Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
And there she is here, I am look at me. It's me Zeron Burnette.
How you doing good? You're doing good?
Yeah you.
Let's skip past that and we'll get into my question, which is, do you know what's ridiculous?
I do. I do know it's ridiculous. It's a mashup, but a good one. Hannah on Instagram, founder of Folkways Press, just sent this to me. Uh, it's a mashup of this glass like eyeglasses company camp that they do. They're like teamed up with the US for service for Smokey Bear.
Oh and I like him.
I was like, well this is cool. And then I looked at all of them. I'm like, these kind of like the glasses already were so now I think I need some, Okay, And uh, it's a good mashup. What Yeah, So it's s hwood shop dot com and you go and they have the Smokey Bear what have you. But yeah, they're pretty dope looking glasses. Here. We look like they're made out of wood, but I think they're not.
But New Year, New Elizabeth, like, what is this? Is it a mashup? I don't even hate.
And you know what, I'm gonna stop right there. That's it. It's not going to drag on forever.
No quotes from a PR person in the company.
Now, I'm just gonna be like, oh, you know what, they make smokey bird glasses, and I love the Forest Service and the proceeds go to help fight wildfires. Wow, it just gets better and better.
Twenty six. You're already looking up.
I know you're welcome.
Well, I got something ridiculous for you, girl. Yes, sir, imagine you're a world famous athlete and you're one of the fastest to ever do it.
Right up, I don't have to imagine.
I know you don't, but right up until your crimes eventually catch up to you. Oh, because, as you know, Elizabeth, the past is never truly gone.
That is true.
This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. Ridiculous, Elizabeth, this is a story I've waited to tell you. Really, it's a favorite of mine. It's part one of a multi part story about doping in sports. The other parts I'll tell you at a later date, but for now, Part one is about the world's most famous cyclist, Lance Armstrong. Lance Lance. I've told
you about my personal connection to Lance Armstrong. It's not really much of a connection. It's more like a long running bit. But my friend Derek and I had we had this little game we'd like to play when we weren't on our own bikes and we were just rolling around in cages, I mean cars, and anytime that we saw a cyclist in there, Likera gear, we'd both yell Lance. Why that made us laugh so hard? I can't tell you, but it did. My point is Lance Armstrong has been
a joke to us for a long time. Yeah, mostly because every July we'd watched the Tour de France together and for years Lance dominated that multi stage race around for it. And Lance was so full of himself, Oh my god, which is saying a lot since he's a cyclist.
He's living strong there, my kid, I.
Kid cyclists, I'm one of you. But seriously, Lance Armstrong had a high opinion of Lance Armstrong, as this story will make evidence. So what's the story. Well, I'm glad you asked him.
Yes, thank you.
I think you already know the general shape and the contours of this one. I think you probably remember.
It, Lance Strong.
Yeah, he's caught doping. He loses everything. Right, that's not the full story, because, as you know, the devil is in the details always, So first step, who is Lance Armstrong?
Good question, fantastic question. You asked that.
Lance Gunderson was born in nineteen seventy one in the town of Richardson, Texas. It's a suburb of Dallas. He was born Lance Gunderson Gunderson. Yeah, so you know the calculator company, Texas Instruments. Yes, Well, in nineteen fifty six they set up shop at the border of Richardson, and after that the town grew in size and prestige. Suddenly the real estate's valuable. You could say, Richardson is the town that calculators built. Anyway, soon enough.
After he was born, Richardson is the town that calculators built. You told me I could say it, I.
Could say it. You did do it.
It was horrible.
Anyway, soon after he's born to Richardson, his parents get divorced. Little Lance was just two years old. His mother soon remarried, and little Lance took the name of his new stepfather, and that's how he became Lance Armstrong. Fast forward to his teenage years. We don't need to go over his whole childhood. By the age of sixteen, Lance Armstrong he shows this aptitude for athletics. His first success is as a triathlete, you know, running, swimming, and biking right.
Within a tumbling.
Within a few years he's a national champion triathlete. It feels like triathletes were much more of an eighties nineties thing, back when you'd hear about who won the annual iron Man competition. Yeah, you don't hear about that anymore.
No, No, I got a bunch of friends that do triathlons too.
Much like the national conversation. Yeah you don't hear about the who won the iron Man basically, yeah, I think in the nineties other extreme sports began to surpass that OJA ruling competition. Anyway, That's where Lance Armstrong first makes a name for himself swimming, cycling, the running. Then in nineteen ninety two he switches it up. He focuses solely on cycling and he turns pro as a cyclist. That same year he did not want to do the runs
no more. The swim for him. So he joins the Motorola cycling team, which was like one of the best in the world at the time, and from the jump, he's damn good. In nineteen ninety three, he competes in the Tour de France. He wins the stage, which is shocking, right, first time out, totally. Now, later that same year, he wins the World Road Race Championship.
I thought you're gonna say road rage.
No, this is so excited. For a second. This starts a string of wins for Lance that culminates in him winning the Triple Crown in cycling. He won the Thrift Drug Classic in Pittsburgh. Oh, he won the Kmart West Virginia Classic, honey, And finally he won the Core States US Pro National Championships in Philly.
Now that sounds like a legitimate race.
So it's not exactly like, oh, Belmont, the Preakness and Kentucky Derby, but you get the idea that would have been amazing to beat the horses. So this is also Elizabeth when the first allegations of his cheating pops into this story.
Okay that early, yes, because.
Apparently one of the cyclists he was competing against in the national championship. Alleges that Lance bribed him to let Lance win so he could take the triple crown. That was just a bribe. But soon enough, by nineteen ninety five, Lance moved on to performance enhancing drugs. Anyway, the next year, Lance's his ascendant career, right, it continues its rise. He competes at the nineteen ninety six Summer Olympics in my
hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. However, he didn't medal in the Olympics and said he finished twelfth in the road race. You know what that means, He's gonna need to dope even harder.
Yeah, but all.
Unfortunately, later on in that same year, tragedy struck Elizabeth. His cycling career had to be put on hold when Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
Yeah, I remember that.
It was bad, like his doctors didn't think he would live.
Oh really.
However, if there's one thing we can say about Lance Armstrong, he is committed to winning, and so he dedicates himself to beating cancer. It works. He defies the expectations of his doctors. He beats testicular cancer for him, right, and then after his cancer is in remission. He founds the Lance Armstrong Foundation in order to help other cancer survivors. That's a good thing, totally. It would later change its name to the Livestrong Foundation.
With the yellow Yeah bracelets.
Right, yeah, you remember those. More on those later now. The next year, nineteen ninety seven, Lance Armstrong meets Kristin Richard. The two headed off. They get married. The following year, the couple gets right to work on having a family. They welcome a son in October of ninety nine, a pair of twin daughters in two thousand and one. Now you may be wondering, how does the testicular cancer survivor pull off this miracle?
I wasn't wondering that his business.
Well, he had his testicles removed, not both of them, the one. Yeah, But it was like he wasn't like it was the odds were against him. People were surprised. And it turns out Lance had foresight. He'd made some deposits at the sperm bank. Yeah, he created using his junk from before his he had surgery. Anyway, back to cycling. In ninety eight, Lance gets back on the saddle and launches this improbable comeback. Nobody thinks it's possible, but again
he's like, I'm committed to winning. His first attempts though or met with failure. But that just shows Lance will need to work even harder if he wants to return to professional cycling. So in nineteen ninety eight, that same year, when many in cycling believe Lance will never get back to his championship status and they expect him to soon retire from the sport. Instead, he joins the US Postal Service team and he competes at the highest levels of cycling.
