Read it on cyclingnews too. I actually think somemofnhis view points makes sense but he should have stated this six months ago or earlier. Now it is just too late. LA has no place in any sport

There is an element of truth. He is being held to blame for all the doping in the peleton at the time.

Is the peleron clean now? No. Contador, Schleck etc. There is little difference, just better science.

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Trust me I’m a doctor!
Well, I have a PhD :-)

Agree but thing is he was offered same terms as anyone else, as far as i know, but rejected. He hoped it would blow over and his usual approach would work. Now he comes back and wants fairness...oh my god

''What is relevant is that everyone is treated equally and fairly,'' he said. ''We all made the mess, let's all fix the mess, and let's all be punished equally.''

I don't think punished is the word he was looking for. Since he wants everyone to have amnesty.

At face value, everything lance says is valid. The problem is, the messenger. The guy who is saying all of the things in the article once said, and quite vehemently, "We have nothing to hide. We have nothing to run from. It's our word against his word. I like our word. We like our credibility."

Needless to say, lance was lying through his teeth.

And now, perhaps when he needs it most, nothing he says has even a shred of credibility left. Including this.

He's done.

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Given his actions over the past 20 years, and the words that have come out of his mouth in the last few weeks...Lance neeeds help, and a lot of it. The last thing he should be worried about is trying to get back to competing.

''The 'help' has evolved over the years but the fact remains that our sport is damn hard, the Tour was invented as a stunt, and very tough (riders) have competed for a century and all looked for advantages, from hopping on trains 100 years ago to EPO now,'' he said.
''No generation was exempt or 'clean.' Not Merckx's, not Hinault's, not LeMond's, not Coppi's, not Gimondi's, not Indurain's, not Anquetil's, not Bartali's, and not mine.'
now his defense, is accusing everybody of doing it, 2 wrong don't make a right
Ironman was also invented has a stunt to find out who was the best swimmer, biker or runner. what's your point Lance?

I think he has a valid point. Frankly, it makes me a little uncomfortable that he was singled out while a guy like Levi Leipheimer gets off with no punishment. I don't feel bad for the guy, he is a complete jerk and deserves his punishment. I just feel like something other than cleaning up cycling is driving Travis Tygart.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

>I think he has a valid point. Frankly, it makes me a little uncomfortable that he was singled out while a guy like Levi Leipheimer gets off with no punishment...

Come on now. Levi and Lance were offered the same three choices:

a) make a formal admission to USADA and get lenient treatment
b) go to arbitration to fight the charges
c) do nothing, and face harsh sanction.

Levi went with a). Lance chose c).

I'm not sure that's completely correct. While Levi took the first option and received a six month ban, did he lose any of his past victories? I honestly don't know the answer to that question but I don't recall ever hearing that he did.

I'm guessing Lance was not given that same option.

EDIT: btw, I have no sympathy for Lance but I also have no sympathy for Levi, George, et al. For all that I'm concerned, I'd prefer it if they all just went away and were never heard from again.

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"Unless you have a ... GF who might put out that night and that night only ... skip it and race." - AndyPants 3-15-2007

 
>I'm not sure that's completely correct. While Levi took the first option and received a six month ban, did he lose any of his past victories? I honestly don't know the answer to that question but I don't recall ever hearing that he did.

We'll never know what deal Lance might have gotten. But I'd speculate it'd be way less severe than what he got.

My point is that Lance can't have it both ways.

He basically gambled everything on invalidating the USADA process either through payoffs, or legal intervention. And he lost that gamble. Now he wants to go back in time and get the Levi-Horner-Zabriskie deal because his first choice of action failed. But that's not how it works.

Yes, everyone who got sanctioned by USADA got their palmares from that period wiped away. Some races have asked for return of prize money, some haven't. Lance is feeling the punishment the most because he has the most to lose.

http://hark.com/...elp-me-oprah-winfrey

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____________________________________________________

"on downhill bits I can sometimes attack without pedaling =)

it is the uphill bits that are hard though" Jackmott

"Come on now. Levi and Lance were offered the same three choices:"

nevertheless, and pardon the analogy, but to me the focus is on the thug who beats people up, and who gets the death sentence, but the guy who held the victim down, and the guys who stood overtop and watched the beatings - and never said a word - are spending their off season in jail. neither george, nor levi, nor dz, nor vdv, nor anyone of the rest of that crowd, would ever have said word one. let me put this in perspective. levi knew the entire time that betsy andreu and emma o'reilly were getting a bad rap and shabby treatment. he never lifted a finger. never said a word. for a decade and more. nor would he ever have said a word to this day to right those wrongs. nor would any of them. does this lessen lance's culpabillity? not a bit. however, one guy gets life. the others are banned from racing all those big money races that take place between thanksgiving and easter. further, they are basically called heroes by USADA. if this is not a full justification and use, by USADA, of the nuremburg defense, i do not know what else to call it. i'm not saying that lance should get levi's penalty. if anything, it should be the other way around. mostly i'm just saying that the delta between the penalties is much greater than can be justified by the fact that some of these guys - after a decade of doping and silence - rolled a few months before lance did.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Well, that explains it..

http://www.theatlantic.com/...ce-armstrong/272568/

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> i'm just saying that the delta between the penalties is much greater than can be justified by the fact that some of these guys - after a decade of doping and silence - rolled a few months before lance did.

That statement, coming from you, means something. Because you have been fairly consistent in championing transparent and reasonable balance between athlete's process-rights and identifying and punishing behavior corrosive to sport.

But the subject is "Lance claims..." He has not been...er, consistent, and has a minor conflict-of-interest at this point in arguing for honestly and amnesty. And a credibility problem for the conditions under which he arrived at this position.

"He has not been...er, consistent, and has a minor conflict-of-interest at this point in arguing for honestly and amnesty"

i know lance pretty well. i'm not one of the inside guys. but i think i've got a pretty good handle on where he's at, i've known him since his teenage days, and, maybe i'm blind, but, i don't think so. i think lance makes a tactical decision and once that decision's made, he's all in. that's lance in every circumstance, during the almost 25 years i've known him.

i think once he decided on cycling, he was all in. once he decided that it's cycling under the influence, he was all in. now that he's made the tactical pivot to transparency, he's all in. well, most in. he's necessarily telling the whole truth and all the truth. i think he's hanging back a bit, because i don't think he feels it's fair and safe to be the ONLY guy who's telling the entire truth.

remember, floyd and tyler lied consistently. but once they decided to pivot, i don't know anybody who really thinks tyler is making it all up now. i think tyler's pretty believable. i don't think it's naive to say of tyler, floyd, lance, i understand that they lied, i understand why they lied, but now that they've made their pivot they are, on the whole, telling the truth.

but my point was this. here's how USADA described athletes who doped, who either abetted, or at least witnessed, every bad thing lance did, who saw their friends and friends loved ones suffer, never said a word, never lifted a hand, and only now came clean because they were caught: "[they] have been courageous in making the choice to stop perpetuating the sporting fraud, and they have suffered greatly... they love the sport, and they want to help young athletes... these athletes, if forgiven and embraced, have a chance to leave a legacy far greater for the good of the sport than anything they ever did on a bike."

bullshit. the athletes gave up evidence because and only because they were caught. they are lauded so by USADA because they were useful to USADA. i don't mind if USADA gives reduced sentences to athletes who give useful evidence. but to laud them as courageous sufferers who came forward of their own accord because of their love of cycling, rehabilitated role models to young athletes, i've got a problem with that. the chasm between penalties is huge; the fiction USADA is spinning about these dopers is laughable.

lance's behavior was bad and worse than bad. but as bad as his actions were - and whether you take his mea culpas at face value or not - i am impressed by the quality of the apology. i don't see that sort of apology, yet, from tygart's courageous sufferers. i haven't seen any of them apologize to the andreus for witnessing everything and doing nothing.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The only thing that I don't like of all of this is the fact that they took everything away from Lance (which I completely agree this should), but others who have been caught for doping only lose the results from the race they were caught in, and have been allowed to come back and succeed. Prime example is Vinokourov; he's still credited from his results before he got caught, he came back and won an Olympic gold medal.

I think everyone ever caught should lose everything and not be allowed to come back, not just lance. I can understand why he would be pissed off about that.

The Levi-Horner-Zabriskie deal never should have happened. I'd be a lot that Lance was never offered the option of, "Look... You just tell us if you doped or not, you're not going to lose any tdf titles or any results, just tell us what happened and you can serve a 6 month ban and get back into it". It was probably more along the lines of, "listen here you shit head, we know you doped and when we find out we're going to ruin you. Here are your options, come clean and maybe you'll get to race again someday, don't come clean and risk never racing again."

I feel like it was almost a bribe that led to everyone talking up against him. I'm not defending Lance, I think everyone should get the same punishment.

I had a big long response, but am deleting it, and just boiling it down to this.

A question for you. Lance wants complete amnesty through the TRC, right? I assume the process is something like: a) you come to the TRC and admit doping, and b) you get amnesty. Pretty simple.

But the TRC process would have a c) option. Which is you don't come to the TRC, even though you qualify as a doper past or present. Some athletes will take this option. If the athletes who take option c) subsequently get caught, but give heartfelt public apologies, what do you think we should do with them?

Should they get the same b) that everyone else got, so we treat everyone the same? Or should there be a wide disparity between treatment of the two classes of dopers to maintain the incentive for athletes to take option a)? What if an athlete tries to corrupt the TRC, then sue it out of existence, and *then* gives a heartfelt public apology? If we treat him harshly, should we retroactively give everyone in b) an equal punishment because they doped just as much and didn't *really* apologize?

I don't like to be snarky....but damn, I'm just having a really hard time sympathizing.

