Battle Scars Read online

  Telling the Schlecks was hard, but not as hard as telling Fabian. As teammates at CSC and Leopard, we were so close that during some of his negotiations with the bosses of the biggest teams in the world, he’d put them on speakerphone so I could listen in. Some of the money that was being thrown at him—if I hadn’t heard it myself I wouldn’t have believed it. But Fabian would say, ‘No, I want to stay here with the boys, we’re such a special group.’ They’d say, ‘Fabian, you name your price,’ but he’d reply, ‘It’s not about the money, it’s this group we have.’

  When I told him I was leaving he was pretty pissed off initially, until I could explain it properly. He then realised that I had a twenty-year relationship with Gerry Ryan, and he understood that I simply had to be part of such a significant Australian project.

  As reality dawned that we had a serious team in the making, the names kept coming on board. We had Gerro (Simon Gerrans) and Gossy (Matt Goss), Cookie (Baden Cooke), Durbo (Luke Durbridge), Heppy (Michael Hepburn) and Howard (Leigh Howard). With each guy jumping in, it became more and more exciting.

  Our first national championship in Ballarat in January 2012 was nerve-racking because we knew that if we lost that race with seventeen riders on the start line, questions would be asked. But we were racing guys who were coming off the national road series and this was their world championship so they had good form. Thankfully Gerro came through with the goods that day with a thrilling sprint finish. It was like we’d won the Tour de France.

  We went to the Tour Down Under where Gerro continued his great form, and that whole week was a dream come true. It was one of the proudest moments of my career.

  We never looked back in our first year. Internally things went as smoothly as they appeared to from the outside. We refused to use ‘It’s our first year’ as an excuse for any race we started. We had a few meetings in our training camps in November where we agreed that just because we had a first-year set-up, we weren’t neo-pros and didn’t need to ride like neo-pros. Durbo was winning races, Gossy won a stage of the Giro, we won the team time-trial at Tirreno-Adriatico and Gerro won Milan–San Remo—the oldest and longest race in Europe.

  I’m not sure the average person can appreciate the magnitude of that result. Before the race I told Gerro everything I knew about Fabian, who was one of the big favourites. I tried to explain where he was going to attack and what to do—or what not to do when Fabian decided to drill it all the way to the finish. Like everyone on our team, Gerro rode the perfect race. When he won, it was a massive, massive moment.

  The only box we didn’t tick in our first year was a stage win at the Tour de France. Nevertheless, it was surreal just to be standing on stage for the teams’ presentation before the start. I looked down at Gerry and Shayne, and if they didn’t have a tear in their eye they must have had some bad hayfever. The highlight of my 2012 season was in London during my sixth and final Olympic Games. Once again, just being selected was a mission because we could have sent two teams to London. It really showed how far Australian cycling had come. These days, none of us goes to the Olympics to get a bag of goodies and a free green-and-gold tracksuit. We no longer have the mentality of twenty years ago when we’d be happy if an Australian simply finished the road race. Rather, we went to London expecting to win, and I knew that having to do nine laps of the undulating course around Surrey for 250 km was going to be brutal. I also knew that with teams of only five riders, it would be physically impossible for one nation—mainly Great Britain looking after the red-hot favourite Mark Cavendish—to control a bunch of 140 bike-riders.

  I came out of the Tour de France feeling strong. Without race radios in London the team would need someone to make the calls out there on the roads. We had a fantastic team that included Cadel Evans, Mick Rogers, Gossy and Gerrans. Some of the guys were a little bit sick, which we kept quiet from the media, but it meant my role would be even more important on race day. We had a lot of meetings leading up to the road race, which was where my strength really came out. I told the boys that we’d all won big races in our careers, and how did we do that? By being aggressive, by attacking and leading from the front, which was what we’d need to do to get a result at the Olympics.

