By Austin Murphy

	Betsy and Frankie Andreu (above in '00 Tour) implicate Armstrong. Mike Powell/Getty Images

The Diesel, as Ullrich was known, powered his way to victory in the 1997 Tour. A year later the Tour de Dopage was redeemed -- such, at least, was the popular story line -- by the panache of il Pirata (the Pirate), Marco Pantani, a pure climber who scored the difficult double of winning both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France. Alas, Pantani died of a cocaine overdose in 2004. In the book The Death of Marco Pantani, author Matt Rendell writes, "There is incontrovertible evidence that Marco's entire career was based on [EPO] abuse."

This drug-drenched sport has been so dirty for so long that the question is no longer, Who will win the Tour? It is, Can anyone win it clean? Cycling is "reaping what it has sown," says Dick Pound, chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency and a critic of the sport's governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). Doping, Pound asserts, has been "so endemic" and the UCI so "unable or unwilling to control it that now, every time [a cyclist] does something really spectacular, instead of celebrating it, you're left to wonder."

Pound believes the time may be ripe for, in his words, "a South Africa-type truth-and-reconciliation program" such as the one chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to heal the wounds of apartheid. "You pick a date and say, 'If you come forward before this time, say what you did, who did it, how you got it, then you are dealt with mercifully.' After the date, if we catch anybody, you're toast."

The seven years between Pantani and Landis constituted the Rule of Lance Armstrong, an interregnum of wholesome, drug-free victories. Right? Armstrong was a cancer survivor -- no way he'd put that crap in his body. Would he? Of course not, he assures SI. Asked if he won his Tours clean, Armstrong replies, "Absolutely. One hundred percent. I won the Tour de France once, twice, seven times because I was the most talented person in the field. I agree there are some f -- -- -- rats out here, with all the stuff we've seen. But sometimes, people come along with 12 cylinders."

Those forceful assertions of innocence by the 12 Cylinder Man are being tested by a disturbing new book, From Lance to Landis, by David Walsh, the Irish investigative journalist whom Armstrong has called a "little troll." Such antipathy is understandable: It was Walsh's last book, LA Confidentiel, which was published in French but not English, that persuaded a company called SCA Promotions to withhold a $5 million bonus the Texan had been promised if he won his sixth straight Tour in 2004. Armstrong sued and got his money -- plus $2.5 million in punitive damages. But the confidential depositions in that case, widely leaked, gave Walsh a rich source of grist for this latest book.