Doping and deception: the yellow colour of theLivestrong band will never mean the same thing again to the 80 million Lance Armstrong fans who bought it.Armstrong’s unprecedented seven consecutive Tour de France victories from 1999 to 2005 depended on lies and illegal behaviour, but what is worse is that the character most people thought they knew has turned out to be someone very different. Character is the most important virtue that sport is supposed to celebrate.
Now he has been banned for life and stripped of his Tour victories. It may not be enough.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in a damning report released on Oct. 12 said that now retired Armstrong led “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen”.
he only thing that mattered to him was the winner’s yellow jersey of the Tour de France. The journey, not so much. Armstrong was right with the title of his book, “it wasn’t about the bike” anymore. The body, which had barely survived cancer, was pushed to its limit by a dangerous bouquet of drugs.
He tested positive for corticosteroid in 1999 after winning his maiden Tour title. His doctors quickly got into a huddle and produced a backdated prescription of an ointment for his “saddle sore”.
A year later, he nearly got caught before a race in Spain, when soon after consuming “oil” (testosterone mixed in olive oil), he learned from his tea mate George Hincapie that anti-doping agents were in the hotel to carry out tests. Armstrong pulled out of the race. Later, he went on to win his second Tour title.
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