Lance: The Official Lance Armstrong Thread

I dunno, I'm not a super roadie fan, but I love watching the tours. Lance went from 21st to 7th today in the Tour de Suisse... an impressive ride in the elite group and lead the decent to the finish... not bad for an old dude! I'll still root for him. He certainly ain't doping now. If he can perform at this level at his age I would doubt the doper theory. He's the most tested athlete ever. Haters need to respect the man.

 

Is Armstrong’s empire crashing around him?
Ex-Tour king has flopped in race this year, and drug probe is moving fast

Le Tour 2010
Sacré bleu!

OPINION
By Joe Lindsey
updated 2:24 p.m. MT, Thurs., July 15, 2010

You’ve gotta wonder if he’s regretting it all now. The comeback, that is.

Lance Armstrong’s attempt to win an eighth Tour de France is not going nearly as smoothly as his seven victories. Aside from issues on the road that have completely taken him out of contention for the overall title, he’s dealing with repeated media reports on an investigation into his old United States Postal Service team.

And whether on the bike or in front of a microphone, Armstrong seems to have lost the finely tuned balance that saw him successfully fend off challengers, whether they were on the bike or in press row.
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Armstrong told reporters at the start of Stage 10 that he never had any ownership in Tailwind Sports LLC, the entity that owned the U.S. Postal Service team, and that he was merely an employee like any other rider. “That’s completely untrue,” he said of reports he held an equity stake in Tailwind. “No ownership; none at all.”

That’s a highly relevant fact, because the investigation into the Postal years hinges in part on whether Tailwind Sports, the team’s owner, might have defrauded the federal government by using federal funds to support doping on the team. If proved in court, the riders might not be held criminally responsible for that but team officials and owners would.

(Although not primarily supported by tax dollars, the Postal Service is explicitly authorized in the U.S. Constitution and enjoys a federally mandated monopoly on regular mail service. Even since the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act, it is considered a government agency and is defined by the U.S. Code as a “legally independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States.”)

But as Bonnie Ford at ESPN and numerous other outlets have pointed out, that statement directly contradicts Armstrong’s own testimony in the SCA Insurance case in 2005. In his deposition there, Armstrong acknowledges owning 10 percent of Tailwind, although he professes to be unclear about when his ownership stake began.

Testimony by Bill Stapleton, Armstrong’s agent and the founder of Discovery team co-owner Capital Sports and Entertainment, also indicated Armstrong’s share of Tailwind was roughly 10 percent.

It was, by Armstrongian standards, a monumental slip-up. And Armstrong’s team was quick to try to manage the fallout.

In an e-mail statement, Armstrong’s attorney, Tim Herman, attempted to clarify the discrepancy, writing that while Tailwind’s board of directors decided to issue shares of Tailwind stock to Armstrong in 2004 and informed him of that plan, the stock award did not actually take place until December, 2007.

“Thus, when Lance was asked questions about it in 2005, he truthfully answered that he believed he was a small minority owner in Tailwind but did not know or understand the details,” Herman wrote.

If true, that’s a curious sequence of events.
For starters, Tailwind Sports disbanded the Discovery Channel team — its most profitable property — at the end of 2007, right when Armstrong reportedly received his stock. As of 2006, Tailwind’s client list included Discovery, the San Francisco Grand Prix (which did not run in 2006 as organizers faced allegations of skipping out on payments of $364,000 to the city) and a consulting agreement with USA Cycling.

At the August announcement that the Discovery team would dissolve, Armstrong said that Tailwind would shift into other sports. Armstrong’s spokesman, Mark Higgins, did not respond to a request for clarification on what projects Tailwind pursued in 2008. Not two and a half years later, Tailwind appears to be gone.

Tailwind, incorporated in Maryland in 2001, today has zero public presence and is listed by the Maryland Department of Assessments as forfeited, meaning the business’ existence was terminated by the state for a delinquency. A separate incorporation with the California Secretary of State, for Tailwind Sports Corporation, lists the same Austin, Texas street address as Capital Sports and Entertainment, with its status as “surrender” and a filing date of July 1, 2002.

