Did people buying those ridiculous yellow Livestrong wrist bands inadvertently contribute monies for Armstrong to pay off doctors, trainers and the UCI to avoid positive doping tests? Gas, if so.
:rolleyes:
yes, the jokes really on the people who paid money to help fight cancer with one of the worlds most successful cancer charities
This article sums up what a creep Armstrong is.
I was Lanceâs personal assistant for two years, during the height of his racing career. Do I think he cheated? Yep. But my real problem is something that diehard fans seem unable to grasp: the vengeful tactics he uses against people who tell the truth about him, on and off the bike.
By: Mike Anderson
20th September is what Dubray have down for Hamiltonâs book. âŹ20 for the paperback.
How do you âfightâ cancer?
Release date has been brought forward from that I think. Was originally 18th of September (this posters and Lanceâs birthday) but moved forward in last week. 5th of September in USA I think
Will Lance be turning up to the launch? Tyler Hamilton canât even go out for a meal lately withhout Lance turning up to threaten him.
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Not fighting.
I bought Riisâ book recently but skipped it to read Stephen Rocheâs book. I must reread Walshâs doping book about Lance and Landis.
I said that to the lad with the bike shop at home last week, âwhat are you still wearing that yoke forâ?
[quote=âSidney, post: 151817â]
I bet Phil will continue to have access to Lanceâs private jet too.
Isnât that sweet? Awwwww!
Thiis guy is a superb writer and wrote Friday Night Lights. If the likes of him still believe Armstrong is a âheroâ, then the extent of the delusion in the USA must be bigger than even I thought.
But even if he did take enhancers, so what?
Anyone whoâd write a sentence like that doesnât deserve to be listened to, in fairness.
[quote=âThrawneen, post: 151831â]
Anyone whoâd write a sentence like that doesnât deserve to be listened to, in fairness.[/quote]
Exactly the dillusion of some cycling fans is unreal. Itâs riddled with corruption, doping and greed. Thatâs why I could never be a fan of the sport, anyways Iâm too busy following the horse, greyhound racing and coursing to find time for cycling.
Read it and weep AntoâŚ
Extract from Hamiltonâs book serialised in the times today.
The Lance Armstrong myth is further shattered today by a former team-mateâs account of the cyclistâs long history of doping.
The Times carries the first exclusive extract of Tyler Hamiltonâs explosive book, in which he portrays Armstrong as a man who used drugs and duplicity to cheat his way to victory in the Tour de France.
In his damning confessional, Hamilton claims that his fellow American put together âsecret agentâ plans so that certain members of his team could take EPO, the blood-booster, without detection during the Tour.
The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups and Winning at All Costs, published today in the United States, alleges doping on a shocking scale in the US Postal Service team, for whom they raced together, and Armstrongâs certainty that he could outwit the authorities.
Hamilton depicts a man âhauntedâ by the thought rivals might be one step ahead, talking of âLanceâs Golden Rule: whatever you do, those other fers are doing moreâ, which he claims made Armstrong train harder and also chase the most effective doping with Michele Ferrari, his trusted doctor.
Hamilton is one of more than ten former team-mates of Armstrong who have testified under oath about doping in cycling after they were called to give evidence to a federal grand jury in the US. Federal prosecutors dropped the case, but it was taken up by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which charged Armstrong and five others, including Ferrari.
Armstrong continues to deny taking drugs but recently announced that he would not fight USADAâs charges, which included use (or attempted use) of EPO, blood transfusions, corticosteroids, testosterone and masking agents between 1996 and 2010. He maintained that the allegations were âheinousâ.
USADA banned Armstrong for life and stripped him of his titles, although the UCI, cyclingâs governing body, is waiting to see the evidence before supporting the rulings. Pedro Celaya, a doctor, and Johan Bruyneel, the former US Postal team director, are contesting USADAâs charges.
The full evidence, including retrospective tests on blood samples from Armstrong, is due to be released once those hearings are concluded.
In the book, Hamilton describes how he was first given âred eggsâ of testosterone before moving on to EPO and then, in 2000, flying to Spain with Armstrong in a private jet to give blood that would be injected back into his system during the Tour.
Hamilton left US Postal and went on to work with Eufemiano Fuentes, a Spanish doctor who helped many leading cyclists with transfusions and supplied them with cocktails of drugs.
As anti-doping agencies stepped up their surveillance, Hamilton describes a world of disguises, secret codes and subterfuge. He accuses Armstrong of turning informant on him once he became a threat in a rival team, leading to a summons to UCI headquarters.
Hamilton was eventually caught blood doping in 2004 at the Tour of Spain and Athens Olympics, at which he won gold in the time-trial. After years of evasions, he gave seven hours of testimony to the grand jury, setting out his doping past. âThe truth really will set you freeâ is his bookâs last line.
The 1998 Tour de France had been one of the most notorious in the history of the race, marred by doping scandals that included the Festina affair, in which a haul of drugs was discovered in one of the teamâs cars, leading to Festinaâs expulsion. By 1999, Lance Armstrong was aiming for his first victory in the race as leader of the US Postal team. On May 15, Tyler Hamilton flew from Boston to meet Armstrong at his villa in Nice to discuss their plans . . .