How is anything he says in that interview valid? It is clear he raised the bar of cheating and promoted it further than it would have been otherwise. Honestly - how can he think he is like the others? What a dip shit. I think he needs electroshock therapy to get his head into a working state.

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________________
Adrian in Vancouver

This guy displays no remorse. He says he is sorry to all the people he has almost destroyed but then he bashes them again. He is basically taking a jab at Greg LeMond again. What a tool he is.

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________________
Adrian in Vancouver

meh. the more lance talks, the less i like him.

his pattern of self-serving behaviour continues. he's spent years cruxifying other riders and now seems suddenly very deeply interested in a 'truth and reconciliation' process. (leaving aside how ridiculous that term is - we're talking about grown men racing bicycles, not apartheid.)

he's tried to have the whole bloody thing his way - he's still never actually testified, he's only confessed to oprah. what? if you're so bloody concerned about making right, lance, why not call UCI and WADA and all Le Tour and make things right, on their terms? why is your first call to oprah?

the sooner he goes away the better.

-mike

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

everything else you've (eloquently) said aside, i quarrel with this part.

i am singularly unimpressed with the quality of the 'apology.' (and with the form and timing of its delivery.)

-mike

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

"A question for you. Lance wants complete amnesty through the TRC, right? I assume the process is something like: a) you come to the TRC and admit doping, and b) you get amnesty. Pretty simple."

this thread has two tracks: the question of the TRC, and the question of whether it's appropriate that lance's death sentence is appropriate when considered in the context of his teammates, which were hailed as heroes and given a ban consisting of a few months during what is mostly their off seasons.

at first blush, my response is that the disparity is a travesty of justice, not that lance's penalty was unfairly heavy, but that the sentence given the others was unfairly light. not just the light sentence given the others, but the praise heaped on them.

as to the other track, the TRC, i don't know. i haven't thought it through. i don't know if it would work. i think it bears considering, because, as somebody else pointed out in another thread, in the mid-2000s basically every athlete near the top in a grand tour was a past, current or future doper. i don't know if it's appropriate to just give everybody amnesty. maybe it is. alternatively, maybe it should be like the pending immigration legislation, where if you come in front the cold there's a path to citizenship.

here's what we have had over the past 9 months: a TRC for levi, george, vdv and the rest, and the death sentence for those who wouldn't play ball with the USADA's TRC. we've just had the TRC, at least with regard to one team. i guess i just think if USADA wants to have a TRC, then it just ought to announce it and do it, sportwide. if it doesn't want to have a TRC, fine, i'll accede to its greater wisdom, but then don't treat those who tell the truth as if it was a TRC (which is what they've basically done).

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Of course Lance had a chance to tell the truth before he was banned and he did not. Levi made a deal. Lance chose not to take a deal and accept the ban. That is the difference. Seems like he was treated fairly to me.

x2

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"i am singularly unimpressed with the quality of the 'apology.' (and with the form and timing of its delivery.)"

i agree with you on the timing. look, there is nobody in all of this - no athlete, no cyclist - who made an apology if his own free will. everybody who made an apology made it because he was forced to. levi, george, dz, vdv, td, mb, floyd, tyler, lance, everybody. all these guys would be living their lies today if not forced by outside pressures to make their apologies. they all lied. they are all liars. they are all cheaters. they all put their own selfish ambitions above the health of the sport, and they all watched others - friends of theirs - suffer and they all could have eased that suffering had they just told what they knew. are we in any disagreement about this? george hincapie saw what happened to his teammate frankie andreu, and his wife, and said nothing. did nothing. let it happen. never said a word. courageous george. hero george. george the role model for your younger athletes. the template of the honorable cyclist. george who is the andy pettitte of cycling. teflon george.

i've got nothing against george. george was no worse than any of these riders. but i'm having a hard time understanding why he is better. i see apologies from these athletes in writing, on their blogs, on the very day they were named as dopers (and praised while dopers) by USADA. never prior to their being outed did they say word one.

once these riders decided that they had no choice but to abandon each of their big lies, we have all had occasion to hear and read their statements. on the once hand, we read what i think are non-apology apologies, like that by levi: "I regret that this was the state of affairs in the sport that we love and I chose as my career. I am sorry that I was forced to make the decisions I made."

i regret that i was forced? yes, and al gore and the secret service tied bill clinton to a chair and forced monica lewinsky on him. clinton regrets that that happened.

here's what i think about lance armstrong. i think lance is obsessed with being the best. the best cyclist. the best doper. and now i think he's made the choice that when it comes to the current task - owning up to 15 years of doping and lying; making restitution; turning the page - i think he's now determined to be the best at that. certainly, this massive drive at being the best pointed toward the task of being humble and contrite is like asking a sumo wrestler to take up needlepoint. but i look at redemption stories like that of michael milken and i do see that redemption is possible. but it's only possible if you just flat admit to yourself and others the depth of what you've done. to that end, lance has done more than just publish a careful statement written with the help of those of whom the rider asks, "do you think this will be enough?"

accordingly, i am impressed with the effort lance is making, altho i acknowledge that he's not finished, we haven't seen it all, and it isn't going to be satisfactory until it's all finally out there.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I feel so sorry for Lance.

If USADA didn't make the deal with Levi, George etc - then we would probably still be arguing over whether Armstrong doped, he would still be CEO of Livestrong, he'd still be making Michelob commercials, and most likely have become the face of Ironman. Wasn't it worth USADA giving these guys a decent deal so that we can now have an honest conversation about PED's without the distraction of people saying "Armstrong never tested positive"? At least we're past that crap.

"Wasn't it worth USADA giving these guys a decent deal so that we can now have an honest conversation about PED's without the distraction of people saying "Armstrong never tested positive"? At least we're past that crap."

we see this tension in the criminal justice system all the time. it's never easy. but i think we just need to see transparency and justice from our system of justice, whether it's a criminal court or USADA. for example, i don't believe any of these cyclists even attempted to make the 2012 olympic team. why is that? is it because tygart said, "i don't want any of you riders sullying our nation through riding for it at the olympics."? fine. then, just say so. don't engage in your own omerta while decrying others' omerta. and please don't call them courageous. they got caught. telling the truth was preferable to going to jail. USADA was over the top in its praise for these athlete and it speaks to USADA's need for aggrandizement.

that said, yes, you're correct, there's always got to be some sort of inducement - some carrot - to persuade a liar to tell the truth. but i think in this case USADA almost entirely forgave and rehabilitated these athletes in exchange for their testimony, and i highly suspect they secretly forbade them from attempting to make the olympic team. i have a problem with secrecy, the fake praise, the light sentences, and the false dichotomy between armstrong's sins and the sins of these other riders.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

slowman you have put into words exactly how I feel about this entire saga. Further there are some unanswered questions in this that I would love to hear answers on.

Depends on if we ever find out how and what information they received from the DOJ in order to build their case. I'd certainly like to know how Tygart was tipped off of what was being uncovered in the DOJ investigation. How did Tygart have leverage on the other riders in the first place?

DId you watch the same interview the rest of did? The interview was a total fail. His performance has been universally panned as that of a merciless psycho with zero empathy for those he destroyed. Go to Google news and look up articles written after the interview. The words "quality of the apology" will not feature in any of them. Armstrong is being excoriated as Bernie Madoff on wheels, and a strong feeling that runs through most articles is that Armstrong looks far worse than he did before the interview.

On top of his miserable attempt to explain himself, he continues to flagrantly lie. It was exactly the type of interview where Armstrong's PR people gave him a carefully planned set of answers they hoped would be enough but Armstrong's reptilian-like cold bloodedness lacked any sort of human warmth that could have made the words believable or himself likeable.

The apologists are still looking for any excuse to lessen what Armstrong did. The latest talking point is that Armstrong's punishment is unfair because Zabriskie or Vande Velde or Leipheimer received a lesser sentence. This is bogus. Armstrong was not charged with simply doping like the others. He was charged with trafficking; facilitation, aiding, abetting, assisting, and administrating other riders' doping; intimidation, coercion, and bullying to further his doping conspiracy; etc. No other rider has ever been charged with the breadth and depth of doping related acts that Armstrong was sanctioned for. He personally took it upon himself to punish not only riders who had testified about doping but riders who were not doping that had spoken to the media about the doping problem.

Even so, Armstrong was given the opportunity to get a reduced sanction. Instead he attempted to destroy the anti-doping framework with ridiculous charges of unconstitutionality and lack of due process. He lost and now he is crying because, maybe for the first time in his life, the rules were applied to him. He is getting a feel for how the rest of us live and does not like it. Tough shit. He is a grown man. He made his choices. Now he can live with the outcome.

It appears that there are still those willing to take whatever bullshit Armstrong's PR people have dreamed up and promote it as though it were not a transparent attempt to excuse Armstrong.

I think the point is that Lance was almost certainly not offered even close to the same deal as Levi - ergo he can argue that he was not treated fairly.

Related to the part in bold, as I wrote elsewhere, I don't care so much about the full spilling of the beans. What I care about is that the sport moves forward. I think you, Tygart and many of us are on the same page about moving the sport forward.

The past is only the series of steps that got us here and only affects our footsteps forward if we use them in the right way.

Lance was the biggest fish of his time, he benefited greatly from the practices of his era, he gave to funding of cancer awareness/coping, but he/his generation left a mess in the sport. As the king of his generation, it is largely on him to act as the catalyst to affect change not for Lance, but for the sport and the opportunities for the next generation that come behind us. I'd like to see, not in talk, but in actions, that he is moving things the right way. Even though many say he has no credibility, he has a voice that people will listen to. Hopefully he uses it well. I actually think he will given as you said, the "all in mentality".

