewarding, in terms of money." "Always in the back of Lance's mind was that great fortunes can be made in professional road racing." "And for a poor kid growing up, hard scrabble in Texas, it's important." "The next progression is to race in Europe, in the biggest pro races." "Como, Italy, was kind of like the American base." "A lot of 7-Eleven guys were living there, and at that time," "Lance and I," "I don't know how we got into the discussion, but we decided," ""Hey, we'll live together for next year" and so I was like, "Sweet." "It'll be good, it'll be fun."" "It was great." "You know, cooking, having risotto." "I remember eating watermelon out on the balcony and we had this bad little car, that we used to get around." "I mean, we weren't teenagers, but it was like teenagers just hanging out in Europe." "Frankie was Lance's closest friend, and because I was dating Frankie," "I became friends with Lance as well, and he was fun." "He was fun to hang out with." "And Lance and I had a unique relationship, because so many people from early on would just kow-tow to him, but with Lance, he would try to rib me, and try to just get me going," "and so we would butt heads and we would argue." "But we kind of, I think, enjoyed getting under each other's skin." "Hello again, and welcome back to the Tour de France." "We're at Stage 8 this morning and the sun is still shining..." "The Tour de France REALLY hard." "Racing bikes in Europe is bad for you, it's not healthy." "You sacrifice a lot to be successful." "At the Tour de France, I was rooming with Lance, and I was like," ""Lance, this is your day." "This is the one you can win."" "And he was like, "Really, you think so?" I'm like, "Yeah!"" "Armstrong is fifth down the line..." "Armstrong has the advantage..." "It's got, like, a little 6K climb at the end," "I mean, it's power downhill sprint, it's perfect." "And on that day, the whole team committed, led him out to the bottom of that climb and pretty much, "All right, go!"" "Armstrong boxed in by Dominique Arnould, who won the first stage of the Tour a year ago." "They've pushed Armstrong very, very wide indeed as Pensec goes and Pensec really isn't a sprinter, this would be a surprise." "Ronan Pensec leading out, 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!" "We met at the Motorola Hotel, he was only 21 years of age, he was riding the Tour for the first time and in that pathetic way of sports writers, we like to be able to say at some future point," ""Oh, you know," "I interviewed Lance when he was just a kid in his first Tour", it was going to be like a badge of honour." "That was a lot of fun." "That was really " "I think, just the way it went down with the last climb and guys were attacking and I was so motivated..." "When I asked him about what he felt like coming towards the end of race, he said, "Oh, when I get in the situation with the little group of 6 or 8 riders and I know I've got a real chance of winning" he said, "I start to shriek and my body shakes." "And I think about my mum - she didn't raise a quitter."" "I had this sense of a guy who just wouldn't be beaten." "Who through the force of his will and his personality, became almost somebody different." "There's Dekker on the floor again!" "And Lance Armstrong has sprinted the gap closed..." "Lance Armstrong, who has joined..." "Now he's looking back and seeing nobody as he become champion of the world." "Lance Armstrong, 21 years of age, is America's second only World ever Road Race Champion, beating the greatest man of the moment in world cycling," "Miguel Indurain." "He raised a smile there, but I think Miguel, very disappointed." "And could it be that we're watching the man who will replace the great Greg LeMond in the years ahead," "Lance Armstrong now." "Indurain goes now, in what to him will hopefully re-establish him as the best rider..." "Through 1993, the races just increased, the speeds were so dramatic, it was night and day." "One of the riders was told what was going on in the Spanish team." "The rider just said, "Pfft, you guys have no chance." "We're doing EPO, growth hormone, testosterone." "You'll never make it."" "He comes up to the line, 1 hour 50 and 58, 2 minutes precisely!" "Well, the way that guy came by... and that was probably part of the reason that I'm so wasted in the end because I tried to match his speed and he goes along the flats 55, 56, 57 K's an hour, I was 53.11." "Getting dropped!" "We're talking about the speed of the peloton and this new drug EPO and talking about Dr. Ferrari." "Lance would have known Ferrari by reputation." "Now he wanted to meet the man and start working with him." "Ferrari had a reputation of being the best in the business." "If you wanted to win races, win the Tour, you go see this guy and he's going to set you up." "As good as that reputation was, everybody knew that if you went to see Ferrari, you were going to get doped." "So Lance kept it a secret from everyone for a long time." "And Lance had the intelligence to see that Ferrari was special in terms of his understanding of physiology, and of the drugs and how they interacted." "With his charisma and his natural intelligence," "Lance was able to endear himself to Ferrari, become the Adam of what would be Ferrari's creation." "You keep doing your job as Frankenstein and I'll be the best monster you've ever created." "And Ferrari loved him for that." "You know, the pupil from heaven." "The train just started rolling full blast, just like, it was just... reefing across the landscape." "It is, he's gone." "Armstrong has gone, the sort of thing he did in the World Championship at Oslo." "Is this man on the start of his greatest ever season?" "Travelling at nearly 40mph," "Armstrong showing enormous determination." "You couldn't develop a product more perfect for the ravages of endurance athletics than EPO." "Armstrong has done it today." "EPO was done in secret." "You never knew what anybody else was doing." "Even for the top, top guys, they never knew what the other guy was doing, so everybody thought they had to do more in order to be able to win, or to keep up." "I was tired of getting beat up on, tired of getting dropped and watching fat sprinters get over category-one climbs and win." "Getting thrown out the back of the group." ""I'm going to, I'm not going to." You know, sleepless nights, figuring out, and then..." " You did a great job." " We're going, "That's our Frankie!"" " That's great." "Congratulations." " Thanks a lot." "Have you been enjoying the Tour de France?" "No comment." "Sure enough, eventually I cracked." "Yeah, drove to Switzerland and pretty much just walked into a pharmacy, just like, could have bought chewing gum." "It was that easy." "But then the punch-up started." "Lance Armstrong, number 61 for the Motorola Team." "When you're racing, you think you're invincible." "You think you can do anything, nothing's going to stop you, nothing's going to harm you and then all of a sudden..." "From the beginning of the Tour, I knew that I was a step off, and a lot of times when your body is down like that, then a virus or any illness will move in and take over." "That evening the phone rings, and I hear Lance's neighbour on the other end, and he said "Linda, I don't know any easy way to tell you this, but Lance has been diagnosed with cancer."" "It literally crushed every single piece of me on the inside." "On Wednesday October 2nd, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer." "Prior to seeing my doctor last week," "I'd been experiencing swelling and pain in one of my testicles, and I'd coughed up some blood." "On Thursday October 3rd, I underwent surgery at St David's hospital here in Austin, to have the malignant testicle removed." "A CAT scan was also performed the same day." "The CAT scan revealed that my condition has spread into my abdomen." "At the time, I think most people would have suggested, with the brain metastases and such, that at best you'd cure maybe one out of three of those people." "It was awful, and I thought how in the hell does a guy who's in such good shape, so young, get cancer?" "The first impression I got, which is the impression I get from a lot of people, is that he was scared." "He was certainly looking at very primal aspects." "You know, saving his life or not, and a lot of secondary consequences - his career, family, future kids." "All that." "We wanted to go see Lance, and the time to see him was after his brain surgery, and so Frankie and I made the six-hour drive to Indiana." "And that was the first time I'd seen him since the announcement, and I remember seeing the big horseshoe scar on the top of his head." "We went into the room and it was a football game," "Dallas Cowboys football game was playing." "So he was in there, his girlfriend at the time Lisa Shields was there, and Stephanie McIlvain, the rep from Oakley was there." "Chris Carmichael, his coach, was there with Paige, I think." "And the doctors came in, and when the doctors came in they said, "Oh, you know, we need to ask you some questions."" "I said, "We should leave, let him have his privacy."" "And Lance said, "No, no, no." "Don't worry about