Lance Armstrong

[muppet]

I'm in Lance's corner anyway, surely now it's all going to be someone's word against his, how can anything be physically  proven?  The f**king French seem to  have it in for him big time, w**kers.  500 tests and clean everytime is a pretty decent record.

We have heard that line many times before. Michelle De Bruin used to use it until it was revealed she had failed tests before, but the authorities wanted cast iron proof before taking her on. Funnily enough it was Androstenedione found in a number of her samples that destroyed her defense, the same drug mentioned towards the end of that article.

The article is American and it contains the testimony of many Americans. The prosecutor is American and the courts will be American. If there is to be jail, it will be an American jail. But of course TO blame's the French. Class. 

Wrong again......Apology accepted Muppet 

I thought it was a good straw man so I naturally thought it was yerself.

Apologies.

[INDIANA]

Muppet, having read the SI article, i cant for the life of me see how you think that strengthens any point you (or the prosecutor) are tryin to make.  If the drug taking is generally seen as so pervasive, why hound Lance and not every other top cyclist of the past 20yrs?

They did and caught some who are now pointing the finger at Lance.

Delgado (beaten on the 2nd last stage by Roche in 1987) who won the Tour de France in 1988 failed a test for a drug that was banned by the Olympics people (can't be bothered looking for their name) but hadn't yet made the cycling list. This 'vindicated' him.

Both Kelly and Roche failed tests, Kelly was prior to the sporting watershed that was Ben Johnson in 1988 so it was in a different context. His 'I had the flu and accidentally took something' explanation was the norm then and was accepted even if it sounds pathetic now. Roche uses the Linford Christie 'I am retired and never tested positive in competition, therefore I am innocent' posit.

Delgado took Probenacide- think its a form of ephiedrine.

[bennydorano]

The trouble with this set up is, if Lance beats this - and I sincerely hope he does (and because I think he's innocent, not on any technicalities), it'll only be while before some other ballbag is dragging his name through the muck again.  When is enough enough?

[Tony Baloney]

Not sure how this will work but surely now there is only circumstantial evidence at best and hearsay and rumour filling in the rest, so how can they possibly build a case unless they have frozen his blood and piss and can retrospectively analyse it.

[Tyrones own]

Not sure how this will work but surely now there is only circumstantial evidence at best and hearsay and rumour filling in the rest, so how can they possibly build a case unless they have frozen his blood and piss and can retrospectively analyse it.

Washed up Has beens trying to make a dollar running their mouths and telling the media what they want to hear... nothing more, nothing less IMHO!
Hamilton's book must be due out fairly soon 

[INDIANA]

Not sure how this will work but surely now there is only circumstantial evidence at best and hearsay and rumour filling in the rest, so how can they possibly build a case unless they have frozen his blood and piss and can retrospectively analyse it.

Washed up Has beens trying to make a dollar running their mouths and telling the media what they want to hear... nothing more, nothing less IMHO!
Hamilton's book must be due out fairly soon 

I dont see how you can be so certain.  Either way for me the whole sport is tainted. I dont buy that someone is capable of riding a tour at over an average speed of 40 kilometres per hour up monsters like Mt Ventoux.

I just dont buy it. Those speeds havent been seen since. And wont be. Has any winner of the Tour since the mid-80's been clean? Debatable. I dont buy the UCI's line that the only people using drugs were those trying to make up the gap to the top guys.

[Groucho]

Not sure how this will work but surely now there is only circumstantial evidence at best and hearsay and rumour filling in the rest, so how can they possibly build a case unless they have frozen his blood and piss and can retrospectively analyse it.

Washed up Has beens trying to make a dollar running their mouths and telling the media what they want to hear... nothing more, nothing less IMHO!
Hamilton's book must be due out fairly soon 

Agree 100%.....Armstrong has been an inspiration to very many people and I hope he sues the assholes!

