When Lance won the prologue to the 1999 Tour I was close to tears, but when I heard he was working with Michele Ferrari I was devastated. In the light of Lance's relationship with Ferrari, I just don't want to comment on this year's Tour. This is not sour grapes. I'm disappointed in Lance, that's all it is

[Armstrong] basically said 'I could find 10 people that will say you took EPO'... The week after, I got multiple people that were on Lance ... Lance's camp, basically saying 'you better be quiet,' and I was quiet for three years. I have a business ... I have bikes that are sold ... and I was told that my sales might not be doing too well if ... just the publicity, the negative publicity.

In a 2007 interview, LeMond accused Armstrong of trying to sabotage his relationship with Trek bicycles, and described him by saying "I just think he's not a good person and that's all I can say. I mean, he's a facade, if you knew the real Lance Armstrong that I know. I think he fronts himself as a guy who is loving and caring. From my experience, he's not a nice guy and I've had some very difficult periods with him. And I don't believe he'll finish up having any friends in cycling.

Scrolling through the archives last week, I stopped at Place Saint Lambert in Liege, Belgium. Twice I remembered being there. The first time was for the start the much loved one-day classic bicycling race known as Liege-Bastogne-Liege. It was a Sunday in April, 1984, and I still have a photograph taken the morning shortly before the start of the race.

It was shot by a photographer we knew only as Nutan and it showed Belgian cycling champion Eric Vanderaerden worming his way through masses of fans to the start line. As he did so a man in his early 30s held a baby in his left arm, and with his right hand he stretched the child's left hand forward until the infant's fingers touched the cyclist's back.

Devotion to a sport had never been so poignantly expressed.

Twenty years later, I was back in Place Saint Lambert. It was a Friday evening the day before the start of the 2004 Tour de France, and the innocence with which I'd come to this square in '84 was long gone. This would be Lance Armstrong's sixth Tour de France victory, and though present to cover this race, I had come also to defend a book I'd co-authored with French journalist Pierre Ballester, L.A. Confidentiel -- Les secrets de Lance Armstrong.

The book would sell more than 100,000 copies and reach No. 2 on the French bestsellers' list, but to Armstrong and those around him it was the Satanic Verses. In the Salle de Presse the previous day, U.S Postal team director Johan Bruyneel saw me arrive and said at the top of his voice: "Hey, Mr. Walsh, good job, good job eh!"

L.A. Confidentiel offered a portrait of Armstrong that was far from the consensus view at the time. Our conviction was that Armstrong doped and that within his team and the sport in general, he was an advocate for doping. Sixteen days before, he had addressed the book's allegations at a news conference announcing a sponsorship deal with the Discovery Channel.

"I can absolutely confirm that we don't use doping products," he said. Questioned about accusations made by former masseuse Emma O'Reilly, Armstrong said O'Reilly had been fired "for inappropriate issues" before adding it wasn't his style to attack her. Judith McHale, then president of Discovery Communications, said there was no better ambassador "for quality and trusted information" than Armstrong.

Now, in Liege, he would deal again with L.A. Confidentiel. The press was sympathetic to Armstrong and journalists were afraid to ask the first doping question. After an embarrassing number of endearing enquiries, Dutch TV journalist Marc Belinfante asked Armstrong about allegations in L.A. Confidentiel. Here was Armstrong's response: "I will say one thing about the book, especially since our esteemed author is here. In my view, I think extraordinary accusations must be followed up by extraordinary proof. And Mr. Walsh and Mr. Ballester worked four, five years and they have not come up with extraordinary proof." Armstrong went on to say he would spend whatever it cost "to bring justice to the case."

Belinfante then asked about specific allegations made by former teammate Stephen Swart. "Ah, no comment," replied Armstrong. Later Belinfante tried ask him about Emma O'Reilly. "Next question," Armstrong said. Belinfante didn't cover cycling, didn't understand the omerta that operated within the sport and couldn't relate to the general passivity.

