:00:00. > :00:14.Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen Sackur. It's the job of the
:00:15. > :00:20.journalist to speak truth to power but it can be a lonely place,
:00:21. > :00:24.defying conventional wisdom and the powers that be forced up my guest
:00:25. > :00:29.today has known that loneliness. Irish journalist David Walsh was
:00:30. > :00:34.convinced that cycling's untouchable champion Lance Armstrong was a drugs
:00:35. > :00:40.cheat long before the sport revealed the scale of his deceit. Armstrong
:00:41. > :00:44.is now history of course but doping continues to devalue elite sport.
:00:45. > :01:15.Maybe it's a problem that no amount of truth telling journalism can fix.
:01:16. > :01:24.David Walsh, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. Wonder if you could cast
:01:25. > :01:28.your mind back to starting as a young journalist in Ireland, working
:01:29. > :01:32.on sports. You regularly described yourself as a sickly Afghan with a
:01:33. > :01:41.typewriter. The still regard yourself as a fan? -- as a fan. In a
:01:42. > :01:45.general sense, no. I think a journalist has to leave out behind.
:01:46. > :01:50.I think the predominant reason why people want to be sports were --
:01:51. > :01:55.sports writers is because they love sport. In my case, I knew from a
:01:56. > :01:59.very early stage wanted to be a sportswriter and it's because I
:02:00. > :02:04.liked writing essays when I was in English class as a kid and I loved
:02:05. > :02:09.sport and I put the two together and it equalled sport presenter --
:02:10. > :02:13.reporter. We must talk about Lance Armstrong and your pursuit, and I
:02:14. > :02:18.think that's the right word, used it as the subtitle of your book, Hume
:02:19. > :02:24.and the seven deadly sins. He talked about your pursuit. -- him. Why did
:02:25. > :02:29.you turn it into a crusade, omission, you against him? Well,
:02:30. > :02:33.that is how it turned out. I don't know if I consciously decided, I'm
:02:34. > :02:39.going to dedicate all this time to pursuing one guy. I mean, the sport
:02:40. > :02:42.was dirty at the time. Lance was one of many riders who joked that they
:02:43. > :02:46.all didn't, there were plenty of guys who were clean and they got
:02:47. > :02:50.completely betrayed by their sport. The reason why Lance became such an
:02:51. > :02:55.important figure is because he was an emblem on what we were told was
:02:56. > :02:59.to change sport. He was this fantastically feelgood story. The
:03:00. > :03:04.guy that came back from cancer. Young, he almost died from
:03:05. > :03:10.testicular cancer. Then in 1999, he rode again in 1999, he went into
:03:11. > :03:14.seven victories. It was perhaps the most heroic victory in sport that
:03:15. > :03:22.anybody of my generation can ever remember. Yes. And you, more than
:03:23. > :03:27.anyone else, burst that bubble. Greg LeMond, an American man who had won
:03:28. > :03:30.seven times, said to me at the very early stage of this investigation I
:03:31. > :03:34.was conducting into Armstrong, he said that if this comeback from
:03:35. > :03:38.cancer is true, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sport and
:03:39. > :03:41.it is not true, it's the greatest fraud. As a journalist, you are
:03:42. > :03:44.thinking that if this is the greatest fraud and you believe it is
:03:45. > :03:50.so, you have an absolute responsibility to go after it and
:03:51. > :03:54.reveal it to be so. You came up against an extremely powerful set of
:03:55. > :04:00.interests who did not want that story, your story, to be written. I
:04:01. > :04:03.don't just talk about Lance Armstrong and his entourage but am
:04:04. > :04:09.also thinking about the authorities in the sport because Lance Armstrong
:04:10. > :04:13.brought to cycling a sort of profile, standing in the world of
:04:14. > :04:16.sport which they couldn't find anywhere else so to trash his
:04:17. > :04:22.reputation was too trashed the sport as a whole. Yes, it was. It was too
:04:23. > :04:26.trashed at global icon as well. This is a guy he went on mountain bike
:04:27. > :04:31.rides with President George W Bush. This is a guy who was best friends
:04:32. > :04:35.with Matthew McConaghy, the Hollywood actor. This is a man who
:04:36. > :04:39.went way beyond his sport. People around the world looked up to him as
