Despite setbacks, airlines and passengers still on board the Dreamliner

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which has suffered through many years of delays and mechanical issues, is now grounded around the world after a series of incidents including two on-board fires. But experts predict the plane will still be a hit with airlines and passengers when it is once again cleared for takeoff.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner has suffered through a series of high-profile delays and setbacks, culminating in this week's grounding by the U.S. government, but thanks to its cutting-edge technology, it's almost certain the plane will thrive in spite of the repeated body blows.

The Dreamliner -- the much-heralded, next-generation plane that Boeing designed to offer airlines big fuel efficiencies and access to new intercontinental routes -- had already stumbled through more than three years of delays including an onboard electrical fire before the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration grounded the entire U.S.-based fleet this week in the wake of new on-board fires. Other countries quickly followed suit.

But notwithstanding those problems, the Dreamliner is one blessed airplane, given that while airlines and passengers are certain to be wary of it going forward, few are likely to turn their backs on it for good.

The basic features that got so many people excited about the Dreamliner remain the same, even as the headlines about its fleet-wide grounding blare: Airlines have ordered more than 800 of the new airplane because its first-of-a-kind composite fuselage and new-style engines promise them 20 percent fuel savings, as well as a long-haul range capable of opening up routes never before possible -- or at least, economical -- in a non-stop flight.

At the same time, passengers have been lining up to fly the plane because it's at the vanguard of both in-flight comfort and amenities, and recent excitement over the plane's arrival in new cities like San Jose, Calif. demonstrate just how enthusiastic some are to get on board.

A fire tied to lithium-ion batteries aboard an All Nippon Airways 787 earlier this week, coupled with a similar fire on a Japan Airlines 787 earlier this month, forced the FAA to take action. On January 16, the agency issued an airworthiness directive grounding the entire U.S.-based fleet of Dreamliners -- six United Airlines planes -- until the aircraft can be deemed safe. The two fires followed other recent mishaps on a number of Dreamliners including oil and fuel leaks, a cracked windshield, and false warnings from an electrical panel. "Before further flight," the FAA said in a statement, "operators of U.S.-registered, Boeing 787 aircraft must demonstrate to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that the batteries are safe."

But while Boeing is certainly reeling from the latest setbacks to the $32 billion Dreamliner program, the aviation giant should be able to put these latest episodes behind it and resume delivering the planes before too long, several experts told CNET.

"They'll work this out," said Bob Mann, president of RW Mann, an aviation industry analysis firm. "It's a black eye. It's not a knock-out blow."

To Mann, the likelihood of the Dreamliner program's future success boils down to the fact that the plane features "so much breakthrough innovation" as well as the reality that carriers around the world have made tremendous financial investments in the 787, not to mention that many have based their future business plans on being able to fly the kinds of routes that the plane makes possible for the first time. Plus, having planned for those new routes and fuel costs, they have nowhere to turn: Boeing's chief competitor, Airbus, doesn't have a plane in the works that can match the Dreamliner on these key features.

Though composite materials have been used in some planes for awhile, the Dreamliner is the first to feature a fully-composite fuselage. That makes the plane lighter, making it more fuel efficient, but it also helps make the passenger experience better, according to Mann.

That's because the composite fuselage is stronger than that on other planes, allowing the cabin to be more pressurized. The upshot, explained Mann, is that Dreamliner flights are pressurized to mimic being at an altitude of about 6,000 feet, a much more comfortable environment than on other planes, which are usually pressurized to about a 9,000- or 10,000-foot altitude. And the plane is also designed to have a much more comfortable level of relative humidity, Mann said, because the composite fuselage doesn't need to be kept entirely dry to avoid corrosion.

At the same time, the Dreamliner's fuel efficiency is also driven by the Dreamliner's "no bleed" engines. Boeing claims that "all of the high-speed air produced by the engines goes to thrust [while] pneumatic systems that divert high-speed air from the engines rob conventional airplanes of some thrust and increase the engine's fuel consumption."

For now, no one knows exactly what the root cause of the recent fires is, beyond being tied to the lithium-ion batteries used on the plane. Japanese officials have argued that the battery was operating above its designed voltage limits, according to CBSNews.com.

The 787 relies more than any other modern airliner on electrical signals to help power nearly everything the plane does. It's also the first Boeing plane to use rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for its main electrical system. Such batteries are prone to overheating and have additional safeguards installed that are meant to control the problem and prevent fires.

