From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France

by David Walsh

For eight years, the Tour de France, arguably the world's most demanding athletic competition, was ruled by two men: Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. On the surface, they were feature players in one... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 034549962X
• ISBN13: 9780345499622
• Release Date: June 2007
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 334 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Vaughters and Andreu seal the deal

I read this book in one 15-hour sitting. Utterly engrossing. I had heard all of the rumors about Betsy Andreu, Emma O'Reilly, Prentice Steffen, Stephen Swart, etc. But nothing prepared me for the IM conversation between Jonathan Vaughters and Frankie Andreu. If you are left with any doubts about the pervasiveness of doping in cycling, or of Lance Armstrong's participation in said doping, after reading that conversation, you are either one of two things: 1. In complete denial, whether due to a heartfelt connection with Lance or extreme Americentrism, or 2. Connected to Lance financially. For that is the final lesson here: it's all about the money. I have read both of Lance's books and Floyd's book. Not one stands up to the challenge when confronted with Walsh's investigation. He has made a convert out of me.

At long last!!

As a keen amateur cyclist, I had long been aware about doping in cycling. Friends and acquaintances who have ridden professionally have told me about how widespread this practice is. But the official press seems to have continually glossed over it. At long last someone has come out and exposed these guys for what they are - cheats! This book exposes Lance and others for the cheats and hypocrites that they are. Maybe we will again be able to see a Tour de France won by a clean cyclist. I found the book very well written. The facts were outlined clearly and the conclusions were arrived at in a consistently logical manner.

Well written and investigated.

I didn't want to read this book and didn't want to know that to win or stay in the bike race a person had to cheat. David makes a great case for the cancer of the sport that's been around since photosynthesis. Someone asked me what I thought. I said, "you have to read it to begin to grasp something we don't want to know about". He reveals an ugly side of being human and the cruelty toward others who strive for higher ideals. I am dissapointed in my sports heros. Thanks David for the peak behind the curtains. Now I understand why the Germans pulled out of the TV coverage this year. This is a must read for the sports world.

Truly amazing how one could remain skeptical after reading this

Being a serious cycling fan from the 80's, I strayed away from the sport around 1991 and never read or watched a single minute of coverage again until 2002 when I began following the Tour de France again. But now (in 2002) something was different: I remembered this race being about the grueling faces of riders struggling to climb mountains, but these guys were now flying up long mountain passes looking like machines - they usually weren't even breathing through their mouths. Something wasn't right about all of this, but I just placed it into the back of my mind and sort of got halfway caught up in all of the Lance hoopla. Now, this book "From Lance to Landis" has explained everything: how doping took on a huge increase with the introduction of the drug r-EPO in the early 90's, and how it transformed the sport in the 90's and 2000's. There is so much circumstantial evidence in this book that it leads one to ask the question, "just what is a smoking gun, anyway?" The evidence against Lance and Landis is overwhelming. When this much smoke exists, do we really need to see the gun? Then again, don't we see the gun itself with regards to the '99 Tour? How is that not a smoking gun? Anytime a 'procedure' exists anywhere in life, it can be brought into question by simply "questioning the procedure" - this is why the dopers will always have somewhere to put the blame regardless of how guilty they may be. It is of interest to note Armstrong's official response to this book as found on his website. Lance continually tries to beat home the idea that of his 600+ acquaintances through his years of cycling, only 2 have come forward and spoken against Lance (the Andreu's). However, in this book, I can guarantee you that there are no less than 40 sources that the author cites directly in reference to Lance. That's just a plain fact. Another fact that becomes obvious upon reading this book is that the problem of doping in cycling has been a problem far, far beyond the two individuals of Armstrong and Landis. The entire sport has been dominated by doping for many years, from the riders, to the teams, to the journalists, to the directors and organizational bodies of the sport. All in all, if you are interested in the subject matter of this book, it is extremely well put together. Highly recommended.

Finally, a coherent examination of doping in pro cycling

Even to the most well-read US-based cycling fans and cyclists, the current reporting and debate on the existence or non-existence of drug abuse in cycling is a very cloudy topic. Rumors, hearsay, ambiguous reports, and misleading statements fly around, alternatively giving the appearance of doping in cycling either as a monolithic, opaque cabal, or a motley collection of clueless riders, team managers, doctors, and assistants in a convoluted web of trickery and incompetence. David Walsh has managed to offer a very coherent, readable, enlightening picture of how things were, how things came to be, who the players are, and clarify some of the misunderstood ideals in the subject. I do not know if his offering is necessarily 100% accurate, but his book is a real gem in organizing disparate reports from various athletes, team staff members, and sources from governing bodies in the sport. Walsh does a fair job in underlining evidence and recorded information, and his own propositions. For that, he deserves credit. This book connected various dots gathered from published information and recorded testimonials pointing towards the end-goal of his investigation: which is that Armstrong and Landis conclusively doped. One cannot help but feel that although Walsh managed to show that many pieces of evidence point to that conclusion, he falls just short of that ultimate goal. Hence the earlier parts of the book -- where he was laying down the background story -- reads more cohesively than the latter parts of the book where he tried to point the discussion towards his primary thesis. Whether you have chosen to believe whether Armstrong (or Landis) had doped in their career, I highly recommend this book. It offers a picture of how different practices came to permeate the sport, and who the primary players are, and the pressures within the peloton to follow the practices of other teams. Prior to this book, I read "The death of Marco Pantani" by Matt Rendell. Simiarly to Walsh's book, Rendell examined medical records, various testimonies and recorded interviews and news reports, and tried to put those in a coherent picture. However, Walsh does a better job in writing the narrative to accompany his pieces of evidence, and propositions.