DISGRACED LANCE ARMSTRONG’s fate was sealed today, as cycling’s under-fire world governing body decided to back a life ban for doping and strip him of his record seven Tour de France titles.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) said it supported a decision by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to erase the Texan’s career and his place in the sport’s history.
“We will not appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and we will recognise the sanction that USADA has imposed,” UCI president Pat McQuaid told a news conference in Geneva. ”The UCI will strip him of his seven Tour de France wins. Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling.”
Earlier this month the US body released a devastating dossier on Armstrong, detailing over 202 pages and with more than 1,000 pages of supporting testimony how he was at the heart of the biggest doping programme in the history of sport.
The revelations, including evidence from 11 of Armstrong’s former team-mates, plunged a sport which has been working hard to rid itself of its murky doping past into crisis.
McQuaid succeeded Hein Verbruggen as president of world cycling after Armstrong’s seventh and final Tour victory in 2005 and is credited with boosting the body’s anti-doping programme, notably with the pioneering blood passport programme. The Irishman was under pressure to answer how Armstrong and his teams managed to dope for so long without being detected. But he rejected calls to quit.
Armstrong’s sporting reputation as the cancer survivor who fought back to win cycling’s most gruelling and celebrated race has been shattered since the revelations, leading to sponsors leaving him in droves. There has also been fears of a wider withdrawal of financial backing for the sport after Dutch sponsor Rabobank said it was ending the sponsorship of its professional cycling team after a 17-year association.
The sponsor described professional cycling as “sick” to its core and unlikely to recover in the foreseeable future.
The strongly-worded comments went to the heart of claims of failings at the UCI and in particular to McQuaid, who has been criticised for failing to see the extent of doping within the sport.
Verbruggen, who stepped down in in 2006 but remains honorary president, ran the UCI during Armstrong’s golden era — a time when USADA’s report says Armstrong and team-mates evaded dope tests either by hiding or being tipped off in advance.
The Dutchman has also been accused of protecting Armstrong — even accepting a donation to cover up a positive dope test.
The cyclist’s cancer backstory and Tour triumphs from 1999 to 2005 were seen as key to restoring cycling’s tattered image after a string of high-profile doping scandals in the 1990s.
Armstrong’s Tour victories are unlikely to be re-awarded, the race’s director Christian Prudhomme has said. The void avoids further headaches, given that the majority of riders who finished on the podium have also been implicated in doping.
On the eve of the UCI decision, Armstrong spoke for about 90 seconds to a record 4,300 bikers at the Livestrong Challenge charity benefit, a 100-mile (160-kilometre) race in his hometown of Austin, Texas.
Rough ride
“I’ve been better, but I’ve also been worse,” Armstrong told the riders. “Obviously it has been an interesting and difficult couple of weeks.”
Since the USADA report, sponsors have fled Armstrong and he was forced to resign as chairman of the Livestrong cancer-fighting charity he founded in 1997 over concerns his tarnished reputation could hurt the cause.
Armstrong, who overcame testicular cancer that had spread to his brain and lungs to achieve cycling stardom, inspired more than $500 million in donations to Livestrong and pushed other cancer survivors to battle the condition. No criminal charges were filed against Armstrong from an 18-month US federal probe that ended earlier this year and evidence from that case was not given to USADA.
But Armstrong could yet face court cases from former sponsors who accepted his assurances that his legacy was not aided by banned substances.
Perhaps he should look at his ongoing legal action against Paul Kimmage as well
I agree Eddie , Armstrong has fallen a long way . Fair play to Paul Kimmage he has taken years of abuse
people like paul, should be on the board at the Cycling Anti-doping Foundation, he and David Walsh were the only ones to stand up to the “most cynical, hypocritical bastard in the history of sport.”
They will now have to drop the action against Kimmage.
This is a great day for sport, and vindicates Paul Kimmage and David Walsh.
They should drop the Kimmage case, but McQuaid has already said it will continue.
If Mr. McQuaid was the head of a body that was apparently oblivious to doping in Cycling, should he not think about resigning?
There is a far less diplomatic way of saying that Ciaran! McQuaid needs to consider his position or someone needs to do it for him!!!
The UCI should disband altogether. They’ve shown now on numerous occasions that they can’t handle the regulatory mandate of their job. Time for a new Governing body. One that understands conflicts of interest.
There’s a symmetry between the “ignorance” by the powers that be/were in their respective fields about Lance Armstrong’s prolific doping and Jimmy Savile’s prolific paedophilia. In both cases they were tireless workers for charity. Was the charity work a front so that they would be untouchable whenever there were rumours about their activities?
Good point Mary.
Heard someone say the charity stuff was Armstrong’s way of squaring the drug deceit with his own psyche, but I think it’s more likely to be the way you said it, Mary. Whenever doping was brought up in interviews, the cancer shields went up.
They had no other choice…the evidence against Lance Armstrong was overwhelming.
They were very slow coming to their conclusions but then again they were compromised when they took the money from Lance’s people for the
anti doping campaign…
Finally they have taken the right step, but I still firmly believe that people high up in the UCI had knowledge of and were even complicit in Lance Armstrong’s doping.
For an Irishman to resign for anything would be miraculous. Just look at our corrupt politicians, clergy, bankers, etc. an English politician resigned for calling a policeman a pleb yet our guys can promote corruption even promote suicide and nobody resigns. Fire him – it’s the only way. Irish people in positions of power have no integrity bar Nessa Childers and Roidin Shortall.
Ive just seen that McQuaid is refusing to drop the case against Kimmage, and is persisting with framing it as ‘straightforward defamation’ outside the issues connected with LA.
Good luck with that Pat, youll have a great career as an Irish politician once youve been ushered out of the UCI.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see Armstrong in politics in a few years, either. There were 1000s at a Livestrong event at the weekend at $1000 a plate.
@Nivag Yeoh, has Armstrong been introduced to the Quinns yet? They seem to inspire loyalty in the easily led.
Mr McQuaid is obviously suffering from Sepp Blatteritis, they can’t all be wrong Sir. It is more disappointing that one of our own at the top of a massive international sports body thinks he has carte blanche to behave so. The dogs in the street knew Pat.
Would the international cycling union be the ICU, and not the UCI as in the article (and on the radio this morning)? Just wondering.
it’s union cycliste internationale they are based in Switzerland.
its headquarters are in Switzerland so its actually the Union Cycliste International
too slow today!
Thanks lads! Red Thumbs on my question are ridiculous. I can imagine they’re the middle aged lads who’ve just taken up cycling and love nothing more than reading about it(rather than cycling)
“Ugh, how can someone not know that”
Its the ‘Union Cycliste Internationale’