:04:40. > :04:45.some kind of saviour. He had come back from cancer, life-threatening
:04:46. > :04:49.cancer, and people, every single person, no matter where you live,
:04:50. > :04:54.you knew somebody with cancer, family, a relative, you are going
:04:55. > :04:58.out and you are buying Lance's book and saying, with this and find
:04:59. > :05:03.inspiration. Howl apprehensive for you about, and let's use this word
:05:04. > :05:06.again, pursuit. The lawyers representing Armstrong were
:05:07. > :05:12.consistently on your case and the case of your newspaper, the Sunday
:05:13. > :05:17.Times. That went for about three years, 2004, 2005, 2006. They were
:05:18. > :05:21.dominated by meetings with lawyers and discussing the case. A case that
:05:22. > :05:26.we were always going to lose because of the UK's Draconian libel laws. He
:05:27. > :05:30.could never sue us in America, he could never sue us in France is in
:05:31. > :05:34.those countries, the burden of truth would have been on Armstrong to
:05:35. > :05:38.prove that I was lying and I was never lying. But in this country, we
:05:39. > :05:42.had to prove that Armstrong was doping and that was close to
:05:43. > :05:46.impossible. You got other cyclists to talk and we now know that as you
:05:47. > :05:53.said, the systematic doping was rife in many different teams, many top
:05:54. > :05:59.cyclist were doing it. How did you break down the sort of Wall of
:06:00. > :06:04.silence, that there was at the top of elite cycling? Because I tried
:06:05. > :06:10.and when you try to... I believed it was the right thing. I exposed one
:06:11. > :06:13.key bit of information that Armstrong worked with a doping
:06:14. > :06:18.doctor. A simple question, why would a so-called clean rider work with a
:06:19. > :06:24.doping doctor? Armstrong believed he was in a honest man and people
:06:25. > :06:29.accepted that. The doctor was due to stand trial two months after
:06:30. > :06:34.Armstrong was convicted of doping. When people see you trying to do the
:06:35. > :06:38.right thing, you come forward -- they come forward. I had Lance's
:06:39. > :06:42.long-time teammate, I had Emma O'Reilly who had been a personal
:06:43. > :06:47.masseuse to Lance when he won his first Tour de France. They came to
:06:48. > :06:51.me and told their story. A man from New Zealand who rode with him. He
:06:52. > :06:55.said that Lance was the biggest advocate of doping in his team.
:06:56. > :07:00.Three witnesses with evidence of Lance's doping. I put it all in a
:07:01. > :07:04.book and I thought that was it that Armstrong was too powerful, even
:07:05. > :07:08.with all the evidence in the world, you couldn't bring him down. And it
:07:09. > :07:13.wasn't until five years ago that actually, the US cycling
:07:14. > :07:16.authorities, and then it moved on to the world doping authorities, but
:07:17. > :07:19.they finally revealed the truth of the scale of the doping that
:07:20. > :07:26.Armstrong had been involved in and in the end he was banned from
:07:27. > :07:30.cycling. In fact, banned from all professional sport. He is finished
:07:31. > :07:35.and now he is way beyond the age where he could be a cyclist that if
:07:36. > :07:42.you were to meet Lance Armstrong today, what would you say to him? --
:07:43. > :07:46.but if you were to meet. It's a question I have often considered. I
:07:47. > :07:50.think I would want the conversation to be incredibly private. I wouldn't
:07:51. > :07:56.want it to be in any way used by Lancelot anyone else for a kind of
:07:57. > :08:04.PR purpose. -- Lance, or anyone else. The people who have never been
:08:05. > :08:16.revealed as can Spirit River in what was ... The relationship between you
:08:17. > :08:19.and him and goodness knows, it is even a Hollywood movie, the
:08:20. > :08:23.relationship between you and him is fascinating. When did you actually
:08:24. > :08:28.last see him and swap words with him? The 2004 Tour de France at a
:08:29. > :08:32.press conference at the book had just come out. I am sitting in the
:08:33. > :08:39.front row. He asked about the book and looks down at me and says,
:08:40. > :08:45."Seeing as the esteemed author was here, I will answer him". These
:08:46. > :08:50.extraordinary allegations must be followed with extraordinary proof.
