Dick “Pound of flesh” comments on Armstrong

We touched on this story yesterday. Former WADA president Dick Pound  (who, let’s be honest, really has no weight in the matter) spoke up on the Lance Armstrong behavior case.

In an interview with CyclingNews‘ Shane Stokes, Dick Pound said,

“I think it is pretty clear. If you are selected for testing, you have to be chaperoned from the time you are notified until the time you provide the sample. Lance, who calls himself the world’s most tested athlete, certainly knows that. Yet on some kind of pretext that they didn’t recognise the tester – or whatever it was – his manager stays down with him while Lance disappears for half an hour. That is totally contrary to the rules.”

Pound would lead us to believe that Lance Armstrong drained and replaced all of his bodily fluids (including blood) and cut off all of his hair and grew a new “do” in the 20 minutes between when the doper arrived and testing began. We all know that all of the tests came out negative, and that Lance is guilty of nothing more than bad judgement.

It’s fairly clear that someone, or some country has it out for Armstrong. Considering that it takes three missed doping controls in 18 months (or an outright refusal) for WADA to nail you with a positive test, the situation has basically come down to trying the defendant in the media.

What’s unfortunate is that it is unlikely that France will back down in this matter. If we learned anything from the Folyd Landis case, it’s that even if procedural mistakes were made, you are guilty until proven innocent.

Tags: AFLD, Dick Pound, Lance Armstrong, UCI, WADA