Should Lance try to defend himself...

For those who have been out of touch, Lance Armstrong has once again been accused of doping. But this time it is for his 1999 Tour de France victory. I haven't seen the L'Equipe article, however, if I saw it I wouldn't be able to read it. I don't read French and they don't translate into English. Although I haven't done an exhaustive search of the internet, I have seen some excerpts. The gist of the article is that some urine samples from the 1999 Tour were tested recently and in six tests of urine belonging to Armstrong, EPO was present.

Ok, it seems to me the article is short on substantial facts and long on supposition. What I want to see is lab reports bearing the name of the testing lab, credentials for the person/s performing the tests, certifications about how the samples have been handled since they were given. I want to know if they were A or B samples, where and how the samples have been stored since given. L'Equipe doesn't have that much information. What do they have...investigative journalism. This is the French equalivent for a hack job. At least one of the writers, I use the word loosely, is one of the same people who penned the LA Confidential book. There is something rotten in this wood pile!!!

Should Lance defend himself? In my opinion...NO! He should call for full disclosure of factual information from all parties involved. If all the facts should ever be known, then and only then should he make any kind of statement. In case you didn't get to see the Larry King interview, it will air again on Sunday 8/28. If I were Lance's PR firm, I would not do any talk shows, hold any press conferences, grant any interviews or otherwise comment on the story.

To me, it is interesting that the Tour Director, LeBlanc, was so quick to respond with out all the facts being published. I'm sure that if we looked at the books for the Tour, we'd find that revenue is down. There hasn't been a French rider to come close to having a yellow jersey. The Amaury Group which owns L'Equipe and the Tour de France is struggling to keep its readership and the tour as a first tier UCI race. What they haven't considered is how much damage they have done to cycling in general. Let's investigate the Amaury Group to see what is behind all this. Woodward and Bernstein...Deepthroat is now exposed and in the great beyond....there's a story here. Hop to!!!!!