Tour de France Thread

[LittleHurt05]

This bit is very, very, very vague on what is in it...but it sounds like Selena Roberts has an enormous piece coming out in next week's issue of Sports Illustrated on Lance Armstrong and the juice.

 

Sweet. If the s*** finally hits the fan with all of Lance's steroid use, I'd be the happiest person this side of Boers & Bernstein.

[Milkman delivers]

Sweet. If the s*** finally hits the fan with all of Lance's steroid use, I'd be the happiest person this side of Boers & Bernstein.

 

I beg to differ. I would be.

[The Critic]

Steve posted this in the wrestling thread for some reason:

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/more....html?eref=sihp

 

I was going to post a link to Hulk Hogan's latest back surgery here as retaliation, but decided not to....

[LittleHurt05]

Here's the full article that will appear in SI

 

Edit: Here is a single page version

Edited January 19, 2011 by LittleHurt05

[zenryan]

Please let this be true.

[LittleHurt05]

Heard some rumors about Lance cheating.....

[Balta1701]

Man, 60 minutes has just been absolutely brutal on the Postal Service team tonight, with a Tyler Hamilton interview directly implicating the entire team's management and training staff.

[Balta1701]

 

[fathom]

I loved that 60 Minutes piece. It sounds like the grand jury is going to have no option but to suggest federal charges.

[Balta1701]

I loved that 60 Minutes piece. It sounds like the grand jury is going to have no option but to suggest federal charges.

I'm not sure what exactly you can charge him with. It's really going to be hard with only witnesses if they can't document any of it. If they can produce something harder than just his testimony, they could maybe pursue fraud charges, but they've got no shot at trafficking or anything like that.

[chimpy2121]

Just got back from working the Tour of California. Team Radioshack is looking good with Horner and Leipheimer. I was really impressed with Ben King and Matt Busche as well; they were work horses.

[Balta1701]

Just got back from working the Tour of California. Team Radioshack is looking good with Horner and Leipheimer. I was really impressed with Ben King and Matt Busche as well; they were work horses.

It's not team "The Shack?

 

And... Horses in the sense of no longer quite human due to some extra ingredients?

[DBAHO]

Day 1 last night and a crash in the peloton 10km before the finish pretty much screwed Contador over. Great start for Cadel Evans though, think he's got a real big chance this year if he can stay out of trouble.

 

Team time - trial tonight will be very important also.

 

[LittleHurt05]

f*** Lance Armstrong

[DBAHO]

All comes down to the 40KM Time Trial around Grenoble tonight.

 

Voeckler finally reliniquished the Yellow Jersey (going solo on the 2nd climb killed his chances), Andy Schleck's got a 53 sec lead on his brother Frank, Cadel Evans 57 secs back and Contador's about 4 mins behind.

 

Evans is the best time trialist of the top 3, but tonight's course has a couple of little climbs which will help Schleck. It'll be very, very tight.

 

 

 

 

[Steve9347]

http://espn.go.com/olympics/cycling/story/...a-front-company

 

Lance Armstrong made payments to an Italian physician banned for doping through a front company in Switzerland, an Italian newspaper reported Wednesday.

 

The Milan-based daily Corriere della Sera said the seven-time Tour de France winner directed funds to a company in the Neuchatel region called Health and Performance.

 

Citing work by Swiss and Italian investigators, the newspaper reported that Michele Ferrari, a banned Italian physician who was once Armstrong's training adviser, was behind the "anonymous company now in liquidation."

 

Ferrari was cleared on appeal in 2006 of criminal charges accusing him of distributing doping products to athletes, but he remains barred for life by the Italian Cycling Federation under a 2002 ruling.

 

check and mate

[Milkman delivers]

http://espn.go.com/olympics/cycling/story/...a-front-company

 

 

 

check and mate

 

I can't wait until he really goes down.

[DBAHO]

Oh boy, well at least Evans is a much better chance to repeat his TDF win come July;

 

Alberto Contador has been stripped of his 2010 Tour de France title and given a two-year ban for testing positive of the performance enhancing drug clenbuterol during the Tour when he famously defeat Andy Schleck by 39 seconds to take the yellow jersey.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/otherspor...by-the-CAS.html

[Balta1701]

While the thread is getting bumped...

Federal prosecutors announced Friday that they have closed a two-year inquiry without filing criminal charges in a case that sources said related to doping allegations involving seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and his cycling team.

 

Although the grand jury investigation was confidential, details about various former teammates and associates who were subpoenaed to testify about alleged use of banned substances were widely reported in the media. Armstrong's team received sponsorship from the U.S. Postal Service. The allegations roiled the cycling world and threatened to tarnish Armstrong's legacy.

 

The U.S. attorney's decision to close the case came after blistering criticism from Armstrong's attorneys, who alleged in court papers that government sources had leaked confidential grand jury information "with the transparent agenda of publicly smearing Armstrong and aggrandizing the government's investigation."

 

In a brief statement, U.S. Atty. Andre Birotte Jr. praised the work of investigators but gave no reason for concluding the investigation without charges.

 

Prosecutors rarely announce the closure of a secret probe, but Birotte said disclosure was warranted because of the "numerous reports about the investigation in media outlets around the world."

 

Armstrong, who has always denied the doping allegations, said in a statement that prosecutors made "the right decision" in dropping the case.

 

"I commend them for reaching it," he said. "I look forward to continuing my life as a father, a competitor and an advocate in the fight against cancer without this distraction."

