USADA - Armstrong

[thehog]

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i...ciding-figthing-usada-worth-article-1.1101303

If there’s one thing Armstrong and Clemens have in common, it’s an allergy to conceding defeat. Like his fellow Texan, it may be impossible for Armstrong to imagine taking the hit from a bunch of guys in suits. Already, Armstrong is unleashing overwhelming legal firepower at USADA, a nonprofit, quasi-private agency with an annual budget of around $15 million.

But if Armstrong fights USADA, he should take note of the fact that in baseball’s steroid wars, there proved to be alternatives to strident denials. After the Mitchell Report, Pettitte, Clemens’ friend and teammate, quickly confessed and apologized and was back in Yankee pinstripes by April. Fans were forgiving, in part because their intelligence wasn’t being insulted. Clemens, meanwhile, spent 4-1 ⁄ 2 years sacrificing his reputation in a quixotic attempt to defend it.

Jay Reisinger, the Pittsburgh attorney who represents Pettitte, points out that Armstrong’s prestige is more vulnerable than Clemens’ was. While Major League Baseball was never going to invalidate Clemens’ 354 wins — baseball stats don’t work that way — Armstrong’s titles are vulnerable, and losing them would rob him of his whole identity.

“He has a legacy as a seven-time Tour de France winner,” says Reisinger, who also represented Alex Rodriguez amid doping controversies, of Armstrong. “If he has a negative outcome in the USADA hearing, those can be taken away, and given who he is and what he has stood for, the money he raises for his foundation, that’s what made him the name that he is today.”

The Clemens verdict hasn’t silenced the pitcher’s accusers. They have multiplied, and if anything, the legal war only provided them with more facts — undisputed ones, including McNamee’s injection of
the pitcher’s wife, Debbie, with HGH in the master bedroom of the Clemens family mansion, or that the pitcher’s DNA was on a steroid needle that McNamee saved after an injection.

 

[MarkvW]

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i...ciding-figthing-usada-worth-article-1.1101303

If there’s one thing Armstrong and Clemens have in common, it’s an allergy to conceding defeat. Like his fellow Texan, it may be impossible for Armstrong to imagine taking the hit from a bunch of guys in suits. Already, Armstrong is unleashing overwhelming legal firepower at USADA, a nonprofit, quasi-private agency with an annual budget of around $15 million.

But if Armstrong fights USADA, he should take note of the fact that in baseball’s steroid wars, there proved to be alternatives to strident denials. After the Mitchell Report, Pettitte, Clemens’ friend and teammate, quickly confessed and apologized and was back in Yankee pinstripes by April. Fans were forgiving, in part because their intelligence wasn’t being insulted. Clemens, meanwhile, spent 4-1 ⁄ 2 years sacrificing his reputation in a quixotic attempt to defend it.

Jay Reisinger, the Pittsburgh attorney who represents Pettitte, points out that Armstrong’s prestige is more vulnerable than Clemens’ was. While Major League Baseball was never going to invalidate Clemens’ 354 wins — baseball stats don’t work that way — Armstrong’s titles are vulnerable, and losing them would rob him of his whole identity.

“He has a legacy as a seven-time Tour de France winner,” says Reisinger, who also represented Alex Rodriguez amid doping controversies, of Armstrong. “If he has a negative outcome in the USADA hearing, those can be taken away, and given who he is and what he has stood for, the money he raises for his foundation, that’s what made him the name that he is today.”

The Clemens verdict hasn’t silenced the pitcher’s accusers. They have multiplied, and if anything, the legal war only provided them with more facts — undisputed ones, including McNamee’s injection of
the pitcher’s wife, Debbie, with HGH in the master bedroom of the Clemens family mansion, or that the pitcher’s DNA was on a steroid needle that McNamee saved after an injection.

Only Armstrong has the "full ***" kind of money needed to eke every last bit of fight out of these proceedings. I think it was DW who made the good point that Johan and the Docs are not going to have that kind of money. Is selfish Lance going to bankroll their defenses? I'd think that would be far out of Armstrong's character.

But if he doesn't bankroll their defenses or pay them to quietly go away, the whole truth can come out at any one of their hearings. And the truth is like kryptonite to Lance. Is Lance going to pay the others off so they will quietly roll over without a hearing?

If this is going to be "fixed" for Lance, it also has to be fixed for his coconspirators. That would be a public relations nightmare for the UCI/USA Cycling.

I hope Lance keeps doubling down. He'll paint himself so much into the corner that when it all comes tumbling down, he'll only have one alternative:

Oprah!

