Like air in the tires or water in the bottles

My first nine years at the Los Angeles Times were spent covering hard news. The 1990s were incredible years to be a news reporter in Southern California: wildfires, earthquakes (Thursday marked the 19th anniversary of the devastating Northridge quake), riots, the Menendez brothers and, of course, the O.J. Simpson matter. When I moved over to the sports section in 1998, and almost immediately started covering the Olympic movement, a friend at the New York Times told me, referring to the athletes I was now covering, "You know, they're all doping."

That initially seemed -- implausible.

I learned quickly.

Indeed, and to be fair, not all of them were doping.

Then I met, for instance, Marion Jones.

And then others. Along the way, I covered the BALCO affair.

In 2005, and Lance Armstrong knows this, because I have told him about it, I took my wife and three children to Paris to watch him cross the finish line on the Champs Élysées, a winner of the Tour de France for a record seventh time.

You might want to remember this, kids, I told them then. For a lot of reasons.

Did I know that day in Paris that Armstrong was a cheater? After everything I had learned by then, it was patently obvious it would be inordinately difficult to win the Tour -- especially the years Armstrong was riding -- without performance-enhancing drugs, in particular the blood-booster EPO.

But where was the proof?

The proof came the next year, in the form of tests, testimony and other documents that emerged in the course of litigation over a bonus Armstrong claimed for the 2004 Tour from a Texas company, SCA Promotions, Inc. In the course of my reporting, it became clear what was what. Even so, the case had been settled, with SCA agreeing to pay millions of dollars.

The Times printed what it could.

In our house, the truth of the matter was understood.

As was this: truth always emerges with time.

Everyone who ever watched Lance Armstrong ride the bike took a hesitant step toward the truth Thursday with the first of his two-part interview with Oprah Winfrey. Part two airs Friday.

To be clear, the 90-minute Oprah show Thursday is nowhere near a full and complete accounting of the record. Armstrong did not, for instance, address what really happened in a hospital room in Indianapolis in October, 1996 -- when Betsy Andreu, the wife of a teammate, says he admitted illicit drug use.

Though he admitted in Thursday's show to doping through his Tour wins, Armstrong did not name names. One can only imagine the advice his lawyers -- understandably viewing the possibility of millions of dollars of civil liability, not to mention the possibility of criminal exposure -- gave him before he went on-camera.

Of all the things that were so striking -- and different people will of course see things differently -- it wasn't just Armstrong's affect, which often came off in this first part of the interview as flat, or that he acknowledged the way he so readily bullied so many people, Betsy Andreu and others.

It was the matter-of-factness about the doping.

It was, he said, like air in the tires or water in the bottles.

Moreover, he said, he didn't consider doping cheating -- even though he also did acknowledge that the oxygen-boosting drugs he was taking were, in his words, "incredibly beneficial."

Further, he never really worried about getting caught. Even though he was, in 1999, for instance, with a corticosteroid positive -- which got explained away.

He said he viewed doping as leveling the playing field.

He said he looked up what it meant to "cheat," and it said "to gain an advantage on a rival or a foe," adding in an implication that his significant rivals in the field were doping as well, " I didn't do that."

Wrong.

Cheating means breaking the rules.

It's also absurd to assert that a race among dopers is a level playing field. As another of Armstrong's former teammates, Jonathan Vaughters, has explained, there are three reasons why:

One -- Athlete A might get a bigger boost than Athlete B from using the same doping technique. Two -- Athlete A  might physiologically adapt better to a particular drug than Athlete B. Three -- athletes with greater resources are typically going to have access to better doctors, better coaches and better drugs.

At the time he was cheating, Armstrong said, he didn't feel bad about cheating at all. Not in the least.

Let's be candid. The primary reason Armstrong is talking now is because he wants to compete in triathlons, and he can't because he has a life ban hanging over him because he got caught.

Why did he get caught? Because the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency pursued the truth when others -- including the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles -- would not. Why that office last year mysteriously dropped an inquiry into Armstrong's conduct remains an open question.

If Armstrong's comments to Winfrey awaken the rest of America -- and, indeed, the world -- to the culture of doping that has beset not just cycling but track and field as well as baseball and other sports for far too many years, then it will have done good.

A culture that considers doping like air in the tires or water in the bottles is insidious, and must change -- or be changed by others who understand better not just what is right but what is good about sports.

