Lance Armstrong

Sport
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Big shit today - Landis has finally admitted to doping and has also accused Armstrong of doping as well as George Hincapie and David Zabriskie. Also said that current BMC team boss Andy Rihs (Cadel Evans’ team) encouraged his riders to dope.

Landis admits doping, accuses LanceEmail Print Comments190 By Bonnie D. Ford
ESPN.com
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Nearly four years after he began waging a costly, draining, and ultimately losing battle to discredit his positive test for synthetic testosterone at the 2006 Tour de France, Floyd Landis told ESPN.com on Wednesday that he used performance-enhancing drugs for most of his career as a professional road cyclist, including the race whose title he briefly held.

In a lengthy telephone interview from California, Landis detailed extensive, consistent use of the red blood cell booster erythropoietin (commonly known as EPO), testosterone, human growth hormone and frequent blood transfusions, along with female hormones and a one-time experiment with insulin, during the years he rode for the U.S. Postal Service and Switzerland-based Phonak teams.

“
I don’t feel guilty at all about having doped. I did what I did because that’s what we [cyclists] did and it was a choice I had to make after 10 years or 12 years of hard work to get there, and that was a decision I had to make to make the next step. My choices were, do it and see if I can win, or don’t do it and I tell people I just don’t want to do that, and I decided to do it.

”
– Floyd Landis

Landis confirmed he sent e-mails to cycling and anti-doping officials over the past few weeks, implicating dozens of other athletes, including seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong; team management and owners; and officials of the sport’s national and international governing bodies. ESPN.com is in the process of seeking comment from those individuals. Armstrong has long been dogged by accusations that he used performance-enhancing drugs, but no anti-doping authority has ever confirmed that he tested positive.

The Wall Street Journal first reported details of Landis’ e-mails.

Landis also accused American riders Levi Leipheimer and Dave Zabriskie and Armstrong’s longtime coach, Johan Bruyneel, of involvement in doping.

The Journal said it had seen copies of three e-mails sent by Landis between April 30 and May 6, and that he had copied in seven people on the messages, including officials with USA Cycling and international governing body UCI.

UCI president Pat McQuaid questioned Landis’ credibility in a telephone interview Thursday with The Associated Press.

“What’s his agenda?” McQuaid said. “The guy is seeking revenge. It’s sad, it’s sad for cycling. It’s obvious he does hold a grudge.”

McQuaid said he received copies of the e-mails sent by Landis to the U.S. cycling federation, but declined to comment on their contents. He said Landis’ allegations were “nothing new.”

“He already made those accusations in the past,” McQuaid said. “Armstrong has been accused many times in the past but nothing has been proved against him. And in this case, I have to question the guy’s credibility. There is no proof of what he says. We are speaking about a guy who has been condemned for doping before a court.”

[+] EnlargeDoug Pensinger/Getty Images
Floyd Landis says he used performance-enhancing drugs for most of his career as a professional road cyclist.
In one of the e-mails seen by the Wall Street Journal, dated April 30, Landis said he flew to Girona, Spain, in 2003 and had two half-liter units of blood extracted from his body in a three-week interval to be used later during the Tour de France.

According to the newspaper, Landis claimed the blood extractions took place in Armstrong’s apartment. He said blood bags belonging to Armstrong and then-teammate George Hincapie were kept in a refrigerator in Armstrong’s closet and Landis was asked to check the temperature of the blood daily.

When Armstrong left for a few weeks, he asked Landis to “make sure the electricity didn’t go off and ruin the blood,” according to the e-mail quoted by the Journal.

Landis’ doping conviction cost him his Tour title, his career, his life savings and his marriage. He said he knows his credibility is in tatters and that many people will choose not to believe him now. He added that he has no documentation for many of the claims he is making about other riders or officials, and that it will be his word against theirs.

However, Landis said he finally decided to come forward because he was suffering psychologically and emotionally from years of deceit, and because he has become a cycling pariah with little to no chance of ever riding for an elite team again. Prior to speaking with ESPN.com, he said he made his most difficult phone call – to his mother in Pennsylvania to tell her the truth for the first time.

“
What’s his agenda? The guy is seeking revenge. It’s sad, it’s sad for cycling. It’s obvious he does hold a grudge.