it." "You guys can stay, no problem." And I said, "OK, we'll stay."" "They asked a few banal questions, and then one of them was." ""Have you ever used any performance-enhancing drugs?"" "And Lance, just nonchalantly holding on to his IV, staring down, rattled off, "Yeah, EPO, testosterone, growth hormone, cortisone and steroids."" "And at that point my jaw was, like, holy shit, because Betsy's sitting right next to me." "I don't know what the hell she's thinking." "And I was like, "We got to go."" "And we stood up and walked out of the room, right away." "I was furious, because I said to him," ""That's how Lance got his cancer, and if you're doing that, I'm not marrying you."" "We were just engaged six weeks earlier." "She was upset that he was taking that stuff." "She was crazy, like, if I was taking that stuff, then if you're taking all that stuff, it obviously is going to affect your health." "Because I thought, "Oh, my gosh, is this going on?" "Is everybody doing this?" And Frankie swore to me no." "Had to do with trust, and is she going to marry me?" "So, you know, it was, yeah, you know, I think she even right there on the spot threatened, like, "I'm not marrying you, if you're doing all that stuff."" "I was just ready to call the whole thing off." "Before cancer," "Lance had signed up for the French Team Cofidis." "It wasn't know if he would live or race bikes again." "All of those things were not known." "I still have a ways to go on the bike." "Does it sound like some kind of miracle cure?" "No, it's not a miracle." "Everything was..." "The therapy was normal therapy." "I had to do just as much as everybody else." "He made the decision to go because they were astonished to see him there, and then he decided he would carry on to Italy and see Michele Ferrari, for what would have been really just a friend-to-friend visit." "That is extraordinary, because it indicated that in a relatively short time, he and Michele Ferrari had become very close, and it was also a visit to say," ""If I come back and I make a full recovery, I'm going to achieve everything I ever wanted to achieve, whatever it takes, and I want you working with me."" "The American Mafia." "Took him a long time to find a team and a structure that would make it worthwhile." "When I tried to come back, there was no interest." "None." "And then finally signed the deal with the US Postal Team." "I think that if I were to come back and to win, and to be successful, I would consider that a complete recovery, as an athlete." "As much as Lance wanted to win, Thom Weisel wanted to win, and he was the creator of the US Postal Team." "People talk about Lance being this kind of ruthless alpha male leader." "Thom Weisel was one of those." "You know, a ruthless guy." "Lance's first contract was for minimal wages." "Weisel said, "Go out there, win races, prove you're back competitive and I'll give you a huge bonus."" "And he went after those bonuses like, tooth and nail." "Lance, that's 40 seconds on Masolini and one minute and ten seconds." "On certain teams, you have riders that are acquaintances." "He was just smiling a minute ago!" "Or co-workers." "That '99 Tour Team, we were friends and good friends." "We were just, we were close." "It was a close-knit group of riders." "Hincapie, Livingston, Vande Velde, Lance, and we would do anything for each other." "I hate the French." "Screw the French." "Frankie was on that team, Tyler Hamilton was on that team." "When I got selected to do the team," "I told my parents." "I told them to come over because this is probably the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see me in the Tour de France." "Lance, Kristin, Frankie and I were driving from Milano to Sanremo, and Lance had to make a stop to see Ferrari, which was outside of Milano, in the parking lot of a hotel gas station in Ferrari's camper van." "And I said, "Why are you meeting him here?" "Isn't that odd, you meeting Ferrari, your doctor, here?"" "He said, "So the fucking journalists don't find out."" "And I said, "Well, what's wrong, if the journalists find out?"" "And he just looked at me and he glared." "Kristin and I had to waste about an hour until Lance was done doing his tests with Ferrari." "When he was finished, Lance was pretty excited, and he said, "My numbers are great."" "And then he got in the car, he looked through his rear view mirror, he looked at me and he said, "Frankie could get results too, but he's too cheap."" "He told me a bunch of times, that I needed to step up, and I should go see Ferrari." "You know, there's no way." "I just felt like if I was even linked as going to see Ferrari, that automatically meant I was a doper." "The danger about EPO and there in France was, you know, there was a big bust the year before." "Riders and staff went to jail." "French police raided the hotel rooms of several leading riders and found stashes of performance-enhancing drugs." "Another leading rider was missing from the line-up, in police custody..." "It was the year after the Festina affair, where a lot of drugs were caught within a team." "The team couldn't risk taking it to the race." "You know, we'd lose the sponsor right away." "To get EPO for the Tour de France, we came up with a plan." "Well, after last year's sensational Tour de France, who knows what we can expect this time around." "Departure of the man everybody is talking about, Richard Virenque." "Did you hear that cheer?" "The plan had Motor Man involved." "Motor Man was a French..." "He used to be a gardener/handyman for Lance Armstrong." "He loved to ride motorcycles." "Back to Abraham Olano," "I think probably the number one favourite now." "He would follow the race, always stay within probably a half-hour drive from our hotel." "The best finisher of a year ago, Bobby Julich." "He's based everything on this month, the Tour de France, he wants to be the American winner." "But the man doing great times out on the course, Phil, is Lance Armstrong." "He hasn't been here for a couple of years because of his illness but he's back now." "Motor Man would basically just wait for a phone call." "The EPO would arrive, you know, in the evening." "He's just about done." "8.18, Chris Boardman." "8 minutes and 12 seconds for Abraham Olano 8.09, Zulle has rewritten the finishing order for now." "And Armstrong coming up 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, I think may have done enough." "He knew about it." "Johan Bruyneel knew about it." "You were right there in the heart of the Tour de France, you know?" "Thousands and thousands of people around the team camper." " All the way from Indianapolis!" " No time, sorry." "I remember just trying to get rid of it as quickly as possible." "You quickly just stuck it in, got rid of it." "Then it was quickly hidden away, typically in like, a Coke can." "It was nerve-racking, but yet, at the time, it was kind of exciting too, cos you were being such a deviant." "Sestriere, the first big mountain day." "Destination's Sestriere, 213 km of distance..." "We had a job to set up Lance, to keep him as fresh as possible till that final climb." "US Postal, where the pace-making up the climb was done by Frankie Andreu." "We had to set the tempo, to be able to keep things together, and then riding on the front like a drag race, as hard as we could to the bottom of the climb, turn and then start riding as hard as I could, like a field sprint." "When I was watching the Tour on TV," "I saw Frankie climbing, leading the pack up a mountain in Sestriere." "He doesn't specialise in sprinting, he doesn't specialise in mountain climbing." "He just specialises in being the worker bee, so when Frankie was actually pulling on Sestriere, it just didn't make sense." "And so I called a friend of mine in Paris, and I said "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"" "And she said, "Yeah, isn't it great?" "Frankie's doing wonderful."" ""He's doing so well." And I said, "Wonderful, my ass." "He's not a climber, he should not be pulling."" "An attack there by Armstrong." "Look at the acceleration of this as he chases down those motorbikes." "Five and a half hours he's been pedalling today, marking everything, never looking distressed and now he's going to try and tear this race apart." "That was an unbelievable attack, he took a lot of risk to go up through the inside there." "There was hardly any room at all." "Armstrong is so comfortable, he jumped across that gap." "That gap was up to 30 seconds." "We're watching the Sestriere stage, and it was shocking." "It was like, "Oh, my God, he's dropping riders, dropping climbers."" "This man has managed to come back from the face of death..." "One of the mechanics was right next to me, and he said, "Il est sur Le jus."" "And Armstrong is ripping the legs off this climber right now." ""Il est sur Le jus." Like, he's on the juice." "And I'm like, "What?" He said, "He's on the juice."" "He is going faster and faster, and he is going to win this..." "I said, "How do you know?"" "He said, "Look at his eyes, his breathing." "There's no suffering."" "It's almost like whatever they're doing, they got so much oxygen, it's like they're not feeling the