As far as Lance himself -- he knows already that this public-relations ploy isn't going to get him where he wants to go. But as he explained on-air, he has thrived on control, and this is a way for him to test what it's like to tell the truth.

To see the tape of himself on the podium in 2005, to relive that day in Paris, when he was given the microphone and said, "I'm sorry you can't dream big and I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles" -- it's all so awkward now, even ugly, perhaps for him as well, because as he told Oprah, "Watching that -- that's a mistake."

But this is the crux of it:

What was the real mistake?

Doping?

Or -- getting caught?

“Tonight," the chief executive of USADA, Travis Tygart, said in a statement issued after the television show aired, "Lance Armstrong finally acknowledged that his cycling career was built on a powerful combination of doping and deceit.

"His admission that he doped throughout his career is a small step in the right direction. But if he is sincere in his desire to correct his past mistakes, he will testify under oath about the full extent of his doping activities.”

Lance Armstrong, and the time for accountability

There are two plays going on in the matter of Lance Armstrong. One is to the court of public opinion. That's why he's talking to Oprah Winfrey. It's good for ratings, probably, but substantively may ultimately prove little. Lance Armstrong got caught in a big lie and now he wants something, so anything he says publicly has to be measured against what he wants.

Which leads directly to the second play: Lance Armstrong wants to compete again. To be clear, his cycling career is done. It's not that. Instead, he wants to compete in triathlons.

And so he's trying to figure out how to do that.

The challenge is that the one thing that has always been the hallmark of the Armstrong way has been stripped from him.

Which is: control.

In its damning report, issued in October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency made plain that Armstrong had "ultimate control" over his own drug use, and the doping culture of his team, which it made plain was the most sophisticated and well-run scheme in sports history.

In particular, he controlled -- there was a code of silence on his team -- the fact that he doped to win.

As it all came crashing down, Armstrong sent out by Twitter the photo of himself lying around with his seven framed Tour de France jerseys.

The message could not have been more clear: Lance, king of the Alps, believed he was still in control.

That was a fundamental miscalculation.

You can bet that he and his legal team were stunned not only to see the riders he thought were his guys turn against him but, more important, the breadth and depth of the file USADA made public.

That was the game-changer.

Now, with sponsors fleeing or gone, he has to try to assert control of his narrative.

Thus, Oprah.

But choosing the time, place and manner of your "admission" -- or whatever this turns out to be -- is not real.

What's real is testimony, delivered under oath, preferably subject to cross-examination. Anything else is just noise.

If you want to lie under those circumstances -- like Armstrong did in 2006, when in connection with a contract dispute brought by the Texas company SCA Promotions, Inc., relating to a 2004 Tour de France bonus payment -- then you get to face the consequences.

Which is one of the tap-dances Armstrong has to try to perform now, and why anything he tells Oprah ought to be measured against what he said under oath six years ago.

It's not enough to be apologetic, or deliver contrition, or offer a confession of sorts.

Now is the time for accountability.

It's this way when it goes bad on Wall Street and in lots of other areas of American life. The authorities can get involved, and they might or might not have their own ideas about your finances, sometimes even your liberty interest, and then you have to play by their rules, not yours.

This is how these things go. This is what USADA has made clear, and why -- according to the New York Times -- Armstrong is in discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice to possibly testify in a federal whistle-blower case involving the U.S. Postal Service team.

It's not hard to figure out what USADA and the public authorities want to know: who funded the scheme and who else knew about it, and at what levels -- how high -- in international sport.

If you think about it, that thread of inquiry is not so different from the kind of thing you might find at your local courthouse. Imagine a drug case involving, say, methamphetamine or marijuana -- the cops and prosecutors are typically far more interested not just in the end user but in the financiers and in the protection.

Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee, which is even now engaged in a far-reaching review of the roughly two dozen sports on the Summer Games calendar, has to be looking at what is going on in cycling with renewed interest. Baseball was kicked off the Olympic program in no small measure because of doping-related issues.

If it seems far-fetched to imagine the Olympics without cycling, it does not seem like much of a stretch to imagine cycling's top officials under intense scrutiny in the coming weeks and months, with even their IOC privileges at issue. USADA and the World Anti-Doping Agency both made plain Tuesday that they would offer no cooperation with an "independent commission" being set up by cycling's international governing body, which goes by the acronym UCI.

