Let alone he had his worst Tour de France finish ever, and the fact that he recently retired from the Leadville 100, the high-altitude Mountain Bike race he won last year in record time, now he has to deal with federal agent Jeff Novitzky.
Perhaps you have never heard of this Jeff Novitzky. But if you follow sports, you probably have heard of the turmoil that comes in his wake. Lets be a bit more specific here, he is not famous per se, but does Olympic Sprinter Marion Jones and MLB home-run legend/fiasco Barry Bonds sound familiar? Well, this is the guy that the federal prosecutors assigned for the doping charges investigations of these two athletes.
Novitzky was set upon the investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, a pharmaceutical company that later on led to the conviction of Marion Jones and the perjury charges against Larry Bonds. Just so you really get to like this Novitzky guy much, before he became an investigator for the FDA, he used to work for the Internal Revenue System. So yeah, whether you like him or not, and whatever your position in regards to Armstrong’s amazing career, Novitzky is well-known for his incisive detective-like skills and the very personal and meticulous ways in which he makes his investigation.
Now, all this began with Floyd Landis sending emails to cycling authorities and to other professional racers that once were part of Lance Armstrong’s team. The thing here is that, Armstrong survived testicular cancer, made an impressive comeback and for 7 years was the most dominant cyclist in the Tour de France, perhaps the most physically and psychologically demanding sports competition in the world. So sure, it is suspicious. Especially when so many of his teammates have come out as drug cheats: Tyler Hamilton, Landis himself and allegedly George Hincapie, who despite the accusations from Landis has never tested positive.
Yet Armstrong has come cleaned in many different tests along all this years. If you take a look at the sport of cycling you know that at one point or another they were all using some sort of performance enhancing drug. There is also Marco Pantani, Bjarne Riis, Richard Virenque and the whole Festina Team scandal in 1998. In 2007 you had the doping incidents with Alexandre Vinokourov and the expulsion of Micheal Rasmussen. So here is the thing, the base of the suspicions. Is Armstrong really the only clean racer in what otherwise is a sport that has struggle so much with the use of performance enhancing drugs?
Novitzky has set his sight at Lance and the sport itself. Armstrong on the other hand has always seemed very open about the subject. He has been called a cheater since his early years, but at 37 he has had one heck of a career. He has stated that he would be open to further investigations, but as rumor has it, Novitzky has a tendency to push to hard. The people that support Armstrong and his career have express their concerns. They don’t want this investigation to turn into a witch-hunt.
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