Still Not Pissy..
I suppose I should be all over the Flandis story like an apple pie at dinner but... well I guess I just am not that surprised. I said way back when Floyd fought his suspension that his best route to "vindication" was through the civil court system. The problem was that he would likely be vindicated of the '96 Tour conviction but would have to fess up to all the dope he took prior to that and that everyone in cycling would be implicated.
Flash forward and here we are except that it's going to run through the criminal courts instead of civil.
And I don't think it's all that mysterious what's going on and what is going to happen. More or less:
- At some point Floyd approached the Feds or they approached him about organized doping on USPostal
- Floyd cooperated and the Feds locked down on Bruyneel and Armstrong as the organizers while viewing others like David Z and Michael Barry as witnesses / victims
- Recognizing this was going to come out Floyd started working with USADA to premptively get amnesty for those whose involvement may not be criminal but would result in suspensions.
- The Feds have already gathered enough evidence to convince them that Armstrong and Bruyneel are guilty
- At some point soon they will announce an official investigation.
- Armstrong will deny deny deny
- Between two to four years from now Armstrong & Bruyneel will be convicted.
The wild card is whether the preliminary investigation is already over; my understanding is that wisttleblowers are supposed to keep their mouths shut until after a case is brought.
In the end I just don't think this will impact cycling too much. Armstrong is so omnipresent that it's easy to tie his success to cycling. But I think cycling will be fine; it's not like baseball or football are exactly clean and they are doing fine.
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