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| George Hincapie (left) and Lance Armstrong rode together in each |
Krieger: Feds Take Chance on Pursuing Lance
Keep in mind the age of innocence, when we had been shocked and appalled that an athlete may be working with performance-enhancing drugs and lying about it?
Today, the only component of the story that shocks us is the fact that the feds and "60 Minutes" are still pursuing it.
They stay on the situation mainly because there is certainly big game left to bag. It is only fair, just after all. They went right after Marion Jones and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. They can't quite well leave out Lance Armstrong, even when he can be a hero to cancer individuals across the world.
There is a track cycling occasion known as the person pursuit. That is what this can be.
In accordance with advance publicity from CBS, Tyler Hamilton of Boulder will appear on "60 Minutes" tonight to provide first-person testimony that Armstrong, his former teammate, utilised performance-enhancing drugs in the course of a cycling career that produced an unprecedented seven Tour de France titles.
CBS reports that 3 former teammates, such as George Hincapie, who rode with Armstrong throughout all seven of his title runs, confirmed it to federal authorities. Hincapie has declined to comment on the report.
Armstrong has constantly denied it. His latest denial, on Twitter, was slightly more circumspect, simply citing his excellent record in drug tests. We do not know if he has been asked to deny it beneath oath, as Jones, Bonds and Clemens were. Assuming the charges are accurate - and that could be the strategy to bet at this point - he could be well-advised not to make the identical mistake they did. Nobody, apart from possibly the French, would like to find out Lance Armstrong on trial for perjury.
Armstrong is unique from other athletes caught up in steroid scandals because self-absorption doesn't seem to be his defining trait. He has been additional than a role model towards the victims of America's cancer epidemic. He has been their enthusiastic champion. Armstrong made it not merely courageous to survive cancer, he created it cool. Millions of Livestrong wristbands are an unspoken code for not giving up. Climbing mountains on that bike was an virtually too-perfect inspirational metaphor for what cancer patients face.
It didn't hurt him in the States that soon after coming back from testicular cancer that spread to his brain and lungs, he conquered not just the French Alps but the French themselves. When French journalists went right after him, insisting he was cheating, Americans rallied behind the notion that it was European sour grapes.
He won more than far more fans with his character than the other federal PED targets combined. When he completed third in the men's road time trial at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, I asked him at the news conference why the Olympics seemed to provide him such trouble, noting the bronze was his initial medal in 3 Olympic Games.
"Thanks for mentioning that," he deadpanned.
And now comes "60 Minutes" to say those French journalists had been appropriate all along, that Armstrong was blood-doping and testosterone-pumping and lying about it for years.
Certainly, his accusers all lied about it too. In Colorado, Hamilton regaled us with his adamant, indignant denials. Who can forget his lawyers' claim in 2004 that Hamilton may well be a chimera, that uncommon biological item of two fertilized eggs fused together, to explain an antidoping test in the Tour of Spain that indicated he had the blood of two different people in his process?
Our outrage over all this, such as it was, has waned. It isn't just the flood of facts about sports doping that has intervened. Other, far more damaging lies have come to light in other spheres, which make the remains of the doping investigations seem just about quaint.
We're nonetheless battling the after- effects of a financial crisis constructed on a mountain of lies - by mortgage brokers, by borrowers, by investment bankers, by ratings agencies. Who is getting hauled just before grand juries for that? Who's getting threatened with perjury prosecution? Who's going to jail?
The truth is essential, wherever it seems, but it is usually a strange statement of priorities that athletes lying about PEDs are exactly where the feds draw the line. It takes a good deal extra courage to go right after the barons of Wall Street than the former members of a defunct cycling team.
Indeed, using PEDs in cycling now seems to have been so widespread, it wasn't a competitive benefit in any way, far more like a price of undertaking business enterprise. Hamilton tells "60 Minutes": "(Armstrong) took what all of us took . . . the majority with the peloton . . ."
In contrast to other famous athletes caught up inside the PED era, Armstrong's athletic accomplishments usually are not his most important contribution to society. Just ask the cancer patients he's touched.
Honestly? If Armstrong is lying, let's just hope he isn't carrying out it under oath.
