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Former cyclist Lance Armstrong is planning to return to competitive sport as a swimmer.
Lance Armstrong, 41, has entered the Masters South Central Zone Swimming Championships in Texas this weekend.
The sportsman is able to compete as US Masters Swimming events are not subject to USA or World Anti-Doping Agency codes.
Former cyclist Lance Armstrong is planning to return to competitive sport as a swimmer
Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles after deciding not to defend doping charges filed against him in August 2012.
He is scheduled to compete in freestyle races over 500 yards, 1,000 yards and 1,650 yards at the event held in his home city of Austin.
Lance Armstrong will compete with swimmers his own age or older. His first race, the 1,650 yards freestyle, takes place on Friday.
US Masters Swimming executive director Rob Butcher said he had not received any objections to Lance Armstrong competing in the event.
“The purpose of our organisation is to encourage adults to swim,” Rob Butcher told the Austin American-Statesman newspaper.
Lance Armstrong was charged by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in June 2012 with using performance-enhancing drugs.
The cyclist filed a lawsuit against the organisation the following month, accusing it of “corrupt inducements” to other cyclists to testify against him.
However, Lance Armstrong then announced he would not fight the charges and was given a life ban by USADA.
In January, Lance Armstrong confessed to taking performance-enhancing drugs during all seven of his Tour de France wins between 1999 and 2005 in a television interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Former cyclist Lance Armstrong has said he will not agree to be interviewed under oath by the United States Anti Doping Agency (USADA).
Lance Armstrong, 41, admitted taking performance-enhancing drugs during his seven of his Tour de France wins in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
By speaking to USADA, Lance Armstrong would have been eligible to have a lifetime ban overturned.
But a statement said the former cyclist “will not participate in prosecutions… that only demonize selected individuals”.
Lance Armstrong was initially given until February 6 to meet USADA officials but was allowed a further two weeks to decide whether to be interviewed.
His statement, released by his attorney Tim Herman, said he is willing to help with the investigation but will not be interviewed by USADA.
It added: “Lance is willing to cooperate fully and has been very clear: He will be the first man through the door, and once inside will answer every question, at an international tribunal formed to comprehensively address pro cycling, an almost exclusively European sport.
“We remain hopeful that an international effort will be mounted, and we will do everything we can to facilitate that result.
“In the meantime, for several reasons, Lance will not participate in USADA’s efforts to selectively conduct American prosecutions that only demonize selected individuals while failing to address the 95% of the sport over which USADA has no jurisdiction.”
Lance Armstrong has said he will not agree to be interviewed under oath by the USADA
Lance Armstrong was charged by USADA in June 2012 with using performance-enhancing drugs.
He filed a lawsuit against the organisation the following month, accusing them of “corrupt inducements” to other cyclists to testify against him.
However, Lance Armstrong then announced in August that he would not fight the doping charges filed against him, and was given a life ban by USADA and stripped of his Tour de France titles.
The findings were accepted by the International Cycling Union.
Lance Armstrong, who retired from cycling in 2005 but returned to the sport between 2009 and 2012, has called for a ‘truth and reconciliation commission’ overseen by the World Anti-Doping Agency to look into the issue of doping in the sport.
Former US cyclist Lance Armstrong has apologized to the staff at his Livestrong Foundation, amid reports that he may admit doping in a TV interview.
Lance Armstrong made the personal apology during private conversations in Austin, Texas, a foundation spokeswoman said.
His interview with Oprah Winfrey is due to be aired on Thursday, January 17.
Lance Armstrong, 41, was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles by the sport’s governing body last year. He has maintained his innocence.
“He had a private conversation with the staff, who have done the important work of the foundation for many years,” Livestrong Foundation spokeswoman Katherine McLane was quoted as saying by Reuters.
“It was a very sincere and heartfelt expression of regret over any stress that they’ve suffered over the course of the last few years as a result of the media attention,” she added.
Lance Armstrong, who also received a lifetime ban from governing body the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), was reportedly close to tears.