Dev

Oh c'mon, do you really believe any of those generations were clean? In most of the above cases, they had been busted mid-career for doping (Merckx 3 times, even kicked out of the Giro mid-race!) I think that was an extremely valid point that he made, and that everyone seems to conveniently & perpetually forget. Every year the tour speaks nostalgically as it passes the spot where Tom Simpson died on the Ventoux, and they never mention the fact that he died because he was hopped up on speed.

"DId you watch the same interview the rest of did?"

obviously you and i disagree. yes, i read the pundit reviews. i also note that none of the pundits reviewing know anything about cycling. i watched piers morgan excoriate armstrong as a criminal and a sociopath and then in the very next breath welcome one of his three favorite all time guests - because of his candor and transparency - charlie sheen. history will judge this process, not johnny come lately experts. neither do i agree with their assessments, nor the opposite assessment of those of the ilk of sally jenkins, who are blatant armstrong apologists. i don't agree that everybody did it so that makes it okay. nor to i agree that lance was the only guilty party and all the other riders victims of lance.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Hah....that Pierse Morgan interview with him and Sheen bantering about Lance was truly comical. We can definitely agree on that. I generally like what Pierse says, but hopefully his depth on topics I know nothing about is slightly more than his depth on the LA/USADA affair. Nevertheless, I'll keep watching him, but now I'll approach those sessions with more of a critical view.

Sports related drug enforcement agencies have been embarassingly weak for most of their existence. I applaud that we now have someone like Tygart - who is unafraid to go after the biggest people in sport in an aggressive manner. Talk to me if he ever punishes someone who was innocent or bullies someone who is merely telling the truth - then I will be critical of him as well.

Slowman - Even though I think you're trying to make the overriding point that the other guys got off way too easily to my reading there's a tone of "Lance is being treated unfairly" to your comments. (I don't think that's what you mean, but that's what I'm hearing.) The inappropriate punishment of Levi, George, et al can't be used to argue for a reduced punishment for Lance. Is the disparity in the punishment wrong? Absolutely. But the one they got right was Lance's. I really, really wanted to see him do Hawaii and was as excited as anybody when he jumped back into triathlon, but now I just want him to go away and I think that's the punishment he's earned. I was on the Champs Elysee in 2005 when he chastised the world for not believing in cycling and I cheered when he said those words. For years that's been a great memory. One of those, "I was really there." moments. Now it's embarrassing to admit I bought into the whole thing. That being said, I want them all to go away. The slap on the wrist for those who testified is a joke and an embarrassment. Saint George makes me sick. How none of this tarnishes him is amazing to me. ...and I'm not sure he's even apologized. Levi, Christian, Danielson... all of them. I cheered for those guys on TV and sometimes on the roads for a decade or more. Now I just want them all to go away and let us start over.

"The inappropriate punishment of Levi, George, et al can't be used to argue for a reduced punishment for Lance."

no disagreement there. but i do think we ought as a sport to consider a more nuanced implementation of competition bans. for example, i'd like to see a longer pro punishment for levi, but i think he should be encouraged to participate in his own (and maybe other) gran fondos in any way he pleases. i'd like to see us discuss differentiating between races that on the one hand are pro, or high level AG, such as AG worlds, nationals, AG worlds and nationals qualifiers, etc., versus, on the other hand, other less consequential AG races. i don't want to lose george hincapie or levi leipheimer from cycling altogether. i want them to be a part of cycling. training camps, coaching, riding, writing, sponsoring, just, i don't know that i'm ready to have them remount in a grand tour.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The question is, what kind of reduced sentence was he offered. Was he offered 6 months like George, Levi and all the rest got? Or was he offered 8 years, or 2 years? Armstrong may have been a bigger asshole than the other guys, but from a sporting/cheating perspective how is what he did any worse than the rest? Did all the rest follow the same doping programs as him? I think that they did. Tyler's book tells of occasions where several of them were in a room together getting transfusions during the Tour de France.


They all did the same thing and I think that no matter what Armstrong told USADA before the decision was made there is no way in hell he would have gotten 6 months like all the rest.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

On Oprah he said that he wished he could go back six months and have cooperated with USADA. I'd say that's a pretty strong indication that he would have gotten off much more lightly if he had agreed to testify at that point.

I have to disagree with you slightly here Dan.

While many were using, and many kept quiet, given the history, we know that the basic air was, you speak against Lance, you will lose your job, be sued, and you will be taken down.

You think a lot of people know bad thing drug dealers or Mafiosos do? Why do you think more people don't talk.

Again to me the doping is secondary to LA, I look to the lives he destroyed, the legal monster he unleashed.

In your analogy, perhaps you should have lance turning to the witnesses as he does his beating and then snarling, you say one effing word and you will get worse.

>USADA wants to have a TRC, then it just ought to announce it and do it, sportwide.

That's a good point. I just looked through the USADA athlete handbook, and there's no "So You're a Doper: Here's How To Make It Right" section. They should document what you need to bring to the table when you "come in" and what you can expect in return, which places constraints on both sides.

Again to me the doping is secondary to LA, I look to the lives he destroyed,//

I see this statement thrown around all the time, whose lives exacty did he destroy?? I see some guys who did drugs that lost their jobs, or changed teams, but they all seem to be doing fine now. We all lose jobs in the real world and have to make life changes, but our lives are not destroyed. Betsy seems to be doing just fine, doing the talk show circut and certainly has some book deal in the works. Tyler is fine, Floyd is fine, I see Frankie on tv commentating the tour, in fact they all seem to be doing better than lance at the moment. All of his ex teamates who testified agains him that were racing, are all still racing, and have kept their clothing lines, big houses, most sponsors, etc. IF he destroyed anyone's life, it is his own, and i do not see that even. He will recover from this episode somehow and move on with some sort of nice life i would guess. People were inconvienced and hurt by lance, but a lot of that was also their own doing too. But i see no destroyed lives here by any means. There are a lot of course changes in lives, but that was going to happen eventually for everyone that is a pro cyclist, and for everyone that participates in our culture today, just the way it goes. Very few of us get a smooth path through life without any bumps in the road, it is how we deal with them that sets people apart..

I have no doubt that he would have gotten off easier if he cooperated with USADA. I have MUCH doubt that he would have gotten anywhere near as light of a sentence as Hincapie, Levi, etc. if he had cooperated.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

As far as I know, being a dick is not an offense in the WADA code. His doping offenses are the same as Hincapie and the rest of the group. EPO, Testosterone, transfusions, etc.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

When in doubt isn't the saying for multiple choice to always choose "c" right? I guess Lance isn't good at multiple choice...

Phew....glad this was clarified....I was fearful that half of slowtwitchia was going to be banned by WADA....but now we are OK to enter races after that clarification.

Dev

Have you ever been sued or targeted by a wealthy person or powerful corporation.

My family has. EDS had targeted my sister because she left the company before her contract was up (they had violated several terms which led to her leaving)

They were completely in the wrong, knew they were in the wrong, yet wanted to make an "example" and basically stated... We don't care what our contract says, we will do what we want and if you try and back out of your end, we will sue you into the ground."

We were lucky. One of our good friends happened to be a brilliant retired corporate lawyer from a major defense contractor and did the work for us over the next 3 years pro-bono. It is extremely stressful, especially when you start looking at the smear things corporations do like hiring private investigators, spreading lies to companies you are interviewing with (imagine sitting down to an interview and the interviewer starts asking you about things the company has contacted them about which are lies)

"You said you left. We were contact and told that not only were you fired, that they are have lawsuits against you for the harm and damages you did during your course of employment"

We won. Took forever and it was brutal. Especially when you are facing judgements more than you can afford, are fighting lies, and have someone not afraid to manufacturer evidence (like Lance telling Lemond he would find 20 people to say he doped)

Going through the legal ringer SUCKS, is painful, frustrating, and expensive.

>>> yes, i read the pundit reviews. i also note that none of the pundits reviewing know anything about cycling. i watched piers morgan excoriate armstrong as a criminal and a sociopath and then in the very next breath welcome one of his three favorite all time guests - because of his candor and transparency - charlie sheen. history will judge this process, not johnny come lately experts. neither do i agree with their assessments, nor the opposite assessment of those of the ilk of sally jenkins, who are blatant armstrong apologists. i don't agree that everybody did it so that makes it okay. nor to i agree that lance was the only guilty party and all the other riders victims of lance. <<<<

Does it matter that the pundits did not have a cycling background? Lance went on Oprah looking for redemption and by all accounts it was a massive fail. The cycling experts and non-cycling public saw for themselves how arrogant, deceitful, and conniving he is. His lack of emotion and empathy came through loud and clear. I understand your point of view regarding the inequality of sentencing, but if Lance is serious about making amends, he can start by ceasing all efforts to get back to competition and spend all of his time working in support of cancer patients. Until then, his apology sounds as meaningful as OJ's promise to spend the rest of his life looking for Nicole's killer.

Have you ever been sued or targeted by a wealthy person or powerful corporation. //

Yes i have, a couple times. My life is not destroyed. IT was a stressful bad time, but it was not the worst times of my life either. You can dwell on the past and let it ruin your future, or deal with whatever at the time, then move on. I see everyone with so called destroyed lives in this saga as having moved on with a chance at a happy, meaningful life in front of them.

I agree with you. I think the punishment should be same for the same crime. So to make it fair, first give them the same as Lance's punishment then split up Lance's money so they have the same rewards from doping. Would not this be the fairest?

Actually I suggest you "re-read" the original charges / letter

If by being a dick you mean:

supplying drugs
Concealing use
Intimidating witnesses.

You think Bruyneel and Ferrari's charges as well as other of Team Management and trainers were for USE?

What got shown with Lance, which is why they came after him harder, was he was more of a central figure. Levi, George, etc... They were the end user... Lance was both a user as well as a supplier, pusher, and at times even muscle.

The little fish always get off lighter to get the Kingpin.