pain." "He's talking on his radio, his phone, and it was surreal." "And the rain starts again as Lance Armstrong conquers Sestriere now." "He heads up towards the line." "Now he's ridden fast and dropped his rivals, mano-a-mano." "This will be some victory salute." "It will be a while before we know if it is as the winner of the Tour de France, but there are few people in this race now will doubt that." "Lance Armstrong comes across the line winner today of the mountain stage of the Tour de France." "He is really ripping the race apart." "And so that night after the race I called Frankie, and I said," ""What in the hell was that?"" "And he said, "What was what?"" ""What are you doing?" "What are you taking?" "I don't believe you." "This is bullshit."" "There are a lot of secrets, lot of secrets, lot of..." "It was almost like I was in this just bizarre movie, some sort of wild western movie." "But something didn't go right." "It was the UCI really who alerted us." "After winning the prologue, you're tested." "But then everybody saw you speaking to the Italians so is it just an English language ban?" "When Lance was tested for that, when the results came back, he had high levels of corticosteroids in his system." "Cortisone definitely worked." "You know, you could push through to a whole 'nother level on it, so over the years, I myself took cortisone many times - not for injuries, but for performance enhancement." "Now you're going to speak...?" " Actually, we were looking for you in there." " You were?" "OK." "Lance had asked us to pick up something from the Spanish doctor in Spain." "What these people need to remember is that I was the World Champion in 1993 when nobody had heard of drugs." "So I went down to Spain, picked up the product." "That was cloak and dagger." "Nobody had heard of EPO." "Johan, he just kind of passed it as he's walking by, he just passed it into my hand and said, "Lovely day." Just to make sure I had it." "I've proven my class." "I've shown my class, from day one." "Then we were getting back up to the border to go into France, there's never a queue at this border." "There's no secrets here." "There was a queue." "I'd seen what happened after the Festina affair and I thought, "Oh, God" " I could be one of these that got picked up last year in the Tour," and I must have aged about ten years." "We have the oldest secret in the book - hard work." "So, but luckily enough, we didn't get stopped." "Came back to France and gave Lance the little bottle in the car park of McDonalds and Frasiers." "We needed to come up with a proper plan that we're on the same page." "So while I'm giving Lance his massage, the others from the team came in." "The problem that had to be sorted was that Lance didn't have a prescription for corticosteroids, so the idea was then that the doctor would write a prescription for that, but backdate it to pre the prologue," "and just pretend it was a cream that Lance was taking for saddle sores." "And then as we kind of come to the end of the whole conversation about steroids, Lance just goes," ""Oh, well, now you know enough to bring me down."" "The next day was the press conference, and everything could just blow up in everybody's faces." "To think I'm going to come back into sport and risk my life with performance-enhancing drugs is crazy." "When I tried to come back to the sport, nobody gave me a chance." "Nobody gave me a chance." ""So he must be doing something", so it's the same mentality." "It's the same mentality, it's consistent through and through." "Tonight, he has some very high-level help because the UCI, the world governing body of cycling, have just released this press communique." "They confirm basically that the rider used an ointment, and they give the brand name, and that he also offered them a medical prescription before his test." "He comes up to the line - 16 seconds, 15, 14, it is getting desperately close here." "Zulle versus Armstrong, and Zulle loses!" "Armstrong is the winner, he has achieved yet another page in this fairy story that just goes on." "I'm so proud of my son, always have been, and the fact that we overcame cancer, and we're here today, in the yellow jersey." "And when you see him tomorrow in the yellow jersey on the Champs-Elysees?" "A picture without words." "...the winner of the Tour de France, in a big field, is the American Lance Armstrong, and what a ride that has been." "It will be remembered in the millennium as one of the finest sporting achievements in the history of not just cycling, but any sport." "Back in his home state of Texas, they are celebrating a hero." "The most fantastic feeling, we're just so proud of him and this whole team, they just..." "It's absolutely incredible and we're so excited to celebrate tonight all of us!" "We were talking about how our lives were going to change, and so I asked the question," ""So, what do you think about EPO, Kristin?"" ""Oh, it's a necessary evil."" "And I thought, "Oh, my God, she doesn't care." "She just doesn't care."" " Smile - say cheese!" " Howdy!" "Congratulations, friend, on behalf of all of us in Texas and America, we're so proud of you." "He went up and he went up." "Lance is on the wheel." "There's Tyler." "Take it easy on camera." " Luis!" " How are you?" "Are you tired today?" "No." "Be well." "Carmichael and Stapleton, unbelievable." "They're so serious." "The man, the myth" " Johan Bruyneel." " Say hello to my family." " Hi, family!" "In Texas, all eyes were on" "American Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong." "A parade was held in his honour in Austin," "Armstrong's adopted hometown." "Many people wore yellow, the colour of the winner's jersey proclaim July 29 in the city of New York as" "Lance Armstrong Day." "...Cycling's biggest prize, the Tour de France, the first American winner to lead an American team, and in record time at that." "Nobody believed in us, nobody believed that if Lance Armstrong took the yellow jersey, with the help of his team, on stage eight, how could they keep it to stage 22?" "They thought the team would crack." "But that team of seven out of nine guys being American, an American team, an American sponsor, they were the strongest team in the race." "And everybody in Paris knew that." "And I can assure you that next year's Tour de France, there will be no, there'll be no doubters." "Welcome to Futuroscope on the outskirts of Poitiers, and to the 87th running of the Tour de France." "All of a sudden they're talking about this EPO test coming out." "We didn't know exactly when it was coming out, but no longer could you feel 100% safe." "You take a shot of EPO, you know, you can get tested the next day or the day after that." "We weren't 100% sure we were going to test negative." "So that's when we did a blood transfusion." "Who was organising all of that?" "Lance and Johan Bruyneel, and the doctor, Del Moral, had told me a couple of days before we made a trip down to Spain." "You know, my first time doing it." "And it seemed kind of, sort of caveman-like." "You know, taking out your own blood, not seeing it for three or four weeks." "Weather conditions out here really have been atrocious." "It's only around about six or seven degrees Celsius..." "The night before our first rest day, we were in this small hotel, just south of Mont Ventoux, which is a famous climb in France." "20 minutes before it actually happened, they told me, "We're doing the transfusion."" "Re-infuse the blood, tonight." "I arrived in my room and it was pretty wild." "The staff had sort of prepared everything, the doctors." "There was a blood bag taped up on the wall." "You know, a red tube coming down, a tube filled with blood coming down." "Basically, they, you know, injected me here." "I have pretty small veins, so the one place that always worked was right there." "And it's, you can see the scars today..." "It was a big needle." "It's a serious needle." "You don't mess around with those things." "Halfway through it, I'm like, almost shivering, because, you know, these bags have been, you know, in a refrigerator." "So they're almost like, you know, just taking icy cold water, nearly a gallon of it, and pouring it down your throat." "I never did, you know, blood transfusions, growth hormone, whatever." "I wasn't willing to get into a full doping programme." "Betsy was upset, so that was definitely on my mind." "A little bit of being scared of getting caught." "Here is the Devil, probably wishing some luck to the US Postal riders today..." "I think we were all pretty nervous, but almost giddy about it." "We're in the heart of France doing this completely illegal procedure." "US Postal were pace-making by Frankie Andreu, but he paid the price." "I remember, the third week I was dead." "I mean, barely able to get through it, and just, you know, it's not an option to quit." "That's the only reason I got through it, but I was getting dropped and in the back, and I was suffering a lot." "I think he'll just about get in but he's aiming at the time of 15.27." "We're watching probably the second-fastest time trial in the history of the Tour de France..." "I had done a lot to help Lance Armstrong," "I