Evidence of Armstrong doping 'overwhelming,' agency says
October 11, 2012 -- Updated 0157 GMT (0957 HKT)
Seven-time Tour de France champion
Lance Armstrong has denied numerous accusations of doping over the
years. Look back at his record-setting career.
HIDE CAPTION
Lance Armstrong over the years
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Armstrong's lawyer says witnesses should have been cross examined
- Armstrong has long denied using performance-enhancing drugs
- Former teammate testified Armstrong use a drug called EPO, report says
- Other teammates said they were shown how to avoid positive drug tests
The evidence involving
the U.S. Postal Service-sponsored cycling team encompasses "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," the
agency said.
Armstrong lawyer Tim
Herman dismissed what he called a "one-sided hatchet job" and a
"government-funded witch hunt" against the seven-time Tour de France
winner, who has consistently denied doping accusations.
But the USADA said 11
riders came forward to acknowledge their use of banned
performance-enhancing drugs while on the team. Among them is George
Hincapie, Armstrong's close teammate during his winning Tour de France
runs.
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"I'm not suggesting that
they are all lying, but I am suggesting that each witness needs to have
confrontation and cross examination to test the accuracy of their
recollection," Herman said.
The USADA is sending its
"reasoned decision" to the international governing body of cycling, the
Union Cycliste Internationale, as well as the World Anti-Doping Agency
and the governing body for triathlons, the World Triathlon Corporation.
In the past, Armstrong
argued that he has taken more than 500 drug tests and never failed. In
its 202-page report, the USADA said it had tested Armstrong less than 60
times and the UCI conducted about 215 tests.
"Thus the number of
actual controls on Mr. Armstrong over the years appears to have been
considerably fewer than the number claimed by Armstrong and his
lawyers," the USADA said.
The agency didn't say
that Armstrong ever failed one of those tests, only that his former
teammates testified as to how they beat tests or avoided the test
administrators altogether. Several riders also said team officials
seemed to know when random drug tests were coming, the report said.
The agency also said it
had a professor compare Armstrong's red cell and plasma levels from
blood samples taken late in his career, and they showed levels that
wouldn't be expected of an athlete competing in a three-week endurance
event like the Tour de France.
Hincapie publicly admitted for the first time Wednesday that he took drugs.
"Early in my
professional career, it became clear to me that, given the widespread
use of performance-enhancing drugs by cyclists at the top of the
profession, it was not possible to compete at the highest level without
them," Hincapie said in a written statement. "I deeply regret that
choice and sincerely apologize to my family, teammates and fans."
Hincapie testified, the
report said, that he was aware of Armstrong's use of the drug EPO, or
erythropoietin, which boosts the number of red blood cells, which carry
oxygen to the muscles, and his use of blood transfusions.
He also testified
Armstrong dropped out of a race in 2000 to avoid a positive drug test,
according to the report, which was accompanied by hundred of pages of
supporting documents like Hincapie's 16-page affidavit.
Three members of the Postal Service team, which changed sponsors in 2005, will
contest the accusations, the agency said. They are team director Johan
Bruyneel, team doctor Pedro Celaya and team trainer Jose "Pepe" Marti.
Each will get a hearing before an independent judge, according to the
agency.
The agency compiled the
evidence as part of its investigation into doping allegations that have
dogged Armstrong and the Postal Service team for years. The organization
is not a governmental agency but is designated by Congress as the
country's official anti-doping organization for Olympic sports.
In August, four days
after a federal judge dismissed Armstrong's lawsuit seeking to block the
agency's investigation, Armstrong announced he would no longer fight
the accusations. The agency then announced it would ban Armstrong from
the sport for life and strip him of his results dating from 1998.
"When Mr. Armstrong
refused to confront the evidence against him in a hearing before neutral
arbitrators, he confirmed the judgment that the era in professional
cycling which he dominated as the patron of the peloton was the dirtiest
ever," the USADA writes in its decision. "Peloton" refers to the main
group of riders in a bike race.
The agency praised the
11 riders who came forward to document the widespread use of banned
substances by the team. But in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon,
attorney Herman called the expected USADA report "a taxpayer-funded
tabloid piece rehashing old, disproved, unreliable allegations, based
largely on axe-grinders, serial perjurers, coerced testimony, sweetheart
deals and threat-induced stories."
In addition to Hincapie,
the agency identified the cyclists who came forward as Frankie Andreu,
Michael Barry, Tom Danielson, Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis, Levi
Leipheimer, Stephen Swart, Christian Vande Velde, Jonathan Vaughters and
David Zabriskie.
The agency said those riders would receive various punishments, including suspensions and disqualifications.
The scope of evidence against the team is "overwhelming," according to the agency.
"The USPS Team 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," the agency said.
Armstrong became a
household name not only in Europe, where cycling is wildly popular, but
also in the United States, where the sport traditionally attracted
little attention before he embarked on a remarkable stretch between 1999
and 2005 and won seven consecutive Tour de France titles. Persistent
accusations that he used performance-enhancing drugs grew as he won more
Tours.
Author and cycling
journalist Bill Strickland compared the case to baseball's "Black Sox"
scandal, when eight Chicago White Sox players conspired with gamblers to
throw the 1919 World Series. But he said Armstrong is "not interested
in ever admitting to his guilt, and he just wants to move on right now."
"Despite this evidence
and despite all the evidence that has come out, he's got a strong core
of people who believe in him and will always believe in him because of
his link to fighting cancer," said Strickland, who chronicled
Armstrong's 2009 return to the Tour de France in a 2011 book.
But how Armstrong might move on is unclear.
"Certainly, he's not
going to be able to move on within the sport," Strickland told CNN. "It
seems likely that all of his Tour victories will be stripped. He won't
be allowed to participate in any sports that are signatories of WADA,
the World Anti-Doping Agency. But he's found a few triathlons to do in
the meantime."
And he said the
allegations could lead to the reopening of a criminal case against
Armstrong that federal prosecutors closed without charges in February.
"What's next is years and years of fighting if the criminal case is reopened," Strickland said.
The USADA opened its own case, which does not carry criminal penalties, in June.
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