It was not quite a confession of sustained cheating, but that is what many in the cycling world and across America are expecting to hear when they tune in to the cyclist’s interview on January 17.
The recording of the TV interview – his first since being stripped of his wins – started later on Monday.
Lance Armstrong has apologized to the staff at his Livestrong Foundation, amid reports that he may admit doping in a TV interview
A spokeswoman for the Oprah show said last week that Lance Armstrong was not being paid to appear and that Oprah Winfrey was free to ask him any question she wanted.
The choice of America’s favorite agony aunt to conduct the interview suggests that Lance Armstrong is prepared to make some kind of confession.
At the weekend, Lance Armstrong told the Associated Press: “I’m calm, I’m at ease and ready to speak candidly.”
He declined to go into further details.
Lance Armstrong ended his fight against doping charges in August 2012.
In October, USADA released a 1,000-page report saying he had been at the heart of “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping programme” ever seen in sport.
Lance Armstrong also later resigned as chairman of the Livestrong Foundation, the cancer charity he created.
His lawyer, Tim Herman, has described the USADA report as a “one-sided hatchet job” and the cyclist himself has accused the agency of offering “corrupt inducements” to other riders to speak out against him.
It is believed he is considering an admission because he wants to resume his athletic career, and has shown an interest in competing in triathlons.
Lance Armstrong has reportedly held recent discussions with other cyclists who have themselves confessed to doping.
But there are a number of obstacles to a full confession.
The New York Times has reported Lance Armstrong’s supporters are concerned he could face perjury charges if he confesses to using performance-enhancing drugs, because he made sworn testimony in a 2005 court case that he had never done so.
In addition, Lance Armstrong faces a number of legal cases.
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Former cyclist Lance Armstrong, who was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping last October, is said to be considering admitting publicly that he used banned performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions during his disgraced cycling career.
Lance Armstrong, 41, is reported to have told anti-doping officials that he will make a public admission of guilt in the hope than he can persuade them to restore his eligibility to compete in triathlons, which have replaced cycling as his sporting passion.
For more than a decade, Lance Armstrong has vehemently denied ever doping, even after anti-doping officials laid out their case against him last October in a report which accused him of running “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen”.
All Lance Armstrong’s results from August 1, 1998 were expunged from the record books, including his seven consecutive Tour de France “wins” from 1999 to 2005, and he was banned from cycling for life.
Up until now Lance Armstrong has refused to cooperate with the investigation and has consistently denied wrongdoing, but he has been under pressure from various fronts 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.
Lance Armstrong is said to be considering admitting publicly that he used banned performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions during his cycling career
According to The New York Times, Lance Armstrong has been in discussions with the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and met the agency’s chief executive, Travis Tygart, in an effort to mitigate the lifetime ban he received for playing a lead role in doping on his Tour-winning teams.
Lance Armstrong is also seeking to meet with David Howman, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Since quitting cycling, Lance 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 Lance Armstrong received his lifetime ban.
According to the 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.
Lance Armstrong has been keeping a low profile since doping revelations ruined his once illustrious career and reputation.
In November he was spotted canoeing in the warm Pacific waters just off Hawaii. The holiday island has become a regular destination for Lance Armstrong to seek refuge, as he throws himself into training for Ironman Triathlon events.
An Ironman Triathlon consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride and a marathon 26.2-mile run, raced in that order and without a break. Most Ironman events have a strict time limit of 17 hours to complete the race.
Cyclist Lance Armstrong has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles by the International Cycling Union.
UCI has accepted the findings of the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s (USADA) investigation into Armstrong.
UCI president Pat McQuaid said: “Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling. He deserves to be forgotten.”
Pat McQuaid added Armstrong had been stripped of all results since 1 August, 1998 and banned for life for doping.
On what he called a “landmark day for cycling”, the Irishman, who became president of UCI in 2005, said he would not be resigning.
“This is a crisis, the biggest crisis cycling has ever faced,” he said.
“I like to look at this crisis as an opportunity for our sport and everyone involved in it to realise it is in danger and to work together to go forward.