GS Yuasa Corp., the maker of the lithium-ion batteries used in the 787s, said Thursday it was helping with the investigation but that the cause of the problem was unclear. It said the problem could be the battery, the power source or the electronics system.

And, of course, lithium-ion batteries have been blamed in fires in other products, like Chevrolet's Volt.

The prospect that the Dreamliner's battery system is fundamentally flawed, is, of course, a major concern for Boeing. But no one has yet definitely pinned the problems on the batteries. And to Chris Sloan, an aviation writer and enthusiast who runs Airchive.com, there's nothing particularly unique about the Dreamliner getting off to such a rocky beginning.

Many planes, Sloan argued, have had rough beginnings. Among them are the Lockheed Electra, which had three crashes in its first year; the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, which had a wide range of problems and was grounded following a massive crash in 1979; and the De Havilland Comet, which suffered through a series of stress fractures and crashes. In each case, Sloan said, airlines and passengers returned when the planes were once again cleared for flight. One significant difference between those planes and the Dreamliner is that no 787 has crashed, and no one has died aboard the plane.

Ultimately, said Imperial Capital aviation analyst Ken Herbert, Boeing is likely to be able to count on airlines and passengers continuing to support the Dreamliner because of all the plane's advantages, and particularly because so many airlines have invested so much in the aircraft. "I haven't heard any long term wavering on their desire to take delivery of the plane," Herbert said. "Airlines have planned on this [for years], and for them to change right now, if they're expecting one, it's not an easy switch to make."

To be sure, Boeing has a huge deal riding on the outcome of the investigations being done by the FAA and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. If the final determination is that the batteries are incompatible with the plane for one reason or another, it could be a major setback costing Boeing months and significant amounts of money. But short of that worst-case scenario, once the federal agencies sign off on the plane's airworthiness, Herbert has little doubt that the Dreamliner will once again be a favorite of the world's airlines and many aviation enthusiasts.

"I'm not expecting any public pushback or concern about flying on these planes," Herbert said. "Boeing has a lot at stake on her now, and the next few weeks are pretty important from a timing standpoint, and a public perception standpoint, and safety and reliability standpoint. They've got to be really careful that they don't do anything else to jeopardize (the public's) interest in getting on one of these things."

But will passengers come back? Herbert thinks so. "Generally, people still regard the industry as very safe, and they've got a lot of confidence in, [which is] rightfully well-deserved, the improvements Boeing and Airbus have made in their aircraft. Unless there's something else, people will move on quickly."

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")

As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.

Map by National Geographic

Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")

"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")

"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.

On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.

"A Hot Place to Drill"

The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.

Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.

Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.

Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.

"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Te'o Denies Involvement in Girlfriend Hoax

Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o told ESPN that he "never, not ever" was involved in creating the hoax that had him touting what turned out to be a fictional girlfriend, "Lennay Kekua."

"When they hear the facts, they'll know," Te'o told ESPN's Jeremy Schaap in his first interview since the story broke. "They'll know that there is no way that I could be a part of this."

"I wasn't faking it," he said during a 2 1/2-hour interview, according to ESPN.com.

Te'o said he only learned for sure this week that he had been duped. On Wednesday, he received a Twitter message, allegedly from a man named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, apologizing for the hoax, Te'o told Schaap.

The sports website Deadspin, which first revealed the hoax this week, has reported that Tuiasosopo, a 22-year-old of Samoan descent who lives in Antelope Valley, Calif., asked a woman he knew for her photo and that photo became the face of Kekua's Twitter account.

Te'o told Schaap that Tuiasosopo was represented to him as Kekua's cousin.

"I hope he learns," Te'o said of Tuiasosopo, according to coverage of the interview on ESPN.com. "I hope he understands what he's done. I don't wish an ill thing to somebody. I just hope he learns. I think embarrassment is big enough."

Click Here for a Who's Who in the Manti Te'o Case

AP Photo/ESPN Images, Ryan Jones

Manti Te'o Hoax: Was He Duped or Did He Know? Watch Video

Manti Te'o Hoax: Notre Dame Star Allegedly Scammed Watch Video

Tale of Notre Dame Football Star's Girlfriend and Her Death an Alleged Hoax Watch Video

Te'o admitted to a few mistakes in his own conduct, including telling his father he met Kekua in Hawaii even though his attempt to meet her actually failed. Later retellings of that tale led to inconsistencies in media reports, Te'o said, adding that he never actually met Kekua in person.

