Doping Journal 2, 2 (22 September 2007) find out how to cite this article

Joe Lindsey, James Startt

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Published online: 22 September, 2005 ; Originally published 29 August, 2005 (1)  | Article readership

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It was a measure of how hard-fought this battle would be that Lance Armstrong's rebuttal to l'Equipe was posted before the French sports daily published its story alleging that urine samples taken from the seven-time Tour de France winner at the 1999 Tour had tested positive for EPO. At 10 p.m. Mountain Time on Monday, Aug. 22, 2005, www.lequipe.fr had no mention of anything Armstrong-related; its top cycling story was a report on the Tour of Germany. But on www.thepaceline.com, the official fan site for the Discovery Channel team, was a three-paragraph response to the upcoming story. Armstrong reacted to l'Equipe's charges as he has in the past to other allegations that he's used performance-enhancing drugs. He asserted that he's never used performance-enhancing drugs, pointed out that he's never tested positive for drugs, and questioned the motives and integrity of the accuser. L'Equipe, similarly, mixed questions of motive and integrity with fact. Under the headline "The Armstrong Lie" the paper called Armstrong a cheat, going so far as to say that his seven Tour wins and the legend of his dominance, are a lie.

It was a measure of how hard-fought this battle would be that Lance Armstrong's rebuttal to l'Equipe was posted before the French sports daily published its story alleging that urine samples taken from the seven-time Tour de France winner at the 1999 Tour had tested positive for EPO (2).

At 10 p.m. Mountain Time on Monday, Aug. 22, www.lequipe.fr had no mention of anything Armstrong-related; its top cycling story was a report on the Tour of Germany. But on www.thepaceline.com, the official fan site for the Discovery Channel team, was a three-paragraph response to the upcoming story.

Armstrong reacted to l'Equipe's charges as he has in the past to other allegations that he's used performance-enhancing drugs. He asserted that he's never used performance-enhancing drugs, pointed out that he's never tested positive for drugs, and questioned the motives and integrity of the accuser.

L'Equipe, similarly, mixed questions of motive and integrity with fact. Under the headline "The Armstrong Lie" the paper called Armstrong a cheat, going so far as to say that his seven Tour wins and the legend of his dominance, are a lie.

With the recriminations, rhetoric and facts that seem less like indisputable truths than data open to interpretation, the situation recalls pretty much every other high-profile and contested dope allegation: It comes down to whom you believe. In the United States, by a recent ESPN poll, 72 percent of more than 55,000 respondents sided with Armstrong.

For some commentators, L'Equipe's charges are proof that the French never liked Armstrong. For others, such as Filippo Simeoni, who publicly accused Armstrong's former coach, Michele Ferrari, of doping, and who has been feuding with Armstrong in the peloton and in the courts, it felt like vindication. The prevailing reaction, however, was one of caution. The UCI's Hein Verbruggen counseled waiting until the facts were in (3). Dick Pound, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and never one to shy away from controversial statements, called for an investigation but put the onus on the UCI, as WADA was created in November 1999 and appeared to lack jurisdiction (4). David Walsh, the British sportswriter who co-wrote last year's book accusing Armstrong of doping, "L.A. Confidential," refrained from victory declarations and simply wondered what it would take to get American fans and the American media to undertake a serious examination of Armstrong's record [and USA cycling] (5).

Right now, it seems, little is clear from a report that raises more questions than it answers. Our attempt to explain some of the claims:

The claim: The science behind the test results is faulty.
The claimant: Lance Armstrong, who also says that l'Equipe admits the science is questionable and cannot prove its claims.

The basis for the claim: The result that shows the presence of EPO comes from Armstrong's B samples from the 1999 Tour. Dope-testing code (WADA and pre-WADA) requires the urine specimen a rider gives to be split into A and B samples, in front of the rider, who then seals them and signs his name affirming that everything was done according to procedure." Only if the A sample returns an abnormal finding (a "non-negative" is the phrase the UCI uses) is the B sample tested. Only if both return the same finding can a positive test be announced. Also, WADA rules allow for things like the athlete to be present for the unsealing of his B sample, to affirm it's his and has not been tampered with.

The unspin: the A samples in this case were destroyed after initial testing in 1999. (They wouldn't have found evidence of EPO use because there was no test for it in 1999. The first EPO test was used in 2000, but was not in place at the Tour until 2001.) The B samples were kept and were supposed to remain anonymous.

