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Caso Armstrong – Reasoned Decision of the United States Anti-Doping Agency

A USADA – United States Anti-Doping Agency colocou hoje online o processo de investigação do caso Lance Armstrong, com a informação enviada à UCI – União Ciclista Internacional, incluindo um relatório detalhado “Reasoned Decision of the United States Anti-Doping Agency on Disqualification and Ineligibility“, com um total de cerca de 200 páginas, de que transcrevo alguns excertos:

On August 24, 2012, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced it had imposed a sanction of lifetime ineligibility and disqualification of competitive results achieved since August 1, 1998, on United States athlete Lance Armstrong. Mr. Armstrong’s sanction was announced at that time by USADA because Mr. Armstrong had notified USADA that he was refusing to contest the evidence against him in a hearing before neutral arbitrators. […]

This Reasoned Decision includes a summary of the overwhelming evidence that demonstrates that Mr. Armstrong doped throughout the majority of his professional cycling career. Among the evidence in this case are the sworn statements of more than two dozen (24+) witnesses, including fifteen (15) professional cyclists, and a dozen (12) members of Armstrong’s cycling teams, including eleven (11) former teammates and his former soigneur (masseuse). […]

The most critical evidence assembled by USADA and discussed in this Reasoned Decision has come from Mr. Armstrong’s former teammates and former employees of the United States Postal Service (“U.S. Postal Service” or “USPS”) and Discovery Channel cycling teams who decided that it was the right thing to do for clean sport to come forward and provide evidence to USADA regarding what they knew. As a consequence of a number of courageous riders willingness to break the Code of Silence—the “omerta”—after being approached by USADA, by late May 2012 USADA concluded it had more than enough evidence to proceed with charges against former USPS and Discovery Channel Team Director Johan Bruyneel, former USPS and/or Discovery Channel doctors Pedro Celaya, Luis Garcia del Moral and Michele Ferrari and Team Trainer Jose “Pepe” Marti and against Mr. Armstrong.

USADA also reached out to Mr. Armstrong, communicating with four of his attorneys and giving Mr. Armstrong the opportunity to come in and sit down with USADA and cooperate with USADA’s investigation as had many of Mr. Armstrong’s teammates. Mr. Armstrong, however, refused to meet with USADA, setting in motion the sequence of events that led to USADA’s charges and ultimately to Mr. Armstrong’s sanction by USADA in accordance with the rules. […]

However, as demonstrated in this Reasoned Decision, the achievements of the USPS/Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team, including those of Lance Armstrong as its leader, were accomplished through a massive team doping scheme, more extensive than any previously revealed in professional sports history. More than a dozen of Armstrong’s teammates, friends and former team employees confirm a fraudulent course of conduct that extended over a decade and leave no doubt that Mr. Armstrong’s career on the USPS/Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team was fueled from start to finish by doping.

10 Outubro, 2012 at 9:59 pm 1 comentário