[mc_grens]

Not sure how this will work but surely now there is only circumstantial evidence at best and hearsay and rumour filling in the rest, so how can they possibly build a case unless they have frozen his blood and piss and can retrospectively analyse it.

Washed up Has beens trying to make a dollar running their mouths and telling the media what they want to hear... nothing more, nothing less IMHO!
Hamilton's book must be due out fairly soon 

Agree 100%.....Armstrong has been an inspiration to very many people and I hope he sues the assholes!

I'm curious, would the people in the pro- Armstrong camp be satisfied to his guilt if the grand jury investigation in the US finds him guilty of using PEDs?

I've little interest in cycling, and little interest in Armstrong, but I have kept a very close eye on all of the BALCO stuff, Barry Bonds, the baseball controversy (even though I have no interest in Baseball itself), and PED controversy in general. It strikes me that Armstrong is very similar to Roger Clemens. Clemens was unswerving in his denials just as Armstrong has been; he was never caught in any tests, just like Armstrong; He threatened law suits against those who where tarnishing his good name, and like Armstrong they never came. Clemens will be on trial for perjury in the coming months, by the way.

I think its naive to believe that in a sport that saw a consistent rise in performance levels, followed by a PED scandal, followed by a huge drop in performance levels, there wasn't wide spread doping. Baseball's batting records are now considered completely tainted, as its impossible to say which are true performances, and which are PED-fueled. Even players who have never been caught beat the performances of those who were already all time greats BEFORE they started using PEDs!!!

Similarly in cycling... is it not naive to think that Armstrong, who consistently beat some of the worlds most astonishing athletes while they were taking PEDS wasn't doing it himself?!

Personally, I think that there are too many holes in the dam at this stage, too many doubts, too many "coincidental" associations with teammates, doctors, and trainers who have been involved with PEDs. I think people want Armstrong to be clean, because of the fantastic story of the man who beat cancer and became a champion again. I think that as so many of us have been touched by Cancer we want to believe that its possible for our loved ones to recover as he did, and so we give him the benefit of the doubt. It's easy to take his side against faceless accusers out to "get" him. We don't have the same affinity with them. Maybe the men investigating Armstrong just love cycling, or hate cheating, and they just want to clean up the image of their sport.

[heganboy]

"proving" he did it will be damn near impossible...

[deiseach]

Interesting to see the MO of those defending Armstrong, i.e. smear those attacking Armstrong. Which makes the latest potential witness all the more intriguing:

Alleged George Hincapie testimony could undermine Lance Armstrong

In the 11 years since journalists and judges began looking into doping allegations against Lance Armstrong, all the inquiries have fallen down on two grounds: there has been no "smoking gun" and no copper-bottomed witness in spite of the weight of circumstantial evidence that has built up over the years. The allegations have always been emphatically denied and the denials have stuck.

Sparked by a federal inquiry into Armstrong's former team US Postal Service that goes back to last August, the events of the last two days have taken the Armstrong saga – and by extension the cycling world in which Armstrong remains an influential figure – into uncharted territory. They also provide possible insights into the direction of the inquiry, led by Geoff Novitzky, the man behind the Barry Bonds case.

On Thursday night, as part of the build-up to a showing of their investigative programme 60 Minutes, CBS released a segment of an interview with Armstrong's former team-mate Tyler Hamilton, in which the cyclist claimed that he had seen his ex-leader use the banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO). Hamilton did not go into details, but if he can back up the claims, this would be a new and potentially devastating piece of evidence.

On Friday, CBS reported that they had evidence that another of Armstrong's former team-mates George Hincapie had told the federal inquiry that he and Armstrong had given each other EPO and that they had discussed the use of another banned drug, testosterone. Unlike Hamilton and at least two other former team-mates of Armstrong, Hincapie was not interviewed by CBS – citing the ongoing FDA inquiry in which he is apparently a witness – and the television station did not name a source for their report.