”
– UCI president Pat McQuaid

“I want to clear my conscience,” Landis said. "I don’t want to be part of the problem any more.

“With the benefit of hindsight and a somewhat different perspective, I made some misjudgments. And of course, I can sit here and say all day long, ‘If I could do it again I’d do something different,’ but I just don’t have that choice.”

Landis said he takes full responsibility for having doped on every occasion that he did it, and added he was never forced or threatened.

“I don’t feel guilty at all about having doped,” Landis told ESPN.com. “I did what I did because that’s what we [cyclists] did and it was a choice I had to make after 10 years or 12 years of hard work to get there, and that was a decision I had to make to make the next step. My choices were, do it and see if I can win, or don’t do it and I tell people I just don’t want to do that, and I decided to do it.”

According to Landis, his first use of performance-enhancing drugs was in June 2002, when he was a member of the U.S. Postal Service team. The World Anti-Doping Agency’s statute of limitations for doping offenses is eight years, and Landis said that, too, is part of his motivation for divulging his inflammatory information.

“Now we’ve come to the point where the statute of limitations on the things I know is going to run out or start to run out next month,” Landis said. “If I don’t say something now, then it’s pointless to ever say it.”

Landis, who began his career as a top mountain biker, had kept detailed training journals since he was a teenager. He said he continued the same methodical record-keeping once he started using banned drugs and techniques. Landis said he spent as much as $90,000 a year on performance-enhancing drugs and on consultants to help him build a training regime. Landis said he has kept all of his journals and diaries and has offered to share them with U.S. anti-doping authorities in recent meetings. He added that he has given officials detailed information on how athletes are beating drug testing.

As for his own positive test, Landis still maintains that result was inaccurate and that he had not used synthetic testosterone during the 2006 season – although he now admits he used human growth hormone during that time. At this point, he does not want to dwell on any of the issues he and his lawyers hammered at during his case, he said.

“There must be some other explanation, whether it was done wrong or I don’t know what,” he said. “You can try to write it however you want – the problem I have with even bothering to argue it is [that] I have used testosterone in the past and I have used it in other Tours, and it’s going to sound kind of foolish to say I didn’t.”

Landis exhausted most of his own savings in fighting his case, which cost an estimated $2 million, and also raised funds for his defense in a well-publicized effort. He said he would pay those donors back if he could, but does not have the money to do so. He said he did not level with the people close to him, but declined to say whether he informed his lawyers of his past drug use.

Bonnie D. Ford covers tennis and Olympic sports for ESPN.com. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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Just catching this now.Kimmage and McQuaid are both due on Newstalk very soon.

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On now. Good discussion with Jody Gormley and Eugene McGee there. McGee isn’t a personable man but he makes some excellent points when he talks about anything. He’s what Daithi Regan tries to be but isn’t.

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Looks like the shit could be finally hitting the fan for Lance. The special investigator is Jeff Novizky. He lead the BALCO investigations and was instrumental in getting Marion Jones jailed after she lied under oath to his investigation

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has confirmed that he is willing to cooperate with the Federal authorities who have launched an investigation involving him over possible fraud and doping charges, as long as it does not turn into a “witch hunt”.

Yesterday the New York Times reported that grand jury subpoenas have been issued to witnesses in the case, which they said demonstrates the seriousness of the inquiry. Armstrong confirmed he would cooperate, but also contradicted his testimony in the SCA Promotions insurance case from several years ago.

“Like I said, as long as we have a legitimate and credible and fair investigation I will be happy to co-operate but I’m not going to participate in any kind of witch hunt,” he told USA Today before the start of the tenth stage.

“I’ve done too many good things for too many people,” he said.

The investigation is looking into fraud and conspiracy charges as part of the inquiry, and for those charges to be applied to Armstrong it would need to prove that taxpayer money from the US Postal Service was used to purchase doping products and prove he was an owner of the team. Armstrong denied that he an ownership stake in the team, which would in theory keep him clear of a stiffer sentence should Landis’s allegations be proven.

“I was a rider on the team, I was contracted with Tailwind Sports, I never had any dealings…any…with the Postal Service…zero,” he said.

“I didn’t own the company. I didn’t have an equity stake. I didn’t have a profit stake. I didn’t have a seat on the board. I can’t be any clearer than that.”

