Feds, grand jury, apparently targeting Armstrong for doping

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/sports/cycling/05armstrong.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Have to admit I'm rooting for a complete and total takedown of the biggest hypocrite in modern sports history. Looks like more former teammates besides Landis have flipped on him.

 

Novitsky came across in "Game of Shadows" as a pretty dogged investigator. If he's on this case, look out, Lance.

 

I've always wanted to believe he did it without cheating, but I've also always know that it was very unlikely.

It looks like they're getting closer & closer to proving he cheated:

 

Just another crooked Novitzky investigation that will spend millions of tax dollars to get someone a two-month jail term. If federal prosecutors had any guts they would investigate Novitzky, who cares for little but publicity for himself.

 

Jeff Novitzky, still trying to land the big one.

(edited in deference to Cranberry above, who said it better. Paging creamora.)

 

Well, he did land Marion Jones, didn't he?

I just don't understand criticisms of Novitzky. No, he hasn't nailed Barry Bonds, but he's responsible for much, if not most, of the info in the Mitchell report.

I love that I'm seeing a Lance Armstrong supplements ad with this page, btw.

 

A good lawyer could tear apart any witness for the prosecution. Everything is a he-said, he-said but the documentation of thousands of drug tests come back clean.

I'm sure Lance did everything under the sun and then some, but I don't care. As a true cycling fan, I know that doping didn't start in the early 90s - regardless of what LeDouchebag says - and it hasn't stopped.

That doesn't dampen my enjoyment of watching the sport. When someone tells me Lance had an electric motor in his bottom bracket, then I'll be pissed. Other than that, as far as I'm concerned he won on a level playing field.

 

Yeah, the fucking Mitchell Report, that really worked out well... another one of Clueless Bud's legacies.

 

In general, a lot of Novitzky's steroid evidence was ultimately thrown out because it was either obtained illegally or didn't prove what it purported to prove. Thus cran's comment about wasting dumpster-loads of tax dollars for very little return.

 

The Mitchell Report will be extremely meaningful historically. It was, essentially, the official history of the steroid era.

And, yeah 21, it was thrown out. But his investigation essentially broke out the most important sports steroids operation in the U.S., if not the world - whether he convicted one person or not. Hard to see that as a waste in my book.

 

No one (well, almost no one) would argue that the BALCO investigation changed the sports world immeasurably.

But Novitzky isn't a private detective, he's a Special Agent for the FDA's criminal investigation unit (don't quote me there, but it's something like that), and the US govt is obligated to operate within the law--even ballplayers with oversized craniums have rights. Millions of dollars were spent obtaining evidence that was useless, on Novitsky's watch. Other than Marion Jones, a couple of minor characters (sorry Victor) did some minor jail time. That's it.

 

A hell of a point.

It's why I will always believe Ben Johnson remains the rightful Olympic gold medal winner in the men's 100-m dash in 1988. They were all on drugs, including Carl Lewis; Johnson's just the one who was made a scapegoat.