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MEETING BY THE RIVER

  IT IS RAINING hard in Laval. In the November dusk, Saturday afternoon shoppers are scurrying home. Daniel Friebe and I cross the bridge over the river Mayenne and head for the main square. Rain runs down our necks. An old carousel stands under an avenue of palm trees, dripping in the downpour. In the gloom, we search for the Foyer Culturel on the allée du Vieux Saint-Louis. Meeting here, in this pretty but anonymous northern French town, are the gurus of doping dissent, the high priests of trolldom. Tonight’s debate is the second in a series of occasional get-togethers in which France’s cycling exiles and cynics talk through their experiences and affirm their solidarity against doping. Clutching a bottle of champagne – the media invitation asked that we arrived early bearing champagne and cake – we climb a rickety staircase to an upstairs annexe, set aside for the media to meet the speakers. We peer through the doorway.

  There are perhaps twenty people in the room. I spot some berets, goatees and cravats. Are these people extras from a revival of ’Allo ’Allo? ‘Erm, you first then,’ I instruct Daniel, a little ungallantly. We walk through the door … et voila! We join the French doping Resistance.

  Apart from a handful of wives and girlfriends, those in the room are notorious enough to give Hein Verbruggen and Lance Armstrong chronic heartburn. On my right is Willy Voet, the former soigneur whose boot-load of drugs kick-started the Festina Affair in 1998. Voet, now a bus driver in the Alps, is chatting to his old boss, dapper Bruno Roussel, once Festina’s team manager and architect of their pills-for-prizes wage structure, but now – oh, the irony! – an estate agent.

  Orchestrating things and looking slightly baffled to see us, is Antoine Vayer, former trainer to the Festina team. Central to Vayer’s loathing of the modern Tour is his belief that it is ‘inhumane’. Through his constant, bitter critiques, Vayer long ago established himself as one of the leading sceptics of the Tour’s efforts to clean itself up. He has been unfairly depicted as an arch-critic solely of Armstrong, but to give him his due, he in fact rails against cycling as a whole. He targets promoters and sponsors as well as individual riders and believes an amnesty is the only way to start afresh. He nailed his colours to the Troll mast by aligning himself with Walsh and Ballester in their two ‘LA’ books.

  Across the room, Christophe Bassons, French cycling’s Monsieur Propre (Mr Clean), is deep in conversation with former world mountain-biking champion and self-confessed doper, Jerome Chiotti, who renounced his world title in a very public epiphany. Bassons wears a wry smile, as if permanently amused by a private thought, which may be the realisation that it is now getting on for a decade since he crossed swords with Armstrong at the 1999 Tour; Chiotti, however, just looks bemused, much as he did on the day when, in front of the media, he lifted his gold medal over his head and disowned it.

  Further away, Ballester and Walsh, chief architects of the supposed Armstrong ‘witch-hunt’, chat together with lawyer Thibault de Montbrial and French journalists Stephane Mandard and Benoit Hopquin, both of Le Monde, consistently the most outspoken anti-doping newspaper within France.

  I haven’t seen Ballester for a long time, hardly at all in fact since the 1999 Tour, when he crossed his own bridge to confirmed scepticism. I have always liked him, but he is now a little distant, different from the wry and funny journalist I met when I covered my first Tour. Lance had got on well with him too, giving him time on a regular basis, until he realised that Pierre had crossed to the other side. Ballester, like Walsh, has been through it. He left L’Equipe, not on the best of terms, soon after the 1999 Tour, when he had reported on Lance’s first victory with an icy froideur that set him apart from much of the European media. Effectively, he had accused his press-room colleagues of complicity. Perhaps that is what now hangs in the air between us.

  At the time, his scepticism was apparently unappreciated by his editors. Ironically, seven years later, he finally got the editorial support he’d deserved, when, in August 2005, L’Equipe published the infamous front-page splash, the Mensonge Armstrong (the Armstrong Lie), alleging that the Texan had used EPO during the 1999 Tour. Armstrong has repeatedly denied this.

