The majority of Spyns former clients thought Lance Armstrong was nothing short of a cycling God. Few mentioned "Armstrong" and "doping" in the same sentence even though the French took every opportunity to bash the seven-time Tour winner. Things are now starting to get interesting. Federal investigators and antidoping officials from the United States, including the federal agent Jeff Novitzky, have intensified their investigation of Lance Armstrong and are in France to meet with antidoping officials and members of Interpol, according to a person briefed on the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The investigation of Lance Armstrong has focused on whether he used performance-enhancing drugs to defraud sponsors while he was a member of the United States Postal Service cycling team. United States officials have been scrutinizing Armstrong’s suspected links to doping for several months. Interpol is an international police organization that helps authorities from different countries work together on investigations. The presence of United States investigators in France was first reported Tuesday by The Associated Press, which cited unnamed sources.
Subjected to almost Stasi-like surveillance by anti-doping officials before the 2010 Tour de France, Armstrong has always denied doping allegations. Alberto Contador was recently implicated in a doping scandal that may cost him the yellow jersey for the 2010 Tour de France. Professional cycling has been plagued by a string of doping scandals and authorities are making efforts to clean up the sport. But they may be going too far.
The investigation of Armstrong began earlier this year and has focused on whether he used performance-enhancing drugs to defraud sponsors while he was a member of the United States Postal Service cycling team. Since the summer, a federal grand jury in Los Angeles has been hearing evidence about Armstrong, a seven-time winner of the Tour de France. Novitzky, a criminal investigator for the Food and Drug Administration, has been at the center of nearly every important federal investigation into doping. In 2002, he dug through the trash of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, uncovering needles and syringes used to administer steroids and human growth hormone to star athletes.
In recent weeks, the investigation of Armstrong has appeared to branch out internationally. Last week, authorities in Italy raided the Tuscany apartment of the Ukrainian cyclist Yaroslav Popovych, who rode with Armstrong’s 2005 Tour de France team and on Armstrong’s teams in 2009 and 2010. The raid came days after Popovych testified before the grand jury. Armstrong has denied doping, but French antidoping officials have long claimed to have evidence to the contrary.
Before retiring in September as the head of the French antidoping agency, Pierre Bordry said that the investigators from the United States were welcome to Armstrong’s urine samples from the 1999 Tour. Those samples had been retroactively tested for the banned blood-boosting drug EPO in 2005, and several of those samples tested positive, according to lab officials. A Dutch lawyer hired by the International Cycling Union later cleared Armstrong of the EPO doping allegation. “We don’t see any new facts here,” Mark Fabiani, a spokesman for Armstrong, said in a telephone interview. “In the case of the French lab result, all of this is old stuff.”
Spyns is an active travel company based in Whister, BC (Canada) and Beaujolais France. Spyns specializes in Tour de France packages for both riders and non-riders. Spyns offers active holidays to Europe including trips to the 2011 Tour de France. For more information about Spyns 2011 Tour de France tours, please visit http://www.tdf-tours.com/ http://www.spyns.com/ or call us toll-free 1.888.825.4720.
