After more than a decade of outrunning accusations that he had doped during his cycling career, Lance Armstrong, one of the most well-known and accomplished athletes in history, finally surrendered on Thursday, etching a dark mark on his legacy by ending his fight against charges that he used performance-enhancing drugs.
Armstrong, who won the Tour de France an unprecedented seven straight times, said Thursday that he would not continue to fight the charges levied against him by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which contended that he doped and was one of the ringleaders of systematic doping on his Tour-winning teams.
"There comes a point in every man's life when he has to say, 'Enough is enough,' " Armstrong said in a statement, adding that his decision is not an admission of drug use but a refusal to enter an arbitration process he believes is improper and unfair to athletes facing charges.
"The toll this has taken on my family and my work for our foundation and on me leads me to where I am today — finished with this nonsense."
His decision means he will be stripped of his Tour titles (1999 to 2006), the bronze medal he won at the 2000 Olympics and all other titles, awards and money he won from August 1998 on.
It also means he will be barred for life from competing, coaching or having any official role with any Olympic sport or other sport that follows the World Anti-Doping Code.
Armstrong says USADA doesn't have the authority to vacate his Tour titles. USADA chief executive Travis Tygart thinks otherwise.
Tygart called the Armstrong case a "heartbreaking" example of a win-at-all costs approach.
I'm sure many of the cyclists during his reign were doing the same thing but that doesn't make it right.
If Armstrong truly was innocent, he would fight to the end to prove his innocence. If I were truly innocent, I am not going to allow anyone tarnish my name and legacy. I will not allow anyone strip me of my titles. I would do whatever it took. I can only imagine that most people (particularly competitive athletes) would want to do the same. For me, by giving up, he is admitting his guilt.
4 comments:
Not really familiar with world cycling but dont they test these guys prior to their races? How is this coming out now and not then?
They do test and this has been a long running story. Other cyclists have been reprimanded/stripped of titles recently as well.
The thing is most cyclists that were doping knew how to get around it.
It's just like baseball in the steroids era. There was testing but those that were doing it knew how to get around it. Still, it was obvious what was going on.
The same is true for biking.
I think he's actually just fed up with defending himself. Maybe your threshold for dealing with this would be higher, but maybe he has just reached a breaking point. Not everyone in the world is Hurricane Carter.
I'm sure he is fed up with it but no way to the point where he would quit.
We are talking his legacy, his career, his reputation. It is ALL at stake. To quit is an admission of guilt in the eyes of the public.
If I knew I was 100% innocent, there is NO way I would quit. There is NO way I would allow any agency or any one person to tarnish my name.
There is too much evidence against the guy and he knew it was crumbling around him.
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