MOST of the charges against Lance were for code of conduct and criminal type activity regarding concealing / providing

in fairness, maui, you had to see that answer coming from monty. he's a man who used to swim uphill to school - both ways! on the 1:05!

-mike

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Dear Mr. Empfield,
As you stated, this thread has two tracks. My question to you is �why did YOU start the second track?� I am most likely way off base here. But... Is it perhaps to deflect the first and therefor perhaps justify your obvious feelings of admiration for Lance? Or is it simply another opportunity for you to grind your ax over USADA�s tactics?
You submit that he is now going to be the best at redemption. Your evidence for this opinion is that because you know him so well, that you just know he will be the best at whatever he does? If that is so, then he is even more disingenuous than he came across in the interview (I realize you disagree with that assessment).
Are you familiar with the �Barnum Effect�?
How does one �completely� mostly� come clean Dan?
I submit that we are all slaves to our own egos; I would not be writing this if I weren�t a slave to my own. But this is the first time I have seen it in your writing. I also submit that Lance Armstrong is still the great puppet master and we are all, to some degree still his puppets.

Jerry Trump

Didn't he villified his message therapist and called her a whore because she spoke out? Destroy is a harsh term, but I'm sure her life wasn't pleasant during those times.

The guys that wrote articles/books about his doping ways. He went after them pretty hard no? Again destroy is a harsh terms, but their lives weren't too comfortable with lawsuits accusing them of fabrications.

Last I look, the people I just mentioned, didn't dope or transport dope.

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__________________________________________________________________________
My marathon PR is "under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something."

Destroy is a harsh term,//

That is all i was getting at with my post. I do not see anything close to any destroyed lives. I see a lot of people that were put in stressful situations that were not pleasant, but nothing approaching something like a major medical emergency in ones life. Just trying to keep lance's sins in context.

What I've learned from this thread is that there are Lance lovers and Lance haters. And, the same identical data is being used to support your position. So, Religion, Politics and Lance. No amount of arguing will change anyone's position and the person "on one side" will constantly be frustrated with how stupid everyone on the "other" side is.

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BC Don
Pain is temporary, not giving it your all lasts all Winter.

We really need a like button here. Because this nails it.

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Suffer Well.

Frankie did. He stands alone in this mess.

I understand that you are making reference to him with the others later in the paragraph, but it is worth pointing out again to everyone that he spoke the truth on his own, with nothing to gain from doing so.

Disagreed.

Vaughters backed betsy and frankie anonymous in the NY times all those years ago, he's been doing things the right way in the sport, and making it seen so that people know there's another choiuce. VDV and DZ by standing with Vaughters are in a much different place in my mind than Levi or George, who even now do little to nothing. Both DZ and VDV had worked toward clean cycling even before coming out with their own pasts.

Further, When you say the difference in punishment isnt justified by the other rolling "a few months" before Lance. Without those others, Lance, JB and the team docs would never have been popped, and as of yet, Lance hasn't rolled, just admitted his own guilt.

Vaughters made a good point today; though he's taken a lot of guff for his team having several ex-dopers, they do not employ any medical professionals with a doping background. IMO Getting the docs and and team managers is critical. Lance stood in the way of all of that. Add to the fact that he bought off the UCI for at least one test, and potentially got them to look the other way in 2009 & 2010 (though 2010 now looks like a universal downturn in UCI testing, for god knows what reason) when they had his passport and didnt do anything with it. 3 of the passport panel have now said it absolutely would have been a passport violation if they'd been given the data.

I couldn't disagree more with this either.

He's not at all motivated to be the best at coming out and making amends. He's working to get the best deal he can on competition, he's trying to pay out the smallest amount on Qui Tam, etc. He didn't just pour it all out and hope for the best. He's doing the best for himself, not to make true amends like Milken. Maybe that will change, but his personality type, the laugh before answered when asked about the sophistication of his doping "It was professional", almost nothing indicated he's actually truly out for the best of others or cycling. There are some people in this that clearly are not out for themselves; he's not done anything IMO to show he isn't one of them. Remember he's had now 2 separate changes to sit down with Tygart and tell the truth, and the first one, he could have kept 5 tour wins and been working on his 2013 race calendar.

Have to agree with you there.

I thought it was widely agreed that Armstrong's stocks actually went down after the 'apology'..?

I should have just "+1" this quote rather than what I said above.

Ben, Dan,

I think it is totally irrelevant what Lance is motivated by. The rest of us can't do anything with the motivations of any human (well, if we are in charge of them, we can channel the motivation for a fruitful outcome, but none of us are in charge of Lance). What is important with him or anyone is the actions he/they take. Motivation is only an abstract catalyst inside someone's brain. Their actions are what the rest of the world experiences. I think we are in agreement on what actions he needs to take moving forward to help sport and clean the mess up. Trying to figure out his motivations are a waste of time. They don't really affect us. His actions do.

Dev

"Again to me the doping is secondary to LA, I look to the lives he destroyed, the legal monster he unleashed."

i agree with you. i don't think there is very much space between you and i on that count. all i'm saying is, levi and george stood by and spectated, sometimes even abetted, all of that, and never said a word, and profited by it. and i can even understand that, to a degree. what i can't understand is how these courageous, longsuffering role models are getting punished by not getting to race on thanksgiving and christmas.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"Disagreed. Vaughters backed betsy and frankie anonymous in the NY times all those years ago, he's been doing things the right way in the sport, and making it seen so that people know there's another choiuce."

you disagree with what i wrote about vaughters? what did i write about vaughters?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I disagree when you talk about the people involved, of which vaughters was one to testify, that no one has come forward or supported the andreaus.

My point is his actions thus far don't prove anything has changed with him, and that there's no factual basis to defend Dan's opinion.

For a guy that normally posts interesting & good stuff, this one left me scratching my head.

Emma O'Reilly branded an alcoholic whore & sued more times than Lance can remember..
Betsy & Frankie Andreu..financial & emotionally damaged for a long time. As strong as Betsy is, you can see she is still suffering.
Mike Anderson relocated to NZ to get away from Armstrong.
Lemond...turned into a joke by the Lance PR machine & lost a lot of money..
Bassons..basically kicked out of the sport because he was clean

Not sure how any of it was their own doing.

The list goes on.

Inconvenienced..?

If you get a chance, watch/read some interviews with these people, and see how traumatic their lives were because of Armstrong.

I agree, there have been no material actions to change the future YET. That's all we all want to see. The truth is fine and it can some out when it does. We just want actions to change the future. I don't really care what his personal motivations are (well, I do, but as I can't control his motivations, there is no point losing sleep over it...heck, I can't even influence what my son is motivated by....he is his own man and derives his motivations from things that make him click...)

"I disagree when you talk about the people involved, of which vaughters was one to testify, that no one has come forward or supported the andreaus."

you disagree with something you wish i would have written?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Sounds pretty analogous to any plea bargaining tactic that would get used in a criminal trial.

Nope, you wrote it.

"look, there is nobody in all of this - no athlete, no cyclist - who made an apology if his own free will. everybody who made an apology made it because he was forced to.levi, george, dz, vdv, td, mb, floyd, tyler, lance, everybody. all these guys would be living their lies today if not forced by outside pressures to make their apologies. "


Vaughters had no outside pressure to apologize. frankie had no outside pressure to apologize. Floyd was long past any outside pressure. These other guys took an opportunity Lance had and didn't. Further, DZ and VDV actively worked towards clean cycling even before revealing their past.


"neither george, nor levi, nor dz, nor vdv, nor anyone of the rest of that crowd, would ever have said word one. let me put this in perspective. levi knew the entire time that betsy andreu and emma o'reilly were getting a bad rap and shabby treatment. he never lifted a finger. never said a word. for a decade and more. nor would he ever have said a word to this day to right those wrongs."


Vaughters supported Betsy anonymously back in the NY times piece all those years ago. So please just stop trying to lump them all together. there are differences, and while some might see it as shades of grey, those shades are what pushing clean cycling forward in the pro ranks, while the rest have done nothing. When levi george and lance actually do something towards anti-doping then they can start working towards the redemption others are working towards or have earned.

A small correction:

No only was Landis "long past any outside pressure" to confess/apologize, when he confessed, he was still under immense pressure to not come clean. Because surely Landis guessed that if he did confess there would be hell for him to pay, personally, financially, criminally, civilly, and career-wise.

And he was right.

But he came clean anyway, in spite of the pressure.

---

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If you get a chance, watch/read some interviews with these people, and see how traumatic their lives were because of Armstrong. //

I don't disagree with what you have said, but the key word is "were". I know all the stories just like everyone else does, but if they are going to use that as an excuse for their lives to be "destroyed" from now on, then it is just scapegoating. Frankie used drugs to race, he was in the system. He has to accept some responsibility for his actions which led him down this path. Betsy said she would never marry a doper, but she did. I have a guy here at the camp that knows Lemond very well, and tells me of the stories of his lies, deciet in business, and lives he "destroyed" too. I know it was not a good time for any of these folks and lance was a big reason for it. But they could be done with it if they choose, they are not destroyed as human beings. They lived through some tough times, just like a lot of us have over the years. You either move on and prosper, or live in the past and wilt. Lance has no control over that, no matter how much you all want it to be so..

"all i'm saying is, levi and george stood by and spectated, sometimes even abetted, all of that, and never said a word, and profited by it. and i can even understand that, to a degree."
-----------------------------
Oh how I agree....funny, I agree with most everything on these topics. The plots are so interwoven and are such a microcosm of human nature, although there is one who has certainly taken it all to the extreme.