Hincapie, who is currently racing in the Tour of California, said: "I can confirm to you that I never spoke with 60 Minutes. I have no idea where they got their information. As I've said in the past, I continue to be disappointed that people are talking about the past in cycling instead of the future. As for the substance of anything in the 60 Minutes story, I cannot comment on anything relating to the ongoing investigation."

On the face of it, Hamilton's revelation appears the more damaging, but Hincapie could potentially be the game-changer if the CBS report is backed up. Over the years, several witnesses have come forward to make a variety of claims about Armstrong and banned drugs: the triple Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, Armstrong's former team-mates Floyd Landis and Stephen Swart, the former US Postal soigneur Emma O'Reilly, his former personal assistant Mike Anderson, and Betsy Andreu, the wife of his ex-team-mate and former friend Frankie Andreu.

The allegations have been wide-ranging, but never conclusive: needle marks on Armstrong's arms, conversations in which Armstrong reportedly said the Tour de France could only be won using EPO, the claim that before his treatment for testicular cancer Armstrong told doctors he used banned substances. But because they occurred largely in isolation, and did not corroborate each other, they could be rebutted; Armstrong's word against each witness, each claim.

Coupled with his denials of any use of banned substances and his assertion that he has never failed a drugs test, Armstrong could also make claims that undermined each witness's evidence: personal animosity, a desire for financial gain, revenge, jealousy, or, in the case of Landis – and Hamilton – that both men lied for several years about their own drug-taking before performing dramatic U-turns.

No such assertions can be made against Hincapie, however, as Andreu pointed out to the magazine VeloNews on Friday night. "You can't find a nicer guy, a more trustworthy guy, a more respected person in the peloton. Lance has ripped apart, attacked and shredded anybody that's said anything against him. I don't know that that would work against George. Lance has even called him 'a stand-up guy'."

Hincapie is a bumbling, genial giant of a man, who has always seemed to want to keep out of the fray around Armstrong. The pair have – had? – been friends for almost two decades since they began racing together at the Motorola team. Hincapie is universally well-thought of and liked. He has never tested positive for any banned substances, although Landis made allegations against him – which he denied – when Landis went public for the first time last May.

While Sunday's broadcast of 60 Minutes should move the Armstrong story forward, what will happen in the longer term remains hard to predict, as it is unclear when the inquiry will close and – if the claims are well-founded – what steps if any may be taken against Armstrong. Hamilton's open letter to friends and fans on Thursday, in which he explained his confession, gave an insight into the workings of the federal inquiry, on behalf of which a grand jury took testimony under subpoena from the former Tour de France stage winner.

Hamilton said he had been interviewed for six hours and that the confession he took drugs had come as a relief after years of deceit. Novitzky's team are giving away nothing -– and may well be annoyed that material from at least one important witness has been made public – but appear to be painstakingly building their case. If they conclude with a joined-up series of witness statements from his former team-mates, which corroborate each other, they could undermine the defence Armstrong has built up over recent years, and it could radically alter the recent history of the Tour de France.

[Tony Baloney]

From today's Sunday Times...

Its not about the bike, its about the drugs

He is lauded as the greatest cyclist in the world but now his closest friend is accusing him of doping. Can Lance Armstrong, the super-survivor, ever recover from this final betrayal, asks David Walsh

If there was one thing Lance Armstrong had, greater even than his gift for winning the Tour de France, it was a talent for discrediting those who said he cheated with performanceenhancing drugs.

He described them as losers jealous of his success, low-lifes trying to sell books, former team-mates with axes to grind. None was credible.

On Friday, George Hincapie, whom Armstrong described last year as "like a brother to me", came out of the woodwork and the champion's reputation splintered.

Hincapie, a 37-year-old professional cyclist who is expected to start his 16th Tour de France this summer, is the former team-mate by whom Armstrong could not afford to be accused. Through Armstrong's seven consecutive Tour victories, Hincapie was at his side, his most trusted lieutenant; the guy that always covered his back.

