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phony ,fraud ,fake , all depends what is ..is ? ;0 & um talking about ................All's I wanna do 's is ......??????? douche bag ..didn't C nut-tin ,didn't hear nut-tin ...hey maybe that "thing " man to te um toe ----maybe 'they" had same kinda thing going ? :o u think ?
By
Laura Collins
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It is 'unthinkable' that Sheryl Crow did not know that Lance Armstrong was doping as the cyclist ‘decimated’ the lives and reputations of those who spoke out against him, according to the wife of a former cyclist team-mate.
Betsy Andreu, the whistleblower at the heart of exposing Armstrong's doping, said it would be 'sick and unconscionable’ if the singer had failed to act.
Speaking to MailOnline Betsy said: ‘Are you kidding me? She was his fiancé. She surely knew what was going on. She could have helped other people.’
In an excoriating
interview Betsy describes a culture of complicity at the heart of
Armstrong’s court and reserves her harshest criticism for the ‘weak
women’ around him.
She said: ‘I am appalled and ashamed at how weak women were in this whole saga. It is an embarrassment.’
‘I always contend that the truth is the best way to go. The truth will set you free.’ She didn't go on to address whether she knew about his doping.
The wife of Armstrong’s former team-mate and close friend, Frankie Andreu, found that the truth takes much longer to ‘set you free’ when Armstrong is trying to shut you up.
The cyclist branded her ‘vindictive and crazy’ when she dared to tell the truth 16 years ago. It was her insistence that she overheard Armstrong revealing details of his doping regime to an oncologist treating him for testicular cancer that proved the beginning of the end for the Armstrong.
‘I didn’t decide to take Lance on,’ she has said. ‘I decided not to lie for him; there’s a difference.’
But the thousand pages of affidavits, texts, emails, photos and home videos collated by the U.S Anti-doping Agency (USADA) underscore just what a lone voice Betsy’s was amid a coterie of wives and girlfriends who turned a blind eye to the US Postal team and its captain’s drug taking.
Betsy’s own recollection of the hospital room in which she first heard Armstrong admitting to using EPO, testosterone, cortisone, growth hormone and steroids is that there were three other women present.
Paige Carmichael, wife of cyclist Chris, Stephanie McIlvain, a representative of Armstrong’s then sponsor Oakley and Lisa Shiels, Armstrong’s girlfriend before he met Kristin ‘Kik’ Richard who he went onto marry.
Not one said they recollected the conversation when Betsy spoke up.
Similarly, three years later in May 1999, when Betsy raised what she viewed as the troubling subject of doping with Kristin – by then Armstrong’s wife – she was told: ‘EPO was a necessary evil.’
But then, Betsy points out, ‘I understand she was passing out pills to the guys.’
Betsy’s allegation follows that of one former team-mate who claimed to have witnessed Kristin – mother of three of Lance’s children – actively distributing drugs among the team.
In his sworn affidavit, Armstrong’s former team-mate Jonathan Vaughters states: ‘On the day of the road race at the [1998] World Championships somebody decided that cortisone should be made available for the team; I recall that Kristin Armstrong was wrapping cortisone tablets in tin foil and handing them out to the team.
‘Someone made the remark, “Lance’s wife is rolling joints.”’
On another occasion in May 1999, Vaughters describes how visible stashes of EPO were in Armstrong and Kristin’s villa in Nice – where the team were training.
Tyler Hamilton’s testimony to USADA is similarly damning and specific. He said: ‘It was known that drug laws and enforcements were stricter in France than in Spain… I recall a conversation with Kristin Armstrong about whether it was frightening to live in France and have EPO in the house.
‘Kristin said that she and Lance’s code word for EPO was “butter.” The question for whether there was any EPO at home would be: “Is there any butter?” According to Kristin, the reason this terminology came about was that they stored Lance’s EPO in the butter in the refrigerator.’
Doping was so rife, according to Vaughters, that there was even a term for riders who did not dope. They were said to ride ‘pane e agua’ – bread and water.
Hamilton refers to Kristin’s ‘game attitude’ but goes onto reveal that, in his opinion ‘doping took its toll on the wives and girlfriends of the riders.’
‘They were concerned about health risks, and more than one wife told my former wife how much they hated the doping and wished that the guys did not have to do it.’
This cuts little ice with Betsy who points out that the guys did not have to do it. ‘You could ride clean,’ she says. ‘You just couldn’t ride clean and earn hundreds of thousands of dollars.’
And it was this
wealth, this lifestyle of glamour, adulation and celebrity that,
according to Betsy, was the pay-off for the wife and girlfriends’
silence.
She said: ‘They didn’t care because of what it afforded them.’
She admitted: ‘I’m more angry with the people who let Lance get away with it, who aided and abetted him, than I am with Lance himself.