And again delivering the mail.
He excels. He doesn't win, but he unexpectedly finishes fourth at the World Championships of Cycling that year.
Wow.
The next year, ninety nine, Lance roars back onto the professional cycling scene when he competes in the Tour de France, which is the coolest, biggest, exactly, it's the best race in the world. He stuns everybody. He wins the whole damn thing.
Wow.
No one saw that coming, no one but Lance Armstrong. However, there was an asterisk on his victory because he competed in a field of cyclists that was missing two of the best racers in the sport. So folks were like, well, sure, it's impressive that Lance beat cancer and he came back to win the Tour de France. But he didn't beat the best in the world.
That's kind of rough, right, So.
The next year in two thousand, the best were back in the saddle with him, all ready to challenge Lance in the Tour de France, and wouldn't you know it, Lance still wins the damn thing.
Nice.
In fact, he increases his pace and wins by six minutes over this other cyclist yng six minute. Yeah, he beats jan Ulrich, who many believe was the best in the world at the time. Yeah, and had been absent the year prior.
Huge, it's a huge amount of time.
Oh totally. He's normally winning like a minute and a half, two minutes, now six minutes.
Have you ever seen the pictures from the like original Tour de France where they're like smoking siuts.
Total and they stop and have wine breaks, wine and cheese breaks.
Still do that?
They really should now that same summer, Lance he competes in the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, where he finishes third, which means he medals and takes the bronze. Following year two thousand and one, Lance returns to the Tour de France and wouldn't you know it, Elizabeth, he wins again. Now he's won three times in a row. The world of cycling is a gog. Who is this guy? There was?
Why didn't he win at the Olympics?
That's weird, tough competition. So then the next year, two thousand and two, he does it again. Lance wins the Tour de France for a fourth time in a row. It's truly an exceptional victory. Yes, suddenly Lance Armstrong is considered the best cyclist in the world. However, I should point out something, he didn't do it alone. I don't know if you know how the Tour de France works entirely, but you race as part of a team, which means team members take turns as a lead racer for the team.
This allows the other team members to ride in their lipstream back in the rest of the peloton, which means in they ride against reduced wind and they experience less drag, which keeps their legs like fresh for that final push at the end of the day stage. So although Lance wins the Tour de France, it's really a team victory. Sure, sure Anyway. The next year, two thousand and three, Lance wins the Tour de France again, stretching a streak of
victories to five in a row. It's incredible. By this point, people who aren't even cycling fans, they know his name. Many are tuning in to watch the Tour de France just to see if Lance can do it again. Notably, in that year's Tour de France, in a late stage, Lance was leading when one of the race spectators who crowded the roadside, they collided with Lance and their handbag wraps around his handlebars and he nearly crashes, which is bad on a bike, especially when you have like you know,
no hair nearly your legs. You go down. Well help with the crash, but it's like his main competitor, Jan Ulrich, the former best cyclist in the world. He decides not to take advantage of this mishap and he waits for Lance to get back on the race. This show of sportsmanship is heralded by the cycling world, especially when Lance goes on to win the tour yet again. Little did folks know that Lance was not so committed to fair play himself. Now at this point, Lance did suffer a
major loss. That same year, his marriage falls apart. Turns out Lance was also cheating on his wife.
You're kidding.
Yes, tabloid stories come out that that celebrate the fact that the newly singled Lance is now dating the singer songwriter Cheryl Crow.
It's like vague memories. Remember that moment three years old?
Remember so the pair, they become the celebrity couple. They eventually announced their engagement to get married. In fact, Cheryl Crow puts her own career on hold to support her new boat. She even moves to her Hona, Spain, which is this major hub of cycling and a training ground. But then cheating pops back up and the couple never reaches the altar.
Wait break up.
The next year. No, in this case, well, I don't know if he on her, but I do know from her that the cheating wasn't necessarily inside the relationships. Why they broke up, it was that well, I'll just put it this way, Cheryl Crow said he lied to me too, And this was in reference to him as a professional cyclist.
Oh, you're kidding.
The allegations were starting to come out.
That's integrity right there, right.
And I respected her. Now, before we get into all of this, we have a couple more Tours de France to get through. So stepping back in time, in two thousand and four, Lance wins the Tour de France for the sixth time in our way in a row. Incredible. He follows that with a record seventh win in the Tour de France the next year, two thousand and five. He's also sets a record for the fastest pace in tour history. He averaged twenty six miles per hour at every moment of the race.
Essentially, it's like superhuman.
Totally, It's ridiculous.
I mean, he's Greg Lamont.
I'm glad you bring him up. So after that record setting campaign, Lance announces that he plans to retire from professional cycling. Why, you may ask, you're at the top of your Yeah, why because does he put it at the time, he plans to quote spend more time with his family and his foundation.
What family, like his wife does? I want nothing to do with you.
I think he just means his kids, guys. But not only that, there's also talk that he might go into politics. It's like the reverse for most people, like they leave politics to spend time with their friend, their family and their kids. So he's like, no, I'm gonna go into politics. And so that's how popular and how famous he was. At this point, people thought Lance Armstrong could and should be the next governor of Texas.
Wow, what a different timeline, right.
And in fact President George W. Bush, the former governor of Texas, supported the idea because you see these two Texans. They used to go cycling together at the President's ranch in Texas.
Interesting.
Yeah, they were buddies, good buddies. Now, before he can announce his candidacy for governor of Texas, Lance goes on the Charlie Rose Show, the old Charlie Roashow Desk, Yeah, on PBS, and he confesses that he's decided to forego an entry into politics. I'll give you one guess why he decides politics is not for.
Him, Citizens United Ruling.
Good call. But it's actually by this point talk is all around that Lance is a cheater now, because you may recall, by this point Lance had been cheating since way back in the nineties. Yeah, and talk of him doping dated back to his first victory in the Tour de France in nineteen ninety nine. Yeah, despite the many whispers against him, Lance insists it's a smear campaign. He
vociferously denies he's ever used any performance enhancing drugs. But then, Elizabeth, the truth begins to come out, and when it does, it ruins everything. I'm talking all his hard work, his victories, his records, his celebrity status, even his cancer foundation.
Well, there was a time when like op research in politics was so flawless. Oh yeah, and they would get absolutely everything and then it could tank campaigns.
Yes, I think that because it works anymore. But well, yeah, I think these people believe that all the politicians are dirty. So now you don't have now exactly, but it used.
To be like you knew, like, oh man, they're going to lock in and get everything on this person.
He's gonna get Gary harted. Yes, before we get into all of his what he loses, let's take a little break and after these messages, we'll get into blood doping.
It's so weird, and we're back, Elizabeth the area.
So about those blood doping allegations. Blood doping, It turns out all during his seven year run of winds at the Tour de France, there was plenty of talk that Lance Armstrong was cheating, and this was helped along by his tendency to attack his fellow professional cyclists who spoke out against doping and cycling.
Wait, it's not just against him, but just in general in general.
You see, back in nineteen ninety nine, when Lance won his first Tour de France, there was something called the Festina affair, which sounds far more risky than.
