GCCMail: Armstrong article by The Los Angeles Times, in full... Danny Lyons 28 Jul 2006 09:21 EDT

hi all,

several people replied to me that the link i sent yesterday was not
working.  sorry for any such issues.  today i've included the entire
article.

ironically, i sent the link out yesterday before the breaking of the
landis doping story.  for those of us who love the sport of cycling,
i find it important (and now quite topical) to promote discussion and
dialogue regarding the doping issue in cycling.

the los angeles times article reports on some of the testimony and
findings of a legal proceeding that armstrong was a party to this
past summer.  the unique aspect of this article is that nobody has
ever before testified under oath, that armstrong once acknowledged to
doctors that he used performance enhancing drugs.  however, armstrong
denies any such acknowledgement.

read and ride on,

:d

•  •  •  •  •

A TIMES INVESTIGATION
Allegations Trail Armstrong Into Another Stage

The seven-time Tour de France champion steadfastly maintains he never
used drugs to boost performance. Sworn testimony in a legal dispute
asserted he did.
By Alan Abrahamson, Times Staff Writer
July 9, 2006

Lance Armstrong was regarded as just another promising cyclist in the
racing pack when he arrived in Paris for the 1999 Tour de France.
Little known outside the sport, his modest personal stats at the Tour
included a 36th-place finish four years earlier. He had missed the
prior two years after undergoing cancer treatment.

But from the first day, seemingly out of nowhere, Armstrong took
control of the 2,290-mile race and cycled into sports history,
winning the first of what would become an unprecedented seven
consecutive victories in the world's premier endurance race.

Now, that feat of athletic domination has been called into question
by allegations that performance-enhancing drugs may have played a
role. Such rumors have long shadowed Armstrong's career, but the
latest assertions are more troublesome — for the first time, they
have been made under oath.

Sworn testimony as well as exhibits and other documents constitute
the record of confidential arbitration proceedings, a series of
closed hearings conducted early this year in Dallas in connection
with a contract dispute.

The Times reviewed the files — including thousands of pages of
transcripts, exhibits and other records. They are filled with
conflicting testimony, hearsay and circumstantial evidence admissible
in arbitration hearings but questionable in more formal legal
proceedings.

The record shows no eyewitnesses to Armstrong's alleged drug use. And
in his own sworn testimony, Armstrong unequivocally denies that he
ever doped. Records also show he has never failed a competition drug
test.

"I would never beat my wife, and I never took performance-enhancing
drugs," he testified in January.

Still, the Texas case provides some of the most serious doping
allegations to date and the first on-the-record outlines of a
possible case against one of the most popular athletes in the United
States.

Among accusations contained in the hearing record were:

•  Testimony with new details about tests in 2004 that apparently
detected drugs in Armstrong's preserved urine samples from the 1999
race.

An Australian anti-doping researcher told arbitrators that the
samples showed evidence "beyond any reasonable doubt" of a banned
substance: synthetic EPO, or erythropoietin. However, a Dutch report
questioned the tests' validity and Armstrong, in his testimony,
rejected the findings and denied using EPO.

•  Testimony that Armstrong once acknowledged to doctors that he'd
used drugs, what one former teammate called "hot sauce."

The wife of a cycling teammate testified that during an Indiana
hospital visit she heard Armstrong tell a doctor he took various
drugs, including steroids. Armstrong denied using drugs and testified
that no such conversation occurred.

•  Testimony of some teammates that they discussed with Armstrong
adopting a doping regimen to improve their Tour competitiveness as
early as 1995.

•  Allegations of prohibited blood transfusions by members of
Armstrong's team in 2005.

In one exchange of computer messages, marked as an exhibit in the
arbitration case and discussed during the hearings, two racing
colleagues referred to refrigerated blood supplies that supposedly
were delivered along the race course by motorcycle couriers.

•  Testimony of a secret Armstrong meeting in a parking lot outside
Milan with a controversial Italian doctor who has publicly defended
the safety of a banned drug.

