Lance Armstrong

It took only one move for Lance Armstrong to draw all eyes upon him and the Tour de France. It came midafternoon on Monday, Day 3 of cycling's most prestigious race, when a sudden and vicious crosswind whipped across the sun-baked area known as the Camargue in southeastern France. The 37-year-old Texan, chasing an impossible dream in what has been a most improbable comeback, stood up in his saddle and pounced.

Reporting from Sacramento -- The proposal is simple: Raise taxes on cigarettes to pay for cancer research. The push for it is quintessentially Californian, melding celebrity salesmanship and the whims of state voters, who have increasingly been called on to decide key policy questions. The pitchman for Proposition 29, which will appear on the June ballot, is seven-time Tour de France champion and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, who is asking voters to increase taxes on a pack of cigarettes by $1. On Wednesday, he announced a $1.5 million contribution from his Texas-based foundation to the Yes on 29 campaign.

Lance Armstrong will be back at the Amgen 2010 Tour of California, and for some that makes the race a destination choice. But Armstrong's participation this year, his second in a row, will be part of a newly formed American-based team, RadioShack, and it will be at a new time and with new challenges. Nothing if not trendy, tour officials arranged to have several cyclists, including Armstrong and three-time champion Levi Leipheimer, announce their participation and unveil route information via Twitter this morning.

Alberto Contador, for a brief time Lance Armstrong's cycling teammate, had his 2010 Tour de France title taken away and a two-year ban for doping enforced Monday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. CAS' ruling upheld decisions by the International Cycling Union and the World Anti-Doping Agency, which had fought to uphold penalties against Contador after a Spanish cycling tribunal exonerated him last year. The 29-year-old Spaniard failed a doping test that had been conducted during the last rest day of the 2010 Tour de France.

Federal prosecutors announced Friday that they have closed a two-year inquiry without filing criminal charges in a case that sources said related to doping allegations involving seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and his cycling team. Although the grand jury investigation was confidential, details about various former teammates and associates who were subpoenaed to testify about alleged use of banned substances were widely reported in the media. Armstrong's team received sponsorship from the U.S. Postal Service.

Calling his team "simply awesome," Lance Armstrong was nearly decked out in yellow again. The seven-time champion surged from third place to second at the Tour de France on Tuesday after his Astana squad won a team time trial in a dramatic finish. Armstrong erased all but a sliver of his 40-second deficit to leader Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland in the fourth stage. The only thing separating him from the yellow jersey now is a fraction of a second.

"I'll be honest with you," Lance Armstrong said to me once, "I don't wake up every morning thinking, 'I want to be an inspiration to somebody today.' " The next time I see Lance, he'll probably be sitting on the porch of his favorite home, a one-room cabin overlooking his Austin, Texas ranch, wearing a T-shirt, jeans and flip-flops, and a two-day growth on his chin.

It starts now. In December, on snowy mountain roads around Tucson with his graying, balding posse riding shotgun, Lance Armstrong is back at it, all in, no doubts, head of a new cycling team but with the same goal as always -- to win the Tour de France. Seven-time Tour de France winner Armstrong, 38, has gathered seven of the men who rode with him in last year's comeback. He also has a dynamic young nemesis, a Spaniard named Alberto Contador, a 26-year-old who has won four Grand Tours, including the Tour de France twice, and who is unafraid to say that he's not a fan of Armstrong the man or the teammate.

Lance Armstrong's attorneys say illegal government leaks of grand jury information have sullied the cyclist's reputation, and have asked a court to order federal agents to discuss their contacts with the media. In a 20-page notice of alleged violations filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, lawyers for the seven-time Tour de France winner cited more than a dozen articles in many media outlets from May 2010 through last month about an ongoing grand jury investigation into whether Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs in violation of U.S. law. The cyclist's attorneys argue that only someone in the government could be responsible for the leaks, and a judge should order the government to explain why it should not be held in contempt.

Thomas Voeckler of France claimed a solo victory in Wednesday's fifth stage, a 122-mile ride from Le Cap d'Agde to Perpignan. Following a long breakaway, Voeckler made his move 3.1 miles from the finish to escape from a small group of riders. Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland retained the leader's yellow jersey. Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong is second overall, with teammate Alberto Contador of Spain in third.

