Lance Armstrong has hired a criminal defense attorney to represent him in the federal investigation for possible fraud and doping violations by the seven-time Tour de France winner and his cycling teammates.
Article Source: NBC Sports
from:NBC SportsArmstrong hires criminal defense attorney
Seeded on Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:25 AM EDT (NBC Sports)
— Filed under: sports, cycling, sports-governance, doping, tour-de-france, lance-armstrong, bicycle-racing, mens-cycling
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This is purely sour grapes by Landis and grandstanding by the prosecutor. Lance was the most tested athlete on earth all 7 years of his winning the TDF and he tested clean ever single time. Landis and the prosecutor should both have their nuts cut out.
Headlines should have read "Lance Hires an Attorney" not necessarily a "defense attorney"; Could make for a spectacular story especially if Lance is proven clean. However in light of the USC nonsense and other famous sports BS well let the chips fall where they will.
Then there is the matter of BP & the Lockerbie bomber will wonders never cease!
Lance was my hero for a long time.
But the mountain of evidence growing against him doesn't look good. I know that he was tested constantly. I also know that these tests can only find what they are looking for - and sports doping knows how to stay ahead of the testers.
To me, it looks like Major League Baseball redux. In fact, at this time ALL sports are suspect.
I won't judge Lance until the verdict is in. But it's a sad day for cycling, and professional sports in general, when our 'heroes' look so bad.
Amen tddco! Drop it Floyd. You were busted. It's over!
"hmmm.... What if Lance Armstong never had cancer and was a junkie all along" overheard recently in a conversation - p.s. thought i'd post this again since you posted your post again 'tdcco'
Landis is trying to take someone down with him. Armstrong should sue the crap out of Landis & LeMond. I hope he does so pinheads like Landis will think twice in the future.
tdcco,
You forget one simple thing:
Each year anti-doping laboratories add literally scores of new tests for "designer" drugs that were designed to pass anti-doping testing. (And each year designer drug makers design scores of new drugs.) But the anti-doping labs routinely use old frozen samples from previous years' races to test their new screens because they know this is the easiest place to find a significant concentration of the illegal drugs they are looking for. In one year, the results of those tests became public. But they were only identified by a sample identifier, not a name. But another newspaper entirely found a public record that contained both the sample identifier and the athletes' names. Lance Armstrong was among those doping. The ONLY reason he got off was the technicality that it was an invasion of his privacy because no one had permission to release his name and sample number to anyone. This put tour officials in the really bad position of knowing that he had been doping but being legally forbidden from doing anything about it.
(And BTW, Armstrong discovered doping with both red cell concentration drugs and others used in conjunction with chemotherapy. He used them in his fight against cancer and apparently could not accept the decrease in performance when they were stopped after the cancer was cured.)
I doubt that much more than a few cyclers in the past 20-30 years have been free of drugs. The abuse is too widespread. Some past cyclers screaming about cyclers today better be careful that their old samples don't get dug up and reviewed. Cycling is a disgrace and deserves be gone.
There must be Real criminals out there to go after... This is a waist of time and money
If found guilty, Armstrong's actions would be tantamount to theft- stealing sponsorship deals, stealing prize-money and above all stealing the confidence of anyone whoever supported him.
And Armstrong actually signed contracts with the USPS which has rather extreme anti-doping policies.
Screw the feds. This is something they need to stay completely out of. They really need to clean up their own plate before they start on others.
But things like this can be used to distract the public from real, vital issues and how little our government actually does about them! Can't have the public realizing what a joke our elected officials have made of our country, now, can we? Especially not with campaign season just around the corner.
Greg Lemond can suck Armstrong's missing testicle. Even if he tests positive for something, who cares. It was for cancer prevention. We don't care. The Feds should be worrying about how to deal with illegal immigrants! That's all I care about.
Can't they give it a rest on Armstrong. He was tested for drugs more than any other contestant during the races and yet they found nothing. Landis is just trying to take the camera off of him and his jealousy of Armstrong shows. The Prosecutor should be disbarred and not be allowed to practice law anymore. In the end Landis will be proved a liar and the prosecutor a fool with political ambitions
I'd say Landis is trying to keep the camera ON him. He knows his cycling career is over. Who's going to pay any attention to him without Lance?
Landis is appearing to me to be a big lousy loser. I noticed that Landis' hardcover book was in the dollar bin at the major big box bookstores. Dude must be getting mighty desperate for money and ego validation.
Landis must be watching too much network TV , to come up with the wise idea of making unnecessary trouble for Lance. Like ALWAYS, Lance will be free of any illegal drugs when all is said and done. Landis will be boxing Joey Buttafuuco in a loser E-list celeb battle of the stars. And Lindsay Lohan's opponent, TBA. Maybe Kerri Kasem, maybe Bjork. Who knows?
Armstrong is being smart by retaining an attorney; nothing more or less. Participating or assisting in an investigation shouldn't be done without retaining one. It's just common sense.
Federal investigation? How is this Federal? The Cycling Federation has already been through this and cleared him over and over again. Back when Lance was winning the other cyclists were dying to find something on Lance because they couldn't believe he was that good, and they couldn't, no matter how hard they tried, no matter how many times he was accused.
This is another waste of tax dollars on something that has nothing to do with the Feds.
I thought we had a large budget deficit and the clowns in DC cant find enough money to pay for unemployment insurance but by gosh we have funds to investigate and prosecute doping charges that should be done by the cycling authorities not my tax money.
Drug induced "Athletes" are nothing more than cheaters,in my opinion. The "Hall of Shame" awaits another possible inductee. Time will tell. As for this being a Fed investigation, I agree with others here that this is wrong,should be done by the cycling world.
