Tour de France - US prosecutors close Armstrong probe
Federal prosecutors have dropped an investigation centred on whether seven-times Tour De France champion Lance Armstrong and his team-mates cheated the sponsor of their bike racing team with a secret doping program.
The decision means that Armstrong, a cancer survivor and one of his sport's greatest champions who has always vehemently denied using performance-enhancing drugs, will not face charges following the two-year-long probe.
"I am gratified to learn that the US Attorney's Office is closing its investigation. It is the right decision and I commend them for reaching it," Armstrong, 40, said in a statement released through his spokesman.
"I look forward to continuing my life as a father, a competitor, and an advocate in the fight against cancer without this distraction," he said.
Prosecutors have said little publicly about the case and US Attorney Andre Birotte Jr., in a brief written statement, announced simply that his office was "closing an investigation into members and associates of a bicycle racing team owned in part by Lance Armstrong."
A source familiar with the investigation, however, told Reuters that prosecutors had been looking into whether the team had defrauded its main sponsor, the US Postal Service, by doping.
United States Anti-Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart said on Friday that the end of the federal probe into Armstrong and his team did not mean that the USADA would drop its own investigation.
"Unlike the US Attorney, USADA's job is to protect clean sport rather than enforce specific criminal laws," Tygart said in a written statement. "Our investigation into doping in the sport of cycling is continuing and we look forward to obtaining the information developed during the federal investigation."
Doping, or using performance enhancing substances in professional sports, is not in itself a federal crime.
The Texas-born Armstrong, who won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times, retired from professional cycling last year.
He remains the face of his Austin-based anti-cancer charity, Livestrong, known for its popular yellow plastic bracelets.
Despite having never failed a doping test, Armstrong has never been able to shake allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs to help fuel his brilliant career.
Former teammate and deposed Tour de France winner Floyd Landis accused Armstrong in 2010 not only of using performance-enhancing drugs but teaching others how to avoid being caught.
Landis said he witnessed some of his team-mates, including Armstrong, use illegal drugs to boost performance and endurance.
The wife of one-time Armstrong teammate Frankie Andreu has also said that Armstrong admitted to using illegal drugs.
Sports Illustrated magazine has reported that Betsy Andreu said in a sworn deposition that Armstrong admitted to his cancer doctors that he had used performance-enhancing drugs, including EPO, growth hormone, cortisone, steroids and testosterone.
Armstrong has had ties to controversial Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, who has publicly defended the use of EPO but has denied helping athletes enhance performance through doping.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency previously said it has tested Armstrong 27 times since 2001, adding that the totals do not include tests done by international organizations.
Earlier accusations that the American had used EPO during the 1999 Tour de France led to an investigation supported by the International Cycling Union that cleared Armstrong of doping.
The investigation followed accusations published by the French newspaper L'Equipe that six of his urine samples from the 1999 Tour showed traces of EPO.
"Today when I heard the decision my first thought was, Lance won again," said Peter Flax, editor in chief of Bicycling magazine, who said that his readers were split over whether Armstrong had used performance-enhancing drugs.
"It kind of made me crack a little bit of a smile because Lance has always found a way to win and today was no different," Flax said.
Comment 37 - 56 of 56
I do hope that no cancer money was spent on the defence of Lance, some answers please Lance.
"why so many american haters. If it wasnt for us you would all be german. Lance number 1." actually ONE vote decided that today English is the official language of the US...guess which language was the runner up in that contest..
Actually, now that I've had a chance to read more about the reasons for dropping the Federal investigation into LA, and particularly the involvement of ASO/UCI , I'm heartened by it. The Fed investigation had to focus on the specific issues of LA and his employer US Postal and within the US legal system, giving LA the opportunity to utilise his enormous team of legal experts (also, enormously expensive!). Also, the Fed team were limited into how much they could legally implicate ASO/UCI and other organisations in such a case. Closing the case and handing over all of the evidence gained so far to a World-wide Drugs in Sport investigation, should be far more damaging and far reaching for LA , YB and their drug control empire, which is great news.
BTW, anyone that thinks that cycling is now a totally clean sport, think again! Its getting there, but still a long way to go. David Millar will have a key role to play yet, watch this space.
In the mean time LA/YB will continue as they always have, 'buying success'!! Radio Shack was a complete flop! so, what better way to rejuvenate it than by buying Leopard-Trek. Business is business!!!
Actually, forget my last post, When CAS rule on the Contador case tomorrow it'll all kick off again!
Do we finally get to move on to other stuff now ................?
