Lance Armstrong Investigation: Tyler Hamilton Returns Olympic Gold

Now that Tyler Hamilton has publicly stated that he has personal knowledge of Lance Armstrong doping, some of the question people are asking are as follows:

1. Is Hamilton lying again or is this finally the truth?
2. Can Hamilton be put in jail for admitting to doping?
3. What motives might there be for Hamilton to make these claims?

These are valid questions that will undoubtedly be brought up if Jeffrey Novitzky's investigation of Lance Armstrong ever gets out of the Grand Jury. However, today we saw at least one consequence for Hamilton....The Wall Street Journal and other news sources are reporting that Hamilton returned his Olympic Gold Medal which he obtained for winning the 2004 Olympic time trial. Unfortunately, the article states the following:

According to a person close to Mr. Hamilton, the cyclist admits doping during his cycling career but denies doing so during the 2004 Olympics. 

If this is really Tyler's stand, I think it's unfortunate because I find it hard to believe he isn't lying. For starters, he obtained a positive test for blood doping during the Olympics but he was able to keep his medal because of a technicality. However, both before the Olympics and after, Tyler was found to be doping using various products.

So, this makes it really hard for me to buy this story that he was clean during the Olympics. Come on Tyler, who do you think you're kidding?! What happened to the truth making you free? I was just starting to gain some respect for you but you're making it hard for me...

Even so, it's nice to see that he's giving up something of tangible value as he comes out with this story. I tend to put more credibility on a story if the person telling the story is losing something by telling it. In my opinion, both Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton had quite a bit to lose by making their claims against Lance Armstrong. For starters, Tyler was considered to be a close friend of Lance.

He also denied vehemently that he ever used drugs (as did Floyd) so by admitting now leads to a serious credibility issue. As a result, I'm not sure that Tyler's admission will help Novitzky much since the jury will have to sit through several days of reading all his vehement denials as he is painted as a pathological liar.

So what could motivate Tyler to go through all this, including giving up a coveted Olympic gold medal? Word has it that he is trying to find a publisher of a book that tells all the dirt that he knows about cycling.

I personally won't be buying the book if he writes one. Someone who has lied as much as Tyler has is suspect and if I read a book about doping in cycling, I would like to feel confident that it's not fiction...

Sorry Tyler but if you really are going to stick with this "I doped my whole career but was clean in the Olympics" story, I'm going to question anything you say.

Does this mean I think he's lying about Lance? Not at this point. I think there is way too much evidence that Lance was doping to think Lance was innocent and I think it's very plausible that Tyler witnessed some of it.

With that said, I'm not sure I believe everything he said about Lance and doping. For example, a friend of mine doubts that they sat around shooting up EPO together. I have to admit that this is hard for me to believe too. Something sounds fishy.

Again, I don't doubt that Tyler has witnessed doping when he was on Lance's team but all the sensational details are becoming more and more suspect...Sounds too much like stuff that would sell books to me.