Two Icons and the Challenge of Passing the Test of Time
By GEORGE VECSEY
Sports of The Times
July 8, 2007
Until the other day, my inner misanthrope kept thinking that some modest deus ex machina might keep Barry Bonds from breaking Henry Aaron’s record. Nothing serious, mind you, just a twinge or a bruise that would keep him from hitting his 756th home run. But once Bonds hit his 751st homer Tuesday night, I saw the futility of such negative thinking.
My reverse body English reminds me of the minority of cycling fans who chanted multilingual imprecations at Lance Armstrong in the latter stages of his seven-year streak in the Tour de France. (I can’t help it; the Tour is on my mind as the riders push from London toward La Belle France today, with a terrible cloud of drug abuse over the entire sport.)
Bonds and Armstrong have a lot in common: Both have admirably maintained their edge late into athletic old age; both have former associates who cannot stand them; both are the subject of books suggesting they used performance-enhancing drugs, which both deny.
But I react differently to them: Armstrong’s seven Tours seemed compelling, while Bonds’s approach to Aaron’s record has seemed mostly sour, even though I regard him as a Hall of Fame athlete. Bonds was obnoxious as a slender young player and he’s even more obnoxious as a hulk.
•
Armstrong is interesting, not just because of his iconic role as a cancer activist but because he is complicated, presenting himself as the most-tested athlete in the world. The difference between them springs from the culture and structure of their sports, setting up Armstrong’s role as control-freak leader of the pack versus Bonds’s role as solipsistic slugger.
The two stars have fought off another dread foe, bad luck. In 2005, Bjarne Riis, the manager of the CSC team — who recently abdicated his 1996 Tour championship, acknowledging that he had taken illegal substances — noted that Armstrong had avoided the injuries that put two key CSC riders out of the Tour. Armstrong blustered that he would put the Riis comments in his psychological “hard drive” to motivate himself even more, as if that were possible.
Riis had a point, but Armstrong also made his own luck, as Casey Stengel used to say. In 1999, Armstrong and his outriders spurted to the head of the pack before a muddy causeway, thereby escaping a nasty spill behind them. In 2003, Armstrong escaped three tangles that could have easily stopped him at four consecutive Tours.
The pursuit of Armstrong continues in a new book, “From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France,” by David Walsh. The book describes how a Dallas company, SCA Promotions, tried to withhold a $5 million bonus, citing suspicion that Armstrong, while receiving cancer treatment in 1996, had acknowledged past usage of performance-enhancing drugs.
Two key witnesses were Frankie Andreu, a former teammate of Armstrong’s, and his wife, Betsy, as well as Greg LeMond, a three-time Tour champion, who testified that an Armstrong associate, Stephanie McIlvain, told LeMond she had witnessed the alleged admission in 1996. McIlvain, under oath, denied it. Armstrong’s office forwarded an affidavit from his oncologist, Dr. Craig Nichols, saying he did not know of any such confession. In the end, arbitrators ruled that Armstrong, as the official winner of seven Tours, was due the $5 million bonus and $2.5 million in legal costs and interest.
Walsh’s book also discusses the claim in August 2005 by L’Équipe, the French sports daily, that six of Armstrong’s urine samples in 1999 had more recently tested positive for erythropoietin, a blood-boosting hormone also known as EPO. Armstrong has denied using EPO for cycling and has noted that there was no test for EPO in 1999, that all samples were retained solely for research purposes and that samples could have been tainted over the years.
“EPO is a powerful drug,” Armstrong told me in 2005. “Some say it makes you 10 percent faster. Let’s say I took EPO in 1999 and didn’t take it from 2000 to 2005. My performance never dropped off. Obviously, I’m not saying I did. But I only got faster.”
Walsh and LeMond insisted that Armstrong became unnaturally fast, beyond his previous physiological predictors. They cited his long association with the Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, an adviser to cyclists who later failed drug tests.
Not having subpoena or testing powers, I always figured it was up to officials to clean up cycling, baseball, football and the rest. Armstrong may indeed have been the Gingerbread Man, but I saw him annihilate dozens of cyclists who have since confessed or been busted while he passed every drug test cycling managed to impose.
•
As for Bonds, he seems to have made his personal breakaway from grand jury inquiries into the Balco scandal as well as from the suggestions of tax evasion and perjury in the illuminating book “Game of Shadows,” by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams.
Those charges taint Bonds as he chases Aaron. I’m taking my cues from the dyspeptic look on the face of Commissioner Bud Selig whenever he is asked if he will attend the 756th home run. It’s going to happen. Let’s get it over with.
