Judge tells "timewaster" Lance Armstrong to disclose information to government

We know Armstrong finished first in multiple TdF while wearing US Postal. This/these acts generated a massive interest in the US and US Postal Team and Armstrong was at the forefront. Does this mean he can prove they sold more stamps? Pretty tough cost benefit. I submit he probably was a better advertizement than employees appearing on the news after "going postal". Small package delivery went up and because the service works well it continues to increase. How to quantify is the question?  US Postal Service was prominently displayed continually for the entirety of sponsorship. 

Now for the hypocrisy of Armstrongs involvement vis a vis doping and racing. The "winners" were all doping. ALL. The TdF began to reluctantly get involved only after the Spainish and Italians made it impossible for them to ignore. This continued a "tradition" of drugged competitiors going back before 6 day races (early 1900's). I would be shocked if it still doesn't infest the peloton, but maybe it is less indemic now. I hope so. The point is Armstrongs dopped team beat everyone elses dopped teams and US Postal benefitted from the exposure. He produced, they renewed the contracts until he began the downward slide, then they pulled out. 

It seems to me that if you read the article the reason for the judge's response is both clear and entirely reasonable.

Armstrong contends that the value the sponsor (US Postal Services) got from him and the team were worth "more than  $160 million"  i.e. considerably more than than the $32m that USPS are claiming back from Armstrong.

The court has said "Give us a factual basis for this 'more than $160' " i.e. show us the facts on which you have calculated this figure.

Armstrong has, for over 9 months, refused to identify where the facts can be found  on which this calculation is based, merely saying "it may be found". 

If you make a claim in a court it is normal to have to back it up with factual evidence. If you are unable to do so it would be reasonable, in this case to conclude that this is  figure (<$160m) is plucked out of thin air.

In any case the onus is on Armstrong to produce the factual evidence if he wishes to rely on it to support his claim. It is not the court's responsibility to go searching for it because Armstrong has said "it may be found".

Armstrong is not being prevented from producing evidence, he's being asked for it and has failed for the last 9 months to present it. The judge is now saying produce the factual evidence which you have failed to produce for 9 months; if you cannot produce factual evidence then the court will have no alternative but to conclude that there is no such evidence (and conclude that this "more than $160m" is a figure that you have just plucked out of thin air).

This of course is in line with Armstrong's "I'm the most tested athlete in the history of sport and have never had a positive test". We all know how that ended....

I would just add a comment to Colin Peyresoude's about Sharapova - I understand she took a substance for 10 years which was not on the prohibited substances list and cannot therefore be considered in that time to be doping. It got moved onto the prohibited list in January 2016 and she got caught because she had failed to keep up to date with the latest additions of prohibited substances.

Remember many of us take over the counter drugs that would, I understand, give a +ve dope reading, for example codeine, or 3 double espressos. (just imagine what a couple of codeine & 3 double espressos would do...).  

Oh dear superpython, you don't seem to understand what quotation marks are if you take offence from me quoting your own words.

You also confuse 5th amendment rights with disclosure requirements. They are complex but the Judge is well within his rights

surely the whole point of this case is that is now beyond dispute that LA cheated and the court will  now decide how much, if anything, he owes others for such behaviour. all the us government are asking is for LAto substantiate his claim that usps benefitted to the tune of many millions of dollars through their sponsorship. the court agrees with this request. If LA cant substantiate such claims he  is a  fool to be making them. the government and usps make no such claim so why should they be expected to produce evidence of it??? I am very glad to see the us courts are not being taken in by the smoke and mirrors of LAs legal/ pr machine ( unlike our own courts in the infamous sunday times libel case). Indeed the judge is recognising the insincere nature of LAs stance in his critical staements and threats to  strike off  such so called " evidence".

If I advance an alibi  as a defence  then it is for me to find corroboration and be prepared to face cross examination.

We have moved way beyond the rights and wrongs of doping in this case. comments alluding to this are futile and a waste of space.

I still don't fathom Lance's defenders after all that he has done. 

If you want doping in sport to be sorted, if you want pros to think twice you cannot allow them to reap unlimited rewards with impunity.

As Dick Pound said sponsors should be held to account for enabling. Just look at Sharapova and you see that the level of her success means that despite being guilty of doping she's unlikely to ever have to do her own dirty laundry ever again.

The issue is also one that has almost nameless victims - the sportsmen and women that die young, either before they make they name and fortune, and those that depart this world too soon because of their doping.

The risk/reward is great, but the age of the gladiator was over in the Roman times.

I had decided not to click or comment on this article. It was the good, the ture, the clean way forward, it was what was best for the sport and for my health. But then, I saw 3 comments posted. I was getting left out. Other, perhaps less talented posters, might be getting their comments in. Why shouldn't I? No matter, I thought, the right way is the only path for the righteous. But then, I checked again. 8 comments. I'm out of the game. I'm nothing, nobody. I've got no voice or platform to do good. Yes, it's the wrong way to go about it, but what if it was me getting the attention. Wouldn't that be better than the old guard who are clicking again and again and commenting again and again letting more oxygen into the pernicious culture of cycle-commenting? No, my man. Stay strong. Stay true. HTFU. Then I saw 13 comments had been posted.

And here we are. It wasn't my fault, honest. It's the culture. I'm just a victim of a pernicious system. I won't do it again. I'm reformed. I’ve learned from my mistakes. And I understand the problem better than anyone. I can be the voice we need to lead cycle-commenting into the future. A future without comments on Lance Armstrong "news". Maybe even a future without Lance Armstrong "news" at all. We can do this. We can lead the next generation. Believe in me. Believe in yourself. Believe in the future.

Lance - er - Armstrong? Erm, didn't he used to be famous?

He doped, he (finally) got caught.

I imagine he wouldn't be quite so hated if he hadn't been quite so incredibly ruthless, and so very successful , and if he hadn't created the whole Livestrong myth.

And yet, as cyclisto says, Livestrong did have a good effect notwithstanding Lance himself.

And in other Aspen Grand Fondo news: the Denver Post (quote) - "Despite Armstrong’s fall from the pinnacle of professional cycling amid allegations he used performance-enhancing drugs, organizers have no qualms about having him lead the informal peloton, said Nancy Lesley, the city’s director of special events and marketing."

Probably says more about the Aspen demographic than can allegedly be - erm -alleged. 

The Lance Armstrong case is weird one. He used bad means for his own benefit that produced a great outcome: millions of people on bicycles for excercise, many of whom replaced their car miles for bicycle miles.

For the doping haters there is only one solution: Has Mr Armstrong been caught doped? Put a good fine on him and a much, much greater one on their sponsors, in order to balance their profits. Just don't tell me that the sponsors aren't aware of what their cyclists take...

Does anyone else wonder what the US Postal service has lost since Lance Armstrong was proven a cheater?

They paid their money, they got their advertising, they presumably increased their profits.  So have they lost those profits since he told the truth?

Armstrong is plainly a scumbag (just read about how he damaged Greg Lemond's career) but I don't think his sponsors deserve any sympathy as they've lost nothing.

I see "we were worth hundreds of millions of dollars in publicity" has become the new "never tested positive", in that it is the phrase Lance and his entourage repeat ad nauseam, despite being orthogonal to the point at hand.

It's so unfair. There are lots of other bank robbers, why are you picking on me?

Look, everyone else is speeding too,  it's not right to fine me.

I find it hard to believe that the sponsors in that time period didn't at least suspect something.

Will people stop picking on Lance, please? It's so obviously unfair!!!