The doctor, convicted of "sporting fraud" in a 2004 case overturned
by an Italian appeals court this year, had what Armstrong himself
testified was "a dodgy reputation." The American racer acknowledged
monthly meetings with the doctor but denied in his testimony that
drugs were involved.

The arbitration case stemmed from a business dispute between
Armstrong and SCA Promotions Inc. — a Dallas company that had offered
to pay a bonus to the racer if he won the Tour in 2004, which he did.
The company resisted making the payment after allegations of doping
surfaced that summer.

The case was settled before any action by the presiding three-judge
panel, with SCA Promotions agreeing in February to pay the contested
$5-million fee, plus interest and attorney costs.

Though no verdict or finding of facts was rendered, Armstrong called
the outcome proof that the doping allegations were baseless. "It's
over. We won. They lost. I was yet again completely vindicated," he
said in a statement in June.

The newest Armstrong allegations have emerged amid a widening doping
scandal in the current Tour de France, the first without the American
racer since 1998. Some of the sport's top riders were barred when the
race began last weekend. Police raids in Madrid in May linked 58
cyclists to blood doping, including the top three finishers behind
Armstrong in last year's Tour.

Heightened controversy has swirled around Armstrong since initial
reports in France last summer that EPO was detected in the American
racer's 1999 Tour samples.

In a report commissioned by professional cycling's international
governing body, a Dutch lawyer dismissed those doping claims, saying
in May that the test results were botched by a French lab and don't
"constitute evidence of anything."

The Dutch report generated a furious controversy in the cycling world
and added to public confusion over the Armstrong allegations.

At the same time, sports authorities now have the ability to make
greater use of circumstantial evidence in pursuing doping-related
inquiries. In a ruling in December, the Swiss-based Court of
Arbitration for Sport, the final authority for many disputes in the
international sports world, said it must "constantly be borne in mind
… that doping cases can be proved by a variety of means."

In a sign of how seriously Armstrong is taking disclosures in the
arbitration case, the racer has launched a series of public
appearances to vigorously deny that he has ever used illicit substances.

And Armstrong's attorneys e-mailed and sent by certified mail a
subpoena seeking to compel disclosure of how The Times obtained
access to the records. They also dismiss as "misleading or incorrect"
aspects of the case files "leaked to the press in violation of the
explicit orders issued by the Arbitration Tribunal."

The most extensive accusations against Armstrong contained in the
Texas arbitration files revolve around allegations of EPO use.

In cycling, as in other endurance sports such as triathlon or
marathon racing, oxygen equals power.

The science of getting oxygen to the muscles can prove, in practice,
fantastically complex. Yet the underlying theory is simple: The more
red blood cells inside the system, the more oxygen those cells can
carry to the muscles — and thus the harder an athlete can train,
recover and race.

The kidneys produce the hormone erythropoietin. It tells bone marrow
to make red blood cells.

Synthetic EPO is a biotech marvel created in the 1980s to treat
anemia resulting from kidney failure or from cancer chemotherapy. It
mimics the effects of naturally produced EPO and is thus banned by
anti-doping authorities. Riders inject it, in the style of a diabetic
injecting insulin.

By the fall of 1996, according to a 1998 letter sent to racers by an
anti-doping executive of the International Cycling Union, "rumors and
unease over the use of EPO assumed a vast scale. The theory was that
the person who administered the most EPO injections could win the
competition. An untenable situation," said the letter, filed in the
case.

Armstrong was linked to EPO by former racing teammates who testified
in the Texas arbitration. They described a 1995 bike ride in Italy
during which they recalled talking about EPO's potential for making
their Motorola team more competitive.

In a deposition, Stephen Swart testified that "one of the discussions
there was about EPO and how we were still riding at such a
disadvantage to the European teams and having to look seriously on
how to rectify the problem."

Swart, a New Zealander, was asked, "What did Mr. Armstrong say?"

"Well, basically saying that … you know, you have to do what you have
to do," Swart responded.