It was sounds fun.
There's this cyclist named Christoph Bessons who rides for Team Festina. He's the only member of the team who was not doping, and that same year ninety nine, Christoph writes a series of articles for the French press about the prevalence of doping and cycling and he says it's rampant.
Huh.
Well, Lance Armstrong don't like that, so he confronts Christoph and he does it during the ninety nine Tour de.
France, like while they're both on bike riding.
Literally, according to baston Hitting, Armstrong rides up alongside him and confronts him about his whistleblowing in the French press. Yeah, like they got time to talk. So apparently Armstrong tells Bessans and I quote, it was a mistake to speak out the way I do, And he asked why I was doing it. I told him that I'm thinking of the next generation of riders, and then he said, why don't you leave? Then? What? Yes, it wasn't even that he was mentioning Lance's name. He was just talking about how.
Prevalent it is, yeah, in general, and just disappointment with it. Yeah, unbelievable.
So when word of their mid race conflicts emerges, Armstrong then tells a reporter from a French TV station that and I quote, his accusations aren't good for cycling, for his team, for me, for anybody. If he thinks cycling works like that, he's wrong and he'd be better off going home. There's a heavy emphasis on his accusations aren't good for me, Lance arms stage.
Yes, exactly. It's one of those things where it's like there shouldn't be a question of you get out there and you say doping's bad, you know, just like if you were to say, like, don't don't do illegal things. Sure, you know, okay, well that's you know, that's a statement that shouldn't have blowback.
I just but if you come out and you say everyone in Cleveland is doing illegal things. Someone in Cleveland might get mad well, just as a counterpoint. Yeah, but really Lance's concern was I don't need people poking around asking a bunch of questions and coming up with new drug tests. True, because I'm just beating the ones they have and they don't have, so don't ask for no.
One should have been like, yeah, don't dope. That's terrible.
Yeah, but they didn't want the best cyclist in the world to agree that it's occurring, because then that gives gravitas. And then all of a sudden they got new tests and everyone's got a pe in a jar at before and after races what happened.
So at this point in a jar every day.
I know, and I want to talk to you about that. This is Howard Hughes over here. I need introduce you now to a key figure in this story. Enter Michelle Ferrari. Hello, what a great name, right, A very sleazy guy. Michelle Ferrari, as you might guess, is an Italian. He's technically doctor Ferrari. Doctor, he's a physician. He's also a cycling coach. So doctor Ferrari first met Lance back in ninety five. He was a known figure in cycling, a doctor who was rumored
to be this dark force in the sport. You see, when he was training as a physician, he studied anaerobic thresholds, as in like how a human body maximizes its oxygen usee. Sure, so the whispers were he was helping cyclists to beat the many drug tests that they had to take. In fact, when he heard that Lance was working with doctor Ferrari, the organizer of the Tour de France, Jean Marie LeBlanc, said, I am not happy that tune names are mixed. Yees.
So it was no big secret that doctor it's dirty. Yeah. Trouble was, it wasn't easy to prove that. Said doctor Ferrari had been banned from practicing medicine to aid cyclists by the Italian Cycling Federation. His own people were onto them, However, the French had yet to take such a bold step. Okay, Elizabeth, I got asked, do you know what EPO is?
EPO?
Yeah? Not many do. EPO is a slang term for a group of glycoprotein cytokines such as erythropoietine, hemo topopoetine, and Hemopoietin those three mouthfuls are substances that the kidneys secrete. Okay, naturally, right, it's the body's way of dealing with hypoxia when you have too little oxygen in the blood, which is you know, so EPO causes the body to create more red blood cells from deep inside your bone marrow because that's where
you create red blood cells. And then obviously, if you're competing in a grueling road race, the more oxygenated your blood is, the more red blood cells you have that can carry oxygen to your spent muscles, the better a cyclist, Well, do you need.
To be oxygenated so you can have conversations mid race? Like most people are, like, hold on a second, we get to this downhill part. I'll tell you, really need to tell you.
Fall back in the peloton with me, so were you can talk. So the talk was Doctor Ferrari was known to inject Lance with doses of EPO. And I'm not saying that. One of Lance Armstrong's teammates said that just okay, does Elizabeth meet George Henkapee hen Cappy Hi George. So he rode for the Motorola cycling team back in the early nineties and alongside Lance Armstrong. So according to his deposition, I'll get to that later. Hen Caappy said that quote.
Prior to joining Motorola, I knew that Lance Armstrong was on the team, as I had met him several years prior when we had raced on the national team together. Lance and I were friends from the start, right. So he was also stated for the record that around that same time and I quote during the nineteen ninety four I was given injections by the team's Belgian massage therapist stop it. I asked what was in the injections and was told that the substances were legal products such as
vitamin C, vitamin B twelve, and liver cleanser. Elizabeth, if you ever find yourself being given a subcutaneous injection of something called liver cleaner by a Belgian massage.
Therapist, I've made it this.
Things have already gotten out of control.
Then I'm like a like Kardashian level influence. That's when you know it doesn't get any better than this.
So back to George Henkepy and his death position, he recalled that and I quote. In nineteen ninety five, there appeared to be a major change in the peloton. It was becoming very difficult to keep up, and I learned that the reason was, Well, Elizabeth, you want to guess what it was, please, that's right, it was epo. So this is when EPO emerges as the substance of choice
for cheating. So back to George Henkpy the widespread uses of a erythro protein, a band of blood oxygen booster for which there was at the time no effective doping test.
Sure, it's like naturally occurring.
Exactly in the body. How would you be able to test for, like how much glucose do you have in your blood versus how much you should have? So, as Hinkapee puts it, there's obvious pressure to keep up with the other racers in the peloton, and I quote, as the speed of the peloton increased, we seem to be confronted with the choice of using EPO or not performing well in races. At this point in time, people in the peloton were talking about EPO quite openly.
Well, I mean, yeah, I mean that's the problem is that you're in this group and you got to keep up.
You want to be a professional, if you want to stay on the teams.
Everyone else is like speeding along afful oxygen.
So just like his teammate Lance Armstrong, hin Kepi was also quite familiar with doctor Ferrari. So now around the same time as EPO becomes this trade secret in cycling and changes the sport, hin Kapy takes notice of what Lance is thinking and feeling about this advanced performance enhancing drug. You see at the Milan San Remo race, their team gets crushed and it pisses off An. I bet I think Kpie puts it, and I quote Lance Armstrong was
very upset. As we drove home. Lance said in substance that this is people are using stuff and we are getting killed. He said in substance that he did not want to get crushed anymore and something needed to be done. So what needs to be done? Great question, Elizabeth. Back to hink Ape, I understood that he meant the team needed to get on EPO. Yeah, so the team leader is saying we all need to EPO up. Everyone's gonna write.
He's like got needles dangling out of his skins, like I just want all the time.
So, being a good teammate, Hinkappy finds where he can get his hands on some EPO it's for sale at pharmacies in Switzerland.
CVS.
No, but in Switzerland the CVS yes.
Hey, they just sell it at a pharmacy. This sounds like something that like you'd have to tinker in a lab totally like isolate and yeah, what other who else is getting it? Other medical application?