  The night before, Whitey gave me the job of being in the first breakaway of the day. To be honest, I had mixed feelings about his decision. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t dreaming of winning an Olympic gold medal on the road, even at my age, so my response in my head was, ‘Oh man, that’s my day done. I won’t be there in the final.’ But I also understood that my role now was to ride for the team, and I was prepared to sacrifice myself for the boys. We decided the perfect scenario would be for me to get in a breakaway and try to make the lead as big as possible; then Mick Rogers or Simon Gerrans would be in the next wave that came across; and the third and final wave would rely on Cadel attacking or Gossy winning a sprint if it came to that.

  The break got away inside the first 30 km and the noise from the crowds was deafening. I’d never experienced anything like it in my life; it was so loud you couldn’t even talk to the rider next to you. It was the complete opposite to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 where it was eerily quiet because the roads had been closed to spectators and the only people on the course were military guys at every 200 metres. There were so many people in London you couldn’t even see where the corners were, so we were flying around blind.

  Just as I put the hammer down I saw a dog run across the road behind me. I knew the dog would cause mayhem in the peloton, so cunningly I decided this was the chance to break away. I really pushed it hard the first couple of kilometres and turned around to see eleven others with me; I was literally screaming at them to keep going. We had some serious horsepower in the break with guys like Denis Menchov, Michael Schar, Marco Pinotti and Jurgen Roelandts driving us along.

  After a while I dropped back to the commissaire’s car and learned that we had three-and-a-half minutes on the peloton, so I rode back up to the break and said, ‘Boys, let’s get it to six minutes,’ which meant we could afford to lose one minute per lap. I remember Swiss rider Schar telling me, ‘But Fabian is behind us.’ I said, ‘Yeah, and this is perfect, just go mate’—and off we went. I did quite a lot of work but on every climb, I sat dead last. I wanted to save every single ounce of energy because I had a good feeling about our breakaway. Every time I looked at my green and gold jersey and shorts, I was reminded that this was the last time I would ride for Australia at the Olympics and it lifted me.

  When we still had a five-minute lead with four-and-a-half laps to go, I began to think we might be a chance to hang on. We lost time up the climb but I knew we would gain it on the downhill when the peloton would be ultra-cautious. I’m sure Great Britain thought they had the break under control but I knew it would be impossible for Cavendish to get over that climb nine times and be in a winning position. Eventually a group was going to come across to us but when I heard it was teammate Mick Rogers who was in no-man’s land on a solo attack, I was a little disappointed because I knew he wouldn’t bridge it on his own. But at the same time it meant I didn’t have to do a turn in the breakaway because when the boys said, ‘Work, work,’ I could say that I had Mick Rogers coming across—so I had two laps to sit in and recover, which would prove crucial later on.

  Mick eventually got swallowed up by the bunch and soon after, by the roar from the crowd I knew there was a fair dinkum attack going on behind us. I was praying for a green and gold jersey to ride up alongside my wheel, but to my horror, there was none. Because we were racing without radios, we had people standing along the course holding signs with colours and letters to form secret signals. A green board meant ‘good situation’; red meant ‘bad situation’; and a time board with dots showed the number of riders in the breakaway, how many riders were chasing and the time gap. For the duration of my time in the breakaway, we had a massive green sheet which was perfect. But when we were caught, bang, it went red, and to make it worse, there were no little ye
llow dots to tell me an Australian rider was coming across to us. All of a sudden our perfect plan went to shit and I thought, ‘I’m going to have to salvage a result for my country here. A medal would be pulling a rabbit out of a hat but I’ve got to get a top ten.’

  In the break there were four Swiss riders, including Fabian; four Spaniards; and four Italians who were among the best in the world—but none of our boys. The situation turned critical. In my opinion Fabian would have won that day had he not crashed, so I parked on his wheel and asked him to let me know when he was going to attack. On every pedal-stroke I was on the verge of cramping and there were a few little attacks but the turning point was Fabian’s crash. When he went down coming out of a corner, suddenly the favourite was gone.