Questioned about what he understood Armstrong's position to be on the
use of EPO, Swart said, "You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to
figure it out." He said his conclusion at the end of the ride with
Armstrong was that "for us to be competitive at the Tour that year,
that we needed to start a medical program of EPO."

Swart said he tried EPO himself in 1995 but testified that he stopped
because it wasn't "working for me."

Regarding the same bike ride and alleged EPO discussions, a second
teammate, Frankie Andreu, testified of "a general tone about …
stepping up, meaning in training and possibly maybe even
participating, maybe taking EPO … because there were many riders that
were doing it."

Armstrong testified: "I was never party to that conversation. If it
took place — I'm not calling Frankie a liar, but there … there are
many other people he could have had that talk with."

Armstrong was also asked: "Did you begin an EPO program in 1995?"

"The answer is no," he testified.

According to Swart's deposition, he and his teammates — including
Armstrong — had their blood tested during one of the mountain stages
of the 1995 Tour. The team doctor, he said, was checking the riders'
hematocrit level — the percentage of red blood cells in the population.

Anything over 50% leads experts to suspect EPO use; a high hematocrit
reading also prompts medical concerns because a dense concentration
of red blood cells can turn the blood sluggish.

The cycling union would later impose a rule barring any rider with
more than 50% from starting. But in 1995 there was no such rule.

His own hematocrit level, Swart said, was 47. Everyone else on the
team recorded a level over 50, including Armstrong, Swart testified.
The level for most males is about 42.

Asked if he believed Armstrong "was using EPO based on his hematocrit
levels," Swart testified in his deposition: "That's the only way you
could come to that conclusion. There's no other way your hematocrit
would be that high."

Armstrong denied he was using EPO. Under questioning at the
arbitration hearing, he was asked:

"Do you recall if any riders for the Motorola team tested with
hematocrit levels above 50?"

"No … Certainly not myself," Armstrong responded.

There was no test for EPO at that time, nor in 1999 when Armstrong
broke through to win his first Tour de France. Scientists developed
testing methods that were first implemented in professional cycling
in 2001. The tests have always required scientific interpretations
that continue to make them controversial.

As part of a project in 2004 to refine lab procedures, researchers
used archived urine samples from earlier years. That's how a
collection of Armstrong's 1999 race samples happened to be tested
years later.

The results, Australian researcher Michael Ashenden testified in
Dallas, show Armstrong's levels rising and falling, consistent with a
series of injections during the Tour. Ashenden, a paid expert
retained by SCA Promotions, told arbitrators the results painted a
"compelling picture" that the world's most famous cyclist "used EPO
in the '99 Tour."

The tests were conducted on what doping authorities call the "B
sample," the second half of urine samples traditionally used in
doping tests. The "A samples" were used and discarded in 1999.

Armstrong's B samples — actually a collection of several samples
provided at various points throughout the 1999 race — were among
samples of several supposedly anonymous racers taken out of
deepfreeze in 2004.

The process is supposed to involve lab control numbers only, not an
athlete's name. However, a French newspaper matched up Armstrong's
name to at least six positive samples using race documents obtained
from the International Cycling Union.

To make a typical doping case, then and now, authorities must prove a
positive A and B sample. Such conclusive testing is not possible in
the absence of an A sample.

Nonetheless, Ashenden testified that results he analyzed showed a
"patent abuse which very, very closely resembles what I would suspect
to see in an athlete actually using EPO."

Ashenden is a noted expert on blood doping. He coordinated research
resulting in a two-year suspension of another former Armstrong
teammate, Tyler Hamilton, found to be transfusing with someone else's
blood in 2004.

The EPO test separates proteins by their electrical charge — that is,
when a sample is run through an electrically charged gel, it
separates those produced naturally in the body from those of injected
EPO. Scientists then read the intensities and positioning of natural
and injected EPO isoforms, or molecules, on the gel.

Any reading over 80% traditionally was viewed as positive for the
presence of injectable EPO.

