When the presumption of innocence meets la-la land

It’s Oscar Sunday here in Los Angeles. “La La Land” is expected to clean up.

Ladies and gentlemen and boys and girls, let’s turn the lights down low, settle back into our comfy seats with a big tub of popcorn and, what with the weekend's super-interesting script ripped from the Sunday Times over in London tied to a Fancy Bears hack all about Alberto Salazar and Sir Mo Farah and others, let’s revisit some showstoppers from years gone by.

What an interesting idea, just generally speaking: when the presumption of innocence meets la-la land.

But first:

Just like at the movie theater, when they tell you to turn off your cellphone, this disclaimer, brought to you Saturday from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency:

“Importantly, all athletes, coaches and others under the jurisdiction of the World Anti-Doping Code are innocent and presumed to have complied with the rules unless and until the established anti-doping process declares otherwise. It is grossly unfair and reckless to state, infer or imply differently.”

https://twitter.com/Ry_Madden/status/835659821059735553

Oh, wait.

For clarity: do these rules apply with the same import to Russian athletes?

Because this would be the same U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that over the past 18 months has helped promote the charge to ban each and every Russian athlete because of allegations involving what an independent World Anti-Doping Agency-commissioned report alleged was “institutional control” of the Russian anti-doping control system.

Just to reiterate from the USADA press aide's tweet, italics and underline mine: "all athletes, coaches and others … are innocent and presumed to have complied with the rules unless and until the established anti-doping process declares otherwise.”

For emphasis:

“It is grossly unfair and reckless to state, infer or imply differently.”

A U.S. Congressional subcommittee meets Tuesday to consider “ways to improve and strengthen the anti-doping system.” Perhaps this can be on the agenda.

La, la, la, la, la.

Returning, as we were, to a story seemingly crying out for a Hollywood-style treatment:

The Sunday Times, citing a Fancy Bears hack of a March 2016 USADA report, says Farah and others were given infusions of a research supplement based on the amino acid L-carnitine.

The newspaper says Salazar boasted about the “incredible performance boosting effects” of the stuff and emailed Lance Armstrong before Armstrong was outed for doping: “Lance call me asap! We have tested it and it’s amazing.”

Farah, in a Sunday post to his Facebook feed, said it was “deeply frustrating” to have to respond to such allegations and asserted he was a “clean athlete.”

To reiterate, Farah is, and the others in the Salazar camp are, assuredly entitled to the presumption of innocence.

Scriptwriters out there: do you know what might, just might, make for a really interesting take on the Farah saga? In retrospect, if you will, maybe the turning point in the whole thing?

In 2011, at the IAAF world championships in Daegu, South Korea, Farah lost the 10,000 meters by just this much, to a guy perhaps only true track geeks have ever heard of, Ibrahim Jeilan of Ethiopia.

After some 26 minutes of racing, Farah ran the last lap in 53.36 seconds, which is crazy fast.

It wasn't enough.

Jeilan won, in 27:13.81.

Farah got the silver, in 27.14.07.

Since, Farah has pretty much won everything of import, including both the 5 and 10k races at London 2012 and Rio 2016.

Jeilan isn't exactly a total chump. He was the 2006 world junior 10k champion. He is the 2013 10k world silver medalist.

But since that fateful evening in Daegu, Aug. 28, 2011, their career paths have — diverged.

One might ask: how come?

Moving along, as we were.

In 1978, when I was a second-year student at the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Illinois, the best-picture winner was “Annie Hall.” Talk about neurotic. You want neurotic? Here was neurotic: a second-year news writing class, taught by a crusty curmudgeon straight from central casting, Dick Hainey, in which we were taught that one mistake, even one, would get you an automatic failing grade and, son, you deserved to fail and, better yet, start learning to suck it up, because anything less than perfect obviously equals abject failure.

Here is another decree from the oracle atop the mountain that was Professor Hainey, and while anything less than perfect turns out maybe to be not such great advice for life, this next nugget is a worthwhile journalism lesson that has stuck for more than 40 years:

If your mother tells you she loves you — check it out.

In that spirit— and, once more for emphasis, Sir Mo and the others in the Salazar pack are assuredly entitled to the presumption of innocence — let us visit some hits from the wayback machine even as we note that Julia Roberts is, according to Variety, set to produce the film adaptation of the New York Times best-seller “Fool Me Once”:

Armstrong, 1999: “I have been on my deathbed, and I’m not stupid. I can emphatically say I’m not on drugs.”