Federal prosecutors announced Friday that they have closed a two-year inquiry without filing criminal charges in a case that sources said related to doping allegations involving seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and his cycling team. Although the grand jury investigation was confidential, details about various former teammates and associates who were subpoenaed to testify about alleged use of banned substances were widely reported in the media. Armstrong's team received sponsorship from the U.S. Postal Service.

Lance Armstrong's attorneys say illegal government leaks of grand jury information have sullied the cyclist's reputation, and have asked a court to order federal agents to discuss their contacts with the media. In a 20-page notice of alleged violations filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, lawyers for the seven-time Tour de France winner cited more than a dozen articles in many media outlets from May 2010 through last month about an ongoing grand jury investigation into whether Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs in violation of U.S. law. The cyclist's attorneys argue that only someone in the government could be responsible for the leaks, and a judge should order the government to explain why it should not be held in contempt.

Lance Armstrong attacked the credibility of a report aired on CBS' "60 Minutes" in the way he often attacked mountain climbs at the Tour de France — with blustery anger. However, Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News, reacted differently than many of Armstrong's cycling competitors did during the big race. Fager didn't back off. Armstrong's attorney made public Wednesday a letter he'd sent to 60 Minutes calling the May 22 television report "extraordinarily shoddy to the point of being reckless and unprofessional, or a vicious hit-and-run job," and demanding an on-air apology.

The most troubling thing about the current drug accusation against Lance Armstrong is that, at first blush, it doesn't seem to be all that troubling. Famous cyclist, seven-time winner of the Tour de France, is accused of enhancing his performance. Yawn. Yet another of his former teammates points a finger, and does so on national television, CBS' "60 Minutes," no less. The teammate, Tyler Hamilton, with little comprehensible reason to lie, fesses up to his own drug-enhancing use and goes into detail about wheres, whens and hows of Armstrong's use. In some cases, he does so as an eyewitness.

The sunny side of cycling was showcased Sunday during the final stage of the Amgen Tour of California. And then, away from the crowded streets of Santa Clarita and Thousand Oaks, and away from the big smile of 39-year-old overall winner Chris Horner and Stage 8 winner Matthew Goss, others were tuning in to CBS' "60 Minutes" to see the darker side, where former Olympic gold medalist Tyler Hamilton told of doping with former Tour de France champion...

Olympic cycling gold-medal winner Tyler Hamilton, who served a two-year suspension for doping, detailed for CBS' "60 Minutes" how he, Lance Armstrong and other members of the U.S. Postal Service team used banned substances. Armstrong, who won a record seven Tour de France races, is being investigated by Jeff Novitzky, the federal prosecutor who spearheaded an examination of BALCO, the laboratory that allegedly supplied baseball star Barry Bonds with steroids. In the "60 Minutes" interview, part of which was aired on the "CBS Evening News" broadcast Thursday, Hamilton says team members used several banned substances, including EPO and testosterone.

Lance Armstrong dropped one spot to third place in the Tour de France on Friday, with rival and teammate Alberto Contador breaking away in the final sprint up the mountain to claim second. Italy's Rinaldo Nocentini captured the yellow jersey from Switzerland's Fabian Cancellara after a punishing climb in the Pyrenees to complete the seventh stage. It was the first time the overall lead changed hands since Cancellara won the opening-day time trial in Monaco.

"Doctors knew how serious my situation had been, and how severe my four cycles of chemotherapy had been, and they knew that a) I survived it and b) the treatment didn't ruin my body. That gave the doctors hope, and it occurred to me that doctors needed hope as much as patients did." This is Lance Armstrong, five-time winner of the Tour de France, talking in his new book about rejuvenation.

Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France winner who announced his retirement earlier this month, will kick off a state ballot initiative campaign in Los Angeles on Monday for a measure that would direct hundreds of millions of dollars toward cancer research by levying an additional $1 tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products. Organizers of the initiative known as the California Cancer Research Act, which was spearheaded by former state Senate leader Don Perata, gathered more than 433,000 signatures last year to qualify for the next statewide ballot, which is scheduled for February 2012.

Lance Armstrong and Brett Favre are tied for worst sports comeback. Early last month, Favre retired for good (we think) from football. On Wednesday, Armstrong retired for good (we think) from cycling. If the record-setting NFL quarterback and the record-setting Tour de France winner hadn't changed their minds, both probably would be left alone to live life as sports heroes. Instead, Favre got caught in an unseemly incident involving a female employee of the New York Jets and Armstrong is a focus of a wide-ranging grand jury investigation into doping and cycling.