AFP reports that Lance Armstrong has been accused of cheating during both his pre- and post-cancer careers in a new book that is about to be published in France. Excerpts of the book L.A. Confidentiel appear in this week's l'Express, a French magazine.

I read the excerpts of the book using the Google translation tool and I have to say that I'm not impressed. The accusations by Emma O'Reilly and Stephen Swart are old, which doesn't make them wrong, just suspicious. They must both be very angry at something in order to be willing to turn back the clock and make allegations like these. If the allegations are true, why did they wait until Lance Armstrong had won five Tours de France before making them?

Then there's the idea that someone like Lance Armstrong could secretly be on erythropoietin (EPO). This is a drug that can be detected in the blood within 72 hours of administration. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has rules that are designed to deal with these limitations. Lance Armstrong and his co-author Sally Jenkins discuss this in Every Second Counts:

Even out of season, I was, and am, tested by the United States Anti-Doping Agency. It's a moment of wearing familiarity: I'm sitting in my kitchen early one Texas morning, sipping coffee and whispering so as not to wake assorted children, when there's a loud ringing at the doorbell. Standing on the front step of my home is a representative from USADA, coming on like John Wayne, holding out a piece of paper like a warrant and telling me to take a drug test or risk being banned from my sport....

... I was required to inform the USADA of my whereabouts at all times. No matter where I went. Anytime I changed locations, I was supposed to fax or email them as to my movements.

The book and the AFP article also re-raises a bogus in-season drug testing issue. The AFP article says:

Armstrong has always strenuously denied taking performance enhancing drugs and has only tested positive once - for a corticostroid at the Tour de France in 1999, for which cycling's world ruling body the UCI did not sanction him.

Why didn't the UCI sanction him? Armstrong says in Every Second Counts:

I used an analgesic cream that contained corticsteroid to treat a case of saddle sores, so the press reported that I tested positive for a banned steroid. It was untrue. I had received permission from race authorities to use the cream, disclosing its contents. In fact, all of my tests were clean, and I asked the Tour to release the results, which they did.

In order to believe the allegations in L.A. Confidentiel, you'd have to believe that significant portions of Lance Armstrong's two books are false, and The Lance Chronicles documentary is a sham. I don't believe the allegations, and I don't think it's because of my wishful thinking.