Iâd been in Boston the previous two weeks, with zero access to our friend Edgar [Allan Poe, the nickname for erythropoietin, or EPO]. (At this point in my career, I wasnât about to risk taking it through customs, and had no sources of stateside EPO.) As a result, my hematocrit was down, and I needed a boost, especially if we were about to train hard. When Kristin [then Armstrongâs wife] walked off, I turned to Lance.
Hey dude, you got any Poe I can borrow?
Lance pointed casually to the fridge.
I opened it and there, on the door, next to a carton of milk, was a carton of EPO, each stoppered vial standing upright, little soldiers in their cardboard cells. I was surprised that Lance would be so cavalier. On the occasions I had kept EPO in my Girona fridge, I had taken it out of its cardboard packaging, wrapped it in foil, and put it in the back, out of sight.
But Lance seemed relaxed about it. I figured he knew what he was doing. I took a vial, and thanked him.
Under the new system post-Festina, we no longer got EPO from team staffers at races; instead we had to pick it up ourselves. I got it at a clinic in Valencia; some of my team-mates drove to pharmacies in Switzerland, where it was sold over the counter.
In theory, the new system was âfor safetyâ â to avoid a repeat of the Festina affair. But to me it was the opposite, because now the risk of transport and border crossing was ours, to say nothing of the expense. I didnât like it, because it was yet another thing to deal with, another chore. But I did it. On May 25, I drove to Valencia and picked up 20,000 units â a couple monthsâ worth â for around $2,000.
We had six weeks left before the start of the Tour de France, and we were facing a bunch of questions, the biggest of which was whether Lance would be strong enough to contend. Would the team be strong enough to support him? And, in the back of our minds, one more question: would we risk bringing Edgar along during the race? Carrying EPO in the team vehicles was out of the question. Yet, as we knew from the previous year, any rider or team who had access to EPO during the race would have a tremendous advantage. Thatâs where Philippe [Armstrongâs gardener and odd-job man] came in.
We were standing in Lanceâs kitchen when he lined out the plan: he would pay Philippe to follow the Tour on his motorcycle, carrying a thermos full of EPO and a prepaid cell phone. When we needed Edgar, Philippe would zip through the Tourâs traffic and make a drop-off.
Simple. Quick â in and out. No risk. To be discreet, Philippe would be supplying only the climbers, the ones who needed it most and would provide the biggest bang for the buck: Lance, Kevin Livingston, and me. Los Amigos del Edgar. From that moment on, Philippe wasnât Philippe the handyman any more. Lance, Kevin, and I called him Motoman. [Livingston has never commented publicly on doping matters. He did not respond to interview requests for the book.] Lance practically glowed when he told me about the plan â he loved this kind of MacGyver secret agent stuff. The French could search us all day long and theyâd find zero. And besides, we felt sure that most of the other teams would be doing their own version of Motoman. Why wouldnât they? Lance had come back from cancer; he wasnât about to sit back and hope things worked out; he was going to make it happen.
He was incapable of being passive, because he was haunted by what others might be doing. This was the same force that drove him to test equipment in the wind tunnel, to be finicky about diet, to be ruthless about training.
Itâs funny, the world always saw it as a drive that came from within Lance, but from my point of view, it came from the outside; his fear that someone else was going to outthink and outwork and outstrategise him. I came to think of it as Lanceâs Golden Rule: Whatever you do, those other fers are doing more.
Like most people, I figured Lanceâs chance of winning was small, mostly because he had yet to prove that he could climb with the best.
Also, I worried about the Motoman plan. Every time I saw a gendarme, I thought of Philippe, somewhere out there with the EPO and the phone.
What if he got stopped? What if he decided to sell us out, to talk to police, the press? The Motoman plan suddenly felt like a huge, crazy gamble. But if Lance was worried, he didnât show it. Heâs never happier than when heâs making a bet, moving one step ahead, playing chess. When I seemed worried, he would reassure me: This is all going to work. Itâs foolproof. Weâre going to f***ing throttle everybody. A week into the 1999 Tour before two important stages . . .
A couple days before, we got prepared. We used the secret phone to call Philippe, who zipped through the crowds and made his delivery.
Since we wanted to keep the EPO out of our hotel, we usually did the shots in the camper. It worked like this: weâd finish a stage, and go straight into the camper for clean-up, get a drink, and change clothes.
The syringes would be waiting for us, sometimes tucked inside our sneakers, in our race bags. The sight of the syringe always made my heart jump. Youâd want to inject it right away â get it in you and then get rid of the evidence.
Sometimes someone else would give the shot, sometimes weâd do it ourselves, whatever was fastest. And we were fast â it took thirty seconds at most. You didnât have to be precise: arm, belly, anywhere would do. We got into a habit of putting our used syringes in an empty Coke can.
The syringes fit neatly through the opening â plonk, plonk, plonk â you could hear the needles rattle. And we treated that Coke can with respect. It was the Radioactive Coke can, the one that could end our Tour, ruin the team and our careers, maybe land us in a French jail. Once the syringes were inside, weâd crush it, dent it, make it look like trash.
Then the Coke can would be tucked at the bottom of a backpack and the person responsible for disposing of it would walk into the crowds of fans, journalists, Tour officials, even police, who were packed around the bus.
They were all watching for Lance. Nobody saw the anonymous guy with the backpack, who walked quietly through them, invisible.
Paul Kimmage subpeonaed to appear in a Swiss court. UCI are suing him.
http://www.balls.ie/2012/09/20/paul-kimmage-subpeonaed-to-appear-in-swiss-court/