The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Thursday said it had formally begun an investigation into whether to strip shamed US cyclist Lance Armstrong of the time-trial bronze medal he won at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
“The IOC will now immediately start the process concerning the involvement of Lance Armstrong, other riders and particularly their entourages with respect to the Olympic Games and their future involvement with the Games,” it said in a statement.
The body, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, said it welcomed the decision by world cycling’s governing body to confirm a US Anti-Doping Agency dossier that said the US rider was at the heart of the biggest doping programme in sports history.
Armstrong had his career record dating back to August 1, 1998 wiped, including his seven consecutive Tour de France wins between 1999 and 2005, and was banned for life for doping.
The IOC said it welcomed “all measures that will shed light on the full extent of this episode and allow the sport to reform and to move forward”.
Armstrong won bronze in the individual time trial in Sydney behind gold medallist Vyacheslav Ekimov of Russia and Germany’s Jan Ullrich, who took silver.
The world anti-doping code has a maximum eight-year delay to put forward evidence of drug misuse but the USADA exceeded that given the extent of the programme used by Armstrong and his entourage.
Tyler Hamilton, one of the 11 former team-mates who testified against Armstrong, handed back the time-trial gold medal that he won at the 2004 Athens Olympics in early 2011, after he confessed to doping.
The IOC corrected the podium before the time limit expired, handing the gold to Ekimov.
IOC mulls Armstrong bronze
