UCI President Pat McQuaid bans Lance Armstrong for life
“Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling"
The International Cycling Union (UCI) announced that it will stand by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s (USADA) decision to ban Lance Armstrong for life and strip him of his seven Tour de France titles. President of the UCI, Pat McQuaid notified the press today in a conference held in Geneva, Switzerland.
McQuaid said the sport governing body “will not appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and will recognize sanction against Lance Armstrong. The UCI will ban Lance Armstrong from cycling and strip him of his seven Tour de France titles.”
“Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling,” McQuaid said.
USADA banned Armstrong for life from Olympic sport  and stripped him of results in August. USADA CEO Travis Tygart provided the UCI with a 1000-page “Reasoned Decision” on October 10 that included sworn testimony from Armstrong’s former staff and teammates at US Postal Service and Discovery Channel teams.
Michael Barry, David Zabriskie, George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer, Tom Danielson and Christian Vande Velde were some of the riders who came forward to talk about their past experiences with doping. They were each given reduced six-month suspensions.
“I was sickened by what I read in the USADA report,” McQuaid said. “The story [David Zabriskie] told of how he was coerced and to some extent forced into doping is just mind boggling.”
The case pointed to Armstrong as the leader of what Tygart called “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.”
Director of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme will remove Armstrong’s name from the results, stripping him of his victories from 1999-2005.
The case showed evidence against Armstrong’s former doctors and staff members at US Postal. USADA charged former US Postal and Discovery Channel team manager Johan Bruyneel, doctors Ferrari, Pedro Celaya and Luis Garcia de Moral, and trainer Jose Marti with use and/or attempted use, possession, trafficking, administration and/or attempted administration of performance enhancing substances, and assisting, encouraging, aiding abetting attempted anti-doping rule violations, and aggravating circumstances.
Armstrong has denied ever using banned substances during his career. He filed two lawsuit’s against USADA, however, lost on both attempts. Ferrari and Garcia del Moral accepted lifetime bans; however, Bruyneel, Celaya and Marti have chosen to fight USADA’s charges against them.