had done a lot to help the team, and I just wanted to race one more year, but they had different thoughts." "Armstrong rocks and rolls his way home here now." "His time is 15.01, he wins the time trial." "Fantastic." "I will definitely come back." "I will definitely be back next year." "I don't know how many more years, but definitely be back next year." "He finished 111th, but on Lance's team, it doesn't pay to finish 111th when you're at the Tour." "I would say, Johan, thanks for giving us the vision, but we already had the vision, so..." "Here we are at this Tour de France party with hundreds of people and everybody is celebrating the cancer survivor's incredible win at the most gruelling sporting event in the world." "What wasn't there to celebrate?" "It was a fraud." "Stephanie McIlvain wasn't invited to the Tour De France party, which we found very peculiar given that she was Lance's personal liaison, so she went as our guest and we clicked and a friendship was born." "Stephanie had been there with us visiting Lance in Indiana, and the hospital incident came up, and Stephanie and I were marvelling at how" "Lance was snowballing the American media, because they were just buying into this fairy tale." "It seemed like it worked, seemed like it worked." "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." "I think if we all stepped back and looked at the great franchises that have been built..." "I'm glad we didn't get caught." "I would have been..." "We all would have been." "It became very divided." "You were on Lance's side or you were on my side." "And ultimately, you know, he had control of who was hired, fired, and whichever." "Frankie was a good guy." "To have your career end because you wouldn't get on Lance's doping programme?" "It's just, it's not right." "Please welcome 1999's ESPY comeback athlete of the year..." "We're all in this together, it's going to touch all our lives." "We will win this fight one day." "Lance called me one day and said, "We're putting together this foundation." "We're going to focus on testicular cancer."" "Tour de France, baby." "Lance Armstrong." "Maillot jaune." "Thank you, Lance, thank you!" "I love you!" "People believed in Lance." "They believed in his story, they believed in his hope." "We're all going to leave, I think, with a different perspective on this illness, and a different perspective on this movement called survivorship." "I tip my hat to Lance Armstrong and to the whole US Postal Team." "The success of the foundation began to grow and succeed, literally in tandem with Lance's success." "Tour after Tour after Tour." "$15,000." "Can we go 20?" "Sold, $30,000." "They approached me about exploring the possibility of coming down and running the foundation." "Sold, $56,000." "My motivation, my primary motivation, in taking that position, was the fact that I had, um... a very personal experience." "I had been diagnosed with cancer." "We believe in life, your life." "Greg LeMond was my friend, and I called him." "And I begged him." "I said, "Steve, you won't make it."" "I said, "You are way too ethical." "I'm just telling you, don't do it."" "But I needed to talk to Lance." "We met at a bar and I said," ""Is there ANYTHING that might happen that would negatively impact the work of the foundation and me professionally?"" "And he put his beer down and looked me in the eye and said, "Steve, you have NOTHING to worry about." "We're going to have a good ride on this." "This is going to be great."" "And there is Armstrong." "He's not looking good, he's all over his machine right now." "He doesn't look good, Phil." "He should not be riding so far down the group." "He's obviously having a very hard day." "This is where you have to race alone and Armstrong's gone." "A big move by Lance, this and no reply coming at all from Jan Ullrich." "Ullrich has got no answer to this." "He's fooled everybody in the Tour de France." "I never expected Armstrong to do this." "He has ripped the field apart and he is climbing now to the and he was riding to win the Tour de France." "Now are we seeing the foundations of the man who will win the Tour for the third time in Paris?" ""Yes, that's the one I wanted and I've got it."" "I had been convinced for some time that Armstrong worked with Michele Ferrari." "I got the Italian police to help me." "They got me evidence that Lance, in the space of two years, spent 13 days in the town of Ferrara and the only reason, if you were Lance Armstrong, for being in Ferrara, was to see this doping doctor." "He had to do a press conference on the rest day in Pau." "I think this is a clean tour." "And in that press conference, 16 questions go, no questions about doping and then bang, first question is asked and the doping questions then come like a, like in an avalanche." "And as soon as the question turned to doping," "Lance did something quite strange." "I believe he's an honest man," "I believe he's a fair man and I believe he's an innocent man." "He started fixing his gaze on me." "And even though it was some journalist over here who asked the question," "Lance would refer to me in his answer." "I've never denied the relationship." "Even to you." "Um..." "People are not stupid." "They say, "Has Lance Armstrong ever tested positive?" No." ""Has Lance Armstrong been tested?" A lot." "But I found that just wholly unconvincing." "Two weeks later, David Walsh called up and I'm like, "God, I, I don't know what to say."" "So I chose my words as well as I could and I just said, "I'm disappointed he's seeing Ferrari."" "And then David posed the question, now," ""If he's clean, would you consider this the greatest comeback in the history of sport?" And I said, "Absolutely."" "And he said, "but what if he isn't?"" "I said, "Then it would be the greatest fraud."" "After that comment came out, our whole lives changed in an hour after that was published." "We went out to dinner and Lance, he said, "Fucking LeMond." "His comments about Ferrari, and how he's disappointed that I'm working with Ferrari."" "Lance flipped." "You know, and at that dinner it was vent session." ""Who does Greg think he is?" "I'm going to destroy him", all this kind of stuff." "And I said, "Yeah, but I thought Ferrari's a BAD guy."" "And he just looked at me and he glared." "And he said, "I'm going to fuck him over."" "Lance returned to the US." "He was scheduled to throw the opening game baseball at Yankee Stadium." "And he was sitting in his hotel room at the Four Seasons." "He calls Greg LeMond." "We were at bag claim," "Minneapolis airport, I had pulled up outside and the phone rang and Greg says, "It's Lance."" "He said, "Oh, come on, your win in '89 was a miracle, just like mine, in '99", I said, whoa..." "That's where you're wrong, buddy, cos mine wasn't a miracle." "I worked my ass off, I barely won by eight seconds." " No miracle there." " ...by eight seconds." "He said to Greg, "You're telling me YOU never did EPO?"" "Absolutely not. "Oh, come on - everybody takes EPO."" "And he mentioned drugs that I never heard of." "Hemasist, er, Hemopure, PFC's." "He listed probably ten drugs I'd never heard of." ""Is that what you think I'm on?" I'm like, whoa, um..." "You know, he was VICIOUS." "He said, "Well, if you want to throw stones, I'll throw stones."" "And he said, "I'll get people, I'll get ten people to say you took EPO."" "Holy shit." "And Greg... just said, "I'm sorry, but if anybody comes out saying I used EPO," "I'm going to know it came from you and you paid 'em."" "Cos I know that Steve was working at Lance Armstrong Foundation," "I called him just to say, you know, "This is what happened to me."" "This is Greg LeMond calling." "He was clearly shaken." "And he proceeds over the course of 45 minutes to an hour telling me exactly what had just transpired." "Including the threat." "The next day, I get a call from Lance." "And he proceeds to tell of his conversation with Greg." "He was out of control, he was clearly drunk." "We've gotten reports back that, "Oh, yeah, Greg had a drug and alcohol problem."" "I actually had a reporter call and ask me one day, if Greg had a heroin problem." "What was interesting is Lance's version was completely different than Greg's version and it was certainly at that moment in time I thought..." "I have been made a fool of." "I packed my car and I drove out of Texas and the next day I resigned." "Absolutely, I had to learn a lot about the illness and I had to learn a lot about my options." "Mm-hm." "Did you ever consider the option of giving up?" "Oh, no." "That's great." "That's great." "Because it's not an option, is it?" "It's just not an option." "Tyler Hamilton left the team, because Tyler was incredibly ambitious and he was resentful of Lance's profile." "He was a... absolutely driven guy, a bit like Lance, had to win and Tyler thought the only way that I can win the Tour is to be in another team and when I go and leave this team" "I then am going to get a doping programme" " just as good, if not better than Lance's." " One, two..." "There became more stresses, you know, having to work with my own special doctor there in Spain, having to organise those trips." "It wasn't the