Lance: Teflon doper?
Gwen Knapp
Wednesday, August 24, 2005 Printable Version Email This Article 
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Barry Bonds’ invitation must be lost in the mail. There’s no other explanation. President Bush summoned Lance Armstrong to his Texas ranch for a 17-mile bike ride last weekend. The last time someone in the federal government wanted to hang out with Bonds, the Justice Department issued a subpoena.
There was no dip in a swimming hole. There was no lunch served afterward. There wasn’t even a souvenir T-shirt. There was only, “Raise your right hand. Do you swear …”
Bonds and Armstrong have too much in common for them to be treated so differently. Either both should be presumed clean and accorded full admiration for their athletic accomplishments, or both should be presumed highly suspicious superstars in a doped-up sports world.
Even before Tuesday’s report in the French sports daily L’Equipe, which claimed that recently devised tests had revealed traces of the endurance drug EPO in Armstrong’s urine samples from six stages of the 1999 Tour de France, there was ample evidence to suggest that the beloved cyclist shouldn’t be isolated from athletes such as Bonds and Marion Jones, who were implicated in the BALCO case. His affiliation with Michele Ferrari, an Italian doctor convicted on two doping-related charges in his native country, parallels Bonds’ connection to Greg Anderson, who has pleaded guilty to two federal charges in the BALCO drug case in which Bonds testified. Armstrong worked with Ferrari for several years, including the three that the Italian was on trial. They formally severed ties in October, when the verdict came down.
Cycling couldn’t test for EPO in 1999, just as baseball couldn’t test for any substances four years ago, when Bonds hit 73 home runs. Both athletes can say they have never tested positive, although Bonds can say it more convincingly. Traces of a banned corticosteroid turned up in one of Armstrong’s 1999 tests. He then produced a medical certificate, saying that he was allowed to use the substance to treat saddle sores. In the book “L.A. Confidential, the Secrets of Lance Armstrong,” his former massage therapist says that the certificate was concocted after the positive test.
The thing that definitively separates Armstrong and Bonds has nothing to do with science or law. It’s a popularity contest, and Armstrong can’t lose. As the cancer survivor who launched 50 million yellow bracelets, he has an aura that transcends sports. Bonds, cranky and condescending, may be the most disliked of athletes.
As a cyclist, Armstrong never threatened any records held dear by Americans. Miguel Indurain was no Hank Aaron.
The voices of suspicion around Armstrong tend to have European accents, which makes them easier to dismiss. “L.A. Confidential” and L’Equipe’s story were both published in French, and in this country, those reams of copy translate to one word: vendetta. American journalists contribute to that ludicrous interpretation, because it’s easier than investigation – or learning how to read a book in French.
Compared with that, what does Bonds have going for him? His kids are as cute as Armstrong’s.
Still, federal government officials should be sending them identical invitations. A joint trek to Capitol Hill might be nice.
So far, neither of them has been asked to testify in Washington about doping. Bonds has been excused because, when a constellation of baseball stars paid a visit before a House committee, he was still part of an active BALCO investigation. Armstrong hasn’t been called despite the fact he was a U.S. Olympian in 2000. He is above it all. The House committee that held the baseball hearings didn’t have the stomach to insist that Mark McGwire say he was taking the Fifth Amendment. It’s unthinkable that they would challenge the iconic Armstrong. Someone might think they were French.
At this point, President Bush must cringe whenever he thinks about the section of his 2004 State of the Union address where he took a swipe at the steroid culture. Since then, two of his former employees with the Texas Rangers, Jose Canseco and Rafael Palmeiro, have joined the doping rogues’ gallery. He called Palmeiro a friend after a positive steroid test booted him out of baseball for 10 days. He has called Armstrong a friend, too.
He might as well expand the club. Who cares about the message to young athletes? He has a chance to erase a double standard with one gesture, while exacting a little Texas revenge. I can see it now: Barry Bonds, the next ambassador to France.