Tomorrow's Wall Street Journal

iainf72

Bonnie Ford writes a very good piece

http://espn.go.com/olympics/tdf2010/crunchtime

cal_stewart

Later that night, some of the cyclists drove downtown to the offices of the agency that represents Mr. Armstrong. There, the party accelerated, according to Mr. Landis. Four strippers arrived at the offices with two bouncers and began performing a private show for the cyclists and others, he said. Mr. Landis and another young rider who attended, Walker Ferguson, said some people were snorting what appeared to be cocaine.

Mr. Armstrong didn't respond to requests for comment about Mr. Landis's description of the party. His lawyer, Tim Herman of Austin, said: "Mr. Armstrong had no contact with strippers or cocaine."

Bet Tom Boonen wishes he was there.

andyp

Cal_Stewart wrote:

Later that night, some of the cyclists drove downtown to the offices of the agency that represents Mr. Armstrong. There, the party accelerated, according to Mr. Landis. Four strippers arrived at the offices with two bouncers and began performing a private show for the cyclists and others, he said. Mr. Landis and another young rider who attended, Walker Ferguson, said some people were snorting what appeared to be cocaine.

Mr. Armstrong didn't respond to requests for comment about Mr. Landis's description of the party. His lawyer, Tim Herman of Austin, said: "Mr. Armstrong had no contact with strippers or cocaine."

Bet Tom Boonen wishes he was there.

He might have been, given it was before the 2002 season, wasn't that the year Boonen turned pro with USPS?

blazing_saddles

iainf72 wrote:

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Is the bike selling a further case of fraud?

Depends. But what it does do is give a clue for the money trail. 60 bikes would probably bring in about a quarter of a million $'s. It would've been kept off book though so....

But like the man Novitzky said in Balco. it's amazing what people will leave lying around when they think they're untouchable

Yes, given the quoted figure of $10-20K per bike, even $250 would be a conservative number.
Certainly a sizeable amount of money to be put towards nefarious use.

I wonder will the inevitable gendramerie "sting" operation place dummy cameras in easily discovered places, to cover the real ones? :P

AndyRubio

Lance is such a maniac, he barely stops at stop signs!

Hardly the smoking gun eh.

disgruntledgoat

AndyRubio wrote:

Lance is such a maniac, he barely stops at stop signs!

Hardly the smoking gun eh.

Don't forget he also alledgedly frequents strip clubs, orders drinks and has been in the same room as a substance which may or may not have been cocaine.

That's the froth part of this story and no mistake.

micron

In the twittersphere Matt Rendell has confirmed frequent visits to strip club, Joe Papp has confirmed the sale of bikes to finance dodgy dealings.

Meanwhile Armstrong blusters on about sour milk and credibility ans how Landis is always retracting - now why would he retract a story that is achieving more independent corroboration by the minute?

I see Prudhomme has reverted to type - not a whisper from ASO on (alleged) blow, blood doping and theft (let alone an ongoing federal investigation) - really makes a mockery of ASO exclusion policy. Clearly the senstimental 'my last Tour' announcement buys total immunity from scrutiny.

dulldave

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Given how quickly BMC suspended Ballan and Santambroggio, I'd say Big George is currently the more likely not to start or finish the Tour, than the Texas mafia.

It would probably be a bit rich given the owner and manager of BMC are implicated in the same scandal.

frenchfighter

"My Lance Armstrong prediction? Either he will not start or he will pull out just before the race enters France. I have a feeling that the world of cycling is about to change for the better."

Greg Le Mond.

The sooner he pulls out the better as I am tired of having to wade through photos of him to find some quality ones.

iainf72

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Yes, given the quoted figure of $10-20K per bike, even $250 would be a conservative number.
Certainly a sizeable amount of money to be put towards nefarious use.

I can't imagine anyone would pay that kind of money for a Trek. (and I have a Trek mountain bike before any fanbois kick off)

andyp

frenchfighter wrote:

The sooner he pulls out the better as I am tired of having to wade through photos of him to find some quality ones.

That's the best reason you can come up with? Jesus wept.

andyp

Armstrong responds;

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/armstro ... et-journal

He needs to sign up on here so we can teach him about playing the ball, not the man. :roll:

iainf72

andyp wrote:

He needs to sign up on here so we can teach him about playing the ball, not the man. :roll:

It's a pretty pitiful response, isn't it? He certainly lost his knack for batting things away with relative ease.

I'm curious about what he thinks has been discredited though/ Odd.

blazing_saddles

andyp wrote:

Armstrong responds;

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/armstro ... et-journal

He needs to sign up on here so we can teach him about playing the ball, not the man. :roll:

Besides, he's only got one ball to play with, but quite a few men and even the odd woman!

iainf72 wrote:

[
It's a pretty pitiful response, isn't it? He certainly lost his knack for batting things away with relative ease.
I'm curious about what he thinks has been discredited though/ Odd.

The usual "lacks credibility" tag he's thrown at all the others.
Question is: How many incredible witnesses does it take to change a lightbulb and the credibility.
SSDD, one might say.

Tusher

So, Armstrong tried to take out an injunction to stop this (largely) rehashed stuff, and RadioShack pulled their press conference on the eve of the Tour.

I reckon that not only is there more to come, but LA, Hog et al thought that there was Something More Important about to be revealed in the WSJ.

afx237vi

It was a pretty poor article though, wasn't it? They sat on that for an entire month? Disappointing.

And getting a quote from Chad Gerlach? WTF?

andyp

So according to John Wilcockson, this is a ploy by Rupert Murdoch to bring down the Tour;

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/armstro ... et-journal

Presumably Team Sky are fifth columnists?

