The Rambler - Cathedral Prep

SPORTS
Armstrong stripped of seven Tour
titles, faces lifetime cycling ban
By Lucas Buseck, staff writer
On August 24 seven time Tour de France champion, cancer survivor,
and LiveStrong founder Lance Armstrong publicly announced
that he would no longer fight the charges that have been pressed
against him by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).
These charges, claiming Armstrong used performance enhancing
substances banned by the cycling's international governing body
(UCI) since 1996, have plagued Armstrong since his first Tour victory
in 1999.
To prove his innocence Armstrong has pointed out the hundreds
of drug tests he has taken and passed throughout his whole career.
The USADA however, sees his giving up as an indirect admission
of guilt, as Armstrong could go through an arbitration process to
get the charges dropped. Armstrong however, says he will not go
through the arbitration process as he feels the outcome of the
charges is predetermined and the investigation is an "unfair witch
hunt."
Now that Armstrong has given up the fight, these charges will first
and foremost take away his seven Tour de France titles, a number
of titles no one else has matched, and leave him with a lifetime ban
from all cycling related events. The charges could also strip him of
prize money as well as his bronze medal from the 2000 Olympic
Games.
The question that then remains is what will happen to Lance Armstrong's
legacy, a legacy Armstrong spent years building.
As a child Armstrong never had a father; before he was born his father
left his mom and never came back. Armstrong was born to
his mother when she was only 17 years old.
When he was at the peak of his career he was diagnosed with stage
III testicular cancer. Doctors gave him less than a 50 percent
chance of surviving, but he miraculously pulled through with
round after round of chemo treatments.
After he was cleared, he found the courage to get back on his bike.
Armstrong trained harder than anyone else, subjecting himself to
days riding through pouring rain and churning up mountains,
climbing more vertical feet in a day than most of us will in a lifetime.
The training paid off as he blew his competition away in the
Alps and Pyrenees on his way to an unprecedented seven Tour victories.
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