Holy showtime Batman - Lance to admit doping?

[scirocco]

How many times will Oprah say "How did you feel when you...[insert doping related activity here]?"

Not too much chance of any hard questions if Armstrong decides to do anything but a full confession. If he could survive press conferences with guys like Kimmage and Walsh who were out to get him then Oprah will be easy meat.

[ColinOldnCranky]

This is a pretty condensed indication of the sort of case that was made against Lance - most or all of this goes way back to LA Confidential and before. It takes the form of questions that Oprah should be asking.

Anyway, for those who only have a general concept of what US Postal and Armstrong were about, have a read. Perhaps the idea that Lance was only doing what everyone else did could be put to bed.

from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/sport ... d=all&_r=0

Here are the questions Winfrey needed to ask if she wanted to “go deep” with her inquiry, as Armstrong suggested she should.

‘ARMY OF ENABLERS’ The United States Anti-Doping Agency said you had “an army of enablers” helping you dope. Who were the accomplices who were essential in your getting away with it?

When you briefly retired from cycling after winning the 2005 Tour, you said you did so to spend time with your children and be a better father. Do your five children, ages 2 to 13, know about your doping past? If so, when and how did you tell them?

As a teenager, you began training with the then United States national team coach Chris Carmichael, the man you said became your longtime personal coach. (The infamous Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, who is serving a lifetime ban from Olympic sports for doping athletes, is thought to be the real brains behind your success.)

Carmichael, who founded a successful training business on the fact that he was your coach, was accused of doping national team riders in the 1990s at the same time he began working with you. (Carmichael eventually settled the case out of court.)

Did Carmichael have anything to do with your doping, or have any knowledge of your doping? If not, when did you first begin using performance-enhancing drugs and who provided those drugs to you?

DISPUTED ADMISSION Frankie Andreu, one of your former teammates and closest friends, said he and his wife, Betsy, heard a doping confession from you in October 1996 when visiting you in a hospital while you fought cancer. They said they were in the room with several of your friends when they overheard two doctors ask if you had ever used performance-enhancing drugs. They said you had answered yes: EPO, testosterone, human growth hormone and cortisone.

Stephanie McIlvain, your personal representative at Oakley who is married to a man high up in that company, told the three-time Tour winner Greg LeMond in a 2004 phone call that she heard that doping admission. “I’m not going to lie,” she said in the conversation that LeMond secretly recorded. “You know, I was in that room. I heard it.”

When you denied, again and again, that the admission never occurred, were you lying? If so, how did you keep most of the people in the hospital room that day quiet about your doping?

Did former sponsors, like Nike and Oakley, know about your doping? Did they ever ask you about any of the doping allegations? If not, why do you think they never asked when the evidence against you was mounting?

WHAT DID YOUR EX-WIFE AND SUBSEQUENT PARTNERS KNOW? According to the United States Anti-Doping Agency, at least one of your former teammates said your former wife, Kristin, was complicit in your doping. At the 1998 world championships, one rider said Kristin Armstrong handed out cortisone pills wrapped in aluminum foil, prompting another rider to say, “Lance’s wife is rolling joints.”

How and when did Kristin become involved in your doping program and was it difficult to tell her about it at first? Were your subsequent partners — including Sheryl Crow and current girlfriend, Anna Hansen — also privy to your doping?

HARASSMENT ACCUSATIONS Did you ever have any concern about disparaging and harassing so many of the people who claimed you had doped, like the Andreus, the former bicycle mechanic and personal assistant Mike Anderson, the former masseuse Emma O’Reilly or LeMond and his wife, Kathy?

The Andreus testified in a 2005 civil case that you had admitted to drug use in the Indianapolis hospital room in 1996, and you subsequently called them liars. Frankie Andreu said he had trouble keeping jobs within cycling because you had blackballed him for speaking out. Is it true that you used your power in cycling to try to crush him and his family?

You called O’Reilly a prostitute and an alcoholic and harassed Anderson so much that he and his family had to flee Austin, Tex., for New Zealand. LeMond claimed you sought to destroy his bike company by pressuring the manufacturer of those bikes, Trek Bicycle Corporation, to undermine him.