The US television network CBS reported that in sworn evidence given in a federal investigation into Armstrong, Hincapie had testified that he and Armstrong supplied each other with EPO (the banned blood-boosting drug erythropoietin) and discussed using testosterone. Normally sharp in his dismissal of accusers, Armstrong did not immediately respond to the Hincapie revelations.

Since winning his first Tour de France in 1999, Armstrong has become an icon. Three years before that first Tour victory he had been struck with life-threatening testicular cancer but recovered to become his sport's greatest champion.

Like many successful athletes, Armstrong established a foundation, and his championed the cause of cancer victims. Livestrong became a big presence in the battle against the disease and Armstrong became one of the world's best-known sportsmen. He went for bike rides with President George W Bush; the Hollywood actor Robin Williams was a regular training partner; he dated the singer Sheryl Crow; and he described the Irish rock star Bono as "a dear friend". Yet Armstrong couldn't shake off suspicion.

Ten years ago Greg LeMond, the other American cyclist to have won the Tour de France, encapsulated the dilemma in one short sentence to The Sunday Times: "If the [Armstrong] story is true, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sport. If it is not, it is the greatest fraud."

Armstrong dismissed LeMond as a jealous has-been.

And when The Sunday Times raised legitimate questions about Armstrong's record in an article about cycling and doping, Armstrong sued. The paper, unable to persuade sufficient colleagues to talk, reached a settlement in 2006 which will be reviewed by our lawyers once the federal investigation concludes.

But the story did not go away. Armstrong's former masseuse, Emma O'Reilly, said she had seen enough to convince her he doped; former teammate Stephen Swart said Armstrong was the team's most persuasive advocate of doping when they were together at Motorola in 1993 and 1994; another former teammate, Frankie Andreu, and his wife Betsy said they both heard Armstrong admit using performance-enhancing drugs to his doctors during his cancer treatment in 1996; and more recently former team-mates Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton said they saw Armstrong dope.

Always, Armstrong had a counter: O'Reilly had a grudge, Swart came from an unstable background, Andreu and his wife did not like him, Landis and Hamilton had both lied before. His lawyers threatened newspapers and broadcasters, legal warnings were circulated and in some case writs would follow. And for years it seemed Armstrong would survive.

That was until Hincapie claimed the two had shared EPO and discussed their use of testosterone.

"You can't find a nicer guy than George," said Andreu, "a more trustworthy guy, a more respected person in the cycling world. Lance has ripped apart, attacked and shredded anybody that's said anything against him. I don't know that that would work against George." THE US federal investigation that threatens to destroy Armstrong — led by special agent Jeff Novitzky of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — began three years ago in Calabasas,

a small, affluent town in California, home to Kayle Leogrande, a low-ranked American rider for Rock Racing.

In late 2008, Leogrande was given a two-year ban by the US Anti-Doping Agency. Soon after he left his rented apartment in Calabasas, his landlord found medical products in the fridge. He guessed the abandoned products were drugs and called the agency.

The agency, which had no legal means to seize the drugs, invited the FDA to look into the case. It was a momentous decision because it brought Novitzky, who had been conducting investigations into steroid abuse in other professional sports, into the dark world of professional cycling.

Novitzky, the 6ft 7in gritty son of a high-school basketball coach and a man who once cleared 7ft in the high jump, soon realised Leogrande and Rock Racing's founder, Michael Ball, were small players in a big racket.

And then in May last year Landis, winner of the 2006 Tour de France before being disqualified for a failed drug test, circulated an email detailing his own doping and the epidemic within the sport.

Landis also pointed at Armstrong, with whom he had ridden from 2002 to 2004.

From the outset, Novitzky's team was warned not to expect co-operation. For decades, professional cyclists practised a code of silence. Their culture of doping had survived countless investigations in Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and other countries. What made the feds think they could do better?

