Thursday 11 October 2012

Nike Maintain Lance Link


Nike are refusing to cut their ties with Lance Armstrong despite his role as ringleader in 'the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme sport has ever seen'.

Armstrong's myth as a cycling hero has been blown to pieces by evidence exposing the seven-time Tour de France winner.

Despite the mounting backlash against the one-time icon, Armstrong's main sponsor Nike continue to back him.

After the latest revelations emerged, Nike re-released the same statement first issued in August. It reads: 'We are saddened that Lance Armstrong may no longer be able to participate in certain competitions and his titles appear to be impacted.

Two journalists have campaigned for a decade to expose Armstrong as a drugs cheat. Sunday Times sportswriter David Walsh led the way, with the co-author of his book, L.A. Confidentiel, Pierre Ballester, as well as the former Tour de France rider and journalist Paul Kimmage.

Walsh discovered Armstrong was working with Dr Michele Ferrari, an Italian coach who was suspected of administering EPO.

Walsh tweeted: 'In the war on doping, this is a seminal moment. An untouchable is about to be exposed, one who believed he was protected by his own sport.'

Kimmage, the author of Rough Ride, about his own experiences with drugs as a professional cyclist in the 1980s, confronted Armstrong at his comeback in 2009.

In a heated exchange between the two, Kimmage, who has also written for the Daily Mail, repeated his earlier claim that Armstrong represented 'the cancer of doping'.

More recently, cycling's world governing body the UCI announced that they are suing Kimmage for his claims that they are 'corrupt'. Supporters of Kimmage have raised more than $50,000 to help him.

The dossier, described as 'jaw-dropping' by British Cycling performance director David Brailsford, was delivered to the headquarters of cycling's world governing body, the UCI. It is based on the sworn testimony of 26 people, including 15 cyclists who were involved in, or had knowledge of, the doping conspiracy. It also uses scientific evidence and bank records.

But the report has also been described as 'one-sided hatchet job,' the cyclist's lawyer have said. 

'We have seen the press release from USADA touting the upcoming release today of its "reasoned decision,"' Armstrong lawyer Sean Breen said.

'(The) statement confirms the alleged "reasoned decision" from USADA will be a one-sided hatchet job - a taxpayer-funded tabloid piece rehashing old, disproved, unreliable allegations based largely on axe-grinders, serial perjurers, coerced testimony, sweetheart deals and threat-induced stories,' 

Breen also said the agency was 'ignoring the 500-600 tests Lance Armstrong passed, ignoring all exculpatory evidence, and trying to justify the millions of dollars USADA has spent pursuing one, single athlete for years.'

He added: 'USADA has continued its government-funded witch hunt of only Mr Armstrong, a retired cyclist, in violation of its own rules and due process, in spite of USADA’s lack of jurisdiction, in blatant violation of the statute of limitations.'

Armstrong led the US Postal team from 1998, when he launched a comeback after recovering from cancer, to 2005, when he retired after winning a record seventh Tour. Travis Tygart, the head of USADA, said that during this period 'Armstrong acted as a ringleader and intimidated people who spoke out about doping'.

It amounted, said Tygart, to a 'doping conspiracy professionally designed to groom and pressure athletes to use dangerous drugs, to evade detection, to ensure its secrecy and ultimately gain an unfair advantage.

'The evidence shows beyond any doubt that the US Postal Service pro cycling team ran the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen.'

The report also alleges that Armstrong paid more than $1million (£625,000) to a Swiss bank account controlled by Dr Michele Ferrari, an Italian coach who has consistently been linked to doping and who stands accused by USADA of administering banned products.

USADA spent five months building a case against Armstrong, his former team director and three doctors connected to his former team, including Ferrari.

Five individuals connected to the team - the former director, Johan Bruyneel, Ferrari, two other doctors and Armstrong - were charged with doping offences in June and given until August 24 to respond. Armstrong opted not to contest the charges, instead releasing a statement that accused USADA of a 'witch-hunt'.

Brailsford said: It is shocking, it’s jaw dropping and it is very unpleasant, it’s not very palatable and anybody who says it is would be lying wouldn’t they?’