Armstrong, 2005: “I have never doped. I can say it again but I’ve said it for seven years.”

Armstrong, 2005: “How many times do I have to say it? … Well, it can’t be any clearer than, ‘I’ve never taken drugs.’ “

Armstrong, 2010: “As long as I live, I will deny it. There was absolutely no way I forced people, encouraged people, told people, helped people, facilitated. Absolutely not. 100 percent.”

Armstrong on Twitter, May 2011, as his former teammate Tyler Hamilton was about to go on “60 Minutes”:

https://twitter.com/lancearmstrong/status/71358750434402306

Armstrong, 2013, after USADA got him: “All the fault and all the blame here falls on me. I viewed this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times. I made my decisions. They are my mistakes, and I am sitting here today to acknowledge that and to say I’m sorry for that.”

Hamilton, interview in his Boulder, Colorado, living room, 2005: “I didn’t blood dope, that’s for sure.”

Hamilton, May, 19, 2011, confession letter to family and friends: “During my cycling career, I knowingly broke the rules. I used performance-enhancing drugs. I lied about it, over and over. Worst of all, I hurt people I care about. And while there are reasons for what I did — reasons I hope you’ll understand better after watching — it doesn’t excuse the fact that I did it all, and there’s no way on earth to undo it.”

Hamilton, describing a July 2000 blood transfusion during that year’s Tour de France, as relayed as part of the USADA case against Armstrong:

“The whole process took less than 30 minutes. Kevin Livingston and I received our transfusions in one room and Lance got his in an adjacent room with an adjoining door. During the transfusion Lance was visible from our room, Johan, Pepe and Dr. del Moral were all present and Dr. del Moral went back and forth between the rooms checking on the progress of the re-infusions. Each blood bag was placed on a hook for a picture frame or taped to the wall and we lay on the bed and shivered while the chilly blood re-entered our bodies.”

Floyd Landis, his very own 2007 autobiography, the ironically titled Positively False, chapter 11:

“I did not use performance enhancing drugs in the 2006 Tour de France or any other time in my career. All I ever did was train. I put training first, even before my family. When you want to win, you eat, drink, sleep and breathe cycling. Knowing it’s not forever is what makes it doable. So I made the sacrifices I had to make, and I did so honestly.”

From page 278-79 in the book, Landis describing a post-2006 Tour de France trip back to where he was from, Farmersville, Pennsylvania, amid the largely Mennonite area of Lancaster County:

"One by one, hundreds of people walked across the yard to my parents to congratulate them. One woman went to mother with tears in her eyes. 'She said that she and her husband had lost their son in Iraq seven months before,' Mom said. 'She told me, 'My husband has never gotten over it, but he rides a bicycle and he watched every single stage. He's a different person since your son won. It was like healing to him.' I just felt so blessed that you were able to inspire someone while doing something that you love,' Mom told me. I never rode my bike in order to have an effect on anyone else, but I understand that people are influenced by what they see. When my mom told me this story, I was really touched that I had helped someone."

USADA Reasoned Decision, just one of many harrowing passages describing Landis' doping: “They shared doping advice from Michele Ferrari," the Italian doctor identified by USADA as a key player in the Armstrong scheme, "and when Floyd needed EPO Lance shared that, too.”

Marion Jones, her very own 2004 autobiography, and in big red capital letters about 175 pages in:

“I have always been unequivocal in my opinion. I am against performance-enhancing drugs. I have never taken them and I will never take them.”

Government sentencing memorandum, 2007, United States v. Marion Jones:

“The defendant’s use of performance-enhancing drugs encompassed numerous drugs (THG, EPO, human growth hormone) and delivery systems (sublingual drops, subcutaneous injections) over a substantial course of time. Her use of these substances was goal-oriented, that is, it was designed to further her athletic accomplishments and financial career. Her false statements to the [investigating] agent were focused, hoping not only to deflect the attention of the investigation away from herself, but also to secure the gains achieved by her use of the performance-enhancing substances in the first place. The false statements to the [investigating] agent were the culmination of a long series of public denials by the defendant, often accompanied by baseless attacks on those accusing her regarding her use of these substances."

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas, 2007, in sentencing Jones to six months in custody, emphasizing that what she did was not a “momentary lapse in judgment or a one-time mistake but instead a repetition of an attempt to break the law.”