However, Armstrong’s testimony from an earlier case completely contradicts his statements this morning. The deposition from 2005 reads:

Q: Can you tell us what your relationship, first, your business relationship with Tailwind Sports, is?

A: I’m an athlete on the team.

Q: Do you have any ownership interest in Tailwind Sports?

A: A small one.

Q: When you say a small one, can you give me an approximate percentage as to what that would be, if you know?

A: Perhaps ten percent.

Q: Do you know when you acquired that ownership interest?

A: No. I don’t remember.

Q: Would it have been in 2005, or before that?

A: I don’t remember.

Q: Do you have any – is there – do you have any recollection as to when it would have been? '02? '03? '04?

A: Before today.

Q: Okay. Would it have been before 2001?

A: Probably not, but I’m not a hundred percent sure.

Q: Who would know the answer to that question as to when you acquired an ownership interest in Tailwind?

A: Bill Stapleton.

Q: Is there documentation? Like do you have papers or an ownership certificate of some sort that reflects your ownership interest in Tailwind?

A: I’m sure there is.

The deposition was given as part of litigation between Armstrong and SCA Promotions, a Texas company which had withheld payment of a $5-million bonus due to the rider. Tailwind had purchased the insurance contract with SCA for $420,000 before the 2001 Tour de France, after Armstrong had already won the Tour twice consecutively. The $5-million payoff would happen if he won six Tours, a feat he achieved in July 2004.

The case was eventually settled out of court with SCA paying Armstrong and Tailwind Sports $7.5 million, to cover the $5-million bonus plus interest and lawyers’ fees. It is understood that SCA lost as they hadn’t put a no-doping clause in the contract, thus making their line of defense invalid.

“I don’t think the government will build a case on Floyd Landis. His credibility left a long time ago,” Armstrong continued before today’s stage. Experts don’t seem as concerned about Landis’s credibility issues. Criminal cases revolve around the testimony of several witnesses that, in many cases, have done much worse than taken performance enhancing drugs. If others come forward to corroborate Landis’s claims, they will hold much more weight. Unconfirmed reports in the media say that two participants in this year’s Tour de France have already spoken to investigators.

“Would the American people feel like this is a good use of their tax dollars?” he questioned. “That’s for them to decide.”

Armstrong argued that the doping allegations should be investigated by the International Cycling Union (UCI) or the World Anti-Doping Agency.

“If you think that you have an athlete that’s broken the rules…this is not baseball, this is not football…we have a governing body to deal with that,” he explained.

“I have had five-hundred [doping] controls in my day,” he continued. “USADA deals with that, the UCI deals with that. WADA deals with that. We have an agency to deal with that. I have no problem playing by those rules.”

With recent revelations where several cyclists have detailed how they avoided positive doping tests, the argument of negative doping controls may not be very compelling to the federal investigators should witnesses support Landis’s claims.

“As long as I live I will deny that,” he said about encouraging others to dope. “There is absolutely no way I forced people, encouraged people, told people, helped people, facilitated…absolutely not. 100 percent.”

On the heels of New York Times reports that Federal authorities are issuing grand jury subpoenas to witnesses in the case, the New York Daily News has reported that there has also been a subpoena for documents to the Trek Bicycle Corporation, the bike manufacturer that sponsored the US Postal Service team. Landis alleges that several bikes given to the team for the riders were auctioned on eBay to pay for doping products.

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A German newspaper Saturday quoted three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond saying that Lance Armstrong offered an individual LeMond knows $300,000 to claim that LeMond had used erythropoietin, or EPO, the banned endurance-boosting drug.

The allegation surfaced a day after the Daily News reported that LeMond, a three-time Tour de France champion, was served with a subpoena from a federal grand jury in Los Angeles that is investigating potential doping conspiracies on Armstrong’s cycling teams.

“I cannot say who it is, because he still works in cycling, but last year he was offered $300,000 to claim that I had used EPO,” LeMond told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany’s largest newspapers.

The newspaper said a spokesperson for Armstrong’s team called the allegation “absolutely not true” and dismissed it as “a strange story.” Armstrong has categorically denied using performance-enhancing drugs and methods on his way to seven Tour de France victories.