It is worth noting that some some of the drugs that cyclists are accused of using are not only banned by the cycling federation but illegal as well. Lance's problem is that they took Federal money while riding for the USPS team and used it to buy illegal drugs. The prosecutor has an obligation to investigate and, if there's enough evidence, prosecute.
These cyclists think they're above the law and Lance going to prison and, worse yet, having to surrender his ill-gotten gains, would be a good thing. Cycling is a dirty sport and the cycling federation will never clean it up, in large part because to do so would cut into it's opportunity to take bribes.
It's a little like FIFA not wanting instant replay. If soccer used instant replay FIFA would lose it's ability to influence the outcome of games. France clearly should've never made it to the World Cup but since there was no instant replay Thierry's handball could be wished away despite the fact the millions of people can now watch it on Youtube.
Lance's career has good for cycling so everyone with a vested interest has looked the other way including officials and sponsors. Unfortunately, the time to pay the piper appears to be coming. The cycling federation should've cleaned up the sport years ago so whose fault is this mess really?
The USPS isn't federal money. Federal controlled but no federal money.
Remind me what federal statute gives a federal investigator any authority whatsoever on alleged (as in allegations or rumors) misdemeanor misdeeds committed in France?
I’m sure Greg LeMond is happy to see Armstrong having the heat put on him. LeMond is another sour grapes guy since Lance became the darling of US cycling and LeMond was left on the roadside. Between Floyd "I'm clean" Landis and LeMond taking whacks at Armstrong, he should have an attorney watching his back. Why the Feds are involved in this is beyond me, they should keep their collective eyes on the budget, the deficit and BP trying to weasel out of the $$ the need to pay for their slight mishap
As it has been stated here over an dover, we DO not wish for our tax money to used this way.
Not sure why LeMond hates Armstrong so much- or even Landis for that matter- but, he has been tested- he has been cleared- leave him alone.
This is crazy that now the man has to hire defense lawyers- Crazy
The backlash on LeMond and Landis will be their just desserts. They are just looking for publicity, not unlike the newspaper rags that tout paparazzi pictures and undocumented rumors. They are just trying to sell something, and they don't care who or what it hurts.
As for prosecutors wasting their time on these abnormally thin accusations, I agree with the above posters--please spend your time on something more constructive. Far more important issues need to be investigated other than the slander against Armstrong. Perhaps prosecutors should investigate Landis and LeMond for the slander and defamation of Armstrong. Now, that would be something with meat on it.
And they all waited for the Tour De France to start before they launched their allegations? Just a bunch of media whores trying to hold on to their fifteen minutes for as long as they possibly can.
Reminds me of the Smart-phone wars with all the competition trying to bask in the glow of the reigning king hopping that some of the light rubs off on their offerings.
Lance will figure out, if he hasn't already, that coming back and riding in the Tour was the biggest mistake of his life. He should have rode off into the sunset and stayed there.
Armstrong is a cheating bum.
He got away with it because of his "cancer-treatments", which covered his performance-enhancing drug use.
He threatened the governing cycling body of the tour de france and others with litigation if there were accusations or even hints at illegal drug use. He got away with that because of his cancer drugs.
Now Landis spilled the beans. Good for him.
I do sincerely hope Armstrong gets stripped of all of his tour-de-france titles because he is a liar and a cheat.
And for all you folks here who come running to his defense without knowing sh*t from shinola: get a grip on reality.
Armstrong will be known as the Dirtbag American who cheated and got caught.
How sad !
You should use your overwhelming evidence to testify against him. Landis? LeMond? Is that you?
You shouldn't drink and post comments Tahoe.
Go ahead, read again what I wrote, maybe you'll comprehend the second time around.
Super Yodel, why do you think Armstrong faces fraud charges ? Do you know what the word "fraud" means ?
I do. Do you know what innocent until proven guilty means?
What is sad is that athletes do things like doping to enhance their skills. I don't say Lance did doping but how many other athletes have been caught using the stuff. It is truly amazing to see folks use stuff that can ultimately destroy their bodies and can kill them.
That is what is sad.
You are right Laurie. It's sad because he was looked up at as a rolemodel, and he took risks to destroy his alreay fragile health. I truly meant it being a sad story. However, there has to be a reckoning, if not for anything else, then just to hopefully scare future "dopers" into Not trying to use drugs to win.
"Lance Armstrong is over in about four days." Lance said this after Stage 16. His words may be more prophetic than anyone realizes.
I'll wait for the evidence, but anything said by Floyd (are you lying then or are you lying now) Landis is not credible and should be ignored. Ditto for Lemond who has come across as embittered by professional jealousy for years. Guess Lemond doesn't care that he has alienated a formerly devoted fan base.
As to the fact of a federal criminal investigation. that doesn't sway me a bit. We have so many prosecutors in this country that care nothing about the truth or right and wrong. They just want those headlines. They would be more aptly called persecutors. Lance was smart to get a criminal defense attorney because the persecutors will be determined to walk all over him and the truth. Remember, they are a part of government, and that pretty much says it all.
Dear Roger,
No country defamation intended. Absolutely not.
It's just a fact that he's american. Or can one only be an american when everything is fine and dandy and positive ?
Your not-even-insulted "frog-friend" Alfons.
I agree; shouldn't have said "criminal defense" as it did in some news reads. It's a case of sour grapes for sure. As anyone who reaches for the top and gets there more then once, everyone wants to claw at you and say how evil you are.
I'm surprised that Faux news (totally biased and unfair) and Glenn Bleek'silk haven't blamed Lance's not winning this year on Obama. After all he won while the Shrub was in charge!