Last week federal prosecutors in San Francisco announced that they will try a 46-year-old former slugger who hasn't been in the majors for years for allegedly lying about steroids in 2003.
That would be Barry Bonds, of course, playing in the first game of what promises to be a Sports Doping Doubleheader, followed by what appears to be the certain trial of Lance Armstrong, the champion 38-year-old cyclist who just bombed at his last Tour de France.
If Armstrong needed evidence that the federal investigation into alleged fraud and sports doping on the US Postal team was not going away any time soon, here it is. While the Armstrong grand jury is only now getting underway in Los Angeles, the grand jury that swept up Bonds was convened seven years ago -- back during the first term of President George W. Bush.
The lesson for Lance is that if the Bonds case is any indication the government treats the doping trials of superstar athletes as marathons. Forget about Armstrong's famed endurance in winning seven Tours de France. Armstrong may have to out pedal his pursuers for nearly a decade.
Back in the spring of 2009, the government all but threw in the towel in the perjury case against Bonds. On the eve of trial, prosecutors appealed a court ruling, seeming to abandon the long running case.
Last Friday those same prosecutors went before judge Susan Illston, and asked for a court date. The Bonds trial is now set for March of 2011, right before the baseball season. Prosecutors lost their motion to introduce what they thought was their strongest evidence that Bonds might have lied about drugs -- alleged positive steroid tests -- because they couldn't prove they were Bond's tests.
But that doesn't mean they won't turn up the heat.
Greg Anderson, Bonds' former trainer, previously went to jail for a year on contempt charges, for refusing to testify about the tests. Prosecutors have made it clear that they will ask that he be jailed again if he refuses to talk. Last year twenty federal agents raided Anderson's mother-in-law's home in a crude attempt to pressure him to testify.
Armstrong and his lawyers should expect anything and everything. BALCO The Sequel will likely prove that prosecutors and investigators will go to any expense and all lengths to try and convict a superstar for sports doping.
Former sluggers charged with lying about using performance-enhancing drugs or washed up champion cyclists who allegedly used them while riding on the U.S. Postal team, are destined for a long, inevitable prosecution.
Trials of cheating in sports are played by different rules. As Armstrong and his lawyers have already seen, the first trial will be a slow stealth attack in the media by government witnesses. Floyd Landis and Greg LeMond, both likely witnesses before the grand jury, have been leaking their stories steadily to the press.
The Bonds case has been riddled by criminal leaks by the federal government, as well as by Troy Ellerman, a defense attorney. Ellerman was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for leaking grand jury material to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The government no doubt will say there's a difference. Ellerman leaked what the witnesses told the grand jury, while Landis and LeMond appear to be leaking in advance what they are going to tell the grand jury.
The show goes on.
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including MANY things that make Floyd's story bunk is that when it was time for him to dope on his own, he did not use the lessons lance supposedly taught him but rather simply stuck a testosterone patch on his nutt sak and then blame the failed test on beer.
landis has an axe to grind that he had a tour titel taken form him
Lemond has had an axe to grind since the moment lance passed him and won his fourth tour and therfore became the greatest american rider.
Barry Bonds never failed a test because there weren't any tests for the time he was using.
Lance armstrong was the most heavily tested athlete and never failed a test...unlike Floyd.
You sir, are the kind of personality who hears someone being beat in the alley and grabs a stick.
I am not sure what pedigree you possess, but I am sure that you endorse innuendo over fact. What have you really got to put Bonds OR Armstrong in the frame of the law?
Where are the tests? Lance Williams and the other beat reporters hated Bonds and I don't even know if they would deny this. Bonds would react unfavorably to them. It is true. But you spend time being questioned in your buck-suit by a bunch of clothed dudes and tell me if you endorse that?
Armstrong was tested. Where are the concrete charges?
So far we have a media campaign orchestrated from the Novitzky circle. He drums up a grand jury this way, and the assassination was easy with Bonds, not so much with Armstrong. So they keep pushing. Hoping more here-say will come spilling out of the woodwork. That is how the Nov-man furnishes his home.
