According to an ESPN report Lance Armstrong has announced he will drop his defense of drug charges by the US Anti Doping Agency (USADA).
In turn the USADA has taken his decision to not fight the charges as an admission of guilt and USADA chief executive Travis Tygart have announced that they will impose a lifetime ban from cycling and strip all of his 7 Tour De France titles.
Tygart said he this was a said day for those who love cycling, however there’s cheaters never win;
“It is a sad day for all of us who love sport and athletes, it’s a heartbreaking example of win at all costs overtaking the fair and safe option. There’s no success in cheating to win.”
Below is the statement Lance Armstrong released to the Associated Press
“There comes a point in every man’s life when he has to say, “Enough is enough.” For me, that time is now. I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999. 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. USADA cannot assert control of a professional international sport and attempt to strip my seven Tour de France titles. I know who won those seven Tours, my teammates know who won those seven Tours, and everyone I competed against knows who won those seven Tours. There is zero physical evidence to support (the) outlandish and heinous claims. The only physical evidence here is the hundreds of (doping) controls I have passed with flying colors. Today I turn the page. I will no longer address this issue, regardless of the circumstances. I will commit myself to the work I began before ever winning a single Tour de France title: serving people and families affected by cancer, especially those in underserved communities.”
What makes this story sad, through all the cheating going on around Armstrong in the world of cycling, he said he was clean so many times, you started to believe that maybe he didn’t cheat. However, if you’ve gone this far in defending yourself against these claims why stop now. It does remind of a quote I live by, the truth only needs to be told once. In other words, if you truly are innocence, there’s no need to continually explain yourself. Perhaps he got tired of defending a lie, and decided why fight any longer. In the end, like he said, we know he won those titles, and he’s already cashed most of his sponsorship money, so what did he really lose. Looks like the cheater did prosper.
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