Lance Armstrong Investigation: Betsy Andreu & Bill Bock Interviews

http://bit.ly/13f0ROw

This short video discusses some aspects of the fraud in pro cycling that was perpetuated by Lance Armstrong. Betsy Andreu and Bill Bock (USADA General Counsel) spoke at UT Austin recently and this video was produced. They speak of omertà, truth, and how one person with moral courage can make a difference. Check it out, it's worth the four minutes...

Will Lance's Confession be Anticlimactic?

I've been thinking that saying Lance's confession will be anticlimactic will be a major understatement. I had decided that I won't even try to watch it come out live because it seems like a waste of time. However, yesterday, the NY Times published an article suggesting that Lance Armstrong's confession may be interesting in that it could involve testifying against many top-level officials in cycling such as Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid of the UCI and Lance's former partner at Tailwind Sports, Thom Weisel. Here are some key excerpts from the Times article:

Lance Armstrong Allegedly Bribed USADA

60 Minutes is going to air a segment on Lance Armstrong on Wednesday, January 9th, at 10 pm Eastern. The CBS News website states that they will report that someone representing Lance offered USADA a $250,000 "donation" in 2004. Travis Tygart, USADA CEO, is quoted as saying "We had no hesitation in rejecting that offer."

I suppose the truth about Lance will trickle out for years to come...It definitely makes a good case study for anyone out there teaching about fraud, corruption and organized crime. It makes me wonder if Lance's real name ends in Gambino or Bonanno...Maybe Armstrongo...

Lance May Admit He Doped

If this report is accurate, I will have to eat my words. I never thought Lance Armstrong would be able to do a complete 180 and admit to doping.  I even predicted he would go to his grave denying. However, according to the NY Times, he is considering confessing. Why would he do this now you ask? Here is what a Sports Illustrated blog has to say...

Lance, Livestrong and the UCI

Numerous reports are flooding the internet that the UCI has sustained USADA's decision to strip Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles making Greg LeMond the only American to ever win the Tour de France. Of course, this comes as no surprise to those who were aware of the plethora of evidence showing Lance to be the biggest sporting fraud in history; the Bernie Madoff of sport.

Last week we read of Livestrong donors asking for their money back. My wife says that given today's news we should be reading soon about Lance wanting his donations to the UCI back too...

Lance Armstrong Investigation: Was LiveStrong Built on the Back of a Fraud?

As I mentioned in the last post, I've been contacted by some LiveStrong donors who want their money back because they believe they donated under false pretenses. You can read about two of these donors on CNN. Here are a few bytes:

Heroes in the Lance Armstrong Investigation

Emma O'Reilly

There are a few heroes that paid a substantial price in the fight for truth in the Lance Armstrong investigation. For example, Emma O'Reilly, Lance's former soigneur, was one of the first to tell others that she knew Lance was doping. Emma spoke up nearly a decade ago and told her story. She paid a price for her honesty as Lance sued her for libel and persecuted her ruthlessly. In her words:  Lance tried to make her life hell. Emma paid a big price for telling her story. Yes, she was paid by a book author to tell it but without her story, it's possible many other stories would not have come out.

USADA Evidence Against Lance Armstrong

The WSJ and other news outlets are reporting that later today USADA will release more than 1,000 pages of documents supporting their accusations that Lance Armstrong doped.  Some noteworthy highlights:

Lance Armstrong Investigation: Death Threats for Tygart?!

The French newspaper, L'Equipe, published an interview with USADA CEO, Travis Tygart. I just read an english translation of the interview that describes Tygart's challenges in the investigation including several death threats that are now being investigated by the FBI. The translator says that neither French or English are his native language so there may be mistakes but he also says that he had others check his translation. With that caveat, here are a few of the more interesting tidbits:

Lance Armstrong Investigation: More on the Conspiracy

You may be feeling a bit worn down on all the Lance Armstrong stuff in the news. I know I have been. However, today, I read a few things that I found pretty fascinating. One was an article about Jörg Jaksche. The other was an article about Lance's efforts to help both Landis and Hamilton in their efforts to lie about their doping. Here are some excerpts:

Lance Armstrong Investigation: Is USADA the Bad Guy?

Lance and his PR machine are doing a remarkable job of spreading the message that he is the victim of a wild, power hungry, anti-American, unconstitutional agency that is out to hurt him for some unknown reason or motive. Here are my thoughts on this...

