Lance Armstrong banned for life by cycling's governing body

October 22, 2012
UICC

Geneva, October 22: Cycling's governing body agreed on Monday to strip Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles and ban him for life, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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 has badly damaged his reputation. Longtime sponsors Nike, Trek Bicycles and Anheuser-Busch have dropped him, as have other companies, and Armstrong also stepped down last week 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."

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 also thinks 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. (let's just leave it at that)

In total, 26 people — including 15 riders — testified that Armstrong and his teams used and trafficked banned substances and routinely used blood transfusions. Among the witnesses were loyal sidekick George Hincapie and convicted dopers Tyler Hamilton and Floyd 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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Agencies
January 16,2020

New Delhi, Jan 16: Mahendra Singh Dhoni was on Thursday dropped from the BCCI's list of centrally contracted players, raising fresh doubts on the future of the former India captain who has not played since the World Cup semifinal loss to New Zealand last year.

The BCCI announced the central contracts for the period of October 2019 to September 2020. Dhoni was in the A category, which fetches a player Rs 5 crore, until last year.

Skipper Virat Kohli, his deputy Rohit Sharma and top pacer Jasprit Bumrah were retained in the highest A+ bracket of Rs 7 crore.

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Agencies
January 16,2020

New Delhi, Jan 16: Veteran cricketer Mithali Raj was on Thursday demoted to Grade B from A in the BCCI central contracts while Radha Yadav and Taniya Bhatia were elevated to the middle bracket.

Mithali not being kept in the Rs 50 lakh category was expected as the 37-year-old retired from T20s in September last year. However, she remains the ODI captain and plans to carry on till the 2021 World Cup.

T20 skipper Harmanpreet Kaur retained his A category contract alongside Smriti Mandhana and Poonam Yadav.

Radha and Taniya, who both had a Grade C contract worth Rs 10 lakh last year, have now entered Grade B (Rs 30 lakh).

Players getting a central contract for the first time are 15-year-old opener Shafali Verma and Harleen Deol, who like the teenager is an attacking batter.

Shafali has attracted a lot of attention ever since making her India debut last year. She recently made 124 against Australia A in Brisbane. The opener will be expected to deliver in the upcoming T20 World Cup Down Under.

Dropped from the list is Mona Meshram, who was in Grade C last year and hasn't played a single game in recent times.

The latest contracts run from October 2019 to September 2020.

Grade A (Rs 50 lakh): Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Poonam Yadav.

Grade B (Rs 30 lakh): Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Ekta Bisht, Radha Yadav, Taniya Bhatia, Shikha Pandey, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma.

Grade C (Rs 10 lakh): Veda Krishnamurthy, Punam Raut, Anuja Patil, Mansi Joshi, D Hemlatha, Arundhati Reddy, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Pooja Vastrakar, Harleen Deol, Priya Punia, Shafali Verma.

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Agencies
May 23,2020

New Delhi, May 23: Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju on Saturday said India will not host any international event in immediate future and fans will have to learn to live with the new normal of sporting activities happening behind closed doors in the post-COVID-19 world.

Rijiju's statement gain greater significance in the context of the suspended IPL, which the BCCI wants to host in October-November in case of the ICC T20 World Cup in Australia is postponed.

"We have been working for quite some time now to resume sporting activities but before that, we have to think about practice and training. We are not going to have a tournament kind of situation immediately," Rijiju was quoted as saying by India Today.

For latest updates on coronavirus outbreak, click here

"We have to learn to live with the situation where sporting events will have to be carried forward without spectators in stadiums and sports venues," he added.

Talking specifically about the 13th edition of IPL, which has been put on hold for an indefinite period due to the pandemic, Rijiju said it is the government's prerogative to take a call on conducting any tournament in the country.

"In India, the government has to take a call and it will take a call depending on the situation. We cannot put health at risk just because we want to have a sporting event.

"Our focus is fighting Covid-19 and at the same time, we will have to work a mechanism to get back to normalcy. It is difficult to confirm dates but I am sure we will have some kind of sporting events this year," he said.

Rijiju's statement came close on the heels of Sports Authority of India (SAI) laying out a detailed Standard Operating Procedure for the resumption of sporting activities across the country in a phased manner.

"In the background, their (athletes) fitness and everything has been tracked. They are in touch with the coaches, the fitness experts, the high-performance directors. We are monitoring each and every athlete who are of the higher stature, who played for India and higher clubs," he said.

"Now it has been laid out. SAI has prepared a detailed SOP. These are prepared by experts from different fields. This SOP has already been issued to all sports federations and other sports bodies including govt stakeholders. So, based on this SOP training will start."

Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases, deaths on May 23

The Sports Minister, however, reiterated that resumption of sporting activities will entirely depend on guidelines of respective states and local administrations.

"We have been clearly advising that health and safety are top priorities. Besides that we have to keep in mind two other things, one is the guidelines issued by the Home Ministry, second, is the guidelines issued by the administrations of the respective localities or states. So, these are to be taken into account," he said.

"But we have clearly stated that sports complexes and stadiums are open, other than that there should not be any activities till the lockdown is there or we come up with a renewed kind of advice."

Asked about the prospect of the Tokyo Games that were scheduled for this year but were postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic, the Sports Minister said he is hopeful of the quadrennial event taking place on the revised dates.

"Olympics is still far away and we have full confidence in the Japanese government and IOC and every country will support that the conduct of Tokyo 2021 will not be postponed. There are too many stakes in Olympics, so it is difficult to even foresee that the Olympics can be postponed," he said.

"As far as India's preparation goes, we are at the best stage of our preparation of any Olympics so far in history. This is going to be India's biggest contingent so far and have medal-winning prospects. But I am not saying we are so prepared to finish in the top 10 or 5 but our long term target is that India will be in the top 10 in 2028.

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