Lance Armstrong fight against USADA

[genkk]

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UCI could respond 'any time' to Armstrong report

MILAN (AP) -- Cycling's governing body could respond ''at any time'' to the report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong was a serial drug cheat.
The International Cycling Union received USADA's report last week and has until the end of the month to decide whether to accept the American agency's decision to strip Armstrong of his Tour titles or appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
''All we can confirm is that the deadline is Oct. 31,'' UCI spokesman Enrico Carpani told The Associated Press on Thursday. ''But it could happen any time from tomorrow onwards.''
USADA banned Armstrong for life and said he should be stripped of his tour titles because of his involvement in ''the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.''
The USADA report has already cost Armstrong key sponsors, including Nike and Anheuser-Busch. Armstrong also stepped down on Wednesday as chairman of the Livestrong cancer charity he founded.
Former UCI President Hein Verbruggen said he expects the governing body to respond late next week.
''The UCI is studying the USADA report and they will issue a report ... toward the end of next week,'' Verbruggen said in a telephone interview.
The Dutchman was UCI president from 1991-2005. Armstrong won the Tour de France seven straight times from 1999-2005.
Verbruggen also issued a statement through the UCI on Thursday contesting an article in Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that said he believed there is no evidence against Armstrong.
''My reaction (to the newspaper) was strictly limited to the fact that Lance Armstrong was never found positive by the anti-doping laboratories, that there was no positive test and that there was nothing to be covered up,'' Verbruggen said.
The USADA evidence cites several of Armstrong's former teammates who detail systematic doping among riders on Armstrong's teams during his Tour wins.
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Associated Press writer Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.

[genkk]

A VERY SAD STORY FOR CYCLING

UCI agrees to strip Armstrong of his 7 Tour titles

GENEVA (AP) -- Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life by cycling's governing body Monday following a report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that accused him of leading a massive doping program on his teams.
UCI President Pat McQuaid announced that the federation accepted the USADA's report on Armstrong and would not appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
''Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling,'' McQuaid said at a news conference. ''This is a landmark day for cycling.''
The decision clears the way for Tour de France organizers to officially remove Armstrong's name from the record books, erasing his consecutive victories from 1999-2005.
Tour director Christian Prudhomme has said the race would go along with whatever cycling's governing body decides and will have no official winners for those years.
Armstrong's representatives had no immediate comment.
USADA said Armstrong should be banned and stripped of his Tour titles for ''the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen'' within his U.S. Postal Service and Discovery Channel teams. Under the penalties, he loses all his race results since August 1998.
The USADA report said Armstrong and his teams used steroids, the blood booster EPO and blood transfusions. The report included statements from 11 former teammates who testified against Armstrong, including testimony that he pressured them to take banned drugs.
''I was sickened by what I read in the USADA report,'' McQuaid said, singling out the testimony of former Armstrong teammate David Zabriskie. ''The story he told of how he was coerced and to some extent forced into doping is just mind boggling.''
Armstrong denies doping, saying he passed hundreds of drug tests. But he chose not to fight USADA in one of the agency's arbitration hearings, arguing the process was biased against him. USADA's report, released earlier this month, was aimed at showing why the agency ordered the sanctions against him.
''At the moment Lance Armstrong hasn't admitted to anything, yet all the evidence is there in this report that he doped,'' McQuaid said.
Former Armstrong team director Johan Bruyneel is also facing doping charges, but he is challenging the USADA case in arbitration.
On Sunday, Armstrong greeted about 4,300 cyclists at his Livestrong charity's fundraiser bike ride in Texas, telling the crowd he's faced a ''very difficult'' few weeks.
''I've been better, but I've also been worse,'' Armstrong, a cancer survivor, told the crowd.
While drug use allegations have followed the 41-year-old Armstrong throughout much of his career, the USADA report seems to have marked a turning point in the saga. Longtime sponsors Nike, Trek Bicycles and Anheuser-Busch dropped Armstrong last week, as did other companies, and he stepped down as chairman of Livestrong, the cancer awareness charity he founded 15 years ago after surviving testicular cancer which spread to his lungs and brain.
Armstrong's astonishing return from life-threatening illness to the summit of cycling offered an inspirational story that transcended the sport. However, his downfall has ended ''one of the most sordid chapters in sports history,'' USADA said in its 200-page report published two weeks ago.
Armstrong has consistently argued that the USADA system was rigged against him, calling the agency's effort a ''witch hunt'' which pressured witnesses into cooperating.
''It is for Mr. Armstrong to defend himself against such witness statements that he deems to be incorrect. It is not for the UCI to do so,'' the governing body said in a statement.
If Armstrong's Tour victories are not reassigned there would be a hole in the record books, marking a shift from how organizers treated similar cases in the past.
When Alberto Contador was stripped of his 2010 Tour victory for a doping violation, organizers awarded the title to Andy Schleck. In 2006, Oscar Pereiro was awarded the victory after the doping disqualification of American rider Floyd Landis.
USADA's position is that the Tour titles should not be given to other riders who finished on the podium, such was the level of doping during Armstrong's era.
The agency said 20 of the 21 riders on the podium in the Tour from 1999 through 2005 have been ''directly tied to likely doping through admissions, sanctions, public investigations'' or other means. It added that of the 45 riders on the podium between 1996 and 2010, 36 were by cyclists ''similarly tainted by doping.''
The world's most famous cyclist could still face further sports sanctions and legal challenges. Armstrong could lose his 2000 Olympic time-trial bronze medal and may be targeted with civil lawsuits from ex-sponsors or even the U.S. government.
McQuaid said the UCI's board will meet Friday to discuss the Olympic issue and whether to update other race results taking account of Armstrong's disqualifications.
A so-called ''Truth and Reconciliation'' commission, which could offer a limited amnesty to riders and officials who confessed to doping practices, will also be discussed, UCI legal adviser Philippe Verbiest said.
In total, 26 people - including 15 riders - testified to USADA that Armstrong and his teams used and trafficked banned substances and routinely used blood transfusions. Among the witnesses were loyal sidekick George Hincapie and admitted dopers Tyler Hamilton and Landis.
USADA's case also implicated Italian sports doctor Michele Ferrari, depicted as the architect of doping programs, and longtime coach and team manager Bruyneel.
Ferrari - who has been targeted in an Italian prosecutor's probe - and another medical official, Dr. Luis Garcia del Moral, received lifetime bans.
Bruyneel, team doctor Pedro Celaya and trainer Jose ''Pepe'' Marti opted to take their cases to arbitration with USADA. The agency could call Armstrong as a witness at those hearings.
Bruyneel, a Belgian former Tour de France rider, lost his job last week as manager of the RadioShack-Nissan Trek team which Armstrong helped found to ride for in the 2010 season.