A quick view of Capital Sports and Entertainment’s portfolio shows no other sports-based clients (a one-time bit player in representing professional football players, CSE no longer lists that business in its stable; six of its 10 listed projects or partners involve Armstrong in some fashion.)

So if Armstrong really was granted Tailwind stock in December of 2007, just as the company’s most profitable era was at a close and its days as a corporate entity altogether were numbered, then on an investment level that’s about like taking a long stake in BP on April 21. That would be an uncharacteristic lapse for Armstrong, who once bragged of his own financial savvy that he gave Stapleton investment advice.

If so, the truth — that Armstrong is extremely blase in his business affairs — clashes with the image of Armstrong and Stapleton as shrewd businessmen. The three-year period to close a simple stock offering is of a piece with another much-discussed (and controversial) transaction of similar Methuselah-like lifespan: the three years to finalize a promised $100,000 donation to the UCI, the existence of which was finally confirmed last week by UCI president Pat McQuaid.

In any case, investigators with the power to subpoena documents as well as personal testimony should be able to get to the bottom of exactly who owned what percentage of Tailwind and when.

But increasingly, Armstrong’s public statements have sounded strangely shrill. When the Wall Street Journal published its initial story reporting leaked e-mails by Floyd Landis accusing Armstrong and others of doping, Armstrong responded, in part, by questioning Landis’ mental state and publishing a series of e-mails from Landis and others that he claimed would expose Landis’ threats. The e-mails are no longer available on the RadioShack team web site.

When the Journal published its second expose, Armstrong referred to the allegations as sour milk. His attorney, Tim Herman characterized the Journal’s story as “Garbage in, garbage out,” and based on “improper leaks and discredited innuendo.”

But the Journal story noted that three other former Postal riders the paper spoke with had confirmed there was doping on the team while Lance was team leader, and one of them confirmed doping himself.

On the bike, Armstrong has been similarly shaky. In seven Tour wins, Armstrong crashed, to my memory, just twice and often managed amazing evasions of others’ crashes. In Wednesday’s 10th stage, the pack passed the spot where Armstrong memorably off-roaded across a field to avoid Joseba Beloki’s horrifying crash in 2003.

But in the 2010 edition, on Stage 8 alone, Armstrong went down after just 6km, then caused one crash himself at a crucial moment in the race before getting caught up in a hapless third one when two Euskaltel riders bungled a musette exchange in front of him. Five years ago, Armstrong didn’t get caught in any crashes; now he can’t get out of his own way.

You wonder if it’s a metaphor.

The Armstrong of five years ago would not so artlessly have denied something that can be so easily proved with documents that are on file with the states of Maryland and California.

And perhaps the press at the Tour will ask him about his lax financial housekeeping, or his seeming inability on Wednesday to remember who were key Tailwind officials other than Thom Weisel and Eddie Boryesewicz, who was last with the team in 1998, Lance’s first year on the team.

One name that might jog the memory: Mark Gorski, Tailwind’s co-founder and general manager until just prior to the 2003 Tour, which was Armstrong’s fifth win and sixth year on the team.

Armstrong’s fresh stumbles come amid heightened scrutiny of the legal case that resulted out of Landis’ allegations. The NY Times reported yesterday that federal subpoenas have been issued to potential witnesses, and the NY Daily News, in a story reporting that Postal sponsor Trek Bicycles had been served, mentioned that the subpoenas had originated from a grand jury.

If true, that would indicate the investigation is moving swiftly, since federal grand juries compel and consider evidence to determine whether to recommend a criminal indictment.

Speaking to reporters at the Tour, Armstrong also spoke critically of the investigation, asking rhetorically if the American people “feel like this is a good use of their tax dollars?” He said that while he was respectful of the process, he would only cooperate in a “legitimate and credible and fair investigation,” not a “witch hunt,” before finishing, “I’ve done too many good things for too many people.”