team handling it." "The easy part about the US Postal Service cycling team for me in terms of doping was it was all kind of taken care of, like, one-stop shopping." "Stuart O'Grady has moved too far back and there's been a mass pile-up there, it was Tyler went down, and the peloton completely crashing on the line." "And if Tyler Hamilton left the team, Lance needed a young American guy, preferably, to take Tyler's place." "Floyd was the obvious example." "He was talented, he was gritty, he was tough and he's saying to Johan, I'll do whatever it takes." "We have to make sure that we're not in a situation like Pyrenees, for example." "Floyd will remember that very well." "Floyd." "Thanks for pointing that out, yes." "I won't forget that any time soon." "You're 27 seconds faster than and 40 seconds faster than..." "Boys, come on, keep it together." "We're going to win it." "There was a train here and it was dripping with gravy." "Here they are, a blue train." "And these guys were desperate to mop up as much as they could for themselves." "Because the financial rewards were huge." "OK, OK, OK, OK!" "This is the best team in the world right now." "I saw what I deemed a huge fraud being played out on a world stage and there was no place, no place to turn." "Journalists approached me and some of them had got questions they'd e-mailed me across and stuff were very close to what was going on." "All the peloton were on Armstrong's side." "The sponsors are on Armstrong's side." "The UCI were on Armstrong's side." "Everybody had a stake in Lance being a success." "And of course anybody who accused him was deemed an enemy of the sport." "London sports writer, David Walsh accuses Armstrong of doping in the book, LA Confidential." "The book, published only in France, quotes Armstrong's former massage therapist, who claims she covered up injection marks with make up." "I remember I was sweeping my sitting room floor," "Sky Sports is on." "In the corner of my eye I can see the ticker tape underneath it go, and it says, "Former Armstrong masseuse, Emma O'Reilly... spills the beans", blah, blah, blah." "I'm thinking..." "I have to say my first thought was, I am going to get David Walsh and wring his neck." "I'll say one thing about the book and especially since our esteemed author is here..." "In my view, I think extraordinary accusations must be followed up with extraordinary proof." "And they have not come up with extraordinary proof." "Why couldn't it just be proof, that allegations must be followed up by proof?" "And what Lance was saying is that, when you're an icon who sits as high in the firmament as I do, you have to have extraordinary proof to bring ME down." "And it was true." "What he was saying was right." "Different rules apply to the gods." "And I am a god." "Mr. Armstrong's legal team was very concerned about the book and wanted to discredit David Walsh." "They knew one of the sources was likely Betsy Andreu and they wanted Betsy Andreu and Frankie Andreu to distance themselves from the book and say Mr. Walsh had it wrong." "Lance told me that his two, his two agents," "Bill Stapleton and Bart Knaggs wanted to talk with me." "So I was like, OK." "You know, I knew what was coming, I knew what it was going to be about." "He asked me, he said, "Shall I tape the conversation?"" "I said, "Hell, yeah, because they'll say it never happened."" "We met in the parking lot of the Tour de France start after everybody had, you know, all the riders had left and so," "I put a tape recorder in my pocket and I tape recorded everything." "Cos I didn't trust these guys, you know." "Still don't trust them." "They talked about how bad it would be for the sport if Lance gets in trouble and all this comes out." "They wanted her to sign an affidavit saying she would never go against Lance Armstrong for the rest of her life." "Something crazy." "You can imagine when I brought that up to Betsy," ""So, Bets, they want you to, er, sign something" ""saying you'll never sue or go against Lance Armstrong," and it was, it was just a bunch of cuss words." "Yeah!" "Because I saw what they were doing." "It was ridiculous." "OK, first of all Frankie loses his job because he won't get on a doping programme and now they are trying to get me to sign something to support Lance?" "Whom I believe is cheating?" "It's not going to happen." "There's no argument who the champion is of the Tour de France." "And when I refused..." "It's been four times now, how do you differentiate..." "It just was not good for Frankie's career." "Thank you, Lance." "Thank you." "The yellow jersey is owned by only one man, as it has been for the last eight days." "Lance Armstrong benefited from SCA and Bob Hammond paying an enormous amount of prize money for him, winning races that Lance Armstrong swore he won cleanly." "...as he races the line to the victory..." "Total amount to Lance if he won all of the Tour de France races came close to almost $10 million." "Lance, well done." "Back for more next year?" "Ha, ha." "Probably." "When somebody consistently goes against the odds, the evidence is that perhaps the odds aren't what you think they are and something else is present and quite often that's cheating." "He is down the ramp for the last time in his career." "I've decided that the Tour de France will be my last race as a professional cyclist." "It is the picture we will never see again." "A rider in yellow we've come to know since 1999." "You won't believe what the crowd are doing here." "They are leaping in every direction as Lance Armstrong brings it to an end as a winner." "History in the making, he now retires seven times a winner of the Tour De France." "Lance Armstrong!" "The last thing I'll say for the people that don't believe in cycling, the cynics and the skeptics," "I'm sorry for you," "I'm sorry you can't dream big, and I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles, but this is one hell of a race." "This is a great sporting event and you should believe." "And, er..." "Vive La Tour." "For ever." "Thank you." "Good morning, this begins video tape number one, in the arbitration matter of Lance Armstrong et Al versus SCA Promotions Incorporated et Al." "Bob Hamman kind of basically felt that he'd been duped, he'd already paid Lance, I think four and a half million at that time, he baulked at paying the last $5 million bonus." "Mr. Armstrong, my name is Jeff Tillotson, I represent..." "It became a law suit and over the course of about a year and a half, we took depositions, which is sworn testimony, we ploughed through records." "The day before the SCA deposition, I received a phone call from him." ""Just calling to see how you're doing."" "I hadn't talked to the guy in like, four years, you know and saying, "Ah, you know I heard this is," "Kathy LeMond said this, that Betsy said this."" "He was prying for information and questions and trying to say, "Hey, I'm here."" "I'm right at your door." "And then he showed up at the door step." "So when I showed up," "I saw Lance walking in the hallway and I thought, "Oh, my gosh."" "She was so nervous, she was literally shaking, because there she was, to give a deposition and Lance Armstrong had flown from Austin, on his private jet to watch her testify about him and she knew exactly what kind of message he was trying to send." "There was a long table in the conference room and it was me and my lawyer and Lance." " I was furious." " Why?" "So I saw what Lance was doing, how he was on his BlackBerry, how he was on his computer." "Because..." "It WASN'T a lie." "I'm not going to say somebody is lying when they are not lying." "She was the first witness who effectively said," ""I don't care what happens to me." "I'm going to tell the truth."" "First, tell me where you were." "Michel's." "It's a restaurant in Villefranche." "I had never been in a deposition before, so when I didn't remember something, a restaurant, I had leaned over and I asked Lance." " It is Villefranche, isn't it, Lance?" " Objection." "Well..." ""You can't do that, hold it, hold it, you can't do that."" "So it was, I was just answering questions honestly." "I just would like you to recount what took place in the Indiana University Hospital..." "The doctor asked him a couple of questions and then came the question, have you ever taken any performance-enhancing drugs?" "And Lance said, yes." "The doctor said, "What were they?" And he said," ""EPO, growth hormone, cortisone, steroids and testosterone."" "Did any medical person ask you while you were at the Indiana University Hospital whether you had ever used" " any sort of performance-enhancing drugs or substances?" " No." "Can you offer, can you help explain to me why Miss Andreu would make that story up?" "Well, she said in her deposition she hates me." "I don't know how the doctor phrased the question, but Lance's response was that he had taken EPO and testosterone and growth hormone and cortisone." "Why would Mr. Andreu say the same things, if you know?" "Probably to support his wife, which..." "I don't know if you're married or not, but..." "I am." "...sometimes is... required." "So your testimony that Mr. Andreu was also lying when he