Vultures and Legal Eagles Circle Lance Armstrong

After a couple of days of strong riding and predictions of a stage win, Lance Armstrong had another bout of misfortune today, crashing in the neutral section and having to reconnect with the peloton. It’s safe to say that his final Tour de France is not going the way he planned.

As he’s been battling on the road, the legal noose of Floyd Landis’ doping allegations has continued to tighten. On Tuesday, we learned that from the New York Times that federal authorities had issued grand jury subpoenas to witnesses in a probe of possible fraud and doping charges against Lance Armstrong and others. The newspaper cited several people briefed on the case who requested anonymity. The Times did not name any person who received a subpoena, but on Wednesday the New York Daily News reported that the Trek Bicycle Company was subpoenaed.

On Wednesday, there were questions about Armstrong’s financial interest in the U.S. Postal squad. Lance said that he was never more than an employee, but ESPN’s Bonnie Ford dug up testimony from a transcript of a 2005 arbitration, SCA Promotions VS. Lance Armstrong and Tailwind in which he is quoted as saying he had a small ownership interest in Tailwind Sports — “perhaps 10 percent.” Armstrong said in the transcript that he didn’t remember when this interest began, whether it was in 2005 — when Discovery Channel was the title sponsor — or before.

Finally, on Friday, the New York Daily News that three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond has received a subpoena to testify before a grand jury in the investigation. The subpoenawas issued by the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California, and it requests testimony and documents related to the four cycling teams Armstrong has led — U.S. Postal Service, Discovery Channel, Astana and RadioShack. The letter also orders LeMond to appear at a federal courthouse in Los Angeles on July 30, the newspaper said.

Of course, Lemond is no huge fan of Armstrong and he is convinced that the seven time Tour de France winner will be exposed as a doper. Lemond said that if Armstrong had not doped and if he had not survived cancer and had a PR machine around him, “he would have long been old news.”

I’d be crazy if I thought that Armstrong would say otherwise, but he continues to deny doping and pledges his cooperation in a “legitimate and credible and fair investigation”. In the same breath, he threw a lot of his former teammates under the bus, saying that what other USPS riders may or may not have done was beyond his control.

“I can’t speak to what they did themselves,” he said to reporters outside the RadioShack team bus. “I can’t control that. It would be like me asking you, do you think there is any abuse of performance enhancing drugs in the NFL in the offensive line? Most people would say probably yes. But does that mean that (NFL quarterback) Peyton Manning is guilty? I mean, I can’t control what other riders do. I really can’t.”