Who knows what will happen at the Oscars?

What the next few weeks or months will bring with Sir Mo, Salazar and others?

Surprises and plot twists galore, perhaps.

La, la, la, la, la, everyone. Keep a watchful eye on your sweet mother and the popcorn.

UCI's belated preemptive strike

Cycling's international governing body, which goes by the acronym UCI, "did not protect" Lance Armstrong as he cheated his way to the seven Tour de France titles that have since been stripped from him, a new file prepared by the federation asserts. "Every decision by the UCI concerning Armstrong -- and indeed every other rider -- was taken in compliance with the known facts and with the science available at the time," says the file, sent out Monday to national cycling federation presidents, describing the UCI as a "pioneer" in the anti-doping campaign and "at the forefront" of "many new technical advances."

In an accompanying letter, UCI president Pat McQuaid declares, "For the past 20 years, the UCI has done everything possible in tackling the scourge of doping in sport."

The exuberance of these declarations, and the timing of the file, must be understood in context. McQuaid is in a reelection campaign, and most of the Olympic world, including the International Olympic Committee executive board, will be gathering in two weeks in St. Petersburg, Russia, for what's called the SportAccord convention.

Pardon the oxymoron but this is, in essence, a belated preemptive strike.

Belated, of course, because the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's so-called "Reasoned Decision," which lays out the case against Armstrong in breathtaking fashion, came out last October.

Then, in January, came Armstrong's televised confession with Oprah Winfrey.

Now, for a variety of reasons, it's in McQuaid's interest in particular for UCI to appear transparent.

He says in the cover letter that UCI "remains committed" to an "independent audit' of UCI's "behavior and practices" during "the Armstrong years.  Armstrong won seven straight Tours de France, 1999-2005, retired, then raced again in the Tour in 2009 and 2010.

Further, McQuad says in the letter, "I can also confirm that the UCI has agreed to release all test data in our possession concerning Armstrong to both WADA," the World Anti-Doping Agency, "and USADA."

And, he says, UCI is discussing with WADA "a process that will allow a full examination of doping in the peloton in the past so that we can learn all the lessons that need to be [learned.]"

The 14-page file itself covers a range of topics that by now are familiar elements of the Armstrong tale, traversing the 1999 test for corticosteroids at the Tour de France to and through Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis and Armstrong's two donations to UCI.

"Many of the allegations leveled at the UCI have been comprehensively answered and debunked," the file says on page one.

The issue, of course, is whether this file -- in its bid to relay the truth -- tells the whole story. As the file circulated Monday around the world, there were those who found plenty to question.

Travis Tygart, the chief executive officer of USADA, called it "simply another political move full of self-serving excuses and rationalizations and not the decisive action UCI promised the world over seven months ago now."

Tygart called the file "a 14-page letter with no evidence," issued "in response to more than a decade of a corrupt culture of drug use," and  labeled it " nothing short of shameful."

As an example of whether the file merely relays events but also fixes them in the big picture, consider the matter of Armstrong's 2001 Tour of Switzerland tests.

Armstrong was tested five times in that race. Three of those five samples were tested for EPO, the blood-booster erythropoietin. All were negative. Two, though, came back with notes from the lab as "strong suspicion" for EPO with numerical readings of 75.1 and 70.0; a positive reading was 80.0.

It is therefore "clear and irrefutable," the file says, that the UCI did not conceal anything.

True.

At the same time, as other UCI documents have also made clear, Dr. Leon Schattenberg, a member of the UCI anti-doping commission, told Armstrong and then-U.S. Postal Service team leader Johan Bruyneel of the suspicious test results a few days later, at the 2001 Tour de France.

This was a "normal" UCI policy at the time, "done so that the rider, if he was indeed doping, would stop doing so and the other competitors would be protected," according to UCI documents.

Armstrong "asserted strongly" that it was "completely impossible" for him to have produced a suspicious test as he "categorically denied doping," and went on to question the EPO test itself, as those documents relate.

The entire 2001 Swiss affair galls UCI critics.

They ask: if you were serious about doping, if you were genuinely a "pioneer," what would you do about a competitor -- indeed, the sport's star rider -- who was "strongly suspicious"? Would you essentially give him a field course about how the latest new test works and how close he was to flunking it -- and thus about how, if he were smart, he had better get back in line?