Please don't compare LA to to Pantani !!! Pantani doped from birth and died as a cocaine addict. His talent came from drugs without which he was nothing. Read the 'death of Marco Pantani' by Matt Lorenzo - you will see what I mean. Only Italy, in Europe, has such flawed 'heroes'.
I don't care if he did dope. Look at the top 3 of every Tour he won. All accused or convicted dopers. He won fairly on an equal playing field. The worst thing he ever did was in trying to kill the careers of the guys who stood up against doping. He's teflon with the authorities and has UCI in his pocket. It's that relationship and Armstrong's anti Contador spat that has me doubting the 'let's use an ultra sensitive testing only on Alberto Contador' test, when every other test in Tour de France history has been done on the top 3 in a stage, the top 3 in the race and 3 other randomly selected riders from the reace.
If he really is clean then why does he always argue against and threaten to sue when the idea of retro-testing the old samples from '99, 2000, '01 are mentioned. All the lance fans claim he was clean but everyone else was dirty. So how come lance was good enough to beat a cheating Ullrich? or Pantani? No way he would have.
Or maybe lance did not cheat, maybe it was just everyone else on the team. After all, none of them were ever allowed to win a stage [Hincapie excepted]. All did exceptionally well to keep lance up there in the mountains but always fell away, out of the top five, when to the end of a stage. Obviously they wouldn't be tested because lance would be. So maybe, just maybe, he was clean but had everyone else on his tean doped up to the eyeballs to help him win.
The truth is we will never know. And to be honest i'm more interested in seeing the young riders like Blyth, Stannard, Sagan etc.. come through in a dope free era and racing clean. It is time to put the past where it belongs, though i do not like the idea of cheats getting away with it, and concentrate on the future.
As long as we continue to argue amongst ourselves about what to do or who did what, then the rest of the sports fans will continue to treat our sport as a joke. Cycling is the greatest sport there is and us fans travel the world to watch and enjoy. Lance and the others are mostly gone now, it is time to move on.
I haven't seen this much chatter since Lance's last stand!
Not often that an investigation such as this, for now closed, that involves allegations of systematic doping and cheating, is welcomed by the head of the UCI. Quite obvious a special relationship exists here, that is open to question as to its appropriateness, but that is our UCI.
Reminds of and old spaghetti western: The Good (Armstrong), the Bad ones (Ulrich, Hamilton and Contador) and the Ugly (not sure who).
Really good news. Common sense finally prevails
want to get in to
Don't really wantto get in ti this. However, the war in Europe was already two years old before the US decided to join.
why so many american haters. If it wasnt for us you would all be german. Lance number 1.
And to all you Lance haters, are you in such denial that the cyclist that you cheer for is clean and never doped? You have serious ignorance issues. It's cycling, it's a sport, it's a business and businesses exist to make money. Your job description is to be better than everybody else and win. Deal with it.
Even if he has where will you stop? '98 Pantani, heavily suspected of taking PED's. '97 Ullrich who was caught up in Puerto so who's to say he wasn't then (with proof) as was on same Telekom team that Riis '96 who confessed to PED's that year. Indurain era with many riders having confessed to EPO, then Delgado with his over turned test during his win in '88, the Simpson era and what has been written about during that time etc, etc. Do we just write off years of results?
My opinioin is that it has past now and leave it to stand. With or without PED's LA is a fantastic athlete. Will we ever know the truth...........who knows.
Well, I'm going to post again, 'cos the first time I had 12 thumbs up and 11 down after saying Lance is an inspiration both on and off the bike. So read it again folks.
And #37, keep your bigoted anti-world-unless-it-apple-pie-with-stripes comments to yourself if you cannot stick to the topic in hand. Pratt.
This action generates more questions than it answers. I will NEVER accept that LA didn't dope, when it appears (and is now accepted by most LA supports on here) that everyone else around him at the time were. The UCI, ASO and USDA are all implicated in this and it appears that 'big business' has won again here. That's why LA always states (with relish) that he's 'never failed a drug test' , knowing that its a shot across the bows of the ASO/UCI too. Still, the truth will out someday. Until then I guess LA/YB will continue 'buying success' with Radio-Shack!!
Facts NOT innuendo always prevail. He never doped, that is based on that good old american virtue, being innocent until proven otherwise. The haters are a bunch of anti-american retards (proven by the posts....).
Enjoy sharia law europe, while your fighting the savages, Ill be resting in my spacious home, eating good old apple pie, watching Lance video's. LOL
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