Whoops! George Hincapie gives up Lance

The grand jury testimony is formally secret. An officially unverifiable leak by an anonymous source is rather obviously not in itself grounds for demanding anythng.

UCI is entitled to ask whatever questions it could have asked in the absence of the leak. Hincapie may or may not be required to answer to UCI under protocol.

RunningHigh wrote:

He now just now just repeats the mantra "I have never failed a test".

Very similar to Jan Ullrich: "I never betrayed anyone". Which is true because it was a level playing field.

However, very surprised that Hincapie not only accuses Armstrong but also confesses that he did drugs. That makes it quite believable.

Clifford Diffley wrote:

i realize everyone is focusing on hincapie's damning testimony of lance, but my question is: hincapie is still riding! why? after yesterday, if I were UCI boss, i'd be demanding a 2 year suspension and immediate investigation into hincapie's past palmares.

If a rider admits doping and it has been more then 6-7 years, they can not ban him anymore.

Nutella1 wrote:

If a rider admits doping and it has been more then 6-7 years, they can not ban him anymore.

Then why are they still after Lance?

My guess is they found some dirt on Hincapie and used it to leverage him against Lance.

I really don't give a crap whether Lance doped or not. It is all in the past for now. What next, dig up Babe Ruth's body and test it for PEDS?

Dogman wrote:

I really don't give a crap whether Lance doped or not. It is all in the past for now. What next, dig up Babe Ruth's body and test it for PEDS?

But you're still happy to lap up his 'My body is a temple' and all the 'beat all the Euro dopers whilst clean' nonsense that he feeds you.

If he'd just admitted it a long time ago like all those other more decent human beings, nobody would bear such a grudge.

The longer it's gone on, the longer you just want him to get nailed.

They are not after Lance for doping. They are after Lance for defrauding sponsors, one of which was the United States Postal Service.....so defrauding the government, also drug trafficking (EPO), conspiracy, etc.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1180944/index.htm

Alan

Vas-t'y frotte wrote:

Now Armstrong's goose is officially cooked. I say he confesses within 24 hours. Like Virenque when he finally confessed, the circumstances now make him look completely ridiculous to persist with the denials in spite of the legal implications. It was easy to deny versus Landis and Hamilton, because their credibility was in tatters and they even look and speak like they're lying. With Hincapie, there is no conceivable reason for him to lie. Lance may not confess publicly now, but he will to the prosecutors.

I've felt that something this was going to eventually come out from someone like Hincapie or Leipheimer and be damn near irrefutable - and have been a little surprised that Lance and his handlers didn't change tack quite sometime back. It was obvious he still had P.R. "shills" attempting to put out little fires all over the internet as recently as a few days ago. What the heck is he gonna say now?!

Ultimately though, Lance isn't some villain. He learned how the came was played and he (almost haha)ABSOLUTELY PERFECTED it. In that era of professional cycling you had three choices: Dope. Quit. or Compete in obscurity.

As an (offtopic) aside, I find it funny how many times I've seen the analogy that: people who can't accept Lance doped are akin to the "Birthers". Lets put it this way, I think they have that analogy backwards if you get my drift - and THAT truth may come out in the future too. "Let me be clear" I DO NOT have a horse in that race. Politics are an utter joke as is the two party paradigm (illusion).

Dogman wrote:

Nutella1 wrote:

If a rider admits doping and it has been more then 6-7 years, they can not ban him anymore.

Then why are they still after Lance?

My guess is they found some dirt on Hincapie and used it to leverage him against Lance.

I really don't give a crap whether Lance doped or not. It is all in the past for now. What next, dig up Babe Ruth's body and test it for PEDS?

You are a moron. Great analogy.

Yup, everything in the past, why should we care about it? You really hit the nail on the head there.

What seems to be happening is that all these guys had to testify under oath and they didn't want to lie and end up like bonds. But, there is no penalty for lying to the press. So hincanpie admits it court then denies ever admitting it. It was his best option.

Anyone hear if levi was called to testify? Or are they just focusing on the guys who rode with him during his wins?

Dogman wrote:

I really don't give a crap whether Lance doped or not. It is all in the past for now. What next, dig up Babe Ruth's body and test it for PEDS?

Why not?

Germany ties 91 year olds. Of course a much greater crime, but still.

Hey Gang,

Let's all get a quick hema-trans and go train in the mountains!!! YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!!!

Janko Spindletwist wrote:

Ultimately though, Lance isn't some villain. He learned how the came was played and he (almost haha)ABSOLUTELY PERFECTED it. In that era of professional cycling you had three choices: Dope. Quit. or Compete in obscurity.

Ugh. I hate this argument. People with this perspective pretend that Lance's decisions only affected him and his teammates. It is not Dope, Quit, or Compete in obscurity...it is Quit, Compete in obscurity, or Dope while stealing $$$ from all of the clean, hard-working athletes in your sport, all the while presenting yourself as a fraud to the public. This was posted in another thread, and sums up just a few of the negative impact that doping has on the sport of cycling:

doping "culture" wrote:

I am a former professional cyclist. I competed briefly in Europe for a pro-continental team. I wasn't very good but I did see a lot of clean athletes trying to break through and I just want to put to rest this idea that lance doped in a culture of doping so it was a level playing field.

YES it was a culture of doping and YES if all his TDF results were nullified his successor would almost certainly also be doped.

1) However, there are hundreds of clean pro cyclists who, skipped college to pursue a dream, also biked 4-6 hours day, and earned 15-25k a year for a relatively short period.