Or would you, knowing he was "suspicious," wait to actually catch him?

Moreover, wouldn't you want to submit the other two tests at the time for EPO? Or test them later -- as was allowed under the rules -- for EPO? And then, later, when you had reason to know, or at least to believe, that numerous witnesses were testifying to Armstrong's use of EPO, wouldn't you provide that evidence to USADA during its investigation, particularly after repeated requests?

Then there is the matter of Hamilton.

On page 11 of Monday's file, it notes that in 2004 Hamilton was caught blood doping and "concocted a story about a vanishing twin brother," adding, "Had Hamilton not been caught by the UCI, he would never have eventually confessed and then testified against Armstrong."

OK -- except that Hamilton fought the matter for years. A confession was a long time in the making. So was testimony against Armstrong. And then, as the USADA "Reasoned Decision" makes plain, when Hamilton had offered his cooperation to U.S. law enforcement officials, Armstrong told him, "I'm going to make your life a living … f-ing … hell."

The file sent out Monday says it was UCI that in 2006 found out that Landis had tested positive for banned testosterone. "If that had not happened," the file says, "Landis would never have eventually testified against Armstrong."

Except, again, that ignores the ferocity with which Landis fought the charges, indeed the book he wrote denying culpability, the hundreds of thousands of dollars that USADA -- not UCI -- spent prosecuting the case and more. UCI would not even give USADA Landis' test data, which assuredly would have been helpful in the prosecution of the case.

It is perhaps worth recalling that in October, 2012, within a couple weeks after the Reason Decision was issued, McQuaid seemed full of scorn for Landis and Hamilton for providing evidence to USADA about the doping system in place at the U.S. Postal team:

"Landis started it. He was in a bottomless hole and he said the only way out of it was to bring the sport down. That's what he intended doing and what he intends doing but he won't achieve it.

"Another thing that annoys me is that Landis and Hamilton are being made out to be heroes. They are as far from heroes as night and day. They are not heroes, they are scumbags. All they have done is damage the sport."

As for the two donations Armstrong made to the UCI -- the file asserts there is "no relationship" between testing and the money. From the UCI's perspective: Armstrong never tested positive; there was no test to conceal; therefore, how could there be any incentive to conceal any test?

The file adds detail to the donations.

It has long been known that there were two donations, one of $25,000, the other of $100,000.

The $25,000 came in May, 2002. It was used to finance testing in the junior (17-18 year-old) and under-23 (19-22 year-old) ranks, the file says.

Armstrong offered the $100,000 in the first half of 2005, to be used to buy a new Sysmex blood analyzer, which counts reticulocytes, or new blood cells. Such cells can serve as markers for blood doping; an athlete who is using EPO or who is blood transfusing typically would not be producing new blood cells in the normal way.

The UCI bought the machine in July, 2005, paying for it with its own money. That's because, the file says, Armstrong hadn't yet made good on his offer and the machine was "urgently needed for the fight against doping." Armstrong was "reminded of his promise later in 2005 and again in 2006," eventually sending the money in January 2007, a year and a half after he had retired, the file notes.

"With the benefit of hindsight, in particular given his subsequent confessions, it is clear that Armstrong deceived his sport, as well as the UCI, and that it would have been wiser not to have accepted these donations from him."

Which is the issue critics have in the first instance with the donations themselves, right?

"Nevertheless," the file goes on to assert," the donations had no influence on the UCI's testing of Armstrong," nor on any anti-doping entity.

Armstrong's 2001 Swiss Tour: no cover-up, "suspicious" tests

For nearly a dozen years, speculation has swirled that Lance Armstrong failed at least one doping test at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland, in particular for the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin, or EPO. Even as Armstrong has in recent months acknowledged the serial doping that won him seven straight Tour de France championships from 1999 to 2005, the matter of the 2001 Tour of Switzerland has remained contentious.

Anti-doping officials have made plain their assertion Armstrong’s tests were “suspicious” for EPO. Many have wondered if there was a cover-up. Leaders from cycling’s international governing body, which goes by the acronym UCI, have said there was nothing to cover-up because Armstrong never tested positive.

Now, finally:

During the 2001 Tour of Switzerland, according to the lab reports themselves, Armstrong never tested positive.

At the same time, two of his samples were, indeed, categorized as “highly suspicious.” But after extensive testing – all of it conducted in the summer of 2001 – neither met the standard to be formally declared positive.

