Armstrong attorney Tim Herman responded to USADA's first letter, sent Wednesday, by saying his client's schedule is already full
Right, jetting around the world for cancer awareness, meeting all the people who are paying him large fees for showing up at their races. Lance is really busy these days.
USADA isn't interested in cleaning up cycling.
It can’t be easy to pick out one, but I nominate this as the single most disgusting thing Tim Herman has said.
I think LA’s problem here is not just the perjury issue. He hates Tygart with a passion, and he simply can’t put that hatred aside to talk to him, even when that might be his only chance if he ever wants to compete in anything again.
Wrt the Tygart interview on 60m: I certainly think LA lied at points in the interview, but Tygart is on very shaky ground on a couple of his points:
It's not true that the former cyclist tried a clean comeback, as he told Winfrey, says Tygart. "Just contrary to the evidence...His blood tests in 2009, 2010-- expert reports based on the variation of his blood values-- from those tests, one to a million chance that it was due to something other than doping," he tells Pelley. Tygart says there is further evidence in emails between Armstrong and Dr. Michele Ferrari in those years, whom Armstrong claimed to have shunned due to Ferrari's known doping activities.
As I’ve said before, I don’t buy this one in a million. If that’s the case, why hasn’t anyone published the statistical analysis? How could it be that significant when his off-score, which is a major part of the blood passport, never came that close to the red flag level of 132 or so used in the earlier version? And if it really is that significant, why wasn't it used in USADA charging letter? Rather than just saying his blood values were consistent with doping, why didn't USDA flat out state they had him nailed with a positive test? One in a million is far beyond the criterion for positive in any drug test used in sports.
He also wasn't telling the truth when he said he used only small amounts of the blood booster EPO, says Tygart. "He used a lot of EPO. You look at the '99 Tour de France samples and they were flaming positive, the highest that we've ever seen. And he's now acknowledged those were positive."
Oh, boy, how could the head of USADA make a mistake like this? The EPO test does not tell you how much recombinant EPO is present, it only tells you (and only very roughly at that, certainly not in a way that would allow quantitation) the ratio of recombinant to natural. If LA had very low levels of natural EPO, he could have had a “flaming positive” gel with relatively low levels of recombinant EPO.
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