Lance Armstrong has been officially stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life by cycling's governing body Monday after a report was released by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that accused him of leading a massive doping program on his teams.
Pat McQuaid, the president of the UCI, the International Cycling Union, announced at a press conference in Geneva on Monday that the governing body has accepted the verdict of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which concluded last week that Armstrong and his US Postal and Discovery Channel teams had colluded in what it called "the biggest doping conspiracy in the history of sport".
"Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling," McQuaid declared. "He deserves to be forgotten."
The UCI will not be taking an appeal against USADA's 1,000-page "reasoned decision" to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, with McQuaid making it clear that he would now like to erase the former seven-times champion from cycling's history.
Now some donors who donated to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, also known as Livestrong, want their money back. Connie and Daniel Roddy of Santa Monica have given in excess of $100,000 over the years to the cancer-fighting charity founded by Armstrong. They want it back.
"It all started when Lance's first book came out," Connie Roddy told CNN, referring to the 2001 publication of "It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life," which details Armstrong's bout with testicular cancer. "I read it cover to cover. I was just so taken by who he said he was."
Also as a result of the agency finding, Armstrong is losing sponsorships by Nike, Anheuser-Busch and now Oakley.
Throughout all the allegations, Armstrong has steadfastly maintained his innocence.
