With Lance Armstrong finally confessing the way we advised him all along …

The question now is: Besides confessing, will Lance apologize?

For us at BikeIntelligencer, an apology would be the final nail in the Lance Armstrong image reconstruction project.

The doping we always understood. Lance led cycling into professional sport’s most endemic doping era and was its best and highest practitioner — or worst and lowest, depending on how you look at it.

To win, Lance had to dope. But so did virtually every other cyclist at Tour de France levels. The ones who didn’t dope, didn’t win. Simple as that.

That’s why we always argued that Lance should just come clean, with the “Everybody did it” excuse. Then we could all move on.

With a confession, the issue becomes Lance’s behavior to his fans, the media and his fellow cyclists over the years. Armstrong not only bullied other cyclists into doping, he bullied anyone who challenged his honesty.

A confession won’t fully make amends. Only a full, heartfelt, believable apology will provide closure and allow us all to go forward with peace of mind.

With an apology, we can get back to focusing on Lance’s amazing athletic accomplishments and the admirable work his foundation has done and is doing. With an apology, we can close the door on all the bad karma Lance fomented over the years.

With an apology, maybe Lance can become a hero again.

Now you have a situation where a leading Spanish cyclist accuses a Spanish beef producer of disseminating beef contaminated with a muscle-building drug used to fatten cattle quickly. And in the middle, Spain’s doping authorities have to sort it all out.

So here’s where we stand. Contador, winner of the Tour de France, has been accused of using clenbuterol after trace amounts were found in his urine samples taken during last July’s Tour. Contador says he unknowingly ingested the drug by eating contaminated meat from a butcher in northern Spain.

The World Anti-doping Agency said after visiting the butcher and his slaughterhouse that it could find no evidence to support Contador’s claim.

So now Spain’s beef producers are calling for an investigation into Contador’s allegations.

Meanwhile, Luxembourg ace and our man Andy Schleck, the Tour’s runner-up who stands to take the 2010 yellow jersey away from Contador if the latter is found culpable, says he believes Contador is telling the truth and doesn’t want the crown sloppy seconds. Like Matt Damon in “Rounders,” he wants to win the Tour straight up — not “via a desk.” That’s why we love Andy.

Armstrong Doping Investigation JRA — Just Rolling Along

American investigators were in France to review evidence in their grand jury investigation into allegations of systematic doping by the American champion Lance Armstrong.

A week ago the Americans met with French police at the headquarters of the international law enforcement agency Interpol, in Lyon. That meeting, according to sources cited by the AP, focused largely on a police investigation of medical equipment retrieved from a trash container during the 2009 Tour.

An offer like this would imply that authorities have actual evidence in hand. If so, such evidence could prove to be the crack in the “we like our credibility” defense Lance Armstrong has offered so far in response to Landis’ allegations of systematic doping in the early 2000s.

In a larger context, the timing of this scandal raises questions. Coming during the height of publicity for the Tour of California, naming primarily Americans — the most prominent of whom were competing in the race — and putting the focus on Armstrong as he was poised to make a statement in the Tour … all of it raises questions about a backstory based on an investigation further along than has been suggested.

Remember that Landis did not “release” his email — nor, apparently, did he intend for it to be made public.

Something is going on behind the scenes that we the public do not yet know about.

Other links:

Joe Papp on Floyd Landis: Speak No Evil?

Lance ups the ante, releasing emails between Landis and the Tour of California in attempt to show Landis as a grubber.

Greg LeMond believes Floyd, mostly.

Regarding unequal treatment of riders by doping authorities for political and financial reasons, Joe Papp has reposted a fascinating article from the Danish weekly publication Weekendavisen discussing the curious case of Vladimir Gusev, a Russian rider who was fired for apparent political reasons but won vindication in a lawsuit. The article’s typos stem from auto-translation technology.