The Conspiratorialists

Disclaimer: the theories postulated in the following article are far too ridiculous to be accurate. In reality, Nike had about as much to do with the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team’s doping regime as the Looney Tunes had to do with Michael Jordan’s return to basketball.

Part 3: The End Of The Beginning

Ultimate control

In the organisation’s 1000 page dossier, USADA says that the evidence collated in the document makes it “clear that Armstrong had ultimate control over not only his own personal drug use, which was extensive, but also over the doping culture of his team”, an accusation Armstrong vehemently denied in his interview with Oprah Winfrey. Now, of course, we know that his denial was completely untrue. In fact, Armstrong was merely a pawn in Nike’s game, a symbol wielded by the brand in order to control the rest of the US Postal Service riders.

Almost every religion has a deity. Every single member of the US Postal Service Pro Cycling team was a Christian so, in order to create and indoctrinate these men into a new religion, it made sense for Nike to adopt a number of Christianity’s beliefs to make the transition less jarring. The most obvious of these is the Trinity: a deity split into three separate parts. In Christianity, these three parts are the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost; in Space Jam, their representatives are Michael Jordan, Bugs Bunny and the ball; for the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team, God was Nike, the Son was Lance Armstrong and the Holy Ghost was the doping programme.

A pair of Nike Livestrong Kicks. Nike continue to support the charity.

have already made the connections between the ball and the programme abundantly clear. Michael Jordan, it is sad to say, was another unwitting puppet in Nike’s master plan. Whether the brand had any influence on his return to basketball is hard to say, but what we can say is that Nike had been alongside Jordan for almost every step of his journey while, for the two decades of Jordan’s dominance, he became the figurehead for Nike’s brand.

I am now going to address an issue that I’m sure many of you have been fidgeting about for the majority of this exposé: even though the Nerdlucks dope, they lose. This in no way detracts from my argument thus far. The Monstars lose for a number of very simple reasons: they are not the heroes, they change their name, their talent is not their own and, most importantly, they defy their immediate authority figure. The message Nike were sending to the US Postal Service cyclists is obvious: talent is not enough, you must have belief and, most importantly, you must never, ever, defy us.

At half time, with defeat staring the Looney Tunes in the face, Bugs Bunny grabs a nondescript drink bottle, fills it up with water, writes “Michael’s Secret Stuff” on it and takes a swig. Bulking his body up to over thrice its actual size, Bugs Bunny puts on the semblance of a rippling, muscled form, flexing and posturing in front of his teammates. “Stop hogging it mike”, says Bugs Bunny, thrusting the bottle at the rest of the Looney Tunes, “we’re your teammates!”

The pivotal scene in Space Jam, where Michael Jordan shares his “Secret Stuff”.

Believing the bottle to contain some sort of performance enhancing substance, each of the Looney Tunes takes a big swig. Each ‘toon in turn grits its teeth and furrows its brow, believing that the drink has made them superhuman. Despite the point deficit, the Looney Tunes win the game, all thanks to “Michael’s Secret Stuff”. It is only revealed to the team after they have run rings around the opposition – an opposition with the ability of three NBA All-Star players and two experienced professionals, no less – that “Michael’s Secret Stuff” was water all along.

It is the team’s belief, not the effects of a performance enhancing drug, which earned them the victory. After watching the pivotal moment of Space Jam, the US Postal Service riders understood that if they believed that they had enhanced their performance, if they believed in themselves and the team, they would win. No less importantly, the fact that “Michael’s Secret Stuff” was water downplayed, in their eyes, the seriousness of the teams’ doping offences: they could fool themselves that, in reality, all they were taking was a placebo that only increased their self-belief.

Secrecy was a large part of the US Postal Service Team’s doping programme. Not only did each rider jealously guard their inner sanctuary from the outside world, they also talked in codes and moved in secret. The drug EPO became ‘Poe’, while each rider was given a paper bag, like a child’s lunch bag, full of performance enhancing drugs to take back with them after races. On occasion, claims Tyler Hamilton, they even flew to Spain in private jets to receive blood transfusions.

In the “Michael’s Secret Stuff” scene, Armstrong’s role in Nike’s doping programme becomes clear. Armstrong is Bugs Bunny: he is the team captain, he is the man who regulates the rest of the players and he is, by his own admission, a ‘bully’. Nike used the “win at all cost attitude” that Lance Armstrong had cultivated during his fight with cancer to turn him into, in their eyes, the ultimate sportsman. He became “ruthless” and “relentless”, willing to do anything to win and willing to push his team to even more ludicrous feats in order to achieve victory. Armstrong’s cancer survival was also a boon to Nike, who wielded it in front of their star man like a shield, deflecting any suspicion and criticism fired Armstrong’s way. During Armstrong’s dominance, especially in the time trial stages of the Tour de France (a race ironically called “the race of truth”), Nike ensured that a lot was made of his post-cancer weight, as if it was his meagre stature that was propelling him to victory after victory. In Armstrong, Nike had their Bugs Bunny: a man who never lost and was impervious to harm.

There is a final, subtle, significance to the Monstars defeat: Nike’s representatives were telling the cyclists that all their opponents were doping as well, but that it didn’t help them. In an interview with Sky Sports last year, US Postal Service rider Tyler Hamilton said that, during his time with the team, around 80% of the cyclists on the Tour were doping. In the last section, I talked about the importance Nike placed on creating an inner sanctuary for the players, so that they could protect themselves from the doping allegations that the media and other competitors threw at them. These allegations, however, needed to be deflected somewhere else. Where better than at the Tour itself?

