Chapter 16

In the final week leading up to departing for Beijing, the pace of training slowed a bit, and the logistical events increased, as I had to pack my bikes for shipping, and then start packing for a couple of week in China. Everything seemed to be humming along, I had my passport and other Team USA documents processed, my ticket was in hand, and we were a couple of days or so from heading to the airport.

Until I got a very early morning phone call ... It was Johan, and though he seemed honestly shocked, he simply said “Lance is out...” As I sat there with the phone near my ear, but not totally processing what he was saying, Johan went through the whole sordid story in excruciating detail, or at least as much of it as he knew at the time...

It turned out that some French lab had been given access to some of the “B” samples (you always have two vials drawn in each blood draw, an “A” and a “B” sample, in case something goes wrong with the “A”) ... from the 2005 Tour de France, including samples for Lance ... This lab was testing a new screening process to test for EPO, a blood oxygen drug given primarily to cancer patients in chemo, to help keep blood oxygen levels up, in the hopes of putting less strain on a body already weakened by cancer and chemo at the same time. In 2005 there was no way to test for it, so it hadn’t shown up in real time testing ... But it showed up now in the “B” samples they had been given access to ... Lance had failed a blood test for le Tour three years after the event! This had been percolating since the very first Tour win, that Lance had to be doping, had to be cheating ... And all of us had fallen into line to defend him because Lance said he was clean ... And whatever the ‘Boss’ said was the truth!

Lance was in full on panic mode, and trying to keep the ship on course, but the USOC had seen the advanced test results (as had just about every cycling and mainstream media outlet on the planet!), and had simply ruled him out for Beijing! We had no alternates, and no time or money to find one, so the road race team would be just the three of us: George, Christian and me ... We had been dropped from the Team Time Trial (four riders!), and everything was hanging on the road race at this point ... George and Christian had been entered in the Individual Time Trial, and we were just going to have to adjust and overcome ... Fuck!

My ladies came home to me sitting in the kitchen, just staring off into space ... tears streaked my face, but I wasn’t making a single sound, just staring ... Their happy chatter slowly ground to a halt as they took in my shell-shocked appearance. I’m sure I looked as if I had seen a ghost, and in a way, I had ... The ghost of my entire life as a cyclist, as well as the end of something I had believed in with all my very being! The ‘Boss’ had lied to me! Seven Tour de France wins! An Olympic bronze medal, a charity that had created the whole colored wristband movement as a thing! I was replaying the full initial Olympic phone all in my mind, over and over, replaying the byplay with Lance about being sure I was clean ... All of it was bullshit! My entire world had been pulled out from under me because I had believed...

“Nate?”, said Beth for perhaps the third or thirtieth time, I wasn’t sure... “What’s the matter?”. Such an innocent question, really ... Yet so packed with an explosive punch that I’m pretty sure she couldn’t have foreseen. I just tracked over to her, and then back to staring at the wall... “Nate?”, said Melody, as she reached out to touch my face ... I think I actually flinched away from her gentle touch, for just a second, and then dissolved into sobs ... As one, my ladies just hugged onto me and held me while I cried tears that, I thought, would never end ... Yet, end they had to, and soon! Slowly, patiently, agonizingly they wormed the story out of me, and each one of them went through their own grief and disbelief as they tried to process what it meant ... to each of them, and to me! We ended up all in my bed, just holding each other and reassuring each other, all while they tried to pull me back into just being ... We had two days to try and rebuild everything in my life!