LeMond left cycling in the early 1990s, around the time that EPO is thought to have started gaining widespread use in the sport. Since then LeMond has become one of the most outspoken critics of the doping culture that corrupted cycling, and has become one of Armstrong’s chief antagonists.

Armstrong has faltered dramatically this month in what he says will be his final Tour de France. This spring, his former teammate, Floyd Landis, confessed to doping and told investigators he saw widespread drug use and blood transfusions on Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service cycling team when Landis was part of the team in 2002, 2003 and 2004.

The grand jury, empanelled at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, is considering evidence compiled by Food and Drug Administration criminal investigator Jeff Novitzky, who uncovered the BALCO doping ring in 2003.

In the German interview published Saturday, LeMond went on to compare Armstrong and his entourage to the mafia, and called for the resignation of the leadership of the International Cycling Union, or UCI. “It reminds me of the Catholic Church and its abuse victims,” LeMond said.

Earlier this month The News published e-mails from the UCI’s former leader, Hein Verbruggen, attacking Landis as a “nuisance.” Verbruggen’s attorney hit Landis with a cease-and-desist letter in May. The group’s current leader, Pat McQuaid, has said Landis is trying to damage cycling.

LeMond and his wife Kathy have long felt mistreated by Armstrong’s supporters, including the Trek Bicycle Corporation, an Armstrong sponsor that has also now been subpoenaed. Earlier this year, the LeMonds settled a lawsuit with Trek on confidential terms, and the grand jury has demanded documents related to that litigation.

The News first reported last month that assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Miller, who was involved in the BALCO case, was overseeing the cycling probe. Another federal prosecutor whose name appears on the LeMond subpoena is Miller’s colleague Mark A. Williams, who last year secured convictions and prison sentences two men involved in the illegal importation of wildlife from Vietnam to the United States (customs officials caught Dong at Los Angeles International Airport hiding 14 precious Asian songbirds in his pants).

LeMond and Armstrong have clashed ever since 2001, when LeMond spoke to a British journalist who exposed Armstrong’s relationship with controversial Italian doctor Michele Ferrari. Not long after that the publication of that article, by Sunday Times writer David Walsh, Trek’s CEO, John Burke, asked LeMond to retract his comments.

LeMond has said that in a telephone conversation that summer, Armstrong threatened to find 10 people who would say that LeMond used EPO. Armstrong has disputed this characterization of the phone call, claiming that LeMond was drunk at the time - a charge that Armstrong’s backers have also made about Landis since his accusations surfaced.

D

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Greg Lemond is one of the biggest sporting heroes there has ever been. :clap:

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Full video leak of Armstrong’s testimony released on the excellent nyvelocity site. Quite extraordinary stuff to see him lie through his teeth. Anyone who dares allege anything is either labelled a drunk or a whore or some other endearing term. Great viewing anyway.

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Feature on Armstrong coming up on Off The Ball. Good piece of journalism on him here meanwhile. http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/story/_/page/munson-120210/surprise-decision-drop-investigation-lance-armstrong-looks-suspicious

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This is lovely. Just lovely.
Riders given six-month delayed ban by USADA
Four former teammates of Lance Armstrong will receive six month bans after they confessed to doping and testified against the seven-time Tour de France winner, according to [i]De Telegraaf[/i].
George Hincapie[/url], [url=“http://www.cyclingnews.com/riders/levi-leipheimer”]Levi Leipheimer[/url], [url=“http://www.cyclingnews.com/riders/christian-vande-velde”]Christian Vande Velde[/url] and [url=“http://www.cyclingnews.com/riders/david-zabriskie”]David Zabriskie[/url] are said to have given evidence in the USADA investigation which has charged Armstrong with doping. All four riders are currently taking part in the Tour de France, but in recent weeks, USA Cycling revealed they [url=“http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/hincapie-leipheimer-vande-velde-zabriskie-opted-out-of-olympics”]opted not to be considered for the Olympic Games.
Today’s report, which is front-page news, also names Garmin-Sharp boss Jonathan Vaughters. It is not clear whether Vaughters too will face suspension.
“Miraculously, USADA has arranged for the suspensions to begin at the start at the end of the season so that they are able to race both the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana,” the article states.
In mid June, USADA formally charged Armstrong with doping with the use of evidence gathered in the investigation into potential doping on the United States Postal Service (USPS) (1996-2004), Discovery Channel (2005-2007), Astana (2009) and RadioShack (2010) cycling teams. Johan Bruyneel, Dr. Pedro Celaye, Dr. Luis Garcia del Moral, Dr. Michele Ferrari, and Mr. Pepe Marti are also accused of a variety of doping violations, from the administration of doping products, trafficking, assisting and abetting and covering up.
Within the 15-page letter detailing the charges, USADA pointed to 10 witnesses to the alleged conduct, made up of cyclists and cycling team employees, but until now their identities remained secret.

