American cyclist, Lance Armstrong, stripped of 2000 Olympic bronze

Posted by admin American Politics, Headlines Friday, January 18th, 2013

Lance Armstrong has been stripped of his 2000 Olympic Games cycling time trial bronze medal by the International Olympic Committee, continuing the once dominant rider’s spectacular fall from grace after a doping storm.

“We have written asking for the return of the medal from the Sydney 2000 Games,” an IOC official told Reuters on Thursday after the decision to take away the last major title held by the disgraced American.

The retired Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life by the International Cycling Union in October after several riders testified that he took drugs.

The testimony came in a United States Anti-Doping Agency report in which the 41-year-old’s former US Postal team was accused of running “the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen”.

Armstrong, a cancer survivor who founded the Livestrong Foundation, has always denied wrongdoing but is due to appear on US television later on Thursday with reports saying he will confess to taking banned substances.

CBS Television reported on Tuesday the former rider had offered to pay more that $5 million to the US government in compensation for an alleged fraud against the US Postal Service, which for years sponsored his cycling team.

The network also said he had offered to co-operate as a witness in a US investigation but the Department of Justice turned down his request, raising the prospect that he could yet serve time in prison.

Armstrong’s interview with talkshow host Oprah Winfrey, taped earlier this week, was billed to be broadcast later on Thursday.

The 2000 bronze was the only Olympic medal Armstrong ever claimed despite dominating cycling by winning the Tour from 1999 to 2005.
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