Doping case of Lance Armstrong

On 24 August, 2012, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced that it had imposed on Lance Armstrong a sanction of lifetime ineligibility and disqualification of competitive results achieved since 1 August, 1998.

On 10 October, 2012, USADA sent their “Reasoned Decision” on the Lance Armstrong case to the Union Cycliste International (UCI), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), stating that the evidence shows beyond any doubt that the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team “ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen”¹.

On 22 October, 2012, the UCI accepted the USADA findings and formally stripped Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles.

A BRIEF HISTORY

After competing in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, Lance Armstrong became a professional cyclist. In 1996, he underwent surgery and chemotherapy to treat testicular cancer. Between 1999 and 2005, Armstrong won the Tour de France a record seven times. He retired from competitive cycling in 2005 but returned in 2009 before retiring for a second time 2 years later.

CHARGES AGAINST LANCE ARMSTRONG

Lance Armstrong claimed to have been one of the most frequently tested athletes in the world and that the results of his tests had never shown the presence of a prohibited drug. The presence of a prohibited substance is just one of the eight Anti-Doping Rule Violations, specified in the World Anti-Doping Code, for which athletes can be sanctioned.

THE EVIDENCE BASE FOR USADA’S DECISION

There were a number of strands to the evidence presented by USADA:

• Sworn statements from professional cyclists.
• Banking and accounting records.
• Email communications.
• Laboratory test results and expert analysis.

He received lifetime ban from the sport all the medals he won in Tour de France were taken away. He was also stripped off his Olympic medal.

The day he admitted his doping on the Oprah Winfrey show, he lost as much as $75million in a single day. The companies terminated the sponsorship contracts with him, including Nike.

Nike in an official statement declared that Lance Armstrong misled the company for than a decade.

He was also asked to pay the fine of 10 million pounds.

But money isn’t everything. What he lost was his respect and fame after the proving of his doping. He no longer remained the man who won the cycling competitions after winning a gruesome battle with cancer.