The lab results are included with a five-page letter sent Thursday from UCI president Pat McQuaid to World Anti-Doping Agency director general David Howman. USADA, copied on the letter, concerned with what it called “numerous inaccuracies and misstatements,” issued a seven-page response on Friday, signed by general counsel William Bock III.

Both letters, now circulating in the international sports community, were obtained by 3 Wire Sports.

In the UCI letter, McQuaid asserts the lengthy explanation and the documents themselves “finally puts pay to the completely untrue allegations” of a positive 2001 test and “any subsequent cover-up by the UCI.”

For the UCI, it must be understood, this is a – if not the – key point: no cover-up.

To emphasize that point, McQuaid says the UCI would be “very grateful” if WADA or USADA would make a public statement “confirming the information in this letter,” keeping in mind the “great damage” done to UCI’s reputation “by these false and scurrilous allegations.”

The USADA response: if UCI officials had “strong evidence” way back in 2001 that Armstrong was using synthetic EPO, why didn’t they do something about it then?

To that end, the USADA reply includes a “short list” of 10 “new concerns” and a request for seven buckets of new information relating to Armstrong tests for the years 1999-2010.

Its letter asserts the documents the UCI turned over were “quite incomplete” but also says, “USADA is thankful that the UCI has now belatedly come around to USADA’s position that it is appropriate for the UCI to share with USADA and others in the sports world Mr. Armstrong’s test results.”

As recited in the USADA “Reasoned Decision,” issued last October, which sets forth in detail Armstrong’s pattern of doping, the 2001 Tour of Switzerland – a warm-up for the Tour de France – took place from June 19-28.

Armstrong won the event.

Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis, both former Armstrong lieutenants, provided USADA with affidavits. Armstrong said or implied he had tested positive in the Swiss race but had been able to “make the EPO test result go away,” according to USADA’s case.

Armstrong’s conversation with Hamilton was in 2001, with Landis in 2002. Landis recalled Armstrong saying he and team leader Johan Bruyneel “flew to the UCI headquarters and made a financial agreement to keep the positive test hidden.”

It has long been public knowledge that Armstrong made a significant contribution to help the federation in its anti-doping efforts. UCI documented the payments last October, two contributions totaling $125,000, McQuaid saying then it was “absolute rubbish” to suggest they had been given to cover up a test.

In his January interview with Oprah Winfrey, Armstrong said the donations were “not in exchange for help. They called and said they didn’t have a lot of money; I did. They asked if I would make a donation, so I did.”

McQuaid, last October, contrasting UCI’s finances with those of soccer’s wealthy governing body FIFA, said UCI would still accept such a donation – even now. “But,” he said, “we would accept it differently and announce it differently than before.”

The intent with regard to the lab documents, McQuaid said in the UCI letter, was to present them to a so-called “independent commission” that was under consideration after release of the USADA case against Armstrong. That commission, though, never got going, disbanded earlier this year after discussions with WADA.

Given that development and other issues related to USADA, UCI opted to send the lab results Thursday to WADA.

Armstrong’s “public confession has now lifted any confidentiality issues,” the UCI letter notes.

Armstrong was tested five times during the 2001 Tour of Switzerland – on June 19, 20, 26, 27 and 28.

Three of those five included EPO tests – June 19, 26 and 27.

The accredited lab at Lausanne, Switzerland, conducted the battery of tests.

“As you can see,” the UCI letter says, “every analysis result for Lance Armstrong is reported by the lab as being negative.”

Even so, both the June 19 and June 26 samples contain the same remark. Translated from the French: “strong suspicion of the presence of EPO, the positivity criteria are not all met.”

The June 27 sample simply says, negative.

The June 19 sample was originally tested on July 6; the June 26 sample on July 12. They were sent to and received by the cycling federation after the July 7 start of the 2001 Tour de France, the UCI letter says.

Both samples were then run through more extensive testing.

To simplify the complicated science:

The Lausanne lab considered a sample positive if what are called “basic bands” registered above 80 percent. It considered it “highly suspicious” if it fell above 70.2 and below 80.

Armstrong’s June 19 sample was numbered 106209.

The secondary report was done on Aug. 10, 2001.

The percentage: 75.1.

Armstrong’s June 26 sample was numbered 106106.

The latter report was done on Aug. 7.

The percentage: 70.0.