In the long run, the only thing that will clean up up the sport itself is, as USADA has proposed, a "Truth and Reconciliation" and amnesty program.

In the meantime, Armstrong is not going to get out of a lifetime ban by talking to Oprah. That's just -- ridiculous.

It's what he has to say when he's not on television that matters. And that's going to take a while yet to unfold.

That said, a read of the World Anti-Doping Code strongly suggests that even if he were to name names -- even big names -- the best he could do is, first, get a hearing and then, maybe, get life knocked down to eight years.

Armstrong is now 41. Eight years makes him 49.

Which sort of makes you wonder what the Oprah thing is really all about. And when, if ever, Lance Armstrong is going to tell the whole truth, and nothing but.

Because that would be a show worth watching.

Lance Armstrong under oath

As Lance Armstrong's interview with Oprah Winfrey nears, the World Anti-Doping Agency has made clear he must confess under oath to seek a reduction in the life ban announced in October for doping. Armstrong has testified under oath before. It may now shed light on his demeanor as well as his credibility to revisit comments he made under oath in 2006 in connection with a contentious contract dispute.

Like many if not most commercial arbitrations, the proceedings were held in confidence. Over the years, Armstrong's remarks nonetheless have made their way to the public record. That said, his testimony has perhaps not been extensively excerpted.

A Dallas company, SCA Promotions, Inc., had offered to pay Armstrong a bonus if he won the 2004 Tour de France. He did. The firm then resisted making the payment after allegations of doping surfaced. The matter proceeded to arbitration.

Under oath, Armstrong testified Jan. 12, 2006, in Dallas, before a three-person panel.

The case would be settled before the panel took action, SCA agreeing to pay the $5 million fee, plus interest and attorney costs, a total of $7.5 million.

In the aftermath of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report issued last October that said Armstrong doped to win the Tour de France titles from 1999 to 2005, SCA has made plain it wants its money back.

Armstrong was represented in the SCA matter by his longtime attorney, Tim Herman of Austin, Texas. SCA was represented by Jeffrey Tillotson, a Dallas lawyer.

Here are excerpts from Armstrong's Jan. 12, 2006, sworn testimony.

For context or comparison, some excerpts also contain information from the October USADA report.

--

Volume 7, p. 1346

Herman: Well, you've talked about professional cycling and, frankly -- I mean, not just in here but in the press, I mean, you've been called brash, you've been called direct, you've been called, you know, heartless, et cetera. Tell us -- how do you feel about those characterizations of your personality?

Armstrong: You know, we were competitive. We had one goal and one ambition and that was to win the greatest bike race in the world and not just win it once, but to keep winning it. And I suppose we could have been viewed as ruthless and evil and mean and cheaters and crooks and thieves and frauds, but we were not particularly remorseful to the people that came across us. We had this goal, this ambition, and we were asked to do that by our fans and by ourselves and by our sponsors and to perform and do our job.

--

p. 1355-56

Herman: In 1995, during the season, did you engage in any -- well, let me just ask you this, first of all, have you ever engaged in any performance enhancing, any prohibited substance?

Armstrong: No, never.

Herman: Ever?

Armstrong: Ever.

Herman: It's been suggested that individually certain members of the Motorola team began such a program in 1995.

Armstrong: Uh-huh.

Herman: Do you have any knowledge of that at all?

Armstrong: Well, only based on what I've heard through -- through situations like this or cases like this. You know, if you say individually, you know, I don't know if somebody individually beats their wife. I don't know if somebody individually takes EPO. I don't know. I can speak for myself and tell you that that  never -- on both counts. I would never beat my wife and I never took performance-enhancing drugs. But what riders do at home and in the privacy and comfort of their own home I can't comment on.

--

[Betsy Andreu, the wife of Frankie Andreu, an Armstrong teammate, testified that during an Indianapolis hospital visit in October, 1996, she heard Armstrong tell a doctor he took various banned drugs, including EPO]

p. 1366-67

Armstrong: We were in the room. I don't recall anybody coming in to take medical records, nor do I understand -- a couple of things, why they would have come in three days after brain surgery when they clearly would have taken medical records before, why they would have come in and asked those questions in front of your friends, specifically your mother, during a Cowboys game, and why I would have answered I've taken this, this, this and this when I've never taken performance-enhancing drugs. So when I put those together, I try to understand why that happened and I don't understand that.

