Men who fell to Earth

EMMA O’REILLY knows better than most that it takes a lot of guts to tell the truth. As the soigneur (assistant) to Lance Armstrong and his US Postal cycling team, O’Reilly paid for speaking out about the Tour de France winner’s use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs, by spending many years locked in a bitter public battle with Armstrong.

Denounced as an ‘alcoholic’ and a ‘whore’ by Armstrong for giving an interview to David Walsh for his book about cycling’s doping culture, O’Reilly faced personal and financial ruin.

But through it all, she stuck to her story and was vindicated last year when Armstrong confessed that O’Reilly was telling the truth, that he had been doping, and was handed a lifetime ban from professional cycling.

What is unique about O’Reilly, a woman with much reason to hold a grudge against Armstrong, is that she forgives him and is able to see his cover-up as part of the wider problem in the sport she so loves.

With a foreword from Armstrong and many interesting insights about life on the road (including the lengths she would take to ensure her lads had the right cake while they were competing), O’Reilly’s account gives a fuller picture of the scandal that so gripped the cycling community.

Keeley Bolger

By the Spear by Ian Worthington (OUP, 25) 4/5 stars 

WHO played the greater part in the rise and fall of the Macedonian Empire, Philip II or his son Alexander the Great? That is the question that Ian Worthington tackles head on and surprisingly for some, and just by a short head, he gives his vote to Philip. His argument is that while Alexander was the glamour boy, who set the bar for following conquerors, his empire was an affair of smoke and mirrors that was never destined to last long.

He was never in it for the long haul and had personality defects that were as reprehensible as they were destructive. His father Philip was physically disfigured but more honourable than Alexander; he provided a superbly trained and efficient army for his son (murdering his own generals) and he also built an economy that provided the cash for Alexander’s campaigns.

There is no doubt that Alexander’s glory will remain undimmed in many eyes, as is shown by the fact that Julius Caesar paid tribute to his tomb at Alexandria.

The Month that Changed the World by Gordon Martel (OUP, 25) 4/5 stars 

AUSTRIAN Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in the Balkans on June 28, 1914, and five weeks later the Great Powers of Europe were fighting and the world would soon suffer its first global war. The destruction was terrible, the loss of life horrendous, the consequences momentous and the seemingly endless inquests into the ultimate cause of the Great War never arrived at any satisfactory conclusion.

But Gordon Martel may have cracked it at last. His study of contemporary diplomatic, political and military records reveals a civilised Europe supposedly devoted to peace, yet armed to the teeth.

A system of alliances purporting to safeguarding that peace, but which set the Great Powers at each other’s throats and found political leaders and rulers bereft of ideas once the crisis broke. The British Foreign Secretary may have said that the lights were going out all over Europe, but he and his fellows did nothing to switch them on again before the fuses blew. If lack of leadership was really the problem then the absence of one leader, namely the notorious, but eminently successful German Chancellor, Bismarck, proves Martel’s point.

After all, he said that any conflict in the Balkans wasn’t worth Germany getting involved and wasn’t worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. And boy was he right.

Steve Craggs