Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong has been ordered to pay nearly $13 million for lying about drug use.
WORLD cycling’s governing body came under “significant political pressure” to break the rules to allow Lance Armstrong to make his comeback at the 2009 Tour Down Under.
A damning independent report into cycling’s sordid past released on Monday claims Armstrong was paid US$1 million each year from 2009 to 2011 to ride in three TDUs.
Although $1 million to $3 million has long been speculated, the State Government has refused to reveal the exact amount and the report is the first time a figure has officially been documented.
But Armstrong was only allowed to ride the 2009 event after the Union Cycliste Internationale agreed to bend the rules on the mandatory six-month period a cyclist must be in a registered drug-testing pool, because Armstrong would have fallen 13 days short.
The Cycling Independent Reform Commission report refers to “significant political pressure the UCI President was under — mainly from Australia — which had planned a big event involving high-level politicians around Lance Armstrong’s participation in the Tour Down Under”.
SA Sports Minister Leon Bignell told The Advertiser the Government made clear its desire to have Armstrong participate in the 2009 TDU, but that it did not constitute political pressure.
“We were keen to get him down here, is that political pressure? No, of course it’s not,” Mr Bignell said.
“It’s just an enthusiasm to get the greatest-ever cyclist, as he was at that time, to feature in our race.”
Press conference announcing the new cancer research centre to be built in Adelaide to be named the “Livestrong” centre. Lance Armstrong and politician Premier Mike Rann.
The report reveals that discussions between TDU organisers and Armstrong began in January, 2008.
On September 16, 2008, it is claimed that TDU race director Mike Turtur asked the UCI whether the mandatory six-month drug testing requirement would pose an issue for Armstrong’s participation in the race.
Just over a week later, SA Premier Mike Rann officially announced that Armstrong would headline the 2009 TDU.
But according to the CIRC report, UCI president Pat McQuaid only announced he would break the rules to allow Armstrong to return to competition early on October 8 — two days after Armstrong told him that he intended to race the Tour of Ireland, which is run by people known to McQuaid.
The report cites an interview with former UCI anti-doping manager Anne Gripper, who claims the justification for McQuaid’s decision was that Rann and Turtur had publicly announced Armstrong would ride in Adelaide.
Mr Turtur declined to comment and Events SA general manager Hitaf Rasheed referred questions to Mr Bignell’s department.
“Lance Armstrong put UCI in a difficult situation by publicising his participation in the Tour Down Under after having been informed that he was not eligible to participate,” the report says.
“As a result, the UCI was in the position that whichever decision it took, it would have been criticised by either the Tour Down Under organisers, the South Australian government, the public in Australia and Lance Armstrong for being too strict or by WADA and the media for amending their rules to favour Lance Armstrong.”
There is also uncertainty as to where the estimated $3 million appearance money went.
The CIRC believes it was to be paid to Armstrong’s cancer charity, Livestrong, but Bignell said he understood the money was paid directly to Armstrong himself.
The State Government wrote to Armstrong after his cheating was exposed in October 2012, asking that he repay the money but never got a reply. It sought legal advice but was told it did not have grounds to sue the Texan.
Bignell said the $1 million figure was “not too far from the money” and that Armstrong delivered “way and above anything we could have expected”.
“It’s all very well for people to look back now and go ‘he’s a dirty, rotten drug cheat’, but at that stage he was a seven-time Tour de France winner and had US presidents and everyone else around the world falling all over him,” Mr Bignell said.
“We went after the biggest name, we compared him to Don Bradman and Muhammad Ali in our promotional material because that’s what he was at that stage.
“We now know he was a drug cheat, but we didn’t know that at the time, and neither did the UCI, who cleared him to race.
“He delivered. Not just a little bit of an increase in the TV coverage or economic benefits to the state, it was massive.
Lance Armstrong riding in 2009 during the second stage of Tour Down Under in Adelaide.
“South Australian taxpayers need to know that the investment that was made was a lot smaller than what some people have predicted in the past and the return on that investment was so huge that we could never go and ask for that money back.”
Opposition treasury spokesman Rob Lucas said he had no problem with the TDU but demanded the government reveal the full cost of bringing Armstrong to Adelaide.
“There is no excuse now for Weatherill and Bignell to say ‘We can’t give the total cost,” Mr Lucas told The Advertiser.
“It’s not just payments made to Armstrong, it’s also the costs of bringing out the entourage to Australia.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that for the period that Armstrong was here, that attracted significant attention.
“There was a state benefit at the time. We have no argument against the Tour Down Under.”
The CIRC report was commissioned by the UCI last year in the wake of the Armstrong saga to investigate doping in the sport and allegations of corruption.
