Lance Armstrong To Lose All Tour de France Medals...

[ChaserGrey]

That's one of the reasons why I'm in favor of a jail sentence for doping. It is fraud, plain and simple. Once it becomes clear that you not only face disqualification, but jail and lawsuits for refund of all sponsor money and prices won, sports will clean up quickly.

My only concern would be establishing what the legal threshold was for a crime to have been committed. Length and scale of the doping? Amount of money accepted in prizes and endorsements? (If so, how to deal with high-profile amateur athletes on the track to the Olympics?)

One thing this case has done is completely reverse my opinion of the USADA. After he was banned from cycling Armstrong tried to switch to triathlons, and was only stopped because his USADA ban meant he couldn't compete in any competition sanctioned by that body. Not every athlete will be able to just switch sports (Michael Jordan and baseball, anyone?), but as far as I can tell before the USADA you could be caught doping in one sport, switch, and basically get a clean sheet. There needs to be some mechanism to make sure that doesn't happen.

[Serafina]

Why would you need such a threshold?

First of all, i think courts would be quite capable of assigning punishment based on the severity of the crime - which would depend on the competition you cheated in.
Second, whether or not it is a criminal activity could simply be based on whether or not the competition requires the competitiors to state that they will not use doping, and whether or not there are anti-doping measures. Any important sports event will do that - if they don't their reputation. If the event on the other hand is not that important, they won't instant such measures and it's not a crime.

So no need for a legal threshold based on any sums of money or such. Simply go with "using doping in any sports event that institutes rules and measures against doping constitutes fraud" and go from there.

[OneEyedTeddyMcGrew]

I don't think I'd feel this way if he'd owned up with all the other cyclists, when it came out that doping was endemic in the sport a few years back. Then I might say hey, look, everyone did it, he was still the best in a field where everyone was doped, let's acknowledge that the sport as a whole hit a low point and just move forward.

The problem with the "Fuck it. Everybody doped. It was a level playing field and he won" argument beyond the sheer nihilism of it is that the "level playing field" people refer to is non-existent. Doping isn't cheap, and doping in a manner that gives you the least chance of getting caught even more so. You need the top gear, top masking agents, a network of compliant doctors and backroom staff and a bit of luck before you can start competing with the big boys in doping. This basically creates a situation where good young riders are forced onto teams that encourage doping to advance their career, or they're left by the wayside to rot despite the fact that in a REAL level playing field they might be contenders. It's bad for the riders, bad for the spectators and bad for the sport as a whole.

I know you're not really making that argument, but I felt the need to point it out anyway.

[Thanas]

Don't forget Liarstrong also sued people into paying him when they had refused due to doping.

[Alyeska]

The lawsuits have begun. Lance was so aggressive in attacking critics he even used British Libel laws. I hope they drain the fucker dry.

[CJvR]

The ones who should sue are the ones that didn't win those years. The sponsors got most of their monies worth a long time ago.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

You mean the highest placed cyclists who didn't dope? As I recall they're going to reclassify those races as having no actual winner, rather than trying to drill down the order to findthose who didn't dope ~10 years ago.

[thejester]

The lawsuits have begun. Lance was so aggressive in attacking critics he even used British Libel laws. I hope they drain the fucker dry.

Don't count on it:

But this only stacks up because, for the second half of his life, Armstrong needs not to be permanently exiled from American public life: to be a viable celebrity brand is all his future. The costs are significant: he will almost certainly have to settle with SCA Promotions, but they will probably take a lot less than the $11m that headlines their suit. The Sunday Times wants to recover $500,000 in damages, plus another $1m in costs; but they'll take less.

But here's the thing: Armstrong's net worth is estimated to exceed $100m. These sums sting, but they don't really hurt him. And next to his post-rehabilitation earnings potential, they're chump change.

Sadly, looks like the first to step to public rehabilitation.

[UnderAGreySky]

I wonder how much he's making out of the Oprah appearance. (Was about to post the Guardian link to find out thejester beat me to it).

His appearing on Oprah and not a public, open statement makes me despise him even more.

[mr friendly guy]

These things may be chump change, but where else is he going to get source of income from besides investments he may already have? From anti drug organisations? Sponsors love winners and not losers, and by being shown to be a cheater, Lance is just another loser. Is he banking on making such a big confession he gets to participate in triathlon again in short space of time, and manages to win some prize money?

