Lance Armstrong was on Monday stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles and given a life ban as cycling's world governing body said the US rider should be permanently erased from the sport's history for doping.
"Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling... He deserves to be forgotten in cycling," Pat McQuaid, president of the International Cycling Union (UCI), said, calling the scandal "the biggest crisis" the sport had faced.
In a highly anticipated announcement, seen by some as a key marker of the UCI's determination to battle doping in the sport, McQuaid said the UCI backed the US Anti-Doping Agency's decision to erase Armstrong's entire career since Aug 1, 1998. Cycling federations, race organisers and former riders broadly welcomed the decision as an inevitable step. USADA chief Travis Tygart said cycling must seize this moment to end a code of silence that allowed doping to flourish.
"There are many more details of doping that are hidden, many more doping doctors, and corrupt team directors and the omerta has not yet been fully broken," said Mr Tygart, whose agency painstakingly built a damning case against Armstrong based on testimony of witnesses that included some former team-mates who themselves admitted cheating.
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