Lance Armstrong - The Plot Thickens....

[spiderlake]

http://www.sportsline.com/cycling/story/8849424

An interesting story of fingerpointing between WADA and the UCI regarding who leaked the information to L'Equipe........ Interesting read but somewhat sad to see that established organizations such as the UCI and WADA resort to this type of mudslinging. They almost sound like politicians!

[andy mac]

add to that an interesting article i read in san francisco last week:

Tour de Farce
Lance Armstrong, Thom Weisel, and questions about anti-doping efforts in American cycling


http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2005-09-07/news/smith.html

[jdoiv]

more like pre-pubescent brats... :argue:

Either way though, nobody wants to actually solve anything, just want to make the other look bad and fight for a piece of turf...

imho...

[ClutchCargo]

politicians (political, at least)! and WADA, at least the "**** Pound" (what an aptly named gentleman) version, is "established" only in the sense that it was in fact formed.

ride on!

[jdoiv]

add to that an interesting article i read in san francisco last week:

Tour de Farce
Lance Armstrong, Thom Weisel, and questions about anti-doping efforts in American cycling


http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2005-09-07/news/smith.html


Thanks andy, that is some interesting @@#t... :cool:

[Cadence230]

:) Mmmmm...Spiderlake...Rubicon? :)

[spiderlake]

:) Mmmmm...Spiderlake...Rubicon? :)

Not that Spider Lake although I do drive a Jeep Rubicon! : ) The Spider Lake I'm referring to is in Traverse City. I've been to that other Spider Lake on the Rubicon Trail though...... heard it was closed again??

[GoJavs]

Here's a snip from his conference call this afternoon, posted over at that reknown Australian site we all read:

quote

"I'm in here dealing with his BS," said Armstrong. "I've got three kids out swimming in the pool, splashing around, screaming my name... I'm sick of this."

unquote

That's referring to the head of WADA. Nice...very nice... :confused:


add to that an interesting article i read in san francisco last week:

Tour de Farce
Lance Armstrong, Thom Weisel, and questions about anti-doping efforts in American cycling


http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2005-09-07/news/smith.html

[andy mac]

plot getting quite thick!!


Armstrong says L'Equipe misled him
By Charles Pelkey
news editor, VeloNews
This report filed September 15, 2005

Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong confirmed Thursday that he had granted permission to a L'Equipe journalist to scour doping records from the 1999 Tour de France, adding that he had been misled in doing so.

Armstrong held a press conference Thursday on the heels of comments by World Anti-Doping Agency president **** Pound, who said that the president of the Union Cycliste Internationale had released key documents linking the American cyclist's name to at least six positive doping tests from the 1999 Tour de France.

Armstrong acknowledged that he had granted L'Equipe reporter Damien Ressiot permission to review test documents from the '99 Tour but only because the reporter had told him that he was planning to do story on the Tour champion's therapeutic drug use exemptions.

Armstrong won the 1999 Tour de France after successfully battling back from testicular cancer that had spread to both his brain and lungs in 1996. Armstrong said Ressiot had approached him on the premise that he intended to counter a common assumption "in the European press.... that I had permission to use substances because of my illness."

"He (Ressiot) said, ‘I want to help you guys out. I just want to see one form,'" Armstrong added.

What Armstrong was unaware of at the time is that the French national doping laboratory in Châtenay-Malabry had already conducted retests of urine samples from the '99 Tour and L'Equipe reporters had somehow acquired the results and the numbers from the otherwise-anonymous samples.

And that is the point at which Armstrong attorney Bill Stapleton says the problem exists.

"The issue is that the codes were attached to anonymous samples. That's where the system broke down,'' said Stapleton.

Stapleton, a one-time member of the U.S. Olympic Committee's ethics panel, accused Pound of using "false and misleading statements to misdirect attention away from himself and his organization by alleging that the UCI was the leak to L'Equipe.''

Stapleton said the breakdown occurred prior to the UCI's release of seemingly unrelated documents, when Ressiot acquired the sample codes in the first place.

"The issue is that the codes were attached to anonymous samples," he said. "That's where the system broke down."

"Somebody directed that lab to leak samples with codes," Stapleton continued. "That's the question that needs to be answered before we start crucifying athletes without due process."

"It certainly wasn't WADA and certainly wasn't the French laboratory, which didn't have any of the names," Pound told reporters early on Thursday. "Neither of us had that information."

Stapleton said that he and Armstrong were well aware of the fact that the UCI had released a single document to Ressiot.

""We knew they gave (him) the form when they did it," he said. "Damien Ressiot wanted to do a story on Lance and whether he had medical exemptions on his forms. We were asked about it and we said okay.''

On August 23, L'Equipe reported with a front page headline "The Armstrong Lie" that six of Armstrong's urine samples tested positive for EPO during the 1999 race.

Armstrong said that he had not been aware of any plans to re-test samples from the '99 Tour, using technologies that were only accepted by the UCI in time for the 2001 Tour, the year of his third victory.

Nonetheless, Armstrong noted that "I am going to say this in just a few words. I have nothing to hide."

Armstrong said that he had once learned that when the French national soccer team won the 1998 World Cup in France, doping authorities destroyed players' samples within 24 hours. He didn't say where he got that information.

Armstong and Pound have had several very public exchanges, most notably when the Discovery team captain sent an open letter to the WADA chief castigating him for public comments regarding the doping issues facing cycling.

Is **** Pound a vindictive person who holds it in, holds grudges? Perhaps," mused Armstrong. "I was simply defending my profession and my passion."

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . is indeed incredibly interesting and does not surprise me one bit. I hope everyone here will take a few minutes to read it.

BBDave

[Climb01742]

you're right, dave, that is a very interesting article. but i would make one distinction: the article makes a strong circumstantial, yet still compelling, case for conflict of interest on the part of USA Cycling. but that is distinct from whether the '99 samples are a scientifically valid way to detect EPO. the jury seems to still be out on the latter point. but on the former point, that does seem like quite the tangled web of interconnected and sorta unsavory self-interests.

[Big Dan]

USA Cycling part of Lance's marketing machine???

That's a joke............ :(

[Michael Maddox]

I love the French, but I have to agree with another poster on another board, they can certainly be a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys when they wanna be.

[flydhest]

I love the French.

which of the millions would that be that you're talking about?