Lance Armstrong has already been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and on Wednesday the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency published 200 pages of evidence that includes testimony from eleven of his former teammates, but the IOC says it will wait to take action against the Sydney bronze medalist until it can review the case in-house.
“It would be premature at this stage to say whether the IOC is contemplating any action,” an IOC official told Reuters. “Should we come across any evidence that would justify opening a disciplinary procedure we would, of course, act accordingly.”
To be fair, Armstrong has never tested positive for anything worse than a Flintstone’s chewable, but the USADA claims in its report that he was part of the “most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen”; strangely high praise from an organization bent on taking down such programs.
The IOC likely won’t strip Armstrong of his time trial bronze from 2000 because of an eight-year statute of limitations on changing event results, but it will be interesting to see if they publicly admonish the famous rider should their own investigation turn up any supporting evidence.