[General Zod]

These things may be chump change, but where else is he going to get source of income from besides investments he may already have? From anti drug organisations? Sponsors love winners and not losers, and by being shown to be a cheater, Lance is just another loser. Is he banking on making such a big confession he gets to participate in triathlon again in short space of time, and manages to win some prize money?

Maybe he'll write a tell-all book or two and have a movie made.

[mr friendly guy]

These things may be chump change, but where else is he going to get source of income from besides investments he may already have? From anti drug organisations? Sponsors love winners and not losers, and by being shown to be a cheater, Lance is just another loser. Is he banking on making such a big confession he gets to participate in triathlon again in short space of time, and manages to win some prize money?

Maybe he'll write a tell-all book or two and have a movie made.

Good point. Although I would like to point out some countries have laws which supposedly prevent you from making money off a crime. Lance certainly broke the rules of a sporting events, but the actual criminal case against him failed, although they may try again.

In other news, just to show how much chump change it is for Armstrong, he has reported said he wants to pay the US government $5 million for "alleged fraud".

linky

[General Zod]

These things may be chump change, but where else is he going to get source of income from besides investments he may already have? From anti drug organisations? Sponsors love winners and not losers, and by being shown to be a cheater, Lance is just another loser. Is he banking on making such a big confession he gets to participate in triathlon again in short space of time, and manages to win some prize money?

Maybe he'll write a tell-all book or two and have a movie made.

Good point. Although I would like to point out some countries have laws which supposedly prevent you from making money off a crime. Lance certainly broke the rules of a sporting events, but the actual criminal case against him failed, although they may try again.

In other news, just to show how much chump change it is for Armstrong, he has reported said he wants to pay the US government $5 million for "alleged fraud".

linky

If the criminal case failed then he's really got nothing to worry about since most countries have some form of double-jeopardy laws.

[thejester]

These things may be chump change, but where else is he going to get source of income from besides investments he may already have? From anti drug organisations? Sponsors love winners and not losers, and by being shown to be a cheater, Lance is just another loser. Is he banking on making such a big confession he gets to participate in triathlon again in short space of time, and manages to win some prize money?

How much income do you need in the short term when you're worth 100 million?

If he can pitch this as a great rehabilitation, another triumph over adversity story, he'll be back in the fold. To nowhere near the same extent, but more than he deserves.

[OneEyedTeddyMcGrew]

Maybe a comparison with Indurian, who was pretty much the greatest TdF (5 in a row) winner before Armstrong, would be appropriate. He was already acknowledged as a damn good rider in the late 80s, but only really started dominating in the early 90s at a time when he probably should have been declining. It's pretty much the worst kept secret in the world now that Indurian was one of the first users of EPO, and by the time he won his TdFs he was so pumped with the stuff he could have probably breathed in space. He's gotten away with it for a few reasons.

1) He was on EPO at a time when the testing for it was very much in its infancy.
2) By all accounts he seems to have been a rather nice, quiet guy.
3) Any attempt to have a deeper look into what was going on was condemned by pretty much half of Spain as the machinations of bitter Frenchies that couldn't handle the fact that a Spaniard was beating them in their own race.

None of those apply to Armstrong. Maybe the third one did in the early days of this breaking, but I think only a few die-hards are going to keep putting out that line now.

I don't think he's doing it to re-establish some kind of celebrity as a primary goal (although if it happens, obviously so much the better for him). I honestly think he's doing this because he knows the game is up and this is an attempt to save his own worthless hide. He's facing down a Sword of Damocles in Landis' suit, which now looks like it's going to be backed up by the US government because he in effect defrauded the American taxpayer to the tune of $50m via the US Postal Service sponsorship. The government backing up the suit changes things entirely, and even if criminal charges are probably unlikely, he's still going to get ruined if they decide to go for the jugular.

Good riddance.

[amigocabal]

That's one of the reasons why I'm in favor of a jail sentence for doping. It is fraud, plain and simple. Once it becomes clear that you not only face disqualification, but jail and lawsuits for refund of all sponsor money and prices won, sports will clean up quickly.

This is where I disagree. It should not be the government job to keep sports "clean" from doping, even if I believed that athletes should not dope. If a sports league has no problem with doping, why must government step in to stop it?

Of course, professional sports leagues should retain the right to keep their leagues doping-free, and I would also oppose laws that would require leagues to tolerate doping.