Ashenden provided arbitrators with a day-by-day breakdown of
Armstrong's test results from the 1999 samples. For example:

On July 3, 1999, Armstrong won the first race of the Tour — the 4.2-
mile prologue. His doping control form shows he was tested at 9:45
a.m. Ashenden said Armstrong's reading was 100%.

Such a high level, Ashenden testified, "is consistent with an
injection that was received within just a few hours."

July 13, the first day in the Alps, ended in Sestriere, Italy.
Armstrong took a six-minute lead. He was tested at 5:15 p.m. His test
reading: 96.6%, consistent with an injection he "would have received
— could have received earlier in … the day," Ashenden testified.

Tests for the final six racing stages showed "there was never enough
EPO," natural or otherwise, "in any of Armstrong's urine samples to
report a result," Ashenden said.

His explanation: When an athlete takes injectable EPO, the levels of
that injectable EPO fall off day by day. At the same time, the
kidneys have stopped producing natural EPO because the body
recognizes "there's too much blood in his circulation."

The result, he testified, is that there isn't enough EPO of any sort
to measure as the body gets a "chance to come to its … natural
level." The Australian researcher concluded that "not finding enough
EPO in the sample to analyze … you see that when an athlete stops
taking EPO injections."

Ashenden defended the testing process, saying researchers had no way
of knowing whose samples they were testing at the time.

A French newspaper reported last fall that three other racers tested
positive for EPO during the same trials — cyclists from Spain,
Denmark and Colombia. All three cyclists later denied using EPO.

Armstrong's lawyers tried to block Ashenden's testimony, arguing it
was unfair and "unduly prejudicial." The arbitration panel denied
that bid.

Armstrong flatly rejected Ashenden's analysis. He called the claims a
"pure witch hunt."

"When I gave the sample, there was no EPO in the urine," he testified
at the hearings.

In his report made public May 31, Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman said the
French lab that performed those tests did not follow the stringent
protocols required to establish a doping violation. That, in addition
to the missing A samples, would make establishing such a violation
impossible under traditional standards.

Edward Coyle, a University of Texas sports performance researcher
retained as an expert by Armstrong's lawyers, testified that
Armstrong had, post-cancer, not only lost weight, resculpting his
body, but simultaneously improved his power output — thereby
producing a "huge" power surge.

Asked whether he thought Armstrong could win the Tour without doping,
Coyle replied, "Yes, I do, and I believe he can."

Since then, Armstrong has accused the French lab of misconduct and,
in a June 9 letter to the International Olympic Committee, accused
the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) of pressuring the French lab to
produce what he characterized as an "improper report." He blamed WADA
for subsequent press accounts linking him to EPO, and he called for
the IOC to force WADA Chairman Dick Pound to resign.

The IOC, on June 21, said it was "encouraging an independent inquiry."

Accusations arising during the arbitration also turned to the
practice of blood manipulation — a process called "autologous
transfusion" by which racers withdraw, store and then re-inject their
own blood to increase oxygen-bearing red blood cells during
competition. It is a prohibited practice, but difficult to detect.

During an instant-messaging exchange a year ago between two former
Armstrong racing colleagues, Jonathan Vaughters told Frankie Andreu
that transfusing took place during the 2005 Tour.

Their computer conversation took place during the early morning of
July 26, according to testimony, shortly after each had returned from
the 2005 race in France. Andreu was at his suburban Detroit kitchen
table and Vaughters at his home in Colorado.

A printout of the messages — marked as Exhibit 100, discussed in the
hearing and reviewed by The Times — included Vaughters' account of an
elaborate transfusing scheme.

"Yeah, it's very complex how [they] avoid all the controls now, but
it's not any new drug or anything, just the resources and planning to
pull off a well devised plan," said the participant identified as
"Cyclevaughters."

He said the blood was drawn "right after the Dauphine," an apparent
reference to an eight-stage French race in June that is considered an
important tune-up for the Tour de France in July.

Andreu, identified in the transcript as FDREU, asked about the blood
supplies. "How do they sneak it in, or keep it until needed?"