Te'o added that he feared people would think it was crazy for him to be involved with someone that he never met, so, "I kind of tailored my stories to have people think that, yeah, he met her before she passed away."

The relationship got started on Facebook during his freshman year, Te'o said.

"My relationship with Lennay wasn't a four-year relationship," Te'o said, according to ESPN.com. "There were blocks and times and periods in which we would talk and then it would end."

He showed Schaap Facebook correspondence indicating that other people knew of Kekua -- though Te'o now believes they, too, were tricked.

The relationship became more intense, Te'o said, after he received a call that Kekua was in a coma following a car accident involving a drunk driver on April 28.

Soon, Te'o and Kekua became inseparable over the phone, he said, continuing their phone conversations through her recovery from the accident, and then during her alleged battle against leukemia.

Even so, Te'o never tried to visit Kekua at her hospital in California.

"It never really crossed my mind," he said, according to ESPN.com. "I don't know. I was in school."

But the communication between the two was intense. They even had ritual where they discussed scripture every day, Te'o said. His parents also participated via text message, and Te'o showed Schaap some of the texts.

On Sept. 12, a phone caller claiming to be Kekua's relative told Te'o that Kekua had died of leukemia, Te'o said. However, on Dec. 6, Te'o said he got a call allegedly from Kekua saying she was alive. He said he was utterly confused and did not know what to believe.

ESPN's 2 1/2-hour interview was conducted in Bradenton, Fla., with Te'o's lawyer present but without video cameras. Schaap said Te'o was composed, comfortable and in command, and that he said he didn't want to go on camera to keep the setting intimate and avoid a big production.

According to ABC News interviews and published reports, Te'o received phone calls, text messages and letters before every football game from his "girlfriend." He was in contact with her family, including a twin brother, a second brother, sister and parents. He called often to check in with them, just as he did with his own family. And "Kekua" kept in contact with Te'o's friends and family, and teammates spoke to her on the phone.

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Zoologger: The first solar-powered vertebrate

Zoologger is our weekly column highlighting extraordinary animals – and occasionally other organisms – from around the world

Species: Ambystoma maculatum
Habitat: throughout the eastern USA and parts of southern Canada, leaving other salamanders green with envy

When you think about it, animals are weird. They ignore the abundant source of energy above their heads – the sun – and choose instead to invest vast amounts of energy in cumbersome equipment for eating and digesting food. Why don't they do what plants do, and get their energy straight from sunlight?

The short answer is that many do. Corals are animals buthave algae living in them that use sunlight to make sugar. Many other animals, from sponges to sea slugs, pull the same trick. One species of hornet can convert sunlight into electricity. There are also suggestions that aphids can harness sunlight, although most biologists are unconvinced.

But all these creatures are only distantly related to us. No backboned animal has been found that can harness the sun – until now. It has long been suspected, and now there is hard evidence: the spotted salamander is solar-powered.

Plants make food using photosynthesis, absorbing light to power a chemical reaction that converts carbon dioxide and water into glucose and releases oxygen. Corals profit from this reaction by housing photosynthetic algae inside their shells.

Long-term partners

Spotted salamanders, too, are in a long-term relationship with photosynthetic algae. In 1888, biologist Henry Orr reported that their eggs often contain single-celled green algae called Oophila amblystomatis. The salamanders lay the eggs in pools of water, and the algae colonise them within hours.

By the 1940s, biologists strongly suspected it was a symbiotic relationship, beneficial to both the salamander embryos and the algae. The embryos release waste material, which the algae feed on. In turn the algae photosynthesise and release oxygen, which the embryos take in. Embryos that have more algae are more likely to survive and develop faster than embryos with few or none.

Then in 2011 the story gained an additional twist. A close examination of the eggs revealed that some of the algae were living within the embryos themselves, and in some cases were actually inside embryonic cells. That suggested the embryos weren't just taking oxygen from the algae: they might be taking glucose too. In other words, the algae were acting as internal power stations, generating fuel for the salamanders.

To find out if that was happening, Erin Graham of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and colleagues incubated salamander eggs in water containing radioactive carbon-14. Algae take up the isotope in the form of carbon dioxide, producing radioactive glucose.

Graham found that the embryos became mildly radioactive – unless kept in the dark. That showed that the embryos could only take in the carbon-14 via photosynthesis in the algae.

