Armstrong Inquiry: Ferrari’s Shadow World

Been a while since any of the global inquiry into the Armstrong/USPS/Doping stuff has bubbled up. But now, we see that Italian newspaper reports Armstrong linked to Ferrari through cash payments. Nothing too crazy there, just your run-of-the-mill offshore shadow corporation designed to keep clients at a safe arms-length from the biz. And, while they are at it, shelter income and transactions from taxes and government oversight.

Compare this to the shoddy idiocy of the Operation Puerto run by Dr. Fuentes in Spain and the difference is stunning. Fuentes was faxing full (albeit slightly disguised with a cereal-box code level of secrecy) drug and training regimens directly to riders like Hamilton (using his wife’s full, but maiden, name as the recipient), at their own apartment buildings and homes! At least Ferrari had/has the sense (safe to assume he is probably still doing this shit, given Armstrong was still consulting with him in 2010) to build in a few rings of security between “No. 1″ and the clients.

Gotta wonder how long it is until these indictments from the federal inquiry finally drop – I would assume we are in the range of just a few months at this point.

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Sociopaths We Have Known: Armstrong, Part Deux

OK, this Landis interview with Kimmage is fantastic – the most useful and important thing on pro cycling to have come out since, well…probably Kimmage’s “Rough Ride” book.

Here he is being questioned about his story of arriving in Austin for USPS bonding/training camp, piling into Armstrong’s SUV and watching as Armstrong speeds through town, running red lights, to get to a strip club. His earlier comments on this had been that he could see the discrepancy between Armstrong’s public persona and private personality, but that this wasn’t inherently problematic for him. This is what he refers to in the first few lines below. However, what is so interesting (to me) is that Landis is pretty much arguing exactly what I said a while back as evidence for Armstrong being a kind of sociopath: the brazen disregard for what regular people would consider to be completely reckless behavior, particularly for those trying to get away with things that are socially unacceptable. As Landis points out, here is a guy (Armstrong) with so much to lose, who doesn’t know Landis from a guy on the street, and he immediately brings him into the fold.

You were seeing it first hand?

Yeah, there was more to it than there appears to be and that’s fine, if that’s the way it has to be. I never had any experience with the press at all, so I didn’t know how hard it is to actually do what he was doing; to live one thing and manipulate it into another; to maintain a story like that, that was nearly 100% fabricated; to live such an obnoxious life and not even try to hide it. I mean, I’m a guy that he has never really even met; he didn’t give me any sort of period to prove that I was trustworthy; he just threw me in the car and went to the strip club. So this was a guy that wasn’t even trying to hide it and yet somehow the story stayed the same; this guy is going around acting like an asshole and we got another story over here and it’s a good story – he’s motivating people and giving them hope. I live my life the way I want to and I’m not going to judge him for what he wants to do but I know one thing – these stories don’t add up.

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via NY Velocity.

**Update: as noted in the comments below, I had previously posted on Armstrong as sociopath a while back here on BliggityBlog**

Landis/Kimmage | NY Velocity

Incredibly cool that Paul Kimmage has made his full transcript from extensive Landis interviews available direct, unedited. Definitely worth a read.

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Interview at  NY Velocity.