edwardshallow says: “When you have a Livestrong tattoo, you can’t make it about Lance.” You can if you want. Don’t dictate that everyone has to be disappointed in Lance. How the media, including yourself, have treated him is fucking inhumane. Stop using him as a story.
» SFB says: Wait, so you’re saying that a man with a net worth of $120+ million is being treated inhumanely for being called out for lying about the thing that made him rich and famous? Go check our coverage to see how inhumanely we’ve treated him. You don’t know what the definition of “inhumane,” buddy. — Ernie @ SFB
When you have a Livestrong tattoo, you can’t make it about Lance. It’s gotta be about the fight against cancer.
Federal investigators are in the midst of an active criminal investigation of disgraced former Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, ABC News has learned.
The revelation comes in stark contrast to statements made by the U.S. Attorney for Southern California, Andre Birotte, who addressed his own criminal inquiry of Armstrong for the first time publicly on Tuesday. Birotte’s office spent nearly two years investigating Armstrong for crimes reportedly including drug distribution, fraud and conspiracy — only to suddenly drop the case on the Friday before the Super Bowl last year.
Armstrong has yet to comment on the reports but, given his recent admissions on Oprah, we’d imagine he would have a hard time defending himself in court should the government decide to prosecute. Do you think Lance Armstrong should face criminal penalties for covering-up his usage of performance enhancing substances?
Oprah’s interview with Lance Armstrong
Lance doped strong. Here’s what you missed.
It’s too late for probably most people and that’s my fault. I view this situation as one big lie I repeated a lot of times.Lance Armstrong (via fastcompany)
A moment 14 years in the making
The Daily Dot wins the fastest-GIF-in-the-land award for the evening.
Report: Armstrong admits doping in interview
(Photo: Reuters file)
AUSTIN, Texas - A person familiar with the situation says Lance Armstrong confessed to Oprah Winfrey during an interview Monday that he used performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France.
Because of course Lance Armstrong was doping.
Before the interview, Armstrong apologized to Livestrong’s staff regarding the doping. There were reportedly a lot of tears.
Lance Armstrong, who this fall was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping and barred for life from competing in all Olympic sports, has told associates and antidoping officials that he is considering publicly admitting that he used banned performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions during his cycling career, according to several people with direct knowledge of the situation. He would do this, the people said, because he wants to persuade antidoping officials to restore his eligibility so he can resume his athletic career.
For more than a decade, Armstrong has vehemently denied ever doping, even after antidoping officials laid out their case against him in October in hundreds of pages of eyewitness testimony from teammates, e-mail correspondence, financial records and laboratory analyses.
When asked if Armstrong might admit to doping, Tim Herman, Armstrong’s longtime lawyer, said: “I do not know about that. I suppose anything is possible, for sure. Right now, that’s really not on the table.”
The danger for Armstrong is that the admission could put him in legal jeopardy. As one of his sponsors was the U.S. Postal Service, he and other members of his team are being sued for defrauding the federal government by lying about doping. Armstrong had a particularly tough 2012 filled with allegations and at great personal cost to his legacy — and his year ended with him leaving the board of his Livestrong charity entirely.
Lance Armstrong has stepped down as a board member of Livestrong, the cancer-support charity he founded in 1997, the organization said Monday.
“Lance Armstrong has chosen to voluntarily resign from the Board of Directors of the Livestrong Foundation to spare the organization any negative effects as a result of controversy surrounding his cycling career,” Livestrong chairman Jeff Garvey said in a statement.
“We are deeply grateful to Lance for creating a cause that has served millions of cancer survivors and their families.”
Despite essentially not having any say over what the charity does, a spokesperson says that he ”remains the inspiration” for the charity’s work, as well as its largest individual donor. This resignation comes less than a month after he resigned as the charity’s chairman amidst scandal over his career.
smidgetz says: Well Tiger didn’t lie his whole career and depend on doping to get him his winnings, he had a private matter with his wife that turned public.
» SFB says: He didn’t. And I’m not trying to equivocate the circumstances — just trying to point out that it takes a lot for Nike to drop a contract with a big name athlete. Now, whether Woods deserved what he got, whatever. But a lot of companies dropped their ties to Woods after that — and Nike stuck by him. I think we can all agree that Armstrong has a more fundamental problem going on right now. — Ernie @ SFB
Due to the seemingly insurmountable evidence that Lance Armstrong participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade, it is with great sadness that we have terminated our contract with him. Nike does not condone the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs in any manner.
Nike plans to continue support of the Livestrong initiatives created to unite, inspire and empower people affected by cancer.
They didn’t even do this when Tiger Woods had his trouble, so you know it’s bad. (ht @AntDeRosa)