Do you regret anything you said or did to those people? How will make amends with them?

BRIBERY ACCUSATIONS At least two riders have claimed that you bribed officials at the International Cycling Union, cycling’s world governing body, to cover up a positive drug test at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland. If that is true, whose idea was that bribe and how did the transaction occur? Were Pat McQuaid, the cycling union’s president, or Hein Verbruggen, the union’s honorary president involved?

The investment banker Thom Weisel is one of the defendants named in a federal whistle-blower lawsuit that was filed by Floyd Landis, one of your former teammates. Landis said that Weisel and other principals of the United States Postal Service team, including you, used taxpayer dollars to fund the team’s doping when doping constituted a violation of the sponsorship contract.

How much did Weisel know about the team’s doping? He also has been an integral part of USA Cycling, the sport’s national governing body. Did officials within that organization have any knowledge of your drug program? Did they ever question you about the doping accusations that have dogged you for more than a decade?

EPO Dr. Craig Nichols, an oncologist who treated your cancer, gave written testimony in a lawsuit in 2005 that you never admitted, suggested or indicated to him that you ever used performance-enhancing drugs. He testified that he checked your blood levels periodically from 1996 to October 2001 and that your blood levels “remained consistent and did not fluctuate outside the normal range.”

“Had Lance Armstrong been using EPO to enhance his cycling performance, I would have likely identified the differences in his blood levels,” he said.

If Nichols was telling the truth, but you were taking EPO during the time he had been monitoring your blood, how did you keep your blood levels consistent? Did it worry you that he would discover your drug regimen?

COMING CLEAN Before the United States Anti-Doping Agency released its 1,000 pages of evidence against you last fall, did you ever think you would come clean? Or did you think you would go to your grave with your secret?




Brian Stelter contributed reporting.

[birdbrain]

Not much chance of some(or any) of those being asked COC.

[AUbicycles]

Lance: "One Big Lie"
Lance: "The story and so toxic, and a lot of it is true"

Says the last time he doped was 2005.

We are getting the answers we want.
Denies (to this point) that he pressured others to dope.

[gretaboy]

Lance: "One Big Lie"
Lance: "The story and so toxic, and a lot of it is true"

Says the last time he doped was 2005.

We are getting the answers we want.
Denies (to this point) that he pressured others to dope.

No we are only getting the answers Lance wants us to have...this all scripted to get him back competing

[rangersac]

He's going for confession that it was all him and no-one else, quite to the contrary of the USADA report. Call me a cynic but I think it's a case of damage control here, limiting the lawsuits that are now bound to follow. I'm with gretaboy here, it's beautifully scripted. Only question now is can Oprah throw him off his stride.

[g-boaf]

I'm watching it now - she's asking some questions that are making him uneasy. He's sitting there, squirming and taking his time, stuttering a bit. You know what that means.

I never much liked him, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. What I'm hearing now just galvanises my dislike of him.

I do not believe the line that he didn't have the ability to hire and fire riders. That didn't seem believable - I bet he did have the ability to do that through indirect means. Not direct as in leaving a paper trail, but enough indirect pressure and influence to make it happen.

Some good stuff in this interview.

[AUbicycles]

No we are only getting the answers Lance wants us to have...this all scripted to get him back competing

I hear you, though it is the first time that were are hearing an admission - previously is was unnamed sources and unconfirmed.

It is hard to believe that he didn't pressure other riders to dope.

[gretaboy]

No we are only getting the answers Lance wants us to have...this all scripted to get him back competing

I hear you, though it is the first time that were are hearing an admission - previously is was unnamed sources and unconfirmed.

It is hard to believe that he didn't pressure other riders to dope.

yeah its a start...but this is in Tigers Woods territory of apology....piss poor

it will only open more doors, and it will be hard for anyone to believe what he is saying is the truth

##EDIT: I am flawed...what a copout

[rangersac]

yeah its a start...but this is in Tigers Woods territory of apology....piss poor

Expect I don't think we'll be seeing a Nike advert with Lance's dad and him apologising for doping, they might avoid that one this time around!

