THERE has been so much written about Lance Armstrong he probably warrants a library section to himself. But just when you thought you knew everything about the Texan’s dirty deeds, along comes Juliet Macur with what is described as the definitive inside story of his downfall.

Her book is certainly comprehensive, the product of 10 years worth of notes and interviews with all the major players involved in his extraordinary success and his protracted fall from grace.

The book splits into six parts covering different periods during which layers of increasingly convoluted lies were carefully constructed around Armstrong.

Craving a father figure, Armstrong eventually found one in a professional athlete named Rick Crawford, who taught him how to channel his aggression into triathlon success and introduced him to doping.

Yet the Armstrong dichotomy remains puzzling. He was an outstanding athlete, but chose to cheat to guarantee victory he probably would have achieved anyway.

By 1993, he had allegedly taken part in a sting to defraud a US company of $1million but had also recorded his first Tour de France stage victory.

By the time we reach part five ‘Lies of the American Hero’, Macur is in full swing. We are introduced to Travis Tygart, a lawyer who was suspicious of Armstrong’s success and, more significantly, not intimidated by him.

Armstrong was earning phenomenal sums of money. In 2005, Nike handed over $2.5million in licensing fees, and while he remained a superb athlete, his craving for money ensured he was not going to stop cheating.

Ultimately the veneer of lies began to crack because too many of his enemies knew too much. It only took a handful of them to say so and he was finished.

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