Lance Armstrong - Portrait By Cedric Vasseur

“More than anything else, Armstrong is very smart. He allows few people to get close. He leads a separate life; he changes masseurs every one or two years to protect himself. Since 1998, Emma O’Rielly, Freddy Viaene, and Ryszard Kielpinski followed one another. He organizes his schedule so no one can guess where he will be. He’s an intelligent guy. He knows he’s being watched. Within the team, he likes to be considered the boss, to be taken for God. The only time he is pleasant is in January when he’s not on the bike. He doesn’t tell you things directly; he’ll go through somebody else – in most cases Bruyneel. That’s the middleman. For example, in the Tour de Suisse that he won, he found himself without teammates in the final part of the first stage. The next morning we had a terrible meeting. Bruyneel gave us the real going-over. Armstrong was sitting there like us, not saying anything. But everything Bruyneel was saying had come from Armstrong. He’s also a perfectionist. He leaves nothing to chance. He is also paranoid, particularly so since September 11 attacks. He’s got a bodyguard to make sure a Bin Laden fan doesn’t slit his throat. But maybe the biggest thing is his ability to intimidate. In cycling, if you want to win races, you have to crush the others. Armstrong taught me to be nasty. He runs on aggression, anger, intimidation, and the fear that he can strike in others. He doesn’t kick up a big fuss but he goes into a state of cold, suppressed anger. He wants to impose the law of the strongest and most of the time it works.” -Cédric Vasseur, 2003 Source : From Lance To Landis by David Walsh