Revelations come thick and fast in this forensic analysis of the biggest sporting fraud ever. When insurers due to pay millions in bonus prize-money began to suspect Armstrong, they questioned him on camera under oath. Throughout his testimony Armstrong vows he has "never taken performance enhancing drugs". Lawyer Jeffrey Tillotson draws a different conclusion: "We think now the evidence clearly shows that Lance Armstrong was using performance enhancing drugs dating back to the beginning of his career. So those races were fixed."

Former team-mate Frankie Andreu testifies to being at Armstrong's side when he was in hospital for testicular cancer, as he admitted to doctors he had used "EPO, testosterone, growth hormone and cortisone." It was a moment of candour Armstrong no doubt regretted. Two days after it was revealed he gave $1.5 million to the hospital. Armstrong testifies "I'm funding a chair for somebody who saved my life." But to his doubters it was the first step in a pattern of buying silence.

Former team-mate Tyler Hamilton describes the "white lunch bags" containing the drug EPO, that doctors from the US Postal Service Team gave riders to boost their red blood cells. He says he and Armstrong injected after each stage of the Tour de France in the team van just metres away from fans. "You quickly just stuck it in, got rid of it. Give it to a team doctor to dispose." He says he and Armstrong re-infused their own blood to avoid detection in doping tests. "We were in this small hotel. There was a blood bag taped up on the wall." He says Armstrong lay on a bed in an adjoining room, with an open door between them. "I saw this bag of blood and saw it in his arm." Armstrong coolly denies the blood transfusions: "That would be banned."

Hamilton says Armstrong used a courier on motorbike nicknamed "Motoman" to deliver his drugs en route when the issue of doping became too high profile. When Armstrong tested positive for cortisone during one Tour his masseuse Emma O'Reilly heard his team discuss concocting a prescription for cortisone cream to treat saddle-sores: "a backdated prescription to help explain his elevated cortisone level." In the year 2000 scientists researching a test for EPO found the drug in Armstrong's urine samples. Under oath, Armstrong claims a mix-up or even that his sample was spiked. "When I pissed in the bottle there was not EPO in that piss."

Since 1998 one third of the top ten Tour de France riders have been linked to doping. Yet time and again the UCI, the body tasked with investigating doping, has not acted to investigate Armstrong. He has donated more than $100,000 to the UCI. Without a trace of irony he explains "I'm doing it to fund the fight against doping."

Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France within three years of being diagnosed with cancer. "It's not about money for me. It's about the faith of all the cancer survivors around the world," he intones. Sadly for him, the world no longer believes in miracles.

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