Now No One Won the Tour De France Between 1999 and 2005
Here's a nifty piece of trivia to dazzle your friends at your next cocktail party: the Union Cycliste Internationale decided today that the guys who came in second (who are they?) to Lance Armstrong during his seven Tour wins will remain the first losers, as the UCI ruled it won't be moving anyone up or down even though they stripped Armstrong of the wins. The UCI was meeting in Aigle, Switzerland today to discuss, in particular, the fallout and repercussions of the Armstrong non-victories. "[T]he Management Committee decided not to award victories to any other rider or upgrade other placings in any of the affected events," UCI said in a statement picked up by The Wall Street Journal. And they've also decided, according to the BBC, to start an investigation and make Lance Armstrong and his teammates pay back the $3.8 million or so that he and his teammates shared. Joseba Beloki, we totally feel your pain.
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Writing for Cycle Sport magazine back in July, Edward Pickering basically mapped out why and how Armstrong's fall from cycling grace would unfold, including the headaches it would create if he was stripped of his titles:
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He’s retired from cycling, so it won’t make much difference, and there are many previous Tour winners whose disqualification wouldn’t make much difference anyway, because the guy in second was also doped to the gills. Stripping Armstrong of his Tour wins merely leads to the parlour game of finding the first clean rider behind him.
