The disgraced cyclist is being sued by the U.S. Justice Department to recover at least the $40 million that were paid by the U.S. Postal Service paid to sponsor Armstrong’s team, claiming he was “unjustly enriched” by using anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France seven times.

His best chance at protecting his personal fortune could be in convincing a jury the government has already earned plenty from him, regardless of whether he cheated to win the Tour de France and lied to cover it up. According to the legal team of Armstrong, the benefits the Postal Service reaped from putting its name on Armstrong’s jersey was worth far more than that. Four studies that were commissioned by the Postal Service had revealed that the contract was worth more than $100 million in worldwide exposure for the agency at a time it was trying to boost its brand.

“The U.S. Postal Service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship of the cycling team,” Armstrong attorney Elliot Peters said when the government filed its complaint. “Its own studies repeatedly and conclusively prove this. The USPS was never the victim of fraud. Lance Armstrong rode his heart out for the USPS team, and gave the brand tremendous exposure during the sponsorship years.”

Paul Scott, an attorney for Floyd Landis, the former Armstrong teammate who brought the whistle-blower lawsuit, dismissed the argument that the Postal Service wasn’t damaged.

“It was all a fraud,” Scott said. “U.S. Postal would not have paid a dime if they had known the truth.”

The Spanish Anti-Doping Agency recently said that prosecutors in the eastern province of Alicante are examining the Spanish citizens mentioned in a report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency into the doping activities of Armstrong. The agency said the investigation is currently limited to Alicante, although the report by the United States Anti-Doping Agency indicates Armstrong’s ring extended to other parts of Spain.

The USADA report that led to the eventual confession by the 41-year-old disgraced cyclist that he had doped to win seven Tour de France titles from 1999-2005 mentions Spanish doctors Luis Garcia del Moral and Pedro Celaya and trainer Pepe Marti.

The move comes just days after a Madrid court found Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes guilty of endangering the health of athletes through blood doping; Fuentes was given a suspended sentence of one year and the judge ordered the destruction of evidence that could implicate more athletes.

Meanwhile, Armstrong is facing the federal government in a legal fight with tens of millions of dollars at stake. A loss for the disgraced cyclist could bankrupt him, who until last year ranked among the wealthiest and most popular athletes in the world. His best chance at protecting his personal fortune may rest in convincing a jury that the government has already earned plenty from him, regardless of whether he cheated to win the Tour de France through performance enhancing drugs and lied to cover it up.

Coates has introduced the strictest anti-doping laws in Australian sport, with athletes and officials required to truthfully answer any questions put to them by the anti-doping body ASADA.

“It would be naïve to not expect that some Australian athletes and officials in Olympic sports have so far fallen through the net because of inefficient (drugs) testing,” Coates said.

Under the new AOC Anti-Doping By-Law, which was recently approved by the AOC Executive, athletes and officials must fully co-operate with ASADA even if to do so might incriminate or expose them to a penalty.

The new law obligates athletes and officials to give information, produce documents, and answer questions as required by the anti-doping agency.

“To be clear, failure to co-operate with and assist ASADA, in every way, can result in an athlete or official being ruled out of an Olympic Team,” he said. “They may be ineligible for membership of or selection to any Team, or to receive funding from or to hold any position within the AOC for such period as determined by the AOC.”

Coates said it was important to uphold the integrity in Olympic sport and “welcomed” the assistance that Customs and the Australian Crime Commission was providing ASADA.

The former Porto player now faces an uncertain future though Coach Paulo Autuori still lends his support for the player who lifted the Champions League with the Portuguese side in 2004. “I talk to him every day. He has our full support and this time it’ll be no different. Any athlete will receive support in any ways [at Vasco],” Autuori said.

The legal representative of Alberto was cagey over whether or not the player would contest any doping charge. He said: “We have to present his defense today, which is the limit date for that. If we don’t, the player will be automatically charged [for doping]. If we do present it, we have a 50 percent chance. We can’t talk much, it’s a complicated process.”

In the last few months, doping in sports is a regular sight with many sportsmen from disciplines like cycling, football, volleyball, handball, and weightlifting been accused of or admitting to making the use of banned performance enhancing drugs. Despite tall claims and talks of stringent control and innovative testing methods, the use of banned drugs like anabolic steroids is still on the rise, especially among amateur and professional players.

Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes was given a one-year prison term for endangering public health and the judge prompted widespread disbelief and condemnation when she also ordered the evidence, including code-named bags of blood to be destroyed.

The judge justified her decision by saying that evidence collected in a criminal investigation could not then be used in an administrative process such as a doping probe by a sporting body as it would infringe the rights of those implicated.

“The bid will be affected by both the good and the bad but we cannot be made responsible now for Operation Puerto,” Blanco, who is also the president of Spain’s Olympic Committee (COE), said in an interview.  ”We cannot correct the past but we can the future and that is our concrete commitment, nobody can doubt that,” he added.

“The problem is that Operation Puerto has been a mistake and a disaster for Spanish sport from the start.

“The legal process has a timescale that is not the same as that in sport, where you have to decide things immediately.

“Now there will be appeals and the case will continue to drag on. It has been seven years already and that’s a whole career for many athletes.”

Denis Shiryakov was banned for life and Maxim Matveyev was banned for a period of four years while six others were suspended for periods of up to two years.

“The Russian weightlifting federation (RWF) banned the eight athletes for breaching anti-doping regulations,” the agency said on its website (www.rusada.ru) without giving further details.

The country has been forced to step up its fight against doping in recent months after being criticized by international anti-doping officials for being too soft on drugs cheats.