Armstrong has sometimes been accused of using his work with his cancer foundation as a shield against criticism. That is a charge I’ve never made. But I’ve also never heard him invoke that substantive and important legacy in such a bold fashion as he did today. And he seems to be willfully unaware that this is a federal criminal investigation; his interest in participating is immaterial.

Armstrong’s work on behalf of fighting cancer isn’t the issue here. The issue is whether or not Floyd Landis is telling the truth and, if he is, whether Lance Armstrong knowingly used Postal Service money to dope to win the Tour de France and enrich himself, thus defrauding the federal government.

I don’t know what’s up with Lance Armstrong these days, on the bike or off. But I wonder if he doesn’t wake up some days and wish he’d just stayed retired.

 

Cyclists Said to Back Claims That Armstrong Doped

From http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/sports/cycling/05armstrong.html?_r=1


Bernd Thissen/European Pressphoto Agency

Lance Armstrong, left, won the Tour de France seven times. Floyd Landis, center, has alleged he engaged in systematic doping.

By JULIET MACUR and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

Published: August 4, 2010



Federal prosecutors have intensified their criminal investigation of the cyclist Lance Armstrong since the end of the Tour de France last month. They questioned many of his former associates, including cyclists who have supported and detailed claims that Armstrong and his former United States Postal Service team participated in systematic doping, according to a cyclist who has been interviewed and two others privy to the inquiry.

Related

• Times Topics: Lance Armstrong | Floyd Landis
• Armstrong Distances Himself From Doping Inquiry (July 15, 2010)
• Doping Fraud Case in Cycling Presents Challenges (June 29, 2010)

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Officials have stepped up the inquiry into Lance Armstrong.


In May, Armstrong’s former teammate Floyd Landis shook the cycling world by publicly accusing Armstrong and other team members of using performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions to gain an unfair advantage. Landis said that Armstrong — the biggest name in the sport — had encouraged doping and that the team had sold its bikes to help finance an expensive doping program.

Armstrong has denied any wrongdoing and has said that Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour title for doping and received a two-year ban from the sport, has no credibility.
But now, prosecutors and investigators have more than Landis’s account to go on, according to the two people with knowledge of the investigation. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not want to jeopardize their access to sensitive information.
A former teammate of Armstrong said in a telephone interview Wednesday that he had spoken with investigators. He said he detailed some of his own drug use, as well as the widespread cheating that he said went on as part of the Postal Service team — all of which he said was done with Armstrong’s knowledge and encouragement.

The rider, who has never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs or methods, asked that his name not be used because investigators advised him not to speak publicly about the information he provided. He has not been called before the grand jury that has been convened in Los Angeles to investigate the case.

Riders have been compelled to come forward. Tyler Hamilton, who is serving an eight-year ban for using performance-enhancing drugs, has met with the grand jury, those who have been briefed on the case said. His lawyer, Chris Manderson, said that Hamilton had received a grand jury subpoena but did not say whether Hamilton had already provided testimony.
Armstrong is considered one of the more remarkable athletes in American history, someone who dominated his sport and also had a compelling personal story, having beaten testicular cancer.

Jeff Novitzky, a special agent for the Food and Drug Administration, is in charge of the investigation and has been interviewing Armstrong’s associates and former teammates.
Novitzky, the lead investigator in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative steroids case, is trying to determine if Armstrong, his teammates, the owners or managers of his former team conspired to defraud their sponsors by doping to improve their performance and win more money and prizes.

Armstrong did not respond to requests for comment put directly to his agent and his manager on Wednesday.

Toward the end of the Tour de France, Armstrong, a seven-time winner of the event, said he would deny any involvement in doping “as long as I live.”

Bryan D. Daly, a defense lawyer representing Armstrong, said any cyclists who claim that Armstrong doped were not telling the truth.

“They just want them to incriminate Lance Armstrong and that’s my concern,” Daly said, adding that the prosecutors were working closely with the United States Anti-Doping Agency to pressure Armstrong’s former teammates. “To the extent that there’s anyone besides Floyd Landis saying things, the bottom line is, if you take away the soap opera and look at the scientific evidence, there is nothing.”