I think this is a very interesting study into the characteristics of human behavior. It's a bit like Jesse James and the gang - there were bank robbers before and after. No one talked when it was going well. Then, one gets caught and squeals. The rest ride on as long as they can, and never fess up til they have to....and even then, they are plotting their next heist because that's just the way they are. I find the whole thing fascinating from a human and sociological perspective. I am not a Lance supporter or a Lance apologist but, it is certainly fascinating to dissect the behavior of some of the various characters.

In no particular order:

• Betsy - she wouldn't marry Frankie if he doped. At some point she either caved, or Frankie lied to Betsy. Either way she's ticked off and wants the Man hung high b/c her man wouldn't have been a robber if the Man wasn't
• Frankie - Betsy's mad at him and cuts him off - the only way he gets back in good graces is to turn in the Man. The Man doesn't want hung, so he bites back...perfectly predictable....shoots the witness so to speak. Interesting how he let's his wife do his bidding - telling.
• Tyler and Levi - they get taken down. Try as they might, they just can't do it on their own. So, when, and only when, there is nothing else to lose they come clean. Of course they have to blame someone, so the Man, who's still on the loose (and not doing himself any relationship favors) is the target. The Man rides on...for a while.
• George, Levi, and a cast of 100s just go along and get along as long as the going is good....and it works for quite some time. Then, when the posse gets really close and they know the end is in sight, well..... they are so very sorry, and cop to a light sentence....the Man still is out there fighting, robbing, and continuing on even though he knows the end is in sight.
• Kathy - she gets pretty vocal even though she has seen other heists in the past and says nothing. Of course, this is the only one who steal her man's thunder....then she complains when the fighter fights back. Again, talking for her man seems a bit odd
• Greg - don't know how clean he was way back then, but i have my thoughts. Nevertheless, there can't be much question that he knew of other "gangs" back then...and, he didn't do a whole lot of turning folks in; but, then, he was still the baddest on the frontier, so it's not his problem. There were lots of known bad guys riding around before and after but they were never a threat. Then, along comes a young gun slinger who is so good he steals the limelight and all of a sudden he has this great interest in cleaning up the whole wild West and it starts with one man, and one only.
• Travis - he is either one bad sheriff, or he is Marshall Dillon....I still haven't figured that out...it will be interesting to see how it plays out. He was on TV the other night when my youngest daughter walked through the room "Daddy, who is that man...he doesn't look nice - I don't like him" Interesting take on the Sheriff.
• The "Man" - he really cares about no one or nothing other than his own desires. It's all a means to his ends. He was the best and meanest gun slinger of the bunch. That's they way he is, and probably the way he will always be. Even when he is down he is fighting and scheming. Even if it makes no sense, the rage go on....that's just the way he is.

The motives, the plots, and the suspense over all the years.... just fascinating. Now, on other frontiers the same stories are at some stage of playing out (football, baseball soccer, ...Wall Street....or maybe even triathlon). Some of these have kids starting in high school so they can be bigger, stronger, and hit harder....actually this is a much nastier gang for society, but there is SOOO much money involved that know one yet knows whether or if they will deal with it.


Human dynamics never cease to amaze me...even after 1000s of years we all watch, and play, these same old games just in different forms and on different fields.


I wish I could type better and lay more of this out, but you get the point.

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David
* Ironman for Life! (Blog) * IM Everyday Hero Video * Daggett Shuler Law *
Disclaimer: I have personal and professional relationships with many athletes, vendors, and organizations in the triathlon world.

Yeah man, I saw some of your answers after I replied.. not destroyed, literally, but bad for a long time.

<here's what i think about lance armstrong. i think lance is obsessed with being the best. the best cyclist. the best doper. and now i think he's made the choice that when it comes to the current task - owning up to 15 years of doping and lying; making restitution; turning the page - i think he's now determined to be the best at that>


Well, I'm not impressed until he admits his relationship with the UCI as well his role influencing everyone whoe rode on his teams.

"Travis - he is either one bad sheriff, or he is Marshall Dillon....I still haven't figured that out...it will be interesting to see how it plays out. He was on TV the other night when my youngest daughter walked through the room "Daddy, who is that man...he doesn't look nice - I don't like him" Interesting take on the Sheriff." (david)

Out of the mouths of babes....

David...to date this is the best write up on this topic....front page material all the way :-)

I think you're wrong. Landis was under immense financial pressure due to not having gainful employment. That led him to try and extort a job/income from Armstrong and Johan. When they did not submit Landis went public. Landis also owes all of that Floyd Fairness Fund money back. Though that judgement came after he outed Lance.

I do not think Landis was lying, but he had plenty of motivation and did not do it because he had a change of heart and wanted to come clean to cleanse his soul.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

Sure, Landis was under financial pressure due to not having employment. But, by keeping quiet, I am sure he could have done something in cycling eventually, ridden for a 3rd string team, coached, sold bikes at a bike shop, run an elementary school cycling club, whatever.

However, if he 'came clean', first, he had no idea where exactly it would lead (except, likely, to his ruin on nearly all levels including the clusterf*ck of the floyd fairness fund). But one thing he did know was that he would likely never work in cycling again.

Of course I'm not claiming he did it to "cleanse his soul", I have no first hand knowledge of the real 'why'. But he did it in spite of immense pressure to keep quiet. That much is clear.

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was thinking the same thing! bravo!

Maybe there should be a new acronym for Armstrong - instead of HTFU, STFU - someone on his strategy team should tell him to "Shut the..." At this point he just seems to keep digging the hole deeper and deeper.

The doping I (and most people I think) can get over. His tyrannical aggression followed by incessant whining about "witch hunt," "singled out," "unfair treatment," blah, blah, blah makes his position less and less sympathetic with every passing day. He needs to understand that his ban is commensurate with how he enacted his brand of street justice during his reign at the top, though he says things like "you reap what you sow" he doesn't think it's fair when applied to him. He destroyed people's lives, having the ability to compete in sanctioned races taken away is a reasonably light punishment when you consider that.

I think his situation was a lot more desperate and he didn't have time to find a cycling job eventually. He needed something right then. I think that if he couldn't get it then he was going to "take those fuckers down with him". (Not a quote, just my take on his point of view.)

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

great post and completely ignored on this thread.

But narcissism is only half of the equation in the DSM... like half of the 21 or so traits. The other half of the 21 is the sociopath half.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

After thinking about this a bit I am glad Lance "feels" he was treated unfairly. The same way the people he went after felt.

Knowing that he thinks he got fucked over brings a smile to my face. So much for all those that said all this doesn't really bother him.

Fuck Lance....

exactly

Well, that explains it..

http://www.theatlantic.com/...ce-armstrong/272568/ "

Um, no... it really doesn't.

The musings of a pop psychologist who is attempting to apply diagnostic criteria to a "patient" he has never examined is just more armchair dribble like you read on forums. :-)

The only difference is that his dribble is even longer than my posts and he got paid a butt load for his "expertise".

Many, many "superstars" have backgrounds similar to LA. Anger is a great motivator and one could argue that it is a necessity for greatness. How many times have you heard something like "He's really talented but he's too nice to win..." (Insert major championship).

This article made me think that his author knows ZERO about cycling and cycling history. "Hey Joe, could you do a 10,000ft evaluation of LA for the next issue. People are really interested in this thing.".

Puhleese.

P.O.T.Y. !!!!! Who doesn't love a great western!!!

Louis Lamour has nothing on you.......

Bravo!!! (or,..... should I say...... Rio Bravo!!!)

Tim Carlson asked the very same questions to Andreas Ralaert after he let Macca get away for the Kona win in 2010.....no one is accusing Macca of being the nicest guy in pro triathlon. He is engaging, charismatic, energetic, articulate and in your face, and many of us love him for that. But I don't think that fellow pros will accuse him of being the nice guy of pro triathlon.

I don't believe he's been "treated unfairly."

This is just funny...

The truth is the ONLY thing that matters. Without the truth, you can have no change. His actions all revolve around how much truth he'll reveal; I'm willing to believe for now that he's holding back stuff that he thinks is the most valuable for him to get the best deal. If he passes on the option to speak to USADA and instead looks to talk to UCI, that will tell us a lot. I dont believe for a second he wants truth; he wants only reconciliation and he's only willing to give enough truth to get that.

We can have all the truth we want, but there have to be some actions that follow that to change anything. You and I don't need to know the truth although it would be nice. Some people in the sport and governing bodies do so that they can start the change process. Unless you are getting involved, it is somewhat irrelevant other than it making you feel better (which is fine, but that's not material to changing the sport for the better). Let's see some actions...from Lance from the UCI, from the rest of the postal crew who are really doing nothing. Actually I take that back. Michael Barry is doing something, here in Canada so that other kids don't end up having to face the same choice as him. What is Levi doing? What is George doing? What is Lance doing? For now I just see a big goose egg. I'm willing to give them some time to implement some kind of action plan.

Im not talking about public truth, though I think that transparency would be required for that person to return to racing. I specifically talked about to authorities such as USADA. Vaughters, VDV, and DZ have been doing something as well as Michael Barry. I agree, Levi, lance, and george have barely even talked the talk let alone walk the walk. Vaughters has made sure he's got a clean development team (though due to funding that appears to be going away) VDV and DZ have been speaking out, though right now during the suspensions they're doing the right thing and just staying away. I will be interested to see what Tommy D does upon his return. he's the one garmin guy involved in this who hasn't done much IMO and has often said the wrong thing. David Millar, though not part of the postal mess, as much as he said some dumb shit before he got caught, especially to floyd, he's on the WADA AC, and he's been putting tough questions to UCI. That Vaughters gives these reformed guys a place to ride and that the other formal posties on his team both race under that set of rules and support him says they're doing stuff in the pro ranks to make it better.

I agree, david, did a nice job of describing the cast of characters in this drama. Tygarts hyperfocus on LA reminds me of Captain Ahab's pursuit of Moby-Dick. It's not good for his health. IMHO.

