Friday a key deadline as Armstrong case ramps up

  JIM VERTUNOAUSTIN, Tx. -- Lance Armstrong faces a Friday deadline to file a formal response to the latest allegations that he was doping during his seven consecutive Tour de France victories.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency informed Armstrong on June 12 that it plans to bring charges that he used performance-enhancing drugs. If found guilty, Armstrong could ultimately be stripped of the Tour de France titles he won from 1999-2005.

Armstrong insists he is innocent and despite the deadline he isn't required to file a written response. The deadline is important, however, because now the case will be sent to a USADA review panel to determine whether there's enough evidence to warrant formal charges.

If it does, Armstrong could find himself before an arbitration panel to decide the matter by November.

Here's a look at a few of the questions surrounding Armstrong's case: ---
Q: Why didn't the Armstrong doping questions end in February when federal prosecutors closed a two-year criminal investigation without filing charges?

A: The federal probe was an investigation into financial fraud, not a question of whether Armstrong cheated as an athlete.

Armstrong hoped the end of the criminal investigation would end the doping questions. The latest allegations are that he used blood boosters, steroids and other improper performance enhancers and violated sports competition rules, not criminal law. Armstrong can't be put in jail if he's found guilty, but he can be stripped of his titles.

When the federal criminal probe ended, USADA officials warned they would continue investigating Armstrong and their level of proof required when presenting evidence is lower than the legal standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt." USADA officials insist their standard of proof is still very high.

Armstrong had suggested in recent interviews he expected charges to be filed and even hinted he may not fight them, saying he was tired of the battle. That would seem unlikely now given his tenacious determination to fight off previous doping allegations during his career.

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Q: The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency sounds like a branch of the federal government. What is it?

A: Created in 2000, USADA is a nonprofit agency recognized by Congress as the official anti-doping police for U.S. Olympic-related athletes and sports. But it is not a law enforcement agency and does not have the power to bring criminal charges.

The U.S. Olympic Committee recommended creating the agency because its own drug-testing program lacked credibility. USADA is supported financially by the U.S. Olympic Committee and the federal government.

Part of USADA's mission is to not only catch cheaters but to help researchers create new, more sophisticated tests to keep up with evolving cheating techniques.

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Q: What's at stake for Armstrong?

A: Everything.

From his Tour de France titles to his legacy as the cancer-fighting hero to his foundation that trades on his name to raise millions of dollars to help cancer survivors, it's all on the line.

After his 1999 Tour de France victory, Armstrong wrote a book, "It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life," that helped define him as an inspirational athlete who came back from the brink of death to beat cancer and dominate a grueling sport. Now he allegedly faces evidence that could taint his entire career on the bike.

Armstrong also has legions of fans around the globe due to his work fighting cancer. They may not care about doping in sports. But a formal ruling that he's a cheater, that it's not just innuendo and rumor, could be devastating and a disappointment for many.

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Q: Doping allegations against Armstrong have gone nowhere before. Is there new evidence?

A: That's unknown. USADA says it has more than 10 former teammates willing to testify they either know Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs, told them he used them or encouraged their use on his teams. USADA also says it has blood samples from his 2009-10 comeback that show evidence "fully consistent" with blood doping.

USADA hasn't released witness names or the blood samples, despite a demand from Armstrong's attorneys to see them. USADA says it's keeping the names private to prevent retaliation or intimidation, raising speculation Armstrong will file a federal lawsuit to gain access.

Armstrong notes he's passed about 500 drug tests in his career. And in a letter to USADA last week, his attorneys noted the blood samples that allegedly indicate doping came from a time Armstrong passed all his drug tests.

Unlike other sports figures who have been sanctioned after positive drug tests, USADA's case against Armstrong appears to be built around the total weight off the alleged witness testimony and suspicious blood samples.

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Q: Friday was a paperwork deadline. What happens next?

A: USADA submits its case to a three-person review board of technical, legal and medical experts. The panel reviews the evidence and recommends whether USADA has a strong enough case to pursue charges.

Presuming the case proceeds, it goes to a three-person arbitration panel. Armstrong picks one member, USADA picks another and those two arbitrators pick the third, who acts as the panel chairman. Once that happens, USADA will have to start turning evidence over to Armstrong and his lawyers to review.

Armstrong can contest the charges or accept them. If he challenges USADA, the case goes to a hearing before the arbitration panel where both sides can present evidence and cross-examine witnesses. Armstrong can elect to have an open hearing or keep it closed to the public.

Only one athlete, former cyclist Floyd Landis, a former Armstrong teammate who won the 2006 Tour de France and later tested positive for steroid use, chose to have an open hearing and he lost. He later became one of Armstrong's primary accusers.

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Former teammate says Lance Armstrong injected EPO

  By EDDIE PELLSNEW YORK -- Tyler Hamilton joined Floyd Landis on the list of cyclists who once worked for Lance Armstrong but now say the seven-time Tour de France winner used performance-enhancing drugs.

In an interview with "60 Minutes," Hamilton admitted that he doped and said Armstrong did, as well - using the blood booster EPO in the 1999 Tour and before the race in 2000 and 2001. Armstrong's string of seven straight wins lasted from 1999-2005.

