The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour De France: Doping, Cover-Ups, and Winning at All Costs: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour De France: Doping, Cover-Ups, and Winning at All Costs (5 page)

The plan for 1996–97 was to establish Postal’s European credentials. We’d enter more big races, and hopefully, by 1997, earn an invitation to what Weisel liked to call the Tour de Fucking France. We fed off Weisel’s determination. We felt optimistic and energized, especially with Hampsten leading us. That spring of ’96 we headed to Europe feeling optimistic. We knew it’d be tough, but we’d find a way to get it done.

We had no idea.

*
Borysewicz was best known for importing Eastern European training methods to the United States—including some that were more than a little questionable. Prior to the 1984 Olympic Games, Borysewicz arranged blood transfusions for the U.S. Olympic cycling team in a Ramada Inn in Carson, California. The team went on to win nine medals, including four golds. While transfusions were not technically against the rules at the time, the United States Olympic Committee condemned the procedure, calling the transfusions “unacceptable, unethical, and illegal as far as the USOC is concerned.”

The scandal and ensuing publicity seem to have scared Borysewicz straight: Hamilton and teammate Andy Hampsten agree that the team was clean during Eddie B’s 1995–96 tenure as director, and that he frequently warned them against “getting involved with that shit.”

Chapter 2
 
REALITY

AT FIRST, WE TOLD ourselves it was jet lag. Then the weather. Then our diet. Our horoscopes. Anything to avoid facing the truth about Postal’s performance in the bigger European races in 1996: we were getting crushed.

It wasn’t that we were losing; it was the way we were losing. You can grade your performance in a race the same way you would grade a test in school. If you cross the finish line in the lead group, then you earned an A: you might not have won, but you never got left behind. If you are in the second group, you get a B—not great, but far from terrible; you only got left behind once. If you’re in the third group, you get a C, and so on. Each race is really a bunch of smaller races, contests that always have one of two results: you either keep up, or you don’t.

As a team, Postal was scoring D’s and F’s. We did fairly well in America, but our performance in the big European races seemed to follow the same pattern: the race would start, and the speed would crank up, and up, and up. Pretty soon we were hanging on for dear
life. Pack-fill, we called ourselves, because our only function was to make the back group of the peloton bigger. We had no chance to win, no chance to attack or affect the race in a meaningful way; we were just grateful to survive. The reason was that the other riders were unbelievably strong. They defied the rules of physics and bike racing. They did things I’d never seen, or even imagined seeing.

For instance, they could attack, alone, and hold off a charging peloton for hours. They could climb at dazzling speed, even the bigger guys who didn’t look like climbers. They could perform at their absolute best day after day, avoiding the usual peaks and valleys. They were circus strongmen.

For me, the guy who stood out was Bjarne Riis, a six-foot-tall, 152-pound Dane nicknamed the Eagle. Riis had a big bald head, and intense blue eyes that rarely blinked. He spoke seldom, and usually cryptically. His focus was so intense that it sometimes looked as if he were in a trance. But the strangest thing about Riis, by far, was the arc of his career.

For most of his career, Riis was a decent racer: solid, but rarely a contender in the big races. Then, in 1993, at twenty-seven, he went from average to incredible. He finished fifth in the 1993 Tour, with a stage win; in 1995, he finished third. By 1996, some observers believed he might even be able to defeat the sport’s reigning king, five-time defending champion Miguel Indurain.

I remember one of the first times I saw him up close, in the spring of 1997. We were going hard up some brutally steep climb, and Riis was working his way through the group, except he was pushing a gigantic gear. The rest of us were spinning along at the usual rhythm of around 90 rpms, and here comes Bjarne, blank-faced, churning away at 40 rpms, pushing a gear that I couldn’t imagine pushing. Then I realized: he’s training. The rest of us are going full bore, either trying to win or trying to hang on, and he’s
training
. As Riis went by, I couldn’t resist. I said, “Hey, how’s it going?” to see if he’d react. He gave me a glare and just kept riding.

You looked at Riis, you looked at the dozens of Riis look-alikes that made up the peloton, and you couldn’t help but wonder what was going on. I mean, I was green, but I wasn’t an idiot. I knew some bike racers doped. I’d read about it—albeit limitedly, in this pre-Internet age—in the pages of
VeloNews
. I’d heard about steroids (which mystified me at the time, since bike racers don’t have big muscles); I’d heard about riders popping amphetamines, about syringes tucked in jersey pockets. And lately I’d heard about erythropoietin, EPO, the blood booster that added, some said, 20 percent to endurance by causing the body to produce more oxygen-carrying red blood cells.
^*

The rumors didn’t impress me as much as the speed—the relentless, brutal, mechanical speed. I wasn’t alone. Andy Hampsten was achieving the same power outputs as previous years, years when he’d won the big races. Now, producing that same power, he was struggling to stay in the top fifty. Hampsten, who was staunchly
anti-doping, and who would soon retire at age thirty-two rather than dope, had a good view of the change.

ANDY HAMPSTEN:
In the mideighties, when I came up, riders were doping but it was still possible to compete with them. It was either amphetamines or anabolics—both were powerful, but they had downsides. Amphetamines made riders stupid—they’d launch these crazy attacks, use up all their energy. Anabolics made people bloated, heavy, gave them injuries in the long run, not to mention these horrid skin rashes. They’d be superstrong in the cool weather, in shorter races, but in a long, hot stage race, the anabolics would drag them down. So bottom line, a clean rider could compete in the big three-week tours.