‘Maybe it’s because I used to be friends with him. I don’t know the psychology behind it but..these people didn’t give a s*** about him. If they had cared about him don’t you think they would have said, “This stops,” or else this relationship is over?”’
In his affidavit, Betsy’s husband Frankie recalls a similar ultimatum issued by his then fiancée following that hospital room revelation. ‘She told me she was not going to marry a drug user and if I was using those drugs that we were not getting married.’
Frankie admitted to having shared this conversation with Armstrong and from there on Betsy’s card seems to have been marked as far as the Olympian was concerned.
That hospital conversation and Betsy’s refusal to forget it became an ongoing point of contention.
On 25 October Frank and Betsy provided sworn affidavits in Michigan reiterating the details they had heard.
Two days later the Lance Armstrong Foundation announced $1.5million funding for a chair in oncology at Indiana University.
On 8 December 2008 Craig Nichols, at the time based in Indiana and one of the doctors who supervised Armstrong’s care, signed a sworn affidavit claiming that he had ‘no recollection’ of the conversation, adding, ‘Lance Armstrong never admitted, suggested or indicated that he has ever taken performance-enhancing drugs.’
Asked about this timeline Armstrong testified: ‘It was a million and a half dollars, and I understand that’s a lot of money. But to suggest I funded that chair to get an affidavit or to get some clean medical records or some sanitized records is completely ridiculous.’
He said: ‘Lance called me into his room to discuss the situation. He wanted to talk to me about the hospital room and have my wife sign a statement of support for Lance saying the hospital incident did not happen.
‘His then girlfriend at the time, Sheryl Crow, was in the room, and I felt uncomfortable talking about this in front of her.’
When Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles – two of which he gained while dating Crow – his ex-fiancee claimed: ‘I know how hard he worked to win those titles, and you know, it was hard to watch. I felt bad.
‘I felt bad for him, I felt bad for his family, and I kinda’ felt like the rest of America. He is a hero that we watched and looked up to and admire.’
Today Betsy is
adamant that, far from being like the rest of America: ‘Sheryl was by
his side when he was trying to destroy people and she said nothing.
That’s unconscionable. I mean it just astounds me.
‘You should know people are telling the truth and you’re silent. It’s sick.
'Sheryl was by his side when he was trying to destroy people and she said nothing. That’s unconscionable. I mean it just astounds me' - Betsy Andreu
‘My
God she was engaged to the guy. She, like Kristin, like so many other
women did not speak up. If they went through what we went through,
would they want somebody to speak up? She could have done something.’
Crow was interviewed as part of USADA’s investigation in 2011 though it is unknown what she said and she has not supplied an affidavit.
But Betsy remains unconvinced that Crow has yet been questioned as forensically as she feels she ought to be.
She said: ‘Somebody should ask Sheryl did you see the blood tranfusions? Were drugs ever stored in your home? Did you see any of that in your house?’
The bruising from repeated injections into Armstrong’s stomach and upper arms would, Betsy maintains, be difficult to conceal from or explain away to the woman he lived with.
Betsy is some way from forgiving Armstrong for the devastation that he brought on them for simply refusing to lie.
But she admitted: ‘There’s a sense of relief because he’s told some of the truth but he still has a ways to go in telling all of it. It’s sad. You see just a broken man. Somebody who thought he was invincible. When a person doesn’t know how to tell the truth or say they’re sorry it’s sad, sad, sad.’
Before appearing on Winfrey, Armstrong called Betsy and Frankie and they spoke for 40 minutes. The three agreed to keep the details of that conversation private though Armstrong admitted on television that it had not healed the deep wounds inflicted over the years.
Now Betsy says:
‘Frankie and I felt that he was genuine and sincere with us when he
spoke with him and that obviously didn’t come across on TV but it’s more
important to me that he’s like that with us privately.
‘But again, actions speak louder than words. The whole thing is just a mess. So many lives affected. So many people who stayed silent when they should have said something.’
EXCLUSIVE: It's 'unthinkable' that Sheryl Crow didn't know Lance Armstrong was doping - whistleblower blasts 'weak women' around shamed cyclist
- Betsy Andreu, whistleblower at heart of exposing Armstrong's doping, said it would be 'sick and unconscionable' if the singer failed to act
- Describes a culture of complicity at the heart of Armstrong’s court and reserves her harshest criticism for the ‘weak women’ around him
- Claims in 1999 Armstrong's then wife Kristin told her ‘EPO was a necessary evil’
- Says his lovers said nothing because of the fame and glamour it afforded them
- In interview with Entertainment Tonight, Crow did not address what she knew of Armstrong's doping
- Singer, 50, added: ‘It’s got to be real hard walking around knowing you’re not telling the truth about something'
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It is 'unthinkable' that Sheryl Crow did not know that Lance Armstrong was doping as the cyclist ‘decimated’ the lives and reputations of those who spoke out against him, according to the wife of a former cyclist team-mate.