  Nearby, seated at a table, his partner by his side, is Laurent Roux, the former Tour ‘King of the Mountains’, once a true and celebrated goodfella, a ‘made’ guy, a rider who was, by his own admission, steeped in doping to the point of addiction. His catharsis, like that of Philippe Gaumont, was enforced by his arrest and trial. Roux has dealt drugs and served time. He is older, embattled, heavier set than the last time I saw him, and seems diminished and defeated by his life. In 2006, Roux was one of the key witnesses in a doping trial in Bordeaux. He was injecting himself with pot belge – a heady brew composed of amphetamines, caffeine, cocaine and heroin, that first came to light during the Festina Affair – several times a day. He also sold it to others. Depression and an eight-month prison sentence followed. Once up on the stage, Roux speaks rarely and hesitantly about how miserable his reliance on drugs made him.

  ‘When you dope and you still don’t win, then you just start taking more and more,’ Roux says. Doping, I realise, is wonderful for those who win and get away with it, but a prison for those who dope and lose.

  Walsh is listening but as he speaks little French, he sits focussing on some distant horizon, as around him the naysayers, bad boys and whistle-blowers – trolls one and all – rail against the evils of doping. Only the occasional mention of the heavily accented A-word – ‘Eurmstreuhng’ – snaps Walsh back to attention. The rest of the time, he is a weary and jet-lagged figure, listening distractedly as the grim testimonies to cycling’s dysfunction continue.

  So here they all are, denouncing the pillars of cycling’s establishment, alongside Walsh: Bassons, Voet, Roussel, Ballester, Chiotti, Vayer – the high priests of scepticism – and me.

  And me …

  Does this make me one of them? Here, on a wet night in a nondescript town in rural France, have I finally – definitively – shifted off the fence, and crossed the bridge to the other side, taking my place alongside the nerdy naysayers, when I could be hanging with Cool Hand Lance, as he high-fives his way to another lucrative sponsorship deal?

  I tell myself that I love cycling – I still love cycling – but, most of all, I suddenly understand, in the dim light of Laval’s Foyer Culturel as Laurent Roux bows his head and confesses his sins and an unexpected wave of sadness washes over me, I hate doping and I hate the misery that goes with it.

  Laurent Roux may have been ready to bare his soul, but there are not many present to witness his catharsis. The auditorium in Laval is only half full.

  The people listening intently to Roux and Bassons, Voet and Roussel, are those who’ve braved the pouring rain and who care, really care, about being tricked and conned by dopers. When they open the debate to the floor, there are some poignant moments. An old man’s voice trembles and he is close to tears when he stands up to question the panel, berating the journalists present for not being more combative and campaigning.

  Bassons, a more hardened character now than the boyish and vulnerable rider who was bullied out of the 1999 Tour, offers the old man some hope. He is feisty and eloquent, emerging as a worthy spokesperson for a generation who did not want to dope, but who understood the inevitability of it. He is pragmatic about what cycling has put him through.

  ‘I didn’t care that there were riders more successful than me, but it was annoying that they didn’t want to look at the real reasons why they were faster than me,’ he says. ‘I never wanted to be a big star or anything, because I enjoyed racing so much that the competition was enough. So I rode according to my own limits, to try and improve my performance. I raced against myself.’

  Bassons agrees that the UCI’s fifty per cent health-check test only exacerbated a dire situation and allowed doping to continue. It didn’t prove the use of EPO, it was unfair to athletes with naturally high haematocrit, it labelled riders as dopers without providing concrete evidence of any wrongdoing, it
didn’t attack the trafficking or supply of illegal EPO – it was a red herring, a PR move, a Band-Aid when in fact major surgery was needed.

  Bassons is energised enough to give those who want to listen a glimmer of hope, but as the small gathering files out onto the wet street, I wonder where are the rest of them? Have people given up? Have they admitted defeat? Have they become so accustomed to doping scandals that, when rider after rider makes a mockery of the Tour de France they can just, with a Gallic shrug, say tant pis?

  A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

  IN THE VENDÉE region of western France, the 2005 Tour is about to begin. We wait in a humid aircraft hangar of a press room for the arrival of Lance Armstrong. Nearby sits Paul Kimmage, a ghost from the Tour’s past, a former professional contemporary to Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault. He seems uneasy. Restlessly and reluctantly, he is attending the start of the Tour on behalf of the Sunday Times.

