have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. you know? if we were going to be competitive, there was only one road to take. was there a discussion about doping in any way with mr. swart? the only aspect that is true was that he was on the team. beyond that, not true. the doping allegations arose in a case brought by lance armstrong against an insurer based in dallas, texas, who provided huge bonuses paid to armstrong for winning the tour de france in successive years. these are the checks making the first two payments under the contract. these checks represent what he won on the fourth and the fifth making those payments for $1.5 million and then $3 million. attorney jeff tilertson represented the insurer who refused to pay a further $5 million when armstrong won his sixth tour de france in 2004.
lance armstrong was charging to victory in tour de france, cycling s biggest race. but says tyler hamilton, not without help. hamilton says that after finishing a stage, he, armstrong, and their teammate ken livingston would inject themselves with epo in the team s camper. just meters from the excited fans outside. that was nerve-racking, because you were right there in the heart of the tour de france. you know, thousands and thousands of people around your hovering around the team camper. and we had this performance enhancing drug. i remember just trying to get rid of it as quickly as possible. there was one for lance, one for kevin, and one for myself. you quickly just stuck it in, got rid of it. then it was quickly hidden away typically in like a coke can. all three viles would go into a
those tyler hamilton tells a very different story. he says that after stage 11 of the 2000 tour de france, he, lance armstrong, and kevin livingston had their blood reinfused. everything was handled by the team s management. we were in this small hotel. it was pretty wild. arrived in my room and it was, the staff had sort of prepared everything. the doctors. there was a blood bag taped up on the wall. hanging from the wall. you know, a red tube a tube filled with blood coming down. and basically, you know, injecting me here. i have pretty small veins, so the one place that always worked was right there. you can see the scars today.
the team doctors told you, it was more or less at the time it was pretty easy to pass these tests. i passed a couple hundred doping controls myself. when lance armstrong joined the u.s. postal service team in 1998 following his recovery from cancer, he shared a room with tyler hamilton. did you both talk about drugs together? we did. we did. and, you know, didn t it wasn t every conversation wasn t about drugs, but we talked about it behind closed doors. absolutely. absolutely. 98, i was pretty green so i asked a lot of questions. i learned a lot. tyler hamilton says lance armstrong was surprisingly relaxed about where he kept his epo. when i was at his house in france, i asked him for some. he kindly said yeah, no problem. and it was just on the inside
his titles, high-profile sponsorships, and much of his prize money. he stepped away from his charity livestrong. in 2005 with uncanny foresight, armstrong had predicted what doping could do to his legend and his legacy. if you have a doping offense or you test positive, it goes without saying that you re fired from all of your contracts. not just the team, but there s numerous contracts that i have that would all go away. sponsorship agreements, for example. all of them. and the faith of all the cancer survivors around the world. so everything i do off of the bike would go away too. and don t think for a second i don t understand that. it s not about money for me. everything. it s also about the faith that people have put in me over the years. all of that would be erased. i don t need it to say in a contract you re fired if you