WASHINGTON: The head of the US anti-doping body called yesterday for a truth commission to uncover drug cheats in cycling, saying that punishing Lance Armstrong is not nearly enough to restore its credibility.
“It is essential that an independent and meaningful Truth and Reconciliation Commission be established so that the sport can fully unshackle itself from the past,” USADA chairman Travis Tygart said in a statement.
It came after the International Cycling Union backed a US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) decision to erase the rider’s entire career after August 1998. UCI president Pat McQuaid called the scandal “the biggest crisis” the sport had ever faced.
The UCI said it would strip Armstrong of virtually every result he had achieved.
The month the US body released a devastating dossier on Armstrong, detailing over 202 pages and with more than 1,000 pages of supporting testimony how he was at the heart of the biggest doping programme in the history of sport.
In his statement yesterday, Tygart said acting against Armstrong is not enough.
“There are many more details of doping that are hidden, many more doping doctors, and corrupt team directors and the omerta has not yet been fully broken,” he said.
Tygart said punishing Armstrong and riders who came forward to talk about his doping activities cannot be seen as “penance for an era of pervasive doping.”
“There must be more action to combat the system that took over the sport,” Tygart said. AFP
