Lance Armstrong Stripped

[Conan71]

And for anyone who wishes to read any or all of this, here it is.  I did read the two addendums.  The athlete statements are damning.  USADA's conclusions on the athlete's credibility is somewhat laughable in how they reach them.  I'm left with the following impression:  either this is the biggest conspiracy ever to bring down a major sporting figure or Lance really did captain a major doping program. 

The statements by Vande Velde, Leipheimer, Hincapie, and Danielson are the one's which seem pretty unimpeachable to me.  Danielson and Leipheimer both stood to lose quite a bit financially by being associated with doping.  Hincapie has a cycling clothing line which could easily be hurt by his own admissions.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/!invesitgations%20and%20enterprise%20docs/armstrong-reasoned-decision.pdf

[Teatownclown]

Did I hear he has to pay back $4 millski? or is it 2?

[Ed W]

Jason Schneier has an interesting analysis of doping in professional sports:

The doping arms race will continue because of the incentives: It's a classic Prisoner's Dilemma. Consider for example competing athletes Alice and Bob, who are individually deciding whether to take drugs or not. Alice thinks:

    If Bob doesn't take any drugs, then it will be in my best interest to take them. They will give me a performance edge against Bob. I have a better chance of winning.

    Similarly, if Bob takes drugs, it's also in my interest to agree to take them. At least that way Bob won't have an advantage over me.

    So even though I have no control over what Bob chooses to do, taking drugs gives me the better outcome, regardless of his action.

Unfortunately, Bob goes through exactly the same analysis. As a result, they both take performance-enhancing drugs and neither has the advantage over the other. If they could just trust each other, they could refrain from taking the drugs and maintain the same non-advantage status, without any legal or physical danger.

....In the end, doping is all about economics. Athletes will continue to dope because the Prisoner's Dilemma forces them to do so. Sports authorities will either improve their detection capabilities or continue to pretend to do so, because they depend on fans and associated revenues. And as technology continues to improve, professional athletes will become more like deliberately designed racing cars.   

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/10/lance-armstrong-and-the-prisoners-dilemma-of-doping-in-professional-sports/

[Conan71]

And in case you've not turned on the telly or been on FB today, there is this:

"I'm sorry."
Those were the simple words Lance Armstrong offered to friends and colleagues before coming clean about his use of  performance-enhancing drugs during an extraordinary cycling career that included seven Tour de France victories.

Despite years of adamant denial, Armstrong finally confessed to doping during an interview with Oprah Winfrey taped Monday, just a couple of hours after an emotional apology to the staff at the Livestrong charity he founded and was later forced to surrender, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the interview is to be broadcast Thursday on Winfrey's network.

The confession marks a stunning reversal for the proud athlete and celebrity who for so long has sought lavish praise in the court of public opinion, using these courtrooms to punish his critics.

For more than a decade, Armstrong dared anybody who challenged his version of events to prove it. Finally, he told the tale himself after promising over the weekend to answer Winfrey's questions "directly, honestly and candidly."

Shortly after the interview ended, Winfrey teased to her followers on Twitter as to what viewers can expect: "Just wrapped with @lancearmstrong More than 2 1/2 hours. He came READY!"

Lance could have a positive impact if he tells the truth on everything. He's got to be completely honest.

- Betsy Andreu, wife of former Armstrong teammate Frankie Andreu

The cyclist was stripped of his Tour de France titles, lost most of his endorsements and was forced to leave Livestrong last year after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a damning, 1,000-page report that accused him of masterminding a long-running doping scheme.

Armstrong started the day with a visit to the headquarters of the Livestrong charity he founded in 1997 and turned into a global force on the strength of his athletic dominance and personal story of surviving testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain.

About 100 Livestrong staff members gathered in a conference room as Armstrong told them "I'm sorry." He choked up during a 20-minute talk, expressing regret for the long-running controversy tied to performance-enhancers had caused, but stopped short of admitting he used them.

Before he was done, several members were in tears when he urged them to continue the charity's mission, helping cancer patients and their families.

"Heartfelt and sincere," is how Livestrong spokeswoman Katherine McLane described his speech.

Armstrong later huddled with almost a dozen people before stepping into a room set up at a downtown Austin hotel for the interview with Winfrey. The group included close friends and lawyers. They exchanged handshakes and smiles, but declined comment and no further details about the interview were released because of confidentiality agreements signed by both camps.

Winfrey has promoted her interview, one of the biggest for OWN since she launched the network in 2011, as a "no-holds barred" session, and after the voluminous USADA report — which included testimony from 11 former teammates — she had plenty of material for questions. USADA chief executive Travis Tygart, a longtime critic of Armstrong's, called the drug regimen practiced while Armstrong led the U.S. Postal Service team "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

USADA did not respond to requests for comment about Armstrong's confession.

Hein Verbruggen, the former president of the International Cycling Union, said Tuesday he wasn't ready to speak about the confession.

"I haven't seen the interview. It's all guessing," Verbruggen told the AP. "After that, we have an independent commission which I am very confident will find out the truth of these things."

For years, Armstrong went after his critics ruthlessly during his reign as cycling champion. He scolded some in public and didn't hesitate to punish outspoken riders during the race itself. He waged legal battles against still others in court.

At least one of his opponents, the London-based Sunday Times, has already filed a lawsuit to recover about $500,000 it paid him to settle a libel case, and Dallas-based SCA Promotions, which tried to deny Armstrong a promised bonus for a Tour de France win, has threatened to bring another lawsuit seeking to recover more than $7.5 million awarded by an arbitration panel.