Vaughters responded that the blood was delivered "on the rest day" by
motorcycles equipped with "refridgerated [sic] panniers."

During the 2005 Tour, Armstrong lost the yellow jersey — worn by the
race's leader — to German Jens Voigt at the ninth stage, on Sunday,
July 10. After a rest day on July 11, Armstrong reclaimed the yellow
jersey, finishing second in a 111-mile mountain stage.

"Today I had good legs," Armstrong told reporters afterward.

Vaughters, who did not testify in the hearing, also wrote about
doping during his message exchange, telling Andreu that some teams
were getting "25 injections every day." He also wrote: "It's not like
I never played with hotsauce, eh?"

Reached by telephone recently, Vaughters declined to comment.

Armstrong's attorneys provided an affidavit signed by Vaughters on
Feb. 2 that played down his computer comments to Andreu. Vaughters'
affidavit called his instant-message conversation "nothing more than
… an exchange of second- or third-hand gossip."

It also said Vaughters has "no personal knowledge that any team in
the Tour de France, including Armstrong's Discovery team in 2005,
engaged in any prohibited conduct whatsoever."

The affidavit said his comments "regarding teams and riders in the
session are nothing more than rumors and speculation."

Attorneys for Armstrong called the computer messages "incorrect and
unfair." In an e-mail to The Times, Sean E. Breen, of the Austin-
based law firm Herman, Howry & Breen, said that "the gossip in the
message is unsubstantiated and unreliable" and said Vaughters'
comments to Andreu should not be characterized as "factually based."

Andreu signed a sworn affidavit as well, validating that the instant-
messaging conversation took place as represented in the printout.

The Michigan racer's wife, Betsy Andreu, provided some of the most
hotly contested testimony of the arbitration hearings.

She told the judges that a few days after Armstrong's cancer surgery
a decade ago, she and her husband were among a group of friends
visiting Armstrong at the Indiana University Medical Center in
Indianapolis. The racer had undergone surgery for testicular cancer
that doctors said had spread to his brain.

It was a Sunday, Oct. 27, 1996. She recalled that a Dallas Cowboys
football game was on television in the room.

Armstrong was about to start a post-surgery chemotherapy regimen. Two
doctors came in, asked some "banal questions," she testified, and
then, "boom, 'Have you done any performance-enhancing drugs?' And he
said, 'Yes.'

"And they asked, 'What were they?'

"And Lance said, 'EPO, growth hormone, cortisone, steroid,
testosterone.' "

Frankie Andreu corroborated his wife's recollections in his own
testimony. However, Armstrong sharply disputed their accounts.

"The story is not true," Armstrong testified.

More recently, in response to reports about the Andreu couple's
testimony published last month in The Times and the French newspaper
Le Monde, Armstrong issued a statement calling the couple's version
"absurd and untrue."

Adam Paskoff, a lawyer representing the couple, said in a telephone
interview that they "answered honestly and truthfully under court
order."

One doctor who supervised Armstrong's cancer care said in an
arbitration affidavit that he had "no recollection" of any
declaration of prior EPO use by Armstrong. Dr. Craig Nichols,
although not identified as among those present at the Indiana
hospital with the Andreus in 1996, said in his affidavit that "Lance
Armstrong never admitted, suggested or indicated that he has ever
taken performance-enhancing drugs."

Armstrong did take EPO during his racing hiatus for cancer treatment.
Nichols acknowledged in his affidavit that he administered EPO to the
racer in 1996 to offset the side effects of his chemotherapy.

After January 1997, Nichols said, neither he nor his colleagues gave
Armstrong any additional EPO. "There would have been no reason to do
so" once chemotherapy ended, he said.

The prescribed EPO could not have had any performance-enhancing
impact on Armstrong's cycling months or years later, Nichols said,
because its effects only "last for approximately two weeks."

