Recently in Cycling Category

The U.S. Postal Service has decided to sue disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong for prior sponsorship money, claiming he was unjustly enriched.

Armstrong, who was stripped of all titles he'd won since 1998, received approximately $40 million over the course of six years from the USPS, and now they want their money back, reports CNN.

If the USPS is successful, they may collect up to triple their sponsorship money. But it all may hinge on whether Armstrong was unjustly enriched.

After years of denying doping, Lance Armstrong is expected to make a confession to Oprah Winfrey today. The interview is set to be broadcast Thursday.

The cyclist is expected to come clean on allegations of doping and using performance-enhancing drugs surrounding his Tour de France wins, as well as issue an apology to the public, reports ESPN. This confession comes on the heels of a damning U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report last year that resulted in Armstrong losing all seven of his Tour de France titles.

Given that Armstrong has been involved in plenty of legal controversy surrounding his alleged doping, his confession now will have serious legal ramifications. Here are some of the potential impacts:

A federal judge threw out Lance Armstrong's lawsuit against the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

Armstrong had sued the USADA to stop its investigation into his alleged doping and use of performance-enhancing drugs. If Armstrong is found to have cheated, he could be stripped of his Tour de France victories, face a lifetime ban from competitive cycling, and his legacy will likely be forever tarnished.

The U.S. District Court in Texas refused to get involved in the matter and the judge essentially said the matter should be resolved within USADA's own internal protocols and not in a U.S. court, reports CNN.

Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador's doping charges were upheld on Monday. He was stripped of his 2010 Tour de France title and banned from the sport for two years.

The decision was handed down by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The three-man panel held that Contador was guilty of taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Contador originally argued that the presence of clenbuterol in his system was not the result of illegal doping. The cyclist said it was because he ate contaminated meat.

Racing cyclists must wear hard helmets to protect their heads in falls. But accidents still happen. Belgian cyclist Wouter Weylandt died recently after a high-speed downhill crash at the Giro d'Italia, a road race in Northern Italy, reports the Associated Press.

Weylandt died after he fell during a fast descent down a mountain road.

According to race officials, the Belgian's left pedal got stuck in a wall at the side of the road, forcing Weylandt to tumble about 66 feet to the ground below. He suffered a skull fracture. Medical efforts to revive him on the roadway failed, reports the Associated Press.

Doping scandals and the Tour de France seem to go together like peanuts and peanut butter. Three-time and 2010 Tour de France champion Alberto Contador has tested positive for a banned steroid, clenbuterol, taken during the race. But rest not lovers of sport and truth...Contador has a perfectly reasonable explanation for his failed doping test: bad meat. "It is a food contamination case of which I am the victim," Contador said.

Contador, of Spain, who has now been provisionally suspended from cycling by the Union Cycliste Internationale, cycling's governing body. But Contador remains adamant that he is innocent and that the food contamination theory is for real. According to Contador, several riders ate bad meat during the race. After he tested positive, Contador says that he asked the UCI which other riders passed the test, CNN.com reports "...the only one who passed the control ... was Alexandre Vinokourov. [He was the only one of the riders] who did not eat the meat on that day."

It's been a busy 2010 at Tarnished Twenty. Their super hero physique might make you believe otherwise, but athletes are human like the rest of us. This year they have certainly given us a lot of repeat topics. Let's look at some of the most recurring sports legal issues of the year.

Contract Disputes

"Show me the money!" Sure, they might love the game, but it's still a job and pros want to get paid. In July we had a post about new USC coach Lane Kiffin who was in a dispute with Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher. Fisher accused Kiffin of "poaching" one of his coaches. That didn't phase Kiffin, he's certainly been accused of worse.

Only in sports law do contract disputes involve grown men dressed as Pierogi. The Pittsburgh Pirates fired one of their mascots for criticizing the contracts of the team's general manager and head coach.

A U.S. bankruptcy court is apparently holding a variety of professional athletes' equipment, mementos, and memorabilia hostage until the athletes pay up enough dough to establish their ownership over the goods, the Wall Street Journal reports.

In an article yesterday, the WSJ explained that the situation involves items on loan to the "Sports Museum of America in New York, a for-profit organization that recently declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy after opening to great fanfare in May." Obviously the "great fanfare" wasn't big enough, but the bigger problem (at least for the athletes involved) is that some of their stuff has been thrown into a storage facility in New Jersey. That doesn't sound too bad, but the athletes are reportedly being forced to pay some pretty sizeable sums of cash to get their items back.