[Update 2:45 p.m.: USADA’s 202-page summary of its case is now live here.]
Armstrong officially dropped his fight against the USADA charges in late August, but maintains that he never used performance-enhancing drugs during what was one of the greatest professional careers in the history of cycling.
“The evidence shows beyond any doubt that the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen,” USADA said in a statement today previewing the release.
The anti-doping agency sent its dossier on Armstrong and his old cycling team to the World Anti-Doping Agency and the international bodies that govern cycling and triathlon earlier today as part of what is known as its “reasoned decision” explaining why it decided to ban the famed cancer survivor from competition earlier this year and strip him of his record-setting seven Tour de France titles.
According to Travis Tygart, the man who led the doping investigation, USADA’s file on Armstrong and his former pro team is several hundred pages thick and includes sworn testimony from more than two dozen people, including 11 of Armstrong’s former teammates who the agency said have admitted to doping themselves and have suggested that Armstrong not only doped but encouraged his supporting cast to do the same. Among those former teammates named in the release are some of the biggest names in American pro cycling, including Levi Leiphimer and George Hincapie.
More from USADA:
The evidence also includes direct documentary evidence including financial payments, emails, scientific data and laboratory test results that further prove the use, possession and distribution of performance enhancing drugs by Lance Armstrong and confirm the disappointing truth about the deceptive activities of the USPS Team, a team that received tens of millions of American taxpayer dollars in funding. Together these different categories of eyewitness, documentary, first-hand, scientific, direct and circumstantial evidence reveal conclusive and undeniable proof that brings to the light of day for the first time this systemic, sustained and highly professionalized team-run doping conspiracy.
The full report, along with the what sanctions the agency is imposing on those cyclists who admitted doping, will be published on www.usada.org later today. [Update 2:45 p.m.: USADA’s 202-page summary of its case is now live here.]