Betsy Andreu's arbitration testimony also put a spotlight on
Armstrong's relationship with controversial Italian doctor Michele
Ferrari. She described riding along on a secret rendezvous between
Armstrong and the doctor in a parking lot outside Milan.

Ferrari was waiting in a camper van. The site was selected, Andreu
testified, "so [Armstrong] wouldn't be seen with him."

Armstrong did not dispute the meeting. "I was in there for a brief
meeting, check body fat and body composition and 15 minutes later we
are gone," he testified.

"But I understand the insinuation that I went in and got doped up the
day before [the race]. I've heard that, but that's not what happened."

Ferrari once defended EPO, telling the French newspaper L'Equipe in
1994 that the synthetic hormone "is not dangerous; it's the abuse
that is. It's also dangerous to drink 10 liters of orange juice."

In 2004, an Italian court convicted Ferrari of "sporting fraud" after
a trial in which an Italian cyclist testified that the doctor had
advised him to use EPO and steroids. That conviction was overturned
in May by a Bologna appeals court, which ruled that the evidence was
insufficient to support the verdict.

In testimony, Armstrong called Ferrari's reputation "dodgy." Ferrari,
responding to questions from The Times, said about their secret
meetings:

"Those were the times when it wasn't appropriate for him to be seen
with someone labeled as a 'bad guy,' like I was at the time."

However, Armstrong said he regarded the doctor as a genius on such
matters as "altitude issues." Ferrari also was an expert on diet and
on such cycling-specific issues as cadence, the racer said.

And despite the doctor's reputation, Armstrong testified, he "never
had any reason to believe that this guy was dirty."

In testimony, Armstrong said Ferrari did not prescribe, administer or
suggest any kind of drug or doping program.

Ferrari, who credited Armstrong's success to hard work, said that in
cycling "suspicions are ever-present, kicking in every time an
athlete pulls off a good performance. Suddenly mystery surrounds it
all, assuming some sort of magic or chemical formula."

In response to The Times, Ferrari said he neither provided drugs to
Armstrong nor suggested any.

Frankie Andreu testified that Armstrong once showed him "an
assortment of little round pills" that Armstrong said he took "at
different parts during the race, like 50 kilometers to the end, 30
kilometers to the end."

Andreu said, "I have absolutely no idea what they were."

They were caffeine pills, Armstrong said in his testimony.

"If you want a confession, I'm a bit of a coffee fiend. That's the
extent of my performance-enhancing drugs," he told the arbitration
panel.

Only high concentrations of caffeine have ever been restricted. Three
years ago, WADA removed caffeine entirely from its list of banned
substances.

Questions about EPO use came up again in testimony by onetime
Armstrong friend and three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond.
In deposition testimony, LeMond said the two racers had a falling out
in 2001 after a heated phone exchange.

LeMond testified Armstrong said to him in that call, " 'Oh, come on.
You're telling me you never did EPO? Everybody does EPO.' "

Again, Armstrong adamantly denied that he used EPO or that he had
such a conversation with LeMond.

"I would not admit to a doctor or a friend or Greg LeMond that I had
taken a substance when I have never taken them," Armstrong testified
during the hearings in January.

In an earlier deposition, Armstrong also said LeMond's version of the
call and his own recollection were "completely opposite … because
Greg, who I know has serious drinking and drug problems, is — was
clearly intoxicated, yelling, screaming."

In a telephone interview, LeMond said, "I have never been treated for
alcoholism. I have never been treated for drug addiction. Have I been
drunk in my life? Absolutely. You go to a bike race, everybody's
drinking. Do I have a drinking problem? Absolutely not. That is just
his way of trashing me."

LeMond declined to comment further.

In the end, the sometimes wildly conflicting testimony provided
during the Texas hearings never had to be reconciled by the panel of
impartial judges. Both sides agreed to settle at the close of testimony.

The legal dispute centered on a contract between Armstrong and SCA
Promotions. The company had agreed to pay the racer a $5-million
bonus if he won the 2004 race, his sixth in succession, but the firm
threatened to back out when questions arose about possible doping.