I wish I had a good answer for that. I mean, I could guess, but I don't know. Probably is perhaps people who are having like a bone marror issues, bone cancer, interesting things of that nature. Perhaps some of exactly things of that nature. So that's where he goes. He goes to a pharmacy in Switzerland. He picks himself up some EPO. He then begins to perform subcutaneous injections of EPO on his own. No, like Belgian massage therapist. You just I got this one.
Jabb it is there? Or what if they like sell it like in a can like Monster energy drink, like crack it over, drink, chugging that epo.
Keep that thought in mind. No, as a Hincapy recalls, I had made up my mind if I wanted to be a professional cyclist, I had to do this.
Now.
I remember professional cycling and events like the Tour de France is a team sport. If you're not doing what all you can to win well, the team will find someone who will. You don't want to be have like Lance mad at you because you're not willing to inject an experimental drug. Also, it seemed to Hincapy that all the teams were doing it. So how could that be cheating per se if they're all doing it?
Yeah, just like a baseline for it.
There's a fun aspect of EPO is that you need to keep it cold, which meant that starting in ninety five ninety six, suddenly everyone in cycling is beginning to carry thermises with them.
No, no, like Stanley cups.
Yes, it's exactly end and not just that. They also had full on coolers like some of them were dragging. Answered by yeah, exactly so, as Hincapi explains, guys began carrying around coolers and coffee thermiss with ice in them. I generally recall it, almost everyone on our team had a thermis. That's incredible, right, So thanks to EPO. Hincapi also noted that our performance began to improve. Lance started
to do better. So now team leader Lance isn't going to be pissed at him on the van back to the hotel, and hin Kapi isn't going to get replaced right now. Remember when I mentioned the Festina affair. Yes, yes, well it comes back into play because even if it
felt like everyone's using EPO, it's still illegal. So back to Hincapy and I quote, I recall that in nineteen ninety eight at the Tour de Front, the team staff was very afraid of police attention given to doping as a result of the Festina team having been caught with doping substances. So what does that mean in real world.
The practical terms speaking to English.
Well, as Hincapy tells it, drugs were dumped overboard when the ferry carrying the team was making the passage from Ireland, where a portion of the tour had been run.
Yes, so no, they're just jettisoning it.
Yes, knowing that there were other incidents such as when and I quote later during that tour, I was in the team camper when team staff flushed drugs down the toilet of the team camper.
Well, it's not going to go very far, well it is.
It's like liquid, so they can just pour it in and.
Flush in the tank to now they have to Now they have to shoot up everything in the poop tank.
So they're like teens trying to get rid of flushing it in the toilet. So clearly everyone involved knows what they're doing. Not only violates the rules of cycling, but it's also illegal, as in they have to hide it from the police, but they keep right on doping. Elizabeth. Now, at this point, both Lance and George Hinkepi are riding for the US Postal Service cycling team, which is known to be the best team in the world at this point. And it isn't just EPO that the team is injecting.
As Hincapy tells it, I recall using testosterone pills and HGH to recover after stages of the race and using EPO, so there's everything. Yeah, they're just a little like pharmacies on wheels. So if you are, you know, into knowing what all these acronyms are. HGH is short for human growth hormone, So these cyclists are using a cocktail of human growth hormone, testosterone, and red blood stimulant aka EPO. Now, the testosterone they were using is nicknamed the oil because
of this. The steroid andreol, which came in these red gel caps, gets mixed with olive oil so that the riders can swallow it and have it be absorbed by the body. So as Hincapy puts it, many on the team carried around little vials or bottles with this testosterone olive oil mixture. So now they got like thermoces of EPO. They got vials and bottles of olive oil mixture with the testosterone. Oh man. So the way that the cycling world tests for blood doping cheaters is to check a
writer's amadecriate level sir okay. So this is a medical term for the percentage of red blood cells in the blood. So this means doctor Ferrari and others like him had to keep track of the writer's red blood cell count and know what their baseline was, and then they had to ensure that the red blood cell count stayed below a certain threshold, and if they got close to that threshold, the writers would inject saline infusions to bring it down.
Oh my god, percentage wise. So you add that to the list that are also injecting saline, which is just saltwater. Yeah the blood, Yeah exactly. So they got another substance they got to keep on the van anyway, now that the performance enhancing drugs had become rife and professional cycling. This is the same time when in nineteen ninety nine Lance wins his first of seven in a row tour de Front's Championships.
Oh so this is so he started way okay. I thought in my mind he was like doing the doping like a couple wins in no.
Ramping up into it. So you better believe Lance is now downing all the EPO and the oil he could get his hands on. Because back to George Hincapy and a race in Spain in two thousand, Lance indicated to me he had taken testosterone. Lance told me he was feeling good and recovered that he had just taken some oil.
Yeah.
So.
Also, being that their teammates, Hincapy helped Lance to avoid the drug testers that would come around and ask for blood work from the riders for testing. He tells this one story and I quote when I heard that drug testing of officials were at the hotel, I texted Lance to warn him to avoid the place. As a result, Lance dropped out of the race.
Dropped out in order to avoid this wasn't.
So it was Lance who first put his teammate Hincapy in touch with old doctor Ferrari, who then turned him onto the new practice of blood doping via blood replacement, wherein blood would be taken out of the body and then reinfused just right before the race. So exactly. Yeah, instead of having to put EPO, you're creating more blood cells in your bone marrow and have that come out into the blood. They're just taking blood out and then
putting it back in. And so now you got extra blood, extra oxygen, carrying red blood cells, and it's all yours, so good luck finding it.
That's crazy, yes, and this is.
All under the direction of doctor Ferrari. His program of blood extraction and replacement cost about fifteen thousand dollars for the entire racing season. Now, if you multiplied it's affordable. No, not bad. But if you multiply that fifteen grand by several riders, possibly you know, dozens and dozens, doctor Ferrari was making a pretty penny off for sure.
Yeah.
And the best part about blood doping versus performance and nanting drugs like EPO and testosteron HGH is there's no test for your own drawn blood so you can just replace it. And also the costs are really low. He's just buying some syringes and a couple of blood bags. It's not like he has to go and like buy EPO at the pharmacy in Switzerland. So now this is where Lance Armstrong's blood doping scandal gets its name. Over time, he graduates from performance and enancing drugs to hot swapping
his own blood. Nuts. Okay, now it's time to dive deeper into the scandal and see how it all comes crashing down. But first, let's check some ads and when we're back we'll get to Lance and his blood doping ways. Oh my goodness, we're back, Elizabeth, Yes we are. Now.
First, I have a confession, mate, I was doping before this recording.
I'm wondering why you had that bag hanging in.
No, I went I took three Adsville.
Oh that kind of blood doping.
Now, granted, I would much rather prefer like dead stock kuludes. However, you may do with what you have. Sure, so I am on. I'm on ibuprofen right now.
Would you be slur your words if you had like the quailude you want? But I have to like rouse you a couple of times.
I know you'd be like Elizabeth, why are you so amazing? Everything you say is perfect? Sparkling badger, Oh yeah, sparkle neely sparkle, Oh my god, yeah that would be amazing. Okay, well I feel like I would be at like my optimal form on kulud.
Really Okay, I'll take your word for it. I'm just like, give me a peanutut and jelly sandwich. We got to go. You're like, I want dead stock.
They don't make him anymore. I never had a chance to try ump, Sarah.
