14 DAY TRIAL // “Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever,” by Wall Street journalists Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O’Connell, will shed some light into the reasons singer Sheryl Crow had to keep mum on the doping scandal around her ex Lance Armstrong.
It will also reveal that she actually knew that he was doping because she saw him but, contrary to what some believe, she did not keep quiet, but informed on him to the feds when the investigation started, the New York Daily News says.
According to the book, Sheryl accompanied Lance to a trip to Belgium in 2004 on his private jet, for the purpose of receiving an illegal blood transfusion.
At the time, she probably didn’t think much of it because he’d told her that it was something that all cyclists did and, as such, not banned in any way.
“Rather than try to hide the transfusion from her, Armstrong was completely open about it. He trusted that Crow would have no desire to tell the press or anyone else about the team's doping program. He explained that it was simply part of the sport – that all cyclists were doing the same thing,” the authors say in the book.
When the doping investigation started, Sheryl remembered this particular instance and told the investigators about it.
“Crow informed on Armstrong after Food and Drug Administration criminal investigator Jeff Novitzky gave her a proffer agreement, a document that protects witnesses from criminal prosecution if they cooperate honestly,” the NY Daily News writes.
“Blood transfusions allow athletes to increase the number of oxygen-carrying red blood cells in their bodies, boosting endurance potential without using drugs. Armstrong used transfusions in conjunction with a wide array of banned substances throughout his entire career,” the report adds.
Lance Armstrong has been stripped of all his Tour de France titles after he admitted to doping, after years of denials and controversy. He made the confession on Oprah Winfrey’s The Next Chapter, saying he’d been cheating since the ‘90s and stressing that there would have been no other way for him to win all those titles.
A new documentary about his years of deceit, “The Armstrong Lie” by Alex Gibney, will also shed more light on the case, when it comes out on November 8.