Daly said the reasons behind the investigation were still “very murky for us.”

“If Lance Armstrong came in second in those Tour de France races, there’s no way that Lance Armstrong would be involved in these cases,” Daly said. “I think that the concern is that they are caught up in the pursuit of a celebrity to catch him in a lie.”

The federal prosecutor Doug Miller is in charge of the case. Prosecutors are moving the case along because the 10-year statute of limitations on some of the charges they are investigating is set to expire next spring.

Several of Armstrong’s former employees and teammates — including George Hincapie, the United States national road racing champion — were contacted by Novitzky before the Tour de France, which began in early July.

Hincapie’s lawyer, Zia F. Modabber, had said that Hincapie was likely to talk to Novitzky once the Tour was over. Modabber, who is based in Los Angeles, did not return a phone call or an e-mail on Wednesday.

Cyclists called to meet with Novitzky or testify before the grand jury may run into their own problems if they don’t tell the truth and are later caught lying. In the Balco case, the sprinter Marion Jones received six months in prison, in part for lying to investigators about her use of performance-enhancing drugs. She had insisted for years that she was clean.
The track coach Trevor Graham was sentenced to house arrest for lying to federal investigators. Tammy Thomas, a cyclist, was given house arrest for lying to a grand jury.
In the Armstrong matter, more riders are expected to meet with the grand jury as early as next week, the people close to the investigation said.

Armstrong, who has just returned from a post-Tour vacation in the Bahamas, was in Denver on Wednesday to announce a weeklong stage race to be held next August in Colorado. To promote the event, he rode through the city’s downtown streets with Gov. Bill Ritter, drawing a large crowd.

In Denver, Armstrong told The Associated Press that he had “nothing to say” about the federal investigation.


A version of this article appeared in print on August 5, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.

 

As prophet Daniel Tosh would say:

"I think pro-athletes should be forced to use steroids. I think we as fans deserve the greatest athletes science can create! Lets go! Anything that will make you run faster, jump higher! I have High-Definition TV! I want my athletes like my video games! Lets go! I could care less if you die at 40. You hate life after sports anyways. I'm doing you a favor."

 

Agreed. Tours aren't won on salads and mineral water.

Can't wait to see what the upcoming neanderthal genetic experiments yeild. Monsters with 15,000 calorie/day protien diets, regenerative tissue, and coordinated attacks of aggression on a scale we've never seen before.

 

What pisses me off is the double standard in sports. A-Rod and Manny Ramirez admit to big time doping, get a slap on the wrist and continue in the sport and the big time star status as if nothing happened. They would be total nobodies had they not doped and they didn't do much with the wealth and star power they had. Lance Amstrong starts one of the biggest cancer foundations out there, gives hope to millions of people, and inspires millions of others to get up off their ass and ride a bike and take up the sport, and yet they are out to get him. Sorry but even if they showed a movie of Lance doping in the middle of Times Square I would still support him. There is much more doping going around in the NLF, MLB and NBA that in cycling, but because of big money supporting these sports, their star athletes are just given a slap on the wrist.

 

Agree and disagree at the same time. Agree that both are still playing and still stars, at least A-Rod is (star). However, A-Rod hit his 600th home run yesterday and it's hardly even a story. If he had done this in the pre-steroid era, it would have been one of the bigest sports stories of the year. His leagacy is forever tarnished and he probably won't get in the hall of fame. Granted, he is still getting paid huge sums of cash.

 

Is everybody ready to witness the greatest fall from grace in the history of sport?

Or is Lance simply "to big to fail"?

Regardless, here is a great quote from Lance from his first "last tour" in 2005:
"Finally, the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics: I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. But this is one hell of a race. This is a great sporting event and you should stand around and believe it. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets — this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it. So Vive le Tour forever!"
:-s

Even if he does fall, he's still the greatest TDF rider in history, just like Floyd is the 2006 TDF champion.

 

Isn't that the NFL?

Couldn't resist the obvious cheap shot.