Even though it fell just outside the category of “highly suspicious,” it was nonetheless categorized that way.

To McQuaid, the conclusion was thus, as he declares on page 3 of the UCI letter: “I reiterate therefore that not one of Armstrong’s samples could in any way have been considered to be positive results.”

The USADA response asserts, in part, “It is now apparent that the UCI has long had in its possession multiple samples from Lance Armstrong which contained synthetic EPO and which raised strong concerns regarding the legitimacy of all of his competitive results since at least 1999. It is shocking and disheartening that the UCI would accept cash payments from Armstrong after the UCI had test results in its possession demonstrating that Armstrong’s samples contained synthetic EPO.”

The USADA letter asks why, among other issues, the UCI did not pursue a case against Armstrong based on those samples and samples from other races in combination with other so-called “non-analytical” evidence, such as witness statements. To not do so, the USADA letter asserts, “appears to have been grossly negligent or worse.”

Armstrong and Bruyneel were told about the suspicious tests during the 2001 Tour de France; Armstrong categorically denied doping, according to the UCI letter. He also questioned the reliability of the EPO test, which had been put into practice just four months before, on April 9, 2001.

During the 2001 Tour de France, Armstrong was tested 10 times, and five times for EPO at the request of the UCI, according to the UCI letter.

The French lab, outside Paris, reported all the results as negative. The highest percentage: 72. This result was not even reported as suspicious, the UCI letter says, noting that the Lausanne and French labs did not use the same criteria.

USADA's 'overwhelming' case against Lance Armstrong

On Wednesday, at my kids' school, at the outdoor amphitheater with the sun shining bright in the brilliant blue of an October California morning sky, I had the privilege of moderating a panel at which four U.S. Olympians spoke about dreams, goals, hard work and effort. Steve Lewis, the 1988 gold medalist in the 400 meters, delighted everyone with the tale of how he won when nobody thought he could. Courtney Mathewson talked about how the 2012 U.S. women's water polo team came together to win gold for the very first time. Nicole Davis, the U.S. women's volleyball libero, spoke about how persistence and effort had driven her and the team to silver in 2008 and 2012.

And Alexi Lalas, who played on the 1992 and 1996 soccer teams and is now an ESPN analyst, reminded everyone that winning isn't everything. It's the taking part. It's the struggle, the journey. It's -- the dream.

At the end of the program, we allotted 20 minutes for photos and autographs. You should have seen the kids, and even the grown-ups, rush down with their iPhones, their cameras and their pens and paper.

It's important to put all of that front and center on a day like Wednesday, when the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency set forth in black and white the details of the "overwhelming" case against Lance Armstrong.

It's far too easy to make the case against Armstrong what, on one level, it is: a simple legal matter.

But that's not what it's about.

It's about something much, much bigger.

It's about changing the culture of sport.

That change has to happen so that we can all get back to what really matters: dreams, and goals, and autographs and pictures.

Doping is cheating. Cheating is wrong. There's no grey there.

Only by breaking through the code of silence in cycling, the "omertà,"  and getting those who had made bad choices to acknowledge them -- that, from the start, has always been USADA's ambition.

The document made public Wednesday marks a major step forward.

To be clear, none of the evidence detailed by USADA was obtained by the U.S. grand jury inquiry in Los Angeles involving Armstrong that was closed in February without the filing of any charges. Again -- none. USADA said Wednesday it had asked for copies of non-grand jury evidence but has gotten nothing.

Instead, it said, after that inquiry closed it launched its own and came to an unequivocal conclusion:

"… Lance Armstrong and his handlers engaged in a massive and long running scheme to use drugs, cover their tracks, intimidate witnesses, tarnish reputations, lie to hearing panels and the press and do whatever was necessary to conceal the truth."

The evidence against Armstrong, USADA emphasized, is "beyond strong; it is as strong as, or stronger than, that presented in any case" in USADA's 12-year existence.

USADA got to that point by offering everyone the same proposition:

Cycling has a doping problem. Meet with us. Change the culture. Be part of the solution.

Others took them up on that offer: Frankie Andreu, Michael Barry, Tom Danielson, Tyler Hamilton, George Hincapie, Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer, Stephen Swart, Christian Vande Velde, Jonathan Vaughters, David Zabriskie.

Armstrong did not.

The level of detail in the USADA document can be astonishing.

In 1999, Hamilton told USADA, Armstrong won the Tour by using the banned blood-booster EPO "every third or fourth day."

