By Tom Bettag, Mary Murphy, and Ronnie Polidoro
Rock Center
Updated at 3:56 a.m. ET on Friday: For some of those who knew Lance Armstrong the best, his fall from grace amid doping allegations is no surprise at all. Betsy Andreu, a former family friend to Armstrong told NBC’s Harry Smith that Lance Armstrong is the “Bernie Madoff” of the sporting world. Andreu says Armstrong played the world and the media for years while knowingly taking performance enhancing drugs.
In an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC’s Rock Center, Smith asked Andreu why she compares Armstrong to disgraced financier Bernie Madoff. Andreu said, “Because Bernie Madoff was one of the biggest frauds in the history of the world, in the history of finance maybe? Lance is the biggest fraud in the history of sport.”
Andreu was once part of Armstrong’s inner circle. Her husband Frankie was one of Armstrong’s teammates and one of his best friends.
However, Andreu says she and Armstrong had a falling out when she refused to lie about something she heard while visiting Armstrong in the hospital at the time he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
“The doctors come in and I suggested we leave and to give Lance his privacy. And Lance said, ‘That's okay. You can stay.’ And I turned to Frankie, because Lance was in front of us, and I said, 'I think we should leave to give him his privacy.’ And he said we could stay, ‘Everybody's friends here,’” Andreu told Smith.
Andreu says doctors asked a few banal questions and then asked if Armstrong had used any performance enhancing drugs.
“Lance, holding his I.V., nonchalantly rattled off, ‘Yes, steroids, testosterone, growth hormone, E.P.O., cortisone,’” Andreu said. “My eyes popped out of my head. Frankie saw that I was upset and he excused ourselves and we left.”
Despite her disdain towards Armstrong, Andreu still maintains some sympathy for the fallen cyclist.
“On one hand, there is some compassion, because I don't think he ever healed the child within. And it made him this diabolical person that he is today,” Andreu said.
Armstrong has repeatedly denied the use of performance enhancing drugs or what has become more commonly known as doping. NBC News has reached out to Armstrong and is waiting for a comment.
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The real story here is she had a thing for, or a fling with, Lance back in the day. He either snubbed her or bed her and left her. That is about the only reason a woman hates someone this much to be so agro after 10 years. Besides, how does a 60 second conversation she overheard make her an expert on Lances whole career? I think she is being coached by Lemond. They should both consider politics. They seem to have that "bad mouth the other guy at the top or your lungs to further your position" strategy down well.
So if you can make this kind of indictment against this woman with no evidence, surely you don't have a problem with the investigative body finding Lance guilty of cheating with the evidence they uncovered, no matter how tenuous, right?
you know this for a fact, or just saying it?? Most women he had been with, pretty much say he is a cad...
Lillie, I know noone who has watched him over the years that said he was "a nice guy". Even those who supported him. But, doesn't it give you pause that someone would spend 10 years and so much energy to denigrate him just because they thought he was a cad and cheated? If we all did that, we would spend the better part of our waking hours trying to destroy those who had wronged us. Seems it goes a little deeper doesn't it?
If Lance cheated, he could not have passed that many drug tests without the race organizers and monitors looking the other way. They are ALL guilty in my book, and there have not been nearly enough investigations into the higher-ups who let him get away with it.
And, this has not stopped doping at all. They are still finding riders to this day who are using. How many more are still slipping through the system?
Professional cycling as a sport had its heyday and will never recover from this. Everyone now knows that the Tour de France is, sadly, a joke. There are millions of ex-fans who will never watch it again.
If money is involved, some one will be cheating.
Sheesh!! Tell me this "woman" has done drugs, why doesn't she rat on herself? I figure Armstrong IS guilty but why did this beotch come out now?
Livestrong rocks and is a great organization. Lance is a evil fraudster. He threatened to DESTROY any other team riders that would possibly turn him in for doping. Lance knew this day would come and that he would be exposed as a fraud. Perhaps that's why he started Livestrong?! Trying to get some good karma in the bank because he knew the bad karma of being exposed was probably a certainty. Also, read the very informative Sports Illustrated article of a couple of years ago which implies that Lance may have very well caused his own cancer as he admitted to doctors that he had tried experimental PEDs that caused cancer in lab animals! READ THE ARTICLE! You will be astonished!!!
