The Guardian
Lance Armstrong’s former team manager has been handed a lifetime ban from cycling for his role in a doping scandal that saw Armstrong stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.
Johan Bruyneel was given a 10-year ban by the American Arbitration Association in 2014, but in a post on Twitter on Thursday, the 54-year-old said the sanction had now been increased to a lifetime ban following an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
In an open letter published on the social media site, Bruyneel said he had received an email from the court of arbitration for sports in Lausanne, Switzerland, informing him of the extended ban.
“The World Anti Doping Agency had appealed against the original 10-year ban and instead demanded I be banned for life. Their request has been granted by CAS and I am now banned for life from cycling,” he said in the post.
Bruyneel, who worked with Armstrong at the US Postal Service and Discovery Channel teams, was implicated in the doping scandal uncovered by the United States Anti-Doping Agency and described as “the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme sport has ever seen”.
The Belgian accepted “there’s effectively nothing I can do against this sanction”, adding: “at 54 years of age, a 10-year ban or a lifetime ban is practically the same”.
But he went on to say he wanted to “highlight a few key elements in this long process”, and argued the American agency Usada “had no jurisdiction” over him as a “Belgian citizen living in Spain”.
“I want to stress that I acknowledge and fully accept that a lot of mistakes have been made in the past.”