It made several recommendations including that law-enforcement agencies and anti-doping bodies share information to clean up the sport.
Armstrong and the TDU
HOW HE WAS WOOED
The report claims that discussions between TDU organisers and Armstrong started in January, 2008.
Former premier Mike Rann announced in September that Armstrong would stage his comeback at the 2009 Tour Down Under, making it the greatest sporting event in the state’s history.
Race director Mike Turtur said Armstrong was impressed by plans for the new Royal Adelaide Hospital and the state’s commitment to cancer research and treatment.
LANCE’S STORY
Accusations of drug cheating had long followed Armstrong since he took the Tour de France by storm with the first of seven straight victories in 1999.
But he repeatedly denied doping allegations.
After retiring from cycling in 2005, Armstrong announced he was making a comeback in 2008 and arrived in Adelaide in January, 2009, for the Tour Down Under with Team Astana as a legendary cancer survivor and seven-time Tour winner.
He finished the 2009 Tour de France in third place behind teammate Alberto Contador and returned to the Tour Down Under in 2010 and 2011.
In October, 2012, the US Anti-Doping Agency published its “reasoned decision” document outlining evidence of Armstrong’s drug cheating throughout his career. He was later banned for life.
In January, 2013 Armstrong appeared in a TV interview with US talk show host Oprah Winfrey, where he admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France seven times.
TAKING ADELAIDE BY STORM
Armstrong’s participation in the 2009 event saw visitor numbers double and its economic impact rose from $17.3 million to $39 million.
The 2009 and 2010 races were each named Australia’s best major event in the Qantas Tourism Awards. The 2011 Tour Down Under attracted crowds of more than 782,000.
COUNTING THE COST
The State Government has repeatedly refused to reveal how much it paid to lure Lance Armstrong to Adelaide for the Tour Down Under between 2009-2011.
Figures ranging from $1 million to $3 million a year have been speculated, but the UCI-commissioned report is the first time a figure has been published.
There is uncertainty as to where the money went. The CIRC believes it was to be paid to Armstrong’s Livestrong cancer charity, but Sports Minister Leon Bignell understands it was paid to Armstrong himself.
Bignell said the $1 million figure was close, but he rejected calls to release the actual figure, saying the money had already been spent and the government was focused on the growth of the event.
WHERE TO NOW
Bignell says the state has no legal claim to recover the money, which was an appearance fee rather than race winnings.
As for the sport, the CIRC report is another step forward in a long and gradual process to clean up the sport and restore cycling’s broken image.
The report contained several claims that a culture of doping still exists in professional cycling, but attitudes had started to change.
How it unfolded
TIMELINE OF EVENTS ACCORDING TO CIRC REPORT:
January, 2008: Tour Down Under organisers start discussions with Lance Armstrong about the possibility of him attending the 2009 race as a special guest.
August 4, 2008: USADA officially informs Armstrong he has been added to the Registered Testing Pool (RTP) from August 1, 2008, and would be ineligible to race until February 1, 2009.
September 16, 2008: TDU race director Mike Turtur informs the UCI of reports that Armstrong intended to race the event from January 20-25, 2009, and asked would there be an issue with Armstrong’s participation given the six-month RTP requirement.
September, 2008: At the end of the month, internal discussions took place at the UCI as to whether an exception should be made to enable Armstrong to race the 2009 TDU. The UCI administration recommended that the rule be strictly adhered to.
October 2, 2008: UCI president Pat McQuaid informs Armstrong’s team that Armstrong could not ride in the 2009 TDU.
October 6, 2008: That morning McQuaid advises his senior team that he had decided that Armstrong could in fact ride the 2009 TDU, in what some sources claim was an “abrupt change of mind”.
October 6, 2008: Armstrong informs Irish-born McQuaid that he had decided to participate in the Tour of Ireland for the first time since 1992. McQuaid advised his brother, Darach McQuaid, who was the project director of the Tour of Ireland, that Armstrong wanted to come to Ireland.
October 6, 2008: Late in the day, Armstrong sends a letter to McQuaid asking him to consider an exemption to allow him to ride the TDU.
October 8, 2008: McQuaid officially informs TDU organisers and Armstrong that Armstrong was allowed to participate in the 2009 race.
October 8, 2008: UCI releases a statement titled “Lance Armstrong to start the 2009 Tour Down Under”.
January, 2009: UCI has difficulty organising a sample collection for Armstrong because of inconsistent information regarding his whereabouts.
January 29-30, 2009: Minutes of the UCI management committee meeting states Turtur declaring the TDU a success because of media attention and crowd numbers.
Lance Armstrong Tour Down Under: Political pressure for Union Cycliste Internationale to break rules
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