By GRAHAM DUNBAR
AP Sports Writer
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.
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