By M&C News Jul 9, 2006, 17:11 GMT
In today's Sunday Los Angeles Times, front page headlines reveal “allegations trail Armstrong into another stage”, and that the wildly popular cyclist who has won the Tour-de-France a staggering seven times, may be under heavy investigation once again.
The Times has dug backwards into the past allegations that performance enhancing drugs may have had a hand in Armstrong’s performance, but now the Times has printed in excruciating detail the assertions “made under oath” of sworn testimony, exhibits and documents comprising the records of confidential arbitration proceedings - a series of closed hearings conducted early this year in Dallas Texas, “in connection with a contract dispute.”
The LA Times poured over these files, files which investigative reporter Alan Abrahamson state are filled with conflicting testimony, hearsay and circumstantial evidence admissible in arbitration hearings but “questionable in more formal legal proceedings.”
Despite Armstrong’s vehement denials to any usage of performance enhancers, the Texas case the Times dissects “some of the most serious doping allegations to date and the first on-the-record outlines of a possible case” against one of the most popular athletes in American history.
Some of the damaging new information outlined in the Times article includes testimony featuring new details about the tests in 2004 that apparently detected drugs in Armstrong’s preserved urine samples from the 1999 race.
“An Australian anti-doping researcher told arbitrators that the samples showed evidence “beyond any reasonable doubt” of a banned substance called Synthetic EPO, or erythropoletin.
“However, a Dutch report questioned the test’s validity.” Armstrong, in his past testimony, rejected the findings and denied using EPO.
Also revealed was testimony that Armstrong once acknowledged to doctors that he’d used drugs, what one former teammate called “hot sauce”.
More testimony also recorded from the wife of a former teammate that during an Indiana hospital visit she had heard Armstrong tell a doctor he took various drugs, including steroids. Armstrong denied that this ever took place.
Testimony also recorded from some teammates that they “discussed with Armstrong adopting a doping regiment to improve their Tour competitiveness as early as 1995.
The most troubling allegation the Times dissects is the testimony of a secret Armstrong meeting in parking lot outside a Milan with a controversial doctor who has publicly defended the safety of a banned drug.
The doctor had been convicted in 2004 in sporting fraud case subsequently overturned by the Italian appeals court this year. Armstrong himself describing the doctor as having “a dodgy reputation.”
The new testimony and files that have surfaces in the extensive LA Times investigation came about through a business dispute between Armstrong and SCA Promotions, Inc., a Dallas based company that offered to pay Armstrong a bonus if the racer won the 2004 tour-which he did.
The company balked at making the bonus payment to Armstrong after initial doping allegations surfaced after the victory.
The case was settled before any action by the presiding three-judge panel, with SCA Promotions agreeing to pay out the contested $5 Million fee plus all legal costs.
According to reporter Abrahamson, the newest Armstrong allegations have emerged amid a widening doping scandal in the current Tour de France, the first without Armstrong since 1998.
Police raids in Madrid in May linked 58 cyclists to blood doping, including the top 3 finishers behind Armstrong in last year’s tour.
A full, 3 page report can be found in the July 9th Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times.
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