Tammy Thomas has only herself to blame

Tammy Thomas took performance-enhancing drugs and tested positive for them.

That led to her being banned for life from cycling in 2002.

Then Thomas lied about it to a grand jury in the BALCO investigation, and a court found her guilty Friday of perjury and obstruction of justice.

That could lead to her being banned from practicing law.

And who did Tammy blame?

Everyone but herself.

“I already had one career taken away from me,” Thomas yelled in the courtroom after the verdict came down. “Look me in the eye. You can’t do it.”

Maybe Thomas should have looked at herself in the mirror, especially when the drugs had changed her body so much a doping control officer who came to her home was met by Thomas with traces of shaving cream on her face.

Thomas career as a cyclist, in which she won a silver medal at the world championships, was proved a sham as soon as she tested positive for the steroid norbolethone.

She went on to become a law student at the University of Oklahoma. Even if she was a fraud as an athlete, Thomas could have saved that career by simply telling the truth to the grand jury.

Now she is on the other side of the law, facing a possible 30 months in federal prison.

“You’re out to destroy lives, you like to destroy lives,” she shouted at a federal prosecutor.

No, Tammy, you are the one who destroyed a life.

Your own.

Philip Hersh covers Olympic sports for The Times and the Chicago Tribune