In terms of drug testing protocol that could lead to an official positive, and sanctioning, Armstrong is correct in claiming faulty procedure. As he says, he has no way of knowing if the samples were actually his, or were tampered with in the six years since they left his sight in 1999.

The science itself, however, is reliable: However it got there, and to whomever those samples might belong, EPO was detected in twelve separate samples from the 1999 Tour and according to l’Equipe, six of those are Armstrong’s; six belong to a rider the paper did not identify. Doctor Jacques de Ceaurriz (6), the director of the Chatenay-Malabry lab, which ran the most recent tests and invented the urine test for EPO, told Bicycling that the lab has tested more than 150 samples, including ones specifically "taken this year from of people that, for the use of scientific testing, took various doses of EPO, to make sure that the samples from 1999 were consistent." He also says proper lab procedures and protocols were observed.

The claim: This is proof that Armstrong dopes
The claimant: l'Equipe

The basis for the claim: Six lab test results allegedly matched to him show evidence of EPO use.

The unspin: Because the samples were slated for research, and the A samples could not show a positive and no longer exists, every existing regulation is clear that Armstrong is not officially or legally positive. It's the same reason Tyler Hamilton was able to keep his 2004 Olympic gold medal; though his A sample showed evidence of blood doping, his B sample had been inadvertently destroyed by freezing, and thus he was not deemed positive. (Both samples taken in that year's Tour of Spain did show positive results, and he was suspended from the sport.)

There is no provision in WADA code for retroactive tests (4). Should one be implemented, there's a good court fight in whether that applies to tests that took place before the day the policy was implemented. Instead, the situation becomes like that of most other athletes who have been accused of doping: People must decide for themselves whom to believe.

The claim: Since EPO has been tested at the Tour since 2001, and none of Armstrong's later samples come back positive, that proves his innocence.
The claimant: Armstrong

The basis for the claim: A spotless record of official test results.

The unspin: It proves his post-2001 A samples have never shown evidence of EPO use, but nothing about the past. Either the champion has never used EPO, stopped using it before 2001, or, like some other cyclists, finds ways to use EPO without being caught. David Millar won the 2003 World Time Trial Championships, a race he acknowledges he took EPO for, and passed his drug test. (The Millar incident was one of several that caused WADA to ask the Chatenay lab to recalibrate the EPO test to be more sensitive [DJ: Also see testimony by other cyclist regarding widespread EPO use a decade ago, Ref.7])

The claim: Armstrong has no way to defend himself
The claimant: Armstrong

The basis for the claim: Since the A samples were discarded in 1999 after initial testing showed them negative for substances that were at the time testable, there is no fallback sample to analyze and confirm the results. It's Armstrong's word versus the lab and, as he pointed out on Larry King Live recently and to the Associated Press, he does not trust the lab, nor the media

The unspin: Armstrong is right. There is a chance that his B sample could be proven to be his, and retested. Dr. Ceaurriz told Bicycling that enough of each B sample remains to re-test it. But, lacking the A sample, nothing would really change except the clear knowledge that the B sample is his.

Armstrong says he was tested 17 times during the 1999 Tour; the lab has run, according to Ceaurriz, 150 total tests, including samples from the 1998 Tour, (with, he says, a number of positive signs of EPO use) but he did not know if all of Armstrong's samples were tested. If not, there remain more which could be tested, but the protocol problems remain.

The claim: The story is tabloid journalism
The claimant: Armstrong

The basis for the claim: Armstrong is saying that l'Equipe and the European media have been out to get him for some time, and will resort to unethical behavior to do so.

The unspin: There is questionable timing and association here: l'Equipe is owned by the Amaury Group, also parent to the Amaury Sports Organization, which runs the Tour de France. It seems convenient that the investigation, which reportedly lasted four months, was only complete a month after Armstrong's retirement from a seven-year stretch where he helped to elevate the Tour's popularity around the world to an all-time high, and expand what was a very small American. It's also true that, in general, Armstrong's relationship with the European press has been adversarial, sometimes based in large part on personality conflicts.

But neither the lead reporter, nor l'Equipe resemble tabloid rags. In an exclusive interview, the story's lead reporter, Damien Ressiot gave Bicycling the background on the story.