I have friends who train like mad men and are unemployed or drawing a meager wage because doped riders jump past them and suck up money.

If lance et al. had not doped there would have been CLEAN athletes who would have extended their careers and increased their wages. They wouldnt have won the tour de France but they would have been more competitive in races. Velonews has a report on a rider right now who quit postal because he decided he did not want to do drugs and felt he had no other choice.

2) Dopers suck money out of the sport. Teams fold and clean cyclists, team managers, mechanics, and soigneurs lose their jobs when these scandals come out. For every doping scandal there is a financial fall out that hurts people that are just trying to make a decent living working in a sport they are passionate about. When Floyd Landis's scandal broke, I was actively seeking a pro contract, and saw first hand how the scandal had a ripple effect that went all the way down to the grass roots of the sport. MOney that would have been there for young developing cyclists disappeared.

3) Lance has not just denied doping he has vindictively destroyed careers, smeared people in the name of extending lies. He does not deserve a break in any way. He seems to have a Godfather morality where anyone who breaks away from the "family" deserves to be destroyed.

Take the example of Simeoni, when Lance chased down that breakaway. I cannot even begin to express how crucial those early breaks are in the TDF for a riders career. Getting in the early break, something that is never shown on TV, is incredibly difficult on so many levels. When a rider gets in a break, on a TDF stage where the GC teams are trying to let a break go, that is their BIG shot. Their Eminem lose yourself moment. When Lance chased down Simeoni he was essentially destroying a man's once a year opportunity and directly harming his ability to put food on his kids table all because he decided to start telling the truth. He also directly affected everyone else in that breakaway who wasn't even involved. When Simeoni dropped out of the breakaway so Telekom would stop chasing it was an incredibly honorable thing to do where he sacrificed this career changing opportunity so that his breakaway companions could have a shot at a life changing TDF stage win.

He has dragged Betsy Andreu's name through the mud all because she decided not to be a wife who accepts immorality. She decided not to silently accept a culture of doping. She's not even a cyclist but Lance has publicly trashed her name and drug her through the mud because she told the truth.

He has trashed journalists, former employees, newspapers et al. who have only told the truth.

He lied in order to get a multi million dollar bonus from a company that had insured his bonus for winning the the TDF. He cost that company millions of dollars in legal fees and the pay out and don't think that didn't cost honest people jobs.

Lance Armstrong is an amazing athlete, yes. But the man has done things that are reprehensible to continue lying. Lets not make excuses for him because he's a great athlete."

Yes, HIncapie is still riding. There are a whole bunch of ex-dopers who (at least publicly) had enough and wanted to be part of cleaning up the sport. One example is Team High Road (get it?) led by David Millar who was nailed back in the day. THR's results weren't that impressive early on and if I remember correctly they weren't even in the Tour in their first year. You also saw some teams like CSC starting up their own anti-doping programs (whether you believe it was a smokescreen or not).

Bruyneel left Team Discovery Channel and went on to direct the systematic doping on Team Astana (apparently with less success because they got busted. Vino and Kachechkin both got busted for blood doping which is still today impossible to detect if done right and that leads me to believe that blood doping was a big part of what was going on at US Postal.

I think that Hincapie et al. after Bruyneel's departure and Amstrong's first retirement wanted to transition to a clean team and to some extent that would have been Hincapie's motivation for continuing and Leipheimer's motivation to come back to the team. I'm speculating but something really changed in the attitude of the riders - they seemed content just to be part of the sport.

I'd even go as far as assuming that when Armstrong made his comeback it was because HE wanted to try to ride clean. His performances certainly weren't impressive but he was suddenly a nice guy and even the French public and journalists started to really like him.

The sport obviously isn't clean yet. It's a lot cleaner than it was, but as long as there are Spaniards and Italians in the sport, there will be cheating.

So what will actually happen to Armstrong if convicted? I'm not familiar with the Grand Jury process - is he facing jail time?

He is still riding because the grand jury testimony is still sealed at this point. The story of him testifying and admiting he used is not official until the testimony is released.

Unless George specifically says it now, they have to wait until they have the proof(the testimony). On the unlikely event the leaked story is wrong- they risk a lawsuit not allowing him to ride based on a story that may or may not be true.

monkeyblossom wrote:

So what will actually happen to Armstrong if convicted? I'm not familiar with the Grand Jury process - is he facing jail time?

Possibly, because it is a criminal investigation. It's hard to predict the outcome because the case is more complex than previous drug-based convictions of Marion Jones, Tammy Thomas and Barry Bonds, which have all been based on lying to grand juries and/or federal investigators. In this instance, Lance can avoid testifying under oath because he is a specific target of this investigation, won't be granted immunity and can take the fifth if necessary.

The use of EPO while training and competing abroad would not in itself be grounds for a domestic conviction. The operating theory of the prosecution against Lance seems to be the fraudulent misuse of federal-backed funds provided by the Postal Service to the team and to a management group in which Lance allegedly had an ownership interest. That will involve a number of elements of proof. An indictment by the grand jury, if issued, would be a necessary step before a trial would take place.

Did anything come of the raid on Popo's house?

trollism wrote:

But you're still happy to lap up his 'My body is a temple' and all the 'beat all the Euro dopers whilst clean' nonsense that he feeds you.

Just like you're still happpy to lap up all this "US distance runners can suddenly compete with the Kenyans and are perfectly clean" nonsense.

According to Floyd, Dr Ferrari was worried that he had caused Lance's cancer.