EPO changed everything. Amphetamines and anabolics are nothing compared to EPO. All of a sudden whole teams were ragingly fast; all of a sudden I was struggling to make time limits. By 1994, it was ridiculous. I’d be on climbs, working as hard as I’d ever worked, producing exactly the same power, at the same weight, and right alongside me would be these big-assed guys, and they’d be chatting like we were on the flats! It was completely crazy.
^†

As the [1996] season went by, there was so much tension at the dinner table—everybody knew what was up, everybody was talking about EPO, everybody could see the writing on the wall. They were looking to me to give them a little guidance. But what could I say?

Nobody sets out wanting to dope. We love our sport because of its purity; it’s just you, your bike, the road, the race. And when you enter a world and you begin to sense that doping is going on, your instinctive reaction is to close your eyes, clap your hands over your ears, and work even harder. To rely on the old mystery of bike racing—push to the limit, then push harder, because who knows, today might be better. In fact, I know this sounds strange, but the idea that others doped actually inspired me at first; it made me feel noble because I was pure. I would prevail because my cleanness would make me stronger. No job too small or tough.

It was easy to maintain this attitude, because doping simply wasn’t discussed—at least, not officially. We’d whisper about it at the dinner table or on rides, but never with our team directors or management or doctors. Every once in a while, an article might appear in a foreign paper and cause a brief commotion, but for the most part everyone pretended that these insane race speeds were normal. It was as if you were staring at someone casually lifting thousand-pound barbells over their heads with one hand, and everybody around you was acting like it was just another day at the office.

Still, we couldn’t help but express our worries. There’s an oft-told story about how Marty Jemison and I approached Postal doctor Prentice Steffen in 1996 and had a conversation about how fast the races were. Steffen says Marty hinted that the team should start providing some illicit medical enhancements, and that I stood there in support. I have to say, I don’t remember this specific incident happening, but I can certainly recall the feeling of being worried, of wondering why the hell these guys were so fast, and wondering what they might be on.
^‡

Weisel, as you might imagine, enjoyed losing even less than we did, and his feelings were intensified by the structure of the sport. In baseball or football, the league lends stability to each team. Pro cycling, on the other hand, follows a more Darwinian model: teams are sponsored by big companies, and compete to get into big races. There are no assurances; sponsors can leave, races can refuse to allow teams. The result is a chain of perpetual nervousness: sponsors are nervous because they need results. Team directors are nervous because they need results. And riders are nervous because they need results to get a contract.

Weisel understood this equation. This was his shot for the Tour, and he is not the kind of guy who reacts to losing by patting you on the back and saying, “Don’t worry, guys, we’ll get ’em tomorrow.” No, Weisel was the kind of guy who reacted to losing by getting pissed off. And in 1996 we watched him go from pissed off to white hot to Defcon 5. We started to see him and Eddie B arguing after races. We started to hear the growl.

We better see some good numbers tomorrow, or somebody’s gonna be seeing the door
.

You guys gotta step it up, starting now!

That was fucking pathetic. What’s the problem with you guys?

The nine-day Tour of Switzerland in June was our chance for redemption. We were hopeful; Hampsten, who would co-lead with Darren Baker, had won the race in 1988. Weisel planned to fly over for the big stages to ride in the team car with Eddie B. This was going to be our big opportunity to prove that we belonged.

We got crushed. We hung for a few days, but when the race got serious, we flunked. The telling moment came on stage 4, on the climb of the monstrous Grimsel Pass—26 kilometers long, 1,540 meters gained with a 6 percent grade, ending at the aptly named
Lake of the Dead. On the lower slopes, the pack accelerated and we fell away like we had anchors attached to our bikes. Hampsten was the last holdout, hanging tough in a group of twenty, flying up, up the mountain. Weisel and Eddie B yelled encouragement, but it was no use—Hampsten was going full bore, and everybody was simply stronger. The group pulled away, leaving Hampsten behind.

Watching the leaders disappear up the road, Weisel got antsy. Race protocol requires the team car to remain behind the team’s leading rider in order to help him with feeding and mechanical problems; violating this rule is unthinkable, the equivalent of a NASCAR pit crew abandoning their post in the middle of a race. But Weisel had no more patience, not for protocol, not for anything. He ordered Eddie B to leave Hampsten, to drive around him, to catch up with the leaders so he could see the fireworks. Weisel wanted to scout new riders for the 1997 team. The engine revved; Hampsten watched in disbelief as the Postal car disappeared up the road. The message was clear: Weisel wasn’t going to wait around for losers.

Two days later, at the foot of Susten Pass (17 kilometers at 7.5 percent grade), co-leader Darren Baker blew a tire. I gave him my wheel and by the time I got a replacement, I was alone. I gave everything I had, but couldn’t catch up. I spent the day alone, trying to make it under the time limit. I remember seeing desperate riders hanging on to rearview mirrors, hitching rides. I remember telling myself I’d never do that. In the end I missed the cutoff, and the next day I was on a plane back home, wondering if I had what it took.

The Tour of Switzerland was the kind of experience that might have made me think twice about my sport, to wonder why I was working so hard for nothing. I might have been tempted to quit, if bike racing had been the only thing in my life. But it wasn’t. You see, a few weeks before that race, I had fallen in love.