This isn’t.
Arbitrators, not review board will determine outcome
Last week Lance Armstrong’s attorneys issued a stinging opus[/url] in response to [url=“http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/armstrong-charged-with-doping-by-usada”]USADA’s new charges of doping and conspiracy against the rider. Cyclingnews received this analysis of the case from San Francisco attorney Vitaly Gashpar, the Substantive Law Editor of The Recorder.
The 11-page letter sent by Lance Armstrong’s attorneys to the Review Board of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is replete with arguments heard many times in the past: Armstrong never failed a test; the witnesses against him have been coerced and have less than stellar reputations; the USADA is going after him unfairly; etc. However, among the shtick we’re used to hearing over the years, Armstrong’s attorneys raise several points that may set the course of this investigation and subsequent hearing.
Where’s the evidence? Can USADA withhold it from Armstrong?
ii. The Review Board shall be provided the laboratory documentation and any additional information which USADA deems appropriate. Copies of this information shall be provided simultaneously to the Athlete or other Person and the Athlete or other Person shall be entitled to file a response with the Review Board. The Athlete’s or other Person’s name will not be provided to the Review Board by USADA and will be redacted from any documents submitted to the Review Board by USADA. (from USADA Protocols)
A chief complaint from Armstrong’s lawyers is that they were only provided with the laboratory data from 2009 and 2010 by USADA, and no evidence supporting any of the other myriad allegations. Is this allowed?
Under Protocol 11 of USADA: “The Review Board shall be provided the laboratory documentation and any additional information which USADA deems appropriate. Copies of this information shall be provided simultaneously to the Athlete…”
So USADA has discretion as to what information it will provide to the Review Board, but thereafter does not have the option to not provide the same information to the athlete, which leads to several possible conclusions. First, the USADA only forwarded to the board 2009 and 2010 data, providing the minimum which would lead the review board to recommend a doping violation, keeping the rest of its evidence to itself. Second, as Armstrong’s attorneys argue, the USADA is withholding information relevant to the investigation from Armstrong. Or third, the review board, pursuant to §11(v), requested additional information from USADA which the USADA was only required to provide to the review board and not the athlete.
The charges brought by USADA go as far back as 1998, so presumably it has submitted – in one way or another – all relevant information with regard to those violations to the board. If the information relating to pre-2009 allegations was in fact provided in response to a review board request, it appears the USADA has found a loophole in its protocol to withhold information from Armstrong.
The USADA rules suggest that it is ultimately free to disregard the recommendation of the board. However, per §11, evidence with regard to all violations within the purview of USADA must be submitted to the board for review and simultaneously provided to the athlete. It appears that at least on some level, the USADA was not fully compliant with the initial stages of the review process or played fast and loose with its own rules.
(Note: Cyclingnews believes USADA is using the following rule, part of the American Arbitration Association’s Supplementary Procedures for the Arbitration of Olympic Sport Doping Disputes to limit the scope of the information provided in order to protect the identity of witnesses:
R-18. Exchange of Information
a. At the request of any party or at the discretion of the arbitrator, consistent with the expedited nature of arbitration, the arbitrator may direct (i) the production of documents and other information, and (ii) the identification of any witnesses to be called.
These are old charges, what about the eight-year statute of limitations?
ARTICLE 17: STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS
No action may be commenced against an Athlete or other Person for an anti-doping rule violation contained in the Code unless such action is commenced within eight (8) years from the date the violation is asserted to have occurred. (WADA Code)
The board just completed the review and recommended to USADA to charge Armstrong with doping and related conspiracy charges. In accordance with WADA code, there exists a statute of limitation of eight years from the date the violation is alleged to have occurred. Therefore, even if charges are filed, the USADA will only be able to go as far back as 2004. Article 17 of WADA is one of the provisions that must be adopted by USADA without any substantive changes per WADA article 23. Unless the USADA can persuade a panel of arbitrators to disregard the statute of limitations.
