Lance, Livestrong and the UCI

Numerous reports are flooding the internet that the UCI has sustained USADA's decision to strip Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles making Greg LeMond the only American to ever win the Tour de France. Of course, this comes as no surprise to those who were aware of the plethora of evidence showing Lance to be the biggest sporting fraud in history; the Bernie Madoff of sport.

Last week we read of Livestrong donors asking for their money back. My wife says that given today's news we should be reading soon about Lance wanting his donations to the UCI back too...

Lance Armstrong's Kingdom is Crumbling

 Update: since publishing this post this morning, several other sponsors have dropped Lance Armstrong. This article in The Wall Street Journal lists a bunch...

A few days ago, I received an email from a person who explained that, in 2000, she and her husband had donated $50,000 to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, now LiveStrong. A few years later she initiated a fundraiser that hosted Lance and collected $155,000. She explained that "With the news of Lance's deception, we feel cheated and also resentful that we were used to unknowingly continue the fraud." She said they believe there may be grounds for a class action lawsuit and wondered if there are any attorneys working on LiveStrong litigation due to Lance's fraud. (I'm still trying to find out so please email me if you have information on this.) Today's news reports indicate that this sad story is not an isolated case and that Lance's kingdom is quickly crumbling...

The latest on the Lance Armstrong investigation

Note: click this link for a list of all other posts on the Lance Armstrong fraud investigation.

The NY Times reported yesterday that a grand jury issued subpoenas for several people that Jeffrey Novitzky would like to talk to about the accusations made by Floyd Landis regarding Lance Armstrong's involvement in doping. The article does not list who was subpoened but it does say that several are in the Tour de France right now and that at least two former teammates from Lance's U.S. Postal team have already talked to Novitzky.

We can probably guess who many of the the current Tour riders are that have been issued subpoenas. For sure Levi Leipheimer, Dave Zabriskie, and George Hincapie will get subpoenaed unless they have already talked. My guess is that Novitzky has obtained some corroboration of Landis's story from those he has already spoken to or he would not be getting subpoena help from a grand jury.

The investigation appears to be focusing on the potential that government funds were used to purchase doping products. Armstrong's sponsor around the millenium was the U.S. Postal Service. Apparently, if Novitzky can prove that Landis's allegations are true it could mean Armstrong and Bruyneel broke the law by using the U.S. Postal Service team for illegal doping.

Interestingly, today's NY Times reported that Lance had the following to say about this matter:

Ullrich's manager admits to helping Ullrich dope

Thanks to Michael Shermer for sending me a link to an article on the VeloNation website wherein former Tour de France rider and T-Mobile team manager, Rudy Pevenage, admits that he helped Jan Ullrich dope through the assistance of the infamous Dr. Fuentes of Operation Puerto when Ullrich was competing against Lance Armstrong.

In my view, this is some persuasive evidence to validate the claims by Floyd Landis that Lance Armstrong's team manager, Johan Bruyneel, helped Lance and his teammates dope. Here is a quote by Pevenage that suggests the knowledge of who was doping in the peloton was somewhat common:

Should cyclists be allowed to dope?

Recently, a friend commented that he thinks cyclists should be allowed to dope freely. I've heard this before, including in a recent discussion with one of my competitors in the local cycling scene where I race. This friend who was advocating open doping told me that doping was a gray area anyway so even if pro cyclists are doping today it is no big deal in his mind. He reasoned that people take vitamins for performance so taking other drugs is not much different. Another friend who advocated no rules against doping said using performance enhancing drugs is just "part of the game in my mind." These are his exact words as posted on Facebook.

I have been amazed at these comments. Gray area? Part of the game? Last time I checked there are specific rules prohibiting specific drugs. If you take them, you are violating the rules of the game. No gray area exists and if the rules prohibit the drugs then they certainly not "part of the game."

Today, I read a very interesting post by the author of Freakonomics, Steven Levitt, where he talks about doping in the Tour de France. He makes several good points about Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong, many of which can be found in previous posts on this blog (click here or see labels with Lance Armstrong on the right). He also suggests that one solution may be to open up cycling to doping. Before I get to that, here are a few of his other points that I want to reiterate.

Floyd Landis gives doping details to Wall Street Journal

I just received a WSJ News Alert email that reads that Floyd Landis provided hours of interviews with The Wall Street Journal that detail how he had used performing-enhancing drugs extensively during his career. A quick scan of the article gives tons of details about how Landis was introduced to doping when he signed with U.S. Postal and how Lance Armstrong helped him dope. Here is a brief summary based on a quick scan.

More on the Lance Armstrong fraud investigation

I read an interesting analysis of who, in pro cycling, is likely to talk to Jeffrey Novitzky as he investigates the doping/fraud allegations against Lance Armstrong. The analysis names many top cyclists and others who will likely cooperate including Frankie Andreu, Jonathan Vaughters, Tyler Hamilton, Lance's ex-wife, Dave Zabriskie and others. Interestingly, he says that Levi Leipheimer is likely to crack down emotionally when confronted. He also lists and discusses those he doesn't expect to talk including George Hincapie.

One of the most interesting parts of the analysis is a link to an article that documents an IM exchange between Frankie Andreu and Jonathan Vaughters as they discussed doping among the pro cyclists including Lance, Floyd Landis and others. I've extracted some of the exchange below.

Will Lance Armstrong be charged with fraud?

The NY Times reported yesterday that two "authorities" have revealed that U.S. government officials are considering investigating Lance Armstrong on fraud charges. One of the authorities said that they are particularly interested in "whether money from the United States Postal Service, the main sponsor of Armstrong’s team from 1996 to 2004, was used to buy performance-enhancing drugs." If the government could prove fraud, the sentence for committing fraud is generally longer than that of drug distribution.

The article also states: