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Armstrong's on the juice?

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French fans come to Armstrong's defense

<!-- end pagetitle -->Associated Press
Cycling News Wire



<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top>PARIS -- Lance Armstrong drew wide support from French fans who criticized the newspaper that accused the seven-time Tour de France winner of doping, with one letter writer pleading that the cyclist be left alone.

L'Equipe published letters to the editor in its weekend magazine Saturday in response to last week's cover story that Armstrong used a banned blood booster in his first Tour victory in 1999. The cyclist has denied the charges, suggesting he is the victim of a "setup" and places no trust in the lab that handled the test.

Of the seven letters published, six backed Armstrong and expressed varying degrees of anger at the newspaper.

"Leave him alone!" wrote Eugenie Hays from the Brittany town of La Forest-Landerneau. Like many readers, she noted many athletes take banned products these days but not everyone inspires like Armstrong. "Don't shatter our dreams."

Louis Riche, another reader, wrote that "these accusations (true or false having little importance) only show one thing: that scientific research is seven years late."

He questioned whether French cyclists would face the same scrutiny as the American star.

"So, in six years we'll know if Thomas Voeckler was doped on the 2004 tour," Riche asked about the rider who held the yellow jersey for 10 stages that year. "Ah, no, am I crazy? He's French."

L'Equipe reported Tuesday that new tests on six urine samples he provided during the 1999 tour resulted in positive results for the red blood cell-booster EPO.

William Dubois noted that he does fair amount of cycling and understands the need for an energy boost.

"For me, my EPO, from time to time is (a licorice-flavored aperitif) and, at Sunday dinner, a good glass of wine! I know that professionals don't only drink mineral water," he said.

Not everyone spared Armstrong from judgment.

"You were my hero," wrote Rahila Abdul. "Why did you do it?"<!--end leftcol --></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=cycling&id=2144351
 
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I like his comment: "I'm thinking it's the best way," to anger the French, he told the newspaper. "I'm exercising every day."

Armstrong considering return from retirement

<!-- end pagetitle --><!-- begin bylinebox -->Associated Press

<!-- begin presby2 -->Updated: Sep. 6, 2005, 4:02 PM ET
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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top><!-- begin leftcol --><!-- template inline -->AUSTIN, Texas -- Retired life is nice, but Lance Armstrong says he is thinking about making a comeback.
Recently engaged to rocker girlfriend Sheryl Crow, Armstrong issued a statement Tuesday confirming that he's contemplating a return to competitive cycling.
"While I'm absolutely enjoying my time as a retired athlete with Sheryl and the kids, the recent smear campaign out of France has awoken my competitive side," Armstrong said. "I'm not willing to put a percentage on the chances but I will no longer rule it out."
Armstrong, who will turn 34 this month, retired in July after winning his seventh consecutive Tour de France and declared "I'm finished."
He said he wanted to spend a few days "with a beer, having a blast" with time dedicated to playing with his three children.
But he's also spent the last two weeks angrily denying reports by the French newspaper L'Equipe that said tests showed he used a performance-enhancing blood booster in the 1999 tour.
Armstrong first hinted of a comeback in an interview Monday with the Austin American-Statesman. An Armstrong spokesman on Tuesday said the comments were a joke, but within hours, the cyclist confirmed it was possible.
"I'm thinking it's the best way," to anger the French, he told the newspaper. "I'm exercising every day."
L'Equipe reported on Aug. 23 that tests showed Armstrong used banned blood booster EPO during the 1999 tour. He has strongly denied the drug allegations.
Armstrong's comments seemed to surprise officials with his Discovery Channel team.
"That to me sounds very Lance-like. It leaves things open and the motivation seems pretty clear. He is immensely proud of his reputation," team manager Dan Osipow said.
Osipow said the team will soon evaluate its roster for the 2006 season.
"He owns part of the team. If there's a certain rider from Texas who wants to join the team, we'll have space," Osipow said.
"Lance was pretty definitive when he announced his plans for retirement. But circumstances change. Who knows?" Osipow said. "I leave that to him. We all know he planned on staying fit."