  Armstrong’s control of the media was now so complete that few voices of dissent were heard. There was not to be a repeat of the Armstrong-Walsh showdown in Pau in 2001. By this stage of his career, Jogi Muller and his assistant, Mark Higgins, ensured that the microphone only ever reached friendly hands.

  On the rare occasions that a ‘difficult’ question was asked – and by that I mean an inquisitor intrigued by Armstrong’s ethics somehow managing to snatch the microphone – Muller and Higgins would spring into action. Muller would glare accusingly at the Tour’s own press officials and Higgins would point his digital camera at the troll concerned, capturing his act of defiance.

  Lance, realising that he was being questioned by one of the non-believers, would slowly fix his gaze on his inquisitor, with The Look, his ‘Me? You question me? How very dare you!’ glare on his face. Muller, Higgins and Johan Bruyneel, manager of Armstrong’s new team, the Discovery Channel, would follow suit. Armstrong would pause, growl a one-line response and move on.

  Eventually, there is a flurry of activity and Lance arrives. He confidently fields the opening questions. Then, unexpectedly, Kimmage puts his hand up. Discovery’s media minders seem unsure as to who he is, until he opens his mouth, starts asking a question and suddenly everybody remembers what Paul Kimmage is best known for.

  ‘Lance,’ he says, ‘has your preparation for the Tour de France changed in any way following the conviction of your performance consultant, Michele Ferrari, for sporting fraud?’

  Lance’s eyes narrow in recognition. Ah, a troll. Realising that he is being questioned by one of Walsh’s acolytes – worse still, a smuggled-in, treacherous troll who used to be a pro – he turns his gaze on his inquisitor.

  So, it’s you, Kimmage …

  Higgins presses the shutter on his digital camera and the muffled click fills the silence. Soon this troll will be filed along with the others. Bruyneel joins Lance in the glaring contest. The pro-Lance lobby turn, crane their necks and glare too. The long and meaningful pause ends.

  ‘Absolutely … not,’ growls Lance.

  Another transatlantic voice piped up with another bland question on chateaux and wine and Kimmage’s temerity was quickly forgotten. Later that day, as I rummaged in the boot of my car, I clocked Kimmage, boredom etched across his features, strolling aimlessly among the press cars and team buses.

  ‘Hello, Paul,’ I said. At that time, I believe I was still seen by him as complicit – soft on doping, soft on the causes of doping. But he was cordial enough. ‘Enjoying yourself?’ I asked.

  ‘I can’t wait to get out of here,’ he said.

  ‘Happy with that answer?’ I asked, referring to Lance’s response to his question.

  ‘What d’you expect?’ he shrugged.

  ‘They took your picture,’ I said.

  ‘Do they do that all the time?’ he asked.

  ‘Only for the troublemakers … you should be honoured.’

  I told him he should talk to Philippe Gilbert, the Belgian rider who spoke openly about doping, suggesting he would make an interesting interviewee. Then, inevitably, we started to talk about David Millar.

  Prior to the collapse of his career in the aftermath of the Cofidis scandal, Millar had refused Kimmage an interview, citing his whistle-blowing history as justification. Kimmage was still seething. I could see why. In response to Millar’s rebuttal, Kimmage had sent him a copy of his pioneering book, Rough Ride, the first of cycling’s confessionals.

  ‘For Millar to have the nerve to say to me, “With your reputation …” What the fuck is that?’

  ‘He’s still a big kid,’ I responded. ‘I don’t think he can cope with all this, he’s out of his depth. He’s too vulnerable to deal with all the shit in the sport.’

  ‘You feel sorry for him, do you?’ Kimmage said sharply.

  ‘Erm, a little,’ I said hesitantly. ‘It’s not like he planned it all. He’s not a megalomaniac or control freak. David’s chaotic. You said that you were a victim. Isn’t David too?’

  Kimmage’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yeah – and a very successful one at that,’ he said.

  After that, Paul Kimmage and I had unfinished business. I wanted to talk to him more, about his experiences during his transition from rider to journalist, and about his anger with Millar.

  We met again at the end of 2006, in a café in St Christopher’s Place, tucked away behind Oxford Street. Shoppers laden with bags sat hunched over lattes and hot chocolates as the uphill march towards Christmas continued. Kimmage was leaving it all behind, flying to Australia to report on the Ashes series. His Christmas lunch would be seafood and white wine, eaten under blue skies in sandals and shorts, far from the fog and frozen ground, the cancelled flights and motorway misery.

