No surprise: Armstrong doesn’t talk with USADA
Lance Armstrong declined Wednesday to tell what he knows about doping in cycling to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
Because here is the critical part. USADA would have had him talk under oath.
So, really, who is surprised?
Armstrong faces potential criminal and civil exposure. No way he was going to talk — at least not while the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth could be used against him.
Intriguingly, Armstrong — who sought in his televised interview with Oprah Winfrey to appear at least a little bit humble, a little bit contrite — seemed through his lawyer, Tim Herman, to revert Wednesday right back to the sort of language that had for years come to characterize his position in dealing with the anti-doping authorities, the press and virtually anyone who challenged him.
Herman’s statement started off by saying:
“Lance is willing to cooperate fully and has been very clear: He will be the first man through the door, and once inside will answer every question, at an international tribunal formed to comprehensively address pro cycling, an almost exclusively European sport.”
Lance willing to cooperate fully? That would appear so commendable, right?
If only it didn’t also seem so disingenuous.
For years, Armstrong kept his doping and bullying secret. Now, though, he would now be willing to tell all? Conveniently, he would be doing so at an international tribunal, likely offshore, where the reach of American law would not extend — and those comments presumably would not be used against him in the same way as if they were made, under oath, back home.
In that way he would be the “first man through the door” and answering “every question”?
Just one further issue.
There is no such international tribunal. None exists. Maybe one will one day or maybe one won’t.
It’s hard to know, given the complex relationships among cycling’s governing body, the UCI — for which Armstrong has said he currently has little love, given the way it dropped him last fall — along with the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee.
So, again, what was this about?
And why the reference to cycling being a European sport? Why bring that up? Simply to play to what remains of Lance’s American audience? Or — to whom?
“We remain hopeful,” the statement goes on to say, “that an international effort will be mounted, and we will do everything we can to facilitate that result. In the meantime, for several reasons, Lance will not participate in USADA’s efforts to selectively conduct American prosecutions that only demonize selected individuals while failing to address the 95% of the sport over which USADA has no jurisdiction.”
Demonize? Selected individuals?
To whom could those words be referring? Lance, obviously, right?
USADA’s aim, of course, is full disclosure. It wants to know what he knows. That’s just common sense. Wouldn’t Armstrong stand to know as much as anyone about how to dope, and get away with it?
Plus, if ever there was a time to get him to talk, now would be it. Armstrong has finally been unveiled as a serial cheater. He has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.
Moreover, WADA told Armstrong that coming in to talk to USADA was the appropriate thing to do if, as USADA chief executive Travis Tygart put it in a statement of his own Wednesday, “he ever wanted to be part of the solution.”
Now, though, look at it from Armstrong’s point of view. What did he have to gain from talking with USADA?
In October, in making public the scope and extent of Armstrong’s cheating, calling it the “most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program the sport has ever seen,” USADA imposed on Armstrong a lifetime ban.
Armstrong, 41, wants to run in sanctioned triathlons. Cooperation with USADA might — that’s might — get that life ban reduced to an eight-year ban. That means he’d be almost 50.
For someone used to being in control, used to dictating the terms of how the deal is going to go down, it’s hardly surprising Armstrong decided in the end not to talk.
“At this time,” Tygart said in his statement, “we are moving forward with our investigation without him and we will continue to work closely with WADA and other appropriate and responsible international authorities …”
That’s not surprising, either. This matter is a long, long way from over.
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I think there is more to “demonizing selected individuals” than Mr Armstrong. Try on for size: Johan Bruyneel, Michele Ferrari, and, best of all, Thom Weisel. Lance will not, can not, throw them under the bus.
WHY should Lance help USADA one, um, IOTA? Tygart doesn’t give a DAMN about “cleaning up cycling”. Why would he? The sport is miniscule in this country. Before Lance won his 7 Tours de France, you could’nt fill up one Division One college football stadium with people who followed the sport.
