Kevin Baldeosingh
In 2004, champion cyclist Lance Armstrong described Sunday Times reporter David Walsh, who had been writing about doping in the Tour de France which Armstrong had won multiple times after recovering from cancer, as "the worst journalist I know.
"There are journalists who are willing to lie, to threaten people and to steal in order to catch me out. All this for a sensational story. Ethics, standards, values, accuracy–these are of no interest to people like Walsh."
In 2012, Armstrong admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs and was stripped of all his titles.
It was the biggest drug scandal in cycling or, indeed, any other sport. Never had any athlete of Armstrong's stature fooled the public for so long. This book is a collection of articles published by The Sunday Times over a 12-year period, most by Walsh, about the Tour de France, cycling's premier race, and Armstrong in particular.
Without Walsh's and the Times' dogged investigation, Armstrong would most likely have retired and sports fans been none the wiser.
Walsh at the time had reported on 18 Tours de France and won Sportswriter of the Year award in Britain three times. In 2004, the Sunday Times settled a libel suit with Armstrong for six figures for an article titled LA Confidential, written by Allan English, about a book by Walsh and a French journalist, which stated that Armstrong would be forced to answer questions about doping. After his confession, the paper sued Armstrong and reached a settlement 2013.
Between 1999 and 2011, Armstrong tested positive for drugs only once. His comeback from cancer to champion status also helped insulate him against investigation. But, Walsh asserts, "If there is a bottom line from the judicial investigations in France and Italy, it is that sport's governing bodies have been guilty of the great doping conspiracy. In some cases they have funded the cheating and abetted the cheater. But it is not just the athletes, organisers and administrators; journalists too have turned a blind eye, or even worse, to a problem they know about."
Walsh adds that this deficiency also applies to sports like baseball, ice hockey, and women's tennis. Similarly, English in his article describes a media conference where a Le Monde reporter asked Armstrong about a doping allegation and was rebuffed.
"In a room full of reporters, nobody dared ask Armstrong a follow-up question," English wrote. "Such is the way of the overwhelming majority of those who cover the sport for the world's media: awkward questions are best left unasked. The reasoning goes that they will soon go away and everybody can get back to talking and writing about cycling again."
In a 2001 article, Walsh lists times recorded by cyclists later found guilty of using the blood booster erythropoietin (EPO) and those who were supposed to be clean, including Armstrong. "The questions posed by the figures are straightforward: could clean riders, as Armstrong claims, produce performers superior to the of the EPO generation?" Walsh wrote.
He also cites an interview with one doctor who admitted to helping 500 riders cheat, but not one of whom tested positive. "The tests designed to catch those who cheat have never been good enough," Walsh notes.
Much of the information in this book can be applied to other sports, and so might be relevant reading as you watch the Olympic Games.