Krieger: Feds Take Chance on Pursuing Lance
Keep in mind the age of innocence, when we had been shocked and appalled that an athlete may be working with performance-enhancing drugs and lying about it?
Today, the only component of the story that shocks us is the fact that the feds and "60 Minutes" are still pursuing it.
They stay on the situation mainly because there is certainly big game left to bag. It is only fair, just after all. They went right after Marion Jones and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. They can't quite well leave out Lance Armstrong, even when he can be a hero to cancer individuals across the world.
There is a track cycling occasion known as the person pursuit. That is what this can be.
In accordance with advance publicity from CBS, Tyler Hamilton of Boulder will appear on "60 Minutes" tonight to provide first-person testimony that Armstrong, his former teammate, utilised performance-enhancing drugs in the course of a cycling career that produced an unprecedented seven Tour de France titles.
CBS reports that 3 former teammates, such as George Hincapie, who rode with Armstrong throughout all seven of his title runs, confirmed it to federal authorities. Hincapie has declined to comment on the report.
Armstrong has constantly denied it. His latest denial, on Twitter, was slightly more circumspect, simply citing his excellent record in drug tests. We do not know if he has been asked to deny it beneath oath, as Jones, Bonds and Clemens were. Assuming the charges are accurate - and that could be the strategy to bet at this point - he could be well-advised not to make the identical mistake they did. Nobody, apart from possibly the French, would like to find out Lance Armstrong on trial for perjury.
Armstrong is unique from other athletes caught up in steroid scandals because self-absorption doesn't seem to be his defining trait. He has been additional than a role model towards the victims of America's cancer epidemic. He has been their enthusiastic champion. Armstrong made it not merely courageous to survive cancer, he created it cool. Millions of Livestrong wristbands are an unspoken code for not giving up. Climbing mountains on that bike was an virtually too-perfect inspirational metaphor for what cancer patients face.
It didn't hurt him in the States that soon after coming back from testicular cancer that spread to his brain and lungs, he conquered not just the French Alps but the French themselves. When French journalists went right after him, insisting he was cheating, Americans rallied behind the notion that it was European sour grapes.
He won more than far more fans with his character than the other federal PED targets combined. When he completed third in the men's road time trial at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, I asked him at the news conference why the Olympics seemed to provide him such trouble, noting the bronze was his initial medal in 3 Olympic Games.
"Thanks for mentioning that," he deadpanned.
And now comes "60 Minutes" to say those French journalists had been appropriate all along, that Armstrong was blood-doping and testosterone-pumping and lying about it for years.
Certainly, his accusers all lied about it too. In Colorado, Hamilton regaled us with his adamant, indignant denials. Who can forget his lawyers' claim in 2004 that Hamilton may well be a chimera, that uncommon biological item of two fertilized eggs fused together, to explain an antidoping test in the Tour of Spain that indicated he had the blood of two different people in his process?
Our outrage over all this, such as it was, has waned. It isn't just the flood of facts about sports doping that has intervened. Other, far more damaging lies have come to light in other spheres, which make the remains of the doping investigations seem just about quaint.
We're nonetheless battling the after- effects of a financial crisis constructed on a mountain of lies - by mortgage brokers, by borrowers, by investment bankers, by ratings agencies. Who is getting hauled just before grand juries for that? Who's getting threatened with perjury prosecution? Who's going to jail?
The truth is essential, wherever it seems, but it is usually a strange statement of priorities that athletes lying about PEDs are exactly where the feds draw the line. It takes a good deal extra courage to go right after the barons of Wall Street than the former members of a defunct cycling team.
Indeed, using PEDs in cycling now seems to have been so widespread, it wasn't a competitive benefit in any way, far more like a price of undertaking business enterprise. Hamilton tells "60 Minutes": "(Armstrong) took what all of us took . . . the majority with the peloton . . ."
In contrast to other famous athletes caught up inside the PED era, Armstrong's athletic accomplishments usually are not his most important contribution to society. Just ask the cancer patients he's touched.
Honestly? If Armstrong is lying, let's just hope he isn't carrying out it under oath.
Krieger: Feds Take Chance on Pursuing Lance
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