Lance Edward Armstrong: Tour de France's Career and doping Story

Lance Edward Armstrong: Tour de France's Career and doping Story

                                        

Lance Edward Armstrong (born Lance Edward Gunderson; September 18, 1971) is an American former professional road racing cyclist. Armstrong had won the Tour de France a (then) record seven consecutive times between 1999 and 2005 before being disqualified from those races and banned from competitive cycling for life for doping offenses by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in 2012. He is the founder of the Livestrong Foundation, originally called the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which provides support for cancer patients.

At age 16, Armstrong began competing as a triathlete and was a national sprint-course triathlon champion in 1989 and 1990. In 1992, Armstrong began his career as a professional cyclist with the Motorola team. He had notable success between 1993 and 1996, including the 1993 World Championship, Clásica de San Sebastián in 1995, an overall victory in the penultimate Tour DuPont and a handful of stage victories in Europe, including the stage to Limoges in the Tour de France.

In October 1996, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had spread to his brain and lungs. His cancer treatments included brain and testicular surgery and extensive chemotherapy. In February 1997, he was declared cancer-free and the same year he founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation. By January 1998, Armstrong had renewed serious cycling training, having signed a new racing contract with US Postal. He was a member of the US Postal/Discovery team between 1998 and 2005. On July 24, 2005, Armstrong retired from racing at the end of the 2005 Tour de France, but returned to competitive cycling with the Astana team in January 2009 and finished third in the 2009 Tour de France. Between 2010 and 2011, he raced with the UCI ProTeam he helped found, Team Radio Shack.

On February 16, 2011, Armstrong announced his retirement from competitive cycling, while facing a US federal investigation into doping allegations. In February 2012, he returned to triathlon, competing as a professional in several events. In June 2012, USADA charged Armstrong with having used illicit performance-enhancing drugs. On August 24, 2012, it announced a lifetime ban from competition on Armstrong, applicable to all sports which follow the World Anti-Doping Agency code, as well as the stripping of all his seven Tour de France titles won between 1999 and 2005. The USADA report concluded that Armstrong engaged in "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen." On October 22, 2012, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the sport's governing body, announced its decision to accept USADA's findings. Armstrong chose not to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and in January 2013 he admitted doping in a television interview conducted by Oprah Winfrey, despite having denied it throughout his career.

Credit to: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Lance Armstrong: "you can't win Tour de France title without taking drugs (doping)"

Armstrong made his comments in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde and also claimed it was impossible to win the Tour de France without using drugs. The American implied all recent winners of the race – including Sir Bradley Wiggins last year – must have taken some form of illegal substance.

“I didn’t invent doping. It didn’t stop with me, either,” Armstrong said. In reply to the question whether it was possible to win cycle races without drugs while he was a professional rider, Armstrong said: “It depends which races you want to win. The Tour de France? Impossible without dope. The Tour is a test of endurance, where oxygen is the decisive factor. EPO, for example, is not going to help a sprinter over 100 metres but it will make all the difference to a 10,000-metre runner. That’s obvious.”

Although Armstrong was replying to questions about the period 1995-2005, his answers strongly implied that nothing had changed. That will enrage top riders who have succeeded him, such as Wiggins and this year’s Tour favourite Chris Froome, who insist they and the sport are clean.

Asked how the doping habit in cycling could be broken, Armstrong said: “For many reasons, it will never finish. Doping has existed since antiquity and will always exist. I know that’s not a popular thing to say but it is unfortunately the reality.”

Source: The Independent