[tennisbum79]

Why Did it Take him so long?

In Reversal, Armstrong Is Said to Weigh Admitting Drug Use

By JULIET MACUR

Published: January 4, 2013

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, “Lance has to speak for himself on that.


Armstrong has been under pressure from various fronts to confess. Wealthy supporters of Livestrong, the charity he founded after surviving testicular cancer, have been trying to persuade him to come forward so he could clear his conscience and save the organization from further damage, one person with knowledge of the situation said.
Several legal cases stand in the way of a confession, the people familiar with the situation said. Among the obstacles is a federal whistle-blower case in which Armstrong and several team officials from his United States Postal Service cycling team are accused of defrauding the government by allowing doping on the squad when the team’s contract with the Postal Service clearly stated that any doping would constitute default of their agreement.



Herman said the option to confess to antidoping officials was not currently on the table. However, the people familiar with the situation said Armstrong, 41, was in fact moving toward confessing and had even been in discussions with the United States Anti-Doping Agency. Armstrong had met with Travis Tygart, the agency’s chief executive, in an effort to mitigate the lifetime ban he received for playing a lead role in doping on his Tour-winning teams, according to one person briefed on the situation.



Armstrong was also seeking to meet with David Howman, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, that person said.
Herman denied that Armstrong was talking to Tygart and said he was not looking to speak with Howman, either.



None of the people with knowledge of Armstrong’s situation wanted their names published because it would jeopardize their access to information on the matter.
Tygart declined to comment. Howman, who was on vacation in New Zealand, did not immediately respond to a phone call and an e-mail.
Armstrong has hopes of competing in triathlons and running events, but those competitions are often sanctioned by organizations that adhere to the World Anti-Doping Code, under which Armstrong received his lifetime ban.


According to the World Anti-Doping Code, an athlete might be eligible for a reduced punishment if he fully confesses and details how he doped, who helped him dope and how he got away with doping. But a reduced lifetime ban might decrease only to eight years or four, at best, antidoping experts said.
Marion Jones, who won five medals at the 2000 Olympics, denied doping for years until giving a teary-eyed confession on the steps of a Westchester County, N.Y., courthouse in 2007. She spent six months in prison for lying to federal investigators about her doping and for her involvement in a check-fraud scheme.



The timeline for Armstrong’s deciding whether to confess is unclear, but it is partly based on whether the United States Justice Department will join the whistle-blower lawsuit, which was filed under the False Claims Act. The sole plaintiff of that lawsuit is Floyd Landis, Armstrong’s former Postal Service teammate, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping.



If the Justice Department joins the lawsuit as a plaintiff, the case would be more formidable than if Landis pursued it alone. Landis stands to collect up to 30 percent of any money won in the case, which could be in the millions. The team’s contract with the Postal Service from 2000 to 2004 was more than $30 million.
Armstrong is also facing two other civil lawsuits, one that involves the Dallas-based insurance company SCA Promotions, which is trying to recoup millions of dollars it covered when Armstrong won multiple Tours.



The company withheld a $5 million bonus from Armstrong after he won the 2004 Tour because of doping accusations that surfaced in the book “L.A. Confidentiel: Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong,” which was published in France. Armstrong sued the company, and the case was settled for $7.5 million. SCA Promotions is now asking for $12 million back — the $7.5 million plus $4.5 million it paid for Armstrong’s other Tour victories.



Armstrong is also being sued by the British newspaper The Sunday Times for more than $1.5 million over the settlement of a libel case. In that matter, the newspaper had paid Armstrong nearly $500,000 after it published claims from “L.A. Confidentiel” that he had used performance-enhancing drugs.



But what worries Armstrong and his lawyers most, two of the people with knowledge of the situation said, is that he could face charges of perjury if he confesses because in sworn testimony in the SCA case he said he had never doped.



Before coming forward, Armstrong would need assurances from the Justice Department that he would not be prosecuted for those crimes, those two people said.
Herman said he has plans to discuss Armstrong’s next move when Armstrong returns from Hawaii, where he has been spending time with his family out of the public eye. He has been in limbo since antidoping officials issued their report on him. A week after the report was released, Armstrong’s sponsors, including Nike and other longtime supporters, abandoned him. Soon after, he cut all ties with his charity.
“He’s doing O.K. for a guy that has had his livelihood and his life torn from him, but he’s very strong,” Herman said.



Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting.




source:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/sp...me&ref=general

[FORZA SARITA]

a bit too late

[hablo]

What a fraud. Knew it all along!

[tennisbum79]

The list of people to apologize to must be long

[LeRoy.]

