Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong Read Online Free Page A

over Rita Byrne as she tapped out Paul’s words on her electric typewriter, scanning each sentence as it appeared on the page. This little exercise didn’t last long. Next time Paul was back in Dublin, Vincent offered him a full-time job as sportswriter. Paul’s writing was going better than his riding and he was enjoying it far more. We would speak on the phone about pro cycling and I now knew enough about the sport’s doping culture to understand he hadn’t a hope.
    He retired in 1989 and then wrote a masterful account of his life in the peloton, Rough Ride . His memoir became the definitive tome on doping in cycling but Paul was vilified for writing it. And the criticism came exclusively from within the cycling family. It was shocking to hear the lies people told, distressing to watch the self-serving assaults on Paul’s character. His one-time teammate and friend Roche was one of those complaining the loudest. The other great Irish hero of the roads, Kelly, studiously avoided passing any critique on the book or on Paul.
    ‘I’d like to read the book but I just haven’t got round to it yet,’ Kelly would say to enquiring journalists for years afterwards.
    And the fan who had followed Kelly from race to race in 1984 was having his eyes opened, slowly and painfully. At the 1988 Tour de France, the raceleader Pedro Delgado tested positive for the drug probenecid which was banned by the International Olympic Committee because it masks the use of steroids. Conveniently probenecid wasn’t due to be banned by cycling’s authorities until ten days after the Tour ended. There was no legitimate reason for any Tour rider to use probenecid and after the news broke the director of the Tour de France Xavier Louy went to Delgado’s hotel and asked him to leave the race.
    The Spaniard refused, saying he hadn’t broken any rule. Technically that was the case.
    The following morning I wandered through the corporate village at Limoges still angry that a guy caught using a masking agent was about to win the Tour de France. Standing there alone for a moment was Dutch rider Steven Rooks, second overall and the one who would have won the Tour had Delgado been sanctioned.
    ‘Do you not feel cheated, that you are the true winner of the Tour de France?’ I asked, wanting him to agree.
    He looked at me as if I was an alien with no understanding of anything human.
    ‘No, not at all. Delgado has been the best rider in the race, he deserves to win. It is okay for me to finish second.’
    ‘But he has used this masking drug?’
    ‘He is still the strongest guy in the race.’
    Rooks wanted me to know that doping wasn’t any of my business. He resented any line of questioning that suggested he was the legitimate leader of the Tour de France. Effectively, there was an understanding between him and Delgado of what was permissible and his rival hadn’t breached that. As for you, the journalist, just stay out of it.
    Cycling wasn’t the only sport with a drug culture.
    Two months later I was in Seoul watching Florence Griffith-Joyner break a world 200m record while decelerating. Though she passed the tests, and said she was clean, the performances didn’t make sense. Many of those who wrote of Flo-Jo’s brilliance on the track were faking it. Then a couple of nights after the men’s 100m final Doug Gillon from the Herald in Glasgow knocked on my apartment in Seoul. It was 3.30 in the morning.
    ‘Doug, what’s up?’
    ‘Johnson’s tested positive. Get dressed.’
    I could have kissed that Scot for thinking of me and the rest of the Seoul Olympics passed in a blur with only Johnson in focus. After it was all over I followed the path beaten by so many journalists to Toronto, the gym where Johnson still worked out, the track where he used to train and the office of his then lawyer Morris Chrobotek working to show Ben in the best light.
    Chrobotek was funny, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. At the suggestion that one of of