In 2000, with rumors of a new test for EPO abounding, Hamilton said that 500 cc's of blood taken out earlier that year at a hotel in Valencia, Spain, went back in on the evening of Tuesday, July 11, in the Hôtel l’Esplan in Saint-Paul-Trois- Châteaux near Mount Ventoux; Hamilton said that he, Kevin Livingston and Armstrong -- the three best hill-climbers on the team and thus the three who were getting the transfusions -- "joked about whose body was absorbing the blood the fastest.”

Hincapie, meanwhile, is a five-time Olympian, long considered Armstrong's most trusted lieutenant, the only rider with Armstrong on all seven of Armstrong's winning Tour teams from 1999-2005.

USADA said Hincapie testified that he was aware of Armstrong's use of the blood-booster EPO and blood transfusions; that Armstrong provided EPO to him, Hincapie, for his own use; that Hincapie, like Armstrong, was a client of the Italian Dr. Michele Ferrari, who incorporated EPO and blood-doping into Hincapie's training program.

On his own website, Hincapie issued a statement that said he had doped but been clean since 2006. Two years ago, he said, he had been approached by U.S. federal investigators; more recently, by USADA. He said he "understood that I was obligated to tell the truth about everything that I knew. So that is what I did."

Ferrari is blandly described in the document as a "consultant" to pro cyclists.

The evidence, according to USADA, further includes banking and accounting records from a Swiss company controlled by Ferrari reflecting more than $1 million in payments by Armstrong; extensive e-mails back and forth between Ferrari and his son and Armstrong during a time period when Armstrong claimed not to be in touch; and a "vast amount of additional data," including lab test results and expert analysis of Armstrong's blood work.

Vande Velde, in a statement on his website posted Wednesday, said, "Ironically, I never won while doping. I was more or less treading water. This does not make it OK. I saw the line and I crossed it, myself. I am deeply sorry for the decisions I made in the past -- to my family, my fans, my peers, to the sport that I love and those in and out of it -- I'm sorry. I always will be."

Barry, in a statement posted Wednesday on his site, said, "As a boy, my dream was to become a professional cyclist who raced at the highest level in Europe." He signed his first contract with the U.S. Postal team in 2002: "Soon after I realized reality was not what I had dreamed. Doping had become an epidemic problem in professional cycling."

He went on to say that he doped, that he regretted it and that in 2006 he became a "proponent of clean cycling," adding, "I apologize to those I deceived … I will work hard to regain people's trust."

It would have been unthinkable to see such confessions made public even just weeks ago -- before USADA's case against Armstrong.

The USADA document released Wednesday, formally called a "reasoned decision," runs to more than 200 pages. It will be further dissected, and appropriately, in the days and weeks to come.

What matters most is that it's out there. As it says on page five: "It is important that facts relating to doping not be hidden from public view so that there is confidence in case outcomes and sport can learn from each case."

Lance Armstrong accused of "pervasive pattern of doping"

The case launched Wednesday by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency against Lance Armstrong is notable not just because it's Lance Armstrong, and because, well -- finally. It promises to highlight the role of the entourage in elite cycling and, by extension, Olympic and international sport.

It could well crack the code of silence in cycling, once and for all. Testimony under oath can be a powerful thing.

Moreover, assuming this case against Armstrong moves as far as a hearing, and if that hearing is public, the opportunity would at long present itself to test evidence in cross-examination for all to see. Armstrong is an immensely polarizing figure. Those who see Armstrong as hero, as well as those who allege he had to have been taking something to win and keep winning, would get the chance to see evidence put to the test.

Process may not seem sexy. But process is critically important, to Armstrong and, as well, to USADA, the quasi-governmental organization that oversees the anti-doping campaign in Olympic sports in the United States. That is the American way.

As is this: Armstrong is innocent until proven otherwise.

This, too: USADA surely would not have brought a case against a figure of Armstrong's stature unless it had confidence it could deliver. There are budgets and reputations at stake amid what is likely to be an enormous variety of pressures.

"We do not choose whether or not we do our job based on outside pressures, intimidation or for any reason other than the evidence," USADA chief executive Travis Tygart said in a statement.  "Our duty on behalf of clean athletes and those that value the integrity of sport is to fairly and thoroughly evaluate all the evidence available and when there is credible evidence of doping, take action under the established rules."