So how do you know good for just know in my bone, in my blood trust from your reincarnated form. You're just like once you know what's on, you know, you know.
Yeah, it's like you know, just like I know that I would probably be like a total badass in like renis like mid Renaissance Italy. So I think I would just like I'd be bossing everyone around. I would dominate you.
You project yourself in a position of power, are Yeah, you're not like a peasident.
Maybe I start as one that I don't end up as if I also.
One of those poison rings. You're just getting rid of the people. Okay, well, you'll want to know how we know that Lance Armstrong cheated and he used this EPO and the testacer on the HGH and finally went to blood doping to win his records Tour de Front's victories. These are great questions, Elizabeth. Well, we have obviously eyewitness accounts, because namely his teammates, they all know what he's doing,
especially a man named that's right, George Hinkepie. So in his deposition he recalls how he traveled to Belgium and to Spain to begin a program of blood doping under medical supervision. And he'd meet in a hotel room like he was having like a secret affair, only instead of meeting a paramore, he'd meet a doctor, a man named doctor del Morale, and one day, in a Spanish apartment he rented while he was.
Training doctor dem he witnessed pretty.
Much he witnessed Lance do the exact same thing, the blood doping. However, rather than let me read you another quote from Hankapy, Elizabeth, close your eyes.
My ass closed.
I'd like you to picture it. The year is two thousand and three. You are professional cyclist George Hankeappy at the moment. You are in a hotel room in Herona, Spain. You've come back to this famous hub for professional cycling training. It's been a long and tiring day. You're now lying down and you're rented apartment, allowing your body the time it needs for recovery. And then you hear your phone ring.
You wonder who could it possibly be calling you. You reach over with your weary muscles to answer the phone. On the other end is your teammate, Lance Armstrong. You greet him and ask what's up. Lance gets right to the point. He tells you he needs to ask a favor, and then, in hushed tones, he tells you that he has guests in his apartment. He wants to know if he can slip out come over to yours to do something that he says is private. You're quick to say,
of course, Lance, come on over. Before he gets to your apartment, you quickly tidy up. You pull your d jerseys and bike shorts off the shower bar in your bathroom. You tuck them away in a drawer in a bureau. You clean up your old pizza boxes. You're empty protein bar wrappers. You toss all that in the trash. You also straighten up your cycling magazines and the one stray magazine on fly fishing that you picked up at the airport. You get the place in order just before you hear
a knock at the door. You open the door and are surprised to see it's not just Lance. He's brought someone with him. It's a doctor. You recognize, doctor del Morale, a physician you've worked with in the past to do some blood doping. The odd thing is that not that he's there on your doorstep, but rather that he's holding a blood bag, as in a bag of fresh human blood, and based on his sheepish grin, you assume it's a bag of Lance's blood. You tell them both please come in.
Once they step inside, the two men are all business. Lance asks if you have a coat hanger he can borrow. You say, of course, and you go to your bedroom to grab one. You slide open the closet and retrieve a coat hanger. You don't need to wonder what the hangar is for, because you know so it's not for the doctor to hang up his coat. You know it's for the blood bag. Once you hand over the coat hanger to Lance, he grins at you, and he says,
thanks buddy. Then he gives a head nod to the doctor, indicating for the physician to follow him, which he does. Lance and the doctor step into your bedroom and shut the door behind them, And then for the next forty five minutes, you sit on the couch in your living room. You turn on the radio, You flip through the magazine
on fly fishing. You note the slow passage of time, but you also know that around forty five minutes they should be done, since you know that's how long it takes to reinfuse a human body with a blood bag. You know that because you've done it. You also know that behind that closed bedroom door, if you were to open it, you'd find the coat hanger with the suspended blood bag taped to a wall as it drains Lance's blood back into his body. You don't need to wonder,
You know exactly what's going down. After the forty five minutes pass, you hear the door to your bedroom open, and outsteps the doctor and a refreshed looking Lance, flush with his own blood. No one says anything about what just went down behind the closed bedroom door, because everyone knows. Lance gives you a wide smile and thanks you for the use of your apartment. He hands you back to the coat hanger. He says he'll see you later, buddy,
and with that they leave. Meanwhile, you stare at the coat hanger in your hands, wondering if you should keep it somewhere special. I mean, that coat hanger once held Lance Armstrong's blood bag. So there you go, Elizabeth, Yeah, the vampire blood doping.
I love him, just showing up at the door holding like it's not even in like a cooler.
No, he's just like, here's the blood, strutting around with the bag of blood, and no one will ask questions about this doctor. This is the eyewitness evidence of Lance Armstrong's blood doping program. But that wasn't the only time you, I mean, George witnessed his teammate's blood doping. In two thousand and four at the Tour de France. He watched as his teammates on the team bus received blood transfusions. They're like, are these windows tinted?
Just chugging along down the highway.
It was like a bring your own coat hanger party. The next year, in two thousand and five, at Lance's final victorious Tour de France, his teammate George Incipe told Lance he needed some fresh cool EPO, and Lance replied that he could help him out with some from his own personal supply. He then handed over two chilled vials of EPO. So he was well aware about Lance's use of EPO and the blood doping via blood bags. Yeah,
that's not all, Elizabeth. He was also aware of his teammates using cortizone, and he recalled that back in ninety nine, Lance had tested positive for a cordico steroid at the Tour de France, but that Lance excused it away by explaining that he used a cortizone cream to treat saddle sores, which he assumed was an excuse that he had hid the fact he actually received courtesan ejections, which were frequently given by the team doctors to assist writers with their performance.
So all the performance enhancing methods of cheating were so common for Lance's team that the next year the Tour de France. In two thousand, as Hinkulpee reported and I quote, French law enforcement had commenced an investigation regarding medical waste dumped by the US Postal Service team staff.
The medical taste French cops.
Were following around looking through their trash, going dore any blood bags in here.
What's crazy is it's like did you get a cortisone shot? But then it's like you see like in American football, they put him in a tent and god knows what they show up with like their legs half off and they you can do it. Yeah, it's like you can play on a broken shin.
You've ever been to a racetrack when a horse goes down and they bring out that white tent and then they like in the horse when they first got the blue tents. That's what I kept thinking of.
I was just like, this is King Charles was like his corent. They put him in the tent and toof and anointed him with oil and touched it.
When the French police did find evidence of the substance, called active virgin or active vegan UH, it's used to increase circulation of blood in dustin and enhance writer's performance, Lance and his team claimed that it was used to treat saddle rash, which, as Hincapie recalled, was a false claim that was quote made to the media and others during the course of the French investigation. So he's just telling all this.
This is all about my saddlebag.
Seriously. There are other teammates who also recalled Lance's commitment to performance enhanced excellence, such as Levy Leipheimer, who said in a deposition that he remembered a time when in two thousand and nine or twenty ten, after Lance came back to the sport and I quote discussing with Lance a theoretical new drug being discussed in the media. I
asked him if he knew anything about it. His response was, you know, I'm always down for it, at which I understood him to be saying that he was always willing to try a new doping product.
That's like me with vaccines.
You know, I'm always down for whatever you have back there. I'll tax me up. The Elizabeth Tutton story tax to the max. Okay, So, how does this carnival of organized cheating and professional cycling finally come to an end?
How does it?