[genkk]

Lance Armstrong no longer Tour de France winner, according to @LanceArmstrong

It's not an admission of guilt, exactly, but it'll do until one comes along: Lance Armstrong has removed his Tour de France and triathlon honors from his Twitter bio.
On Monday morning, the UCI, the international cycling governing body, formally stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles. This followed the USADA's damning report that documented Armstrong's role in an international doping conspiracy, and the subsequent departure of Armstrong's sponsors en masse. Armstrong has remained silent throughout these most recent developments.
Until now. As of late Monday night, Armstrong's Twitter bio read:

@LanceArmstrong
Father of 5 amazing kids, 7-time Tour de France winner, full time cancer fighter, part time triathlete - LIVESTRONG!

Now, it reads:
@LanceArmstrong
Raising my 5 kids. Fighting Cancer. Swim, bike, run and golf whatever I can.

Slightly different.
Armstrong doesn't have an easy route out of this; admitting to any of the accusations would open up whole new problems for him. But for now, he has apparently conceded that his greatest professional honors are not his any longer.

[genkk]

The "emotional resonance of Lance Armstrong's victories" still registers even if cycling's most prominent bodies rewrite the history books to suggest that Armstrong never competed in the Tour de France [Reuters]




viva à Lance Armstrong

[genkk]

Lance Armstrong: A cheater? Five reasons why we don't care
We live in a society that rewards winners and encourages people to do whatever it takes to win, writes Young.

On Monday, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), following the recommendation of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), concluded that professional cyclist Lance Armstrong had used performance enhancing drugs and treatments during the high-points of his long cycling career.

It decided to strip the (in)famous athlete of his seven Tour de France wins. Perhaps, adding insult to injury, Pat McQuaid, UCI president, boldly declared, "Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling".

This announcement is the latest in the fallout stemming from the USADA's public report which offered compelling evidence suggesting that Armstrong, alongside teammates, regularly used performance enhancing drugs.

In recent weeks, the famed cyclist has lost several major endorsement deals, including Nike, and resigned as chairman of his Livestrong Foundation. Over the next few days, as a result of the UCI's pronouncement, the name "Lance Armstrong" will likely be scrubbed from the competition logs and the history books. It will be as if Armstrong never competed (much less won) in any of cycling's biggest stages.

Although he retired from professional cycling more than a year ago, Lance Armstrong remains the most identifiable and, likely, popular athlete in that particular sport. Indeed, many people would be hard pressed to name a cyclist other than him.