After he was banned from cycling Armstrong tried to switch to triathlons, and was only stopped because his USADA ban meant he couldn't compete in any competition sanctioned by that body.

Of course, even competitions that tolerate doping would be wary of allowing someone who aided and encouraged others to cheat to compete.

[Thanas]

That's one of the reasons why I'm in favor of a jail sentence for doping. It is fraud, plain and simple. Once it becomes clear that you not only face disqualification, but jail and lawsuits for refund of all sponsor money and prices won, sports will clean up quickly.

This is where I disagree. It should not be the government job to keep sports "clean" from doping, even if I believed that athletes should not dope. If a sports league has no problem with doping, why must government step in to stop it?

Because it sends a bad message to amateurs who might also start doping, because it is a health risk for the riders and because it is fraud.

[LaCroix]

This is where I disagree. It should not be the government job to keep sportsbusiness "clean" from dopingfraud, even if I believed that athletesbusinessmen should not dopelie blatantly while conducting business.

Fraud

Fraud is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage. Fraud may also be made by an omission or purposeful failure to state material facts, which nondisclosure makes other statements misleading.

You would be spot on to say that this definition fits the Armstrong case.

[mr friendly guy]

According to BBC, its official, he did admit it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/21033130

In Summary
Armstrong admits to doping in all of his seven Tour de France victories
Armstrong admits to taking EPO, blood transfusions and other banned substances
He said doping in team was "professional and smart"
He denies taking banned drugs since comeback in 2005

Oprah: You brazenly denied everything so why now?

Armstrong: That's the best question. I don't know I have a great answer. This is too late, probably for most people and that's my fault. I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times. It's not as if I said no and moved off it. While I've lived through this process, I know the truth. The truth isn't what I said and now its gone.

Oprah: Were you a bully?

Armstrong: Yes. I was a bully. I tried to control the narrative. If I didn't like what somebody said, I tried to control that. I've been like that my entire life.

Oprah goes over how she set up the interview. Lance looks tense. Here are the first questions:

Q. Did you ever take banned substances to enhance cycling performance?

A. Yes

Q. Was one of those substances EPO?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you use any other banned substances?

A. Yes

[Alyeska]

I quote a very awesome video I once saw.

"Fuck the fucking fucker"

[mr friendly guy]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/video/2 ... ping-video

Relevant video where Lance pretty much admits it. Oprah asked him questions and requests a yes and no answer. It can't get more clearer than that, but I have seen Armstrong apologists still believe in his innocence because "he never tested positive."

[mr friendly guy]

This is Armstrong's idea of a joke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 8AJ-Apz_6A

Hey Betsy, I never called you fat. I just called you a bitch and crazy. But I never called you fat.

For those just joining us, Betsy Andreu refused to lie in Armstrong's court case when his sponsors took him to court. Armstrong told her to remain while the Doctor (part of the team treating his cancer) asked him some questions, like whether he used PEDs. Armstrong rattled them off. When she refused to lie about it, she had the misfortune to have an Armstrong supporter threaten to physically assault her (video I posted earlier in this thread) had her name villified by Team Lance including some Livestrong supporters.

I am glad that she has some closure. Its not complete as Lance denies being the ring leader, he was just part of the culture. If one was cynical enough, this could be just a calculated measure by Armstrong.

After today, Armstrong is the guy who walked on the moon. Not this lying bully.

[UnderAGreySky]

After today, Armstrong is the guy who walked on the moon. Not this lying bully.

Or the first and best recorder of What A Wonderful World.

[mr friendly guy]

Interesting we find what Armstrong admits to and doesn't.

Admits to

1. Doping with EPO, blood transfusions, GH, and Cortisone

2. Admits to the cortisone prescription being backdated.

3. Explains how he avoided the test, but so far not in the detail of the USADA report. Also explains it away as easier to cheat those days without the UCI's biological passport program.

4. Being a bully.


Denies

1. Bribing the UCI to make his EPO test go away as alleged by other riders. He acknowledges a donation was made on that particular date though.

2. Denies having the role of ring leader - that is he didn't get other riders fired for not doping, but admits he most probably had the power, but he never chose to use it.

[aerius]

I have not watched the interview (I refuse to watch Oprah) but many of my cycling friends have. From what I'm told, he's admitted most of the key points up to the mid 2000's and nothing after that. Apparently it has to do with the statute of limitations. I'll have more comments once someone puts a full transcript up on the 'net for me to read.