At the end of 1998, Lance had gotten fourth in the Vuelta and fourth in the World championships, which were encouraging results. The next winter, we refined this approach with a higher cadence for Lance. It worked so well that in the spring of 1999, [Armstrong] beat Rominger's record for the climb of the Col de la Madone in Menton [near Nice, France] that [Rominger] had set five years before. Lance beat the best time by 40 or 45 seconds and from that time on, we realized that Lance had made a 'salto di qualità' (jump of quality) in his cycling performance.
When I told Tony, who has a character similar to that of Lance that Armstrong had beaten his record on Col de la Madone, he was surprised and disappointed. Tony told me "Well, I never won the Tour, but I'm really sorry to lose this record!" As for the rest, there is all the success Lance has had in the Tour but this is recent history; I've invested a lot of time to work with Lance and his group; Chris Carmichael, Johan Bruyneel and others. I've expanded my collaboration with Lance and as of today, this is continuing.