  Kimmage has made a remarkable journey, from anonymity in the peloton to a feature writer on the Sunday Times. His journalistic career was built on the success of Rough Ride. The book details a naif’s battle to retain his integrity – much to the scorn of all around him – and is one of the best sports books ever written. But in writing it, he had broken the omerta and Rough Ride ensured that, in cycling at least, Kimmage’s name became a dirty word.

  We order coffee. He tells me he’s only agreed to meet me because of the tip I gave him about Philippe Gilbert. I explain what this book is about. He listens and then quickly takes me aback by saying that, ultimately, our journey has been the same. ‘You invested your trust in the sport and it was betrayed. Like me.’

  When, in 2006, Kimmage went back to the Tour, he covered the whole event. ‘In a perverse sort of way I enjoyed it,’ he says. ‘But I’m pretty sure I won’t go again, because I find it very hard to deal with people when I go back.’

  Paul ran into some old acquaintances on the 2006 Tour. They were awkward encounters. It wasn’t easy coming face to face with those who, in team cars and behind microphones, were propping up a system that he now despises and wants to tear down.

  ‘Most of the guys I raced with I’m now on pretty good terms with, but when I see the status attributed to other people who are held up as icons, some of them complete and utter fucking liars, it really drives me crazy. I find that very difficult.’

  He took his bike and rode in the Etape du Tour, the weekend warrior’s race within the race, run over the route of one of the Tour’s key stages, a few days before the pros tackle it for real.

  ‘I love cycling, really love it,’ he says. ‘Absolutely. And I do love the Tour, it’s a great event … but it’s just a complete tragedy that it’s been destroyed in that way.’

  In a way, Kimmage’s return to the Tour, documented in the Sunday Times – they could have called it ‘Rough Ride II: No one likes him and he don’t care’ – had a perfect ending. The climax of his three weeks on the 2006 Tour saw Floyd Landis’ ‘wonder’ victory in Morzine, a win that has became infamous for the positive testosterone test that followed soon afterwards.

  Even before Landis crossed the finish line alone after his marathon attack, Kimmage was shaking his head. ‘I couldn’t believe it. People I knew were jumping ar
ound like kids in sweet shops, but I thought it was complete bollocks. I don’t know anybody who can recover from being as bad as that, to then killing everybody the next day, without recourse to doping.’

  A week or so later, following the confirmation of his positive test, it was Landis whose name was mud. Kimmage says he got a kick out of that.

  As a shy and puritanical young professional in Europe, Paul Kimmage felt the pressure for a long time before he succumbed to doping. Curiously, though, he does not regard himself as a doper.

  ‘I doped three times, in three criterium races, races that were fixed. Tell me, what was the benefit of doing that? So I don’t regard myself as ever having doped, although quite clearly I used amphetamines three times. In some ways it was a good thing to have done, because anybody who told me afterwards that the drugs didn’t work, I’d just laugh at, because they transformed me.’

  But Kimmage remained a naif, at least compared to his peers. ‘Thierry Claveyrolat used to laugh about it, the notion that I was a doper,’ Kimmage recalls of his late former teammate, winner of the ‘King of the Mountains’ classification in the Tour. Claveyrolat turned on Kimmage when Rough Ride was published, soon after the Irishman quit racing. But while Kimmage left the dopers behind and built a career in sports journalism, Claveyrolat was one of those whose life seemed blighted after he retired from racing: there was a car crash, a failing bar business in a claustrophobic Alpine valley and finally a tragic and lonely end. Late one night, after he’d rolled down the shutters and closed up, Claveyrolat blew his brains out in the basement of the bar.

  ‘Cycling’s brought you a lot of sadness, hasn’t it?’ I say to Kimmage.

  ‘No,’ says Paul, ‘not at all.’

  ‘Are you bitter?’ I ask.

  ‘That,’ he replies, ‘is the perception. For eight years there were degrees of it, yes, until the Festina Affair. Maybe it’s an air I give off sometimes, but then after Festina, I had people coming up to me saying, “You were right.”