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fifty kilometers from the finish of that Flèche Wallonne, the Gewiss riders had broken away from the pack and, as Armstrong put it later, “demoralized everyone.” They pedaled faster as the peloton diminished into a tiny speck on the horizon behind them. They had raced along the narrow, dipping roads to the final climb up the Mur de Huy, a steep ascent with gradients as high as 26 percent. They rode up the Wall as if it were tabletop-flat. Moreno Argentin crossed the finish line first, while teammates Giorgio Furlan and Evgeni Berzin finished two-three.

      It was there, in Belgium, in 1994, that the exhausted peloton realized what many people in the sport believed to be the amazing power of EPO. The winning team’s doctor told them about it. In fact, he told the world. After the race, a reporter from the French sports newspaper L’Equipe, Jean-Michel Rouet, interviewed the doctor, Michele Ferrari, and asked him if his riders used EPO.

      “I don’t prescribe this stuff,” Ferrari said. “But one can buy EPO in Switzerland, for example, without a prescription. And if a rider does that, don’t scandalize me. EPO doesn’t fundamentally change the performance of a racer.”

      The reporter said, “In any case, it’s dangerous! Ten Dutch riders have died in the last few years.”

      Then Ferrari, who has long denied doping any of his athletes, said something that would haunt him for years. “EPO is not dangerous, it’s the abuse that is. It’s also dangerous to drink ten liters of orange juice.”

      In other words, it’s all part of a balanced breakfast.

      But to the uninitiated, confusion reigned. Armstrong, Andreu, Hincapie and Livingston—four riders who would become the core of American cycling—threw questions at their own team doctor, Testa. What does EPO do? Is it dangerous? Do you think other teams are using it? Can you help us use it?

      Testa tried to convince them they didn’t need the drug. He said the riders’ natural abilities would be enough for them to succeed in the sport, and that it was just a rumor that all riders used EPO. “People are trying to make money off of this, you don’t need it. Studies show that it apparently doesn’t help very much.”

      Still, Testa felt EPO use was inevitable. So he gave up trying to keep his riders from it. One day, he handed each rider an envelope containing studies about EPO and instructions on its use. The literature he gave them told the riders how much EPO to take and when to take it, so they wouldn’t take too much and hurt themselves or, perhaps, even kill themselves. “If you want to use a gun, you had better use a manual, rather than to ask a guy on the street,” he told me. While he admitted to facilitating the drug use, Testa denies ever dispensing any doping products.

      The training ride was a leisurely spin during which the Motorola riders cruised along for hours, loosening their legs. It was March 18, 1995. The day before, on the way home from Milan-San Remo—where he finished 73rd—Armstrong grumbled to Hincapie, a longtime friend, “This is bullshit. People are using stuff. We’re getting killed.”

      Armstrong pushed the issue while the team pedaled alongside Lake Como the next day. He was twenty-three and already a world champion, and had won a single stage of the 1993 Tour de France. But he considered that only the beginning. Growing brasher by the day, he wasn’t going to let a bunch of European pussies kick the crap out of him because they were using a wonder drug and he wasn’t.

      Armstrong approached rider after rider. “I’m getting my ass kicked and we’ve got to do something about it. We need to get on a program.” They knew what he meant. They agreed it was time for EPO. The new drug was ubiquitous. Riders carried thermos jugs packed with ice and tiny EPO glass vials. Clink, clink, clink. You could hear the vials rattle against the ice. Clink, clink, clink. In this era of cycling, it was the soundtrack of the sport.

      Armstrong might have chosen to use EPO on his own, but it wouldn’t have done him much good. Cycling, despite appearances, is a team sport. There is usually one leader on each team who sets the agenda and whom the other riders support. On Motorola, that man was Armstrong, arguably the best all-around rider.

      The rest of the squad are domestiques—secondary riders. Domestique is the French word for “servant,” and those servants sacrifice themselves to help the leader win, partly with team tactics and partly with aerodynamics. They take turns with other domestiques and ride in front of their leader—or to the side, if there is a crosswind—to punch a hole in the air and allow the leader to tuck in behind and save energy. The leader is being swept along in their draft, and expends up to 40 percent less energy than he would riding alone.

      The goal is to deliver the team leader as fresh as possible to the crucial point in the race. From there, he can take off and win the stage or take off and gain time on his competition in the overall race for the yellow leader’s jersey.

      Eventually, though, the domestiques burn themselves out and often peel off from their leader before struggling to finish the stage. So the stronger a leader’s domestiques are, the better his chances to win because they will be able to hang on and help him as the finish line grows closer.

      In 1995, Armstrong presented his domestiques with an ultimatum: If they wanted to be considered for the Tour team that year, they had to start using EPO. Don’t want to? Well, there’s the door. Armstrong was taking control. It was his success at stake. The Motorola program had been built around him. Finishing 73rd in a big race would not inspire sponsors to sign on. Motorola had already said it was ending its sponsorship at the end of the season. The pressure was on, then, to attract another sponsor to cover most of the team’s bills.

      When Hendershot took over as Armstrong’s soigneur, J.T. Neal became Armstrong’s personal assistant. In Como, he ran errands and generally made life easier for Armstrong while he raced or trained. When Armstrong dropped out of the Tour de France early—in 1993, 1994 and 1996—Neal picked him up for the trip to Como. He moved Armstrong from apartment to apartment between seasons. He ran the household. He once paid the bill to get the apartment’s electricity turned on after Armstrong and Andreu had let a bill go unpaid. He repaired the clothes dryer.

      When Armstrong arrived in Como after a Tour, Neal began massage sessions to prepare him for the fall’s world championships. The men stuck together. Neal introduced Armstrong to art in Milan’s museums. Sometimes, they simply sat outside Armstrong’s place overlooking Lake Como, sharing low-calorie meals like tuna with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

      A visit to Testa was often on the day’s to-do list. Though the soigneur Hendershot said he injected Armstrong with performance-enhancing drugs soon after Armstrong signed with Motorola in 1992, Armstrong himself claims he didn’t start doping until the 1993 world championships. He said Testa gave him Synacthen, a drug that stimulates the adrenal glands to secrete glucocorticoids. Riders say Synacthen makes them feel stronger and takes away some of the pain of a difficult ride. The drug was available on the Motorola team even before Armstrong pushed his teammates to use EPO. Hendershot said Armstrong was “as clean as he ever was” at those worlds.

      Neal figured Testa’s job was to inject Armstrong with every needle within reach. Testa was constantly giving Armstrong IVs with substances the doctor called “liver cleansers,” though the official names of those substances—and whether they were banned or not—are unclear. Stephen Swart, a teammate from New Zealand who had first raced in Europe in 1987, didn’t live in Como and see Testa regularly like the American riders did, but had heard about Armstrong’s drug use because the sport was so insular and rumors—especially pertaining to doping—traveled fast.

      Swart, a stern, strapping guy, thought Armstrong was mandating what the team’s directors wouldn’t. Jim Ochowicz, a two-time Olympian in track cycling who is considered the godfather of American cycling, had founded the 7-Eleven team, the first American team to race in Europe, and stayed with the team when Motorola came on as its sponsor. It was Ochowicz who first imagined Americans challenging the European old guard, and it was Ochowicz who had made it happen.

      In 1986, 7-Eleven became the first U.S. team to compete in the Tour, and one of its riders, Davis Phinney, even won a stage. For years, Ochowicz was the point person in the U.S. for international cycling,

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