I don't care one way or the other.To me he is the best cyclist ever.Over 300 tests for drugs and not one failure...Even if he failed one or two out of that many I'd still say the same thing but he didn't fail any..
see that's the thing...a lie repeated over and over does not make it true...he circumvented the tests...he cheated, he lied and is still lying. Lance is what my mother used to call a "Bald Face Liar"= you know them, the type of kid that you just saw steal money from your purse, but then stands there and lies with a straight face and the conviction of an innocent person...been there, seen it...
Man PASSED 5,000 DRUG TESTS but if one jilted BIMBO says he is dirty the whole WORLD is on him like stink on a monkey, LANCE passed the TESTS OTHERS DID NOT, he is good to go in my BOOK!
Your points may (or may not) be valid, but unfortunately for Lance, it's not 'your book' that matters; at least not to history anyway. The official story will forever be, he cheated, though not everyone believed he did.
um, no, it is a 1,000 page report that has Nike, etc. seeing the truth...don't shoot the messenger...which is exactly what Lance has tried and apparently still trying to do... but, I think he needs to see,,,"the jig is up"....
Lillie, he didn't try to shoot the messenger. He's not pursuing any sort of battle against them, legal or otherwise. It's the exact opposite, sadly - the USADA is pursuing this like mad, they won't give it up.
Lance has given up because he knows the sport didn't define him - who he was as a person defined him.
Sometimes people give up because they know the money they throw on these kinds of fights could be best used elsewhere - like, I dunno, helping cancer research? Not to mention USADA seems to be one of the Big Corporate Kaisers - the likes of which Romney and co. seem to love like mad.
You're only hearing people from the enemy team speak about it - Lance hasn't even refuted their claims once; and not because he knows speaking will damnify him, but because he just doesn't give a rat's buttcrack. He's got bigger and better things to do now.
I think it might be fitting to apply Occam's Razor to this situation. I will first state, however, that Occam's Razor doesn't actually PROVE anything.
Basically, Occam's Razor says that, taking all things into equal consideration, the simplest explanation tends to be the correct one. So, which is simpler, that a very clever Lance Armstrong found a way to soundly beat the doping testing system and did so with impunity for years, or that the U. S, Government, the USADA, and the UCI, in coercion with substantial numbers of cyclists and people who knew him personally, with no defectors, implemented a plan to manufacture evidence and secure false testimony in order to completely besmirch Armstrong's name so they could strip him of all his titles, in spite of the popularity and financial gain he brought to the sport and at the same time endangering valuable cancer research, for...what reason?
Again, I'm not saying the foregoing PROVES he's guilty, but it's very hard to weigh all the evidence against him, no matter how tenuous, against nothing more than "I didn't do it and I never failed any doping tests.", and not come away at the very least troubled by his vehement denial.
To be a world class athlete you're almost forced to go with the flow. Every year the competition is greater and greater and the natural temptation is to cheat. I have even heard of athletes being dialyzed to clean their blood. That's very risky and really sick.
If this woman's husband was in that class of cyclist I bet he did enhancement drugs too. What a hypocrite.
For years the Europeans dominated the sport and finally an American came along that could win. I bet the pressure was intense. If they all cheat then Lance was the best of the cheaters. Really sad. Such a good athelete
Honestly, it doesn't really matter. If doping is as prevalent as they say it is, then the top riders were doing it, Armstrong included. Just like Barry Bonds in baseball, with the same regimen as everyone else, he still came out on top not once or twice, but 7 times. This was also on top of having overcome testicular cancer. So tell me how bad of an athlete he was or how he was a fraud.
The question I have, is being a cancer survivor, would he really risk his life and a recurrance of cancer by taking steroids which are known to cause kidney failure and further prostate cancer? I have a hard time believing that any title would mean more to him than his health.
He was a fraud if it's true that his performance could not have been as phenomenal if he had not been doping. That would mean he wasn't a great athlete, just a good one made great artificially by chemicals.
Tao, please go back and read Tamborine's post. I have a feeling they know what they are talking about.
