Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong

Last updated
Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong
Seven Deadly Sins.jpg
Author David Walsh
Subject Lance Armstrong
GenreSports
Publication date
December 13, 2012

Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong is a sports book written by Sunday Times journalist David Walsh, which released on December 13, 2012. [1] In the book, Walsh writes about his 13-year fight to bring out the truth behind American cyclist Lance Armstrong's seven Tour de France wins, i.e. that Armstrong had used banned substances. Walsh was vindicated when Armstrong was stripped of all seven of his Tour titles and banned from the sport for life on October 22, 2012. [2] Armstrong's seven Tour wins are told to be his "seven deadly sins".

Armstrong confessed to doping in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in January 2013. [3] The 2015 movie The Program is based on the book. Chris O'Dowd and Ben Foster star as Walsh and Armstrong, respectively. The movie earned $3.3 million worldwide. [4]

Ceremony/awardAwardResult
2013 Irish Book Awards [5] [6] RTÉ Television Sports Book of the YearWon
William Hill award [7] William Hill Sports Book of the Year Nominated

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tyler Hamilton</span> American cyclist (born 1971)

Tyler Hamilton is an American former professional road bicycle racer. He is the only American rider to win one of the five Monuments of cycling, taking Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2003. Hamilton became a professional cyclist in 1995 with the US Postal Service cycling team. He was a teammate of Lance Armstrong during the 1999, 2000 and 2001 Tours de France, where Armstrong won the general classification. He was a key asset for Armstrong, being a very good climber as well as time-trialist. Hamilton appeared at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics. In 2004, he won a gold medal at the individual time trial. The first doping test after his Olympic victory gave a positive result, but because the backup sample was frozen, no doping offence could be proven. After he failed further doping tests at the 2004 Vuelta a España, Hamilton was suspended for two years from the sport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johan Bruyneel</span> Directeur sportif and former road bicycle racer

Johan Bruyneel is a Belgian former professional road bicycle racer and a former directeur sportif for UCI ProTour team RadioShack–Nissan, and U.S. Postal Service, a US-based UCI ProTour cycling team. On 25 October 2018, the World Anti Doping Agency imposed a lifetime ban on Bruyneel for his role in a doping scandal that also saw Lance Armstrong stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frankie Andreu</span> American cyclist

Francisco "Frankie" Andreu is an American former professional cyclist whose career highlights include riding as team captain of the U.S. Postal Service cycling team in 1998, 1999 and 2000. During his career, he won a number of race stages and finished fourth in the cycling road race at the 1996 Olympics. His testimony played a key part in the United States Anti-Doping Agency's investigation of fellow U.S. Postal cyclist Lance Armstrong's doping practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1999 Tour de France</span> Cycling race

The 1999 Tour de France was a multiple stage bicycle race held from 3 to 25 July, and the 86th edition of the Tour de France. It has no overall winner—although American cyclist Lance Armstrong originally won the event, the United States Anti-Doping Agency announced in August 2012 that they had disqualified Armstrong from all his results since 1998, including his seven consecutive Tour de France wins from 1999 to 2005 ; the Union Cycliste Internationale confirmed the result.

The Livestrong Foundation is a United States nonprofit organization that provides support for people affected by cancer. The foundation, based in Austin, Texas, was established in 1997 by cancer survivor and former professional road racing cyclist Lance Armstrong, as the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The Livestrong brand was launched by the foundation in 2003. Armstrong resigned from the foundation in 2012 after his admission of doping, leading to the rebranding of the entire organization as Livestrong Foundation.

Paul Kimmage is an Irish sports journalist and former amateur and professional road bicycle racer, who was road race champion of Ireland in 1981, and competed in the 1984 Olympic Games. He wrote for The Sunday Times newspaper and others, and published a number of books.

<i>L.A. Confidentiel</i> 2004 book by Pierre Ballester and David Walsh

L.A. Confidentiel: Les secrets de Lance Armstrong is a book by sports journalist Pierre Ballester and The Sunday Times sports correspondent David Walsh. The book contains circumstantial evidence of cyclist Lance Armstrong having used performance-enhancing drugs. The book has only been published in French.

David Joseph Walsh is an Irish sports journalist and chief sports writer for the British newspaper The Sunday Times. He is a four-time Irish Sportswriter of the Year and a three-time UK Sportswriter of the Year. Walsh was the key journalist in uncovering the doping program by Lance Armstrong and the US Postal Service Cycling Team, leading to a lifetime ban from cycling for Armstrong and being stripped of his seven Tour titles.

