Ziegler Natters
Kudos to anyone who gets the pun... :-)
http://competitorradio.competitor.com/2 ... zeigler-2/
New interview on Competitor Radio
"Mark Zeigler is the award winning writer for the San Diego Union Tribune who focuses on the Olympics and performance enhancing drugs in sport. He came on to fill us in on what is happening with the Lance Armstrong investigation."
They start talking about Michael Phelps but get onto Lance and the US cycling investigation about 7 min in. Just listening to it now, but Ziegler is usually bang on the money (his other interviews on the site are worth checking out).
http://competitorradio.competitor.com/2 ... zeigler-2/
New interview on Competitor Radio
"Mark Zeigler is the award winning writer for the San Diego Union Tribune who focuses on the Olympics and performance enhancing drugs in sport. He came on to fill us in on what is happening with the Lance Armstrong investigation."
They start talking about Michael Phelps but get onto Lance and the US cycling investigation about 7 min in. Just listening to it now, but Ziegler is usually bang on the money (his other interviews on the site are worth checking out).
Le Blaireau (1)
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is it supposed to cut off 20 secs into the armstrong part?"Unfortunately these days a lot of people don’t understand the real quality of a bike" Ernesto Colnago0
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No, it is over an hour long. I downloaded the .mp3 file, which is about 30.2 MB.Le Blaireau (1)0
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Some of the main points MZ makes:
- The investigation could take a while. It may well have started long before the Landis e-mails, possibly originating with Kayle Leogrande (which would tie in with Ball being a focus). Leogrande's landlord found a large amount of drugs in his apartment and the feds got interested from there.
- Several figures have already been up in front of the grand jury. The investigators seem to have learned some lessons from Balco, where there were a lot of leaks to the press, and this time they are doing a good job of keeping the investigation quiet. Coupled with newspapers having fewer resources these days, little is being reported, and no-one seems to know for sure which riders have already appeared before the jury.
- Armstrong team fighting on two fronts: federal investigation, followed by the consequences of the Feds turning their material over to USADA when they are done with it (c.f. Balco).
- Ziegler would advise Armstrong to wait til the investigation is at its height, then call a press conference and admit all. Say that he had to do this to continue his fight against cancer via his high profile in the sport. MZ thinks this would go down well with the home audience. Ziegler doesn't think his personality would allow him to do this though.
- Suggests the motive behind the investigation is that the anti-doping community want to catch another "big fish" - this sends out the strongest signal that doping is still a problem in sport. Only a small part of the motivation might be a personal vendetta from some in the anti-doping community (reference to the SCA case).
- Doesn't feel Landis will be used as the centrepiece or even called to testify due to his credibility issues. Instead they are using the information Landis has provided to go after others as witnesses, and to acquire evidence (e.g. looking back at old blood samples to look for evidence of the practices Landis has alleged and then using that to corroborate Landis). It won't be Floyd's word against Lance's word.
- The only Balco athletes that went to jail were the ones who lied. Use the same tactics here: question other riders, they will face a dilemma as they won't know what others have already said. Then call in Armstrong for questioning with this possibility of perjury / lying to a federal investigator as the backdrop. Ziegler will be most interested in whether Hamilton has confessed or not.
- Re the allegations about the UCI and tip-offs. Notes that this has happened in other sports, and there is a general conflict of interest between a governing body trying to both promote and police the sport.
- Ziegler doesn't think cycling will suffer, whether Armstrong is found guilty or not. Suggests other scandals have already meant the sport has hit rock bottom and has been working its way back up. The fact that Armstrong has left the sport has had a bigger effect than any negative outcome might have. Biggest effect will be on the fans who came to the sport only to follow Armstrong, re their investment of emotional capital.
- Discussion of the boundaries being blurred between substances and techniques which are "performance enhancing" vs "performance enabling".
- Blood passport and general greater focus on anti-doping than in the past (~1990s-early 2000s) means that athletes can still dope but not to the extravagant levels of the past - performances not as extravagant either, but still not necessarily genuine.Le Blaireau (1)0 -
Cheers Davey! I'll grab it and listen to it on the train when I stop reading damn Steig Larson books.Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0
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DaveyL wrote:- Ziegler would advise Armstrong to wait til the investigation is at its height, then call a press conference and admit all.
That I would be surprised to see...0 -
jimmythecuckoo wrote:DaveyL wrote:- Ziegler would advise Armstrong to wait til the investigation is at its height, then call a press conference and admit all.
That I would be surprised to see...
So would Ziegler...0 -
Any ideas what's going through Armstrong's mind just now?
Deep down, can he still believe that he'll get away with it?0 -
Thanks for posting. Very interesting!0
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Tusher wrote:Any ideas what's going through Armstrong's mind just now?
Deep down, can he still believe that he'll get away with it?
I would have thought he will be feeling immune to it. He has adopted this approach so far.0 -
I could imagine him confessing - I don't think he's a Landis/Hamilton type who will chuck his own money at a battle that is already lost. When it's obvious that the game is up then the best thing for his own credibility is to admit it and I reckon that's what he'll do.
I doubt it'll come with much of an apology - more a statement of how that is how things were/are in the sport. Doping was part of the fabric of cycling - he just approached it perhaps with more professionalism and more success than others.
it's a hard life if you don't weaken.0 -
- Ziegler would advise Armstrong to wait til the investigation is at its height, then call a press conference and admit all. Say that he had to do this to continue his fight against cancer via his high profile in the sport. MZ thinks this would go down well with the home audience. Ziegler doesn't think his personality would allow him to do this though.
Are Americans really that gullible? :shock: Surely his profile wasn't that high before the cancer in any case?0 -
I think the Balco case makes this sort of thing interesting in the US. Basically the gamble of continuing to protest your innocence and risking jail for lying or fessing up and taking the consequences (all assuming you actually are guilty of course).0
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aw, i thought this was going to be about polymer catalysis, hence i could class it as work...0
