USADA’s Strategy

By 2012, Lance had then been retired for quite some time, and was doing more good for society than many in his position had previously done. The Livestrong brand was raising awareness for testicular cancer, and Armstrong had been participating in marathons as well as attending other events in raising awareness for the illness. