Armstrong skips out on symposium where ex-friends rib him
NY DailyNews.com Thursday, May 2, 2013
For a decade, Armstrong used his exalted status to direct harsh retaliation against anyone casting doubt on his performances, which were in fact fueled by drugs and illicit blood transfusions.
Lance Armstrong was once riding high but ducks out on symposium on current state of cycling, a sad state of affairs onetime friends and teammates blame on him.
The long time thread 7 yellow Jersey's has gone to another page.
I think the subject is far from closed, so try this. (It's Old Hat, I know)
AUSTIN, Tex. — America’s only Tour de France champion, Greg LeMond, visited Austin on Monday.
Armstrong avoided a symposium in his hometown about cycling’s deep corruption entitled “The Real Price of Winning at All Costs.” Participants included some of the people Armstrong was obsessed with throughout his career — people he smeared, like Betsy Andreu, the wife of a former teammate and Bill Bock of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
Andreu said she had expected to meet with Armstrong on Monday, but said that the former cyclist — who founded the Mellow Johnny’s bike shop here — backed out of their appointment at the last minute, telling her he didn’t trust her.
Consensus among the panelists held that cycling is doomed to disgrace without profound changes to the sport’s international governing body, the UCI. The Swiss-based organization vigorously protected Armstrong despite mountains of circumstantial evidence of his guilt.
“There were payoffs, there were bribes,” LeMond said, referring to cash donations Armstrong made to the UCI.
“Conflict is a foreign concept to the UCI apparently,” said Bock, describing the group’s reluctance to share incriminating information about Armstrong. “As we’ve gotten further and further into this, we’ve been distressed.”
USADA exposed Armstrong last year by publishing evidence and testimony gathered in a long investigation that rode the coattails of a federal grand jury probe in California (Armstrong was not charged in that criminal case, though the Department of Justice has joined a whistleblower suit brought by one of his former teammates, Floyd Landis).
At one point the UCI tried to wrest jurisdiction from USADA, a move that failed. Dozens of witnesses came forward to cooperate with USADA, including many of Armstrong’s teammates.
“These guys got tired of living a lie,” Bock said.
Many of those riders were young recruits to Armstrong’s teams who were told they needed to choose to cheat or be left at home — risking their health but never making anything near the fortune Armstrong amassed.
“It was all for Lance,” said Kathy LeMond, the wife of the cyclist. “You didn’t get on the program, you got cut.”
For a decade, Armstrong used his exalted status to direct harsh retaliation against anyone casting doubt on his performances, which were in fact fueled by drugs and illicit blood transfusions. He orchestrated intimidating lawsuits, whispered character assassination to his many friends in the media and used his outsized influence within the cycling world to harm his enemies’ livelihoods.
One example is the Trek bicycle company, whose CEO, John Burke, abandoned the firm’s commitments to the LeMonds after Armstrong began obsessively smearing Greg LeMond as jealous and unstable. Trek, which had distributed a line of bikes bearing LeMond’s name, apparently decided Armstrong was much more valuable to the company.
The LeMonds sued Trek for breach-of-contract and the case ended in a settlement, but not before producing some interesting testimony that later became valuable to a grand jury investigating Armstrong’s corrupt teams.
What made the Trek episode particularly strange was how threatened Armstrong seemed to be by even-handed remarks LeMond had made during a 2001 interview with British reporter David Walsh, who shed light on Armstrong’s secretive relationship with now-banned doctor Michele Ferrari.
“If Lance is clean, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sports,” LeMond had said. “If he isn’t, it would be the greatest fraud.”
That Armstrong was so disproportionately outraged by such a comment was one of the first clues for rational observers that he had something to hide.
For a decade, Armstrong used his exalted status to direct harsh retaliation against anyone casting doubt on his performances, which were in fact fueled by drugs and illicit blood transfusions.
Lance Armstrong was once riding high but ducks out on symposium on current state of cycling, a sad state of affairs onetime friends and teammates blame on him.
The long time thread 7 yellow Jersey's has gone to another page.
I think the subject is far from closed, so try this. (It's Old Hat, I know)
AUSTIN, Tex. — America’s only Tour de France champion, Greg LeMond, visited Austin on Monday.
Armstrong avoided a symposium in his hometown about cycling’s deep corruption entitled “The Real Price of Winning at All Costs.” Participants included some of the people Armstrong was obsessed with throughout his career — people he smeared, like Betsy Andreu, the wife of a former teammate and Bill Bock of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
Andreu said she had expected to meet with Armstrong on Monday, but said that the former cyclist — who founded the Mellow Johnny’s bike shop here — backed out of their appointment at the last minute, telling her he didn’t trust her.
Consensus among the panelists held that cycling is doomed to disgrace without profound changes to the sport’s international governing body, the UCI. The Swiss-based organization vigorously protected Armstrong despite mountains of circumstantial evidence of his guilt.
“There were payoffs, there were bribes,” LeMond said, referring to cash donations Armstrong made to the UCI.
“Conflict is a foreign concept to the UCI apparently,” said Bock, describing the group’s reluctance to share incriminating information about Armstrong. “As we’ve gotten further and further into this, we’ve been distressed.”
USADA exposed Armstrong last year by publishing evidence and testimony gathered in a long investigation that rode the coattails of a federal grand jury probe in California (Armstrong was not charged in that criminal case, though the Department of Justice has joined a whistleblower suit brought by one of his former teammates, Floyd Landis).
At one point the UCI tried to wrest jurisdiction from USADA, a move that failed. Dozens of witnesses came forward to cooperate with USADA, including many of Armstrong’s teammates.
“These guys got tired of living a lie,” Bock said.
Many of those riders were young recruits to Armstrong’s teams who were told they needed to choose to cheat or be left at home — risking their health but never making anything near the fortune Armstrong amassed.
“It was all for Lance,” said Kathy LeMond, the wife of the cyclist. “You didn’t get on the program, you got cut.”
For a decade, Armstrong used his exalted status to direct harsh retaliation against anyone casting doubt on his performances, which were in fact fueled by drugs and illicit blood transfusions. He orchestrated intimidating lawsuits, whispered character assassination to his many friends in the media and used his outsized influence within the cycling world to harm his enemies’ livelihoods.
One example is the Trek bicycle company, whose CEO, John Burke, abandoned the firm’s commitments to the LeMonds after Armstrong began obsessively smearing Greg LeMond as jealous and unstable. Trek, which had distributed a line of bikes bearing LeMond’s name, apparently decided Armstrong was much more valuable to the company.
The LeMonds sued Trek for breach-of-contract and the case ended in a settlement, but not before producing some interesting testimony that later became valuable to a grand jury investigating Armstrong’s corrupt teams.
What made the Trek episode particularly strange was how threatened Armstrong seemed to be by even-handed remarks LeMond had made during a 2001 interview with British reporter David Walsh, who shed light on Armstrong’s secretive relationship with now-banned doctor Michele Ferrari.
“If Lance is clean, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sports,” LeMond had said. “If he isn’t, it would be the greatest fraud.”
That Armstrong was so disproportionately outraged by such a comment was one of the first clues for rational observers that he had something to hide.
Organiser, National Championship 50 mile Time Trial 1972
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