Another idol with feet of clay...

[sandyRoe]

http://www.telegraph....-banned-for-life.html

Is there no way to get drug abuse out of this great sport?

[Mattk]

He has spent 3 years fighting the charges and got nowhere so I understand why he has given up.
His last le Tour win was in 2005 so would every winner be subjected to such a massive investigation for such a long period?
Should it be left until 2019 until Bradley Wiggins is officially recognised as this years winner just in case they find some drug in the future?

[woofgang]

EPO is widely used as part of the treatment for cancer. It speeds up production of red blood cells by triggering the body's natural replacement mechanism. I can see why he is fed up with fighting if the only case against him is that he took EPO.
I agree it is confused by the suggestion that other competitors were using it without his medical justification.

[Mattk]

The thing that stands out for me is that drugs cheats, once accused, usually quit their sport. Armstrong kept coming back year after year after year and even returned from retirement. That doesn't sound like a guilty drugs cheat to me.

[Mrsspagnoli57]

Personally find it impossible that this man would be able to take all the body sapping cancer treatment and come through it to ride in the Tour, let alone win it without some kind of performance enhancing drug. If he is such a 'superman' he has defied medical science but I feel he's just deluded everyone else into believing, like Florence Griffiths Joyner before him, that he has achieved his records on a level playing field. If he's been found guilty he must lost his titles.

[snags]

Looks like the USADA have got their way: according to the BBC Sports website at 5.34pm today, Armstrong has been found guilty and stripped of his Tour wins so congratulations to Messrs Ullrich, Zulla, Beloki, Kloden & Basso.

Oh hang on, Ulrich and Basso are also guilty of doping offences. What a farce.

[mightyWBA]

Armstrong has just had enough of the continual hounding of him by the USADA.
He took and passed 500 drug tests during his time as a cyclist,were all those tests flawed?.
Everybody has a limit as to how much harassment they can take.

[douglas9401]

The whole thing stinks! Has he upset someone very powerful in the US at some point? Time for some of that investigative journalism they're famed for.