“Cycling has a future. This is not the first time cycling has reached a crossroads or that it has had to begin anew.
“When I took over [as president] in 2005 I made the fight against doping my priority. I acknowledged cycling had a culture of doping. Cycling has come a long way. I have no intention of resigning as president of the UCI,” Pat McQuaid said.
“I’m sorry that we couldn’t catch every damn one of them red-handed and throw them out of the sport at the time.”
Lance Armstrong, 41, received a life ban from USADA for what the organisation called “the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen”.
The American, who overcame cancer to return to professional cycling, won the Tour de France in seven successive years from 1999 to 2005.
He has always denied doping but chose not to fight the charges filed against him.
USADA released a 1,000-page report earlier this month which included sworn testimony from 26 people, including 15 riders with knowledge of the US Postal Service Team and the doping activities of its members.
USADA praised the “courage” shown by the riders in coming forward and breaking the sport’s “code of silence”.
Lance Armstrong, who retired in 2005 but returned in 2009 before retiring for good two years later, has not commented on the details of USADA’s report. His lawyer Tim Herman, however, has described it as a “one-sided hatchet job”.
Pat McQuaid said he was “sickened” by what he read in the USADA report, singling out the testimony of Lance Armstrong’s former team-mate David Zabriskie.
“The story he told of how he was coerced and to some extent forced into doping is just mind-boggling,” he said.
“It is very difficult to accept and understand that that went on.
“But cycling has changed a lot since then. What was available to the UCI then was much more limited compared to what is available now. If we had then what we have now, this sort of thing would not have gone on.”
Pat McQuaid was quizzed over the $100,000 donation made by Armstrong to the UCI in 2002, one year after the American cyclist had had a suspicious test for EPO at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland.
The management committee of the UCI will meet on Friday to discuss whether to reallocate Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France titles and prize money.
Cyclist Lance Armstrong announces he will no longer fight drug charges from the US anti-doping agency, ahead of a Friday deadline.
In a statement, Lance Armstrong, 40, maintains he is innocent, but says he is weary of the “nonsense” accusations.
The US anti-doping agency (USADA) now says it will ban Lance Armstrong from cycling for life and strip him of his seven Tour de France titles.
Lance Armstrong retired from professional sport in 2011.
USADA alleges he used banned substances as far back as 1996, including the blood-booster EPO, steroid and blood transfusions.
USADA says it will ban Lance Armstrong from cycling for life and strip him of his seven Tour de France titles
Lance Armstrong sued in federal court to block the charges but lost.
“There comes a point in every man’s life when he has to say, <<Enough is enough>>. For me, that time is now,” Lance Armstrong said in the statement.
“I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999.
“Over the past three years, I have been subjected to a two-year federal criminal investigation followed by Travis Tygart’s [USADA’s chief executive] unconstitutional witch hunt.
“The toll this has taken on my family, and my work for our foundation and on me leads me to where I am today – finished with this nonsense.”
Lance Armstrong had been given until 06:00 GMT on Friday to decide whether to continue fighting the USADA charges.
The agency has said that 10 of Lance Armstrong’s former teammates are prepared to testify against him.
The cyclist has accused USADA of offering “corrupt inducements” to other riders.
USADA also accuses Armstrong of being a “ring-leader” of systematic doping on his Tour de France winning teams.
Travis Tygart said shortly after Armstrong’s statement that his agency would ban Lance Armstrong from cycling for life and strip him of his titles, according to AP.
The chief executive described the case as a “heartbreaking” example of a win-at-all costs approach to sports.
However, Lance Armstrong disputed that the USADA has the power to take away his titles.
“USADA lacks jurisdiction even to bring these charges,” his statement said.
The cycling governing body the International Cycling Union (UCI) – which had backed Armstrong’s challenge to challenge USADA’s authority – has so far made no public comments on the latest developments.
Lance Armstrong, who survived testicular cancer prior to his record-breaking Tour wins, retired after the 2005 Tour de France but made a comeback in 2009.
He retired for a second time in February 2011.
Lance Armstrong now says he will be focusing on the work with his cancer charity.