Much of the media will want this to be about soundbites and first impressions and an instant rush to judgment. It can't be. We don't yet know what we don't know.

The 15-page USADA "notice letter" describes -- but does not name -- "more than 10 … cyclists as well as cycling team employees." That is a substantial number of witnesses. Further, it declares that "numerous riders, team personnel and others will testify based on personal knowledge acquired either through observing Armstrong dope or through Armstrong's admissions of doping to them" that Armstrong used EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone and cortisone from before 1998 through 2005, and that he previously used EPO, testosterone and human growth hormone through 1996.

It further alleges Armstrong's doping will be "evidenced by the data from blood collections obtained by the UCI," cycling's international federation, taken from Armstrong, in 2009 and 2010, numbers  "fully consistent with blood manipulation including EPO use and/or blood transfusions."

The letter, dated Tuesday, alleges that Armstrong and five others engaged in a conspiracy, a "pervasive pattern of doping," that started in 1998.

Named along with Armstrong were: team manager Johan Bruyneel, the team director; Dr. Pedro Celaya, a team doctor; Dr. Luis Garcia del Moral, a team doctor; Dr. Michele Ferrari, an Italian physician well-known in cycling circles described here as a "consulting doctor"; Jose Pepe Marti, a team trainer.

To read that notice letter is to understand immediately that the evidence at hand is not everything. It is, as the letter says, a "portion" of what USADA has. Further, it is apparently not evidence that USADA just scooped up in the wake of the federal investigation that ended in February, when the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles announced abruptly that it would not -- after a nearly two-year criminal probe -- charge Armstrong or other members of his riding teams.

Armstrong rode for the U.S. Postal Service and then Discovery Channel teams from 1998-2005. In 2009 he rode for the Astana Cycling team. In 2010-11, he rode for the RadioShack team.

Again: this case would appear to be built without whatever USADA might, or might not, have in hand from the Feds. One wonders whether there is more, and whether it might ever emerge.

Armstrong is of course a seven-time winner of the Tour de France, from 1999-2005. He retired from cycling in early 2011 and took up triathlon, which he had done before turning to cycling. The letter Wednesday means he is immediately banned from competing in triathlon. USADA is not empowered to bring criminal charges.

Armstrong, who has repeatedly maintained he is innocent of any wrongdoing, issued a statement Wednesday that said, in part, "I have never doped, and, unlike many of my accusers, I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one."

To pass so many drug tests, though, means virtually nothing. Marion Jones, the U.S. sprinter, passed more than 160 drug tests. She ultimately was revealed as a chronic drug cheat who would give back the five Olympic medals she won in Sydney in 2000.

This is, among other reasons, why the process element is so important.

Floyd Landis protested mightily when he was charged. Indeed, he even wrote a 2007 book, "Positively False," in which he said, on pages 196 and 197, "I did not use performance-enhancing drugs in the 2006 Tour de France or any other time in my career."

Evidence at a 2007 arbitration panel hearing proved that wrong.

Subsequently -- in May, 2010 -- Landis sent e-mails to cycling officials admitting that he was a serial doper. He has since accused Armstrong.

Armstrong, as his competitors and others who have encountered him know, can be fantastically combative. He has done great things for cancer survivors and along the way he has made powerful friends, some in Washington. Some of those friends doubtlessly will wonder why he is being subject to these accusations.

Indeed, you could see him working the angles Wednesday in that statement. It starts this way: "I have been notified that USADA, an organization largely funded by taxpayer dollars but governed only by self-written rules, intends to again dredge up discredited allegations dating back more than 16 years to prevent me from competing as a triathlete and try and strip me of the seven Tour de France victories I earned."

It goes on to say that these are the "very same charges and the same witnesses" the Justice Department "chose not to pursue" -- though no one outside the Department knows why -- and, a few words later, alleges that USADA's "malice, its methods, its star-chamber practices, and its decision to punish first and adjudicate later all are at odds with our ideals of fairness and fair play."

Reality check: if the conduct USADA alleges can be proven, under oath, then Armstrong and the others should be held accountable. That's our ideal of fairness and fair play.

That's process, and it should play itself out, and no amount of pressure -- financial, emotional or otherwise -- from Armstrong or his friends, no matter how high up in Washington or elsewhere, should deter that. That's fairness and fair play, too.

But to start, there's this: Armstrong is innocent until proven otherwise.