Your last paragraph is dead on. And if it's only partial truth it is really no truth at all.

Well said-also, I've always wondered why she was in the room while a medical history was being taken and/or why she repeated confidential information/

Dan you really seem to side with Lance on everything I read. I'm aware you "know him" so I can understand that.

I personally cannot see why anyone would have a problem with Lance getting the "death penalty." He's unquestionably been involved in one of the most sophisticated drug scandals in the history of sport, has taken millions that he didn't deserve (due to the cheating), and crushed lives of those in his way which is the worst in my opinion! I just don't get how ANYONE can possibly side with him on any issue...period.

That said....lol....a small part of me wouldn't mind seeing him compete in Kona...lol....but then again I know any sort of performance he puts forth is either drug enduced from the past or present or both!

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24 Hour World TT Champs-American record holder
Fat Bike Worlds - Race Director
Insta: chris.s.apex

". . ."death penalty." (cmscat50)

Are you serious?

It's this type of rhetoric that distorts the issue.

What a cold horrible human he is. He hurt so many people beyong his own lying about PEDs. And now he just wants sympathy and consideration to further his own selfish desires...

Lance just needs to go. Away. Now.

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My body does rise up and says "I think we've done all we can for today." To which I reply, "No."

You do realized that in the context of sports, death penalty does not mean the same as the judical definition, right?

What he is stating (i.e., death penalty) isn't rhetoric. It is the current reality for Lance (i.e., he is banned from the sport). Look up SMU to see what the death penalty involves when it comes to NCAA sports.

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__________________________________________________________________________
My marathon PR is "under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something."

Tribeer,

You are so amuzing. Now you cannot longer claim that Lance is innocent but you hang on to the witchhunt theme apparently - for how long?

She was a friend of Lance's visiting him in his hospital room. When the doc came in they offered to leave but Lance said it was OK to stay. LA evidently didn't expect her to talk about his conversation with the doctor to others. She didn't feel the need to keep the contents of that conversation private.

Pretty sure she gave up the info in a deposition, so no real choice. Frankly I'm amazed a Dr any Dr would take a patirent history with a group of friends in the room.

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Styrrell

Actually, she spilled the beans while being deposed during the SCA hearings and if she hadn't tell the truth she would have committed perjury. So there you go, one more person who only spoke up when their back was against the wall...

That appears to be a commonly held misbelief. Why do you think she was deposed? Do you think the prosecutors went on a fishing expedition and interviewed everyone who might have ever had a conversation with Lance and/or his doctor?

The reason she was required to testify in the trial was because much earlier she had talked about the private conversation to her friends and others and eventually that news became public, perhaps with the aid of David Walsh.

Apparently she was extremely anti-doping and wasn't happy that LA had been doping. I don't think she knew her hubby was doping at that time.

Thank you. I learned something new. :)

Those were Lance's words not mine....that's why I used the quotation marks.

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24 Hour World TT Champs-American record holder
Fat Bike Worlds - Race Director
Insta: chris.s.apex

I'm truly concerned for Tygart. He does not look healthy and he comes across as a zealot. I wish he would tone it down a bit. He loses some of his credibility with the things he says and his actions. Like david's young daughter said, "he doesn't look nice ." Sorry, but she is right.

Tygart's goal is to clean up sports and not just go after one person.

Note: I'm glad I amuse you though. I do try. :)

Thank you for the explanation. I learn something everyday.

More accurate could be, she cannot keep that little secret, especially after Lance had talked so openly about it.
She could have speculated and be concerned by Lance's cancer : might it be caused by his doping? And what about Frankie?

So we can imagine she has talked around her, with innocence. Later the boomerang came back for Betzy and Lance.

Difficult to keep a secret in that condition, that is Lance' s second mistake.

This is accurate. Frankie lied to her at the time. The minute they stepped out of the hospital room she said "If you're doing that shit the wedding is off" to Frankie, and he lied. He had for the past year plus, been fighting being part of the system but went along to that point because Lance had made it clear that guys who werent going along were getting canned.

He had for the past year plus, been fighting being part of the system but went along to that point because Lance had made it clear that guys who werent going along were getting canned. //

I don't think Lance deserves all the blame for Frankie dropping out of cycling. Lance had control over his team, there were 25 other teams out there to ride for. The real problem for Frankie was that in order to be good enough to ride on "any" team, he was going to have to most likely dope. It was the peleton that canned him really. IF he could have ridden clean and been good enough, he could have rode on another team. To put his whole career demise on Lance only seems a little harsh to me. Lance just sent the same message that every other team was sending out to each and every rider, either blatant or implied..

OK, but how many of those other pro teams are based in the US, i.e., within Tygart's bailiwick? So again, whoever was the 'bad cop' on Telekom, Rabo, Mapei, etc, isn't USADA's problem. Lance was That Guy on Postal (along w/ JB, who also was/is charged similarly to LA, not as a simple end-user like the other riders.) So, this whole "unfair witch hunt" meme is BS... LA was the Don, par for the course.

OK, but how many of those other pro teams are based in the US, i.e., within Tygart's bailiwick?//

WHat does that have to do with whether Frakie could have gotten a job on any of the other teams? I'm not getting your point. Lance made sure he did not ride on his team, but it was a free market out there. IF he was good enough he could have gone to dozens of other teams, unless you think Lance controled all the teams? Now that would be some serious conspiracy shit...

in a round about way I see Lance complaining as helping him a bit. The authorities that have stripped him from his titles and banning him from racing do so such that the individual is punished. So when he complains, he is admitting the punishment is working. So Lance is getting punished there is no doubt in my mind.

Another analogy I can think of why he should be banned for quite a few years is as follows. I have heard some people are put in prison not only to protect society but also to protect the criminal who some in society want to have a crack at. Now that the full story is coming out, I really think it will be in Lances best interests to withdraw from endurance for a number of years, because if he doesn't I predict he will get hounded in a more negative way than he is used to. If I was a current pro I wouldn't want to line up against him chasing the same prizes/rewards.

It appears he has profited more than any of his cycling teammates during a prolonged time of drug cheating, so that is one indicator he is a kingpin. Generally speaking if things are really bad the leader eventually has to 'fall on their sword'. I just hope that the worst offending administrators also get punished.

G.

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http://www.TriathlonShots.com
Full event coverage of triathlon/ironman in photos.

Yes !

I'd really like to know what other cases Travis is working on now this one has come to its conclusion

"Every Second Counts" LA statements relating to 2000 French criminal investigation:

p73 "Our team had 'zero tolerance' for any form of doping, we said. It sounded like the usual cliched statement, but we meant it. We were absolutely innocent."

p74 "When an athlete doped, the competitors, spectators, and journalists were defrauded."

p77 "It was hard not to feel I'd been singled out becuase I was successful and American."

p77 "Greg Lemond...suggested that I was one of the greatest 'frauds' in the history of cycling."

p81 "Anyone who thought I would go through four cycles of chemo just to risk my life by taking EPO was crazy."

Former FanBoy

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Damn, that's a cold ass honkey.

Agree. Lance knew what he was doing and he knew the damage he was causing. Probably he is incapable of stopping with his lies.

The point, which you STILL don't seem to get is that Lance is every bit the cautionary tale that Moby Dick is, except it's a cautionary tale for dopers. In the end it WILL all come crashing down around you.

I mostly agree, although I put a lot of it on Lance because from the more we've learned the reason USPS stuck out so much is that all the domestiques and lieutenants were doped, so it's why they could have 5 or 6 guys driving the front of the race day after day, when other teams weren't capable of such feats. Lance made Frankie and others believe it was true across other teams with his insistence, backed by Johan, that the supporters were doped on all those teams. They weren't; but if you're told something often enough you begin to believe it. So, why go look for work elsewhere if it's gonna be the same thing. When JV left USPS he found first hand that even as team lead he wasn't being required to dope, but wasn't able to keep up with the other team leads (who we've seen were doping) without it.

Yes, LA is a cautionary tale, but you must admit that Tygart is also. Tygart loses credibility by continuing this dialogue in the press. He caught Moby and needs to move on for awhile.

We didn't know about Lance's case until it became public. You guys act like this is the only thing USADA has worked on. Leading up to the Olympics there were several sanctions or warnings given out to US olympic athletes. This is a down time for a lot of sports that USADA has prevalence over, so it's a good time to be doing PR, focusing the notice on the fact that even the richest best protected dopers will be caught and punished. out of competition testing is still going on and 8 athletes have received sanctions since Lance.

There really never is any "down" time. The out of competition testing is probaly as important as any in competition test. This is where you can get the most benefit from doping, increasing your training load while working on easier recovery if you cheat.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

I agree, Im just saying that the total number of tests is down because OOC volume is less than OOC + racing volume of tests.

No, I absolutely do not agree. He's using this press as a chance to keep the dialogue on anti-doping high. If you're the cop "that caught Al Capone", do you run away from that, or do you make sure it stays in the mind of every athlete that you can't test as often as you like, every athlete who is struggling for results, every athlete that wants that next big payday, and make them think before the next time they dope.

Don't let your love for Lance cloud you from the bigger picture. Tygart is not losing credibility, he's gaining it. It's keeping the pressure on Lance to tell the full truth. He has 2 more days.

This is a good place to start: http://usada.org/sanctions
I count 18 cycling-related sanctions released between January 13, 2012 and December 31, 2012. As far as I'm aware, only 9 of those have anything to do with Armstrong & Co.

What happens in 2 days?

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

USADA's deadline to come clean, name names, etc

What are they going to give him in return for that info? Has it been stated?