The renewed focus on the celebrated cyclist prompts a question: do people really care that Lance Armstrong may have employed performance enhancing drugs and cheated? Odds are that most people are willing to overlook the retired athlete's alleged misdeeds. Here's why:

Lance Armstrong is still a survivor

The narrative of triumph remains. As much as Lance Armstrong has been praised for his multiple Tour de France victories, the larger story has always been his victory over testicular cancer.
It was his grit and determination in his battle against this devastating and life threatening disease that won him the adulation of millions of fans. The fact that he won against cancer was always a bigger (and more interesting) accomplishment than anything that he did on a bicycle.

Indeed, his cycling feats were noteworthy, in part, because he was able to get back on the bike and compete at a high level after having his body wracked by the disease and the treatments to combat it. That yellow wristband, the Livestrong bracelet, symbolises the tenacity to not surrender. The victories were a bonus.

There's cheating and then there's cheating

The reality is that Lance Armstrong woke up every morning, climbed on his bicycle, stayed on the course, and pedalled scores of kilometres for nearly 23 consecutive days.

Although the actual distance covered changes every year due to course alterations, the Tour de France route is typically 3,300km (2,000 miles) long. That's more kilometres than I drive in a month.

Armstrong biked each and every one of them. Had he employed a motorised bike, taken a short cut along the route, or skipped a few days of cycling, that would have been a more serious violation. Instead, he allegedly took treatments to help his body recover more quickly from the devastation exacted by the competition itself.

You can't unwrite past memories

In stripping Armstrong of his victories, the UCI is asking us to collectively forget his multiple wins. They are instructing us to erase the memories of him wearing the coveted yellow jersey and riding through the streets of Paris and drinking a glass of champagne (given to him by a supporter) en route to the finish line and the victor's podium.

It is one thing to ban Armstrong from the sport for life but another to notify millions of spectators that their memories are now fraudulent.

The emotional resonance of Lance Armstrong's victories still registers even if cycling's most prominent bodies rewrite the history books to suggest that a person by the name of Lance Armstrong never competed in the Tour de France.

Cycling is not the most dramatic sport

As every cycling enthusiast will tell you, the sport is bigger than the Tour de France in much the same way that football continues to be played in non-World Cup years. That being said, the Tour de France is the sport's biggest stage - and, admittedly, is not among the most riveting of the major international professional sports.
I admit that I watch the television coverage of the Tour de France but, to be completely honest, I tune in not to track the movements of individual cyclists but to appreciate the background scenery.

Unlike baseball or football (either the US or international variety) to which I pay close, close attention to the performances of individual players: the post-season challenges of Alex Rodriguez, the tightness of Peyton Manning's spiral, the "bend" in a David Beckham kick, I turn on my television and set the channel to the Tour de France with the aim of experiencing something akin to a travelogue.

The Tour introduces me to quaint French towns to which I've mostly never been and probably may never visit. To watch the Tour, as televised, offers the vicarious thrill of travel accompanied with some measure of sport intrigue.

Cycling is an interesting sport but not a universally popular one. A scandal that rocks the firmament of cycling is little more than a dark cloud in the larger sports world and, perhaps, barely registers in our lives of casual fans.

History is written by winners and, yes, some winners have cheated

This is a hard truth of life. We live in a society that rewards winners and encourages people to do whatever it takes to win.

Political campaigns frequently distort the truth to paint their opposition in unflattering ways in order to win votes. Scientists sometimes steal the research of others and attempt to be the "first to file" a patent in order to win the rich rewards of their discoveries. Wars, typically, are won by those who will to do anything to gain an advantage.

Rather than accept a culture of cheating or looking back and retrospectively punishing those who found a way to skirt the rules, we need to look forward and to institute controls that will minimise the chances of such rule-breaking in the future.

Some people will seek out ways to cheat. That being said, I would rather expend energy trying to prevent the next person from running afoul of the rules than scrubbing history books to erase the names of accused cheaters or revising the memories that I hold dear.

Harvey Young is an Associate Professor at Northwestern University and a Fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University. A cultural historian, he is the author of Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory and the Black Body.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

[odnamra]

There are only two people in this world that greatly influenced me thats lance and arnold..my life seemed abnormal compared to others because i shun all vices and my life outside of work revolved around weight training and cycling..that was my routine before when i was a bit younger. The discipline that these two guys instilled in me are embedded in my heart and i still do the occasional workout and ride the stationary bike if only for old times sake..drugs or no drugs lance will forever be an inspiration to me..who could forget the classic duel of lance and marco pantani atop alpe de huez or the lance stare as he looked on jan ullrich while on a breakaway..i could go on and on..thank you lance armstrong for everything.. VIVA LANCE.