Hamilton talks about his book, The Secret Race, in an interview with Sky Sports.

Even before his cancer diagnosis, Lance Armstrong had been using performance enhancing drugs. Nike did not force him to start using them, they just created a programme that was completely undetectable to the anti-doping and cycling authorities. Armstrong certainly was not the only cyclist on drugs during the 1990s and into the new millennium, while the rest of the US Postal Service cycling team still only made up a fraction of the number of riders doping on the Tour. Tyler Hamilton’s 80%, however, seems a lot.

Whether or not there were that many riders doping is immaterial. What is important is that the US Postal Service riders believed there were that many. In Space Jam, when the Nerdlucks steal the talent from five NBA stars, they leave their victims distressed, discombobulated and dyspraxic. There is uproar as NBA players refuse to play, afraid that they will develop the same symptoms. In order to stop the perceived disease from spreading, the NBA authorities close the entire league down until the problem can be sorted. So, despite the fact that five extra-terrestrial insurgents are to blame for the players’ conditions, the NBA authorities are not only blamed, but persecuted.

In the brainwashed imaginations of the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team riders, the NBA authority is substituted for the authority behind the Tour de France: they see that any failure on their part – whether the failure is a stage loss or a personal mistake – is due to the failures of the cycling authorities to sort out the doping epidemic. Even now, a decade since the US Postal Service Team’s final win, Tyler Hamilton is blaming the doping atmosphere of the Tour – claiming everyone did it and hence, he reckoned, so should he.

Of course, both Hamilton and Armstrong have now admitted to doping. What’s strange is that at no point have they pointed the finger at Nike, the brand behind the doping programme in the first place. Hamilton’s claim that 80% of the Tour were doping was the first niggling detail that doesn’t sit right. Especially as, in another interview with CNN, Hamilton contradicts himself, saying that even though Armstrong claims that everyone was doping, making it an even playing field, it’s “not true”. Another hint was Armstrong’s unwillingness to name anyone else involved in the doping scandal unless they had already come out themselves. Dr. Michele Ferrari, for one, is inconspicuous: a man whose name was mentioned alongside doping offences even before he became involved with Armstrong.

 

The final, most important, intimation that Armstrong is not saying all he should can be found early on in his interview with Oprah Winfrey. Oprah asks, “Ok let me read you this. The United States Anti-Doping Agency, USADA, issued a 164-page report which I’ve read. The CEO Travis Tygart said that you and United States Postal Service Cycling Team pulled off, his words: “the most sophisticated, professional and successful doping programme the sport has ever seen. Was it?”

Hamilton contradicts himself in this interview with Piers Morgan on CNN.

“No, no”, responds Armstrong, “It was definitely professional and it was definitely smart – if you can call it that – but it was very conservative, very risk-averse, very aware of what mattered and what didn’t: one race mattered for me.” That race, of course, being the Tour de France.

The end of the beginning

We may never know what threats Nike have hung over Armstrong’s head, but they must be considerable if he was willing to compound the fabrication he had lived in for so long by lying again on what was supposed to be a tell-all interview. My only hope is that Nike don’t come knocking on my door or, worse still, its agents exact the retribution they promised Armstrong would come if he didn’t toe the line. Let me say now that Nike weren’t as clever or careful as they thought when they propelled Armstrong to the top of the Tour. It may have taken a while but, and I will emphasise the fact that I have had nothing to do with Armstrong nor he with me, finally the truth has come out. It was simple really: Nike has been too involved in Armstrong’s and Jordan’s careers for it not to be the brand’s intention to catapult both to the top of their respective sports, by any means necessary, riding on their coattails. The parallels between Space Jam, Armstrong’s recovery and the dominance of the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team, both in timing and detail, cannot be coincidental.

 

Finally, I will take a minute to stress that during my research I found nothing to suggest that Michael Jordan, but for his starring role in Space Jam, was at all involved in the US Postal Service Team’s doping programme, nor do I believe he has ever used performance enhancing drugs to improve his performance on the court. I also believe that the Livestrong Foundation is completely blameless: it just had the misfortune to be founded by Armstrong and funded by Nike. The Livestrong Foundation does good work, and the motto it has retained from the Nike/Armstrong era is as relevant to its beliefs as it was to the US Postal Service Team’s doping programme. Like Armstrong, both the Livestrong Foundation and Michael Jordan were pawns in Nike’s game: a nefarious game which, though I have partly uncovered, remains hidden and mysterious. One thing we can be sure of, however, is that Nike isn’t finished. There are currently around 50 professional athletes who are sponsored by Nike, many of whom are at the top of their sport. Christiano Ronaldo, Rafael Nadal, Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods and Serena Williams are among those on Nike’s illustrious roster. Any one of them could be the next Lance Armstrong, the next athlete that Nike decides isn’t useful to them any more, the next athlete to be propelled to the top and then, just as quickly, violently even, dropped to the bottom.

 

Unbelievers dwell on this: how can it be a coincidence that Nike was the first company to drop Armstrong after the doping scandal, yet they stuck with Tiger Woods, a man who despite an infidelity scandal and a well-publicised divorce has regained his position as the number one golf player in the world? When Armstrong staged a comeback in 2009 without Nike’s support, he only just made the podium.