The International Weightlifting Federation, some years ago, threatened to ban Russia from competing in major championships after several Russian athletes failed drugs tests.

In the meanwhile, the president of the Russian Athletics Federation (RAF), Valentin Balakhnichev said we must be honest for our own sake and that of the sport. The recent disqualifications of Russian athletes were due to the anti-doping crackdown and the emergence of new tools to detect the very latest drugs. He added the rigor of the anti-doping campaign is defined not only by our Federation’s new tools, but by the rules of the International Athletics Federation (IAF).

“The introduction of biological passports, developed by the IAF and RUSADA, will be an important anti-doping tool,” said Balakhnichev.

“They are now widely used in cycling and have made the sport much cleaner. The Russian lab will also introduce biological passports as of January 1, 2014.”

The 24-year-old Whyte tested positive for methylhexaneamine (MHA) in a test on 13 October after his victory over Hungary’s Sandor Balogh. The stimulant was included in a nutritional supplement called Jack3D, a controversial product that was only removed from UK shelves in the month of August.

A tribunal last week accepted the claim of the boxer that he did not knowingly take MHA, but rejected his appeal because he did not do enough to check the supplement’s ingredients.

 ”The supplement was described on the container as ‘an ultra-intense muscle supplement, giving strength, energy, power and endurance’,” Charles Flint QC, the chairman of the appeal tribunal, explained in his written verdict.

“It was plainly intended to be a performance-enhancing supplement which an athlete should only take after having taken great care to ensure that it does not contain a prohibited substance.

“The athlete took no steps to make any proper enquiries of his manager or coach, any person with medical or anti-doping expertise, or the sports authorities, as to whether the supplement was safe to take.

“A one-minute search on the internet in respect of Jack3D or (listed ingredient) dimethylamylamine would have revealed that product might contain a prohibited substance.”

The boxer tweeted after the verdict:  “Don’t worry. I will be back stronger and much more educated.”

If the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment Bill 2013 was passed by parliament, rapists and murderers would have greater legal rights than athletes, Greens Senator Richard Di Natale has claimed.

The Australian Anti-Doping Agency, under the proposed changes, would be given the right to compel athletes to submit to interviews, with fines of up to $5100 for those who withhold information from investigators. The burden of proof will be shifted to athletes to prove they had done nothing wrong.

Senator Di Natale said: “We don’t give the police the sort of powers that are being proposed here when they investigate … a murder investigation or a rape investigation.

“It appears to be a knee-jerk response being rushed through the parliament next week on the back of the government’s recent controversy when it announced with the Australian Crime Commission that it had significant concerns about doping in sport.”

Senator Penny Wright, the Greens’ spokeswoman on legal affairs, said the bill would “overturn some pretty fundamental legal principles” and was not supported by legal experts. “Removing the privilege against self-incrimination, a basic right, isn’t justified by the context here,” she said. “The Bill reverses the fundamental principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ – we don’t do this for criminal matters, so why do it for sport?”

Whyte received a phone call from UK Anti Doping (UKAD) en route to a London press conference and it was revealed that traces of a banned substance officially named methylhexaneamine (DMAA) were found in recent samples given by the heavyweight fighter.

The 24-year-old Londoner tested positive for the stimulant methylhexaneamine (MHA) following an in-competition test on October 13. The boxer, who beat London 2012 Olympic gold medalist Anthony Joshua during his amateur career, won nine fights in a row after turning professional.

The heavyweight boxer and his team have committed to co-operate fully with the UK Anti-Doping and the British Boxing Board of Control in the coming weeks.

Whyte said: “I have nothing to hide it’s a genuine mistake and I urge all boxers to double check all ingredients in all pre-workout drinks they take, I would hate to see another boxer make the same mistake I have.”

After the verdict, he tweeted,’its a joke but that’s boxing for you… I get 2 years for a drink.

‘Don’t worry I will be back stronger and much more educated.’

A statement from UK Anti-Doping said: ‘The National Anti-Doping Panel found that Mr Whyte failed to seek professional or medical advice before using the supplement Jack3D, which he had bought over the counter from a nutritional supplement shop.

‘Consequently they stated that he had ‘failed to discharge the burden of establishing that he was not significantly at fault’ and therefore could not reduce his sanction from two years. The appeal panel agreed with this decision, stressing that the case emphasises ‘the dangers of athletes taking supplements which contain MHA’.’

The Italian Olympic Committee’s anti-doping prosecutor had asked the court for a maximum four-year ban but the tribunal imposed a 3½-year ban that expires January 29, 2016. The former Olympic race walk champion has also admitted to consulting with Lance Armstrong’s banned sport doctor, Michele Ferrari.

Schwazer won the bronze medal in the 50 km race at the 2005 World Championships in a national record time of 3:41.54 hours and was the runner-up at the 2008 IAAF World Race Walking Cup and went on to win gold at the 50 km walk at the 2008 Summer Olympics, setting a new Olympic record with his time of 3:37:09. Schwazer won the 50-kilometer event at the 2008 Beijing Games and was excluded from the London Olympics after he tested positive for EPO before the games.  The race walker retired during the 2012 Olympics after being disqualified for doping offences.

The 28-year-old said he was confident he would receive a reduced suspension on appeal.

“I am not thinking for the moment about when I return nor how,” he said. “I am confident the final suspension will be reduced.

“I was expecting a more clement punishment, I believe that I was pretty open after committing such a huge mistake … those who dope and say nothing get two years and me in contrast …”

He maintains he was clean at the time of the Beijing Olympics.