 

With Lance's skills as an athlete and determination/dedication as a cancer survivor, it's feasible that he did it all clean. Freak of nature style.

With Lance's ego and attitude, it's feasible that he is guilty of everything and yet still vehemently denies it all, only to be humiliated in the near future.

Curious to see how it all turns out. Personally, I hope he's found not guilty, re-marries Kristin (yeah, yeah... Anna is still in the picture), returns to triathlon, wins Ironman Kona, all while growing Livestrong and continuing to fight cancer worldwide. Eventually becoming a Senator and turning Texas into the renewable energy capital of the world. Happily ever after style. Realistic? Maybe.

 

Lance Armstrong pulls out of NZ triathlon

Dec 29, 6:22 pm EST

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP)—Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong won’t compete in a New Zealand triathlon next month because of a sore left knee.

The American cyclist planned to compete in a sprint triathlon at the Blue Lakes multisports festival at Rotorua on the North Island on Jan. 29.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Armstrong says he has quit running for now because of the sore knee, forcing him to skip the triathlon. He says the left knee has cartilage damage and eventually will require surgery.

The injury does not interfere with his cycling. Armstrong still plans to compete in the Tour Down Under cycling race in Australia that runs Jan. 16-23.

Armstrong has indicated the Australian race will likely be his last professional cycling race outside the United States.

 

Oh no! Say it isn't so.

SI reports new information in the case against Lance Armstrong

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/more/01/18/lance.armstrong/index.html?hpt=C2

Sports Illustrated is reporting new information about embattled, seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, who is the focus of a federal grand jury inquiry in Los Angeles. The investigation is headed by Jeff Novitzky of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, who previously investigated Barry Bonds and Marion Jones.

Agents have been looking into whether Armstrong was involved in an organized doping operation as a member of the team sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service from 1999 to 2004, and since August the grand jury has been hearing testimony from Armstrong's associates and confidants. In light of those proceedings, SI writers Selena Roberts and David Epstein reviewed hundreds of pages of documents and interviewed dozens of sources in Europe, New Zealand and the U.S. for a story in the Jan. 24 issue of the magazine, which will be available on newsstands Wednesday.

According to the story, "If a court finds that Armstrong won his titles while taking performance-enhancing drugs, his entourage may come to be known as the domestiques of the saddest deception in sports history."

Among SI's revelations:
• In the late 1990s, according to a source with knowledge of the government's investigation of Armstrong, the Texan gained access to a drug, in clinical trial, called HemAssist, developed by Baxter Healthcare Corp. HemAssist was to be used for cases of extreme blood loss. In animal studies, it had been shown to boost the blood's oxygen-carrying capacity, without as many risks as EPO. (Armstrong, through his lawyer, denies ever taking HemAssist.)

• One of the perks of traveling with Armstrong, former USPS rider Floyd Landis recalls, was frequent trips on private airline charters. Private airports often subject travelers to less stringent customs checks. But Landis tells SI about the day in 2003 that he, Armstrong and team members flew into St. Moritz, where customs officials requested that they open their duffel bags for a search. "Lance had a bag of drugs and s---," says Landis. "They wanted to search it, which was out of the ordinary." Sifting through Armstrong's bag, agents found syringes and drugs with labels written in Spanish. As Landis recounts, Armstrong then asked a member of his contingent to convince the agents that the drugs were vitamins and that the syringes were for vitamin injections. The agents "looked at us sideways," says Landis, "but let us through." (Armstrong denies that this incident ever occurred.)
Armstrong won that year's Tour de France by a scant 61 seconds over his archrival, Jan Ullrich of Germany. It was by far the narrowest of his seven Tour victories.

• When Italian police and customs officials raided the home of longtime Armstrong teammate Yarolslav Popovych last November, they discovered documents and PEDs as well as texts and e-mails linking Armstrong's team to controversial Italian physician Michele Ferrari as recently as 2009, though Armstrong had said he cut ties with Ferrari in 2004.