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

It hasn't been officially stated other than "his lifetime ban becomes permanent". I can't verify much, but what I have heard is that when lance and ty sat down in Denver, lance hinted at what he could say, and still left the UCI out of it, and the lowest Ty was willing to go was 8 years. Lance wants to race now, and really feels slighted he didnt get more for being willing to give up his own details. Tygart wants ALL of it before he's willing to consider significant reduction. Lance can say only WADA can fix stuff outside the US, but WADA can say USADA is our NADA acting under our direction; if you want sentence discounts, you need to tell USADA what you know.

That explains why LA wants to go before WADA and not USADA to testfy.

It's okay that we don't agree. I do understand what you're saying. I just believe the Tygart's hyperbole on 60 minutes was over the top. It hurts his effectiveness.

Why isn't Tygart (Ty) pressing other dopers on the 2012 sanctioned list for more details of their PED use? We could learn a lot from them too.

I'm not disagreeing that Frankie could have theoretically gotten a job on another (non-US) team if he were good enough to do so w/o doping, my point is simply going with the fact that this whole thread started with LA acting as though USADA is singling him out unfairly, and in USADA's terms what happens (or doesn't happen) with other foreign teams is outside of their scope so it's beside the point.

If LA were coercing guys on his team to dope or be shitcanned (which certainly seems to have been the case), I think that's still reasonable evidence of USADA's charges that LA was 'pushing' and not just using himself. Whether FA might have had further options doesn't eliminate the fact that LA was still trying to strong-arm people to the extent that he possibly could... It's a little like if I threatened to shoot you even though I don't have a gun or calling in a fake bomb threat; the threat itself is still a 'real' offense even if it's factually hollow.

Who's to say Tygart isn't welcoming/soliciting further testimony from any other riders? You say you want him to move on now that he's 'caught' his white whale, but then you say he should still be hounding others besides LA? Tygart isn't the one who initiated this whole limited confession circus on Oprah, so if LA makes it into a media event and the media in turn wants to hear from the policing agency's side, what's TT supposed to do, go lock himself in his office? "Uh, Lance who? Sorry, no comment, I'm too busy going back over my transcripts from Levi & GH right now." Tygart will go away as soon as LA cooperates, and then we can all move on, but if LA wants to keep dragging it out in the media, then it will keep being dragged out in the media.

There's the issue, you're under the misbelief he's not. The rest of the folks sanctioned in the USPS case gave up names, I believe they all gave up multiple names besides Lance, it's how guys like Rick Crawford got busted, and then later fired from his college cycling coaching spot. Next, there's a recent statement from Vaughters that there's "a lot more to his 8 hours of testimony than the statement in the lance file" He mentioned other ongoing investigations, but of course he's not part of USADA, so all he could say is what he talked about. This is all happening in the public domain, or mostly so. Read about WADA pushing for the evidence in the Fuentes case, there are Americans involved there too, and Tygart would love to get his hands on that, but the Spanish judges are not making it easy.

You have to realize that they're talking about Lance because he's the biggest name, because it hits home with the public, and because you don't talk about other ongoing cases until you're ready to bring charges. Being sore because he's using his Armstrong victory lap to push the idea of anti-doping isn't the right way to think about it. There's a much larger benefit to this. A lot of the people I've talked to say they 100% believe that the Armstrong verdict is what is giving MLB cover with the MLBPA to be persuing the anti-aging clinics in florida that A-Rod & others are wrapped up in. The whole of the process is slow, but it has huge implications. Imagine if WADA actually gets the fuentes case evidence; there are big name european soccer players/clubs involved, one of the former club presidents says his club may have paid as much as 300k to Fuentes for a team doping process.

So where you see "they hate lance" I see a long line of Dominos that start to fall with Lance just one of the early important ones that starts the whole chain.

It's really a multi-fold reasoning:

1. Tygart beat him and it's killing him he got beat, and the last thing he wants to do is play ball with Tygart.
2. Lance thinks he can get around the system by working directly with WADA. Problem is, WADA has already stood behind USADA. USADA is the sanctioning agent, so they have to be the body to reduce the sanction. Further, even if they want to, they have to go to WADA with the "exceptional circumstances" to get it approved. And it has to start with USADA proposing it to WADA, otherwise WADA wouldn't get involved. Now if WADA went ahead and opened A Truth & Reconciliation, then MAYBE lance could work through them, but that's looking less and less likely, because the UCI won't play ball (it's suspected because Lance would rat them out for collusion).

As a follow up on this, due to budget cuts from financial losses, UCI only performed an average of 3 OOC per cyclist per year in their OOC list in 2010 and 2011; unless they're lucky, especially with microdosing, that's not nearly enough to be effective. One hopes the recently announced test that can detect microdosing even should help fix that. Plus it's a dipstick style test which means faster turnaround and cheaper to employ

If this really is all about "cleaning" up the sport so our children can feel good about racing, it's a no brainer for USADA/WADA to work with Lance, *IF* all the info he supposedly has is 90% true.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

just thought i'd repeat for emphasis. lance still hasn't really 'confessed' in any meaningful sense. he told oprah, in a texas hotel room, that he used to dope. that's a pretty far cry from actually going under oath and on-record and getting square with UCI, le tour, WADA, USADA, IOC, etc.

-mike

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

But here's the issue, why does he really need to get square with those authorities. Frankly, he's already square with them, because he's sanctioned. Lance doenst need to come clean to the authorities for me to somehow forgive him, or for me to think he's doing this to "clean" up the sport. Sorry, if that were to happen, I would need the UCI to also step up and answer to all the BS that they seem to have been covering up. Such as taking money from an rider, and not seeing any issue with that?

So if Lance wants to or doesnt want to come clean with the authorities, I dont think it really matters. We all know he's got shit on someone, now it's a matter of what the authorities are willing to give up in order to get that info. And as I said, if it's really about "cleaning" up the sport, and it takes Lance getting a pass (as much as I'd hate to see him get into tri's), he deserves a pass if he's willing to rat on the whole system, and we can all then move FORWARD.

Of course he's going to need to confess all the juicy details in order to get a lighter sentence, and he already failed to take that route. He assumed he could just scoff at the charges, and everything bounce off him. But it finally bite him in the ass, and now he's trying to realign so he's in charge. But here is the thing, if we really want a true confession, the authorities are going to 99.9% play ball with him and offer him something in return, or else we wont get all the juicy details that we really need in order to move forward. So, now it's a game of how much is the info Lance has worth it to USADA/WADA?

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Work with doesn't mean give in to exactly what he wants, though. Lance has been claiming he'll work with them without any promise of further consideration on their part. In fact his lawyer said as much today in USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/...bonus-money/1890933/

However, when push has come to shove, he twice now (and it looks like the 3rd time will happen in 2 days time) will not do so. and tells only what he wants. If Lance actually wanted to give back to the sport, as he is claiming, he'd be taking a far different tack than he is. I'd be fine with USADA/WADA lessening his suspension, but what we're going to see is Lance's PR tour continue along a path several folks projected a while ago; Oprah (done), a small cycling interview to support oprah (done), an expose with Bill Strickland or similar in Bicycling (i hear this is in the works). He wants to wait to be the big star of a truth and reconciliation process, to be "cycling jesus" the way he was "cancer jesus". As long as UCI has to fear for it's presidents past and present, it's not looking likely to happen, because UCI can't do it without WADA, and the 2 aren't friendly right now.

But Tygart was on 60 minutes first. I'd prefer not seeing either in the media right now.

Here's a list of athletes sanctioned by USADA in 2012. You'll note that only one of those is named Lance Armstrong.

http://www.usada.org/sanctions/

Not counting the six that were given reduced suspensions for their cooperation, USADA has sanctioned 10 other athletes since Armstrong issued his lifetime ban in August. FIve of those 10 came after issuance of the reasoned decision in October.

As far as what the cases they're currently working on, you'll have to wait until they come to some form of conclusion. But it would be ridiculous to think that there aren't other cases in the works.

But if that's what it takes to actually have all the facts, then I see no issue (and I'd hate to see Lance racing again anytime soon). Because as much as Lance is this kingpin hot shot, that's the same way the UCI apparently has run it's business. I said the other day and got blasted for talking about the business side of doping, and got accused of "excusing" it. I'm not excusing doping in any manner. What I'm trying to bring to light is that doping is bad business for anyone and everyone in the sport, and to me the corruptness by governing bodies to hide the doping is as bad as what Lance did. So if it takes giving Lance a free pass in order to get 90% of the "rumors" to the table, than play ball and let Lance be the doping savior.

Again, if we really want the truth out there, so that we can put the pieces back together, I'm not sure what's wrong with playing ball to Lance's standards? It's as if, you dont want to, because then Lance would get off lighter, yet in almost all the other cases, everyone else has as well. So, again, IF we are wanting full transparancy, let's get to the bottom of all the corruptness, and if it takes falling on the sword by giving in to Lance, so be it.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

you're forgetting about one thing... there are a few very big dominos that still need to fall. Tygart's not looking for new information from Lance, he already knows everything he needs to know. I feel Lance is trying to avoid knocking down those last few dominos, hence the quest to talk to WADA in a TRC environment and not USADA... in other words he doesn't want to talk to anyone who is actually doing their jobs.

And that's the ultimate credibility... cheaters would rather talk to other agencies than the USADA. Chappeau Travis Tygart.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

I'm not syaing they shouldn't play ball with him, but what does it say to the next doper if someone avoids detection for years, corrupts the system, and then walks scott free for telling about who they bought off, etc? If they can come to angreement for a reduction of sentence, and get the details on what all he knows, Im fine; but Lance shouldn't be allowed to dictate terms. It doesnt work that way in the legal system, and it shouldnt work that way here.

Problem with that assessment is this:

A. Lance wont get off scott free. He's already served what a 5-6 month suspension.

B. USADA did exactly what I suggest with the testimony and "light" sentencing of several of the key riders that spoke out against Lance. Did GH actually get sanctioned? I think he was "allowed" to retire, but I dont even think he's an sanctioned athlete.

