Armstrong admits doping - opens questions for longer sanctions for blood doping
January 18, 2013On January 18 former pro cyclist Lance Armstrong confessed he had been using performance enhancing substances during his career. The information he reveals do open up more questions when it comes to penalizing doping.
Armstrong confessed to have been using doping throughout his career in an interview with the American talk-show host Oprah Winfrey. During the interview Armstrong claims that he was not using doping in his return in 2009 and 2010, and that his last year of using doping was in 2005. How ever, USADA claims that in his comeback years, his blood profile shows evidence of blood doping. In 2009 Armstrong ended third in Tour de France. The year after he ended 23. Research has shown that muscles on athletes that have been using doping \"remembers\" how to be stronger. If Armstrong is telling the truth about not using doping in 2009 and 2010, it could mean the effect of blood doping is much longer than first thought. For the new World Anti-Doping Code, most stakeholders of WADA wants longer sanctions for doping. If the code goes through later in 2013, doping users will be suspended for four years and not two years as it is now. But if what Armstrong is saying is true, then anyone using blood doping, or any substance that enhances the bloods capacity to transport oxygen, must be suspended for more than four years, because the effect of using the prohibited substance or method is far longer than earlier believed. It seems that being suspended for eight years for blood doping or EPO-usage seems more appropriate.