Lance Armstrong’s biographer Sally Jenkins has said that she hopes the Texan raced clean during his career and that she wants to accept that he told her the truth about the subject when the spoke about it in the past.
Jenkins, who wrote ‘It’s Not About The Bike,’ and the follow-up ‘Every Second Counts,’ recently responded to reader questions on the Washington Post site. The Q&A session was held after the 60 Minutes TV programme was shown. It featured detailed accusations of drug use by Tyler Hamilton, Frankie Andreu and others, said that Armstrong’s former team-mate George Hincapie had verified that banned products were used by Armstrong and others on the US Postal Service team, and also included the damaging claim of a cover-up of a positive test result at the 2001 Tour de Suisse.
Asked by a reader if, after all the recent accusations, she really believed that he hadn’t doped, she said that she wanted it to be the case.
“Everybody has their version of Lance Armstrong, and I have mine. The things we've heard don't line up with the guy I know. That's my best answer,” she said. “He told me point blank, "I didn't use performance enhancers," and I accept his answer because he's my friend and that's what you do with friends. I judge him the way. I suppose anyone on this site would want to be judged: based on personal interactions.”
Jenkins appeared to consider the possibility that the opposite could turn out to be true. “I hope for Lance to be clean, I wish for him to be clean, mainly because he told me he was. That said, anyone who has watched cycling over the last 15 years would have to be in a state of wilful denial not to know it's a possibility,” she acknowledged.
“And obviously it’s a far more difficult question today than it was last week -- but here's the thing. My respect for Lance and my relationship with him has never been based on what he did in the Tour de France. It was based on doing a book together about cancer that we both took a lot of pride in.”
She indicated that whatever happens, she will remain approving of him. “Lance can never disappoint me. He's a good and even fine human being in my estimation.
“My take on him is obviously coloured by friendship and affection. I hope he's clean, and I wish for him to be clean,” she said.