AP – Champion cyclist Lance Armstrong works his way through a crowd of hundreds during an event known as CicLAvia, … Like most people who spend time thinking about these things, I have never been able to figure out how Lance Armstrong was able to win seven straight Tour de France races while riding clean at a time when many of his competitors were doping.
Doesn't make much sense, which I suppose is why federal agents have been sniffing out clues from Paris to Rome to try and build a case against the now retired cyclist. They apparently don't buy the idea that good genes and hard work got Armstrong to the Champs-Elysees every year ahead of his fellow riders.
They are, however, a little late to the party. While Jeff Novitzky and company were digging through garbage cans at BALCO to get evidence against Barry Bonds and others, Armstrong was irritating the French by dominating their little bike race.
But Bonds is now a convicted felon, Roger Clemens has been exposed and Manny Ramirez is off on permanent vacation. Investigators have pretty much run out of easy targets in baseball, though sharp observers can still find a few players who might not be above suspicion.
So now they're after Armstrong, and who knows what they will find. Already we've learned more about Armstrong and his associates, including the revelation Friday by a high-ranking Italian law enforcement official that the cyclist met repeatedly with a physician who is barred for life by the Italian Cycling Federation after being charged in a doping investigation.
There's a grand jury hearing evidence in Los Angeles, though just what Novitzky and his crew have gathered remains unclear because it's a secret proceeding. Just what charges could be brought against Armstrong are also unclear since doping in a bike race in France is not a prosecutable crime in the United States.
But prosecutors can be creative, and grand juries don't need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to issue an indictment. Claims by disgraced 2006 Tour de France winner Floyd Landis that Armstrong and his teammates ran a complex doping program — coupled with some circumstantial evidence — might be enough to get Armstrong into court.
After that, all bets are off. Jurors in the Bonds trial showed that when they convicted the former slugger of the least serious count against him while letting him walk on charges he lied to a grand jury about his steroid use.
I was OK with the Bonds' prosecution, even if the end result of years of work and millions of dollars was a conviction on obstruction of justice that will almost surely land him no jail time. Bonds was the poster child for all that was wrong in baseball, an arrogant superstar with a bloated head who made a mockery of the game's most hallowed record and he should be held accountable.
Bonds was the right target for the right time. Had trainer Greg Anderson not been so loyal to his former boss that he spent more than a year in prison for him, prosecutors might have even gotten Bonds sent to prison and made steroid users everywhere nervous.
I'll also be pleased to see Roger Clemens go on trial this summer for lying to a congressional panel examining the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Just because a pitcher wins seven Cy Young awards doesn't mean he can say what he wants without consequences and, besides, I can hardly wait to see his former trainer Brian McNamee on the stand.
I am, however, a little confused about the Armstrong investigation. Yes, he is a big name and, yes, in a perfect world he should have been clean while winning all those races even if his fellow competitors weren't.
But I'm not sure exactly what will be gained by going after Armstrong, other than Novitzky adding another scalp to his celebrity athlete collection. Armstrong is retired now, last won the Tour de France six years ago, and is apparently doing good work in the fight against cancer with his Livestrong foundation.
He's not selling blood doping kits on the Internet, and he poses no threat to the youth of America,
If French authorities have a problem with him, fine, they're welcome to go after him. But for federal investigators to spend time and money chasing after Armstrong for things that allegedly happened years ago in France seems like a colossal waste of resources.
A Georgia congressman certainly thinks so. Rep. Jack Kingston slammed the Food and Drug Administration last month for spending "millions" investigating Armstrong and suggesting the agency was on a "one man tear" against the celebrity cyclist.
Novitzky and his crew should get a lot of credit for helping expose the seamy side of sports. They took down a steroid distribution center, won convictions against some of the biggest names in sports, and played a big role in making baseball realize that it had to institute stricter drug testing and tougher penalties for steroid use.
We get by now that performance-enhancing drugs are bad. The point has been made, and hopefully lessons have been learned.
Chasing Armstrong and the ghosts of the past just seems like overkill.
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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org
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