 

[MacRoadie]

Hmmm. I'll bring the beer. Shiner Bock?. Dinner at Searsucker, Gaslamp.

I'll give Floyd a ride if he needs one.

Count me in!

Nice ride down, dinner, stay the night in SD, then take the Surfliner home...

Perfect!

 

[fatsprintking]

Only Armstrong has the "full ***" kind of money needed to eke every last bit of fight out of these proceedings. I think it was DW who made the good point that Johan and the Docs are not going to have that kind of money. Is selfish Lance going to bankroll their defenses? I'd think that would be far out of Armstrong's character.

I think the most likley guy to cave is Pepe Marti. he is going to be the one that has the least chance of earning a living post this and is also the one who is likely to have some pretty full on information re being provided money specifically to purchase drugs for the team. I would think think that there would already be plenty of testimony that says that his role in the team was that of drug obtainer. You would think that he is as cunning as a ****house rat and that he would be looking at all the angles at this point.

 

[rata de sentina]

Thanks for repeating what I said! If it makes it easier for you to understand by putting it in your own words, go for it.

No problem but I don´t believe I was addressing you, I was speaking to the hog. I am sure the hog would prefer to read one or two succinct sentences rather than one of your interminable tomes.

 

[andy1234]

This is insightful.

Knowing the folks at USADA as well as I do, I'd describe them as ice-cold and fairly unemotional and unflappable. They think several moves ahead even when ordering dinner and early-on in the process I figured the best way to deal with them was not to try to be crafty or clever, b/c they'd eventually walk me into a brick-wall or punji-stick trap of my own making.

For them to even have decided to charge Lance they must be 99% confident/sure of being able to present sufficient evidence to win a conviction. Otherwise they wouldn't risk it. For them to have decided to charge several people along w/ him and bundle the crimes into a single massive conspiracy means the evidence is overwhelming.

I'm proud of my modest role in it all!

You should be proud of yourself in the same way a burglar could be proud of interrupting a murder during a break in.

 

[rata de sentina]

If you ever have to deal with it in person, just hire an attorney and let that guy do all the talking (in writing). Trust me.

Personally, I find that hitmen are considerably cheaper than lawyers, much more emotionally satisfying too

 

[rhubroma]

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i...ciding-figthing-usada-worth-article-1.1101303

If there’s one thing Armstrong and Clemens have in common, it’s an allergy to conceding defeat. Like his fellow Texan, it may be impossible for Armstrong to imagine taking the hit from a bunch of guys in suits. Already, Armstrong is unleashing overwhelming legal firepower at USADA, a nonprofit, quasi-private agency with an annual budget of around $15 million.

But if Armstrong fights USADA, he should take note of the fact that in baseball’s steroid wars, there proved to be alternatives to strident denials. After the Mitchell Report, Pettitte, Clemens’ friend and teammate, quickly confessed and apologized and was back in Yankee pinstripes by April. Fans were forgiving, in part because their intelligence wasn’t being insulted. Clemens, meanwhile, spent 4-1 ⁄ 2 years sacrificing his reputation in a quixotic attempt to defend it.

Jay Reisinger, the Pittsburgh attorney who represents Pettitte, points out that Armstrong’s prestige is more vulnerable than Clemens’ was. While Major League Baseball was never going to invalidate Clemens’ 354 wins — baseball stats don’t work that way — Armstrong’s titles are vulnerable, and losing them would rob him of his whole identity.

“He has a legacy as a seven-time Tour de France winner,” says Reisinger, who also represented Alex Rodriguez amid doping controversies, of Armstrong. “If he has a negative outcome in the USADA hearing, those can be taken away, and given who he is and what he has stood for, the money he raises for his foundation, that’s what made him the name that he is today.”

The Clemens verdict hasn’t silenced the pitcher’s accusers. They have multiplied, and if anything, the legal war only provided them with more facts — undisputed ones, including McNamee’s injection of
the pitcher’s wife, Debbie, with HGH in the master bedroom of the Clemens family mansion, or that the pitcher’s DNA was on a steroid needle that McNamee saved after an injection.

This is why the entire legal process today is a friggin joke. The system has created something no different than what existed in the dark ages. If you are rich you can get away with bloody murder. I was being sarcastic when I previously mentioned if you are poor they send you straight to the chair, but only in part. There is truth in humor.

All the legal posturing and loopholes are absolutely appalling and makes a mockery of the entire notion of having any democratic values embedded in the system. It is the market, pure and simple; for which money makes right. But this has nothing to do with the facts, as they have actually occurred, and the truth. Clemens "innocent?" Good grief!

