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Outside Magazine June 2003

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Force Majeure (Cont.)


	(Anton Corbijn)

THERE IS ONE FEAR that everyone in the inner circle shares: disappointing Lance. "There are examples of guys who have endured with Lance and there are guys that haven't," says Bart Knaggs. "Very few of us are the best in the world at what we do. You're at pretty big risk of not living up to Lance Armstrong's standards. Shit, Lance just expects as much out of everybody else as he does himself."

If Lance senses the slightest hint of disloyalty or lack of dedication, you're gone. "The world is black-and-white to him," says Korioth, 36, an old friend who now sells insurance for a living. "And it's a lot easier to make decisions when it's that way."

Shortly before he was diagnosed, Armstrong had signed a

"The longer you try to continue a streak, it's mathematically and historically less and less likely," Lance says. "It's no accident that nobody's won more than five. The variables, the bad luck—you'd think they'd start to catch up to you."

two-year, $2.5 million contract with the French cycling team Cofidis. When his illness forced him to sit out the 1997 season, Cofidis dumped him. For Armstrong, it was an ignominious, disloyal move and an incredible blow to his fast-healing ego. (On the other hand, Armstrong has vowed to stick with Nike and Oakley for life, because they honored their deals with him.) Newly unemployed, he showed up with Stapleton at the Interbike trade show in Anaheim, California, that August and announced that he was about to make "the greatest comeback in the history of sports." Then the two sat back and waited for the offers to roll in. Nobody responded.

Armstrong was furious. It didn't register that potential sponsors might see him as a risk, or even damaged goods. He had survived cancer and decided to race again. What more did they need to know? Even Weisel, who had bankrolled Armstrong's first pro-am team, Subaru-Montgomery, and had just started the USPS squad, was lukewarm. Lance took it out on his agent. Stapleton had finally decided to quit the law firm and was working at home for his one and only client when he got the scare of his career.

"It was like 'I've made my comeback, and I want all this stuff, I want all these deals, and they're not happening,'" he recalls, sounding a little queasy. "He sent me an e-mail and told me I had a deadline of three months to get some stuff done or he was going to find somebody else. I was sick to my stomach. I was physically ill. I was like 'I've put so much into this and I'm going to lose him.' It was a real test for me."

Stapleton passed, nailing down the Postal Service contract in six weeks, with Lance getting $200,000 a year and huge winning bonuses to start. The experience cemented their relationship, but the way it played out—Make this happen, or adios—showed how calculating Lance had become. Combined with his ruthless dedication to his schedule, such episodes have led those outside the inner circle to characterize Armstrong as a machine. But Knaggs says the guy he's gotten to know over the last 12 years does indeed have a soul. "His assessment of talent, his insight, is not formulaic," Knaggs says. "The gut hunch is very good."

Armstrong's relationship with John Korioth also shows that he's human. Korioth had gone from brother to persona non grata after being forced out of his post at the foundation in 1998. The two didn't talk again until Korioth popped up in a July 2001 Texas Monthly article, defending Armstrong against long-percolating accusations that he used EPO—erythropoietin, a drug that boosts oxygen levels in blood and is banned from use in cycling. Armstrong was floored that Korioth had stood up for him, and rekindled their friendship by flying him over for the last week of the Tour.

"It was just two dumbass guys holding a grudge," says Korioth. Now, when Armstrong is in Austin, the two ride together every day.

For every example like Stapleton's brush with unemployment or Korioth's deep freeze, there are instances of Armstrong reaching out and giving people a lift. Stephanie McIlvain has been his liaison at Oakley, his sunglasses sponsor, for 12 years. When her three-year-old son was diagnosed with autism two years ago, she quit so she could stay at home and care for him. Armstrong wouldn't have it. He told Oakley he wouldn't work with anyone else, so the company rehired her and let her work from home, with the sole responsibility of tending to Lance.

"He sent me this e-mail the other day that actually made me cry," she told me. "I don't remember why, but he just said, 'Steph, you're an awesome person, you're a great mother, and for that you're a hero.'"

Lee Walker, 62, a key adviser who has taken over as chairman of the foundation, praises Armstrong's "emotional intelligence."

"Lance has a great capacity for making you like him," says Walker, who is six foot ten and wears a black cowboy hat that he calls his "air bag." "So it's no surprise that he's got a devoted band of eclectic, kindred souls who would do anything for him, and I think him for us. He attends to his friends." Walker gives this example: One day, Lance noticed Walker's toes poking out of a ratty pair of shoes. "Next thing I know, I've got seven pairs of new Nikes"—in size 17. "Who else does that?"

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