In Australia, the government of South Australia state said Tuesday it will seek the repayment of several million dollars in appearance fees paid to Armstrong for competing in the Tour Down Under in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

"We'd be more than happy for Mr. Armstrong to make any repayment of monies to us," South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill said.
Betsy Andreu, the wife of former Armstrong teammate Frankie Andreu, was one of the first to publicly accuse Armstrong of using performance-enhancing drugs. She called news of Armstrong's confession "very emotional and very sad," and choked up when asked to comment.

"He used to be one of my husband's best friends and because he wouldn't go along with the doping, he got kicked to the side," she said. "Lance could have a positive impact if he tells the truth on everything. He's got to be completely honest."

Betsy Andreu testified in SCA's arbitration case challenging the bonus in 2005, saying Armstrong admitted in an Indiana hospital room in 1996 that he had taken many performance-enhancing drugs, a claim Armstrong vehemently denied.

"It would be nice if he would come out and say the hospital room happened," Andreu said. "That's where it all started."

Former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, has filed a federal whistle-blower lawsuit that accused Armstrong of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service. An attorney familiar with Armstrong's legal problems told the AP that the Justice Department is highly likely to join the lawsuit. The False Claims Act lawsuit could result in Armstrong paying a substantial amount of money to the U.S. government. The deadline for the department to join the case is Thursday, though the department could seek an extension if necessary.
According to the attorney, who works outside the government, the lawsuit alleges that Armstrong defrauded the U.S. government based on his years of denying use of performance-enhancing drugs. The attorney spoke on condition of anonymity because the source was not authorized to speak on the record about the matter.

The lawsuit most likely to be influenced by a confession might be the Sunday Times case. Potential perjury charges stemming from Armstrong's sworn testimony in the 2005 arbitration fight would not apply because of the statute of limitations. Armstrong was not deposed during the federal investigation that was closed last year.

Armstrong is said to be worth around $100 million. But most sponsors dropped him after USADA's scathing report — at the cost of tens of millions of dollars — and soon after, he left the board of Livestrong.

After the USADA findings, he was also barred from competing in the elite triathlon or running events he participated in after his cycling career. World Anti-Doping Code rules state his lifetime ban cannot be reduced to less than eight years. WADA and U.S. Anti-Doping officials could agree to reduce the ban further depending on what information Armstrong provides and his level of cooperation.


Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/sports/2013/01/15/lance-armstrong-comes-clean-to-oprah-confesses-to-doping/#ixzz2I58DaZtK

Personally, I'm curious if he out and out admits to the doping or simply skirts making a tacit admission and simply talks about being sorry for not speaking out more on this to keep from damaging Livestrong and his sponsors, family, et. al.

I still stand by my earlier comments I'm disappointed he apparently lied all these years, but I still support Livestrong and it's mission and I also believe in spite of this scandal, he's done far more to help the image of cycling in the United States than anyone else before him.

[Teatownclown]

I don't care anymore.

What a disappointment.

The man has no integrity.

Off with his head!

I might add I was stuck in my car and put it on Limbow for 5 minutes long enough to hear El Rushbo say that if Lance wanted to clean the slate, get America behind him again all he had to do was to come out for gun control and for abortion because that way the mainstream media would kiss up to him. that's what a man with no integrity says about liars and cheats. I turned KRMG off (after 2 MarkWayne Mullin Plumbing ads) and thought to myself "how much longer? Why doesn't Rush want to change his image?" He probably would were it for the fact he wasn't making a ton on stupid people.

[Breadburner]

Live Strong....Suckers.....!!!

[Townsend]

It's a shame some people have lost respect for someone who motivated them to take care of themselves.

I'm sure Congress will have some committee to get their names on the news.

I'm not seeing much change in my life from this.

[sgrizzle]

It's a shame some people have lost respect for someone who motivated them to take care of themselves.

I'm sure Congress will have some committee to get their names on the news.

I'm not seeing much change in my life from this.

Waiting for the Onion article where cancer survivors who benefited from Livestrong are asking for their cancer back in protest.

[DTowner]

He and his Live Strong organization may have done a lot of good, but a reputation of good built up over a lifetime is nonetheless destroyed through one lapse in judgment.  Here, however, rather than a lapse, we have a long planned and meticulously executed effort to break the rules of his sport and gain an advantage over his competitors, and viciously attack anyone who accused him of cheating.  He may have beat cancer and returned to the highest level of his sport, but we now know he is a liar and a cheater  Beating cancer (one wonders what role the drugs he was taking played in causing his cancer) and inspiring other to do the same does not change that fact.  He is yet one more reason why many people believe that in cycling, like college football, if you ain't cheating, you ain't winning.

[Breadburner]

It took a lot of Ball for Lance to come clean.....!!!!

[Conan71]

It took a lot of Ball for Lance to come clean.....!!!!

Juan Pelota?

Good one!

[heironymouspasparagus]

He and his Live Strong organization may have done a lot of good, but a reputation of good built up over a lifetime is nonetheless destroyed through one lapse in judgment.  Here, however, rather than a lapse, we have a long planned and meticulously executed effort to break the rules of his sport and gain an advantage over his competitors, and viciously attack anyone who accused him of cheating.  He may have beat cancer and returned to the highest level of his sport, but we now know he is a liar and a cheater  Beating cancer (one wonders what role the drugs he was taking played in causing his cancer) and inspiring other to do the same does not change that fact.  He is yet one more reason why many people believe that in cycling, like college football, if you ain't cheating, you ain't winning.

Doing exactly the same thing as the other top couple of dozen contenders.  He still did it better than the rest of them, even when they were doing the same thing.

Would be nice if the 'level playing field' was without drugs, but since they were universally used by all, the standings are still valid.

[Teatownclown]

I've been thinking about chemicals in sports. Better athleticism through enhancements. I love more home runs.

Rules are rules....

[Hoss]

Let the photoshopping begin:

[Conan71]