Big help

The algae do not seem to be essential to the embryos, but they are very helpful: embryos deprived of algae struggle. "Their survival rate is much lower and their growth is slowed," says Graham.

It's less clear how well the algae get on without the embryos. In the lab, they transform into dormant cysts. The salamander eggs are only around in spring, suggesting that in the wild, the algae spend the rest of the year as cysts. The ponds they live in dry up in summer, so the algae may sit out the rest of the year in the sediment.

Now that one vertebrate has been shown to use photosynthesis, Graham says there could well be others. "Anything that lays eggs in water would be a good candidate," she says, as algae would have easy access to the eggs. So other amphibians, and fish, could be doing it. It's much less likely that a mammal or bird could photosynthesise, as their developing young are sealed off from the outside world.

Journal reference: Journal of Experimental Biology, doi.org/j8q

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Authorities checking on property agents who evade stamp duty

SINGAPORE: Channel NewsAsia understands authorities are conducting spot checks on at least seven property developers to find out if they have backdated their documents.

It has been about a week since the latest round of property cooling measures kicked in.

Among the changes is an increase in Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty of five to seven percentage points across the board.

In a bid to help buyers avoid paying the additional stamp duty, industry insiders said some agents have resorted to backdating the date of the Option-to-Purchase for sale and purchase of residential properties.

Avoiding stamp duty is as good as tax evasion, which is an offence.

Industry insiders said authorities have stepped up efforts to conduct spot checks on possible offenders.

So far, industry insiders said one property agent has been caught backdating.

Authorities have also issued circulars to remind developers and agents to comply with the new cooling measures.

Industry players said that they had previously heard of agents trying to backdate options two to three days after cooling measures were introduced.

But as the measures introduced this round are more drastic, they said there are more agents taking the risk.

In some cases, the buyers may be considering whether to buy a property, and the cooling measures could have been introduced before they could decide.

Industry insiders say that is when they may request their agent to backdate their options.

Chris Koh, director of Chris International said: "If you backdate the document, it will probably be on a gentleman agreement, whereby all parties agree to it. But then who knows as you move down the line, one may play the other out, or one may just say 'I choose not to buy or sell anymore, and what we did previously was not the right thing to do'. And therefore they use that as a means to get out of the contract."

Any person guilty of such an offence shall be liable on conviction to a fine of up to S$10,000 or imprisonment of up to three years or to both.

Estate agents or salespersons found involved may face disciplinary action by the Council for Estate Agencies, which could include a financial penalty of up to $75,000 and a suspension or revocation of their licence or registration.

- CNA/xq

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iPad Mini cellular model debuts in China with two-week delay

The iPad Mini.

(Credit:
Apple)

The cellular edition of the iPad Mini debuted in China today, but buyers will have to wait two weeks before it ships.

That delay also applies to the Wi-Fi only version. A check of the Apple Store in China finds that all capacities of both the Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + Cellular models are stuck with a two-week ship time.

iPad Mini buyers in the U.K., Japan, and other countries face the same delay, though the wait time in the U.S. is only one week.

Apple has been battling to meet global demand for its diminutive
tablet, which has outshined that of its larger 4th-generation cousin. The newest 9.7-inch tablet is in stock at most online Apple stores around the world. In China, the Wi-Fi version is immediately available, while the Wi-Fi + Cellular version offers a wait time of just a few days.

The Wi-Fi Mini and 4th-gen iPad both debuted in Hong Kong on November 2 and in China on December 7. Since then, the smaller tablet has created a feeding frenzy among Chinese buyers. Checks of retailers in China and Hong Kong last month by Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White revealed "an insatiable appetite" for the Mini, causing a supply shortage.

iPad sales for last quarter may actually ring in lower than expected due to supply contraints, according to J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz.

In an investors note out yesterday, the analyst forecast unit sales of 18.4 million for the Mini and the iPad 4 combined, down from his previous estimate of 20.1 million. The analyst does view the downturn as a temporary glitch, noting that iPad supply started to improve in early December.

However, financial advisory firm Macquarie Research believes the problem will extend to the current quarter, according to Reuters. Macquarie's crystal ball sees shipments of the larger iPad dropping almost 40 percent in the present quarter to around 8 million. That's down from its prior forecast of 13 million, though the firm believes total tablet shipments will show a smaller decline due to heavy sales of the iPad Mini.