So if it was good then, I'm not sure why it's bad move now, IF you can get all the info that apparently USADA wants from Lance. If they are that hard up on him, then work with him, and if he gets off at a reduced sentence, that's only par for the course with this type of investigation. So I'm just not sure you can say he's gotten off scott free.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Ok, maybe scott free was a very slight overstatement; but lets say they came back and he was open to race in 2013, what did that accomplish in his particular case? His ironman dream was delayed not derailed; his in competition punishment was meaningless.

Hincapie got sanctioned just like the rest. it would have happened sooner, but the month plus delay Lance put in the process with his baseless lawsuit is what made it basically a wash for George.

USADA opened the door to the "light" sentencing by doing their investigation they way they did it. So whether Lance was this kingpin or not, if the info they are so desperately after really matters, and will be useful in cleaning up and clearing the doping story, I dont see why they wouldnt want to play ball with Lance. Sure, they tried it once, but then it comes down to this:

How important is the info to USADA? If it doenst really matter, they'll scoff at his demands and bits and pieces of the "rumors" will continously float around the rumor mill of how corrupt the sport really is. But if USADA was that hard up on going after Lance, to me nailing the big wigs of an entire sport, that's above and beyond anything Lance did. That's potentially bringing down an entire sports or atleast drastically causing complete embarassment to really high level officials.
ETA: Which means a very high possibility of changing how a sport deals with doping. That to me is the entire issue and if that can be uncovered, bravo to all parties involved (Lance, USADA/WADA/riders).

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

He was an sanctioned athlete for whatever time period his punishment will have to be (if they reduce it). That in itself is punishment enough, is it not? This is basically the reasoning for the "light" sentencing of the other riders who testified against Lance, but that was so readily accepted? Why? Because it allowed them to take the big dog Lance down? What if he can provide info to clean up an sports governing body. That to me would be a huge game changer in the doping fight.

So essentially nothing less than a lifetime ban for Lance will work for you?


Lance has basically served the same penalties as the guys that testified against him, and IF he can provide alot of info that USADA wants, I'm just not really sure why you'd be against him coming back. It worked to bust Lance, but it cant work any other times?

I kinda sense a bias being formed here. ETA: I cant stand Lance, but if we are going to allow governing bodies and riders to mix and match penalties based on what info you can provide, I just would have to think, if the info that Lance has is that valuable to USADA, they'd want to play to a somewhat manageable terms that both will come with in order to get what needs to be addressed. Lances wants his ball back, USADA seemingly wants his info. Go get an arbitrator and figure out what it'll take to get both sides to agree. It sounds like from Lance's view, pretty much Kona in 2013 or 2014 has to be part of the package. Doesnt sound like USADA wants to bend that far. So if that's where we are at, all these deadlines are meaningless. They already have Lance, so for him what's the point of talking anymore, if he's not going to get anything in return that he thinks is worth it. He'll simply do as other doped athletes have done, ride off into the sunset and not really ever fully address their doping issue.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

I agree with all of what you've written, but they've actually tried it multiple times, and set the deadline for Tuesday again. They're trying to use his one big thing he wants, (as he said in the interview) "To run the chicago marathon when he's 50" or whatever else competitively, to get him to tell the whole truth. He's clearly not interested in that, at least not on their timetable.

It's not at all an anti-lance bias; put any other athlete in that same space, with those same crimes, and Id want a more severe sentence than those he pushed to do it. If he can bring down the UCI then there's almost no sentence too light; almost. But he still acted to buy off the UCI and that cant go without repercussions, Maybe the cost of getting the UCI is letting lance off, maybe it's not. I guess we'll see. I personally hope its somewhere in the middle; because the UCI wouldnt have accepted the bribe if Lance hadnt offered it.

Then why does USADA still want LA to testify under oath?

But lance hasn't gotten off. That's kinda the point I'm trying to make. He'll likely be sanctioned more harshly than any other rider in this particular investigation (I think).

The fact that uci accepted a bribe is enough for me to let" off"anyone to blow up and share all the dirt it has on the uci. I'm sorry but an governing body is more responsible for it's actions than one single rider/owner etc., If the uci can't stand on its own and act more responsible than that, we are fucked in the fight against doping.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Lance who?

The same reason the cops who have a criminal dead to rights still want a confession.

hmmm, I don't know... any ideas?

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Its always going to come down to individuals; did the UCI make the decision as a whole? probably not. Hein Verbruggen probably said "Sure lance, buy me a sysmex, and we'll be all set". The UCI as an organization from top to bottom, every individual, is likely not corrupt; it's the guys running the not for profit, and seeing the dollar signs everyone else has, is what gets us here. Verbruggen and Mcquaid. Yes, I want to see the UCI taken down, but the person offering the bribe is as corrupt as the person accepting it.

But in that instance the cops are out of it. The proceedings habe already occurred and the guys in jail.

I mean nothing lance can say can hurt him at this point. Well maybe publicly from a PR point of view, but he isn't going to get put on Double secret probation. He's already there (lifetime ban).

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Yes, I want to see the UCI taken down, but the person offering the bribe is as corrupt as the person accepting it.

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Isnt this the same arguement against busting Lance with testimony from corrupt doped riders?

If you are against Lance's info being used to bust the UCI, shouldnt you have been saying the same thing with the info from the dopped riders?

So what I'm trying to say is, atleast if we are consistent, let's pretty much let Lance off if he can provide the info that USADA seemingly continues to want. They "let off" the doped riders for confessions and info on Lance, so if they can get the same from Lance, I'm just not sure what's the issue if in return they say "Lance you can return in 2013,2014". They've already set the precendent, all I'm doing is holding to essentially the standards they have seemingly set. If we can get some transparanacy out of all of this, to me it'll be worth it for the king pin of doping to be allowed to return. I wont like it, but I'm just basing it on the standards they have *seemingly* gone with (I say seemingly because that's how it looks when I view this from the sidelines).

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

If what you are saying is true that they dont need any info from Lance, then it's a complete waste of time for USADA to still be dealing with Lance. So I hope that if this deadline passes in a few days, this is the last we ever hear of any negoiations between Lance and USADA.

Lance is suspended for life, if he wont talk once this deadline passes, I hope it's demanded that this investigation be moved past. USADA doesnt need to do PR stuff to keep the media and fans knowing it means business. Lance's lifetime ban will and should speak for that. So, I hope that the next few days really decides where all this Lance/USADA stuff will go.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

No because using PEDs isnt buying off the federation.

Thats like saying using coke is the same as selling coke is the same as shipping coke as the same growing and exporting coke.

Im fine if they reduce to 2 years, really I am. It punishes him more than everyone else for his much larger role, but gives him credit for the UCI. I hope it's more but, if it's 2 years, Im ok with that.

If all lance did was dope and force others to dope, I'd be ok with him racing in 2013. But there are whole other levels to this; buying off the UCI and transporting, distributing. If anything George should have gotten more as he admitted to procuring EPO and other drugs to share with Lance. I think he was the grey line with Lance on one side and the others on the other side.

So when should the UCI be held accountable for it's actions in allowing itself to be bought off? Or are they the innocent ones in this just like the other riders that were "forced" to dope? Are you really trying to tell me that only Lance and his close connected friends are the only bad apples in all of this? That if Lance goes away, every thing else will be good to go?

That's kinda the issue I have here. It's as if only Lance is the big bad tough guy here, all others simply bowed down to him or else. BS. This is a governing body that allowed itself to be bought off. If that doesnt raise red flags, I dont know what will.


But here's the overwhelming issue I see in all of this. The dirty little secret that I see in all of this is that no one wants to deal with doping. They all want to bury their heads and not deal with the bad publicity that failed tests bring.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

I think you're not thinking big picture enough. Of course the UCI doesnt want to deal with doping, that's been proven time and again. They benefit from the appearance of testing as opposed to actual testiung. But USADA and WADA want to deal with doping. They're trying to both deal with doping, and show that those who orchestrate it won't get off scott free (if you dont believe me look into their efforts to expand the scope of operation Puerto beyond cycling t get the names of the spanish soccer teams that worked with Fuentes). They're trying to balance that with the potential of having to explain to the public that cycling was so dirty, the people who run it took bribes from a national hero to keep him racing (and bringing in cash), and later in his career looked the other way even while they had in their possession proof of his doping with tests that actually worked in 2009 and 2010.

The UCI should be held accountable, but what should USADA do? "If you tell us everything you know, we'll commute your sentence" before they even hear what he has to say? Tygart tried to get him to even mention UCI in Denver, and he wouldn't do it. I guarantee you if Lance had said "I have emails from the UCI about the bribe", Tygart would have personally called WADA for him. How can USADA turn over the keys to the kingdom if Lance isn't going to spill the beans?

Lance is counting on the hope of the TRC, but right now there's no real traction because UCI is so afraid Lance will spill the beans, they're trying to do it their own way. USADA has laid out a nice proposal that I believe WADA will get behind.

I hope the TRC happens and that lance comes forward and tells the whole truth (which we can both agree he clearly hasnt done so far) and if all that happens, I hope they reduce his sentence and he can race again and find the redemption he is looking for. But if he's not going to give up all that he knows, I hope USADA holds fast.

USADA has laid out a nice proposal that I believe WADA will get behind.

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What is it,and where can this info be found?


ETA: I'm not even advocating giving Lance a reduced sentence unless he fully cooperates (basically giving all the info he knows/has on whoever). But assuming USADA continues to want to talk/meet with him, I'm assuming he has info that they likely want really badly enough to probaly bargain with each other. So, in that event, I'd have no problem if they reduced Lance's sentence for the info they want from him. That's been the basic premise of their investigation tactics and would get him what he wants in order to play ball with them.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com