- Lance Armstrong banned from cycling for life
1727 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid closes the press conference by saying: The UCI is listening and will listen, cycling has future … nothing like this must happen again.
1725 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: We used the money to help fight doping. It was done and done openly and the money was put to good use. We’re not as rich as Fifa.
1720 IST
Despite all the trouble with Armstrong $100k donations, McQuaid says if a current star of today’s Tour offered them money for development or youth programmes they would accept it… but announce it differently. Why should the UCI do this? Have they learned absolutely nothing?
Lance Armstrong paid UCI to help fight doping. UCI failed to discover doping despite testing Armstrong 188 times. Armstrong deserves refund
— Jamie Pandaram (@JamiePandaram) अक्टूबर 22, 2012
1714 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: Will cycling ever be free from doping? I would probably say no. I feel sorry for the guys who raced clean and were beaten by those guys. They must be sore.
1708 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: This is biggest crisis cycling has faced. Hyperbole losing its impact. When written in Chinese the word crisis is composed of two charaters. One is danger and the other opportunity. Our sport is in danger but everyone needs to work together to move forward. Will it ever be free from drugs? “That’s a difficult one to answer … I’ll have to say no … there is no aspect of society with no cheats … but it can be reduced.
1700 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid believes cycling has a chance: Sport advances and the tools to combat doping advance. We have biological passports now. Attitudes in the teams have changed and are changing. There is definitely a path forward.
1700 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: We have special contracts already developed and signed with other anti-doping organsiations. Everyone is following the WADA code so everyone is following the same rules.
1657 IST
The UCI panel says that Floyd Landis’s concerns were investigated but Landis had claimed that there was a positive test for Armstrong that was covered up. The UCI continue to deny that.
1654 IST
UCI has changed story again on the infamous $100k Armstrong donation. Now says the money wasn’t paid until 2005.
Earlier, Fresh questions have emerged over the ‘triangle’ involving disgraced Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, a payment by him to the International Cycling Union (UCI) and a drug-testing laboratory.
The UCI have admitted they accepted a donation of more than US $100,000 from Armstrong in 2002, but have strongly denied it was connected to any cover-up of a positive test.
1647 IST
How can cycling go forward?
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: There are two views to that: One is that by the Sky team in the UK, who don’t want anyone who has anything to do with doping to be part of the sport and the other being that the guys who doped can actually do a lot to help the sport going forward.
This is a good day for clean cycling and it would get better if Hein Verbruggan and Pat McQuaid took the honourable course and resigned.
— David Walsh (@DavidWalshST) अक्टूबर 22, 2012
1646 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: Lance Armstong has no place in cycling. He deserves to be forgotten.
1645 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: I was sickened by what I read in the USADA report but I accept that it did go on.
UCI press pack reveals they tested Armstrong 218 times.
1645 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: A special management committee has been called on Friday to decide whether the other titles will be taken back. Also a ruling on whether the prize money will be recovered.
1645 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: Now a lot of countries have laws against doping. In 2002, there was nothing of the sort.
1642 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: We need more power to fight doping. When you look at the case, you will see that without the police, we would not have managed to catch anyone. It was not until the intervention of the FBI that the riders broke down. The UCI doesn’t have those powers. If you see most of the doping busts were done by the police.
1639 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: UCI’s role is to police and regulate the sport. At any point of time, however, you have to put yourself in the place and time to see what was happening at that time. What was available to UCI at that point was much more limited then. If we had the tools that we have now, the situation would not have arisen.
UCI does not have police powers. We have to go with the system in place. Prior to 2004 — when the WADA came into force. In the early days, we would send a sample for testing and if that came clean, we couldn’t do much. We also had mainly in competition testing. Now, we do. We spend 7.5 million Euros a year to stop doping.
1634 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: When I took over as president in 2005, I made the fight against doping my priority. It still is. Cycling has come a long way since then, there is a lot of evidence that the culture of cycling has changed. There is still a lot more work to be done.
1634 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: We say to cycling community we are here and on your side. Cycling hs a future. Something like this must never happen again.
1632 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling.
1631 IST
UCI chief Pat McQuaid: My message is that cycling has a future. It will find a path forward. It will not appeal to CAS and it will recognize USADA’s sanctions. Lance Armstrong banned from cycling for life and his 7 titles stripped.
1630 IST
The press conference has just started in Geneva. Unconfirmed reports are emerging already that the UCI has taken all of Armstrong’s titles off him.
The backdrop
The Lance Armstrong doping scandal reaches a decisive day today when cycling’s governing body announces whether it has ratified the US Anti-Doping Agency’s sanctions but whatever happens the affair is set to run and run.
Armstrong may be stripped of his 7 titles. Reuters
International Cycling Union (UCI) president Pat McQuaid will hold a news conference at 11 am British time today at which he is widely expected to confirm that Armstrong, 41, is banned for life and loses his record seven Tour de France titles.
Last month, McQuaid said the UCI had no reason to appeal against the USADA decision, adding that the ruling body was waiting to read the reasoned decision and case file published after Armstrong elected not to fight the charges.
The USADA report, released last week, is a 1,000 page document which shows, the Agency says, that Armstrong took part in a doping scheme on way to his unrivalled success on the Tour from 1999-2005.
