Lance Armstrong USADA report
Lance Armstrong and his cronies orchestrated what is now being called “the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever” right under the noses of the bosses of the International Cycling Union, known as the UCI, and yet the two men who led that organization in the Armstrong era – Hein Verbruggen and his successor Pat McQuaid – are still chugging along as if nothing happened.
Some have questioned the moral leadership this pair showed during cycling’s darkest hour; amid revelations that Armstrong led a sophisticated doping ring through his whole Tour de France career, McQuaid and Verbruggen took the bold step of suing Paul Kimmage, a journalist who was hostile to them and Lance, and also took the time to write taunting emails to Floyd Landis, the whistleblower who finally notified the authorities about the corruption that happened on McQuaid and Verbruggen’s watch.
Both Landis and Kimmage accused McQuaid and Verbruggen of complicity in the Armstrong cover-up, and the men have a right to defend themselves. But they’ve got more to worry about now that U.S. Anti-Doping Agency president and CEO Travis Tygart is calling them out.
Tygart, who led the fight to get Armstrong stripped of his titles and banned from sports, told a French Senate panel Thursday that the UCI has been spinning its wheels ever since USADA published a massive report that revealed the hive of cheating that thrived at the center of cycling for more than a decade.
“It is unacceptable for the UCI to have accepted our reasoned decision, publicly announced that ‘decisive action was needed' and simply have done nothing,” Tygart said, according to Reuters.
Earlier this year, the UCI aborted an independent commission investigating the Armstrong affair, and has yet to realize the “decisive action” it promised after Armstrong was finally exposed. Tygart told the French Senate panel he thought McQuaid’s organization was stalling on purpose, hoping people would forget what happened.
“It sends a strong and frightening message to others: you'd better not come forward,” said Tygart, who last week was named in Time magazine’s annual list of 100 most influential people. The Daily News profiled Tygart and his organization last July, just as USADA zeroed in on Armstrong, a Time 100 mainstay who has now admitted that his career was “one big lie.”
Source : Daily News
