Baltimore Man Who Raced Against Armstrong Says He Feels Cheated
BALTIMORE (WJZ)—Punishment for Lance Armstrong. He's now stripped of his Tour de France titles. The doping scandal has the cycling community abuzz and former competitors angry.
Adam May spoke to a Baltimore man who raced against Armstrong.
Lance Armstrong is erased from the record books. The one-time greatest is now banned from the sport forever.
"UCI will ban Lance Armstrong from cycling and UCI will strip him of his seven Tour de France titles," said Pat McQuaid, president of International Cycling Union.
The decision backs up a ruling from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which accuses Armstrong of being involved in the most sophisticated and successful doping cover-ups the sport has ever seen. Investigators say Armstrong used performance enhancing drugs and dodged detection with blood transfusions.
Kris Auer says it makes him feel cheated.
Auer has competed against Armstrong. He now owns the Twenty20 Cycling shop in Hampden.
"Lance off drugs was an amazing athlete, better than most, but to be the best in the world he took a different path," Auer said.
Armstrong denies ever doping, arguing he passed hundreds of drug tests. He joined 4,000 cyclists over the weekend in Texas for a ride to fight cancer.
"People ask me a lot, and I tell 'em, 'I've been better and I've also been worse,'" Armstrong said.
But Auer says most other cyclists always had suspicions, and fans were conned.
"It was an underdog story, a success story, everything Americans love, and in the end it turned out to be built on a lie," Auer said.
Former teammates testified against Armstrong. They claimed Armstrong also pressured them to take banned drugs.
The International Olympic Committee is also deciding if Armstrong will be stripped of the bronze medal he won in 2000.
