USADA Delivers Smackdown to Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong, a 7-time
consecutive Tour De France champion from 1999 to 2005 said he would no longer
fight doping charges by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

 

Armstrong posted on his
website (Lancearmstrong.com): “There comes a point in every man’s life when he
has to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ For me, that time is now. I have been dealing
with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven
Tours since 1999.”

 

USADA quickly moved to strip
Armstrong of his seven Tour titles and ban him from the sport of professional
cycling (from which he’d already retired). It remains uncertain if the bronze
medal that Armstrong won at the Seoul Olympics in the 2000 Olympics is also in jeopardy.

 

Armstrong won his seven
Tours after a battle with cancer and through his foundation has raised millions
to combat the disease. Not one to quit in the Alps or the Pyrenees, Armstrong
nonetheless decided not to go to arbitration with USADA, which had lined up 10
of his former teammates to testify against the 40 year-old. It also said it had
blood tests of Armstrong’s from 2009 and 2010 that were fully consistent with blood
doping.