said" " that he heard you say those things regarding your prior use?" " 100%." " But I feel for him." " What do you mean by that?" "I think he's trying to back up his old lady." "Frankie Andreu was under extremely difficult circumstances at that particular point in time, all of which was a result of Lance Armstrong." "Did Mr. Armstrong ever tell you during that time period that he definitely was not going to use EPO and no-one else should use EPO?" "No." "Did he indicate to you that he was going to use EPO" " or consider using EPO?" " No." "He said openly and to the public that Betsy was crazy." "They implied behind the scenes that Betsy wasn't believable and perhaps unstable." "Everything you can possibly think of as a way to hurt someone, they basically employed." "And what is it you told Frankie after leaving the room?" "I..." "His modus operandi, which was, "Don't attack the message."" ""Attack the messenger."" "So, if people don't know me, people are going to say," ""Well, wait a minute, who is this woman?" "Her husband stopped racing early." "If he was so good, why did he do that?" "If Lance is dirty, then why hasn't the governing body caught him?" "Why does USA Cycling back him?" "Why do his sponsors back him?" "Why does he keep getting more and more money from him?" "How come none of these doctors, who allegedly heard what happened in the hospital room, how come they're remaining quiet?" "How come nobody has backed her up for that hospital room?" "Look at his legions of fans." "He has a foundation fighting cancer." "What is this woman doing beside raising her own kids?" "His problem was never with Frankie."" "And after Mr. Armstrong told the doctor he was using certain performance enhancing drugs, did your husband ever tell you, "That's wrong, he hasn't done those drugs?"" "Not your husband, but Mr. Armstrong?" "No." "How could it have taken place when I've never taken performance-enhancing drugs?" " How could that have happened?" " That's my point." "It's not just simply" " you don't recall?" " How many times do I have to say it?" "I'm just trying to make sure your testimony is clear." "Well, if it can't be any clearer than, "I've never taken drugs,"" "then incidents like that could never have happened." "OK." "How clear is that?" "These are things that are so devious, if untrue, but so powerful when you use with people that makes you a compelling liar." "I'll give you an example." "Bad liar" " Richard Nixon." "Sweaty, looks suspicious, said goofy things when people challenged him, "I'm not a crook."" "Great liar" " Lance Armstrong." ""I never doped." "I passed every test." "And anyone who challenges me," "I'm currently suing and are proving they're lying."" "That's a good liar." "Greg, who..." "I know has serious drinking and drug problems, was clearly intoxicated, yelling, screaming." "It started off as, you know, "Hey, Greg, I thought we were friends."" ""Friends?" "!" "What do you mean friends?" "!"" "He said, "Well, if you want to throw stones..." "I can throw stones..."" "He went after his reputation, his livelihood" " and his way of life." " Well..." "let me see... being called potentially the biggest fraud in the history of the sport..." "That was a little bit upsetting." "He's set out to destroy me every step of the way." "I lost, er, a company that did $20 million in sales in the US." "Oh, he, you know, he said," ""The sport is full of crooks and thieves and liars."" "I've been at trade shows, where dealers that said..." "I would see and that I knew and they wouldn't even..." "They wouldn't even look at me." "He didn't like that either." "How could this be?" "How could it be that my career collide with this guy and then he takes everything away from me?" "We also wanted to believe in Lance." "And it was hard to find out that it wasn't..." "I don't know why I'm crying, but it was really hard to find out that... this was going on." "It's been awful stressful." "If I'd known for a second, I wouldn't have done it." "They were very, very mean and very dismissive of Emma O'Reilly as they were really almost of all the women that testified against Mr. Armstrong." "Afraid that we were going to out her as a..." "All these things she said." "As a whore or whatever." "I don't know." " Primarily..." " You don't talk about people like that!" "And also to..." "By calling me those names, calling me basically an alcoholic prostitute, it's just attacking me personally, but it's not addressing the points that I brought up." "You know, and that's probably what upset me the most over it all." "Raise your right hand." "Do you solemnly state your testimony" " shall be the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth?" " I do." "We had been told that Stephanie McIlvain would testify that, yes, she heard Mr. Armstrong admit to drug use, so we went out to depose her in California at her place of business, which was Oakley." " What kind of things do you do?" " I take care of, er..." "Well, I take care of Lance Armstrong and cycling also." "She called us up and she was in tears." ""Lance called me!" "Lance is pissed!"" "And I thought, "Oh, my God!"" "I said, "You're going to lie, Stephanie."" ""You're going to lie to keep your job."" "Stephanie needed that job." "Her husband worked for Oakley." "HE needed the job." "She's got a young son who's autistic." "They were in an extremely difficult position." "Where you ever in a hospital room, or other part of the hospital with Mr. Armstrong," " where he said anything about performance-enhancing drugs?" " No." "Er, do you have any recollection of any doctor in your presence asking Mr. Armstrong, er, if he used in the past" " any performance-enhancing drugs or substances?" " No." "Betsy was going to be thrown under the bus and I finally told her." "I said, "Betsy..." "I recorded her and I have a tape."" "I'm doing well." "I agree." "This recording was done well before her deposition, so all we could conclude from that was someone got to her." "Because she clearly changed her testimony." "Once I made that recording public to the Lance Armstrong side, saying, "I think you've monkeyed with this witness,"" "literally all hell broke loose." "I said, "You lied, didn't you?" I just had this bad feeling." ""You lied, didn't you, Stephanie?"" ""Pat was told, if I make the company look bad, that we'll both lose our jobs." "We can't afford to lose our jobs, Betsy." "We don't have college degrees." "Where are we going to go?" "What are we going to do?"" "She made her bed." "She made her decision." "That's a foul!" "Wow!" "So, our relationship was over." "If you have a doping offence, or you test positive, it goes without saying that you're fired, from all of your contracts, not just the team, but there's... numerous contracts that I have that would all go away." " Sponsorship agreements, for example?" " 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." "Either everyone who I had talked to, and all the evidence I had gathered, and all the scientists and other people were liars, which I found frankly impossible, or Lance approached basically a clinical sociopath." "Someone able to do wrong without remorse, er, or care as to who they hurt in the process." "Er, the former was unpalatable." "The latter, er, was scary." "That we were litigating with someone who would do anything to prevail." "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." "That's an easy question." "The SCA case was settled on really what it said in the contract." "Lance has always followed the rules of the Tour de France and he's won seven times." "Every time he wins, and he's a certified winner, he's followed the rules and Tailwind has had an obligation to pay him." "After all, he was still officially the Tour de France winner." "That was really the question and, if SCA went forward with that case, it would have been a big risk." "So they ended up paying Armstrong $7 million to settle it." "We just paid." "Lance slipped past the gates and... said," ""Time to fold your tent, boys."" "Floyd Landis used to ride alongside" "Lance Armstrong on the US Postal Service for three years." "They've split up in a little bit of, er, disenchantment." "Well, Floyd Landis has launched an attack." "He's trying to ride all of these men off." "Surely with eight minutes he is one of the great riders of this race once again." "This is one of the most incredible performances I've seen." "It's fine..." "Is it nice to come out of the shadows of Armstrong in such a golden style?" "Yeah!" "Again, I've said many times" "I was one of the lucky ones to be part of his seven wins." "Yet another doping scandal hits the very top of the Tour de France." "Floyd, right here!" "'Yes, the winner of this year's prestigious cycling race, Floyd Landis, has tested positive for testosterone." "It's the first time in the Tour de France's history that a winner..." "When I look back now, nobody on that team was ever positive." "No positives." "The moment they left, every rider that was a competitor, that Armstrong didn't like, boom, they're positive." "Remember, it's not a race..." "It's been an amazing year." "I stood up here last year and everybody at their table had little pieces of