Ten sentences of the Armstrong case on the alleged doping
The year was 1999 and the Italian Marco Pantani had been excluded from the Giro due to excessive hematocrit in his blood. Lance Armstrong reacted with surprise and criticized that “very bad things” were being said about cycling.
Thirteen years later, the anti-doping agency U.S. USADA accuses the seven-time Tour winner of having consumed prohibited substances, EPO and corticosteroids among them, an accusation that the cyclist categorically rejects. “I have never doped,” he said on Wednesday.
Versions about Armstrong's alleged doping have been circulating for years. The Texan runner has always denied them.
The 10 most significant phrases in this case are the following:
-06 / 06 / 1999: “Very bad things have been said about cycling. But I am proof that cycling and sport they are not synonymous with doping” (in reaction to the Pantani case).
-08 / 07 / 1999: “I ask the media to avoid any type of speculation, which could overshadow the transparency of the anti-doping procedures and the serenity of the riders” (UCI president, Hein Verbruggen, confronting a French newspaper about alleged cases of positives for corticosteroids from Armstrong, the Dane Bo Hamburger, the Colombian Jaime Castelblanco and the Spaniard Manuel Beltran.
-21 / 07 / 1999: "Lance Armstrong is totally clean" (UCI statement after media versions French who accuse the leader of the Tour of doping with corticosteroids).
-13 / 12 / 2000: “If the present situation continues its course, I will not participate in the Tour de France in 2001…We are completely innocent. We are a very professional and clean team” (Armstrong in response to judicial investigations in France into his team, the US Postal).
-04 / 09 / 2001: “We have learned that the urine samples (collected during the last edition of the Tour) do not contain any trace of EPO or any other prohibited substance, which only confirms what we already knew” (Armstrong).
-23 / 08 / 2005"L'Equipe reports that my 1999 samples had tested positive (for EPO). Unfortunately, the witch hunt continues and the article is another piece of sensational journalism” (Armstrong).
-26 / 08 / 2005: “All this makes no sense, it's disgusting and if there was an athlete who has undergone dozens of anti-doping tests, it was me” (Armstrong).
-20 / 05 / 2010: “We have nothing to hide, nothing to run from. It's their word against ours. I value our words, our credibility” (Armstrong in response to the doping accusations of his compatriot Floyd Landis).
-04 / 02 / 2012: "This is great news. Lance is glad that the United States attorney made the right decision…” (Mark Fabiani, the athlete's lawyer, after federal prosecutors filed the investigation resulting from Landis' complaints).
-13 / 06 / 2012: “I have never doped” (Armstrong after USADA accused him of doping).
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