The Armstrong Lie Page #10

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Bradley Wiggins was

one of the leaders

and Lance's team

was worried about him.

We want to get rid of Wiggins.

You, too?

I know that ultimately you

want to get rid of us, too,

but that's another story.

Everyone at the Tour

was playing angles.

Greg LeMond, the former Tour

winner and longtime Lance critic,

paid for a video crew

to tail Lance's comeback.

Their mission, according to the

cameraman in the straw cowboy hat,

was to make

the anti-Gibney film.

I was caught in

the middle of a battle

between the myth-makers

and the myth-busters.

One of the strangest subplots

was Lance's interview strategy.

He insisted that the only American

to be able to interview him

would be Frankie Andrea,

an ex-teammate he had

feuded with for years.

Lance has multiple motivations.

One of them was

sort of to show Frankie

that he could still make

Frankie do whatever he wanted.

One of them was to

show everyone that,

"Hey, I can accept Frankie back.

"I'm not the jerk."

Another one was to control

who had access to him.

So all that was going on.

Months before, I was with

Lance when he hatched his plan

to make Frankie wait outside the

bus every day to interview him.

Johan begged him not to do it, but

Lance couldn't contain himself.

When I asked him later

about the Frankie plot,

Lance was back on message.

But there wasn't anything

mischievous about it like,

"Frankie's gonna have to come

to me now after those days."

Absolutely not.

No, this is totally different.

The kids had been

watching the Tour on TV,

and they said, "Mom,

Dad's interviewing Lance."

Frankie called me right after

and he said, "Lance wanted me,

and only me, to interview him."

I said, "Frankie,

you should spit on that guy.

"After everything he's done to

you, done to me, done to us?"

All right, thank you.

Yeah.

And to say the

least, I was shocked

because for four or

five years before that,

we just walked

right past each other.

No eye contact with me.

Wouldn't say a word to me.

Lance, Frankie and his wife

Betsy had once been good friends.

Frankie had been on

three US Postal teams,

but in 2000, Lance's second Tour

win, Frankie wouldn't dope.

He asked for a raise,

but the team director, Johan,

told him he'd have to

take a steep pay cut.

When Frankie

was looking at other teams,

he had two other offers.

He was on the phone with Johan

who asked him, "Which teams

are you looking at?"

And Frankie told

him the two teams.

Offers rescinded.

In late 2005, Frankie and Betsy

were served with subpoenas to testify

in a lawsuit involving Lance.

At issue was doping and a conversation

between Lance and his doctor

while he was being

treated for cancer.

Yeah.

Let's talk about

the Indiana hospital room.

Tell us what was said

during this conversation.

A group of us

were inside of a room

where Lance had mentioned that

he had taken certain drugs

when a doctor

asked him about it.

The doctor came in.

I said to Lance, "I think we should

leave to give you your privacy."

And Lance said, "No, that's okay.

You can stay."

Were you present when that

conversation or statement took place?

Yes.

The doctor asked him

a couple of questions.

And then came the question,

"Have you ever taken any

performance-enhancing drugs?"

Lance's response was

that he had taken...

EPO, growth hormone...

Cortisone...

Steroids and testosterone.

Do you deny the statements

that Ms. Andreu attributed to you

in the Indiana

University Hospital?

100%. Absolutely.

Do you also deny

what Mr. Andreu

said regarding those statements?

100%.

How could it have taken place

when I've never taken

performance-enhancing drugs?

Look, how could

that have happened?

That was my point. It's not

just simply you don't recall?

How many times do

I have to say it?

If you have a doping offense

or you test positive,

it goes without saying that you're

fired from all of your contracts.

Not just the team, but there's

numerous contracts that I have

that would all go away.

Sponsorship agreements,

for example.

All of them.

And the faith of all the cancer

survivors around the world.

So everything I do off of the

bike would go away, too.

And don't think for a second

I don't understand that.

Yeah, that was...

Um...

Honestly,

it's embarrassing to hear.

It's humiliating.

That was going too far.

I know that now.

I didn't at the time.

Were you surprised

when Mr. Armstrong said

he had taken those various

performance-enhancing drugs?

Yeah, I was surprised.

From that point on,

trying to do announcing gigs

or commentary or work,

I was too controversial.

And I was told that a lot.

I was shunned,

banned, from everybody,

and a lot of people wouldn't

look at me, shake my hand.

I was the outsider.

Lance wanted to

humiliate Frankie,

and he wanted to get back at me.

She swore to this, and Frankie,

your former teammate and former

friend also swore to this.

They had to be compelled to testify.

They did not want to testify.

Why would they say this?

You know, I was present

for Betsy's deposition

and we asked her that question.

We said something

to the effect of,

"What do you think

of Lance Armstrong?"

And, Bob, I've never been

in a room where somebody

looks straight across the table

at you right in the eye,

and she goes, "I hate him."

There's some

allegations being made by

the wife of a former

teammate of yours,

again accusing you of using

performance-enhancing drugs.

The things they

don't report is what

happened under

cross-examination

when the person who

made the accusation

couldn't remember

anything about the room.

Couldn't remember if the

doctor was a man or a woman.

Couldn't remember if they

had a lab coat on or not.

Couldn't remember if they had a clipboard.

Couldn't remember anything.

No facts, no figures, no evidence.

Just a mouth.

Aren't you sick of it?

Beyond the media,

Lance had many supporters

who helped him sustain the myth.

One of those was

Stephanie McIlvain.

She worked for Oakley,

one of Armstrong's sponsors.

She had also been

in the hospital room.

According to Betsy,

in their conversations,

Stephanie

confirmed Betsy's story.

But in Stephanie's deposition,

she took Lance's side.

Were you ever in a hospital room

or other part of the hospital

with Mr. Armstrong,

where he said anything about

performance-enhancing drugs?

No.

After the deposition,

she left a message

on Betsy's answering machine.

I HOPE SOMEBODY BREAKS

A BASEBALL BAT OVER YOUR HEAD

BUT I ALSO HOPE THAT ONE DAY YOU

HAVE ADVERSITY IN YOUR LIFE

AND YOU HAVE SOME TYPE OF TRAGEDY

THAT WILL HIT YOUR FAMILY

AND MAKE YOU REALIZE

WHAT LIFE IS ABOU OTHER THAN GOING AFTER PEOPLE

THAT YOU ACTUALLY HATE.

IT'S PATHETIC BETSY.

I THOUGHT YOU WERE

A BETTER PERSON THAN THAT.

I AM SO SADDENED

THAT YOU'RE NOT.

YOU ARE SUCH A SHALLOW

B*TCH!

It didn't matter if the

world thought I was a liar,

as long as the people close to

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