Lance Armstrong Investigation: Death Threats for Tygart?!

The French newspaper, L'Equipe, published an interview with USADA CEO, Travis Tygart. I just read an english translation of the interview that describes Tygart's challenges in the investigation including several death threats that are now being investigated by the FBI. The translator says that neither French or English are his native language so there may be mistakes but he also says that he had others check his translation. With that caveat, here are a few of the more interesting tidbits:

Whistleblowing Pays

Today's news challenges the notion that whistleblowers always suffer. The IRS awarded $104 million to former UBS banker, Bradley Birkenfeld, for providing information about a tax evasion scheme. Here are a few quotes from Bloomberg:

Lance Armstrong Investigation: More on the Conspiracy

You may be feeling a bit worn down on all the Lance Armstrong stuff in the news. I know I have been. However, today, I read a few things that I found pretty fascinating. One was an article about Jörg Jaksche. The other was an article about Lance's efforts to help both Landis and Hamilton in their efforts to lie about their doping. Here are some excerpts:

Lance Armstrong Investigation: A confession and more

Here's the latest press worth reading on the Lance Armstrong investigation. First, Lance finally came as clean as he's going to come in this editorial published by the ONN. Additionally, the LA Times tells it like it is in this editorial titled "Lance Armstrong Can't Get Cheating Out of His System." This isn't too surprising though given that it's been in his system for a long, long time...

This is almost as good as the Lance Armstrong press gets this week. These two publications get special kudos for not buying into the shoot the messenger mantra of criticizing and demonizing USADA. Also, they earned my praise for not going along with the weak-minded babble that people like Rick Reilly and Phil Liggett have been spewing this past week. Here's why I say this.

The guy cheated. He broke the rules and is being disciplined by the organization that he contracted with when he purchased his license to be a bike racer. He signed his license and in doing so, he agreed to follow the rules and be subject to the processes of WADA and, by delegation, USADA. Sure, he has done some good things in his life but that doesn't change the fact that he is the biggest sports fraud in history. 

In addition, to glorify him while ignoring his mistakes is to condone the cruel things he did to the people who tried to stop him from committing his fraud including Greg LeMond, Frankie and Betsy Andreu, Emma O'Reilly and Mike Andersen, among others...

Let's not forget them and the injustices they have experienced because Lance was, and still is, too weak to admit that he cheated...