Ressiot is the paper's doping reporter (8), whose full-time assignment is investigating doping cases in a variety of sports, including cycling; he has what he described as a degree from the University of Montpelier in doping, an "interdisciplinary program that brought together lawyers, doctors, journalists, et cetera," he said. Ressiot got into his current beat after the Festina affair, when l'Equipe decided it needed a reporter dedicated to the subject of doping in sports. "I wanted to learn about all aspects of doping because too many dumb things are written about it and it is a highly sensitive subject," he told us.

His track record in cycling is impressive: in one case last year, he obtained transcripts of David Millar's court testimony about EPO use - comments that were widely revelatory about current doping practices, and which were under court seal. In this case, he managed to gain access to the test data from an IOC-accredited laboratory and then to the corresponding identifying information on file with the sport's governing bodies. You might debate whether the paper's actions were unethical, but Ressiot is obviously a skilled reporter.

He denied any link between the timing of the news and Armstrong's retirement . "If I ever had the least pressure from ASO or L'Equipe not to write a story because it conflicted with their interests I would quit in a second," he said. "But I can tell you I have never had any pressure from anyone at Amaury," adding that when he broke a drug scandal during the 2002 Tour, director Jean-Marie Leblanc was "furious" with him but that "I couldn't care less."

Ressiot says he first learned of retroactive testing on 1999 Tour samples back in January. It took months to get the sample numbers and match them, he said, a problem compounded by the fact that, according to Ressiot, the lab didn't produce its results until August 22nd. Already in possession of the sample numbers and corresponding identifiers, Ressiot made his match and the paper went to press.

"I understand that the public could be frustrated that the findings came out a month after the Tour," he said. "My only interest was to get them out as soon as possible, as soon as I had all the evidence and that I knew it was solid. If that moment came before, during or after the Tour so be it."

L'Equipe is a respected publication. For instance, Bob Ryan, a senior sportswriter for the Boston Globe, calls it "must reading for anyone remotely interested in sport, both domestic and international. L'Equipe is a very credible, responsible publication."

The claim: Urine tests conducted this long after collecting the sample are inaccurate.
The claimants: Christiane Ayotte (director of the Toronto IOC-accredited drug lab),and others.

The basis for the claim: Urine samples aren't stable enough to be tested after such a long storage period, even at very low temperatures.

The unspin: Other experts disagree. Jacques de Ceaurriz (6), director of the Chatenay Malabry lab and co-creator of the urine EPO test, told Bicycling that "as long as the samples have been well cared for, there is no problem. And I know the samples in question were. EPO is a very resilient molecule as long as the temperature is sufficiently cold to preserve it. The hardest part comes in the transport of samples from the competition to the lab, but I know that already in 1998 the Tour de France had set up a very reliable transportation system. In addition the 1998 and 1999 samples used this year were backed up by more recent examples, and the results were consistent, so I have no doubt that they were still valid." Experts also point out that if EPO in a sample did degrade, it would simply become undetectable; there's no way other substances could degrade and somehow form EPO metabolites.

(The Chatenay lab didn't test the samples years earlier, Ceaurriz says, because there was no compelling reason; the lab was simply fine-tuning the EPO test and ran these samples as a check - according to Ceaurriz, they wanted samples that would almost surely have EPO in them, which is why they selected samples from a Tour before the test existed, in 2001. He says they couldn't test prior to 1998 because the sample transport and storage system was not reliable for such long storage times. )

The claim: The fact that l'Equipe didn't name the rider or riders who produced the other six positive samples proves that it's on a witch hunt.
The claimant: Armstrong

The basis for the claim: According to l'Equipe, 12 samples returned positive results for EPO; six from Armstrong, six from unidentified riders. France Soir, a French daily newspaper, reported last week that the other six samples all belonged to one rider and that his name was being withheld by "all those capable of revealing (it)." France Soir further alleged that the rider in question must have been quite successful at the Tour and had become "too popular to end his career dishonestly."

The unspin: Ressiot told us he never pursued the other six samples, and admitted he concentrated on Armstrong. "Why? Quite simply because he was such an immense champion but one that had so much suspicion around him and so much mystery," he said, adding that he had so far held off writing much about Armstrong simply because he felt only direct proof would be acceptable. "I don't have all the numbers of all the Tour riders in all stages from the 1999 Tour," he said, pointing out that he worked for months to get just one set of numbers. "That is very complicated because there are roughly 200 riders in for nearly 20 stages and the numbers for each rider's form are different each day." Ressiot said at this point, it would be hard for him to get the numbers to match to the other six samples but that "it is something the UCI could do if they wanted."