:08:51. > :08:54.The answer is why should it be extraordinary proof from Lance
:08:55. > :08:59.Armstrong? He was right. Ordinary proof didn't touch him. In the end,
:09:00. > :09:05.the United States anti- doping agency got 11 witnesses. They all
:09:06. > :09:13.had first-hand accounts of Lance's doping. In a sense, it made your
:09:14. > :09:19.career in a journalist, long to have that piece that made Hollywood
:09:20. > :09:22.movies and you have that. You found your life consumed by this and at
:09:23. > :09:28.one point, your daughter made a comment when she saw he won the B
:09:29. > :09:32.about Lance and she said, I'm watching you on TV while the rest of
:09:33. > :09:42.the family are having dinner, same old, same old. -- she saw you on a
:09:43. > :09:47.TV. Was it worth it? I never saw it as a sacrifice. This was the most
:09:48. > :09:55.fun I was ever going to have as a journalist. People are always
:09:56. > :10:00.astounded. You were sued? He cost your newspaper million. And your
:10:01. > :10:04.family? And I said actually, it wasn't horrible. I had a good time.
:10:05. > :10:08.I never felt more journalistically alive as I was during those years. I
:10:09. > :10:16.know it is a preposterous kind of comparison because what happened
:10:17. > :10:22.with Bob Woodward and Watergate was violently bigger than Armstrong but
:10:23. > :10:26.if you look at that movie, all the President's men, what she sees to
:10:27. > :10:30.journalists on the case, having the time of their lives, knowing they
:10:31. > :10:35.will be another story like this. On a much smaller scale, had that
:10:36. > :10:39.feeling with Armstrong. I can see the excitement shining in your eyes
:10:40. > :10:42.Right now. It forces me then to move the clock forward and talk about how
:10:43. > :10:46.you have conducted some of your journalism in more recent years. You
:10:47. > :10:50.haven't left sport and certainly you haven't left a cycling. You are
:10:51. > :10:55.still a very influential cycling journalist. Why, having learnt the
:10:56. > :11:02.lessons learned from the Armstrong case, did you decide in more recent
:11:03. > :11:07.years to vouch for, in a really significant way, the honesty, the
:11:08. > :11:15.credibility, of the dominant cycling team of recent years Team Sky when
:11:16. > :11:19.other journalists are saying that you can't be sure they are cleaned
:11:20. > :11:23.when the industry is still full of drugs. Why did you do that? I had
:11:24. > :11:30.the opportunity to spend 13 weeks with Team Sky. Almost like a
:11:31. > :11:37.military journalists go with the soldiers in the war. You ate with
:11:38. > :11:40.them and you stayed with them but they were using them as a tool
:11:41. > :11:45.because they wanted to convince people they were the new clean team.
:11:46. > :11:52.I think it is right that they used to be that I believe that I think
:11:53. > :11:56.about 70 or 80 people are working in the team. I believe if you took four
:11:57. > :12:00.people out of that team and one of them is already gone that you would
:12:01. > :12:08.have very clean team. I was to go into that team and there is no
:12:09. > :12:14.question I was duped. Duped? Duped. He was knighted. If he had told me
:12:15. > :12:19.at the time he invited me into the team, by the way, we gave a
:12:20. > :12:25.therapeutic exemption to Bradley before the 2011 Tour de France. We
:12:26. > :12:28.will have two hold up a little bit and explains of this for our
:12:29. > :12:31.audience because it is quite consecrated to the therapeutic
:12:32. > :12:38.exemption is important in the world of cyclist because substance is who
:12:39. > :12:42.are banned for riders can be given as long as there is proof for a
:12:43. > :12:46.medical need and now we are talking about Bradley Wiggins who won the
:12:47. > :12:50.Tour de France in 2012 but it turns out and we didn't know at the time
:12:51. > :12:54.and you didn't know when you are embedded with Team Sky, but it turns
:12:55. > :12:58.out that in three of his most significant lifetime races, just
:12:59. > :13:04.before those races, he got those therapeutic exemptions and he took a
:13:05. > :13:07.drug which could, in theory, have significantly enhanced his
:13:08. > :13:13.performance. Yes. The thing about it is you can say oh, you were duped,
:13:14. > :13:19.you weren't told that he actually duped lots of people inside his own
:13:20. > :13:23.team. Chris Broome who finished second -- Christopher. He had no
:13:24. > :13:29.idea that Bradley Wigan 's was given these.