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http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=2153202
 
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Its Official Lance is In The Clear!!

The World Cycling Body officially declares Lance Armstrong in the clear, reprimands the lab and lambasts the French newspaper L'Equipe for reporting innuendo as truth.

Cycling Body: No Evidence Against Armstrong <!-- END HEADLINE -->
<!-- BEGIN STORY BODY -->By UTA HARNISCHFEGER, Associated Press Writer 25 minutes ago


Cycling's governing body said Friday it had received no evidence of doping by Lance Armstrong and criticized world doping authorities and a French sports newspaper for making allegations against the seven-time Tour de France champion.
"The UCI has not to date received any official information or document" from anti-doping authorities or the laboratory reportedly involved in the testing of urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France, the cycling federation said.
Allegations that EPO was found in Armstrong's 1999 urine samples were first reported by the French sports daily L'Equipe last month.
Armstrong has angrily denied the charges, saying he was the victim of a "witch hunt." He questioned the validity of testing samples frozen six years ago, and how the samples were handled.
UCI said it was still gathering information and had asked the World Anti-Doping Agency and the French laboratory for more background. It also wanted to know who commissioned the research and who agreed to make it public.
"How could this be done without the riders' consent?" the UCI said.
It also asked WADA to say if it allowed the results to be disseminated, which UCI says is a "breach of WADA's anti-doping code."
"We have substantial concerns about the impact of this matter on the integrity of the overall drug testing regime of the Olympic movement, and in particular the questions it raises over the trustworthiness of some of the sports and political authorities active in the anti-doping fight," the UCI said.
UCI president Hein Verbruggen has asked for harsh sanctions against dopers and suggested Armstrong should face sanctions if here were shown to be guilty.
He also told Friday's Le Figaro that Armstrong had proposed before the Tour that all of his urine samples be kept for tests over the next 10 years.
UCI said it was still "awaiting plausible answers" to its requests to WADA and the laboratory.
"We deplore the fact that the long-established and entrenched confidentiality principle could be violated in such a flagrant way without any respect for fair play and the rider's privacy," it said.
UCI singled out WADA president Dick Pound for making "public statements about the likely guilt of an athlete on the basis of a newspaper article and without all the facts being known."
It also criticized the article in L'Equipe as "targeting a particular athlete."
L'Equipe said it would react of UCI's criticism in Saturday editions. Tour de France organizers had no immediate reaction, spokesman Matthieu Desplats said.
Claude Droussent, the editor of L'Equipe, denied his newspaper targeted Armstrong because he is American, and said it would have treated a French rider the same.
Armstrong retired after winning his seventh straight Tour title in July, but said this week he is considering a comeback. He plans to attend the Discovery Channel team training camp this winter.
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Re: "Claude Droussent, the editor of L'Equipe, denied his newspaper targeted Armstrong because he is American, and said it would have treated a French rider the same."

Yea right!!!
Does anyone actually believe this?
If you do. please contact me I've got some waterfront property in New Orleans I'd like to sell you.
 
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Lance decides to not come out of retirement.

Lance quashes chance of coming out of retirement

<!-- end pagetitle --><!-- begin bylinebox -->Associated Press
Updated: Sep. 15, 2005, 9:46 PM ET


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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top><!-- begin leftcol --><!-- template inline -->The nasty tug of war between the bosses of the international cycling union and the World Anti-Doping Agency over who leaked documents to a French newspaper accusing Lance Armstrong of doping claimed its first casualty Thursday: any chance of a comeback by the seven-time Tour de France champion.

