Paul Lewis: Good deeds can't clear taint

Lance Armstrong in the Tour Down Under. Photo / Getty Images

He might have gone all the way to the welcoming shores of Australia - and spearheaded an emotional fundraising drive for the Queensland floods - but Lance Armstrong has discovered that you just can't out-run a drugs taint.

The Tour Down Under was supposed to be the final hurrah of the world's most celebrated and controversial cyclist; the one remaining icon lending hope to the admittedly dubious proposition that not all top road cyclists are on some form of performance-enhancing aid.

Accosted with Sports Illustrated's latest allegations, Armstrong snapped at reporters and said he didn't have anything to worry about, "at any level".

How's that, Lance? You've got a grand jury looking at you, man.

If anything is proved against him, there could be some jail time - a la Marion Jones, the Olympic gold medallist who passed drugs tests 160 times (and also got past a lie detector) before she was outed as a drugs cheat. Because she lied to federal agents, she was jailed for six months.

Barry Bonds, the baseball player alleged to have taken steroids, faces trial in two months for much the same reasons.

But Lance isn't worried.

We'll have to wait until this week's revelations by Sports Illustrated are published in full but there is only one certainty surrounding Armstrong right now - no one has yet proved anything. Even last week's Sports Illustrated dossier on Armstrong contained little new. It was essentially a re-hash of old evidence (but a highly effective marketing tool ahead of what are supposed to be the real disclosures).

It included Kiwi cyclist and former team-mate Stephen Swart, who said that Armstrong, a team-mate in 1995, urged fellow members of the team to take performance-enhancing drugs, convincing them it was the way to go if they were to become successful.

Yeah? Well, it's not proof, is it? Swart has himself admitted using performance-enhancing drugs, as has disgraced Tour de France winner and another former Armstrong team-mate, Floyd Landis, who also alleges Armstrong's Postal Service team was involved with such drugs.

Landis said he was with Armstrong at a Customs check and syringes and vials were found in Armstrong's luggage - but alleged the seven-time Tour de France winner said they were vitamins.

Armstrong denies any such event occurred.

There have been masses of allegations, inferences and large collections of circumstantial evidence. But no one has ever really proved that Lance Armstrong has taken drugs.

No one has conclusively seen it (Landis says he has; Armstrong denies it), filmed it or recorded it in any other incontrovertible way. He has never failed a drugs test. Oh, hi, Marion.

It has all been accusations and denials; they-said, he-said stuff. The volume of evidence against him has piled up, sure, and there is no doubt that the Tour de France and much of world road cycling is as bent as a roundabout. But no matter how much people may believe Armstrong is a doper, there is still no proof.

This time, however, there are some heavyweight diggers wielding the shovels as they seek to unearth Armstrong doping skeletons.

An investigation into Armstrong by the US Food and Drug Administration is being led by agent Jeff Novitzky.

The inquiry centres on Armstrong's US Postal Team between 1999 and 2004, and has heard testimony from Armstrong's former associates and former team-mates, who have appeared in front of a grand jury in Los Angeles under subpoena. It is not known when the grand jury and inquiry findings will be made public.

Novitzky is the man to whom Jones lied, bringing about her prison sentence. He has also been involved in investigating Bonds and Landis and was a key figure in the landmark BALCO investigation. He is a bulldog.

The club being used to beat Armstrong with is fraud - the US Postal team received nearly US$32 million in sponsorship from the Government agency which is now US$7 billion in debt.

Incredibly, there are some folk - many, even - who say that the funds won't be missed; that all the others cheat anyway; that Armstrong does not deserve such treatment; and that most Americans follow cycling like they follow the survival plight of the lesser-spotted, hammer-headed basking beetle of Kyrgizstan. They talk of his humanitarian side, particularly his efforts on behalf of the 28 million people in the world who live with cancer.

But drug cheats can't be tolerated. Sport is all about genuine human achievement; the effort, trials, drama and rewards of being the best.

It isn't about who's got the best chemist, masking agent and lawyer.

Sportspeople, particularly top sportspeople, enter into an unspoken covenant with their fans - to perform at top level, without artificial aids or other falsehoods.

Fans want to see legends made; not torn down. Drugs are fraudulent, pure and simple.

Athletes take them to win, yes, but also to enjoy the riches that can stem from winning. Money gained by such deceit is surely fraud.

What's the difference between that and heads of shonky finance companies who imply riches to investors and then line their own pockets?

Jail time should be involved. The athletes who win fame by using drugs have cheated someone else out of it. They have stolen the pleasure of millions of fans.

Landis, God help us, has just suggested that drugs are so rife in cycling there is no point trying to snuff them out. Apart from being self-serving (Landis can't get a gig in cycling any more after his drugs disgrace), it's a ludicrous stance. Let's legalise murder because the damned offence just keeps happening ...

No, people like Landis have already helped events like the Tour de France lose credibility, perhaps for ever. You can't say the same thing about Armstrong.

Yet.