23 October,2012 07:37 AM IST | | AFP
Lance Armstrong's best finish on the Tour de France will now go down as 36th place after he was stripped of all results since 1998 following a "landmark" decision by world cycling chiefs yesterday.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) backed a US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) decision to erase the rider's entire career after August 1998, as president Pat McQuaid called the scandal "the biggest crisis" the sport had ever faced.
Lance Armstrong. PIC/AFP
In a statement confirming its intention to "recognise and implement the reasoned decision of USADA", the UCI said Armstrong would be stripped of virtually every result he had achieved.
"The UCI will disqualify all competitive results achieved by Mr Armstrong from August 1, 1998 thereon..." the UCI said in a statement.
"We will not appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and we will recognise the sanction that USADA has imposed."
Earlier this month the US body released a devastating dossier on Armstrong, detailing over 202 pages and with more than 1,000 pages of supportingu00a0testimony how he was at the heart of the biggest doping programme in the history of sport.
Armstrong finished 36th overall in the world's biggest bike race in 1995 but was diagnosed with cancer the following year. He began his seven-year reign over the race in 1999, a year after he had been given the all-clear to compete again by doctors.