The destruction of Lance Armstrong was NOT the end game, it was but a stepping stone for Tygart, USADA, & WADA’s ultimate goal – to take over, run & adjudicate the dope testing for ALL Olympic-level, collegiate AND professional sports. Until ‘The Crucible of Lance Armstrong’ rolled out, who the hell in this country had even HEARD of USADA (excluding you, myself & other cycling fans). Lance’s Take-Down gave them publicity & a grab for the power neccessary to start that quest.
Tell me, you think it’s a COINCIDENCE all the recent articles about doping in collegiate & other pro sports?
I’d been a fan & TV viewer of cycling since 1984. But I admit I was woefulliy (blissfully it turns out) naive & ignorant of the extent of doping NOT just in cycling but in almost ALL elite level sports until 2006. Thanks to convicted FRAUD Floyd Landis (so, SO much worse than Lance), I learned more in the next 2 years than I ever wanted to know. And besides the actual PEDS & methods, athletes are so desperate to get an EDGE in either recovery or performance, that they will use or ingest almost ANYTHING. See SI’s story that broke during ther SB, which of course, was NOT really about Ray Lewis at all. It was about all the goofy stuff athletes will take if they THINK it will give them that help. Holographic STICKERS, anyone?
And then there’s the question – what exactly defines “erformance enhancing”? Why are not Toradol shots in the ass to enable one to get ON the football field considered “performance enhancing”? Without – no performance, with it – performance. I’d call that ENHANCED.
Where I really knew that USADA’s take down of Lance was not about him & not about cycling was when Tygart sputtered how the US Postal team’s alleged doping was the most “sophisticated, profesionalized, successful” in HISTORY. Are you kidding? Seriously, YOU cover Olympic sports for pete sake, how did you listen to/read that & not choke? EAST GERMANY? For god sake, they have documentation going back decades. And then there’s China today. Really – that female Chinese IM swimmer who swam the last 50 FASTER than Lochte in his Gold medal performance & WADA could not scream fast enough – “no doping, un-uh, nothing to see here folks, move along”. And what about JAMAICA? A tiny, fairly poor country mostly dominating the Track sprint events for more than a decade & NO one wonders about this?
Meanwhile, almost EVERY single day, more doping stories emerge. A guy on a Dutch Tour de France in 1988 (that’s EIGHTY-EIGHT, before doping’ mastermind’ Lance turned pro but smack in the middle of Lemond’s era, hmmmmmmm) said everyone except him (natch) doped as it was not just expected but demanded. Cippolini – the ultra successful bike Sprinter who competed during the same years as Lance now seen linked to YEARS of doping. The KENYAN marathoners. The BASEBALL playing clients of Biogenisis. Or my FAVE – the MVP baseballer who beat his dope rap by singing “chain, chain, chain…..chain, chain, chain… of fools, whoops, I mean, CUSTODY.
Speaking of baseball, WHY after the Mitchell Report, did those fans & the media continue on like the “Steroid Era” was over? And don’t even get me started ont he VAST disparity of doping punishment between Olympic-type sports (of which cycling is one) & the ‘real’ professional sports in this country? Let’s see, footballers get 4 games? Baseballers get 30-60 days? Cyclists & other Olympic-type competitors are suspended for at least TWO YEARS. Unless you are Spanish. Or a Luxembourger…
And speaking of Spain – the kafkaesque Operation Puerto saga rolls on. Who needs Comedy Central when you can read the transcript from that current joke of trial?
When ALL the Olympics medals from the 60s-90s are STRIPPED from the now known dopers, when the punishment is the SAME for all in ALL sports, THEN maybe I’ll get on board the Anti-Doping train. Until then, I’m on the lookout for some stickers. I hear they can do wondrous things.
Whoops, my “p” was missing in ‘performance’. Do that 2 more times & I’ll be SUSPENDED!
Get it – missing ‘p’? Of course, since I was in the Chorus for 6 years straight, I bet *I* can out-Aretha Braun in “Chain, chain, chain…”. ;)