Midway through the press conference, I raised my arm to ask a question. It was ignored. That afternoon I was supposed to travel by car with an English journalist, but he told me he couldn't carry me. He feared being denied access to Armstrong if I was seen in the same car as him, though I had traveled with this journalist since 1984.

He would later write a book, LANCE: The Making of the World's Greatest Champion. "That leaves me on the side of the road," I said. He shrugged his shoulders.

Walking through Place Saint Lambert the following evening, I thought about the events that had taken me to this place. How Armstrong had struck me during a three-hour interview in Grenoble at his first Tour de France in 1993. A kid then, so Texan and impressive: "Physically," he said, "I'm not any more gifted than anybody else but it's just this desire, just this rage, I'm on the bike and I go into a rage when I just shriek for about five seconds. I shake like mad and my eyes kinda bulge out. I swear, I sweat a little more and the heart rate goes like 200 a minute."

This desire helped him through cancer, got him back to the Tour in 1999 but from there, we went our separate ways. A young French rider Christophe Bassons came between us. Bassons had just turned 25, was talented and ambitious but was not prepared to dope. To anyone willing to listen during the first week of the '99 Tour, he said you couldn't be in the top 10 without doping. Armstrong went after him, literally, and began the bullying that would see Bassons railroaded out of that summer's Tour.

On a quiet country road about 60 miles from Saint Flour on stage 13 a banner was draped across the road: FOR A CLEAN TOUR YOU MUST HAVE BASSONS. Bassons was back home by then, beaten into submission. Ten days would pass before Armstrong arrived on the Champs Elysees clad for the first time in the maillot jaune, but I knew he was doping. No clean rider would have turned on Bassons as he had. The champion wasn't what he seemed.

Through the 13 years that have passed since then, Armstrong has been a central part of my journalistic life. How to prove what you knew to be true, that was the challenge. He called me "the worst journalist in the world," referred to me as "the little f------g troll," tried to pressure Betsy Andreu (a source for L.A. Confidentiel) into discrediting me and, of course, he sued me. That lawsuit now seems as close as you can get to an "Oscar" in our game.

It's been a good journey because the truth was never hard to find in this story. You only had to be interested in looking. What made it interesting was how many people Armstrong had watching his back. At that press conference in Liege he thanked the journalists who had reached out to him and told him he had nothing to worry about. In the highest places he had friends. But he couldn't stop Andreu, O'Reilly, Swart and others from telling stories that contradicted his, and you had to spend only 10 minutes in their company to know they weren't lying. They couldn't be bullied into silence.

I think now of how unreal it all was: "The Blue Train" zooming up the early slopes of the Col de Telegraf in 99, Armstrong on the climb to Hautacam in 2000. "He came upon us like an aeroplane," said Richard Virenque, a rival who also doped. In 2001, Rudy Pevenage, a rival team manager, said: "When others gasp for air with open mouths, he rides with a closed mouth, as if there is nothing to it."

That was how it was in the era of Armstrong, unreal. Writing in the French newspaper, Liberation, three days before the end of Armstrong's third Tour, Robert Redeker spoke of the disconnect between Armstrong and many of the sport's oldest fans. "The athletic type represented by Lance Armstrong is coming closer to Lara Croft, the virtually fabricated cyber heroine . ... Robocop on wheels, someone with whom no fan can relate or identify."

And at Liege through that weekend in 2004 we were still in the grip of Robocop's domination. Belinfante could see I was a black sheep of the cycling family. Pitying me, he asked if I'd like to do an interview for his television station. He sent a link to the piece last week, recalling a time and a Tour de France that wasn't much fun as it happened.

The last question he asked was if I thought Armstrong would win the 2004 Tour. "This is a strange answer," I said, "but I mean it: I don't care. I don't care who wins the race, what I care about is clean sport. We must come back to the Tour believing in it more than we do now. This is a bad time for cycling but I hope the times will get better and they will get better if we're honest."

Pro cycling isn't a perfect place now, far from it. But it's better than it was.