Drugs that screw with one's body per cancer don't just miraculously cure it - they make it worse. There's a reason steroids are banned (and not just in competitive sports). Steroids are up there with meth, mary jane, booze, cigs, and the like. They damage ANYONE'S body, no matter who they may be.
No human is a god. If they claim thusly, let us burn them to test this fact. Gods are supposed to be immortal - immortal beings don't die from being burnt to death.
Good grief, the people still clinging to the fairy tale that Lance Armstrong wasn't doping are delusional. The guy was obviously doping, as was EVERY TOP CYCLIST during that period. BTW, this woman (Betsy Andreu) has been telling this exact story for many, many years and has told it consistently. This is not some "new" story, nor is she "piling on". She has been telling it for a long time, but no one wanted to hear it. It is only now that people have stopped to listen to her.
It is obvious that Lance doped. OBVIOUS. 100% obvious. Sun rises in the east and sets in the west obvious. Now, everyone else he was competing against was cheating too, so it was all kind of a wash if you ask me--they were ALL cheaters. But anyone believing that Lance wasn't doping is only kidding themselves. The fact that he never tested positive is meaningless. He just knew how to evade the tests.
Jamie, what is really obvious is that you have no idea what the word 'obvious' means. The fact that he never tested positive means that you dont have any facts to talk about. People lie. If this guy figured out a way to get around the test then there simply is no way to decide without bias whether he did or not! LOL
You are delusional. He's had something like 11 or 12 teammates testify against him now. They ALL say they personally witnessed him doping. His personal doctor has been banned from all sports for life as a convicted doper. Practically every rider he beat in those years has tested positive as well. It would be pretty much humanly impossible for a clean rider to consistently defeat a group of doped riders.
Lance doped. There really is no question. The fact that people still believe otherwise just proves people's ability to believe what they WANT to believe over what is obvious.
Jamie, why not bring this to a bigger battleground? Why not release just what was IN those "samples" they collected? Why not release testimony we can see, hear, AND read - the public should be the ones to scrutinize (and by "the public" I mean those who don't worship the "Christ of Stupidity").
Not to mention, Lance hasn't exactly spoken back towards these losers since he declared "I'm not gonna fight this. It's a waste of time."
They have released testimony. Tons and tons and tons of it. Read the Sports Illustrated article that was recently released on this. It is incredibly damning. Practically everyone who has ever ridden professionally with Lance, including his best friend that rode for him on tour for over a decade and had his back in ever Tour de France that he won, has said that he was actively, knowingly, intentionally, doping.
The reason Lance isn't fighting it is because he is beaten. His only real defense was that he thought his friends would never roll him because they were all guilty too. And for a long, long time, it worked. As long as it was just one or two isolated people they could be painted as individual cheaters who were lying. But now that it is practically everyone that was on his teams saying it? Are they all lying? Note that they are all admitting their own cheating at the same time and several are being suspended/fired for it. So is this a world-wide conspiracy to bring down one man? No--it is the sad truth of professional cycling. Everyone, EVERYONE was doping during that period, because the tests were inadequate. Including Lance Armstrong. If you weren't doping, you weren't going to win any bike races.
Lance is no worse than any other rider during that time. If he hadn't been doping, some other doping rider would have won. So the whole exercise of bringing hiim down is somewhat silly. But pretending he wasn't doping is also silly.
Just the facts, please, just the facts. Where are the blood tests? People lie, science does not. Just the facts.
Well, it's a scientific fact that many drug tests can be cheated. Of course it's only an assumption that the specific ones Lance took could be cheated, so your point is still a good one.
Personally, I think athletes should be allowed to do as may drugs, of whatever kind, they wish with no restrictions.
I wouldn't mind seeing a 300 lb. cyclist doing 200mph on his bike, or a couple of 7', /400lb boxers beating each other's brains out.
Think what the Super Bowl would be like if each player was topped off on steroids and a bunch of them were snorting PCP. THAT would be worth the price of a ticket!
Imagine a hockey match... The Stanley Cup... played under those rules ;-)
I think we should bring back gladiators, and provide them with all the free steroids they can inject. It's time to make sports interesting again, and I nelieve this is the only way owners can justify their astronomical ticket prices.