The seven deadly sins is a classification of vices used in Christian teachings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2010 Tour de France</span> Cycling race

The 2010 Tour de France was the 97th edition of the Tour de France cycle race, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It started on 3 July with an 8.9 km prologue time trial in Rotterdam, the first start in the Netherlands since 1996. The race visited three countries: the Netherlands, Belgium and France, and finished on 25 July on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lance Armstrong</span> American cyclist (born 1971)

Lance Edward Armstrong is an American former professional road racing cyclist. He achieved international fame for winning the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005, but was stripped of his titles after an investigation into doping allegations, called the Lance Armstrong doping case, found that Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs over his career. As a result, Armstrong is currently banned for life from all sanctioned bicycling events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Ochowicz</span> American racing cyclist

Jim Ochowicz is a former Olympic bicyclist and manager of UCI WorldTeam CCC Pro Team. He served as president of the USA Cycling Board of Directors from 2002 to 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Lance Armstrong doping allegations</span> Cycling doping allegations

For much of the second phase of his career, American cyclist Lance Armstrong faced constant allegations of doping, including doping at the Tour de France and in the Lance Armstrong doping case. Armstrong vehemently denied allegations of using performance enhancing drugs for 13 years, until a confession during a broadcast interview with Oprah Winfrey in January 2013, when he finally admitted to all his cheating in sports, stating, "I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greg LeMond anti-doping stance and controversies</span>

Greg LeMond competed at a time when performance enhancing drugs were just beginning to impact his sport. Rumors of improprieties existed, including USA Cycling's blood doping at the 1984 LA Olympics and Francesco Moser's same measures prior to his 1984 assault on the hour record, but legalities were not sharply demarcated and the practice was not spoken of in the open. Considered one of the most talented cyclists of his generation, from his earliest days of professional cycling LeMond was strongly against taking performance enhancing drugs, largely on the basis of the health risks such practices posed. His career lacks the suspicious results that have tarnished his successors. His willingness to speak out against doping and those prominent individuals involved inadvertently linked him with the sport’s doping scandal controversies. In his opposition to fraud, corruption and what he saw as complicity on the part of cycling officials, LeMond became a lightning rod with the sports most prominent personalities.

Stephen Swart is a former New Zealand cyclist. He began his professional career with British team, ANC-Halfords and rode the 1987 Tour de France with them. After the ANC team folded later that year, he rode for American teams.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lance Armstrong doping case</span> Doping scandal in professional cycling

United States Anti-Doping Agency v. Lance Armstrong, the Lance Armstrong doping case, was a major doping investigation that led to retired American road racing cyclist Lance Armstrong being stripped of his seven consecutive Tour de France titles, along with one Olympic medal, and his eventual admission to using performance-enhancing drugs. The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) portrayed Armstrong as the ringleader of what it called "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

Timothy Henry Franks is a British journalist and radio presenter who presents Newshour, the flagship news and current affairs programme on BBC World Service radio. He also, from time to time, presents Hardtalk on BBC World News, and documentaries across BBC TV and radio. He was previously an award-winning foreign correspondent for the BBC.

<i>The Armstrong Lie</i> 2013 film

The Armstrong Lie is a 2013 American documentary film directed by Alex Gibney about the cyclist Lance Armstrong. Originally titled The Road Back, the film takes its name from "Le Mensonge Armstrong", the headline of the August 23, 2005 issue of the French newspaper L'Équipe. The film was screened out of competition at the 70th Venice International Film Festival and in the Special Presentation section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.

<i>The Program</i> (2015 film) Biographical film about Lance Armstrong

The Program is a 2015 biographical drama film about Lance Armstrong directed by Stephen Frears, starring Ben Foster as Armstrong and Chris O'Dowd as journalist David Walsh.

At the time of the 1999 Tour de France there was no official test for EPO. In August 2005, 60 remaining antidoping samples from the 1998 Tour and 84 remaining antidoping samples given by riders during the 1999 Tour, were tested retrospectively for recombinant EPO by using three recently developed detection methods. More precisely the laboratory compared the result of test method A: "Autoradiography — visual inspection of light emitted from a strip displaying the isoelectric profile for EPO", with the result of test method B: "Percentage of basic isoforms — using an ultra-sensitive camera that by percentage quantify the light intensity emitted from each of the isoelectric bands". For those samples with enough urine left, these results of test method A+B were finally also compared with the best and latest test method C: "Statistical discriminant analysis — taking account all the band profiles by statistical distinguish calculations for each band".

References

  1. Luckhurst, Samuel (December 12, 2012). "David Walsh On His Pursuit Of Lance Armstrong". The Huffington Post . Retrieved April 26, 2014.
  2. Walsh, David (October 22, 2012). "Covering Lance Armstrong was a wild ride, but the truth came out". Sports Illustrated . Retrieved December 13, 2023.
  3. Carroll, Rory (Jan 18, 2013). "Lance Armstrong admits doping in Oprah Winfrey interview". The Guardian . Retrieved June 6, 2018.
  4. "The Program (2016)". Box Office Mojo .
  5. "2013 Winners". Irish Book Awards . Retrieved April 26, 2014.
  6. "Irish Book Awards 2013 Part 1". YouTube . Retrieved April 26, 2014.
  7. Brennan, Rob (November 27, 2013). "Reid's Doped wins the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award". Irish Book Awards. Retrieved May 4, 2014.