Betsy Andreu, the whistleblower at the heart of exposing Armstrong's doping, said it would be 'sick and unconscionable’ if the singer had failed to act.
Speaking to MailOnline Betsy said: ‘Are you kidding me? She was his fiancé. She surely knew what was going on. She could have helped other people.’
Fiance: It is 'unconscionable' that
Sheryl Crow - who dated Armstrong during two Tour de France races in
which he doped - did not know what he was up to, according to Andreu
Burden: Crow - seen here leaving the set of and
speaking on Entertainment Tonight - did not reveal what she knew of
Armstrong's doping but said 'It's got to be hard walking around knowing
you're not telling the truth'
She said: ‘I am appalled and ashamed at how weak women were in this whole saga. It is an embarrassment.’
'I am appalled and ashamed at how weak women were in this whole saga. It is an embarrassment' - Betsy Andreu
In
her interview with Entertainment Tonight aired last night, Crow, 50,
said of Armstrong’s recent public confessions: ‘It’s got to be real hard
walking around knowing you’re not telling the truth about something. ‘I always contend that the truth is the best way to go. The truth will set you free.’ She didn't go on to address whether she knew about his doping.
The wife of Armstrong’s former team-mate and close friend, Frankie Andreu, found that the truth takes much longer to ‘set you free’ when Armstrong is trying to shut you up.
The cyclist branded her ‘vindictive and crazy’ when she dared to tell the truth 16 years ago. It was her insistence that she overheard Armstrong revealing details of his doping regime to an oncologist treating him for testicular cancer that proved the beginning of the end for the Armstrong.
Who's vindictive? Armstrong branded Betsy
(pictured with husband Frankie and the shamed cyclist in 1995)
vindictive and crazy after she refused to accept doping is part of the
sport
Friends: Betsy was close to Armstrong's former
wife Kristin (pictured together in Nice in 1998 with Betsy's mother) and
once asked her about Lance's doping. Kristin is claimed to have replied
it was a 'necessary evil'
But the thousand pages of affidavits, texts, emails, photos and home videos collated by the U.S Anti-doping Agency (USADA) underscore just what a lone voice Betsy’s was amid a coterie of wives and girlfriends who turned a blind eye to the US Postal team and its captain’s drug taking.
Betsy’s own recollection of the hospital room in which she first heard Armstrong admitting to using EPO, testosterone, cortisone, growth hormone and steroids is that there were three other women present.
Paige Carmichael, wife of cyclist Chris, Stephanie McIlvain, a representative of Armstrong’s then sponsor Oakley and Lisa Shiels, Armstrong’s girlfriend before he met Kristin ‘Kik’ Richard who he went onto marry.
Not one said they recollected the conversation when Betsy spoke up.
Similarly, three years later in May 1999, when Betsy raised what she viewed as the troubling subject of doping with Kristin – by then Armstrong’s wife – she was told: ‘EPO was a necessary evil.’
support: Kristin Armstrong was by Lance's side during the shamed cyclist's tour victories
Betsy’s allegation follows that of one former team-mate who claimed to have witnessed Kristin – mother of three of Lance’s children – actively distributing drugs among the team.
In his sworn affidavit, Armstrong’s former team-mate Jonathan Vaughters states: ‘On the day of the road race at the [1998] World Championships somebody decided that cortisone should be made available for the team; I recall that Kristin Armstrong was wrapping cortisone tablets in tin foil and handing them out to the team.
‘Someone made the remark, “Lance’s wife is rolling joints.”’
On another occasion in May 1999, Vaughters describes how visible stashes of EPO were in Armstrong and Kristin’s villa in Nice – where the team were training.
‘Kristin
said that she and Lance’s code word for EPO was “butter.” The question
for whether there was any EPO at home would be: “Is there any butter?”' - Tyler Hamilton
He
said: ‘I asked Lance if he had any EPO I could borrow. Lance directed
me to the refrigerator where the EPO was next to the milk. I helped
myself to a vial.’Tyler Hamilton’s testimony to USADA is similarly damning and specific. He said: ‘It was known that drug laws and enforcements were stricter in France than in Spain… I recall a conversation with Kristin Armstrong about whether it was frightening to live in France and have EPO in the house.
‘Kristin said that she and Lance’s code word for EPO was “butter.” The question for whether there was any EPO at home would be: “Is there any butter?” According to Kristin, the reason this terminology came about was that they stored Lance’s EPO in the butter in the refrigerator.’
Doping was so rife, according to Vaughters, that there was even a term for riders who did not dope. They were said to ride ‘pane e agua’ – bread and water.
Hamilton refers to Kristin’s ‘game attitude’ but goes onto reveal that, in his opinion ‘doping took its toll on the wives and girlfriends of the riders.’