Lance Armstrong Investigation: Favorite Quotes from the Press

There is a ton being written about Lance's decision to not fight the allegations that he was a fraudster during his cycling career. I've decided to collect my favorite quotes here with links to the articles...

Lance Armstrong Investigation: More Misleading Information

Photo taken from the internet

All the news outlets are saying that Lance Armstrong has decided to quit fighting USADA but I don't believe it. Here's why...

Lance Armstrong Investigation: Judge Sparks' Ruled for USADA

Photo from CyclingNews

It was announced today that Judge Sparks has ruled that USADA has the authority to bring its case against Lance. In cycling lingo, this is one more attack that Lance needs to cover in this last stage of his race to hold on to his yellow jerseys. The stage isn't over yet but Lance needs to respond by Thursday. Here are a few more details from the news outlets...

Lance Armstong Investigation: Have I Heard From Him?

I get this question on a regular basis. People have heard that he tries to intimidate and bully anyone who says anything negative about him. Well, the short answer is that I haven't heard from him. If I do, you will be the first to know as I'll blog about it here.

Interestingly, another blogger about Lance's woes, Anna Zimmerman, did hear from him recently. Check it out here. It's complete with screenshots from Anna's twitter account. He started following her one day and contacted her. When she didn't respond right away he contacted her again.

She basically called his bluff as he asked to meet with her so he could share some thoughts and she said no thanks, you can just tell me what you want to tell me using the internet. Not surprisingly, Lance didn't respond...I think he's smarter than that.

Here is one of the screenshots from her blog:

My guess is that she will be recording any phone calls he makes to her too. I know I would...

By the way, Anna's blog is full of some well thought out analysis of Lance's situation. I recommend reading her recent posts about Lance and LiveStrong. She lays it out pretty clearly why, in her opinion, Lance's lawsuit against USADA is baseless and that LiveStrong could lose its tax-exempt status for lobbying on Lance's behalf.

She appears to have a legal background and lives in Austin, Texas. Pretty gutsy woman if you ask me. I tip my hat to her.

Lance Armstrong Investigation: USADA Strikes Back in Court

Photo from FoxSports.com AU

Late Thursday night, news outlets are reporting that USADA has filed a 19-page motion asking U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Lance Armstrong about ten days ago.

Here are some details of the news reports as taken from Thursday's Wall Street Journal:

Lance Armstrong Investigation: LiveStrong Gets Involved

Photo from Wall Street Journal

News reports suggest that LiveStrong donors should rest well knowing that their funds given to help fight cancer are being used to lobby Congress to pressure USADA in its investigation of Lance Armstrong.

Today's Wall Street Journal reported that a Congressional staff member has confirmed that "The...Texas-based charity known as Livestrong, sent a lobbyist to Capitol Hill last week to discuss the funding for the agency that has accused the retired cycling champion of cheating to win the Tour de France." Here are more details from the Journal:

Lance Armstrong Investigation: John McCain Supports USADA

Senator John McCain

This news is about a day old now but I just got time to put it up for those of you following the Lance Armstrong investigation.

After Rep. Sensenbrenner (Rep. Wisconsin--Trek Bicycles district) put pressure on USADA on Thursday (see this link), I was pleasantly surprised to see John McCain come out in support of USADA. Here are a few more details from an article on VeloNation along with my usual commentary.



McCain issued the following statement that you can find online on McCain's website and in various news articles:

Lance Armstrong Investigation: USADA Under Political Pressure

Congressman Sensenbrenner

Well, you have to hand it to Lance. Just when it looks like he will receive some consequences for the massive doping that his teammates have allegedly accused him of, cases are closed and politicians come to his rescue. First the DOJ drops his case earlier this year with virtually no explanation and now a Congressman from Wisconsin is putting pressure on USADA to back off. Amazing!

Here is some more information from an article on VeloNews: 

The congressman, James Sensenbrenner, wrote a letter to the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) which oversees USADA and stated: 

“The U.S. Congress has no role in determining whether an individual athlete doped, but we do have a great interest in how taxpayer money is spent,” Sensenbrenner wrote in his letter to Kerlikowske.

He continued:

Lance Armstrong Investigation: Lifetime Bans and Real Heroes

While Lance Armstrong is fighting USADA to try to stop them from taking away his seven Tour de France titles, three of those who have been accused with Lance as being part of a doping conspiracy have, apparently, quietly conceded to receive lifetime bans from any involvement in cycling. According to VeloNation, the three include two doctors: Michele Ferrari and Luis Garcia del Moral and the team trainer, Pepe Marti. The article continued by saying: