USADA report contains "the same, old, worn-out stuff": Armstrong spokesman

The US Anti-Doping Agency's (USADA) report into the lifetime ban handed to Lance Armstrong is set to be delivered over the next week to the UCI and WADA but according to the former cyclist's spokesman, he is unconcerned by what it might contain.

On September 26, two more weeks were added to the report's delivery date.

"USADA is in the process of finalizing the written reasoned decision in its U.S. Postal Services pro cycling doping case. We will provide the reasoned decision addressing the lifetime bans and disqualifications imposed to the UCI and WADA as provided for under the world rules. We expect it to be sent no later than October 15."

On Sunday, Armstrong's spokesman Mark Fabiani told the New York Times that the release of the report was a non-issue.

"This is all the same, old, worn-out stuff that Usada and others have been peddling for years and that almost everyone has already made up their minds about," Fabiani said via email.

Armstrong was accused by USADA in June of doping during his career, using EPO, blood transfusions, corticosteroids and growth hormones, as well as facilitating doping by his teammates and conspiring to cover up doping activities by USADA. Armstrong tried to fight the system itself in a Texas court, but Judge Sam Sparks ruled that the proper place for the charges to be addressed was in the sport arbitration process.

Armstrong then declined to fight the charges through the arbitration process, and by default was given the lifetime ban and disqualification of his results by USADA.

The UCI stated late last month that if it determines that the process followed the rules, it would uphold the decision, but cannot do so until it receives USADA's reasoned decision.

In an interview last week with LAVA, Armstrong claimed that his conscience was clear, and consistently pushed a for everyone concerned to move on.

"It's their drama. Not mine," he told the US publication.

"I was raised in a way, and maybe my mom was this way, and her life wasn't perfect, it was complicated. But she always looked forward. She looked a day, and a month, and a year, and 10 years from now. Some people don't do that. They sit around and talk about the past. You always get high-school friends who sit around and talk about "hey remember that time?" and I'm like "why are you asking me about that?"

"I wake up and my mind and my conscience and my view on my life and my world, my future and my kids' future is perfectly clear."

 

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