Armstrong on drugs?

[Stevie Blom]

In an upcoming book, an ex-masseuse for US Postal claims that she had to cross borders to courrier pills, bin syringes, and cover up injection marks on Lance Armstrong's arm. Excerpts of "LA Confidential -- The Secrets of Lance Armstrong" were published Monday in French weekly news magazine L'Express.

 

 

 

The book, co-written by Sunday Times writer David Walsh and former L'Equipe reporter Pierre Ballester, most notably quotes Armstrong's former masseuse, Emma O'Reilly who recalls the night in the 1999 Dauphiné Libéré race, when the Texan told her on the massage table that his red blood cell count was at 41:

 

"But that's terrible, 41, what are you going to do?' Everyone in cycling knows that you can't win with a count of 41. He looked at me and said, 'Emma, you know what I'm going to do, I'm going to do like all the others."

 

She recalls having to bin syringes on the 1998 Tour, drive nearly five hours from France to Spain to pick up a small bottle of white pills from US Postal sporting director Johan Bruyneel and bring them back to Armstrong.

 

When she asked the American if she could bring her fiancée, Simon, along on the trip, he allegedly replied "don't tell Simon what you're doing."

 

TOUR COVER-UP

 

O'Reilly also told of how she had to go out and buy make-up to cover up injection marks on Armstrong's arm before the pre-race medical on the 1999 Tour to avoid any traces in front of the cameras.

 

Later on that same Tour, Le Monde would reveal a failed doping test for a non-declared corticoid on the same day that Armstrong took the yellow jersey in the Pyrenées.

 

According to O'Reilly, the team held an impromptu meeting while she was massaging Armstrong after the day's stage to get their stories straight:

 

"We have to all be telling the same story when we walk out of here," she recalls Armstrong as saying with the team coming up later with a back-dated prescription for a pain relief lotion he would have taken several weeks earlier on the Route du Sud race.

 

LEMOND ROW

 

The book also quotes Kathy LeMond, the wife of the first-ever American Tour de France winner, who recalls a veiled blackmail attempt by Armstrong in a phone conversation she overheard.

 

LeMond, whose brand of bicycles are distributed by a major sponsor of US Postal, refused to answer the reporters' questions.

 

Armstrong, who was allegedly furious that LeMond had criticized his decision to entertain relations with controversial trainer Dr. Michele Ferrari, was to have told the Minnesota native "I'll find at least ten people to say that you took EPO, ten people who will testify."

 

Kathy says that her husband replied: "That's impossible. I know that I never took any. If I had taken EPO, my red blood cell count would have been higher than 45 which was never the case. It's impossible and it's wrong. I can produce all my blood tests that prove [it]. .. and if I hear this accusation, I'll know it came from you."

 

 

Does he need EPO for only 1 big Grand tour per year? Maybe just media at its best?

 

 

Stevie B.

[BrianS]

Jackanory...............................