E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com
Sports of The Times
July 8, 2007
Until the other day, my inner misanthrope kept thinking that some modest deus ex machina might keep Barry Bonds from breaking Henry Aaron’s record. Nothing serious, mind you, just a twinge or a bruise that would keep him from hitting his 756th home run. But once Bonds hit his 751st homer Tuesday night, I saw the futility of such negative thinking.
My reverse body English reminds me of the minority of cycling fans who chanted multilingual imprecations at Lance Armstrong in the latter stages of his seven-year streak in the Tour de France. (I can’t help it; the Tour is on my mind as the riders push from London toward La Belle France today, with a terrible cloud of drug abuse over the entire sport.)
Bonds and Armstrong have a lot in common: Both have admirably maintained their edge late into athletic old age; both have former associates who cannot stand them; both are the subject of books suggesting they used performance-enhancing drugs, which both deny.
But I react differently to them: Armstrong’s seven Tours seemed compelling, while Bonds’s approach to Aaron’s record has seemed mostly sour, even though I regard him as a Hall of Fame athlete. Bonds was obnoxious as a slender young player and he’s even more obnoxious as a hulk.
•
Armstrong is interesting, not just because of his iconic role as a cancer activist but because he is complicated, presenting himself as the most-tested athlete in the world. The difference between them springs from the culture and structure of their sports, setting up Armstrong’s role as control-freak leader of the pack versus Bonds’s role as solipsistic slugger.
The two stars have fought off another dread foe, bad luck. In 2005, Bjarne Riis, the manager of the CSC team — who recently abdicated his 1996 Tour championship, acknowledging that he had taken illegal substances — noted that Armstrong had avoided the injuries that put two key CSC riders out of the Tour. Armstrong blustered that he would put the Riis comments in his psychological “hard drive” to motivate himself even more, as if that were possible.
Riis had a point, but Armstrong also made his own luck, as Casey Stengel used to say. In 1999, Armstrong and his outriders spurted to the head of the pack before a muddy causeway, thereby escaping a nasty spill behind them. In 2003, Armstrong escaped three tangles that could have easily stopped him at four consecutive Tours.
The pursuit of Armstrong continues in a new book, “From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France,” by David Walsh. The book describes how a Dallas company, SCA Promotions, tried to withhold a $5 million bonus, citing suspicion that Armstrong, while receiving cancer treatment in 1996, had acknowledged past usage of performance-enhancing drugs.
Two key witnesses were Frankie Andreu, a former teammate of Armstrong’s, and his wife, Betsy, as well as Greg LeMond, a three-time Tour champion, who testified that an Armstrong associate, Stephanie McIlvain, told LeMond she had witnessed the alleged admission in 1996. McIlvain, under oath, denied it. Armstrong’s office forwarded an affidavit from his oncologist, Dr. Craig Nichols, saying he did not know of any such confession. In the end, arbitrators ruled that Armstrong, as the official winner of seven Tours, was due the $5 million bonus and $2.5 million in legal costs and interest.
Walsh’s book also discusses the claim in August 2005 by L’Équipe, the French sports daily, that six of Armstrong’s urine samples in 1999 had more recently tested positive for erythropoietin, a blood-boosting hormone also known as EPO. Armstrong has denied using EPO for cycling and has noted that there was no test for EPO in 1999, that all samples were retained solely for research purposes and that samples could have been tainted over the years.
“EPO is a powerful drug,” Armstrong told me in 2005. “Some say it makes you 10 percent faster. Let’s say I took EPO in 1999 and didn’t take it from 2000 to 2005. My performance never dropped off. Obviously, I’m not saying I did. But I only got faster.”
Walsh and LeMond insisted that Armstrong became unnaturally fast, beyond his previous physiological predictors. They cited his long association with the Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, an adviser to cyclists who later failed drug tests.
Not having subpoena or testing powers, I always figured it was up to officials to clean up cycling, baseball, football and the rest. Armstrong may indeed have been the Gingerbread Man, but I saw him annihilate dozens of cyclists who have since confessed or been busted while he passed every drug test cycling managed to impose.
•
As for Bonds, he seems to have made his personal breakaway from grand jury inquiries into the Balco scandal as well as from the suggestions of tax evasion and perjury in the illuminating book “Game of Shadows,” by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams.
Those charges taint Bonds as he chases Aaron. I’m taking my cues from the dyspeptic look on the face of Commissioner Bud Selig whenever he is asked if he will attend the 756th home run. It’s going to happen. Let’s get it over with.
E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com
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