--

USADA p. 31-2: On the first day of the [1999] Tour Lance seized the yellow jersey by winning the prologue. A few days later the USPS team was notified that Armstrong had had a corticosteroid positive. According to those who were there, Armstrong did not have a medical authorization at the time to use cortisone and the positive drug test set off a scramble.

… Emma O'Reilly was in the room giving Armstrong a massage when Armstrong and team officials fabricated a story to cover the positive test. Armstrong and the team officials agreed to have Dr. Del Moral backdate a prescription for cortisone cream for Armstrong which they would claim had been prescribed in advance of the Tour to treat a saddle sore. O'Reilly understood from Armstrong, however, that the positive test had not come from a topical cream but had really come about from a cortisone injection Armstrong received around the time of the Route du Sud a few weeks earlier.

p. 1369-70

Herman: It's been suggested that -- that you had a positive drug test for cortisone during the 1999 Tour de France. Explain to the panel what really happened.

Armstrong: Well, what really happened is what the test indicates is that I was given a topical cream for what we call a saddle sore, which is a -- I don't know how to describe a saddle sore, but it's common in cycling, if you sit on a bike all day long. A topical cream to alleviate that, to take the pain away, make it go away, and there were traces of cortisone found in the urine. Had that been a -- used for performance enhancing ways or means, you would have seen that in the test, but the test completely indicated topical cream.

Herman: And did the traces that showed up -- did they meet the threshold for a positive test in any event?

Armstrong: No.

Herman: It's been suggested by some that you scurried around and got a post-dated or predated prescription for your tropical cream; is that true?

Armstrong: Not -- no, not true.

--

p. 1377-78

[on the 2000 Tour de France]

Armstrong: … [B]asically, the entire [French law enforcement] investigation centered in and around the drug called Activogen [sic], which was carried for one of our staff members for whatever reason he needed it.

… Activogen, of course, was approved to bring into the country. That's the reason it was there for the staff member. They refused to acknowledge that. It didn't matter that their minister of health had stamped that approval. But this was a mysterious thing for them. They thought that this was some nefarious EPO substitute.

And that was the case …

USADA p. 43-45

Writing about the French investigation and the substance Actovegin on his website, Armstrong said:

'I will say that the substance on people's minds, Activ-o-something … is new to me. Before this ordeal I had never heard of it nor had my teammates.

… Actovegin was, in fact, and contrary to Armstrong's and the team's statements, regularly used by the riders on the team and was regularly administered by the team medical staff specifically because it was believed by the team medical staff that Actovegin would enhance a rider's athletic performance. Thus, it is apparent that Mr. Armstrong and the team intentionally issued false and misleading statements regarding the use to which Actovegin was put on the U.S. Postal Service team.

… In other words, if Lance Armstrong was willing to lie about Actovegin -- and he clearly did lie about Actovegin -- there is little reason to believe that Armstrong would not be willing to lie about other products and with regard to other topics.

--

[referring to a falling out in 2001 with three-time Tour de France champion Greg Lemond]

p. 1394

Herman: Did you, during that conversation, which I understand was as a result of being sad, as you put it, about those criticisms from Mr. Lemond, did you during that conversation admit to Mr. Lemond that you had engaged in some prohibitive [sic] conduct or had taken some prohibitive substance?

Armstrong: Of course not. No, I didn't. As I've said, I would not admit to a doctor or a friend or Greg Lemond that I had taken a substance when I have never taken them, nor would I call him to say why did you say that about me, oh, by the way I'm going to admit that to you. That would be in the ridiculous category, too. I called simply just to get an understanding for whether or not he did or didn't say that and it turned into really a nightmare of a conversation.

--

p. 1396-98

Herman: How -- how do you view your role now --

Armstrong: Uh-huh.

Herman: -- with respect to the work of your foundation and your involvement --

Armstrong: Uh-huh.

Herman: -- with either cancer victims or survivors or families?

Armstrong: Survivors. For me now that's my new peak. I mean, that's the thing where I need to be making the best use of my time and that's the place where I firmly believe that I can make a difference for the rest of time. You know, we are faced with -- not to get up here and preach, but since you asked, we're faced with a real dilemma here and a real predicament in that we are soon going to have the number one killer in America on our hands and the funds are decreasing as rapidly as the illness is increasing. And it's now my job, honestly, to change that.