This is the same pattern as Bonds. It is driven by the need, not for conviction, for uncertain charges. These charges must drive a grand jury over the years and create a number of inflammatory new charges based upon further innuendo branching off from the first.
With Bonds it shows that Novitzky's first move went down, but he still scraped up this rather insignificant follow up.
Perhaps he is distracted by age, fame and his own mis-aligned expectations. I mean this somewhat critically and somewhat kindly - hubris and great talent do not go gently. This is a human tragedy, not a failing of one man, but rather a failing of society at large. We always have embraced encores, yet we also always pilfer those who fail to allow us to maintain our sense of normalcy (it was not normal for us to see Armstrong struggle so mightily as to truly fail) - for not wanting to admit our own limitations - often hastened by gravity (time and age) and the talent du jour.
"It also should be very clearly understood that MOST of the cycling elite, including the officials and testers, would have delighted in him testing positive - and over ten years, while many of the heros of the sport, most of whom were European, tested positive, not one single time did he have even an abnormal reading - and the test in '99 for cream for saddle sores was cleared by the governing body."
SIX HUNDRED tests.
ZERO positives.
And to say he bombed at the Tour is a bit ignorant. He finished in the top 75th percentile - not a bad placing for a guy who is on average 10 years older than most riders in the Tour - let's not forget his team that won the best team award.
It also should be very clearly understood that other than most of the cycling elite, including the officials and testers, would have delighted in him testing positive - and over ten years, while many of the heros of the sport, most of whom were European, tested positive, not one single time did he have even an abnormal reading - and the test in '99 for cream for saddle sores was cleared by the governing body.
Let us also not forget that cycling does not have a riders union, does not have collective bargaining and most importantly does not protect its athletes by keeping positives anonymous. Furthermore, let's not forget that ONE positive is an automatic 2 year ban. Not once has this rule been over turned.
Lastly, and this goes to the heart of the authors ignorance of the sport, it is Tours de France, not "Tour de France's" as he called it.... The issue may not be entirely about cycling, but it is necessary to understand the sport if you are going to vilify one of its leaders.
Cleveland, Boston and New England also bombed last year. Or did they?
Bonds I don't give a rats' tushie about: his cap size nearly doubling (L O freakin' L!!!) after he hit the done-growing mark, alone, speaks volumes. May he burn in his flagrant disregard for the children who have looked up to him. I don't give a rats tushie about the adults who defended BB; may they reap what they sow for not caring about what the youth and future generations need to be real about.... and that is THE TRUTH.
Lance, .... he just saddens me. I said it when Bob Cesca wrote Landis' accusations months ago and I'll say it again: what a shame! what a crying shame! I truly cared for LA and his legacy.
Let's let the courts adjudicate this.... and of course, share our opinions in the meantime. That's all they are!
a minor point but noteworthy point - take an objective look at the 2 accusers in this blog: Landis and LeMond. please mention the extreme travesty and hypocrisy that is Floyd Landis. anyone that looked up to this guy, read his comprehensive and believable book "proving his innocence" or donated money to his "Floyd Fairness Fund" will tell you, the guy is a huge disappointment all around. he's admittedly been lying and stealing for years. suddenly he's not allowed in the Tour de California, blames Lance, comes out with all these "conscious clearing" admissions and POOF, he's assumed telling the truth.
LeMond is well known in cycling for being a belligerently jealous, somewhat mentally ill character who openly holds biased vendettas. he has no information about Armstrong, he just weighs in and shuns any American rider is accused of anything. he's been making wild, never-once-substantiated accusations about Lance for years.
p.s. Lance didn't really "bomb". dive headfirst off the front end of a bike going 30mph and see if you can finish in 23rd place over 2000miles with the world's best athletes.
Let the investigation go forth if you think there's nothing wrong. Are you afraid of what the answer may uncover?