The USADA is relying on the decision issued by the American Arbitration Association in the case of Eddy Hellebuyk, a marathoner suspended from the sport on doping charges, where the AAA determined that due to prior perjury, he would not be able to avail himself of the statute of limitations. The only matter in which Armstrong has given testimony under oath is in the litigation against SCA Promotions, which he ultimately won. That testimony was given in a deposition, not before the AAA panel. The Hellebuyk was a case of first impression before the AAA in this context, and it is unclear whether a panel of arbitrators will be willing to extend it to the facts of this case.
After all, assuming Armstrong’s SCA Promotions testimony where he denied doping was false, it was not actually given to the panel, nor was the testimony given to escape doping charges, as it was in Hellebuyk’s case. The arbitration panel in Hellebuyk’s case appeared to be focused on those facts to find the statute of limitation inapplicable. Not to mention that the USADA will have to first prove that the testimony given by Armstrong was false. This was easy in Hellebuyk because he subsequently admitted to lying in the initial hearing.
Notwithstanding the above, there is another legal wrinkle that could result in a AAA panel finding the statute of limitations is inapplicable: equitable tolling. If an accused acts in such a way as to prevent the discovery of the harm done (this has to go beyond merely being silent about it) - meaning the instrumentalities under his control were used to thwart the finding of a violation - equitable tolling could come into play to extend the statute of limitations beyond the statutory limits.
However, for this to happen, the USADA will have to fill a lot of blanks. Not only will it have to affirmatively prove that Armstrong is guilty of the violations charged, but it will also have to show that he somehow acted to thwart previous investigations, and but for his actions, the doping allegations which are now outside the statute of limitations would have been discovered earlier. That won’t be easy, as under AAA rules, Armstrong does not have to testify in these proceeding.
Lastly, if the USADA is successful in proving that Armstrong was part of an ongoing doping conspiracy – one of the charges against him - the statute of limitations may not be applicable if it is proven that the conspiracy continued into the limitation period. In other words, if USADA will be able to show that Armstrong’s doping violations stemmed from an ongoing conspiracy that started in 1998 and continued to 2010, Article 17 of WADA doesn’t even come into play.
Where does the case go from here?
The hearing is set for November and will be before the AAA in accordance with the rules governing arbitration of Olympic sport doping disputes. As is typical with hearings before the AAA, the legal rules of evidence don’t apply, and the arbitrators are free to consider and admit any material deemed relevant. The only requirement being that the presentment of evidence be before all of the arbitrators and the parties. Meaning that whatever evidence USADA may wish to present to AAA will have to be presented to Armstrong, whose defense team will certainly have a run at it.
Given that the arbitrators are not selected by the USADA alone, but are neutral “judges” selected by both parties (there is a chance that it will be heard by only one arbitrator, unless an election is made to have three), the objections to evidence raised by Armstrong’s attorneys may play a role and the panel may reject some of the evidence.
With that said, it is likewise possible that despite the less-than ethical/legal collection of evidence charged by Armstrong’s attorneys in the letter to the Review Board, it will still be considered by the arbitration panel in reaching its decision.
This is not an easy case for the USADA to prove by any stretch of the imagination. The USADA faces three main obstacles: first, it will have to meet a heavy evidentiary burden to persuade the AAA panel to disregard the statute of limitations; second, it will have to persuade the AAA to admit into evidence information that could have been collected in violation of USADA protocol and/or U.S. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure; finally, it will have to persuade the AAA to give adequate weight to testimony of witnesses who may have previously been dishonest about their own doping conduct.
(All evidence will be made public at the arbitration hearing, should Armstrong agree to one, including witness testimony. - Ed)