And not just on a small level. We can do rides in Austin, we can do the Tour of Hope, but those raise millions of dollars. I'm talking about raising billions of dollars and the budget of the NCI is $4 billion and increasing. Iraq cost us five or 600 billion. It's time for this country to step up and realize that this is a serious killer and recommit ourselves. Not to get on my soapbox, but that's a priority for me and I want to make a difference there. We have seen people use their careers for -- success in their careers for the good of mankind and they can leverage that sometimes and I hope to do that. That's why this stuff is so unfortunate.

Herman: This stuff --

Armstrong: This stuff.

Herman: -- being?

Armstrong: This room. This stuff that we have to listen to, the stuff that the panel us going to have to listen to. It's not true, it's not fair, it's not morally responsible, and it would ultimately -- you know, if this courtroom was on CSPAN or was on CNN or Court TV it would have a drastic effect on what I'm trying to do off the bike. And, of course, this is not -- that's not the case fortunately, but I'm personally offended by that. And I think we all would be if you were in my shoes or my position because, as I said we have a lot of choices to make every day in how to use our time and this isn't my idea of a good time. I race the bike straight up fair and square. Yeah, there are questions, good performance is a question. But this stuff we are going to see in here it goes beyond.

--

p. 1402-03

Herman: If someone -- there was a suggestion that you had made a -- a contribution to the UCI or the International Cycling Federation -- or Union?

Armstrong: Union.

Herman: Why did you do that and was there -- did you receive any preferential treatment as a result?

Armstrong: Well, I never received preferential treatment. The UCI is not a cash rich organization, they struggle on an annual basis with budgets and boards and directors and just getting by like a lot of companies and organizations and governing bodies. So, yeah, I made a contribution there to help them fund and fight the war against drugs or doping.

Of course, that's been viewed as Al Capone buying police cars for the Chicago police department, too, but it's not that. It's not -- there's other things that are right in line with that.

Herman: Is there anything improper at all about making a contribution to help fund an anti-doping program?

Armstrong: I would hope not. In -- in fact, I encouraged other athletes to do the same and I don't think anybody else did.

--

p. 1403-04

Herman: All right. Let me -- let me change topics with you. Dr. Ferrari's name has been thrown around here and, you know, without engaging in hyperbole, I think the suggestion has been that Dr. Ferrari is a -- is a doping doctor and that anyone who deals with Dr. Ferrari is a doper. You've heard that before?

Armstrong: I've heard that.

… Of course, he came here as in Europe with a bit of a dodgy reputation. All we can do is evaluate that by what we know and what we see and what we are told. We never had any reason to believe that this guy is dirty. In fact, we had reason to believe the opposite.

--

p. 1411

Herman: But I guess the fundamental question is, did Dr. Ferrari ever prescribe, administer or suggest any kind of a drug or doping program for you?

Armstrong: He did not.

USADA p. 47: … The evidence is overwhelming that from 1999 through 2005 Michele Ferrari played a major role with the U.S. Postal Service/Discovery Channel team and in Lance Armstrong's doping program.

--

p. 1414-15

Herman: There has been a suggestion that a research project undertaken by someone in Europe in 2005 revealed the presence of exogenous EPO in urine samples that had been frozen since 1999.

Armstrong: Well, when I gave the sample, there was no EPO in the urine … I'll go to my grave knowing that when I urinated in the bottle, it was clean.

USADA p. 33: For the first two weeks of the [1999] Tour, Armstrong, [Tyler] Hamilton and [Kevin] Livingston "used EPO every third or fourth day." The EPO was already loaded in syringes upon delivery and the riders "would inject quickly and then put the syringes in a bag or Coke can and Dr. del Moral would get the syringe out of the camper as quickly as possible."

--

under cross-examination

[referring to an exhibit, an April 2001 Armstrong statement]

p. 1418-19

Tillotson: I'm sorry. Let me direct your attention to the fourth paragraph down, Mr. Armstrong. Last sentence of that paragraph. You say, I welcome the continued testing so there will be no doubt that neither I nor any member of my team did or took anything illegal, right?

Armstrong: Yes.

Tillotson: And to say such a statement you have to have some confidence that your team members are not using performance-enhancing drugs, correct?

Armstrong: That's why we turned over the samples.

