Hearsay....Kathy Lemond has no direct knowledge of the alleged pay-off. She is only repeating what she was told by someone about the incident, and that person disputes her claim.

Not saying it didn't happen, but there is simply no meat to this particular claim.

You're totally ignoring Lance's role as a ringleader of organized doping and key enforcer of the omerta.

Do you know why the DOJ dropped their case?

I don't think it's been reported, but just checking.

Levi gets dropped from OPQS

You're totally ignoring Lance's role as a ringleader of organized doping and key enforcer of the omerta.

No idea. This seems to sum up the current state of play in terms of what is known.

http://velonews.competitor.com/...e-was-dropped_260724

It can be speculated that:
- The Fed investigation was instrumental in getting athletes to come clean (threat of perjury and jail time). This may have then helped convince them to speak openly to USADA.
- The Feds may have been having trouble directly linking USPS sponsorship funds to PED purchases and/or other CRIMINAL behaviour (note, they didn't care about PED use within cycling, per se)
- Or not... The Fed investigation seemed to be picking up steam, according to some sources, and Novitsky was apparently very upset when it was shelved
- Which, if so, means it may have been a purely political decision. LA clearly has friends in high places, as we saw with the anti-USADA letters from senior politicians over the summer.
- The timing of the investigation being dropped was also suspicious. Just ahead of the Superbowl (get it buried) and just after a DA's appointment (I think, but cant recall which DA).
- Some say it was because it was an election year and the Feds had just lost the Bonds perjury case and the Clemens case was a mistrial. So it would have looked bad for Obama possibly.

But whatever the truth, it seems we may not have heard the end of it. Either when more details are released under the Freedom of Information Act or if they re-open the investigation.

I posted this earlier somewhere, but golfers have experimented with PED's. There have been rumors (And rumors only) that a few of the more built golfers have used steroids, and in the book "A Good Walk Spoiled", they talked with a golfer (I forget which one, one of the top golfers around 1993ish) that said he had experimented with beta blockers to keep HR controlled, but then he couldn't get that good surge when he needed it.

Daly (Not that anyone really pays attention to him) had a big stink when he was suspended accusing tour players of all kinds of PED's and was going to be a whistleblower but nobody really paid attention.

John

TriBeer wrote:

"All the testimonies I read sounded to me like most of the others were already doping or involved in their own doping plans prior to catching up with Lance. Once they met Lance they asked him for assistance or some EPO and he obliged to THEIR request." (MKirk)

I got the same impression from the Reasoned Decision report.

Now, they can blame LA for their doping and use him as a scapegoat.

I seem to remember some people saying that the Fed's had little to do with this part of the investigation

The American continued by explaining that USADA did not receive any information from the federal investigation into Armstrong's former team, US Postal, even though this had initially been planned. The fraud investigation was filed last February.

The biggest fraud in the history of sports? C'mon now, I love cycling...but it's still just bike racing. In the grand scheme of things it's very much a two-bit sport.

You've heard of the Black Sox scandal right? And the fact that the NE Patriots illegally videotaped other teams practices and won 3 Super Bowls? Not to mention drugs in baseball, football, etc. Hell, many people think the greatest basketball player of all time was suspended from the NBA for betting on games and that it was all covered up by the commissioner so he had to go play baseball for a year.

Lance is a charismatic dude with some powerful friends, but he's just a bike racer.

All the testimonies I read sounded to me like most of the others were already doping or involved in their own doping plans prior to catching up with Lance. Once they met Lance they asked him for assistance or some EPO and he obliged to THEIR request.

This all seems ass backwards to me. Yea, Lance doped, but it appears to me that everyone went to him to help with their own personal doping.
Maybe I missed it as I didn't read all of the report, but can anyone enlighten me as to which riders Lance took from a clean rider and turned them into a doper??
I don't see Lance as any sort of "Doping Ring Leader" other than everyone that was already doping looked to Lance for his guidance. This only make him their self appointed ring leader.

Again - I didn't read the entire report so I could be way off base here.
Michael