Their reply was that they had a truth serum, in the shape of the gun and badge that were visible during interviews and in the constant reminder to witnesses that one lie would land

them in prison. Tyler Hamilton, now a 40-year-old former racer from Massachusetts, was of especial interest. He had ridden with the statefunded US Postal Service team for six years and had been a key member of the Armstrong team that won the 1999, 2000 and 2001 Tours.

Twice Hamilton had tested positive for performanceenhancing drugs. His second eight-year ban ended his career though he had always denied involvement in doping.

Last July, Hamilton was subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in Los Angeles. Grand jury protocol does not allow witnesses to have a legal representative in the room, nor any other person at their side. Faced by a prosecutor and the threat of jail if he lied, Hamilton admitted he had been a serial doper and claimed he had seen Armstrong inject himself with EPO " more than one time". He said he had also seen stocks of the drug in Armstrong's fridge.

Hamilton also testified that he believed an Armstrong positive test at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland had been covered up by the authorities, an allegation previously raised by Landis.

Hamilton has explained his changed story in a letter to close friends: " Until ... I walked into the courtroom, I hadn't told a soul. My testimony went on for six hours.

" For me it was like the Hoover dam breaking. I opened up; I told the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And I felt a sense of relief I'd never felt before."

Armstrong responded by saying Hamilton was a proven liar with a book to promote and lacked credibility. A year before he had taken a similar line when Landis claimed to have seen him dope. "It's our word against his," Armstrong said. "I like our word, I like our credibility." Though there are solid reasons for believing Landis and Hamilton had lied in the past but were being truthful

now, their past lies still worked against them. But then along came Hincapie, who, like Armstrong, had never been sanctioned for a doping violation, to tell a grand jury that he and his former leader had both doped. And Armstrong was left to decide what to do about the friend he considered a brother, the one with no stain on his credibility.

What is also clear is that fears about professional cyclists refusing to speak about their doping were misplaced. "The problem," said one source close to the investigation, "was not getting them to talk but to stop them crying so they could continue talking."

The truth serum appeared to have worked. IT did not take long for investigators fully to understand the scope of their inquiry. They believed they had clear evidence that Armstrong and members of his teams used doping products, but that was not the only issue. Far more relevant were the offences that may have been committed along the way.

From whom were the drugs purchased? Who was involved in the distribution? Did riders break the law by carrying them over state lines?

Most important was the question of fraud. Multi-milliondollar sponsorships were won on the strength of results but they would not have been forthcoming without guarantees from Armstrong and others that the team had a zero-tolerance policy to doping.

Emails between Armstrong and John Hendricks, founder of the Discovery Channel, are believed to exist containing Armstrong's reassurance to his main sponsor that the team did not, and had not doped.

Questions will have to be answered by Armstrong; Thom Weisel, the original owner of the US Postal team; Bill Stapleton, Armstrong's lawyer; and Johan Bruyneel, the longtime team manager.

Armstrong has complained the investigation is a waste of taxpayers' money and even ridiculed Novitzky's team for the cost of a trip to meet European anti-doping and police authorities. Using a Twitter alter ego, Juan Pelota, Armstrong posted his derision in schoolroom Spanish: "Hey Jeff, como estan los hotels de quarto estrellas y el classe de business in el aeroplane? Que mas necesitan?" ("Hey Jeff, how are the fourstar hotels and the business class flights? Anything more you need?")

In fact, while in France, the investigators had stayed in hotels so cheap one of them slept in his suit to protect himself from the bugs.

Despite the effrontery, Armstrong is under pressure as never before. Formal indictments are expected this summer or, at the latest, towards the end of the year.

When Hamilton spoke out for a CBS programme airing tonight in the US, Armstrong's lawyer posted this response: "Most people . . . will see this for exactly what it is: more washed-up cyclists talking trash for cash."

But what about Hincapie, Lance's faithful domestique, still doggedly competing? Will he be damned so easily?

