Lanced: ‘Undeniable proof’ of Armstrong’s litany of doping
USADA chief executive Travis Tygart, in a statement, declared there was “conclusive and undeniable proof” of a team-run doping conspiracy with 11 of Armstrong’s former team-mates testifying against him.
This will be the explanation for their decision to strip the retired cyclist of his seven Tour de France titles, any result he achieved since his comeback from cancer in 1998 and hand him a lifetime ban.
The evidence, Tygart said, was “overwhelming” and “in excess [of] over 1000 pages”.
He said it contains “direct documentary evidence including financial payments, e-mails, scientific data and laboratory test results that further prove the use, possession and distribution of performance enhancing drugs by Lance Armstrong and confirm the disappointing truth about the deceptive activities of the USPS Team, a team that received tens of millions of American taxpayer dollars in funding”.
Tygart also claimed the team’s doping conspiracy “was professionally designed to groom and pressure athletes to use dangerous drugs, to evade detection, to ensure its secrecy and ultimately gain an unfair competitive advantage through superior doping practices”.
USADA reveals an intimate role played by the disgraced Dr Michele Ferrari in masterminding Armstrong’s Tour de France success, a relationship that ran from before his diagnosis with cancer in 1996 through to his second comeback in 2009. USADA was able to trace more than a million dollars in payments to the Italian doctor, with payments ranging from 1996 to 2006.
“The evidence in this case includes banking and accounting records from a Swiss company controlled by Dr Ferrari reflecting more than one million dollars in payments by Mr Armstrong, extensive email communications between Dr Ferrari and his son and Mr Armstrong during a time period in which Mr Armstrong claimed to not have a professional relationship with Dr Ferrari,’’ USADA revealed.
The evidence is counter to statements from Armstrong, in which he claims to have severed his professional relationship with Ferrari in 2004.
Tygart praised the 11 riders involved in the “doping conspiracy” for having “tremendous courage” to come forward and “stop perpetuating the sporting fraud”.
He said: “I have personally talked with and heard these athletes’ stories and firmly believe that, collectively, these athletes, if forgiven and embraced, have a chance to leave a legacy far greater for the good of the sport than anything they ever did on a bike.
“Lance Armstrong was given the same opportunity to come forward and be part of the solution. He rejected it.
“Instead he exercised his legal right not to contest the evidence and knowingly accepted the imposition of a ban from recognised competition for life and disqualification of his competitive results from 1998 forward.”
The USADA chief also called on the UCI to “act on its own recent suggestion for a meaningful Truth and Reconciliation programme”.
He said such a scheme might be the only way the sport can “unshackle itself from the past”.
Tygart added: “We have heard from many athletes who have faced an unfair dilemma — dope, or don’t compete at the highest levels of the sport. Many of them abandoned their dreams and left sport because they refused to endanger their health and participate in doping. That is a tragic choice no athlete should have to make.”
* Read the full statement from Travis Tygart on the Lance Armstrong doping case http://exa.mn/bd
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