## EDIT: Gretaboy the 'I am flawed argument' plays the perfect game with limiting liability.

[AUbicycles]

Open question - what are we interested in hearing, or is it now becoming repetive.

I see it becoming non-detailed (like doping and syringes in coke can in the team bus). The answer should be yes or no, Lance was uncertain.

We are also hearing nothing definitive about other people, no specific accusations.
It is (for Lance) about having the questions asked in the right way

[gretaboy]

The simple fact that he isnt willing to talk about others shows that this isnt a real apology or in depth discussion about the doping...the fact that he still paints Ferrari in a good light says lots...and lots

he still has no issues with the doping as far as I see...he is only doing this because he got caught, too much proof against him

[birdbrain]

Talk about soft.

http://ownspecial.oprah.com/lancearmstrong.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[stinhambo]

I actually care little for the guy or his eventual outcome.

[Shred931]

he is only doing this because he got caught, too much proof against him

You can pretty much say that about all those caught up in the saga.

[biker jk]

He's trotted out the excuse that he didn't believe he was cheating because it was a level playing field. Sure, everyone was paying Ferrari $1m per year and bribing the UCI not to test positive.

[rangersac]

The simple fact that he isnt willing to talk about others shows that this isnt a real apology or in depth discussion about the doping...the fact that he still paints Ferrari in a good light says lots...and lots

he still has no issues with the doping as far as I see...he is only doing this because he got caught, too much proof against him

If he talks about others he opens a whole avenue of defamation/ bullying/ destruction of livelihood lawsuits (take your pick on the person he talks about). For me it's up to Oprah to now pursue that in her questioning. Yes he's admitted doping, but he hasn't admitted the influence he had on others. That's the real game-changer that I'd be interesting in hearing. One more person (even if it's Lance) whose been on the juice in the TDF is hardly earth shattering.

[sogood]

SMH has live text commentary on the broadcast? Wow!
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling/liv ... 2cxe7.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

All those commercial breaks are perfectly suited for these transcripts. LOL

[g-boaf]

It's not what he says, but the way he says it, and especially what he doesn't say (or hasn't said yet). And even if he did make accusations, who would believe him? He's tainted badly, a bully, etc But there is more to go, and a second part of it tomorrow I believe.

The commercial breaks are also good for grabbing documents from the printer.

[reefer]

Watching it now

http://ownspecial.oprah.com/lancearmstrong.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[AUbicycles]

Shirking the UCI.... says he is not a fan so putting himself on the "popular" side now. Says the UCI didn't have money and asked so there is nothing fishy... very hard to believe.

Admits to Emma O'Reilly cortisone story.

--

Yes, he becomes hazy on a lot of topics but we are still getting some answers - and on the topics he wont answer and skirts about, I agree that he isn't sounding very believable - why should we believe him now. He is admitting more than I thought he would but only enough to save his skin - still is an arrogant figure and not apologetic with the topics he doesn't want to talk about.

[familyguy]

And this: http://live.cyclingnews.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[sogood]

It's a legal and financial minefield for LA. And it's clear that he has been well coached to circumvent those traps in the interview. Gosh, he sure can hold a straight face, almost as good as Dubya, a fellow Texan.

I think it'd be so much easier if he has accepted that he'll go bankrupt, then he can freely admit to everything. And given the fact that he has been able to hold on top of the road cycling world for 7 years (even with dope), he is clearly set to fight all the way. All quite consistent with his personality.

[gretaboy]

It's a legal minefield for LA. And it's clear that he has been well coached to circumvent those traps in the interview. Gosh, he sure can hold a straight face, almost as good as Dubya, a fellow Texan.

+1 as to being well coached

[rangersac]

It's a legal minefield for LA. And it's clear that he has been well coached to circumvent those traps in the interview. Gosh, he sure can hold a straight face, almost as good as Dubya, a fellow Texan.

And Oprah is making it easy for him. Hasn't pressed him about lying under oath when she's shown video of him doing just that, hasn't pressed him on Ferrari, hasn't pressed him on Hamilton. Hope there's something more than the currency of shame on tomorrow's episode.