Lance Armstrong has relayed a strange story about a conversation with David Walsh 15 years ago.
Lance Armstrong has just told a weird little story on his new podcast ‘The Forward’ about his nemesis David Walsh.
It’s a curious tale which Armstrong said showed he and Walsh have a lot more in common that people might think and that they were actually very similar people.
We’ll leave you to make up your own mind on that one.
But the anecdote Armstrong outlines in conversation with Ben Foster is an interesting one, if true of course.
Armstrong and Foster – who played the fallen ex cyclist in The Program movie based on Walsh’s book - had an hour-long conversation on the podcast.
Armstrong said he had only watched the movie to research his interview with Foster. But when he saw some of the promotional material before the movie’s launch he said he didn’t recognise huge parts of the story that was being told.
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“It was tough to watch things that never happened. I was watching it going ‘this is all new to me’,” though Armstrong added “the doping part” did happen.
“Watching the movie, there were two heroes; David Walsh and Floyd Landis,” he said. “I get it; it was an adaptation of David Walsh’s book.”
Armstrong in conversation with the actor who played him, Ben Foster, for his new podcast 'The Forward'.
And then he launched into a story about an interaction he had with Walsh which, he said, showed the Irish journalist was ruthless and a ‘win at all costs’ character just like Armstrong.
“I’m going to say something that may shock you, may shock people,” said Armstrong.
“David Walsh and I are very similar, we’re both extremely competitive. We’re both win at all costs.
“The scene in the movie where he does the interview and he’s asking me about seeing Dr Ferrara and (Bob) Stapleton sitting in on the interview, who was my agent…
“This is in 2001, I think, and the internet was just sort of emerging. But I’d done enough research to know he’d written some articles about Festina and written some articles about me.
“So I found an article where he had written about, we’d just been caught with actovegin in the trash in the 2000 Tour…. So I find an article that he had written literally a couple of weeks before that says ‘actovegin is a substance that’s never been used on human beings ever before’.
“And I thought, ‘well that’s crazy because we use it all the time’. And so in the interview he says to me: ‘What about actovegin, I’ve been taking to Willy Voet who was the soigneur for Festina and he was telling me they used actovegin’.
“And I said ‘so if somebody wrote two weeks ago that it had never been used on a human being before they would have just print a lie, right?’ He says ‘yeah’.
“And I said, well – I had it on my computer, I had the article called up – I said ‘shall we just read the article you wrote two weeks ago?’
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“And he looks at me like that and he says ‘God damn it Armstrong you really are smart’. It was weird. Anyways, it was a win at all costs… like, he didn’t care…
“I’m not really sure the point I’m trying to make. But I sensed a real competitiveness in him and a ruthlessness which, you know, I respect that in him. But it was certainly his movie, he was the hero if the movie. Landis being a hero is unthinkable.”
Armstrong also opens up about his financial affairs.
A case begun by former team mate and fellow doper Floyd Landis is being pursued under whistle blowers laws and under which Landis is joined by the US government
Landis sued under the False Claims Act, a unique whistle blower lawsuit that allows for penalties up to three-times the amount defrauded. The U.S. Postal Service gave $31.9 million to Armstrong’s team from 2001 to 2004, ESPN wrote in 2012.
“I got sued left, right and centre and we’re down to one case. And it’s a big case; it’s me versus the United States of America and Floyd Landis. It’s a heavy case.
“If it goes the wrong way for us then we’re on the street. So it’s pretty heavy. Let’s hope it doesn’t go the wrong way.
“I think people in these situations; most of them would just be wrecked. And it’s been stressful but I’m not… Endurance is an important word too and I’m an endurance athlete and endurance is just part of I guess my DNA. I’ve just got to suffer this out.”
He said his partner and five children had kept him going.
“Being curled up the foetal position is not being a good dad. So I’m proud of that, but I have to be responsible there.”
Foster as a yellow-jersey clad Armstrong in the movie, which the actor now says failed in key areas.
Foster said though he starred in the film he believed it failed to explore the real issues at the centre of the case.
He also said he would have “done the same f***king thing” as Armstrong by doping because the vast majority of other cyclists were doing it at the time.
“I don’t think that part of the movie is successful,” he said.
When making the film the director Stephen Frears told him not to contact Armstrong as part of his research because it was not necessary.
He added when he was first hired to play the part, while David Walsh had written the book on which the film was based, there was no script for the film in existence. And now that the movie has been filmed and released and the project completed some time, on reflection he was not happy with it.
“What drew me was a formidable film maker on a subject that felt very important in terms of the question. And although people were saying you were a terrible person that destroyed lives, what I was drawn to with your life, with what was happening; it’s not a story of falling or failing…
“It’s actually not Icarus and they even wanted to call the f***ing movie that; Icarus, so much nonsense. To me it’s ‘the means meet the end’.
“And what you did made a lot of sense to me; you’re the best cyclist to live and to me you did it better than anybody and you were getting thrown under the bus.
“That really resonated and I don’t think we were that successful in telling that story. Stephen wasn’t interested in that story he wanted to make a ‘heist’ film. But what I was drawn to was ‘did the means meet the end?’ And that’s a tough question.”
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