The New York Times reported Friday that Lance Armstrong, who has strongly denied the doping charges that led to him being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, has told associates he is considering admitting to the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The report cited anonymous sources and said Armstrong was considering a confession to help restore his athletic career in triathlons and running events at age 41. Armstrong was been banned for life from cycling and cannot compete in athletic events sanctioned by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Yet Armstrong attorney Tim Herman denied that Armstrong has reached out to USADA chief executive Travis Tygart and David Howman, director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Herman told The Associated Press he had no knowledge of Armstrong considering a confession and said: "When, and if, Lance has something to say, there won't be any secret about it."

Armstrong, who recovered from testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain, won the Tour de France from 1999-2005. Although he has vehemently denied doping, Armstrong's athletic career crumbled under the weight of a massive report by USADA detailing allegations of drug use by Armstrong and his teammates on his U.S. Postal Service teams.

The report caused Armstrong to lose most of his personal corporate sponsors and he recently stepped down from the board of Livestrong, the cancer-fighting charity he founded in 1997.

Armstrong is facing other legal hurdles.

The U.S. Department of Justice is considering whether to join a federal whistle-blower lawsuit filed by former Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis. A Dallas-based promotions company has also said it wants to recover several million dollars paid to Armstrong in bonuses for winning the Tour de France. The British newspaper The Sunday Times has sued Armstrong to recover $500,000 paid to him to settle a libel lawsuit.

Lance Armstrong has decided to come clean, so to speak. Since the big dope’s life is essentially ruined, he’s apparently going to admit it all and ask for forgiveness. And who better to give it to him that Oprah?

She’s got him on January 17 from 9 to 10:30pm on the hard to find OWN channel. Good for her. It used to be that celebrities went to Larry King or Barbara Walters when they needed to eat crow publicly and return to the world.

But for this generation it’s Oprah. Lance will cry, his eyes will well up when he talks about his kids, he’ll show Oprah his scars from various surgeries, and recommend a healing expert in Nepal which she’ll put on her next Best Things list.

Will she grant him absolution? I hope not. But Armstrong has nothing to lose–he’s lost everything. He deceived the world for years, and kept lying about it. He had plenty of chances to explain himself. I don’t care if he came from a broken home, was beaten with a bat, or made to wash the dishes. Maybe this will be the last time we’ll have to hear from him.

We will wait for the usual clips, leaks, and advance bites.

PS Apparently the Showtime show, “60 Minutes Sports” is also headlining a tremendous piece by Scott Pelley. Check it out at CBSNews.com

Lance Armstrong recently met with the head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to explore a "pathway to redemption,'' according to a report Wednesday night on "60 Minutes Sports'' dealing with the investigation that cost the cyclist his Tour de France titles.
USADA CEO Travis Tygart, in an interview that aired Wednesday night during the show's premiere on Showtime, didn't discuss the meeting on camera and provided no details, including when it was held and where. The only mention, with no elaboration, came at the end of the segment.
Tygart didn't respond to messages left by The Associated Press seeking comment.
The New York Times reported last week that Armstrong and Tygart had been meeting about a possible confession. Armstrong's attorney, Tim Herman, denied the meetings had taken place.
During the show, Tygart detailed his mission to investigate Armstrong, calling the cyclist's refusal to help in the probe "one of the lowest days of this investigation, quite honestly.''
"We were disappointed he didn't come in and be part of the solution,'' Tygart said.
Last October, USADA released a 200-page report detailing the doping program Armstrong ran. At the time, Tygart called it "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.''
If Armstrong were to confess, there could be legal consequences, involving past and present civil cases and possibly perjury.
In addition to having his seven Tour de France titles stripped, Armstrong was banned for life from competing, which makes him ineligible for triathlons and other events sanctioned by USADA or the World Anti-Doping Agency.
In the interview, Tygart said a representative of Armstrong's approached USADA in 2004 with an offer of a donation of more than $150,000.
Asked if it felt like he was being bought off, Tygart responded: "It was a clear conflict of interest for USADA and we had no hesitation in rejecting that offer.''
Tygart also said he had been subject to numerous death threats from anonymous emails and letters.
"The worst was probably puttin' a bullet in my head,'' Tygart said when asked to recall specific details of the letter.
He said the threatening letters were turned over to the FBI.
Tygart also discussed the pressure he felt while pursuing the investigation, even after federal officials decided to shut down their probe. Last year, two members of Congress called for stronger oversight of USADA, which receives more than half its $15 million annual budget from the government.
"We're always concerned about the grant we get from the federal government,'' Tygart said. "If we're unwillin' to take this case and help this sport move forward, that we're here for naught. We should shut down. And if they wanna shut us down for doing our job on behalf of clean athletes, and the integrity of competition, then shut us down.''


Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...#ixzz2Hhcu5bMK

It's not likely to be about the truth.

Or about cleansing a guilty conscience.

Or about clearing the air to help cycling's Sisyphean efforts to rid itself of the anything-goes attitude that prevailed for at least a decade and has yet to disappear, reducing the sport's credibility to zero.

That was the decade during which Lance Armstrong used plain old chemistry and the alchemy of moral relativism to turn himself into a global idol as false as the golden calf.

If Armstrong confesses to doping during an interview with Oprah Winfrey that is to air on her network Thursday, as a USA Today story citing an unnamed source first reported he will do, it has be to about him, the man whose story was popularized in a hagiography titled "It’s Not About the Bike."

Everything else in his life has been all about Lance, so why should this be any different?

From the portrait of Armstrong as a win-at-all-costs despot that emerged seven years ago in Daniel Coyle's book, "Lance Armstrong's War," to the images of Armstrong his teammates drew during testimony to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, it long has been evident the defrocked seven-time Tour de France champion either threw everyone under the bus for his benefit or insisted they do it for him on their own.

That Armstrong used his fame — now turned to notoriety — in the fight against cancer no longer excuses the behavior manifested in his relationships with teammates and rivals and his lack of ethical compass about doping.

This is a guy who tweeted a picture of himself lying in front of his seven Tour de France champion jerseys right after USADA had stripped him of those victories. A guy whose arrogance turned into hubris, with the blowback such defiance brings.

So, presuming that he will drop his relentless doping denials when he sits down with Winfrey, the question is why.

Before trying to answer that, one has to wonder how much Armstrong will admit and whether Winfrey will pressure him, notwithstanding a Saturday text message to the Associated Press in which he wrote:

‘"I told her to go wherever she wants and I’ll answer the questions directly, honestly, candidly. That’s all I can say."

When sprinter Marion Jones did her Winfrey confessional about doping, the longtime talk show host acted as credulous as a star-struck fan. Winfrey took at face value Jones' statements about thinking she was only using flaxseed oil and insisting she had doped only for a short period around the 2000 Sydney Olympics, even after the federal judge who had sentenced Jones to prison said he had doubts about the extent of her revelations.

It seems far-fetched that Armstrong, 41, wants to come clean just to try to get rid of a lifetime ban from sports governed by the World Anti-Doping Code, notably triathlons and marathons, as the New York Times has suggested.

Of course, he wouldn't be the first athlete to find life out of the arena unfulfilling, even with a net worth estimated at $100 million.

There are conflicting versions of what legal -- and financial -- liability might ensue if Armstrong admits doping. USA Today said the statute of limitations has expired on a case that involves a $7.5 million performance bonus he received for winning multiple Tour de France titles. The question of whether he can be held responsible for bilking the government out of $32 million in support for the U.S. Postal team also is hanging.

If public sympathy is what Armstrong wants, the statute of limitations has run out on that, too. He defrauded not only sport but the legions who believed hard work alone had created his miraculous comeback from cancer. He built his cancer-fighting foundation on a lie.

Perhaps Armstrong will surprise everyone with a full admission of his doping, a plausible reason for fessing up now and a real sense of contrition, not an "everyone-was-doing-it-and-I-still beat-them" equivocation. Maybe he really does want to set things right.

It seems more likely he will leave everyone thinking of lyrics from a Rolling Stones song:

"Pleased to meet you

Hope you guess my name

But what's puzzling you

Is the nature of my game"

The song's title is "Sympathy for the Devil."