:13:30. > :13:36.Because he got the exemption, it was not illegal or contrary to the
:13:37. > :13:42.sport. I think it is more correct to say it may not have been illegal. If
:13:43. > :13:47.you get an exemption by exaggerating your symptoms, that is not legal. We
:13:48. > :13:53.do not know that. It may be that Bradley Wiggins was entitled. Would
:13:54. > :14:01.it have been different if a Bradley Wiggins and the team had been
:14:02. > :14:07.transparent at the time? He took it before the race because I had a
:14:08. > :14:12.problem. Of course, that would have been much better but they would have
:14:13. > :14:17.drawn criticism. People would say, why did he needed four days before
:14:18. > :14:23.the race? They did not tell Chris Froome on any of the other riders,
:14:24. > :14:29.they did not tell some of the doctors. We touched this earlier in
:14:30. > :14:33.the conversation, the degree to which you as a journalist have the
:14:34. > :14:41.right without it the most powerful evidence to trash the careers of
:14:42. > :14:47.elite sports people. In the last six months, and very consciously trashed
:14:48. > :14:52.Bradley Wiggins. You said you do not want to hear any more about the Tour
:14:53. > :14:58.de France victory because it has been devalued, that as far as you
:14:59. > :15:03.are concerned his reputation has been lost and yet, I come back to
:15:04. > :15:09.the point, the man has done nothing wrong in terms of the rule of his
:15:10. > :15:14.sport. In terms of the rule of the sport, he certainly has not in
:15:15. > :15:20.sanction. I do not accept the point that it is not absolute that it not
:15:21. > :15:23.commit a doping in fraction. There is an investigation about a
:15:24. > :15:29.mysterious package that was delivered to him in 2011. Sky have
:15:30. > :15:34.failed to say what was in that package. That could have been
:15:35. > :15:39.something it was not legal. If not why didn't they tell us what was in
:15:40. > :15:47.the package. It took them so long. The point is, you can say I trashing
:15:48. > :15:53.him but Team Sky leading writer, three-time win of the Tour de France
:15:54. > :15:57.has said that in his view what happened with Bradley Wiggins was
:15:58. > :16:06.unethical and immoral. You are talking about Chris Froome. In a
:16:07. > :16:10.way, this ethical and moral area is your decision to be so harsh on what
:16:11. > :16:14.we know about Bradley Wiggins but still to maintain that as far as you
:16:15. > :16:20.can on and your personal knowledge of the man that Chris Froome in your
:16:21. > :16:25.view is a man you will always vouch for. You completely believe in his
:16:26. > :16:30.credibility and you will not countenance any question of the
:16:31. > :16:38.legitimacy of his race victories. Everybody has the right to question.
:16:39. > :16:42.That is what I do for a living... But you co-authored his book, Hugh
:16:43. > :16:47.have shaken hands with the man, you have said to him I believe in you.
:16:48. > :16:52.What would you like me to do? Would you like me to say I believe in
:16:53. > :16:59.Chris Froome but it would be prudent to sit on the fence? That is not my
:17:00. > :17:05.nature. It is exactly what some of the most experienced people in the
:17:06. > :17:13.business said you should have done. One said you have been naive. Why
:17:14. > :17:18.did you not stay neutral? Why SA and out for the fact he is clean when at
:17:19. > :17:23.some future point you may look stupid it turns out that he was not.
:17:24. > :17:29.I do not see my reputation as being that relevant. If I believe somebody
:17:30. > :17:38.is clean I am going to lie and sit on the fans. You look to that person
:17:39. > :17:43.to say it. If I did not leave he was clean I would say the opposite top
:17:44. > :17:47.for me the idea of sitting off the fence is totally... I understand
:17:48. > :17:54.what you are saying but to pick away at Chris Froome stop he is the same
:17:55. > :18:00.clause during a race. He got an exemption to take a drug on the land
:18:01. > :18:04.leased only say it was fundamentally different from Bradley Wiggins and
:18:05. > :18:10.you are partly convinced by the Chris Froome because you had a very
:18:11. > :18:14.private one-on-one talk with him when he explained lots of things.
:18:15. > :18:19.What did he say to you that convinced you so much of his
:18:20. > :18:26.integrity? It was not just that but that was a moment and by the way, I
:18:27. > :18:31.have never gone... Let me put that conversation first into the complex.