Armstrong tweets furiously but is strangely quiet on his best friend: "20+ year career. 500 drug controls worldwide, in and out of competition. Never a failed test. I rest my case."

Bono, Armstrong's "dear friend", was moved to post a tweet to his starry pal some time ago: "Sometimes my friend, the lie is ugly but the truth is unbearable."


A cycle of deceipt

The claims of Armstrong's most trusted teammate pile pressure on champion

It now seems so far from the days of summer; those dog-day afternoons of the mid-90s in Como when three young Americans, Lance Armstrong, Frankie Andreu and George Hincapie, could leave their apartment and make the short journey to the Café Hardy on Via Masai. A quick double espresso before training made you ride faster but, alas, caffeine wouldn't be enough. Not by some way.

They were in their twenties then, eager to make something of their cycling careers but determined to enjoy the ride. George made them smile. Every time they went to eat, he would ask for the pizza margherita, reducing Italian cuisine to one dish. They called George Margherita in deference to his dietary taste and though amused by his predictability, they warmed to the lack of pretension.

But boys of summer grow older. Frankie married Betsy, Lance got cancer and George went on ordering pizza margherita. When Lance recovered, everyone was older, life was tougher and professional cycling had gone through the trauma of the Festina scandal and that 1998 Tour de France when French customs and police exposed the sport's drugriddled underbelly.

Wherever the authorities looked, they found dope and teams with systematic doping programmes. The tribunal of inquiry lasted two years, it should have been a catharsis but it changed nothing and the team for which Lance, Frankie and George now rode, US Postal Service, fully understood that. Without EPO, many thought there was no point in turning up. US Postal turned up at the 1999 Tour expecting to win.

It was Armstrong's first victory and the upbeat story the sport craved. Not just a guy winning a three-week bike race but a triumph for the human spirit. Throughout that Tour, a young French rider, Christophe Bassons, spoke bravely about his belief that nothing in cycling had changed, that there was still as much doping in the 1999 race as in the previous year.

"We are racing at an average speed of more than 50km per hour, as if the roads of France are nothing more than one gigantic descent," Bassons said.

He also claimed there was no way that a clean rider could hope to finish in the top six of that Tour de France.

Armstrong despised Bassons and on the road, they argued. "You know, what you're saying to journalists, it's not good for cycling," Armstrong said.

"I am simply saying what I think. I have said there is still doping," Bassons replied.

"If that's what you're here for, it would be better if you returned home and found some other kind of work."

"I have things to say and I will say them." "Ah, f*** you." Betsy Andreu watched the first two weeks of that Tour from her home in Dearborn, Michigan. Even at that remove, she had doubts about what she was watching.

"It was the first mountain stage, the one to Sestriere, and as they began the climb Frankie was at the front of a line of Postal riders. Frankie is about as much a climber as the Pope is an atheist. 'What the hell is this about,' I said." She called her husband and said she didn't believe he was clean any more. He was too wasted to argue.

Armstrong would win, nearly all the journalists were swooned by a feelgood story and after the travails of the year before, cycling's authorities embraced the new champion like a long lost son. Anybody who dared to ask a serious question was shouted down and with hundreds of sycophantic journalists in his entourage, Armstrong needed no PR staff.

When journalists at The Sunday Times asked serious questions, Armstrong engaged lawyers to sue us. In France, judges gave him short shrift. He never dared to sue in his own country.

As the Tour victories rolled on, one after another, a strange thing happened: the boys of summer found the sport wasn't as much fun. Lance kept winning but the questions became more persistent and more difficult to silence. George tried to keep rolling along, Sancho Panza to Lance's Don Quixote. As for Frankie, life definitely got tougher.