yellow silicon sitting there." "And somewhere along the way, 50 million of them were sold." "Um..." "Woo!" "What showed up in your sample?" "Nothing." " Were you doping at the Tour de France?" " No." "I told Frankie, "I can't believe nobody's ever asked you whether or not you've ever done anything or tried anything." "But if somebody does, I'm not going to be one of the wives who stand by you as you lie." "I'm not going to do it."" "I raced for 12 years as a professional." "I used EPO at a..." "at a certain moment." "There are many people out there that worry - whether they have cancer in their families or not - that cancer is going to get them." "It's the scariest disease there is." " And we think we're making a difference." " I agree." "One of my biggest accomplishments was raising my son Lance." "I am so proud to be the mom of Lance Armstrong." "We will lose more than 560,000 Americans to cancer this year." "Landis was stripped of his title and banned from the sport for two years." "It's time for a government that wages a war against cancer as aggressive as the war cancer wages against us." "We will beat this dreaded disease, and we will win." "The longer it went on, the more impressed I am that Lance could maintain a story like that that was nearly 100% fabricated." "And still live such an obnoxious life." "And not even try to hide it." "I mean, I'm a guy that he's never really even met..." "Mr. President, you've been a long-time friend of mine." "Thank you." "Thank you for being a friend and for allowing us to be here to talk about this critical, er, issue." "As some of you may or may not know," "I've decided to race my bicycle again." "Um..." "It..." "Lance came back, because he couldn't stay away." "Please welcome seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong." "Why couldn't he stay away?" "Because it's like the oldest theme in Hollywood that you've ever come across." "The jewel thief, the bank robber, the assassin." "They do their jobs brilliantly." "They win every time." "They kill all the people they should kill, they get all the jewels they should get, they get all the money from the bank they should get." "Somebody comes and says, "One more job."" "Just one more little turn of the carousel." "And they can't resist." "Because that was them living like they'd never lived before or they will never live again." "I cannot guarantee a victory this time, I'm not..." "What?" "Please stop your whining." "I'd made several requests to interview Lance, especially when he announced that he was going to be different this time with the media, that he was going to be open and transparent and there wasn't going to be any of the stuff that had gone on before" "where he had been very, very difficult." "And I baited him." "Lance, we've spoken recently about the return of Ivan Basso and Floyd Landis after their suspensions." "What is it about these dopers that you seem to admire so much?" "Excuse me?" "What is your name again?" "My name is Paul Kimmage, I work for The Sunday Times." "I asked for an interview, but I didn't get one." "Right, and just as a little preface, I might just clear up one thing." "The reason you didn't get it, Paul, I wanted to make sure that was you, because I don't know what you look like..." "When I decided to come back for what I think is a very noble reason, you said, "Folks, the cancer has been in remission for four years, but our cancer has now returned."" "Meaning me." "I am here to fight this disease." "I am here so that I don't have to deal with it, you don't have to deal with it, none of us have to deal with it, my children don't have to deal with it." "But yet you said that I am the cancer." "So, I think it goes without saying, no, we're not going to sit down and do an interview." "And I don't think anybody in this room would sit down for that interview." "You are not worth the chair that you're sitting on with a statement like that." "With a disease that touches everybody around the world." "Getting back to the Tour Of California..." "Armstrong, shades of his seven victories in the Tour de France, he's got happy memories of the Pyrenees and they're all coming back now." "When Floyd has lost all his money, fighting his ban, and he calls up Johan Bruyneel and says," ""Look, will you get me on your team?" "I need a place."" "And Lance and Bruyneel, both kindred spirits in terms of having no emotional intelligence, decide they don't want to have anything to do with Floyd - he's just a loser, he got caught." "They don't realise that they're... they're actually handling a ticking bomb here." "Floyd has offered them the chance to diffuse the bomb." "To just take out that little pin or whatever, give him a little, small job in the team, everything is OK." "They tell him to get lost and the bomb blows up in their faces." "And when he saw Armstrong, who he knew from the first day he'd entered the sport was doped, who had shown Floyd how to dope and all he sees is this fucking shit everywhere," ""Hope rides again." "The Great God."" ""The Jesus of cycling is coming back."" "And all the spectators are getting down on bended knee and he's thinking, "This is not right." "This sticks in my throat."" ""I fucking am going to sort this out."" "At least now I've confirmed that there's nothing else to lose." "Nothing." "There's nothing in it for me in cycling." "There's no team for me." "There's..." "No matter what I do, it's going to be worse and worse until I leave." "Eventually, the levee breaks." "Tonight, Landis and others once close to Lance go on camera for the first time for our special report " ""Did Lance Cheat?"" "At some point people have to tell their kids that Santa Claus isn't real." "I hate to be the guy to do it, but it's just not real." "You're saying Lance Armstrong is a liar?" "Yes, I suppose if that's the question, yes." "We have somebody that's been under oath several times with a completely different version." "You have somebody that has written a book with a completely different version." "You have somebody that took people's money for their defence, some would say a million dollars, with a completely different version." "He said he has nothing, he's got no proof." "It's his word versus ours." "We like our word, we like where we stand, we like our credibility." "As Lance Armstrong prepares for his final weekend at the Tour de France, a federal investigation into alleged doping by him and his former team threatens to tarnish his golden image." "The investigation was sparked by allegations by former friend and team-mate Floyd Landis." "At the end of July, I got a phone call from Jeff Novitzky and one of the first questions I asked him was," ""What's taken you so long to call me?"" "It was scary, because that whole," ""This is Jeff Novitzky, federal agent..."" "It put the holy terror of God in you." "Novitzky was able to bring these guys into a room." "He would open up his coat and," ""Oh, sorry I didn't mean you to see my gun..."" "That's what they do." "And then he takes his sheriff's badge out, drops it on the table, in case you forget that he's a cop, and then he says to you," ""You know, if you lie to us, it'll be perjury." "And we will know you're lying to us, because of all we know about this case." "And then we will go after you and you'll end up doing prison time."" "A subpoena means you come in." "There's no question." "You go in and you tell the truth in front of the Grand Jury." "No lawyer by your side." "I probably told them more stuff, more detail, than what I had revealed to anybody else before." "You know, the information kind of started trickling out of me and then, after 15 minutes or so, it just poured out of me." "I don't think they were expecting any kind of testimony like they got." "Lance Armstrong didn't appreciate that." "A few months later, I was out at dinner with some friends and... he must have had eyes on me, because he had people contact him and let him know where I was, and he, you know, approached me," "and tried to intimidate me." "He said he was going to make my life a living hell - both in the courtroom and out of the courtroom." "Lance was really pissed that Greg questioned why he was working with Ferrari." "He helped call the shots." "Yes, he doped himself." "If he didn't win the Tour, someone else that was doped would have won the Tour." "I really felt happy at that moment, because I thought, that's it." "There is no way back now because Floyd had given chapter and verse and I thought the tide was now irreversible." "Lance Armstrong handed me some testosterone patches." "It's just a little patch that you put on your skin." "They can't say that." "Nobody is that conniving." "Nobody is that good, to try and get away with something for 17, 18, 19 years, no way." "No." "If you think he was facing jail, he had to have been scared to death." "He called every single famous, political favour he could possibly pull in." "I had just woken up, I'd switched on my phone." "My brother had direct messaged me on Twitter and saying," ""WTF, the Feds' case has been dropped."" "When you want to give news that you don't want anybody to notice, you put it out at a time when everybody is distracted