MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
May 24- May 31, 2007 Edition
Ballantine to Publish
Book On Tour De France
Doping Controversy
NEW YORK/5/17/07–Ballantine Books will publish FROM LANCE TO LANDIS: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France by award-winning journalist David Walsh on June 26, 2007, it was announced today by Libby McGuire, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Ballantine Books. The book, a meticulous and exhaustive account of the doping scandal that has damaged the credibility of the Tour de France and professional cycling, goes on sale less than two weeks before the start of the 2007 Tour de France. ESPN The Magazine will run a first serial excerpt in their July 2nd issue, on newsstands on June 21, 2007.
Walsh is the chief sports writer with The Sunday Times of London, four-time Irish Sportswriter of the Year, three-time UK Sportswriter of the Year, and author of L.A. Confidential. For FROM LANCE TO LANDIS, he spent eight years investigating the doping allegations and has on-the-record testimony of numerous named sources, including friends, team management, riders, government officials, and adversaries within the cycling community. The result is an account from deep inside the sport: covering the charges, the admissions and the denials, which riders have been accused and the elaborate and scientific methods available to riders who want to beat the system.
The Tour de France, as revealed by Walsh, is riddled with admitted dopers and those who contest positive doping results and deny use. Can it regain its former glory and prestige? Is it possible to clean up a sport whose culture is so firmly entrenched in doping? And what cost will doping have on clean athletes, the fans, the history and future of sportsmanship? FROM LANCE TO LANDIS focuses on what is arguably the most gruelling test of athleticism of our timethe Tour, but it addresses important concerns and raises questions facing all professional sports today.
“With this book, David Walsh has created a revealing account of one of the world’s foremost sporting events,” McGuire said. “I believe this will hold as the definitive look at a disturbing and on-going era in a troubled sport.” David Walsh’s editor, Mark Tavani, continues, “Many of the twists in the story of American cycling have made for big news. But thanks to the time he’s spent covering the issue, David is the first writer who’s been able to bring it all together, to tell it as one story, to really explain its repercussions. It’s a story that fully addresses the state of cycling, but also speaks to a broader audience about issues of sport, celebrity, and fairness.”
“I have spent 15 years following the sport as a writer and a fan,” said Walsh. “In 1998 our eyes were opened to the reality of a deeply-rooted and sophisticated culture of doping in professional cycling. A year later Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France and we were told a new and better era had begun. Since then, I have spent seven years asking questions and pursuing the truth, and this book is the fruit of that pursuit.”
Ballantine Books is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, which is a division of Random House, Inc., whose parent company is Bertelsmann AG, the international media company.
FROM LANCE TO LANDIS by David Walsh, will be on sale June 26, 2007.
