The Armstrong Lie Page #3

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I read that you had a testicle

the size of an orange.

That's an exaggeration.

Lemon?

Good-sized lemon.

In 1996, Lance had

the cancerous testicle removed

and flew to Indiana University

for an experimental treatment.

The doctors there

thought Lance's chances

of survival were less than 50%.

Lance underwent brain surgery

to remove cancerous lesions,

then began a special chemotherapy

program that would not scar his lungs.

The immediate side

effects would be brutal,

but if he survived, the treatment

would protect his career.

Whatever I do in cycling, or

whatever I do in the Tour de France,

or whatever I do in training, I'll

never suffer like I did then.

That initial surgery to remove

that primary tumor in the testicle

was a big surgery, a big cut.

The cut was

probably six inches long,

right up at the waist

and very physically painful.

So I got on the bike and I just

gently rode

around my neighborhood.

That was a big day for me.

And I went half a mile.

And I did it in tennis shoes, and

I did it on a mountain bike.

But I was on the bike.

I was pedaling the bike.

All the feelings that are associated

with that, the wind in the hair,

that initial sense of freedom

that a bicycle gives a child.

Kids love bikes because it's the first

time in their life they're free.

It's the first time when they're

not in their mom's car,

they're not in Mom's living room,

they're not in Mom's backyard.

They get on the bike,

they go down,

they take a right, take a left.

Nobody sees them.

They're completely free.

I'm a mean machine

I'm the kind

you don't wanna meet

My middle name is trouble

I'm a danger in the street I'

Lance Armstrong

grew up in Plano, Texas,

raised by a young mother

who worked as a receptionist.

He never met his father.

He comes out of Plano,

Texas, and he comes out angry.

He comes out ready to

take on the world with

his mom at his side

and needing no one else.

My morn, she doesn't

really have that much money, so...

I could probably get

money from somebody,

but I don't wanna borrow money,

so there's pressure

to make the money.

You can see in

the yellow helmet there

the youngest professional in

the field from Plane, Texas,

16-year-old Lance Armstrong.

I just like

competing with the best, man.

I like beating those guys.

I love beating people.

Comin' at you live

Comm' atcha live

Comin' at you live

Comm' atcha live

Comin' at you live

I Oh, here I come

He got into a fight with

one of his coaches early on,

and the thing he kept saying

is, "You're not my dad."

And I think that statement

has been something he's been

telling everybody since then.

Kids from Plano High School, "Hey,

you're not in charge of me."

European cyclists,

"Hey, I'm going

to take you all on,

"and I'm going to

show you who's boss."

Oh my, oh no, no!

It's Armstrong

who's losing the temper.

I was content with my career.

In '93, '94, '95,

I was a young kid.

One of the best

one-day racers in the world.

I made plenty of money.

I thought, "This is cool. I'm young.

I make some decent money here.

"I'll just do

this for a few years

"and then find

something else to do."

Then the disease came along,

took all of that away.

Just gone.

And when I came back, I thought,

"Nobody thinks I'm

gonna do anything.

"I'm just washed-up,

damaged goods here."

Which is really what

the view of the sport was.

I thought, "Okay, f*** it. I'm gonna

try to win the Tour de France."

He's got the

fastest time in half distance.

SPORTSCASTER 2:

He really is flying, Paul,

and he looks so good here, making his

big return to the Tour de France.

He's been scorching it

on all the time checks.

What a comeback this could be.

There's only two men behind him now.

Armstrong is the leader.

That is astonishing.

Beautiful.

Good job, Lance.

Hold on a second. There we go.

Say hi to the camera.

This is Johan Bruyneel,

directeur sportif.

Hi, camera.

Here we are with the

rock star, George Hincapie.

This is how he

prepares for a time trial.

What's up, Lance?

After his bout with cancer,

Lance returned to the Tour in 1999,

racing for US Postal Service.

Lance, Jon

Vaughters, Frankie Andreu.

We were just like

The Bad News Bears.

Nobody was really

expecting us to do well.

They were so young.

They had a lot of optimism and

this youthful carelessness.

I hate the French.

Screw the French.

And they were

gonna go over there

and just dominate the Tour and

change the way cycling is run.

Postal, this tiny team

from an unlikely place.

They didn't have a team bus.

They were so small

they just had two campers.

Like a family going on vacation.

Betsy, Frankie, smile.

Say cheese.

The innocence of '99, it's

a fantastic moment in the story.

Howdy.

It really started

with this spectacular prologue

that Armstrong won by

a handful of seconds.

And there it is,

the maillot jaune

for an American,

Lance Armstrong.

He put on the yellow jersey.

And he's clueless about what to say

or what to feel or who to hug.

I mean, right now

I'm so surprised.

But yet I'm so pleased and so

happy for the team and for...

It's the moment where

Lance crossed a boundary.

And this man, Lance Armstrong,

from Texas, now has destroyed the field.

That full

confidence that he had before

he had cancer when he

was a little punk kid,

you can see that building in

him as the Tour was going on.

This man is quite unbelievable.

Towards the mountain stages,

when everybody was like,

"Okay, this is when

he's gonna lose his jersey."

That really helped

fuel him and fuel the team

and pushed us to limits that we

thought we weren't capable of doing.

And the boys who

have guided Lance Armstrong,

they're in that yellow jersey

for two full weeks now.

It was an American team

bringing an American captain

to the Tour de France and finishing

potentially on the podium.

That was unprecedented.

And there's no doubt now

who will win the Tour de France.

We hoped maybe to

get a podium or top 10.

Soto win was

beyond our comprehension.

The power of the

story was growing every day.

But so were the suspicions

among seasoned observers

that it may have been

too good to be true.

In 1999,

the Tour de France organizers

were desperate for what they

called a "Tour of Renewal,"

where they could renew the

public's faith in their race.

You've gotta go back to 1998

when Lance was

just about coming back

into racing after

his cancer recovery.

We had this

extraordinary Tour de France

where the world number one

team at the time, Festina,

had their masseur

traveling to the race.

And he was stopped

by French customs

and they found a huge

cargo of drugs inside.

The police then came

and investigated other teams,

and pretty much wherever they

looked, they found drugs.

So that was 1998.

A year later,

Lance Armstrong comes back.

He was sensational.

And everybody who was at that race,

in terms of the journalists,

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