According to a report by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, seven-time Tour De France winner and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong was part of “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport (of cycling) has ever seen.”
Long-hounded by allegations of doping, a common term which means to use performance enhancing drugs, Armstrong was allegedly at the center of the US Postal cycling team’s doping ring. The Washington Post reports that USADA report is more than 1,000 pages long, and contains details of a doping ring designed to pressure athletes into using, while also avoiding detection.
Reuters reports that the USADA planned to send the report to the International Cycling Union (UCI), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), but then planned to publish the results on its website as well.
“The evidence also includes direct documentary evidence including financial payments, emails, 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,” read a USADA statement, released by chief executive Travis Tygart.
Armstrong elevated the Tour De France’s visibility over the course of his seven championships, and the star has always denied using performance enhancing drugs. He has also never failed a drug test. Still, he was banned from cycling by the USADA for life when he announced in August he would no longer fight the charges.
The report includes information from 11 different teammates of Lance Armstrong that rode with the USPS team including: Frankie Andreu, Michael Barry, Tom Danielson, Tyler Hamilton, George Hincapie, Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer, Stephen Swart, Christian Vande Velde, Jonathan Vaughters, and David Zabriskie.
Lance Armstrong’s lawyers responded to the USADA in a letter, accusing the agency of waging a vendetta against Armstrong and using unreliable information from witnesses who may have been coerced.