  After the initial shock, everyone quickly realised that the gold medal was up for grabs so I sat behind Philippe Gilbert with 1 km to go but when he attacked he swung around, saw I was on his wheel and pulled over which cost me a lot of energy and was another bullet out of my barrel. The big wave came past and I elbowed as best I could, giving it everything. Every muscle fibre in my body was burning, my earlobes felt like they were full of lactic acid and I was in a blur of pain and noise. I had a quick look up, saw the finish less than 200 metres away and gave it everything. It wasn’t enough to win, but I managed to grab sixth place behind Alexander Vinokourov who took the gold medal. I then collapsed on the side of the road. I had never been so empty in my life, not even after winning Paris–Roubaix was I that drained. I realised that sixth wasn’t what we were after but I could not have ridden any better that day. I was proud that it was a top-ten for Australia, and given the situation we’d found ourselves in, it saved the day. Anne-Marie and the kids were there with their faces painted in the Aussie colours and everyone in Australia was watching on TV. It’s those days that I lived for; they made the years of suffering worthwhile.

  It had been a massive season for me and Orica-GreenEDGE. The Olympic road race was my final big goal as I wouldn’t be riding the world championships. I just had to get through the Vattenfall Cyclassics, then I could look forward to the off-season for a welcome break and not think about cycling for a while.

  But the exact opposite happened. On 19 August I crashed in Hamburg and smashed my collarbone. Then a week later the biggest storm to ever hit cycling began to break. It started on 25 August when Lance Armstrong announced he would no longer fight US Anti-Doping Agency charges that threatened to strip him of his seven Tour de France titles.

  I didn’t read the whole Reasoned Decision document but gathered what I could from what was being reported online and it shocked me because it was incredible to read the lengths some guys went to. I was aware of what I had done, obviously, and had done my best to bury it, but this came as a shock. I used to idolise Lance and I guess I got caught up in the fairytale story. I heard him speak, he was inspiring and that’s what captivated the world. Lance was more than just a cyclist. He had the aura of a Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali, and when someone like that walks into the room you take notice. Was he arrogant? Yes. Did he have an ego the size of Texas? Of course he did. But I’ve seen a lot of champions and that’s what they need to get to that level.

  The revelations shocked me but above all they scared me. Despite all the rumours and accusations of doping, I honestly didn’t think Lance would ever come down. I thought he was too big and too powerful so for him to be brought down was huge; it showed that no one is safe if you’ve done the wrong thing.

  Within days of the USADA report being released there was another bombshell—this time, closer to home. Whitey admitted to doping during his career. By this stage nothing really shocked me anymore and I told the media that Whitey was a pawn in a bad chess game. He was used and abused and felt like he had no choice when the pressure became too much. We are all human and people make mistakes—the level of mistake needs to be taken into consideration—but people like Whitey made a bad decision. Since then, all he has ever done on and off the bike is sacrifice himself for other people. When he came on board as a director sportif it was his life, his passion, and he was involved with Garmin and their anti-doping policies for years. He admitted he had a muddy past but he used it to make sure that other riders never went down that avenue.

  Weeks after the USADA bombshell I did an interview in which I said doping had never been an option for me. I knew it wasn’t the truth but what was my alternative? Admit what I had done and be burned at the stake? I began to realise that something was probably going to come out at some stage but deep down I was hoping it wouldn’t. I was being selfish, I wanted to protect myself, my family and everything I had achieved after the 1998 Tour de France—all of which was legitimate. I didn’t want my whole career to be tarnished over a couple of weeks of bad decisions.

  By January 2013, I was back in Adelaide for the Tour Down Under. A few days before the race was due to start, Lance confessed in a live TV interview. Straight after I fronted a room full of journalists and it was really hard answering questions about him, knowing that I had experimented with EPO earlier in my career. One journalist asked me whether I’d ever have a beer with Lance again and I said I wouldn’t. That was a gut-wrenching experience, but I was looked upon as one of the elder statesmen of cycling who’d raced Lance back then, so what was I meant to say? I was lying, but in my head what I’d done all those years ago wasn’t even in the same ballpark as this whole affair.