• In a letter reviewed by SI, Armstrong's testosterone-epitestosterone ratio was reported to be higher than normal on three occasions between 1993 and 1996, but in each case the test was dismissed by the UCLA lab of renowned anti-doping expert Don Catlin, whose lab tested the Texan some two dozen times between 1990 and 2000. In addition to detailing those test results, SI reveals what appears to have been a reluctance from USOC officials to sanction athletes using performance-enhancing drugs.
In 1999, USA Cycling sent a formal request to Catlin for past test results -- specifically, testosterone-epitestosterone ratios -- for a cyclist identified only by his drug-testing code numbers. A source with knowledge of the request says that the cyclist was Armstrong. In a letter responding to those requests, Catlin informed USA Cycling that his lab could not recover five of the cyclist's test results. Of the results that could be found, "three stand out," SI reports: "a 9.0-to-1 ratio from a sample collected on June 23, 1993; a 7.6-to-1 from July 7, 1994; and a 6.5-to-1 from June 4, 1996. Most people have a ratio of 1-to-1. Prior to 2005, any ratio above 6.0-to-1 was considered abnormally high and evidence of doping; in 2005 that ratio was lowered to 4.0-to-1."
While he didn't address the 6.5-to-1 result, Catlin wrote that he had attempted confirmation (a required step) on the 9.0-to-1 and 7.6-to-1 samples, and "in both cases the confirmation was unsuccessful and the samples were reported negative." (Armstrong says he has never taken performance-enhancing drugs and has never been informed that he tested positive.)

• Stephen Swart, a New Zealander who rode with Armstrong on the Motorola squad in 1995, describes the Texan as the driving force behind some of the team members deciding to use the banned blood booster EPO. "He was the instigator," Swart tells SI. "It was his words that pushed us toward doing it."
Swart, who admits to using EPO himself, also describes a hotel-room ritual in which riders pricked their fingers, put the blood in a vial, then ran it through a toaster-sized machine that provided their hematocrit levels.
Before 2001, when cycling began using a test for EPO, riders with a hematocrit level higher than 50 were subject to a 15-day ban. Swart recalls a rest-day during the '95 Tour when the Motorola riders tested their hematocrit levels. Swart was at 48. "Lance was 54 or 56," Swart recalls.
The next day, their teammate Fabio Casartelli was killed as the result of a crash while descending Col de Portet d'Aspet, in the Pyrenees. Three days later, Armstrong attacked a group of breakaway riders, soloing to victory in Stage 18, pointing to the heavens as he crossed the line, in honor of his fallen teammate. "I rode with the strength of two men today," he proclaimed. (Armstrong denies ever using performance-enhancing drugs.)

 

Time to dummy up a backdated TUE. 15 years is about right.

 

people have doped since the first olympics. time to get over it (especially when it happened over a decade ago).

and if SI is using foiled landis as a source they should stick to bathing suit issues...(once a year isn't enough anyway).

Go Lance!

 

I love when the government gets involved in these things. Makes me feel like paying extra taxes.

 

They really have no more pressing CURRENT CONCERNS!?! Don't bother testing GMO's, just put em out in everyones food, cause well, hey, actually testing them would take too much time. We have ten year old sports victories to hash over...

 

Well, if there are indeed athletes using experimental and non-approved drugs for performance enhancement, you'd agree that's something the FDA should be looking into, yes?

 

Hm. I'm fairly certain there are. But I think the UCI ought to test athletes who want to participate in UCI events. I just think that the Federal Food and Drug Administration showing up at mine or anybody elses doorstep to see if I was taking amphetamines to aide my performance on a hillclimb... is a bit, I dunno... obtuse? And a decade later, a pretty excessive waste of time, considering how pinched for time they claim to be, too pinched to do real work that affects everyones health in the country & ultimately the world, which is more along the lines of their whole purpose for existing.

 

First Landis has zero credability, and why does the government get involved in sports? It should be up to the individual governing board for the sport to control it's atheletes, not Congress or the FDA.

 

The FDA isn't making Lance piss in a cup.

His pants, maybe...