 

[ultimobici]

You should be proud of yourself in the same way a burglar could be proud of interrupting a murder during a break in.

Miaow!

10 chars

 

[cprior]

I'm just going to celebrate by having a really high quality Dopestrong bike shirt made.

I love that T-Shirt I bought off the internet "Pistolero's Steakhouse".

Is there an LA-equivalent somewhere out of his lawyer's reach?

 

[TourOfSardinia]

You should be proud of yourself in the same way a burglar could be proud of interrupting a murder during a break in.

I think that happened in Raffles, AJ, and he was a Gentleman and a great sportsman too.

 

[Neworld]

There was a paper written on Armstrong by someone named Cohen. It showed his physiological characteristics from age 21 to age 28. I have the word document but I cannot copy and paste it to this site???

Nov 92 Jan 93 Sept 93 Aug 97 Nov 99

body weight 78.9 76.5 75.1 79.5 79.7

max 02 uptake 70.5 76.1 81.2 66.6 71.5

lac threshhold 85 78 76 76

gross efficiency 21.1 21.61 22.66 23.05

power at o2 374 382 399 404

There is more data but this is the main information. I don't think these numbers are world class. Also show that he never lost a bunch of weight after cancer.

Wow, thank you.

Those values above are NOT indicative of a 7 in a row TdF winner. Above average for a Cat 1 rider, but below the norm for a pro. And certainly well below average for a top 10 GT winner. What a joke.

 

[Race Radio]

What is Lance scared of? Is he not confident in his own innocence?

it was noteworthy that Armstrong stopped short in his response of submitting a sworn statement under oath that he has never doped.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-lance-armstrong-20120623,0,2851391.story

 

[cprior]

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-lance-armstrong-20120623,0,2851391.story

Oh, it could continue to move pretty quickly:

Following the review board consideration, USADA could be empowered to file charges against Armstrong as soon as next week, an official for the agency said.

 

[thehog]

Caught this one the other day just before comeback 2.0:*

Armstrong, who has faced constant doping allegations despite never testing positive, is also keen to prove he is clean and hopes by racing the Tour again his four children will read about it.

"I'm doing this for my kids," he says in the book.

"With news so accessible these days on the web, they'll be able to read any story they want. And I don't want them growing up and reading all these things about me and doping."

 

[cprior]

First things first indeed:

Father of 5 amazing kids, 7-time Tour de France winner, full time cancer fighter, part time triathlete - LIVESTRONG!

 

[thehog]

First things first indeed:

It's stories like this that makes him all the more disgusting for continuing to prey on those who support him.

It's a nice little ditty of a blog. Probably a better reflection of the comments section out there.

http://darien.patch.com/articles/why-doping-allegations-against-lance-armstrong-hurt-so-much

The Boy (pedaling as fast as chubby little legs can spin): “Daddy I’m Lance Armstrong. Daddy say, ‘There goes Lance, he’s beating Jan Ullrich. (Former Tour de France winner eventually found guilty of doping).’”

When Lance won his first Tour de France and accepted the ESPY for Comeback of the Year, I wept in front of my TV like a child whose mother was stolen by cancer. I took vacation time from work for seven years to watch the Tour live. I bought into everything Lance.

I knew about the dopers, the cheaters. But not Lance, he looked us in the eye and said he was clean. I defended him. Why would a cancer survivor put anything illegal into his body? His words. We loved Lance because he said, “What am I on? I’m on my bike…” And a 4- and 38-year-old believed it. Lance was our hero before most of you ever heard of him. He was our special secret—pure—and we kept it that way for as long as we could.

That’s why this hurts more than Bonds, ARod, or McGuire. I had nothing invested in them. I didn’t watch them beat cancer. I didn’t watch them pedal to a mountaintop finish and point to the sky for a dead teammate. I didn’t think of my mom when they hit homeruns. I didn’t suffer with them.

Lance never “failed” a drug test. But folks, don’t be so naïve as to think there are not ways to fool the test if you know what you are doing. Don’t be so naïve as to think that a multi-millionaire cannot buy and bully his way out of a jam. And don’t be so naïve as to think that Lance did not use cancer as a shield and his command of his surroundings to fly in just under the radar.

If Lance is eventually stripped of his seven Tours de France victories, it will be a colossal blow to the sport, one that could take a generation to recover from.

If Lance is a phony on the bike, he needs to come out from behind the cloak of cancer and admit it was a hoax. Admit that he lied because it was more important to win dirty than to lose cleanly.