I think the whole thing stinks of bias, money, and jealousy. You?
Man, they can't pile on fast enough now. Where were all of these people when this was supposed to be taking place? They should have been yelling at the top of their lungs after the first race. If he passed all of the tests, then I have a hard time believing all of this about him.
Tamborine, here's another question: Doesn't it seem odd that Lance hasn't spoken out about this? Sometimes silence is golden - in Lance's case, the USADA's continued coverage of this may help him and hurt them at the same time.
This is like someone getting arrested for speeding despite going through 300 traffic lights with radar and cameras missing it all and just on the word of 25 drag racers who had all been beaten by him. If the systems to catch cheaters was so bad, throw out all the ones who were banned for testing positive. The whole thing is a big joke. Just call it the cheating era and put an asterisk beside it same as baseballs steroid era.
Armstrong should give back all $40 million that he made!!!!!!
Cory18 and Aaron have a way with words. The woman speaks the truth and you call her a"low-life," "pig" and "vindictive... back stabber." Maybe your mothers are the "low-lives' for not teaching you fundamental moral principles.
God be with you!
I knew there was a reason a long time ago that I didn't like Lance. Now that reason is just becoming clear. You can't tell me that someone wasn't making money behind the scenes and helping him pass the testing. They knew when to test and it all was so elaborately organized so that he wouldn't get caught. You don't just pass like that without inside help. It all comes down to 3 things money, greed and power. If you look at any of the scandals today, just insert those 3 words and it all becomes very clear. Sad though he still can't be honest with himself and the public. That to me, really is a testimony to his character. It's all out, so just be honest.
In that era they were all on it. Virenque got caught, but nothing was ever proven against Pantani (died soon after retirement), Indurain, Ullrich (came out of the Eastern Bloc's athlete development program - think he was doped?!), Cippolini, etc. Some retired just ahead of investigations, but Armstrong is the only one they just kept coming after.
She has been singing this tune for YEARS. Especially since HER HUSBAND WAS BANNED BECAUSE HE WAS CAUGHT DOPING. SOUR GRAPES.
First thing first. All "professional" sports are entertainment. With that said why is there any governmental intrusion. When the baseball gones broke the home run record how JUICED were they? Still in record books! I love football also, but don't tell me they can run, jump and recover that fast with out something. But it is entertainment so we watch anyway. Why aren't the music people, movies, TV etc. tested for doping? It's entertainment (but young kids want to be like them, the "stars" of what ever the entertainment is) Whether Lance or anyone else used something to enhance their chance of winning or getting a part in a movie (IE: some body part enhanced), that is what the competition has called for. If Lance doped, he must have been the best at it, because he is the most tested athlete ever in any professional entertainmnet event.
Livestrong Lance
Armstrong is a shame and a disgrace. He should be in jail.
I don't believe or trust her. A true friend that is disappointed even disgusted when you cheat generally would face you and keep it between you and they not publicly denigrate you. She's got an agenda for sure.
Bill Clinton, when confronted with the allegation that he had sex 'with that woman', vehemently denied it. Continually. Eventually, the weight of the circumstantial evidence became so great that he just got tired of denying and admitted it. There was never any real proof (no eye witnesses, and the woman could have lied to get a book deal, that's what we all believe in this case, right?)
Pete Rose, when confronted with allegations that he gambled on baseball, vehemently denied it. Continually. Eventually the weight of the circumstantial evidence became so great that he just got tired of denying it and just admitted to it. Again, there was never any absolute proof (at least that I ever heard, but I didn't follow that super-closely).
The only difference between these two and Lance MAY BE, that Lance hasn't gotten tired yet. Either that or he's really innocent (which I personally doubt).
Love that analogy!
exactly, I hope that Lance will finally see that the "jig is up" and come clean, but I just see him denying and denying because there is a core group of people that will believe him no matter what evidence comes out. The saying, there are none so blind as those who will not see...comes to mind...
Tao, Lillie, can I burn you to test you for "bull@!$%# deceit pheromone"? Offer proof or I hereby brand you all "Liars of Christ".
Since when do people play by the rules to get to the top of any profession? All this criticism is there just to make an example of someone and let all the others stay out of the limelight.