For more than a decade and with countless cases brought against him, Lance Armstrong has vehemently denied doping during his long successful career as a cyclist. However this past fall antidoping officials laid out their case against him in hundreds of pages of eyewitness testimony from teammates, e-mail correspondence, financial records and laboratory analyses. Armstrong was subsequently stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and barred for life from competing in all Olympic sports. He is now considering finally confessing. Read more after the jump.
He would do this, the people said, because he wants to persuade antidoping officials to restore his eligibility so he can resume his athletic career.
Armstrong has hopes of competing in triathlons and running events, but those competitions are often sanctioned by organizations that adhere to the World Anti-Doping Code, under which Armstrong received his lifetime ban.
According to the World Anti-Doping Code, an athlete might be eligible for a reduced punishment if he fully confesses and details how he doped, who helped him dope and how he got away with doping. But a reduced lifetime ban might decrease only to eight years or four, at best, antidoping experts said.
There are other forces who have been urging Armstrong to confess. Wealthy supporters of Livestrong, the charity he founded after surviving testicular cancer, have been trying to persuade him to come forward so he could clear his conscience and save the organization from further damage, one person with knowledge of the situation said.
Several legal cases and lawsuits however stand in the way of a confession so it’s unsure of whether or not he will do it. I’m saddened by this news as long supporter of Armstrong. I hope he does what’s best for himself as well as his charity.