Armstrong, who said just days ago that this latest fight to clear his name had stoked his competitive desires, made clear Thursday he wasn't interested in returning to the sport he dominated.
<!---------------------PULL-QUOTE TABLE (BEGIN)---------------------><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=4><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="3"></TD><TD>[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]“[/FONT]</TD><TD width=225>[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]I'm happy with the way my career went and ended and I'm not coming back.[/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] ”[/FONT]</TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD width=4><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="3"></TD><TD></TD><TD width=225>[FONT=Times,serif]— [/FONT][FONT=Times,serif]Lance Armstrong[/FONT]</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!---------------------PULL-QUOTE TABLE (END)--------------------->


"Sitting here today, dealing with all this stuff again, knowing if I were to go back, there's no way I could get a fair shake -- on the roadside, in doping control, or the labs," Armstrong said on a late-afternoon conference call.

"I think it's better that way," he added a moment later. "I'm happy with the way my career went and ended and I'm not coming back."

Armstrong and his handlers spent most of the remaining 45 minutes with reporters criticizing WADA chief Dick Pound. It was Pound who set off another round of charges and counter-charges in the doping controversy earlier Thursday by accusing cycling union boss Hein Verbruggen of supplying documents used by L'Equipe, France's leading sports daily, to charge that Armstrong used the blood-boosting drug EPO during his first tour win in 1999.

Armstrong, who has repeatedly denied ever using banned drugs, said he was the victim of a "witch hunt" after the report came out last month.

Arsmtrong said he was concerned Pound might be seeking revenge for an open letter he sent to newspapers and the WADA chief several years ago, defending his sport against the widely held notion that cycling was rife with competitors using performance-enhancing drugs.

"I was not trying to say that Dick was bad guy or a crook," Armstrong said of his letter, "but I might want to say that today. ... He's trying to divert attention from the serious ethical issues involving WADA and himself."

His agent and attorney went even further, accusing Pound of smearing Armstrong in public without conclusive proof or due process. They also said Pound had a hand in ensuring that an identifying code was included with the results of tests for EPO conducted by a French lab on Armstrong's urine samples six years after they were taken. If true, that would violate WADA's own protocol requiring that any tests be done strictly for purposes of research.

Calls seeking comment from Pound at both his WADA office and home in Montreal were not immediately returned Thursday.

Earlier Thursday, Pound said he received a letter from Verbruggen ackowledging the cycling union, known as UCI, had provided L'Equipe's reporter with forms indicating Armstrong had tested positive for EPO during his first Tour victory.

"Mr. Verbruggen told us that he showed all the forms of Mr. Armstrong to L'Equipe and that he even gave the journalist a copy of one of the documents," Pound said during a conference call from Montreal.

"I don't understand why they're not stepping up to that and saying, 'Well, I guess we do know how the name got public, we made it possible,' " he said.

But Armstrong said that he himself had authorized releasing the forms to L'Equipe. He said the request from the newspaper was to check whether the UCI had granted him any medical exemptions during competition, not to find out if the numerical code used by race official to identify Armstrong matched the one attached to the frozen samples.

Last Friday, the UCI said it had not received enough information to make a judgment on the accusations that six of Armstrong's frozen urine samples from 1999 came back positive for EPO when they were retested last year.

It also criticized L'Equipe for targeting Armstrong and Pound for making public statements on the "likely guilt of the athlete" without knowing all the facts.

Pound countered by saying, "It's .... quite clear the only way there could have been a match between the code numbers and a particular athlete was on the basis of information supplied by the UCI."

He then questioned the UCI's willingness to fully investigate L'Equipe's accusations and wondered whether the cycling body was merely looking for a "scapegoat."

If so, Armstrong suggested Pound should look in a mirror.

"Is Dick Pound a vindictive person and somebdy who holds grudges?" he said. "Perhaps."

Armstrong again refused to rule out legal action against L'Equipe. And while he said again he wouldn't make a comeback next summer, it's not because of a lack of competitive desire.

Asked whether rumors that President Bush beat him in a bike race during a visit to Crawford, Texas, several weeks ago, Armstrong replied, "no," but insisted the president was a strong rider.