‘They were concerned about health risks, and more than one wife told my former wife how much they hated the doping and wished that the guys did not have to do it.’
This cuts little ice with Betsy who points out that the guys did not have to do it. ‘You could ride clean,’ she says. ‘You just couldn’t ride clean and earn hundreds of thousands of dollars.’
Glamour: Betsy said the 'weak women' around Lance didn't care because they were enjoying the fame and money of his success
She said: ‘They didn’t care because of what it afforded them.’
She admitted: ‘I’m more angry with the people who let Lance get away with it, who aided and abetted him, than I am with Lance himself.
‘Maybe it’s because I used to be friends with him. I don’t know the psychology behind it but..these people didn’t give a s*** about him. If they had cared about him don’t you think they would have said, “This stops,” or else this relationship is over?”’
In his affidavit, Betsy’s husband Frankie recalls a similar ultimatum issued by his then fiancée following that hospital room revelation. ‘She told me she was not going to marry a drug user and if I was using those drugs that we were not getting married.’
Frankie admitted to having shared this conversation with Armstrong and from there on Betsy’s card seems to have been marked as far as the Olympian was concerned.
That hospital conversation and Betsy’s refusal to forget it became an ongoing point of contention.
On 25 October Frank and Betsy provided sworn affidavits in Michigan reiterating the details they had heard.
Complicit: Former teammates have claimed that
ex-wife Kristin handed out the pills and that once they laughed she was
'rolling joints' for the team
Family affair: Kristin gave birth to the eldest
three of Armstrong's four children - his two twin daughters Isabelle and
Grace and Luke (blue T-shirt).
On 8 December 2008 Craig Nichols, at the time based in Indiana and one of the doctors who supervised Armstrong’s care, signed a sworn affidavit claiming that he had ‘no recollection’ of the conversation, adding, ‘Lance Armstrong never admitted, suggested or indicated that he has ever taken performance-enhancing drugs.’
Asked about this timeline Armstrong testified: ‘It was a million and a half dollars, and I understand that’s a lot of money. But to suggest I funded that chair to get an affidavit or to get some clean medical records or some sanitized records is completely ridiculous.’
‘I
know how hard he worked to win those titles . . . I felt bad for him, I
felt bad for his family, and I kinda felt like the rest of America. He
is a hero that we watched and looked up to and admire' - Sheryl Crow
But
in a key section of Frankie Andreu’s testimony he recalls just how hard
the cyclist and his team pressed to get Betsy to be quiet. And he
recalls who was in the room at the time.He said: ‘Lance called me into his room to discuss the situation. He wanted to talk to me about the hospital room and have my wife sign a statement of support for Lance saying the hospital incident did not happen.
‘His then girlfriend at the time, Sheryl Crow, was in the room, and I felt uncomfortable talking about this in front of her.’
When Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles – two of which he gained while dating Crow – his ex-fiancee claimed: ‘I know how hard he worked to win those titles, and you know, it was hard to watch. I felt bad.
‘I felt bad for him, I felt bad for his family, and I kinda’ felt like the rest of America. He is a hero that we watched and looked up to and admire.’
Evidence: Andreu believes that Sheryl
Crow is yet to be properly questioned about what she knew - despite
giving a statement to federal investigators in 2011
‘You should know people are telling the truth and you’re silent. It’s sick.
'Sheryl was by his side when he was trying to destroy people and she said nothing. That’s unconscionable. I mean it just astounds me' - Betsy Andreu
Crow was interviewed as part of USADA’s investigation in 2011 though it is unknown what she said and she has not supplied an affidavit.
But Betsy remains unconvinced that Crow has yet been questioned as forensically as she feels she ought to be.
She said: ‘Somebody should ask Sheryl did you see the blood tranfusions? Were drugs ever stored in your home? Did you see any of that in your house?’
The bruising from repeated injections into Armstrong’s stomach and upper arms would, Betsy maintains, be difficult to conceal from or explain away to the woman he lived with.
Betsy is some way from forgiving Armstrong for the devastation that he brought on them for simply refusing to lie.
But she admitted: ‘There’s a sense of relief because he’s told some of the truth but he still has a ways to go in telling all of it. It’s sad. You see just a broken man. Somebody who thought he was invincible. When a person doesn’t know how to tell the truth or say they’re sorry it’s sad, sad, sad.’
Before appearing on Winfrey, Armstrong called Betsy and Frankie and they spoke for 40 minutes. The three agreed to keep the details of that conversation private though Armstrong admitted on television that it had not healed the deep wounds inflicted over the years.
Broken: Betsy spoke to Armstrong before his
Oprah confessional and now believes he's a 'broken man' after losing his
sense of invincibility
‘But again, actions speak louder than words. The whole thing is just a mess. So many lives affected. So many people who stayed silent when they should have said something.’
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