  There will always be those who say, ‘You cheat once, you cheat forever’ but I don’t agree with that at all. I think people make mistakes and have the right to come back and prove otherwise. It’s like smoking a joint at school: does that make you a drug user for life? I don’t think so. But by January 2013, perspective on our sport and trust in cycling had gone out the window.

  A lot of people have asked me why I didn’t confess right then and there, but when you’ve been keeping something inside you for fifteen years you’re not just going to blurt it out; the consequences would have been huge. So I just went into autopilot and denied ever having used drugs.

  I gave the same answers during interviews I did as part of anti-doping investigations, including the team’s Nicki Vance review. Again, that was really hard. I was talking with Nicki, for whom I had the utmost respect because of her work with ASADA and because she understands the differences in the sport between then and now. But I was in a very difficult situation. It was right in the middle of the Tour Down Under, we’d just seen the biggest bust in cycling history and did I want to blurt out that I’d had a dabble in 1998? I’d seen what had happened to Whitey and I didn’t want to bring the team or myself down. I couldn’t bring myself to do it and there’s no one else to blame for that but myself.

  By 2013, cycling had changed so much and all for the better. There will always be cynics but hopefully those people look at the sport and see how much is being done, not just at racing but behind the scenes, to fight doping. Cycling is the most tested sport on the planet; there is a whereabouts system whereby riders have to state exactly where they will be for certain hours of the day, every day of the year. There is also a biological passport so blood parameters are in a data bank and monitored for any abnormalities. As I would learn, if you cheat, no matter how long ago, you will be caught and the net is only getting tighter.

  Stuart leads the breakaway during the 2012 London Olympic men’s road race. (© Graham Watson)

  In February 2013, I left Anne-Marie and the kids at home in Luxembourg and flew to Girona in Spain for a week-long personal training camp. It had been one of the coldest and longest European winters on record—our pool had turned into an ice-skating rink and Anne-Marie had been shovelling snow out of the driveway just to get the kids to school every morning while I was away racing. As a Classics rider it was crucial that I be doing long, hard kilometres on the road in preparation. An hour on the indoor trainer at home wasn’t going to cut it so training in Luxembourg wasn’t an option. I got on the internet and booked a flight to Spain where I knew the
weather would at least allow me to get outside. Saying goodbye to Anne-Marie and the kids was horrible. I had only spent two days with them all year and this was a self-imposed trip away. But Anne-Marie was as understanding as ever and insisted I do what was best for me.

  The weather wasn’t too bad in Girona but on the final morning I pulled back the curtains to see a freezing cold and wet morning for my last training ride before heading home. I called around to see if any of my mates were up for a ride but they had either decided to do something else or hold out to see if the weather improved. I had no such option; I was there to train so I bought a map of the area and rode off on my own. Henk Vogels and I once lived not far from Girona in a place called L’Estartit so I decided it would be a good opportunity to visit my former home town.

  It was pissing down rain and blowing a gale when I left Girona all kitted up to retrace my training roads from seventeen years ago. As I rode along a pretty boring stretch of road, I started thinking about what had brought me here all those years ago, and how funny it was that two decades later I was still banging my head against the same brick wall headwind that you never seemed to escape down there. I began to see the signs to L’Estartit and I couldn’t resist. I pulled out my phone, took a photo welcoming me to the small coastal village and sent it to Henk who was back in Australia probably about to go to bed.

  As I took off again I started having flashbacks of the same dodgy little shops and villas perched up on the hillside. Our supermarket was still standing but only in a skeleton form of broken bricks crumbling from the timber frame. Hunting for a cafe to warm up, out of the corner of my eye I spotted a sign that read David’s Bike Shop. What the hell? Surely not. This couldn’t be the same bike shop, and even if it was, it couldn’t be the same bloke running it. I pedalled over, and sure enough it was the same place where we used to hang out after training, where we bought our spare tyre tubes and talked with David, the owner. His son had taken us motor-pacing a couple of times and they’d even invited us to their family home for Sunday dinner all those years ago. I had to go in and see if he was still there.