(Via The Next Web)

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Opinion: Lance One of Many Tour de France Cheaters

Editor's note: England-based writer and photographer Roff Smith rides around 10,000 miles a year through the lanes of Sussex and Kent and writes a cycling blog at: www.my-bicycle-and-I.co.uk

And so, the television correspondent said to the former Tour de France champion, a man who had been lionised for years, feted as the greatest cyclist of his day, did you ever use drugs in the course of your career?

"Yes," came the reply. "Whenever it was necessary."

"And how often was that?" came the follow-up question.

"Almost all the time!"

This is not a leak of a transcript from Oprah Winfrey's much anticipated tell-all with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, but instead was lifted from a decades-old interview with Fausto Coppi, the great Italian road cycling champion of the 1940s and 1950s.

To this day, though, Coppi is lauded as one of the gods of cycling, an icon of a distant and mythical golden age in the sport.

So is five-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961-64) who famously remarked that it was impossible "to ride the Tour on mineral water."

"You would have to be an imbecile or a crook to imagine that a professional cyclist who races for 235 days a year can hold the pace without stimulants," Anquetil said.

And then there's British cycling champion Tommy Simpson, who died of heart failure while trying to race up Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France, a victim of heat, stress, and a heady cocktail of amphetamines.

All are heroes today. If their performance-enhancing peccadillos are not forgotten, they have at least been glossed over in the popular imagination.

As the latest chapter of the sorry Lance Armstrong saga unfolds, it is worth looking at the history of cheating in the Tour de France to get a sense of perspective. This is not an attempt at rationalisation or justification for what Lance did. Far from it.

But the simple, unpalatable fact is that cheating, drugs, and dirty tricks have been part and parcel of the Tour de France nearly from its inception in 1903.

Cheating was so rife in the 1904 event that Henri Desgrange, the founder and organiser of the Tour, declared he would never run the race again. Not only was the overall winner, Maurice Garin, disqualified for taking the train over significant stretches of the course, but so were next three cyclists who placed, along with the winner of every single stage of the course.

Of the 27 cyclists who actually finished the 1904 race, 12 were disqualified and given bans ranging from one year to life. The race's eventual official winner, 19-year-old Henri Cornet, was not determined until four months after the event.

And so it went. Desgrange relented on his threat to scrub the Tour de France and the great race survived and prospered-as did the antics. Trains were hopped, taxis taken, nails scattered along the roads, partisan supporters enlisted to beat up rivals on late-night lonely stretches of the course, signposts tampered with, bicycles sabotaged, itching powder sprinkled in competitors' jerseys and shorts, food doctored, and inkwells smashed so riders yet to arrive couldn't sign the control documents to prove they'd taken the correct route.

And then of course there were the stimulants-brandy, strychnine, ether, whatever-anything to get a rider through the nightmarishly tough days and nights of racing along stages that were often over 200 miles long. In a way the race was tailor-made to encourage this sort of thing. Desgrange once famously said that his idea of a perfect Tour de France would be one that was so tough that only one rider finished.

Add to this the big prizes at a time when money was hard to come by, a Tour largely comprising young riders from impoverished backgrounds for whom bicycle racing was their one big chance to get ahead, and the passionate following cycling enjoyed, and you had the perfect recipe for a desperate, high stakes, win-at-all-costs mentality, especially given the generally tolerant views on alcohol and drugs in those days.

After World War II came the amphetamines. Devised to keep soldiers awake and aggressive through long hours of battle they were equally handy for bicycle racers competing in the world's longest and toughest race.

So what makes the Lance Armstrong story any different, his road to redemption any rougher? For one thing, none of the aforementioned riders were ever the point man for what the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has described in a thousand-page report as the most sophisticated, cynical, and far-reaching doping program the world of sport has ever seen-one whose secrecy and efficiency was maintained by ruthlessness, bullying, fear, and intimidation.

Somewhere along the line, the casualness of cheating in the past evolved into an almost Frankenstein sort of science in which cyclists, aided by creepy doctors and trainers, were receiving blood transfusions in hotel rooms and tinkering around with their bodies at the molecular level many months before they ever lined up for a race.

To be sure, Armstrong didn't invent all of this, any more than he invented original sin-nor was he acting alone. But with his success, money, intelligence, influence, and cohort of thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyers-and the way he used all this to prop up the Lance brand and the Lance machine at any cost-he became the poster boy and lightning rod for all that went wrong with cycling, his high profile eclipsing even the heads of the Union Cycliste Internationale, the global cycling union, who richly deserve their share of the blame.

