Fall Of Lance Armstrong In 2012: “Not Me”, Says The Doctor …

• December 17th, 2012
• Posted by EUEditor

Lance Armstrong’s sports doctor Michele has come out at year’s end denying any knowledge of the former champion cyclists history of doping.

The Italian doctor named in the investigation which caused Lance Armstrong to be banned from the sport, and stripped of his seven wins in the Tour de France, said his regime in managing elite cyclists was “not strict”.

Lance Armstrong’s former doctor Michele Ferrari has said he did not see the cyclist take drugs and insists he did not have dealings with his accusers.

Dr Ferrari, 59, told an interviewer on Al Jazeera he did not see doping going on and hd no dealings with informants against those who were in  his charge.

The case of Lance Armstrong (picture), 41, was a sensation of 2012; a spectacular fall for which it will be hard to find rivals, blunted a little in its impact by the entrenched tradition and notoriety of drug abuse for performance enhancement in the endurance sport,.

Cycling News, the specialist global outlet, ruefully summed up the case after the bans were imposed in October:

“While Lance Armstrong’s name had been synonymous with Tour de France glory, having won seven straight Tours from 1999 to 2005 after coming back from cancer, the Texan’s reputation and sporting achievements will live in ignominy following the investigation into his and his team’s doping activities carried out by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

“As a result of USADA’s investigation, in October 2012 Armstrong was given a lifetime ban and stripped of all race results earned from August 1, 1998 onwards…

“Armstrong, along with his former USPS team associates Johan Bruyneel, Dr. Luis del Moral, Pedro Celaya, trainer Jose Pepe Marti and Michele Ferrari, were charged with anti-doping violations by USADA in June 2012. Armstrong decided on August 23, 2012 that he would not take the USADA case to arbitration, thus tacitly accepting a lifetime ban from all sports falling under the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code, plus the disqualification of all competitive results achieved since August 1, 1998.

“Based on its 1000-page dossier of evidence released on October 10, 2012, USADA detailed its substantive case against Armstrong and his US Postal Service team in what it called ‘the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.’”

In the aftermath of scandal, Lance Armstrong and to leave the board of his anti-cancer charity, Livestrong.

The organisation models its approach on the gameness of his fight-back as a sufferer, supporting marathon sports events on annual budgets running to $US65-million (A$61.7-million; xce.com, 17.12.12).

Also in the aftermath, road cycling races continue in strength, the disavowal of systematic cheating taken ever more seriously. In the period since 2005, the last year of public disgrace admitted by the American cycling authority, riders have come into their own who persevered through the era of dominance by the Armstrong machine; notably Cadel Evans (picture), the first Australian winner of  the Tour de France, last year. He’d made his breakthrough coming second in 2007.

See also, EUAustralia Online “Incroyable … Australian wins Tour de France”, 25.7.11; “Breakthrough on the boulevard”, 30.7.07.

Reference

BBC, London, “Doctor Michele Ferrari says he did not see Lance Armstrong dope”, 14.12.12. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/20735785, (17.12.12).

Cycling News, London, “Ferrari denies doping Armstrong”, 14.12.12. http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ferrari-denies-doping-armstrong, (17.12.12); Lance Armstrong. http://www.cyclingnews.com/riders/lance-armstrong, (17.12.12).

Livestrong Foundation. Austin, Texas, (Home). http://www.livestrong.org/, (17.12.12).

Wikipedia, SF, “Lance Armstrong”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Armstrong, (17.12.12).

Pictures  wikipedia

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