His attorneys have denied he will be doing any such thing.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50138281n

[jrm]

and there are still gullible people out there who believe he was clean

[tennisbum79]

Originally Posted by LeRoy.

His attorneys have denied he will be doing any such thing.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50138281n

I will believe it when I hear it from Armstrong himself.

Attorney can say this while a deal is in the work.

[Morning Morgan]

A tell-all with Oprah? You know it's gonna get serious...

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/arms...-oprah-winfrey

[hablo]

So he going to go cry on Oprah's shoulder? What a joke!

[DeucesAreWild]

He lost me when that one teammate came forth on 60 minutes. Yet behaved as though his teammate was simply jealous and had an axe to grind. He's done a lot for the cause of the big C, but he is a punk. No integrity.

[Super Dave]

Can't wait to not watch it

At least maybe now he'll go away for good.

[Xepher]

Bai cheater.

[LoveFifteen]

BYE, BITCH!!! All his fans will weep with him as he sobs on Oprah's shoulder. BARF. KILL ME NOW

[tennisbum79]

Exactly as I had alluded in post #7

So much for the lawyer denying the reports

Lance Armstrong: Negotiating with the Public through Oprah











Lance Armstrong Digital Portrait (read the yellow bracelet) (Photo credit: Cain and Todd Benson)



Many people will agree that cyclist Lance Armstrong is in a bad way.

Because of allegations that he competed for years while doping, using banned substances and getting illegal blood transfusions, Armstrong has been stripped of his several Tour de France titles and banned from cycling for the rest of his life by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Adding fuel to the fire is that he’s also been charged with lying about his alleged use of these illicit substances. And complicating the matter even further is that it’s not only Armstrong’s reputation that’s at stake.

This athlete, who survived testicular cancer, is also the founder of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, a cancer-awareness organization. As its inspiration, Armstrong — and his media presence and success as a cyclist — has helped raised millions of dollars to fight the disease. The organization changed its name to Livestrong, ostensibly to disassociate itself from its scandal-ridden creator, who also resigned as its chairman. Without Armstrong’s halo, the organization may now be at risk.

What’s this beleaguered guy to do, amidst media reports that he’s considering an admission to the various charges already brought against him?
There’s one place where Armstrong may truly find the consolation and forgiveness he desperately seeks: Oprah’s couch. And it turns out that Armstrong has made plans to sit on it.

Oprah Winfrey’s network OWN has announced a 90-minute interview with the cyclist to be broadcast on January 17, on “Oprah’s Next Chapter,” a fitting name-of-a-program for a disgraced athlete who truly needs to look to the future.

Although Armstrong may have made poor choices in the past, he’s brilliant to now align himself with Winfrey. She’s arguably one of society’s best moral compasses, who’ll provide him with the grandest possible stage to confess his sins, if that, indeed, is what he plans to do. If she’s willing to listen to what he has to say, then her openness, in a trickle-down effect, may lead her viewers to become more accepting and even eager to give the guy a second chance.

However, Armstrong needs to understand that, by being a guest on her program, he’s now in an amazingly complex negotiation with society. The prize here is not Winfrey’s perceived absolution. His objective during the interview should be to create for himself an entirely new image. That’s because image drives negotiation.

Here’s what Armstrong needs to address.
1. He’s to blame. Armstrong needs to emphasize that he allowed himself to get trapped in this terrible whirlwind of doping and didn’t know how to get out of it. And that he’s solely responsible for his actions.

2. He still desires to do good. Arguably Armstrong still wants to help funnel dollars into Livestrong, and his ability to do so may be tied to his reinstatement into the world of athletic competition. Even after his scandal, President Bill Clinton bolstered his positive image through tireless involvement with global humanitarian issues.

3. He seeks forgiveness. Ideally he’ll admit his mistakes, be humble, and hope viewers, like Oprah, will cut him some slack.
In a perfect world, a legion of newly generated pro-Lance supporters — a groundswell of public sentiment advocating for Armstrong — might help leaders of influential cycling organizations and committees to reconsider their ban. If this is Armstrong’s new long-term aim, it’s a good one. As anyone involved in negotiation training will tell you, it’s what well-managed negotiation is all about.

It’s easy to speculate what road Armstrong would be cycling on right now, had he not been caught and charged. Perhaps, for the cyclist, being interviewed by Winfrey is a necessary evil, devoid of true anguish on his part for lying to the public. Stay tuned, next week, for my comments and analysis on how well — or not — Armstrong acquitted himself in the court of public opinion




source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcamp/...through-oprah/

[moby]

Oprah will slay him.