Johan Bruyneel has revealed Lance Armstrong's legal threats resulted in changes to the 60 Minutes expose. He has also rounded on Greg LeMond over what he says is a pursuit of Armstrong.
Currently serving a 10-year ban from cycling, Lance Armstrong’s former partner in fraud Johan Bruyneel has said a recent CBS 60 Minutes exposé on hidden motors at the Tour de France was changed after legal threats from Armstrong.
The programme suggested Hungarian Istvan ‘Stefano’ Varjas, who is said to be the inventor of hidden motors, was paid $2 million to supply motors in 1998 and not to speak about them for 10 years as part of the deal.
'60 Minutes' then suggested the timeframe Varjas outlined about dealing with a mystery client coincided with the rise of Armstrong and ran a denial from him.
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“We were tipped off in advance and they were bound after a letter from Armstrong’s lawyers,” Bruyneel told Belgian magazine Humo.
“Initially, the program would have been much more aggressive,” Bruyneel said.
“But to put force in their initial assertions, they asked Varjas to install a motor in a bike like the one that Lance won the Tour on in 1999.
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“It’s ridiculous, because they used technology from 2016. With the batteries in 1999, you could not have them hidden in a bicycle frame. They were too big. I have people who know something about this.”
Bruyneel was also critical of Greg LeMond, saying he was trying to damage Armstrong with claims of hidden motors but insisted no matter how hard people looked they would never find the American – stripped of his Tour titles and banned from the sport for doping - had used them.
“He has realised that people are less and less outraged by Lance, because it has become clear that he was only one of many who were doping, and that’s why LeMond is now looking for something new with which to tarnish his name,” Bruyneel said.
“But he’s not going to manage it. They can keep trying until the year 3000 they’re not going to find mechanical doping.
“It seems strange that LeMond travelled to the Tour de France with his wife to investigate mechanical doping with the French police – like he was on some sort of mission. They have prepared all of this. They’ve tried to manipulate everything to spread suspicion about Lance once again.”
And the Belgian, now a pariah to most, also rounded on the character of LeMond, branding him “an asshole”.
“In his era LeMond did all he could to come across well, with that baby face, always smiling, the spoken French with a pronounced American accent,” he said.
“But in the world of cycling everyone knows he isn’t a very nice man. I often compare him with Laurent Fignon.
“To the outside world he seemed like a bad-tempered teacher who you couldn’t approach, but in the peloton we remember him as a lovely person. LeMond was the polar opposite – an asshole. He ended up on bad terms with everyone.”
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