Thoughts on Lance Armstrong

The mainstream sports media (at least here in Canada) have covered really only bits and pieces of the back-and-forth accusations over the issue of L'Equipe (French sports newspaper) claiming they have evidence Lance Armstrong used EPO in the 1999 Tour de France. Already in the last week, the UCI (international cycling federation) criticized WADA and Dick Pound for commenting before full investigations were complete, Dick Pound claims that the leak was actually the UCI president, Lance Armstrong hints that he might actually make a comeback to combat rumours but now states that he won't (and criticizes Dick Pound), and the UCI president denies that the UCI leaked anything.

In my mind, I have grave doubts about testing done for no apparent valid reason, without the consent of the athlete involved, 6 years later - if the journalist involved forged numbers onto his documents, as the UCI claims, he could easily have faked results as well. Lance Armstrong has actually put his own money into improving drug testing in cycling over the years, which would probably be a really stupid thing to do if you were actually cheating.
(and while I used to think it was neat that Canada had a high-ranking IOC and later WADA official in Dick Pound, he now comes across as embarrassing when he makes comments apparently without all the information, even other WADA officials have criticized him as well).

Andrew Coyne, in one of his now-rare blogging moments, puts forth 4 possible scenarios for what might actually have happened, and points out that in three of the four, Lance Armstrong still comes across as a winner.