Betsy despised the dishonesty that underpinned the success. Frankie could choose EPO or her but he couldn't have both. And it bothered her that Armstrong was feted as a hero when she had a different view. She couldn't forget that when she and Frankie visited the cancer-stricken Lance at Indiana University Hospital in October 1996, they insist, they both heard him tell doctors about the performance-enhancing drugs he had used in his team.

Stephen Swart, a retired bike racer from New Zealand, broke his silence on the doping question in an interview with this newspaper and spoke of the two years he had ridden with Armstrong on the Motorola team of the mid-90s. They were a good team who couldn't get good results and felt they had to consider doping. Armstrong, claimed Swart, was the most persuasive voice in favour.

Emma O'Reilly spent two years as Armstrong's masseuse on the Postal team and claims she saw enough to convince her that he doped. Moved by the drug-related death of Italian cyclist Marco Pantani in February 2004, O'Reilly felt compelled to go public with her concerns about Armstrong's success. For telling her story, she was vilified by Armstrong. As was Swart, the Andreus, and anyone else who dared to question him.

But ultimately, the facade of friendship among the cyclists was too great to maintain. Frank Andreu publicly admitted doping to help Armstrong win the 1999 Tour and a year ago Floyd Landis told the sordid details of the doping culture that existed during the years he was Armstrong's strongest teammate. Landis claimed that both he and Armstrong doped.

And, then, in the past two days, the dam has appeared to break. Tyler Hamilton ended 10 years of lying about his doping and in an interview with CBS, he confessed to having doped throughout his career. For the 1999 and 2000 Tour de France, he rode with Armstrong in the US Postal team and used EPO to perform better.

Hamilton was asked if his team leader had used EPO. "I saw him inject it more than one time," he said.

But still Armstrong denies all the allegations against him and has criticised his detractors. "Tyler Hamilton," it said on a new Armstrong website, "is a confessed liar in search of a book deal." That might have deflected attention away from the accusation, back onto the accuser, but a day later, George Hincapie came to the table.

George, reliable, so regular, and guaranteed to have Lance's back covered. Good old Margherita. Except that on this occasion George didn't order the usual. He claimed that he and Lance used to supply each other with EPO. And George Hincapie can't be shouted down like all the others.

[J70]

Not sure how this will work but surely now there is only circumstantial evidence at best and hearsay and rumour filling in the rest, so how can they possibly build a case unless they have frozen his blood and piss and can retrospectively analyse it.

Washed up Has beens trying to make a dollar running their mouths and telling the media what they want to hear... nothing more, nothing less IMHO!
Hamilton's book must be due out fairly soon 

I dont see how you can be so certain.  Either way for me the whole sport is tainted. I dont buy that someone is capable of riding a tour at over an average speed of 40 kilometres per hour up monsters like Mt Ventoux.

I just dont buy it. Those speeds havent been seen since. And wont be. Has any winner of the Tour since the mid-80's been clean? Debatable. I dont buy the UCI's line that the only people using drugs were those trying to make up the gap to the top guys.

Well said Indiana.

[AbbeySider]

I hope there is finally a proper investigation and justice gets served up to Armstrong

[Sandino]

Is there not another issue here for Lance Armstrong. In athletics if a member of a relay team is caught cheating the entire team forfeits their medals. Even if Armstrong is clean as he claims, how can he take much credit for all his victories if so many of his team mates who supported him in these competitions were cheating and using illegal substances? Surely he was getting an unfair advantage over his main opponents.

[screenexile]

Is there not another issue here for Lance Armstrong. In athletics if a member of a relay team is caught cheating the entire team forfeits their medals. Even if Armstrong is clean as he claims, how can he take much credit for all his victories if so many of his team mates who supported him in these competitions were cheating and using illegal substances? Surely he was getting an unfair advantage over his main opponents.

So . . . let's disqualify the Postal Team from all the TdF's they won. Then see what team's next and have they any drugs cheats, oh they do so let's go to the next . . . and so on and so on.

You would be opening up a serious can of worms there and I doubt there would be any way to put the lid back on!