"I saw (EPO) in his refrigerator. ... I saw him inject it more than one time, like we all did. Like I did, many, many times," Hamilton said in the "60 Minutes" interview that was aired Thursday on the "CBS Evening News."

He said Armstrong "took what we all took... the majority of the peloton," referring to riders in the race. "There was EPO...testosterone... a blood transfusion."

Armstrong immediately refuted the Hamilton interview, launching a website that denied the claims. He also tweeted: "20+ year career. 500 drug controls worldwide, in and out of competition. Never a failed test. I rest my case."

But the Hamilton interview keeps the news of Armstrong and his alleged doping program in the headlines.

Last week, The Associated Press reported that a federal investigation into whether Armstrong and his former U.S. Postal team ran a systematic doping program is pushing into its second year, and that the feds recently asked French authorities for evidence in a request that mentions Armstrong by name.

As it did when Landis made his accusations, Armstrong's camp was quick to undercut the credibility of the accuser.

"Hamilton is actively seeking to make money by writing a book, and now he has completely changed the story he has always told before so that he could get himself on '60 Minutes' and increase his chances with publishers," Armstrong attorney Mark Fabiani said. "But greed and a hunger for publicity cannot change the facts: Lance Armstrong is the most tested athlete in the history of sports: He has passed nearly 500 tests over twenty years of competition."

A report by ESPN said Hamilton sent a letter to friends apologizing for lying about his past drug use. He said he testified six hours before the Los Angeles grand jury investigating Armstrong.

It will be up to the members of the grand jury to decide whether they believe the Hamilton who steadfastly denied doping for years - at times concocting elaborate excuses for his positive tests - or the one who testified under oath about the Armstrong case.

Landis, meanwhile, is an unlikely witness in this case, even though it was his revelations a year ago this week that poured fuel on the investigation.

He was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive for taking synthetic testosterone, denied taking performance-enhancing drugs for years, then finally admitted he doped for much of his career - a mea culpa that also implicated Armstrong.

Asked to comment on Hamilton's interview, Landis said in an email to The AP: "The only comment I have is that I wish the best for Tyler."

Hamilton, 40, won a cycling gold medal at the 2004 Athens Games but failed a drug test later. He was allowed to keep his medal, however, because problems at a laboratory meant his backup 'B' sample could not be tested.

Months later, he was caught blood doping and served a two-year ban which ended in 2007.

Hamilton returned to racing and won the 2008 U.S. road championship, but retired last spring after admitting he took an antidepressant that contained the banned steroid DHEA. He was officially banned from cycling for eight years.

The International Olympic Committee could strip Hamilton of his gold medal, IOC vice president Thomas Bach told The Associated Press on Friday.

Bach said the committee will examine Hamilton's statements that he doped throughout his career.

"If there is any need or possibility to take action we will do it," said Bach, who heads most of the IOC's doping investigations.

Bach said he hasn't seen Hamilton's statements yet but "we will look into this."

The IOC can retroactively strip Olympic medals if proof of doping emerges later or an athlete admits to cheating. The IOC took away Marion Jones' five medals from the 2000 Sydney Games after she admitted using performance-enhancing drugs.

The "60 Minutes" segment, which will air in its entirety Sunday, also includes an interview with another former Armstrong teammate, Frankie Andreu.

Now one of the race directors at the Tour of California, Andreu told Pelley he took banned substances because lesser riders he believed were doping were passing him.

"Training alone wasn't doing it and I think that's how ... many of the other riders during that era felt, I mean, you kind of didn't have a choice," he is quoted as saying.

Andreu's wife, Betsy, who has said Armstrong discussed taking performance-enhancing drugs as doctors prepared him for cancer treatment in 1996, said she and her husband are working with investigators.

"We are cooperating, and we'll just tell the truth. And telling the truth has been costly," she said. "It's not popular to tell the truth about Lance."

Andreu and Hamilton were both in on the ground floor of Armstrong's record-breaking Tour de France domination, and were among the key cyclists he relied on and lived with as he put his grip on the three-week race.

They both rode with Armstrong for the first two Tours that he won, in 1999 and 2000, all together under U.S. Postal colors.

Hamilton rode with Armstrong on his 2001 Tour win for U.S. Postal, too.

Andreu's Tour links with Armstrong also predate the start of his winning streak. Andreu and Armstrong were teamed together at Motorola for the 1993, '94, '95 and '96 Tours.

In his biography, "It's Not About the Bike," Armstrong described Andreu on that first winning Tour in 1999 as "a big powerful sprinter and our captain, an accomplished veteran who had known me since I was a teenager."

Hamilton was a climber, and one of his jobs was to help haul Armstrong up the Tour's punishing climbs.

But that teamwork is long gone, replaced by a damning accusation.

Also in the interview, Hamilton said Armstrong failed a drug test at the 2001 Tour de Suisse, the same accusation Landis made when he went public with his allegations last year.

--- AP Sports Writer Stephen Wilson in Lausanne, Switzerland, contributed to this report.

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