The Armstrong Lie Page #9

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Going good.

Going good. Going good.

Demand it.

Accelerate your body.

Come on.

Come on. Come on. Come on.

In the first stage,

a short time trial,

Lance wanted to

make a statement.

In the past, he had always

dominated time trials.

An impressive performance here

would show everyone he was back.

He doesn't look good to me.

Come on, Lance.

Come on, come on. Pick it up.

Come on, come on.

Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!

One kilometer.

One kilometer. Hello?

Yes, I'm in the race now.

I'm in the race.

I'm in the race. Call me back.

Look at his face.

Lance Armstrong, seven times

the winner of Tour de France.

He's headed for the best time.

Lance's time put him

in first place by 30 seconds,

but with all the best

riders still to come.

Cancellara

pushes on for the finish.

He's looking to beat the time

of Bradley Wiggins of 19:51.

He's sprinting for

the line and the best time.

One by one,

the best riders in the world,

including his Astana teammate,

Alberto Contador,

beat his time.

A great ride by Alberto

Contador, who won the Tour in 2007.

Contador is second.

Is he now the leader of Astana?

He certainly laid claim to that.

Lance finished

the first stage in 10th place,

40 seconds behind the leader,

and 22 seconds behind his

teammate, Alberto Contador.

From the start, I watched

Lance's comeback hopes collide

with a ferocious rider

who bore an eerie resemblance

to Armstrong 10 years earlier.

These guys never

talked to each other.

They came out of the bus,

I never once saw them look at

each other, make eye contact.

They would walk

right past each other.

It was the weirdest thing.

The honest truth is that there's

a little tension

at the dinner table.

The truth is...

I have seen Lance's statements,

but on my side

there are no tensions.

I'm completely relaxed...

He's got the gunslinger hat on.

Journalists behind...

That would drive me nuts.

This guy's gonna

fall in the f***ing water.

That would drive me nuts,

people behind me.

The Tour de France is the

world's most demanding sporting event.

It covers 2,200

miles over three weeks.

The 21 daily stages combine flat

roads, brutal climbs and time trials.

Each day, among the entire group

of cyclists,

known as the "peloton,"

the rider with

the fastest overall time

wears the yellow jersey,

or the maillot jaune.

While each team on

the Tour has nine riders,

usually just one,

the team leader,

is riding for the yellow jersey.

On Astana,

Armstrong and Contador

are dueling for

the right to lead.

The other cyclists were known as

"domestiques French for "servants."

Ludi has no arm warmers.

This, this. Okay.

Who else? Anybody else?

An energy bar for Alberto.

This?

Another job

of the domestiques is

to shelter team

leaders from the wind.

When riding at high

speeds on flat roads,

the effects of wind

resistance are huge.

Riders in front have to work

as much as 30% harder

than those sheltering behind.

At high speeds,

you can see the domestiques,

often from different teams,

sharing the work of

fighting the wind.

For Lance's victories,

there were some where he rode in front

by himself only a matter of minutes,

like three to five

minutes for the entire Tour,

because he essentially

is using the muscle

of his team as

an extension of himself

to drive forward and to

burn other people off.

Relying on

a group of domestiques,

Lance found

a way to use the wind

when the cyclists

rode near the ocean

and sea breezes

whipped into the peloton.

We were coming into that

corner, and I was about 40 guys back.

And I was kind of like,

"I better move up."

The crosswinds

caused a split in the peloton.

Lance and two of his domestiques

made it to the front group.

The rest of his

Astana teammates,

including Contador,

were left behind.

In this situation,

Lance reached out to an old

teammate now on a different team,

George Hincapie.

I had to call in some

favors, George and those guys.

I said,

"George, you keep riding.

"Hard."

Just like I would

do in the old days

when he was on the same team.

I just remember Lance being all fired

up that he was in the first group

and asking us to go harder,

and we're like, "Dude, we're

doing our own thing here.

"Sure, you're here, but we're

not really doing this for you."

They could be

putting Lance Armstrong

in yellow in the next 24 hours.

Little bit further back down the

road, that is Alberto Contador.

He got caught out,

but he's keeping

at the front end

of the main field.

But I wonder what he's thinking

about the presence of Lance

Armstrong in that little group.

French radio was like,

"This is a betrayal."

Betrayal?

It's like,

"Why is he riding out front?

"Why is he pulling? Why don't

they wait for Alberto?"

Because I won the f***ing

Tour de France seven times.

That's why we're out there riding.

That's not...

That's stupid.

If you can take

advantage of the wind

or any other

situation like that,

that's the way you race bikes.

That's the way

you win bike races.

We were in the right

place at the right time,

and I deserved to

have those guys ride.

That's what I told Johan.

"You better start getting

used to this again because..."

The breakaway finished

41 seconds ahead of the peloton,

enough to move Lance

from 10th to third,

nineteen seconds

ahead of Contador.

Suddenly, Lance's comeback

was looking pretty good.

If everything goes right,

I mean,

if it goes perfectly for us

and not that

great for the others,

we take the yellow jersey.

It would be...

You don't wanna

take the yellow jersey

this early in the Tour, do you?

Sure. I'd take it.

Hell, yeah.

Four years later, why not?

I'd totally take it.

I'm pedaling tomorrow for that.

Looking back on that moment

now, I admit that I was caught up.

I wasn't naive about

past doping allegations,

but I couldn't help

but root for the old pro,

and he promised he

was doing it clean.

But my presence at the Tour

and my access to Lance

was mystifying to

Lance's longtime critics.

It was perceived that you were

making the puff piece on Lance.

I thought it was

odd that you were

doing a movie

about the comeback,

because it seemed like it was going

to be an inspirational movie.

The fear was that you would

buy into the bullshit.

I was afraid I was starting

to buy into the bullshit, too,

so I sought out

Jonathan Vaughters.

He was running Team Garmin, the

so-called anti-doping team.

But he wouldn't

agree to talk to me.

Back then,

he had not yet made public

what he knew

about Lance's doping.

People have to realize

that the truth in all this was hard.

Such a huge number of people

wanted to believe so bad

that they hated

anyone who didn't believe

and hated anyone

who questioned it.

As a team manager, imagine what

the reaction would've been

had I said

something about Lance.

Lose the team Lose the riders.

You know, lose the whole thing.

As it happened, Vaughters

had a dog in the hunt in 2009,

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