‘You can see how the sport got lost in itself and got more and more extreme because it seemed to be systematic and everybody seemed to be doing it at the time - it completely and utterly lost its way and I think it lost its moral compass.'

He added: ‘Everybody has recalibrated and several teams like ourselves are hell-bent on doing it the right way and doing it clean. ‘The challenge is that it is understandable now for people to look at any results in cycling and question that.’

The 15 riders who testified to the agency include six active riders who have all been given reduced six-month bans for their co-operation. Tygart said: 'Lance Armstrong was given the same opportunity to come forward and be part of the solution. He rejected it.'

Among the riders who testified were George Hincapie and Michael Barry. Hincapie is one of Armstrong's closest friends, and the only man who rode by his side for all seven Tour victories. Barry has ridden for Team Sky for the past three seasons. Both retired recently.

In a statement released on Wednesday night, Barry said that, when he turned professional with US Postal in 2002, he quickly realised that 'doping had become an epidemic problem in professional cycling'.

'After being encouraged by the team, pressured to perform and pushed to my physical limits, I crossed a line I promised myself and others I would not: I doped. It was a decision I deeply regret.'

Vande Velde, 36, described Wednesday as the 'most humbling moment' of his life and added: 'I was wrong to think I didn't have a choice - I did, and I chose wrong. Ironically, I never won while doping.'

The testimony of Hincapie, who also took the step of releasing a confessional statement, is arguably the most damning. While Armstrong has dismissed others who have spoken out, such as Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton, pointing out that both were discredited after failing drug tests,

Hincapie has never failed a drug test, and, more to the point, never fell foul of Armstrong. Indeed, Armstrong has previously described Hincapie as his 'best bro in the peloton'.

On Wednesday, however, Hincapie admitted that, when approached two years ago by US government investigators, he admitted to more than just his own doping: 'I would have been much more comfortable talking only about myself, but understood that I was obligated to tell the truth about everything I knew. So that is what I did.'

The USADA report claims that in 2010, while under federal investigation, Armstrong tried to persuade Hincapie to remain in Europe 'to avoid or delay testifying'. In his evidence to USADA, Hincapie revealed that, at a race in Spain in 2000, Armstrong told him he 'had just taken testosterone'.

Hincapie then found out that drug testers were waiting at their hotel. 'I texted Lance to warn him to avoid the place. As a result, Lance dropped out of the race.'

The report recounts Armstrong's and his team's use of drugs in eye-watering detail. It claims that, during Armstrong's Tour victory in 2000 he, Hamilton and Kevin Livingston had a blood transfusion.

'The whole process took less than 30 minutes,' said Hamilton. 'Kevin Livingston and I received our transfusions in one room and Lance got his in an adjacent room with an adjoining door. Each blood bag was placed on a hook for a picture frame or taped to the wall and we lay on the bed and shivered while the chilly blood re-entered our bodies.'

Armstrong's blood samples from his third comeback, in 2009 and 2010, were also analysed by USADA. They concluded there was a 'one in a million' chance that Armstrong was not doping in these years.

The report also raises the possibility that cycling's governing body, the UCI, helped to suppress a positive test for Armstrong. During the 2001 Tour of Switzerland the anti-doping laboratory in Lausanne detected a number of samples that were 'suspicious for the presence of EPO'. 

When the head of the lab reported this to the UCI, 'he was told by the UCI's medical commission head that at least one of these samples belonged to Mr Armstrong, but that there was no way Mr Armstrong was using EPO'.

USADA requested the test results for re-analysis, using more sophisticated techniques, but 'UCI denied that request, stating that UCI had asked for Mr Armstrong's consent but that he had refused'.

Apart from the doping charges, USADA also accuses Armstrong of being 'engaged in an effort to procure false affidavits from potential witnesses'. Through emails sent in August 2010, they claim Armstrong 'attempted to contact former team-mates and others...and asked them to sign affidavits affirming that there was no 'systematic' doping on the US Postal cycling team.

'Such affidavits would be materially false, as Mr Armstrong was well aware that systematic doping had occurred on his teams. Consequently, Mr Armstrong's efforts constituted an attempt to subvert the judicial system and procure false testimony.'


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