 

Some who had accused Armstrong of doping said closing the case without charges was an injustice.

 

"This is what happens when you have a lot of money," said Betsy Andreu, who along with her cyclist husband, Frankie, has testified in a separate civil case that she heard Armstrong acknowledge using performance-enhancing drugs. "It's why Lance hired the attorneys he hired with political backgrounds. He got it quashed," she said.

 

Despite the end of the criminal probe, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said in a statement that it would continue its own investigation into the use of banned substances in cycling.

[LittleHurt05]

The government has really gotten their money's worth on all these big-name steroid prosecutions.

[LittleHurt05]

Lance Armstrong faces fresh doping charges from USADA

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency brought formal doping charges against former cyclist Lance Armstrong in an action that could cost him his seven Tour de France titles, according to a letter sent to Armstrong and several others Tuesday.

 

As a result of the charges, Armstrong has been immediately banned from competition in triathlons, a sport he took up after his retirement from cycling in 2011.

 

In the 15-page charging letter obtained by The Post, USADA made previously unpublicized allegations against Armstrong, alleging it collected blood samples from Armstrong in 2009 and 2010 that were “fully consistent with blood ma­nipu­la­tion including EPO use and/or blood transfusions.” Armstrong has never tested positive.

 

In February, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles ended a nearly two-year investigation into doping allegations involving Armstrong without bringing criminal charges. Armstrong’s former teammates Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton cooperated with federal agents in that investigation and publicly accused Armstrong of doping.

 

USADA is the quasi-government agency that oversees anti-doping in Olympic sports in the United States. It is empowered to bring charges that could lead to suspension from competition and the rescinding of awards. It does not have authority to bring criminal charges.

 

“I have never doped, and, unlike many of my accusers, I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one,” Armstrong said in a statement released by his publicist. “That USADA ignores this fundamental distinction and charges me instead of the admitted dopers says far more about USADA, its lack of fairness and this vendetta than it does about my guilt or innocence. Any fair consideration of these allegations has and will continue to vindicate me.”

 

USADA’s letter, dated June 12, alleges that Armstrong and five former cycling team associates — three doctors including Italian physician Michele Ferrari, one trainer and team manager Johan Bruyneel— engaged in a massive doping conspiracy from 1998 to 2011, and that “the witnesses to the conduct described in this letter include more than ten (10) cyclists . . .”

 

All of the six, including trainer Jose Pepi Marti of Switzerland and doctors Pedro Celaya of Luxembourg and Luis Garcia del Moral of Spain, face competition bans. USADA put all of the alleged violations in one letter, it stated, because it considers the six defendents part of a “long running doping conspiracy.”

 

The letter specifically alleges that “multiple riders with firsthand knowledge” will testify that Armstrong used EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone and masking agents, and that he distributed and administered drugs to other cyclists from 1998 to 2005. The letter alleges that numerous witnesses will testify that Armstrong also used human growth hormone before 1996.

 

“These charges are a product of malice and spite and not evidence,” Robert D. Luskin, Armstrong’s Washington-based attorney, said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “Nothing else explains the fact . . . they allege an overarching doping conspiracy among four teams over 14 years and Lance is the only rider that gets charged.”

 

Armstrong competed for the U.S. Postal Service team and later the Discovery Channel team from 1998 to 2005. In 2009, he rode for the Astana Cycling Team and on RadioShack’s team in 2010-11.

 

The letter further claims that Martial Saugy, the director of an anti-doping lab in Switzerland, stated that Armstrong’s urine sample results from the 2001 Tour of Switzerland indicated EPO use.

 

Saugy told The Post last year that Armstrong’s sample was merely “suspicious,” a designation that meant it could not be called positive. Further analysis with modern methods might bring clarity, Saugy said, but the sample no longer exists.

 

“We did not do the additional analysis. It will never be sufficient to say, in fact, it was positive,” Saugy said in an interview with The Post. “I will never go in front of a court with that type of thing.”

 

Luskin said USADA sent Armstrong a letter last week asking him to meet with anti-doping officials. Armstrong declined, believing USADA was not interested in his testimony but rather a confession, Luskin said. In its letter, USADA said “with the exception of Mr. Armstrong, every other U.S. rider contacted by USADA regarding doping in cycling agreed to meet with USADA . . .”

 

USADA Chief Executive Officer Travis Tygart could not be immediately reached to comment.

 

Though the World Anti-Doping Agency places an eight-year statute of limitations on doping allegations, USADA argues in its letter that evidence of banned acts outside of the eight-year limit can be losed to corroborate evidence within the limit, and the statute of limitations can be waived when the alleged violations were fraudulently concealed.

 

Armstrong, who won his last Tour title in 2005, has taken up competition in ironman triathlons, and was scheduled to compete in the Ironman France in Nice on June 24

[cabiness42]

Anybody else following the TDF? Sky torched the field for 1st and 2nd in today's time trial and I don't see anybody beating Wiggins this year.

[Balta1701]

Armstrong's counter suit against USADA dismissed.

[LittleHurt05]

Down goes Lance...

[cabiness42]

What do Alex Zulle, Jan Ullrich, Joseba Beloki, Andreas Kloden, and Ivan Basso all have in common? They all now own TDF titles (Ullrich with 3 of them). Somebody convince me that those guys were any less doped up than Lance and then I'll agree that taking the titles away from Lance makes any sense.