French Cycling Federation says it views Lance Armstrong's refusal to fight charges as an admission of doping

"he has better things to do with his time?"

Better than defend his clean 7 TDF wins and personal reputation? I can't think of much that's a better use of his time unless he's on a massive rock n roll style coke and playboy bunnies bender while hanging out on tour with Motley Crue with the GLC as a support act

BTW Lance, if you are - all is forgiven, you rock, and at last have become as cool as Jan Ulrich.

Armstrong claims to have been investigated to ascertain whether he "cheated and gained an unfair advantage". From the information I have seen the investigation was into whether he took PEDs and whether he was involved in a conspiracy to cover it up and encourage others to do so. He has deliberately conflated two issues "cheating" and "gaining an unfair advantage" in an attempt to confuse. By denying that he "cheated and gained an unfair advantage" he's actually saying that he did take PEDs but as all the other top riders were too he was merely leveling the playing field.

Commentators would scoff at a criminal claiming, in the face of a plethora of other evidence, that as the Police didn't catch him red-handed robbing the bank he didn't do it. A criminal of course wouldn't have the option of opting out of the court process. Let's remember that Marion Jones was caught the same way as Armstrong has been, David Millar never failed a drugs test but Lance did, it just got covered up. I'm surprised he hasn't yet blamed the european-cheese-eating-surrender-monkies for forcing him to turn to drugs.

Armstrong's right about one thing though, it's not about the bike it's about how you can spread the blame.

Nobody else spot the "strip him of the 7 titles want money back but not awarding win to the 2nd place rider" and they will use money to fund cycling, lol not bad idea 7 yrs of tour profits and no winners fees paid out, if Lance paid them the nearly 3 mill they are asking for.

To be honest I do not care personaly if lance is guilty or innocent it does not affect me.
I care about the legitimacy of the witness statements and why it has taken so long for this to be at the level it is at, after all a 7 times tour winner, well after 2-3 wins he should have been under more scrutiny than any other rider in the sport.
If they found nothing most times and as one said he had a doc exemption another time or more, who are we to argue with that it should have been argued at the time.

A paper here also stated that officials were complacent in helping him with tests by giving him at least 20 min notice ? All this says to me is it is a very very sorry state on all counts for all parties involved.

And for those saying he is guilty because he is not fighting it and has the money to fight it, do you have even the slightest idea how much it takes out of someone fighting the system? money can help but time and stress are something money does not alter.

I will reserve my judgement till the full facts are published if ever and all legal action is finished.

"As for witch-hunts and all this other self-serving bollocks - puh-lease! Armstrong is the king of with-hunts. He hounded Simeoni and Bassons out of their careers, he accused a well-regarded professional soigneur (the only female in her field incidentally) of being an alcoholic and a prostitute. He will do (and has done) just about anything to damage and discredit anyone who speaks out against him."

Good stuff, LL. Armstrong is a dreadful human being who deserves exposing mainly for what he's done to the decent individuals you mention and probably many others we don't know about. Fuck the doping per se, it's the damage he's wrought on good, honest, hard-working folk and an entire sport - with the connivance of the authorities in the shape Verbruggen and McQuaid - that needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

Spot on post from lacticlegs - couldn't have put it better myself. Like LL, I used to be a big LA fan, but over the years as more and more doping stories came to light it became increasing hard to believe that the dominant rider of his era (which lets not forget was absolutely awash with dope of every kind) was the only clean rider in the peloton - its simply not plausible.

I will concede this to the LA fans though - given that say 90 percent of riders were probably doped that means that it was a reasonably level playing field; LA was better than everyone else - he trained harder, wanted to win more and could take more pain than anyone else, so I have no arguments there at all.

What really annoys me is the bullying, the denials and the smoke and mirrors BS about never failing a test - I've never been caught speeding in my car, but I've done many times I.e. just because you haven't been caught doesn't mean you didnt do it. It's a totally fallacious argument. I don't recall LA ever directly and simply saying 'I have never taken PEDs' - it's always dressed up with this nonsense about never failing a test. I could go on but you get the idea.

I think there's plenty more to come on this, so the fans are in for a tough time.

Godwins law Simon?...Well you said it first

JonD; I was trying to say it is a good idea to leave the winners place empty....

Of course the other reason for not pursuing it is that he has better things to do with his time? The posts above make little sense if he is as litigious as you suggest he'd have no reason not to fight it.

In any event, if those who are testifying against Lance are doing this for a deal then it doesn't look good. As I've said before I think some people are testifying under duress.

Baloney. Deciding not to fight a legal battle is definitively NOT proof of guilt or tantanount to confession as claimed by FFC.

When a powerful commercial or state agency takes on an individual, the baleful truth is that the deck is massively stacked in favour of the agency, ie USADA in this case. They have the financial resources to slug out a legal battle to the biter end. Only multimillionaires have the resources to fight back. Why else do you think that the vast majority of libel/defmataion cases are brought by big corporations or super-rich individuals, and why do they target the individual journalist rather than the newpaper corporation they are employed by?

Lance Armstring might for all I know have become wealthy from his cycling career but I would bet that we are talking about rich, not super-rich, and simple rich just doesn't cut it. Also, committed as he is to support his charity, he might reasonably be supposed to think any resources he has spare to fritter away would be best applied to the benefit of his charity.

As I understand it, USADA has only the testimony of team mates, many of whom have been caught with their own fingers in the pill-jar, and who allegedly have obtained concessions for agreeing to testify against Armstrong, so their evidence is tainted at best. Also, Armstong has subnitted to multiple doping tests over many years at frequent intervals, and not one of these tests has actually been positive for banned substances.

There is about as much justice in this campaign of persecution as there is in South Africa prosecuting for murder not the policemen who shot and killed 34 striking miners, but about 200 of their fellow - unarmed - strikers under a law introduced in the apartheid era.

Having read a couple of books about him and what a nasty piece of work he can be and given how agressively Armstrong has gone after anyone or anything that has said negative things about him, I think he may be guilty after all.

Well played, FFC. Dear the rest of the sport: this is how you do it.

give the palamares to the podium girls

Good idea, how can you award these titles to people who themselves have been caught doping? But I still think there is a whole new chapter to come! Come on Lance lets have some more bull-sh... whoops sorry.. more of your defence case.

Love it!

OK - form an orderly queue!