A "60 Minutes" report on Sunday by Scott Pelley detailed allegations that Lance Armstrong promoted and used a doping program for performance enhancing drugs during his seven Tour de France victories. We look at the allegations and what it means for Amstrong's future:
What did we learn from the "60 Minutes" report?
1. Up until now, all speculation about Armstrong was speculative, hearsay or coming from disreputable sources like Floyd Landis. The new report details allegations by Armstrong's former teammate, Tyler Hamilton, who rode with Armstrong's Postal Service teams for many of those Tour de France wins and won an Olympic gold medal himself, which he recently returned due to his admission of cheating. Hamilton hadn't told his family that he doped until four days before the interview with "60 minutes."
2. Hamilton says Armstrong was using EPO during his first Tour win in 1999 and used the drug in 2000 and 2001 to prepare for the Tour. He says he saw the drug in Armstrong's refrigerator and saw him inject it in himself. "I saw it a couple times," he said.
3. Pelley also reported that George Hincapie, a teammate of Armstrong for all seven of his Tour victories, told federal investigators that he and Armstrong used EPO and discussed using testosterone. Hincapie declined an interview request and didn't confirm that he had testified.
4. Team doctors and leaders handed white lunch bags to riders containing various performance-enhancers, according to Hamilton. He said the doping program existed before Armstrong joined the team in 1998.
5. Hamilton said Armstrong told him he failed a drug test before the 2001 Tour de France but wasn't worried about it. Cycling's governing body would "find a way to make it go away."
6. Through his lawyer, Armstrong denied the report and pointed to the 500 drug tests Armstrong passed during his career.
Is this worse than previous allegations against Armstrong?
A passage on Armstrong's new website, facts4lance.com, reads:
"Tyler Hamilton is a confessed liar in search of a book deal?and he managed to dupe '60 Minutes,' the 'CBS Evening News,' and new anchor Scott Pelley. Most people, though, will see this for exactly what it is: More washed-up cyclists talking trash for cash."
Hamilton's statement carries more weight than unsubstantiated reports from French newspapers that never liked Armstrong or desperate athletes who had been caught in lies before. The French papers didn't like Lance and their reports were more of the witch-hunt variety. But, thrown in casually at the end of the "60 Minutes" report was a bit of information about Hamilton's upcoming tell-all book. So, the accusation of "talking trash for cash" may be correct (even if the statements are true).
It's the report that Hincapie admitted Armstrong was doping that's the most damning. If it happened, Armstrong has called him a "stand-up guy." They had a brotherly relationship that stretched back decades before they rode together professionally. Hincapie doesn't have an axe to grind. If everybody else had an agenda or a motive, the affable New Yorker always kept his distance from a report. If he flipped on Armstrong, that would be devastating to any defense Lance could muster.
What happens next for Armstrong?
The investigation isn't just about whether Armstrong injected himself with EPO, the focus is also on whether there was widespread fraud and conspiracy in the U.S. Postal Service team. As the government has proved with cases against Barry Bonds, Marion Jones and Roger Clemens, this is not something prosecutors take lightly.
How will the allegations affect Lance Armstrong's legacy?
This is the $325 million question. That's how much The Lance Armstrong Foundation has raised for cancer research and programs since its creation in 1997. If we ever find out definitive proof that Armstrong cheated, failed drug tests and lied about it to the American public, does that outweigh the good he's done for millions of cancer survivors?
There are still a dozen ways this could go, but I doubt we'll see Lance tarnished like a Barry Bonds or a Pete Rose. We were invested in Lance Armstrong the guy who beat cancer, not Lance Armstrong the cyclist. He was more of a survivor to us than an athlete. Is the little girl wearing the Livestrong bracelet in the cancer ward going to take it off because Lance cheated 10 years ago? No. Do people stop donating money to the Foundation because some rumors may or may not be true? (But probably are?) I'd say some will. Others will still donate because being upset that a guy cheated at a bike race shouldn't outweigh the good that a cancer organization does in bettering the lives of millions.
Armstrong's reputation will always be tarnished, no matter what happens down the road in the investigation. If he's turned into a villain -- let's say he lied to investigators or took part in a massive cover-up -- rather than another dirty cyclist in a sport full of them, his legacy may never recover. But if he plays it right, stays quiet for a while, goes through whatever charade the government will create, eventually apologizes and explains himself down the road, he'll survive. He's done it before
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