by somebody else." "This news was dropped late on a Friday afternoon on Super Bowl weekend, when America goes into party mode." "And Lance Armstrong, for one weekend, ceases to be relevant." "Obama was running for re-election and it wouldn't have looked good to go after the American hero who still had a lot of supporters." "More Americans entered the workforce..." "It goes to show you the power that Armstrong has." "He got a federal investigation shut down, despite having all that information out there and all that evidence out there." "I was not proud to be an American at the time." "I was so disappointed in the whole system, you know." "That, you know, this corruption can happen and, you know, favours can be granted." "Travis Tygart picks up the baton." "He says, "I'm going to ask all these cyclists to come and be interviewed by me."" "This was not just Lance Armstrong getting away with doping for a few years." "This was something by far bigger and greater than just that - they took it to an entirely different level and no other team, right, won seven Tour de Frances." "And all the glory and all the profits and all the sponsorships that went along with that." "He was the boss." "The evidence is clear." "He was one of the ring leaders of this conspiracy that pulled off this grand heist, using tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, that defrauded millions of sports fans and his fellow competitors." "Lance immediately went on the attack, immediately sued them in his home court and immediately started saying," ""You saw it as a terrible, bad, kangaroo court organisation."" "I thought, "Here we go again." "He's going to bloody them up." "He's going to walk away from this."" "Good morning, everybody, welcome to the Team RadioShack bus..." "Almost at every turn, the lobbyists for Armstrong and his criminal defence attorney and others wanted to bankrupt us and take us down." " The boss." " How are you?" "Good morning." "Whether it was claiming to the world media we had not authority or we were on witch hunts or the jurisdiction didn't rest with us, there were numerous efforts by them to ensure this information never got out." "Your investigations showed that there were personal threats made against riders who had decided to come clean." " I wonder if there were any threats against you?" " There were, Scott." "These threats came from where?" " E-mails, letters." "Anonymous?" " Yeah." "Can you remember any of the lines from the e-mails or the letters?" "The worst was probably putting a bullet in my head." " Did you take that seriously?" " Absolutely." "Turned it over to the FBI to investigate it." "Which they're doing." "A new report from the US Anti-Doping Agency reveals..." "Just months after federal prosecutors dropped their investigation, the US Anti-Doping Agency says they now have proof that the seven-time winner of the Tour de France..." "From our end, it was never personal." "In fact, you know, we gave him the same opportunity to come in and be part of the solution." "1,000 pages of evidence provided by the agency include first-hand accounts, scientific documents..." "Lance believed that he was bulletproof, that he was invincible, that they could bring down the Floyds, the Tylers, they could bring down anybody." ""But you can't bring down me, because I am too big to be brought down."" "I thought in light of recent events, I ought to reintroduce myself." "My name is Lance Armstrong." "I'm a cancer survivor." "I've been asked to come up here and talk about my story of survivorship." "I'm a father of five and, yes, I won the Tour de France seven times." "UCI will ban Lance Armstrong from cycling and UCI will strip him of his seven Tour de France titles." "Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling." "I don't have anything to worry about." "Nobody needs to cry for me." "I'm going to be great." "Are you doing something to take your mind off the news this week?" "I'm more at ease now than I have been in ten years." "What surprised me was how quickly it fell apart." "This was a day we could not have imagined." "Nike has fired Lance Armstrong over allegations he was doping during races." "And it first hit me when Nike announced they were fleeing." "Over the last ten years, he's made more than an estimated $100 million." "What am I on?" "I'm on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day." "What are YOU on?" "And then, almost in rapid succession, everyone left him." "Anheuser-Busch, FRS sports drinks, Trek bicycles and Giro helmets all dropped today like dominoes." "And suddenly, in a matter of days, it collapsed." "Oh, my golly, the category tonight." "Paul, take a guess what you think the category might be tonight." "Well, could it...?" "Something about Lance Armstrong?" "Nice going." "Nice going!" "Honest to God, who cares about cy...?" "No-one." "We were pulling into the driveway and, right when we pulled into the driveway, Betsy's phone rings and Betsy turned to me and she goes, "It's Lance."" "And our daughter in the back said," ""Is it really him?" "Is it really him?"" "He apologised." "Apologised for everything he'd done." "And I said, "You know, it must be..." "It's got to be a tough phone call for you to make..." I said, "You know," "I appreciate it," and I said," ""I'm sure you're going through hell for the last month and a half."" "I said, "But no..." "That I'd been going through hell for ten years with this shit."" "The Lance in that phone call was a Lance I've never, ever..." "It was a Lance I didn't know." "He really, genuinely seemed contrite." "Um..." "And he apologised." "He said he had done a lot of bad things to a lot of good people." "I said, "Lance, you better admit that that hospital room happened."" "Now the worldwide exclusive Oprah and Lance Armstrong." "So let's start with the questions that people around the world have been waiting for you to answer and for now I'd just like a yes or no." "Did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance?" "Yes." " Yes or no, was one of those banned substances EPO?" " Yes." "I was physically sick." "Did you ever blood dope" " or use blood transfusions to enhance your cycling performance?" " Yes." "It was sort of like an old Mike Tyson fight, that by the time you sat down in your ringside seat, he'd already knocked the guy out and it was over." "Did you ever use any other banned substances like testosterone, cortisone or human growth hormone?" "Yes." "I was, like, holy shit." "Wow." "Wow!" "Yeah, am I jealous and bitter and vindictive now?" "In all seven of your Tour de France victories," " did you ever take banned substances or blood dope?" " Yes." "Those five yeses in one fell swoop, just wiped out a generation of cyclists." "Watching the show, for me, was like..." "I never thought those words would come out of Lance Armstrong's mouth." "It was unbelievable." "Was Betsy telling the truth about the Indiana hospital" " overhearing you in 1996?" " Erm..." "I'm not going to take that on." "I'm laying down on that one." "Was Betsy lying?" "Erm..." "And he dropped the ball." "He dropped the ball." " She asked me and I asked her not to talk about..." " What you said?" "...the details of the call." "It was a confidential, personal conversation." "It was 40 minutes long." "So again, it was classic Lance." "His way out, throughout that whole interview, he... he just used me." "He called to apologise so that when he went on Oprah he could say," ""Oh, yeah, I've reached out to people to apologise." "I'm a changed man." "I'm trying to be better."" "It played into his hand." "It played into his game." "My stepfather called me and said," ""Your mom's having a really hard time."" "And I saw my mom and I thought, "Oh..." "..this woman's a wreck."" "What has been the financial cost?" "Have you lost everything?" "I don't like thinking about it." "But that was a..." "I don't know, that was a $75 million day." " Gone." "Gone." " Gone." "Do you think he will ever come clean?" "No, I don't think fully." "Partly because it would burn too many people." "He's protected Bruyneel, he's protected Ferrari, he's protected Thom Weisel, he's protected Bill Stapleton and he's protected, I believe, the medical people at that hospital." "It's really not about him, but about the people behind him." "They put this team together that had knowledge of the doping, that went out and then sold sponsorships to the tune of about 30+ million federal dollars from citizens of the United States of America." "It's alleged fraud." "I don't know Lance Armstrong now." "The man I knew in 1993, I had a blast with." "A great friend and it's hard for me to talk about because of how much hell he put me through and my wife through." "He's like the guy who robs a bank and then says, "Oops, forgot to frisk the tellers for any money they might have in their pockets."" "So he essentially wanted it all." "Most of the cheats pretty much stop at the water's edge." "Lance didn't." "I had it." "And then I just..." "Things got too big." "Things got too crazy." "What Lance never had was the truth which is more powerful than the corrupt athlete." "It's an epic story." "Time flies, huh?" "Who would have thought?"