If it’s true, he lied to our faces.

 

[cprior]

Just to imagine his former wife was amongst the federal and anti-doping witnesses...

Must...refrain...from...remarks...like "as long as nobody impersonated her at court!"

 

[JPM London]

For them to even have decided to charge Lance they must be 99% confident/sure of being able to present sufficient evidence to win a conviction. Otherwise they wouldn't risk it. For them to have decided to charge several people along w/ him and bundle the crimes into a single massive conspiracy means the evidence is overwhelming.

Using the good old house-of-cards analogy charging the whole handful of them could also be a strategy in its own right to make it even more likely they'll eventually get Hog and LA. As soon as they can get one of the others to crack then it's not far off. As we have only really heard from JB and LA publicly we don't even know if some of them already have...

 

[aphronesis]

I think we should organize a big party and gather all of the victims (and supporters) in one place. Invite the press to photo/video it. A big F-U that Lance would have to read about.

Wouldn't that be cool? We wouldn't even have to wait for a USADA outcome. We could just declare the victory and emotionally slay the beast.

I say San Diego. Nice weather, plenty of victims living in the vicinity, plenty to do, etc.

Anyone?

Oooh, a victim rally: that does sound exciting. How 80's. Maybe you can hand out meds at the door to get things rolling...

 

[Jeremiah]

You're aware

I had a situation once where I had a long, drawn-out legal battle with a foe who was very (truly) passive-aggressive. The huge lesson I learned was that no matter what, no matter how awesome the evidence against him was, he would ALWAYS have a "yes, but" to tack-on to anything I said or did (always). Everything I did to try and settle the matter amicably (IE, just to get rid of the MOFO) always resulted in the guy trying to manipulate and "manage" me. I had to teach myself to stop engaging him verbally, as his clinical narcissism physically prevented him from actually behaving rationally. Even in the end, he even tried to manipulate the court-appointed arbitrator when we were settling so that it ended on his terms. He even had to control how long he had to physically sign his name (as he had a deadline imposed on him).

Lance is SO much like this guy. I hope you all never have to encounter anything beyond READING about such people. If you ever have to deal with it in person, just hire an attorney and let that guy do all the talking (in writing). Trust me.

that these people have taken over? Look at management at large corporations. They're literally creating this mindset. Get on the line with customer service agents justifying large, 1 day late payment fees on credit cards. These people are pervasive. Maybe not as good as your opponent but they are in training.

 

[ChrisE]

that these people have taken over? Look at management at large corporations. They're literally creating this mindset. Get on the line with customer service agents justifying large, 1 day late payment fees on credit cards. These people are pervasive. Maybe not as good as your opponent but they are in training.

Finally some useful info in the clinic: Don't be late on your cc bill.

 

[Race Radio]

I say San Diego. Nice weather, plenty of victims living in the vicinity, plenty to do, etc.

Anyone?

Sounds great, but don't think you and your hippy friends are crashing at my place

 

[ChrisE]

Oooh, a victim rally: that does sound exciting. How 80's. Maybe you can hand out meds at the door to get things rolling...

Yes, and I suggest handing out t-shirts at the door for FL, TH, etc. I have some pithy sayings to put on them but I better keep quiet else I might get canned. Perhaps they can petition for special status with the EEOC.

I must say I will pat myself on the back by saying LA would fight this. The usual prognosticators in here were saying he would lay down and that just shows their willful ignorance of what he is about, and their underestimation of him. IF he would have been indicted by the Feds then he wouldn't have plead and he would have taken it too trial and won as well. Too bad I didn't get to rub that in the cult's faces.

I hope LA beats this because he was the best on the road (good work in here the other day Krebs) and this whole issue stinks. Trygart charges him because he wouldn't come confess while others did, and now the testimony of those others will be used against him while they get off. Others who had free will to engage or not to engage in doping, and had zero problem enriching themselves with the winning while on USPS. Maybe FL can ride a wheelie for the victim crowd at the party like he did on the Champs in 2002 while all smiles in the USPS kit. USADA charges all at once to get more people to roll over to get the big prize that allowed others to thrive. Makes me want to puke.

Give me a break. Only within the pretzel (un)ethical logic of the clinic does this get rave reviews.

LA's defense will be as he submitted the 22nd and then some, and as I wrote way upthread this will be a bloodbath before it is all over. He has alot more to lose than those titles and scorched earth will be the result.

 

[mewmewmew13]

miaow!

10 chars

lol!!

:...