Armstrong sued in a Texas court and the case was sent to arbitration.

In a key decision prior to settlement, the arbitration judges ruled
that SCA was acting as an insurer — a role that exposed it to
potential triple damages, at least $15 million, if it lost the suit.

The $7.5-million settlement SCA paid to Armstrong included interest
and attorney fees.

Throughout the hearings Armstrong asserted that he always competed
drug-free throughout his career, including the 1999 race.

"I'll go to my grave knowing that when I urinated in the bottle, it
was clean," he testified in January.

*

*

Evidence of a banned substance?

Archived urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France were later
retested for the presence of synthetic erythropoietin, or EPO, which
can boost an athlete's performance by increasing the oxygen available
to muscles. Samples allegedly taken from winner Lance Armstrong at
various points along the 2,290-mile route showed the probable
presence of EPO in the 2004 tests, according to testimony and
evidence in Texas arbitration hearings.

Results of the tests

A blood doping expert retained by litigants in the arbitration case
testified that his analysis of EPO tests found results consistent
with a series of injections during the Tour. A reading of 80% or
higher was considered positive for EPO.

Prologue, July 3: 2004 analysis of sample taken after this 4.2-mile
sprint showed reading of 100%. Such a level is consistent with an
injection within hours of the race.

Stage 1, July 4: 89.7%.

Stage 8, July 11: The next sample tested was from this 34.8-mile time
trial. A positive reading via "visual interpretation" but no
percentage reported.

Stage 9, July 13: 96.6%. The first mountain stage.

Stage 10, July 14: 88.7%.

Stage 11, July 15: Missing.

Stage 12, July 16: 95.2%.

Stage 13, July 17: Positive reading via visual interpretation but no
percentage reported.

Stage 14, July 18: 89.4%.

Stages 15-20, July 20-25: EPO levels undetectable. The retained
expert called these results consistent with what would be expected in
an athlete who had ceased taking EPO injections.

Armstrong's cycling career

1993: First full season as a professional cyclist. Crowned world
champion in Oslo. Earns one stage win in Tour de France, but fails to
make it to the end, pulling out of the race in the mountains.

1994: Best result this year is a second place in the Liege-Bastogne-
Liege.

1995: Wins several one-day cycling events, including the premier U.S.
cycling event, the Tour DuPont. After Armstrong's teammate Fabio
Casartelli crashes and dies during the Tour de France, Armstrong wins
one stage but finishes 36th overall.

1996: Wins Tour DuPont again. But he abandons the Tour de France and
has a disappointing Olympic Games prior to receiving a diagnosis of
testicular cancer in October. Doctors give him a 50% chance of
survival after the cancer spreads to his lungs and brain.

1997: Declared cancer free and joins U.S. Postal team in October.

1998: Returns to cycling.

1999: First Tour de France victory.

2000: Tour de France win No. 2.

2001: Tour de France win No. 3.

2002: Tour de France win No. 4.

2003: Tour de France win No. 5.

2004: Record-breaking sixth Tour de France victory.

2005: Armstrong announces he will retire from cycling after the Tour
de France, which he wins for a seventh consecutive time.

Testing positive, by sport

Cycling produced the most positive tests for banned substances of any
Olympic sport, according to a 2005 report. The sport also yielded the
highest percentage of positive tests. Here is a look at some of the
figures, made public June 12:

Tested
Number
% positive

positive
tested

Cycling
482
12,751
3.78%

Baseball
390
10,580
3.69
Boxing
83
2,433
3.41
Triathlon
74
2,170
3.41
Archery
25
850
2.94
*

Sources: Transcripts of arbitration hearing testimony by Michael
Ashenden in Lance Armstrong vs. SCA Promotions, Inc.; 1999 Tour
doping control forms; 1999 Tour map, stage distances from http://
www.memoire-du-cyclisme ; Tour de France Society; US Geological
Survey; Landsat Imagery; BBC Sport; Tour de France; World Anti-Doping
Agency

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