This is the most damaging allegation about l'Equipe. If France Soir is right, and the second positive rider is a popular Frenchman, it is a ready-made reason to discredit the report. If the Soir report is inaccurate, the specific targeting of Armstrong opens questions about reportorial integrity. For its own authenticity and credibility, the paper should at least have tried to ascertain the identity of the second rider. [note by Doping Journal: On September 12, 2005, French newspaper Journal du Dimanche (JDD) has now done what L'Equipe dared not to do, publishing the names of the three other riders that tested 'positive' to EPO at the prologue of the 1999 Tour de France, and linked their names to the three other positive samples allegedly taken after the prologue." (9)]

The claim: Announcing identities from a research test is unethical
The claimant: Armstrong, who questioned whether newspapers now govern sport; Ayotte, who said that the incident could damage trust between athletes and labs.

The basis for the claim: Athletes need to know that their medical information will be treated with respect for privacy. In the context of research investigations, given that no legal/sporting sanction is possible, it's incumbent on the lab to keep such details secret.

The unspin: Absolutely. Ethics were breached, but not by L'Equipe. Good journalism sometimes relies on unethical leaks from anonymous sources, (Think Watergate.) L'Equipe did not criminally remove or gain access to information. The ethics and motives of the leakers are questionable, especially if only Armstrong's identity was leaked, and not the identity of the other six positive samples. Dr. Ceaurriz told Bicycling the information leak was "certainly not by me or anybody in our lab," adding that the lab does not even have the identities of the athletes, just the six-digit sample number. Ressiot declined to say where he got the information, but did point out that he confirmed the identification match on Armstrong's numbers with two independent sources.

Our one criticism with L'Equipe on this point is that, because Armstrong is not only a champion athlete, but an icon of hope to those living with cancer (and their relatives) the paper's self-imposed burden of proof might have been higher; before publishing the story, for instance, Ressiot might have further investigated the lab and the leakers to determine the background of the sources, the purity of the samples, or reflected this rigorous level of reporting in its published story.

1. Joe Lindsey, James Startt. L'Affaire Armstrong, Unscrambled: The Lance scandal continues. Is he innocent? You decide. Mountain Bike Magazine, a supplement to Rodale Inc. (29 August 2005) [ FullText ][ Back2Text ].

2. Damien Ressiot. L'Equipe (23 August 2005) [ FullText ][ Back2Text ].

3. International Cycling Union (UCI) issued an official declaration regarding French newspaper L'Equipe's alleged doping allegations from the 1999 Tour de France. Edited by Hedwig Kröner. CyclingNews.com (9 September 2005) [ FullText ][ Back2Text ].

4. Lance Armstrong disputes French doping results. Juiceenewsdaily - Jasper,AL,USA (last viewed 4 September 2005) [ FullText ][ Back2Text ]; Seven-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong linked with the usage of the forbidden substance EPO in the 1999 edition of the race in French L'Equipe: 'Do you think I'm doped? Then prove it!'. Journalist replies to criticism. CyclingNews.com (4 September 2005) [ FullText ][ Back2Text ].

5. Has Conflict of interest poisoned US cycling, sports heros, and sport at large? Armstrong Empire
Tour de Farce - Lance Armstrong, Thom Weisel, and questions about [corrupted?] anti-doping efforts in American cycling. SF Weekly - San Francisco, CA, USA (9 September 2005) [ FullText ][ Back2Text ].

6. Scientific articles by Doctor Jacques de Ceaurriz, the director of the Chatenay-Malabry lab, which ran the most recent tests and invented the urine test for EPO [ PubMed ][ Back2Text ].

7. Cycling News: EPO doping widespread till 1998. Supersport - Zambia (28 August 2005) [ FullText ][ Back2Text ].

8. CyclingNews interview with L'Equipe's Damien Ressiot. CyclingNews.com (7 September 2005) [ FullText ][ Back2Text ].

9. Tour de France 1999 Doping Story: Three more names published. Does Cyclist ask French State, WADA to prohibit investigation? CyclingNews.com (12 September 2005) [ FullText ][ Back2Text ].
 

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This article should be cited in the following way: Joe Lindsey, James Startt. Tour de France superstar scandal continues. Is he innocent? You decide. The Doping Journal  Vol.  2, 2 (2005) Available at: http://dopingjournal.org/content/2/2/ ( Please make sure you included article web address in your citation! )