--

p. 1420-22

[referring to a statement on The Paceline, a team website]

Tillotson: Okay. And you said in this statement that I showed one thing clear, I believe in clean and fair competition and, as I said before, I do not use and have never used performance-enhancing drugs. Do you see that?

Armstrong: I see that.

Tillotson: And that kind of statement has been made by you throughout the course of your career from 1999 through January of 2005, fair?

Armstrong: Correct.

Tillotson: … And it's not just in response to a particular allegation I mean, when you write things like in your book, It's Not About the Bike, you certainly say in your book that you had never used performance-enhancing drugs, correct?

Armstrong: Right.

Tillotson: And that wasn't really in response to any particular charge, it was a statement about yourself in this book?

Armstrong: The book -- the book was written and authored just after the first Tour and there was a lot of talk not just in France, but all over the world about the drugs, about what happened in '98, about their disbelief and what could happen in '99. So, you know, I think that's in response, too.

Tillotson: So that the public will know your side of the story regarding some of these charges and allegations?

Armstrong: Yes.

Tillotson: Fair?

Armstrong: We always like the public to know our side of the story, all of us do.

--

p. 1425

Tillotson: And one of the reasons it's true, is it not, that your sponsors don't call you and ask these kinds of questions is because you've made your position regarding the non-use of drugs perfectly clear in the media?

Armstrong: I've -- I've made what I know to be the truth to be perfectly clear to the media.

--

[on the incident in October, 1996, in the Indianapolis hospital]

p. 1447

Tillotson: Now, I believe you said in your deposition and -- I asked you then and I'll ask it here in these proceedings, why Betsy Andreu would lie about a serious thing as your supposed admission of performance-enhancing drugs, and I believe your response was that she doesn't like you. Is that fair?

Armstrong: Well, I think my response was and that was at the deposition she looked me right in eye [sic] and she said, oh, no, I hate him, which is -- is a little different than I just don't like him.

Tillotson: It was --

Armstrong: It was venomous.

Tillotson: All right. Venomous, okay.

It is your testimony, then that she -- she's making the story up and she must be doing it out of dislike, hate, venom for you?

Armstrong: That's right, yes.

Tillotson: And her husband, of course, has corroborated the story?

Armstrong: I understand that.

Tillotson: And he doesn't hate you, does he?

Armstrong: I don't know. I don't think so. He -- there's something there with his -- as I told you -- and I love how you isolated that in the pre-hearing brief -- to protect his old lady, but there's something there with that relationship that I'm not real clear on.

Tillotson: Well, I think you told me in your deposition that you didn't really know Betsy that well?

Armstrong: Well, I learned early on that I didn't want to get to know her very well.

--

p. 1474-75

Tillotson: Okay. Now, Mr. Andreu testified in his deposition that at one point you showed him some pills that you took during a race and talked about when you would take them. Have you seen that testimony?

Armstrong: I have not seen it, but I heard about it.

Tillotson: You were asked in your deposition by Mr. Herman and I don't think we heard an explanation for what those pills were. Do you know what those pills were?

Armstrong: Did we cover that? I think we did go back and cover it, but, I have to confess, I'm -- if you want a confession, I'm a bit of a coffee fiend. That's the extent of my performance-enhancing drugs.

Tillotson: Is it your testimony that those pills were caffeine pills?

Armstrong: That's my testimony. And I --

Tillotson: You would have taken several caffeine pills during intervals of a race?

Armstrong: Yeah, which are, to the panel, not banned -- well, they are banned to a certain degree, but I would -- I certainly would never approach that level.

--

[Canadian lawyer Dick Pound was at the time the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency]

p. 1480

Tillotson: You've had some rocky relations with WADA, have you not, with Mr. Pound?

Armstrong: No. I've asked Mr. Pound to be fair and open and honest and somewhat respectful of what cycling has done over the years. I think -- I mean, I'm sure we will see the testimony, cycling has done more than any endurance sport to fight doping. I've -- that's what I've asked Dick to do is just acknowledge that there could be a problem. Let's get the cheaters, punish them hard. But you have to recognize that no sport has done what cycling has done.

--

p. 1483

Armstrong: … And they've been coming for years -- man, they've been coming for years after me. And this may be -- they may say oh, we got it. They didn't.

--

re-direct examination

p. 1491

Herman: Did you -- have you ever, Mr. Armstrong, ever wavered in your unqualified support for stringent drug testing and penalties?

Armstrong: Never.