"But we didn't subject him to any medical controls, so we don't know if his performance was enhanced. In my opinion," he added, laughing, "it was suspicious."
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http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=2162630
 
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Time to bump this one up to the top again ..

L'Equipe et al are slammed by a Dutch investigatory unit, as were the actions of WADA.


In a nutshell, Lance is totally vindicated, L'Equipe and WADA have egg on their face. Strike one up for the good guys.

(BTW, Dick Pound is the head of WADA.. you just cannot make that kind of shit up :tongue2:).

ESPN

Report clears Armstrong of '99 doping allegations
<hr noshade="noshade" size="1" width="100%"> Associated Press

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- Lance Armstrong called it a "witch hunt" from the very beginning, saying a French newspaper used dubious evidence to accuse him of doping -- even charging that lab officials mishandled his samples and broke the rules. <table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2" width="5">
</td><td width="275">
</td></tr><tr><td width="275">
</td></tr></tbody></table> According to a Dutch investigator's findings released Wednesday, he may have been right. The report, commissioned late last year by the International Cycling Union, cleared the record seven-time Tour de France champion of allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs during his first win in 1999. It said tests on urine samples were conducted improperly and fell so short of scientific standards that it was "completely irresponsible" to suggest they "constitute evidence of anything." The investigation also concluded that the French laboratory that handled the samples and the World Anti-Doping Agency "violated applicable rules on athlete confidentiality by commenting publicly on the alleged positive findings." The report recommended convening a tribunal to discuss possible legal and ethical violations by WADA, which is headed by Dick Pound, and to consider "appropriate sanctions to remedy the violations." The French sports daily L'Equipe reported in August that six of Armstrong's urine samples taken in 1999 came back positive for the endurance-boosting hormone EPO when they were retested in 2004. Armstrong has repeatedly denied using banned substances. In a statement Wednesday, he said he was pleased that the investigation confirms "what I have been saying since this witch hunt began: Dick Pound, WADA, the French laboratory, the French Ministry of Sport, L'Equipe and the Tour de France organizers ... have been out to discredit and target me without any basis and falsely accused me of taking performance-enhancing drugs in 1999. "Today's comprehensive report makes it clear that there is no truth to that accusation," he said. The ICU appointed Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman last October to investigate the handling of the urine tests by the French national anti-doping laboratory. Vrijman said Wednesday his report "exonerates Lance Armstrong completely with respect to alleged use of doping in the 1999 Tour de France." The 132-page report said no proper records were kept of the samples, there had been no "chain of custody" guaranteeing their integrity and there was no way of knowing whether the samples had been "spiked" with banned substances. Pound said he hadn't received the report yet but, based on what he had read in news accounts, was critical of Vrijman's findings. "It's clearly everything we feared. There was no interest in determining whether the samples Armstrong provided were positive or not," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Montreal. "Whether the samples were positive or not, I don't know how a Dutch lawyer with no expertise came to a conclusion that one of the leading laboratories in the world messed up on the analysis. To say Armstrong is totally exonerated seems strange," Pound said. Armstrong had challenged the validity of testing samples frozen six years ago and how they were handled. EPO, or erythropoietin, is a synthetic hormone that boosts the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood. Testing for EPO only began in 2001. "The report confirms my innocence but also finds that Mr. Pound along with the French lab and the French ministry have ignored the rules and broken the law," Armstrong said. Vrijman said a tribunal should be created to "provide a fair hearing" to the people and organizations suspected of misconduct and to decide on sanctions if warranted. In a statement separate from Pound's comments, WADA expressed "grave concern and strong disappointment" over Vrijman's reported comments. "WADA continues to stress its concern that an investigation into the matter must consider all aspects -- not limited to how the damaging information regarding athletes' urine samples became public but also addressing the question of whether anti-doping rules were violated by athletes," the statement said.
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