Any hopes of Lance Armstrong seeing his lifetime ban reduced by the Cycling Independent Reform Commission have been dashed according to a report by David Walsh in the Sunday Times.
Lance Armstrong Will Get Back on His Bike for Charity
Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles following the 2012 United States Anti-Doping Agency decision. The 43-year-old repeatedly argued that his lifetime ban was too harsh considering his former teammates only landed a six-month ban.
"It was an initiative by him [lawyer Bill Bock] and them [the USADA]," Armstrong said in an exclusive interview with Cycling News in 2013. "It was certainly a big story and set legal precedent for them. I wish Bock, who said they offered me the same deal as everyone else, I wish that was true."
"I wish Bock called me and said, 'You're not going to get suspended and this is what we're going to talk about.' I wish," he added. "Maybe I still would have told him to screw off, but what I'm telling you is that it wasn't presented to me—no suspension, we want to talk about this, clean up the sport and effect change. We want a comprehensive effort to clean up cycling."
"I wish that would have happened, but it didn't."
The Sunday Times (via Cycling News), however, reports that Armstrong never did enough to have his ban reduced. The USADA will have the last word on any ban and claims the cyclist gave up on any chance of a reduction by failing to cooperate during their investigation.
"Despite Mr. Armstrong publicly claiming he wants to help, privately since June 2012, he has repeatedly rejected the opportunity to do so and has shut the door on his chance," the USADA said in a statement. "Much of the information we understand that Mr. Armstrong could have provided is of little, if any, value now, as it has already been uncovered through other avenues or soon will be."
The CIRC presented its report to the Union Cycliste Internationale in Switzerland on Friday.
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