It is not his PED popping that is the hard-to-forgive part of the Lance story. Armstrong cheated better than his peers, that's all.

What I find troubling is the bullying and calculated destruction of anyone who got in his way, raised a question, or cast a doubt. By all accounts Armstrong was absolutely vicious, vindictive as hell. Former U.S. Postal team masseuse Emma O'Reilly found herself being described publicly as a "prostitute" and an "alcoholic," and had her life put through a legal grinder when she spoke out about Armstrong's use of PEDs.

Journalists were sued, intimidated, and blacklisted from events, press conferences, and interviews if they so much as questioned the Lance miracle or well-greased machine that kept winning Le Tour.

Armstrong left a lot of wreckage behind him.

If he is genuinely sorry, if he truly repents for his past "indiscretions," one would think his first act would be to try to find some way of not only seeking forgiveness from those whom he brutally put down, but to do something meaningful to repair the damage he did to their lives and livelihoods.

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Armstrong Admits to Doping, 'One Big Lie'

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.

After years of denying that he had taken banned drugs and received oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and attacking his teammates and competitors who attempted to expose him, Armstrong came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview, admitting to using banned substances for years.

"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he said. "I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there. The truth isn't what I said.

"I'm a flawed character, as I well know," Armstrong added. "All the fault and all the blame here falls on me."

In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report in which 11 former Armstrong teammates exposed the system with which they and Armstrong received drugs with the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians.

George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo

Lance Armstrong-Winfrey Interview: How Honest Was He? Watch Video

Lance Armstrong Confession: 'I Could Not Believe Lance Apologized' Watch Video

Lance Armstrong's Many Denials Caught on Tape Watch Video

The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," USADA said in its report.

As a result of USADA's findings, Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles. Soon, longtime sponsors including Nike began to abandon him, too.

READ MORE: Did Doping Cause Armstrong's Cancer?

Armstrong said he was driven to cheat by a "ruthless desire to win."

He told Winfrey that his competition "cocktail" consisted of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, and that he had previously used cortisone. He would not, however, give Winfrey the details of when, where and with whom he doped during seven winning Tours de France between 1999 and 2005.

He said he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the tour again in 2010.

"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.

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Armstrong would not name other members of his team who doped, but admitted that as the team's captain he set an example. He admitted he was "a bully" but said there "there was a never a directive" from him that his teammates had to use banned substances.

"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" she asked again.

"No," he said.

Armstrong said he thought taking the drugs was similar to filling his tires with air and bottle with water. He never thought of his actions as cheating, but "leveling the playing field" in a sport rife with doping.

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Cycling: IOC asks Armstrong to return Olympic medal

LAUSANNE: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Thursday asked disgraced American cyclist Lance Armstrong to return the Olympic bronze medal from the time-trial event at the 2000 Games in Sydney.

The IOC had written to Armstrong late Wednesday to ask him hand back the medal, IOC spokesman Mark Adams told AFP.

The IOC had to wait for world cycling's governing body to sanction Armstrong, which it did on December 6, and the following three weeks in which the Texan had recourse to appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The US Olympic Committee, to which Armstrong must theoretically return the medal, has also been informed, Adams added.

Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from the sport for life in October after the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) produced evidence of widespread doping by him and his former team-mates.

The time-trial in the 2000 Games was won by Armstrong's ex-US Postal Service teammate Viasheslav Ekimov of Russia, now general manager of the Katusha team whose ambivalent stance on doping cost them a place in the elite ProTeam list for this season.

The silver medal went to one of Armstrong's great rivals, Jan Ullrich of Germany, who was caught up in the Operation Puerto doping probe and eventually served a two-year ban for doping.

Abraham Olano of Spain came home in fourth and may be set to inherit the bronze vacated by Armstrong.

Other notable results in the race held in Sydney were by American Tyler Hamilton, a former teammate of Armstrong at US Postal who finished tenth and went on to win gold at the 2004 Athens Games before testing positive for doping.

British rider David Millar finished 16th and is still currently on the circuit after serving his own two-year ban from 2004.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) late last year effectively erased Armstrong from the cycling history books when it decided not to appeal sanctions imposed on the Texan rider by the USADA.

In his first interview since Armstrong was shorn of his Tour titles, recorded Monday with Oprah Winfrey and due to be broadcast on Thursday and Friday, the chat show host confirmed that the Texan admitted using performance-enhancing drugs.

- AFP/fa

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