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An Rostigh will be next

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What’s the Vaughters bit in the first story Larry? Is he in trouble? How does this affect his Friend of the Forum status?

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Vaughters raced with Armstrong at Postal and he doped himself. He admitted this long ago and sought about setting up a clean team - Garmin. Zabriske too used to ride on Postal and doped there. Unfair that both are tarnished with Hincapie and in particular Leipheimer who have done virtually nothing to clean up the sport.
Lance has bigged up HIncapie even during his comeback years and was training partner with Leipheimer so he surely can’t try and slander them like the way he has done to others who have come out against him (Landis, Hamilton). I think riders will refuse to comment on whether they did indeed testify against him. Armstrong up to his usual shit though with recent tweet from him attacking USA Review Board member and his past. Ugly stuff.
Wow. [s][color="#6ec4de"]@[/s][b][color="#0e9ec8"]usantidoping[/b][/url] can pick em. Here’s ([url=“http://t.co/FsC2P55W”][color="#0e9ec8"]http://tinyurl.com/cgxmzwq[/url]) 1 of 3 Review Board members studying my case. [url=“http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23protectingcleanathletesandpervs”][s][color="#6ec4de"]#[/s][b][color="#0e9ec8"]protectingcleanathletesandpervs[/b]

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Just to clarify Vaughters is an even better friend of the forum today than he was yesterday. A good guy.

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Could Armstrong be sent to prison?

Could Vaughters?

If so, I propose a headline of:

Lock Up Your Vaughters.

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Good news.

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Would taking Neurofin painkillers and using Neurofin rub be considered doping? Need clarification before the ROK. Thanks lads.

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poor

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us cycling cant afford armstrong to go down as they have facilitated this nonsense. will be interesting to see what happens

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ROUEN, France (AFP) — Former teammates of Lance Armstrong, who is facing new doping allegations, have played down a report claiming they testified against the seven-time Tour de France champion and would receive six-month bans after admitting doping.
According to a report in Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, Americans George Hincapie (BMC Racing), Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Christian Vande Velde and David Zabriskie (both Garmin-Sharp) have confessed to doping.
The report added that they testified against Armstrong and would receive bans of six months beginning at the end of the season. All four riders are currently taking part in the Tour de France, and are said to have given evidence in the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) investigation, which has charged former U.S. Postal team leader Armstrong with doping.
Jonathan Vaughters, another former U.S. Postal rider who is now the CEO of Slipstream Sports, the management group behind the Garmin team, is also at the Tour and denied the claims in the report.
Hincapie, a teammate of Australian Tour de France champion Cadel Evans, refused to directly comment on the report ahead of Thursday’s fifth stage from Rouen to Saint-Quentin.
“I’m just disappointed this is being brought up once again,” said Hincapie, the only rider to accompany Armstrong in all seven of his triumphant Tour campaigns.
“I’ve always tried to do the right thing for the sport. Right now I’m here to do my job and I’m going to try and focus on that.
“BMC’s got nothing to do with this, Cadel is obviously here to try and win the Tour and I’m going to try and help him do that.”
Asked if he had spoken to Armstrong, Hincapie added: “I haven’t in a while. I’m sad he’s going through this. He’s done so many things for the sport. His accomplishments are incredible.”
The BMC team said earlier that it had received no notification concerning an eventual suspension of Hincapie.
“I can tell you we have not received any notification from any authority about this issue at all. So therefore we have no comment,” said BMC team manager Jim Ochowicz.
Ochowicz is the former manager of Motorola, the team with which Armstrong turned professional before his battle with cancer. It was after Armstrong’s return to the sport in 1998 that he joined U.S. Postal.
Ochowicz added: “First of all we don’t give comments about media stories that are written and we have no information about. George is here to race the Tour de France.”
Vaughters, whom De Telegraaf claimed had also admitted doping, immediately issued a denial on his Twitter account:[indent]
“Regarding the Dutch media report: No 6mos suspensions have been given to any member of Slipstream Sports. Today or at any future date.”[/indent]
Leipheimer, meanwhile, refused to comment when asked if he had testified against Armstrong.
“I’m here to race the Tour de France and I’ve got nothing to say about the report,” he said.
“I don’t think it would help the situation, the speculation, so I’m not going to say anything about this report. I’m 100-percent committed to doing my best race.”
USADA has said previously that at least 10 former Armstrong teammates and associates would testify against him, but vowed to keep the names confidential.
A three-member independent anti-doping review board is charged with considering evidence against Armstrong to see if there is enough of a case to push forward with formal charges and a hearing.
Armstrong, 40, has always insisted he is innocent, saying he has passed more than 500 drugs tests.

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Strong Arm Of The Law Catches Up On Lance.