[slakker]

Lance Armstrong's doping admission: Questions Oprah should have asked

Armstrong isn't necessarily a bad guy for doping. He is a bad guy for the way he used his immense power, fame and fortune to attempt to ruin anyone who dared to speak the truth to his avalanche of lies.

That was some punk behavior.

So here are some of the questions we hope Oprah asked Lance:

1. Why now, Lance? Is it because in one potential perjury case the statute of limitations has passed? Is it because you've already lost almost all your sponsors, had to step back from your foundation and are no longer getting the attention you once earned?

Did you have to lose nearly everything until you sought the only possible out? And at this point, why are you worth listening to at all?

2. Why are you doing this with me, Oprah Winfrey? I'm not known for my cycling knowledge or for pointed follow-up questions or my investigative journalistic skills. In fact, it's the opposite.

Wouldn't sitting down with Scott Pelley at "60 Minutes" have been a more legitimate forum? How about the Sunday Times of London, which you sued for libel for printing the truth? Or any of the French or American media that you bashed all along when in fact they weren't wrong at all?

You always fashioned yourself as a tough guy, Lance. You beat cancer for crying out loud, why go soft now?

3. Let's talk Betsy Andreu, the wife of one your former teammates, Frankie. Both Andreus testified under oath that they were in a hospital room in 1996 when you admitted to a doctor to using EPO, HGH and steroids. You responded by calling them "vindictive, bitter, vengeful and jealous." And that's the stuff we can say on TV.

Armstrong (yellow) rides down the Champs Elysees next to Frankie Andreu in the 1999 Tour de France. (AP)Would you now label them as "honest?"

And what would you say directly to Betsy, who dealt with a voicemail from one of your henchmen that included, she's testified, this:

"I hope somebody breaks a baseball bat over your head. I also hope that one day you have adversity in your life and you have some type of tragedy that will … definitely make an impact on you."

When you heard about that voicemail, why didn't you call Betsy and apologize then?

4. By the way, did you take performance-enhancing drugs prior to your diagnosis of testicular cancer, as Betsy Andreu, who I now have every single reason to believe, says you admitted to doing? Do you think it played a role in your diagnosis?

And while the reason you contracted cancer does nothing to diminish the intensity of your battle, or the great example of strength it provided, don't you think it would've been an essential part of your public campaign against the disease to mention that you used performance-enhancing drugs?

5. Just to get it on the record, because the way things are going I'm pretty sure this will come out at a later date, did you or your minions ever pressure federal authorities to stall out investigations into your doping?

Now, you wouldn't lie to me, right Lance?

6. What do you say to Emma O'Reilly, who was a young Dublin native when she was first hired by the U.S. Postal team to give massages to the riders after races?

In the early 2000s, she told stories of rampant doping and how she was used to transport the drugs across international borders. In the USADA report, she testified that you tried to "make my life hell."

Her story was true, Lance, wasn't it? And you knew it was true. Yet despite knowing it was true, you, a famous multimillionaire superstar, used high-priced lawyers to sue this simple woman for more money than she was worth in England, where slander laws favor the famous. She had no chance to fight it.

She testified that you tried to ruin her by spreading word that she was a prostitute with a heavy drinking problem.

"The traumatizing part," she once told the New York Times, "was dealing with telling the truth."

Do you want to apologize to her? Not in general. I mean directly and by name. I mean, Lance, of all the people to attack like that, of all the people you had power and wealth over, you had to go after her? How Lance, could you do this to someone, and why would anyone want to believe again in someone capable of doing this to someone?

7. In 2011, former teammate Tyler Hamilton spoke about you and doping on "60 Minutes." He later said you two ran into each other in a Colorado restaurant where he says you tried to intimidate him, saying, "I'm going to make your life a living hell both in the courtroom and out of the courtroom."

Yet you knew he was telling the truth, right Lance? So why threaten him?

8. Greg LeMond, a three-time Tour de France champion, once raised the following hypothetical question: "If Lance's story is true, it's the greatest comeback in the history of sport. If it's not, it's the greatest fraud."

The allegation is that you heard that and decided to use your influence with Trek bikes to drop its association with LeMond's brand. The company even went to court to end a long-term contract. "Greg's public comments hurt the LeMond brand and the Trek brand," a company official said at the time.

What comment? Wondering about something that was true?

The move cost LeMond millions. Did you try to ruin him financially simply for spite?

9. We've just scratched the surface on people you pushed around. There are more victims in your wake. Do you want me to continue with the others?

Lance Armstrong's doping admission: Questions Oprah should have asked - Yahoo! Sports

[Motownkid]

[ad_dur]

His still an icon .. his efforts is the least respect that can be given.

[parengjohn]

denied.......................