Great question, Lizie So. And also there's the other question of how did the authorities finally gather enough evidence to prove Lance was using performance dancing drugs for his record seven straight victories? Another great question, elizabe Bank it. So the story goes after years and years of talk around the cycling world and the people who spent time near it, the story really breaks when finally some journalists put all the talk together and they write this whole last book
about the widespread doping scandal and professional cycling. In two thousand and four, David Walsh and Pierre Balistaire, they published this book La Confidential, Lay secrets de Lance Armstrong. You get it, lance Armstrong Confidential. So their book featured a former insider to Lance Armstrong's world. This woman named Emma O'Reilly.
Now Emma was Lance Armstrong's soner and she claimed that when Lance tested positive for cordico steroids in ninety nine at the Tour de France, his first win, the team created this backdated prescription for saddle sore treatment. So he was lying about lesions on his taint to pass a drug test, essentially. So that's just one of those moments where you have to know you've crossed over another line. If like me, you're wondering what's the soneer, I'm glad
you asked Elizabeth. It's French and it means one who provides care. So in the cycling world is like a personal assistant or kind of like a squire for a knight in armor. Right, they attend to all their needs. But the Sogner like not only do they totally take care of a professional cyclist, I mean they prepare their special foods. They feed them sometimes like hand feed them, like they're doing other baby. Yeah. They lay out their
little clean spandex fun suits for biking a bird. When the cyclist is done for the day, they would also take their sweaty likeer leotards and wash them for them, and then they would massage their sore bodies and prepare them for the next day. It's an intimate.
Relationship, Tiger, That's exactly what it is. He's like, I've got a rash on my bingo.
Wing rubbed me. So when is son Emma O'Reilly says something. It's coming from a place of trusted intimacy and proximity.
Oh yeah, she's seen a lot, right, basically, she saw.
It hurt just about everything but the bloodbags so only because that came later. Yeah, but she did dispose of syringes for Lance, and she saw his saddle sores, and she knew if Lance actually needed treatment for his taint or not. And when he said he did, he did not. And in fact, according to her, once the business about the whole backdated prescription thing happened, Lance told her, now, Emma, you know enough to bring me down. Oh god, So he knew that. She knew as well.
She's like, I'm gonna hold you to it.
So this book with its insider accounts, but there was others too that I'm not gonna get into. But there's other people who are also like, oh, I've seen him do stuff. You don't want to know about it.
He was like, I hope you never have to tell anyone about this little ruin man.
So these shocking allegations start to scandal in the cycling world. Newspapers start commissioning articles to look into the claims of widespread drug use and experimental substances being injective and professional athletes and all the cutting edge performance and anting drugs, especially the ones the out Let's in Europe and for instance,
the Sunday Times in the UK. They published sections of the book and most like the most scandalous allegations about Lance, and he then sued the newspaper for libel and he won. They settled out of court la. Oh yeah, but not only that these lawyers or embarrassars, I guess in the legal counsel right for the newspaper. They eventually put out
a statement apologizing to Lance. The statement was, and I quote the Sunday Times is confirmed to mister Armstrong that it never intended to accuse him of being guilty of taking any performance in dancing drugs and sincerely apologized for any such impression.
Huh.
So meanwhile, the authors of the book La Confidentially Secrets Day Lance Armstrong, they doubled down. They're like down with this raynom fraid to you sus in France. So the reporters, David Walsh and Pierre Batista, they published a second book with fresh allegations about Lance Armstrong's cheating the experimental drug use. Yeah, their first book was still having an effect on the world.
Because there's this company in Dallas, Lance's hometown. They didn't want to have to pay Lance the five million dollars that they owed him, so the company SCA Promotions, had agreed to pay a bonus if Lance Armstrong won his sixth Tour de France in a row, which he did in two thousand and four. However, the president of SCA Promotions read La Confidential and he used the claims in the book to get out of paying the five million dollars. So then they start fighting over his five million dollars
and he goes to an arbitration panel. Depositions get taken and recorded. The final ruling was SCA had to pony up the five mil. Really, but get this, Elizabeth, All of this was just an initial feint, like a headfake by the president of SCA Promotions, this cat named Bob Hammond. He didn't really care if he won or lost before
the arbitration panel. What he really wanted to do was to trigger an investigation by some bigger authorities who would then ultimately investigate discover Lance was indeed doping using all the performance ancing drug he'd get his hands on, and then Lance would be banned professional cycling, he would lose his Tour de France victories, he would lose his records, and once he was no longer a six time winner of the Tour de France, then Bob Hammond of SCA
Promotions wouldn't have to pay him the contested five million dollars. He was playing that.
Long day long that's what I call it, like.
A world class chess masterman in the world of cheapskate chess. And it works because soon enough there's this growing body
of evidence Lance Armstrong is no wonder boy. For instance, the depositions from the SCA Promotions arbitration become public such that the French newspaper Lamonde they publish allegations from Frankie Andrew, who was Lance Armstrong's teammate, and not only that, he was the team captain for US Postal Service cycling team for three years ninety eight, ninety nine and two thousand and Andrew he had also raced against Lance in the ninety six Summer Olympics, so he knew him well, and
he claimed that after the Lance had had brain surgery back in ninety six, Lance admitted that he'd taken performance in handsOn rug surgery. Yeah, so according to Andrew, the captain of Lance's cycling team, he said, and I quote, the doctor asked him a few questions, nothing, and then one of the questions he asked was have you ever used any performance enhancing drugs? And Lance said yes. And the doctor asked, okay, what are they? And Lance said
human growth hormone, cortozon, EPO, steroids, testosterone, So boom. Now Lance has a real problem. People keep saying that the seven time winner of the Tour de France is a star attraction and the dope show. And it's not just people, it's the people closest to him, it's his suner, it's the team captain, his teammates. So in two thousand and five, another book is published about the doping allegations against Lance Armstrong.
It's this guy, an author named Dan Coyle, and he writes the book with the title and I'm gonna need a breath for this Lance Armstrong's War, one man's battle against fate, fame, love, death, scandal, and a few other rivals on the road to the Tour de France.
Oh, I feel like I could get cut down.
Right, Like that is what you call it?
Title right, call it lamp in thermal lambs.
In his book. As he explained to MPR in two thousand and five, the allegations against Lance were still not
quite conclusive. So however, Coyle's big new reveal was that the French authorities who sanctioned professional cyclists for the Tour de France, they went back to an old urine sample from ninety nine, and they tested it with the new latest testing that they had in two thousand and five, and wouldn't you know it, Elizabeth Lance's urine sample tested positive for EPO and this was curious because EPO was never tested four back in ninety nine.
Wait, so they keep all the far back to the urine. It has to work in that warehouse, obtain.
The samples their electricity bills.
Yeah, like all climate control goes back to the sixties. One.
That's a good point because there were questions about their paperwork. Was this even his urine sample? Can you prove this? Yeah, because you know, like the chain of custody right.
So through to the poison trait.
So Lance Armstrong posted on his website that this was a witch hunt and that this was quote tabloid journalism. This is because the term fake news did not exist yet. Otherwise I'm sure he would have just said that all about it, because he also said, in no uncertain terms, I will simply restate what I've said many times. I have never taken performance enhancing drugs. So he's kind of like a mixture of like Clinton and Trump at this point where he's like, I have never had sexual relations
with that woman. It's fake news. So Lance didn't denies it. Right. This makes it a nationalistic question of belief because Europeans, French, the Italians, the British, they tended to believe the allegations were true. But not over here in America. As the author Coyle told NPR in two thousand and five, he cited this recent poll that seventy two percent of Americans believed Lancet Ormstrong was innocent of these allegations against him by Europeans.