:18:32. > :18:36.I in a hotel booking up the fire escape and he is coming down. It is
:18:37. > :18:43.one of those staircases where nobody is going to come and he said to me,
:18:44. > :18:51.I want to tell you one thing, I am telling you now that as long as I
:18:52. > :18:57.live what I have achieved in this race, the perception of it, will
:18:58. > :19:02.never be changed by anything that comes out. Lance Armstrong would
:19:03. > :19:10.have looked you in the eye and said exactly the same thing. He did not.
:19:11. > :19:15.I met Lance and spoke to him and I said to him, what about doping, this
:19:16. > :19:21.sport has got so much bad press and he your winning the first Tour de
:19:22. > :19:27.France, and he said, I will address this question once and once only and
:19:28. > :19:32.I was saying, you have to fall in love with cycling again. He never
:19:33. > :19:39.actually said, I will never do, he said I have tested positive and
:19:40. > :19:43.passed all the controls. If you are covering the sport and you see lots
:19:44. > :19:48.of this stuff you actually know how to read what people are saying and
:19:49. > :19:54.saying I have passed all the tests is not the same as saying I do not
:19:55. > :19:59.dope. I want to broaden the conversation because cycling has
:20:00. > :20:04.been one of your key focus is but you are also look at wider sport and
:20:05. > :20:10.drugs and professional athletes, how can it be that after decades of
:20:11. > :20:13.focus on stamping out the illegal substances in sport, performance
:20:14. > :20:18.enhancing drugs, that he had to date we probably can say there is more
:20:19. > :20:25.systematic use of performance enhancing drugs in athletics, sites
:20:26. > :20:30.links and other sports than ever before. I do not think you can say
:20:31. > :20:36.that. Look at what we learnt about the Russians? Systematic doping in
:20:37. > :20:40.Russia, the Russian systematic doping has been going on for at
:20:41. > :20:46.least 40 years according to the report... You worked in the recent
:20:47. > :20:52.past with the former Russian anti- doping executive who blew the
:20:53. > :20:57.whistle plus his partner who did dope for a while, you have worked
:20:58. > :21:05.with them and they have told you that it was on an industrial scale?
:21:06. > :21:12.But going back for decades. In the very recent past, industrial scale.
:21:13. > :21:21.The world anti- doping agency, the rate double a F, -- IAAF, have spent
:21:22. > :21:28.years telling us they act cleaning it out. The reason why Russia were
:21:29. > :21:31.able to get away with it was that it was state supported. If you have the
:21:32. > :21:39.Ministry of Sport, the antique doping agency all conspiring to
:21:40. > :21:46.cheat, that gives the advantages... Men who claimed to be on the side of
:21:47. > :21:52.the good guys like Sebastian Coe, and indeed the world anti- doping
:21:53. > :21:58.agency, you are saying they do not have the will capacity to take on
:21:59. > :22:04.state programmes devoted to doping? Yes... And they definitely did not
:22:05. > :22:09.have the resources... Do they have the will? I not sure. If they were
:22:10. > :22:15.better resourced that would have eager staff they probably would have
:22:16. > :22:20.better people and better protocols but the format director-general
:22:21. > :22:29.David Holman once said, our annual budget is less than an annual wage.
:22:30. > :22:36.The entire agency budget for one year is less than one footballer,
:22:37. > :22:40.not even the highest, then his annual wages. That is what we think
:22:41. > :22:46.of doping. In other words, we are not concerned enough about doping to
:22:47. > :22:54.make a real impact. We are almost at the end, I want to start at the
:22:55. > :22:59.beginning again, about being a fan. One person said when I watch cycling
:23:00. > :23:06.I simply cannot bear to watch it any more, I cannot take it seriously,
:23:07. > :23:15.you certainly cannot be a fan. How can you still be a fan knowing what
:23:16. > :23:20.you know? That is my definition of cynicism. He called on realism. He
:23:21. > :23:27.can and I call that cynicism stop what happens if somebody who is
:23:28. > :23:34.clean wins the Tour de France and you brand him a cheap without having
:23:35. > :23:39.any evidence, knowledge or inside or anything - that to me is that
:23:40. > :23:45.cynicism stop I would fight against cynicism as I would against people
:23:46. > :23:47.who dope. David Walsh, fascinating stuff, thank you for being on
:23:48. > :23:48.HARDtalk. Thank