Lance Armstrong returns as a podcaster, but it should not be authorized near cycling

Nevertheless, this indelible image of Armstrong Kickin ‘in his study, seven yellow jerseys framed still hung on the wall, years after his name was hit records. Distrust, in the face of certainty and reason.

Why is this relevant in 2025? Pogačar was a seven-year-old child the last time that Armstrong stood victorious, camoured in yellow on the Champs-Élysées. Because Armstrong is back (if it has indeed left).

Not as a cyclist. Not as a team or team owner. But as a sponsor. As a person who wants to put their trailer harnessed to the marketing of professional cycling. Armstrong these days is shifted to become a podcaster. His podcast, theyove, on professional cycling, triathlon and other endurance sports, the fair kill. Apparently.

George Hincie. A former Armstrong teammate, whose name appears at least 287 times in the reasoned decision of the USADA concerning Armstrong (I counted), because the testimony under the oath of Hincie, including concerning his own use of prohibited substances, was one of the evidence on which Armstrong was prohibited for life.

Hincie had retired by August 2012. For his part, he was nevertheless suspended for six months at the end of 2012 for his fault. His personal results obtained during the previous tours of France while he was doped was deleted.

But now, in addition to being a podcaster, Hincapie owns Modern Adventure Pro Cycling. A new American team in the end stated in the end, but in a short period of time, obtaining a professional license from the first division of the International Cycling Federation, the UCI. This license would in turn allow the entry of Modern Adventure to the biggest races and the big visits of a day of Pro Cycling. The Tour de France included.

The question then becomes one of how can it happen? How could Armstrong Podcast insignia have the potential to be splashed through the livery of a professional cycling team that could one day compete on the largest scene in sport?

The sanction by USADA of a period of inseligibility and lifelong disqualification of all the competitive results that Armstrong has obtained since 1998, remains in force. No call has moved this sentence to life.

Ineligibility by definition in terms of anti -doping means that a person thus sanctioned is prohibited, due to their violations of anti -doping rules, during a period of specified time by participating in any competition or other activity.

If Armstrong had been sanctioned for his misconduct not as an athlete but as a coach, director or other non -athlete staff, his life ban would be seized by the rules of the prohibited association appearing in the AMA code. These make it a separate offense for an athlete to continue to associate a coach, for example, who serves a prohibition for doping.

But because Armstrong was sanctioned as an athlete, not as a coach, these rules of the prohibited association do not apply. Which is a final point that highlights a blatant gap in the AMA rules.

The motivated decision of the USADA is built on the basis of the declarations of witnesses and the affidavits received of more than two dozen professional cyclists and the non-command of the American postal team of Armstrong. Quite put, Armstrong was not just a doper. If it were, it would not have been prohibited for life.

Instead, Armstrong was an accomplice merchant who demanded not only that his misdeeds be muffled, but that many other cyclists faithfully engage in an orchestrated and systemic doping program under a code of silence – otherwise they would be cut off from his team.

The reasoned decision -making files of the USADA according to which Armstrong “acted with the help of a small army of catalysts, including doping physicians, drug addicts and others inside and outside the sport and its team”.

What the determination of the USADA says then is more revealing: “The evidence is also clear that Armstrong had ultimate control not only on its own consumption of personal drugs, which was vast, but also on the doping culture of its team. The final responsibility for the decisions to hire and keep a director, doctors and other staff members committed to managing a doping program on the level of the team that ended up with him. “

Usada continues: “His goal led him to depend on the EPO [Erythropoietin; a natural hormone produced by the kidney that stimulates the production of red blood cells]Testosterone and blood transfusions, but also, more cruelly, expect and demand that his teammates would also consume drugs to support their objectives if not their own.

“The evidence is overwhelming that Lance Armstrong has not only consumed drugs improving performance, he provided them with his teammates … [and] He also demanded that they join the doping program described for them or that they be replaced. »»

Armstrong was not only a threatening coach exercising power over trusted, young and inexperienced athletes sensitive to subtle manipulation. If it were, the prohibited provisions of the ASSO association association would ensure that Armstrong cannot sponsor a professional cycling team.

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Armstrong was much worse. It is strong and intimidated with impunity. He demanded other people that they also had to break all the rules, lest he break their career for sights. He has exerted greater power over his athlete colleagues than team directors, coaches and doctors could by themselves.

You could forgive Armstrong for his own doping: he is not Robinson Crusoe after all. What cannot however be forgotten is the malicious intention; The resulting wickedness and the destructive consequences inflicted by him, to countless other taken in his orbit.

That you can forgive Armstrong for everything that is one thing. This is another thing, however, to face the idea that it is somehow a sponsor of the future success of anyone.

Until the AMA modifies its rules to connect the gaps, the UCI must immediately promulgate rules to prevent Armstrong from having an involvement with a professional cyclist, whether like a nail clipper or a sponsor.