Do you think he engaged his brain before writing that article?

donrhummy

micron wrote:

Trek accused Lemond of bringing them into disrepute by reselling bikes yet condone the same practice at USPS? I wonder if diverted funds from the sale of brand new team Treks is something Lemond knows about and would have used?

Um..no. Read the Trek person's quote. They changed the contract after finding this out and now the team has to either ride them or give them to a junior team.

donrhummy

iainf72 wrote:

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Is the bike selling a further case of fraud?

Depends. But what it does do is give a clue for the money trail. 60 bikes would probably bring in about a quarter of a million $'s. It would've been kept off book though so....

But like the man Novitzky said in Balco. it's amazing what people will leave lying around when they think they're untouchable

Maybe but the problem is that every team resells at least some of their bikes after the season. So differentiating would be hard.

iainf72

Okay, so some of the pulled content was about the number of calls and what was said to Landis by Armstrong post 06 positive, Landis talking about using EPO in the Vuelta and not testing positive and more straight up on the coke and hookers piece.

Looks like things are going to keep coming out for a while yet.

knedlicky

iainf72 wrote:

60 bikes would probably bring in about a quarter of a million $'s. It would've been kept off book though so....

About 1996, a cycling acquaintance of mine appeared with a bike he’d bought from Motorola (for whom he worked), supposedly the team frame bike used the year previous by Belgian rider Dernies. I think it might have been a Merckx. My acquaintance told me it had been a ‘secret’ sale between himself and the team directorship (sport director was Ochowicz), and that he had been told Motorola sold off riders’ bikes to fund their medical training programme.

The LA Confidential book mentions Motorola rider Swart said Epo was discussed and used in the Motorola team in 1995 and that LA was the main advocate of its introduction and use, LA suggesting starting a medical programme. Swart said he thinks only two riders avoided using Epo that year, neither of which was called Dernies or LA.

The Jack

Cetrainly no smoking gun in the article. If that is all they´ve got Lance can sleep soundly at night.
If ex-teammates with credibility -wich Landis doesen´t have a ounce of- start collaborating it´s a different story.

iainf72

The Jack wrote:

Cetrainly no smoking gun in the article. If that is all they´ve got Lance can sleep soundly at night.
If ex-teammates with credibility -wich Landis doesen´t have a ounce of- start collaborating it´s a different story.

The reason it's so serious is the WSJ have high standards and won't print something they've not confirmed. So 3 others who were on USPS have confirmed what Floyd said. And the story with selling the bikes, again, they got confirmation from Trek.

I doubt he's completely at ease about it. He knows his ex-team mates are talking. And while you might be able to get them to keep quiet to newspapers and the like, when Big Jeff comes knocking, you don't lie to him

liversedge

Frankly, LA must be shitting himself. The Feds don't play nice and he can't control or attack them. And when it's Novotzky well...

If LA was ultimately stripped of his 7 tour victories then who would pick 'em up? Most GC lists are a rogues gallery for the 99-05 era, no?

No_Ta_Doctor

I think that's actually closer to a smoking gun than most people give credit for. Sure, there's no named rider coming out with "Yes, we did it" but....

There's some new details - the bike selling (confirmed) and the hotel room stuff (just fleshes out earlier accusations), but most importantly it's confirmed by other riders on the team at the time. Whether or not they've confirmed specific details would be interesting to know- the bus story remains my favourite - but the fact is this has now moved way beyond where LA can talk about Landis' credibility. It's not his word against Landis now, Landis has backup.

If those riders are willing to talk, even anonymously, to the WSJ then what are the odds that at least one will break cover with the feds?

Frankly I'm surprised the WSJ didn't make a bit more play with this. A headline of "Landis allegations confirmed!" (ok, I'm not a great headline writer) wouldn't have been out of place, as it is it reads less like an expose and more like a background piece. Any English tabloid would have gone to town with what they have there (no, I'm not a fan of tabloids). It's all strangely low key, though I'll admit to not having seen it on paper, and not having seen how they advertised it.

As for them "sitting on it", I think "timing it" is probably a better description, they haven't had endless meetings about whether they can run with it or not, they just kept it back until they can get maximum exposure.

No_Ta_Doctor

liversedge wrote:

If LA was ultimately stripped of his 7 tour victories then who would pick 'em up? Most GC lists are a rogues gallery for the 99-05 era, no?

They should just junk them.

iainf72

Mr Birnie sez

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/lat ... erica.html

timoid.

I find the bit about Bottle and Landis combining to get gear quite interesting. He must be bricking himself too.

skavanagh.bikeradar

I bet he is Timoid. It's not an earth shattering collection of information, but it does add fat to the bones. It will be interesting to see if any cracks start to appear amongst those implicated.

flattythehurdler

knedlicky wrote:

sagalout wrote:

knedlicky wrote:

whiteboytrash wrote:

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2010/06/28/daily30.html
Cyclist Lance Armstrong's philanthropic product line— made famous by the iconic, yellow Livestrong bracelets — will hit stores outside of the U.S., U.K., France and Canada Thursday.

Nike are also offering a service whereby you can send in a message of hope or inspiration and they will have a machine write it in yellow chalk on the road somewhere along the Tour route and let you know by email the GPS coordinates of where they have written your text. They hope to receive, then write 100,000 texts.

They did this last year too - it's not new

What a flop then, last year, or a big con. I rode most of the two stages around the Vosges last Tour (eariler the day they rode into Colmar and then part of the day after) and didn’t notice even one inspirational message on the road –

The most inspirational thing written on the road is "sommet a 1km" (or less)