Good gun.
So at this point people start calling for more tests, new fresh tests, more facts to settle things, which means more investigations, bigger, more public investigations. Enter the World Anti Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee. They said, test is but in more polite terms, So do to this.
To this building pressure, the Union cyclist Internacionale aka the UCI, which is the international governing body for cycling, they launch an investigation under pressure from the IOC and the WADA, World Anti Doping Agency. So get this, Elizabeth. The investigators for the UCI, they determined that the charges against Lance should be dropped due to poor handling of his urine samples,
improper labeling and testing, et cetera. The governing body decides to look the other way when it comes to their biggest star in cycling history. Oh yeah, So instead, the International Olympics Committee, their ethics commission, they publicly censured the president of the World Anti Doping Agency, this man named Dick Pound. They punished him for leveling the allegations of wrongdoing against Lance. He's right, but they punish him. Take that, Dick Pound. So this was the end of two thousand
and five. Now this is where fate with a capital left gets kind of funny because the very next year, two thousand and six, Lance is retired. It's the first Tour de France without Lance, and so his former teammate, the cyclist Floyd Landis, decides to cheat and use epodes like everybody's doing it right, And I mean, can you blame him? I mean, Lance has just gotten away from watching the governing body is clearly sweeping it under the rug. So floyd Landis he goes and he's he's doing great.
He wins the seventeenth stage of the two thousand and six Tour de France and then oh no, his urine tests positive for synthetic testosterone, so he has to leave the race, and this launches a series of investigations and denials and counter accusations and even some criminal computer hacking by Floyd Landis. We won't get into all that because it ain't his story. But finally, in twenty ten, Landis confesses in a bunch of emails to his sponsors and
of the cycling authorities that it's all true. He and Lance and many other cyclists had all been doping and taking synthetic testosterone, experimental drugs.
You name it, right.
Then Floyd Landis turns around and filed his own lawsuit against Lance, citing the False Claims Act, which I didn't know about this, but it's a wild move because he's claiming that, as a taxpayer in the United States, his fellow citizen has wilfully defrauded the federal government and he's suing on behalf of the government.
Wow. Right, that's some legal maneuvering totally.
So the Wall Street Journal is all over this one. The newspaper reports on the originally sealed lawsuit in which Floyd Landis sued Lance Armstrong for defrauding the US Postal Service, their former sponsor yes, right.
So shouldn't cross the postal service?
You know this, Elizabeth. He basically accused Lance of mail fraud and you know what that means. We know he's in for it now, so they're gonna get you from mail fraud. And the FEDS did indeed come after Lance, So the Just Department now launches their own investigation, like, get out of the way, cyclists, we're on this, but not only them, it's also the Food and Drug Administration they get in because of all the experimental drugs Lance is allegedly taking and.
Doctor Ferrari stargling with samples exactly.
At this point, Lance rightly begins to panic because the Justice Department was not making millions and billions off of Lance, so, unlike the governing body of professional cycling, the Feds were unlikely to turn their head or sweep anything under a rug, especially when he's cheating and taking their money. So his teammate George Hincapee remembers running into Lance at the twenty ten Tour de France and his federal investigation came up, like, hey,
how's that going. Yeah, So Hinkupe told Lance that the FEDS had approached him and wanted him to tell all he knew, which would be bad for Lance. It would be bad for both of them. As hink Apee remembers it, quote, Lance said that maybe I should stay in Europe a little longer. I understood by this that he wanted me to stay off the government's radar and was asking me to avoid testifying as long as I could. Still exactly, I'll pay for I got to you to nice, nice
yetto so. His other teammate, Levy Lee Pimer, was also subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury for testimony, and he did appear, and he didn't lie. He told the truth, the whole truth of nothing but the truth. And then, wouldn't you know it, Just after he testified before the grand jury, he went to dinner with Lance and he
ended up sitting next to him. At this point, Lance Elizabeth, he basically turns into like Tupac as Bishop and Juice, because when he shows up, you're like, oh, everything's about to get real intense. So, as Levi lap Peimer recalls it, Lance was very cold towards me, and I figured that he had learned of my grand jury testimony during the course of that dinner. Although he did not speak to me. Lance sent a text to my wife Odessa that said run, don't walk. What Yes? And it wasn't like Lance was
texting his wife often. He never texted her, not for years. He just happened to still have her number. So when she gets this text out of the she felt appropriately threatened. Yeah, at this point, Lance can't stop what's coming. He's gonna try, though, So there were too many people who knew his secrets. There were his teammates, people who knew the truth about his saddle sores, people who'd loaned him a coat hanger for a blood bag, people who had taken some thermost chilled EPO from him.
All right, people.
The federal investigation it last for two years, and the guy running it was this guy named Jeff Novitzky, who'd already had success investigating Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens and their performance enhancing drug use in baseball and why they're not in the Hall of Fame. And then would you believe it? Elizabeth? In February twenty twelve, the Feds dropped their investigation to make matters even more hanky. The Department of Justice offered no explanation for their choice to drop
the investigation and to drop any related charges. When the press went to Novitzky and said, hey man, what happened, He's like, no comment, no comments.
So this is one in those run, don't walk, because.
They'd already taken out two the biggest stars in baseball. Cycling was not a big sport in America. But they're like the US Postal Service, we don't need this kind of I don't know what happened.
They were all wearing live strong bracelets from the embarrassed.
They pulled their sleeves hiding so inter Now, the US Anti Doping Agency, right, which is not related to the FEDS at all. The us ADA is a quote nonprofit, non governmental five oh one C three organization and the national anti doping organization for the United States, so similar
to the World Anti Doping Agency, just us so. In June of twenty twelve, after the FEDS dropped their investigation, they announced that they're launching their own investigation, and then they went and deposed his former teammates George Incapee and Levi Leipheimer, which is what I've been quoting from. Is this anyway? When Lance hears that Levi had just testified before the us ADA, Lance texted Levi Leipheimer's wife again. He's like, he, Odessa, you up? Is not that fun?
This time he asked are you in California? Oh? This was rather terrifying for her because she was in California. Yeah, she was home alone while her her husband was traveling overseas for cycling. As he put it, the text made her feel very vulnerable and there was no legitimate reason for Lance to communicate with Odessa. Meanwhile, in retaliation for the investigation, Lance sued the us ADA and demanded a court to stop them from testing and stop their investigation
into him. Judge ruled against him and the investigation was allowed to proceed. So this is his first loss. Wait, the USADA publicly announces that unless Lance cooperates with their investigation, he would be banned from cycling and he'd be stripped of his record seven straight Tour de France's victories. In response, Lance accused the USADA of quote an unconstitutional witch hunt.
A witch hunt, right.
So in October of that same year, the USADA they published their findings in a two hundred page report, another one thousand pages of evidence like you can see exhibiting exhibit we needed to come up with new letters.
Oh my god.
Yes. So in the end, the US Eightya, they came right out and they called Lance Armstrong an international drug trafficker and a blood doping cheater. Whoa, yeah, they had the receipts, though, what are you gonna do? Because and then they also they knew all about doctor Ferrari. They knew that Lance had given doctor Ferrari more than a million dollars over the year. They had the receipts, and so Lance insisted he was innocent of all charges against him,
despite the now overwhelming evidence against him. Didn't matter. Lance was summarily banned from international cycling. He was also stripped of all of his titles and his victories. Lance swore to take it up with the UCI, the governing body of international cycling. You're just the US. I'm gonna go to the top. Right That same month, though, Lance resigned from his charity, Lance Armstrong Foundation, and they were so embarrassed they changed their name to Live Strong so that
no one would associate them with Lance Armstrong. Yeah. The Lance at this point also lost all of his sponsors. So hours after he resigned from his charity, people were like Okay, we see what's going on. Nike dropped him, Anheuser Busch dropped him, Radio Shack dropped him, Oakley twenty four Hour Fitness. The list went on and on. He lost millions upon millions in one day. Wow, Elizabeth. It got so bad that Lance was stripped of the key to the city of Adelaide in Australia.
No.
I love that they got in on it. Good for them.
Not only that. PBS is like, let us get a kick in too. So there was an episode of Arthur, the children's show that he was an animated character. They removed the episodes beautiful, I love it all during the month of October twenty twelve. Then came November. Sports Illustrated had they decided to name him the Anti Sportsman of the Year because they have an annual sports sportsman in the air. He's the anti sportsman. Lance Armstrong's name was now mud. He was a pariah. The hero had fallen
from grace. The haters emerged to stop on his legend. Then the FEDS, the US Justice Department, came back around and were like, hey, remember that defrauding of the postal service. We're gonna need our money back. So that's how January twenty thirteen starts. For him. To get some mercy, maybe like get the Feds off his back, or get this new federal lawsuit to be killed, Lance turned to the one person strong enough to scare off the US Department
of Justice. He turned to Oprah. Oh, Oprah, So Lance goes on her show, and he tells his sad, sob story of cheating and defrauding the postal service and about all the experimental drugs, the synthetic testosterone, the blood bags on coat hangers. Lance said his quote mythic perfect story was quote one big lie. Oprah, ate it up right. Oprah asked, did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance? Lance answered yes. This was the first
time Lance publicly admitted he'd use performance enhancing substances. Yeah. When Oprah asked him about EPO, he said, yes, blood doping another, yes, human growth hormone, yes, testosterone yes. Did you use blood doping to win the Tour de France in all seven victories? Also? We so? He yeah, unmasked now. Oprah asked if it was the testimony of George Hinkapee that sealed his fate and Lance told Oprah, my fate was sealed by George. If George didn't say it, then
people would say, I'm sticking with Lance. George is the most credible voice in all of this. We're still great friends. I don't fault George. George knows the story better than anybody. Now. I find that fascinating because it all came down to one person, All those hundreds of millions of dollars at risk, all those powerful figures willing to look the other way, all those folks who were forced to apologize forever alleging that Lance had cheated, and it all comes crashing down
when one person, one teammate, comes clean. And George gained nothing by telling the truth. He wasn't trying to get out of trouble. He just told the truth, and as a result, the whole machine grinds to a painful, costly halt.
It's a painful, costly right.
But the Department of Justice did not drop the charges. They're like, we don't watch Oprah. They were like about that money you owe us? And Lance settled then with them for five million dollars that he paid against the thirty one million dollars he'd been paid by US Postal Service.
Now thirty one million.
There was one other thing I found fascinating. I should bring this up to. Yeah, twenty fifteen, the BBC asked Lance about his fall from grace and he said that if it was nineteen ninety five right now he was just starting out, quote, he would probably do it again.
Wow, because he knows he couldn't otherwise.
I couldn't get it. I was like, was it just because like you got the taste of the seven victories, you got that window of basically seven years or however you want to count it, like eight nine years of glory. So what's a ridiculous takeaway here? Elizabeth?
You know what It's supposed to be a pure thing, cycling m hm, And a lot of things are supposed to be pure, but they're not. But it's this idea that he would have done it all over again is really disappointing. But I guess he knows that he's not as great as he thought he was.
He also knows he's a man. I'm willing to cheat for the screens and the applause.
What about you? What's your takeaway away? Is?
Is that?
And I don't mean to make this about me. But I'm just making it more about instinct. My instinct was I never liked him. I always thought he was a liar. I always thought he was a cheater. I don't know why I didn't have reason to think that. I wasn't around the cycling world in nineteen ninety nine, I could just tell yeah, and almost I would say ninety nine times out of one hundred, when I have a feeling about a person, I'm right, and I've just learned that
I need to wait for evidence. I'm not going to go around telling other people like what I think. But if I have the feeling that a person is bs, if they are, like, you know, not up to snuff, I'm just gonna trust it entirely. Because looking back now over the numerous celebrities and even personal like you know, relationships I have, I'm very rarely wrong about that feeling. I'm like, nah, that dudes ain't right. I don't know
what it is. I don't know if it's just like some like old southern boy thing of like that dog don't hunt. But I just do like I knew. And that's why we had the lass, because I wanted to mock him even when he was at the zenith of his right. So my dick is takeaway here is listen to the little hateration voice inside of you. So true, because it's probably right, so true. So you in the mood for talkback, we can let this one ride away.
I am always in the mood for a talkback.
Oh, oh my god, I love get.
Hi, Elizabeth Hiseron, It's Keit, your favorite ridiculous ursuitmaker. Never thought I'd have a personal ridiculous crime. But Thanksgiving night, my stepdad's TCG store got broken into and they stole thirty thousand plus dollars of Pokemon and magic card. And then later that week another local store get broken into, and now the local news is calling him the Pokemon bandit. So I really hope they catch him so you can cover it, because I feel like it's right up your alley anyways, Love you.
We love you. I'm so sorry.
Oh my god, I want to hunt this person down.
Yeah, and I want to mock him derisively. Yes, that's horrible.
I'm so sorry to hear that.
He's I'm not a fan of him, like boo that, but hey, I'm glad to hear from you. I hope all is well. I hope the first kitts are going well and you're keeping that thimble on your exactly exactly, so Elizabeth, Yeah, do you know where you can find us online at Ridiculous Crime on social media? Yes, exactly. You go to blue Sky, Twitter or Instagram to forget Twitter, you know, look around you can find us now. We do also have our account Ridiculous Crime pod pod on YouTube.
That's worth a listen and if you like taking your podcast there. We also have our website ridiculous Crime dot com. No podcasts there, but plenty of merch merch out the wazoo and then also a bunch of fun artwork for you. It is been nominated for the Ryan Heisker Boat and Best Ale of the Year.
You're kidding.
I don't know if they know it's a website, but whatever you know. Now, we do love your talkbacks obviously, so please go to your heart app download it, leave a talkback and maybe you'll hear your voice here. We'd love to hear it. Also emails if you want to Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening and we will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by our own doctor Ferrari Mister Dave Kustin and starring Annalys
Rutger as Judith. Research is by George Hankape's fan club, Marissa Brown and Jabbari Davis. Our theme song is by our house band, blood Bag and the Coat Haangers aka Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. The hosts wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred, guest Haarn, makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are the former co directors of the Livestrong Foundation, Ben Bolden and Nolan Brown.
CUI Say It One More Time Crime.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four More Podcasts. My heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.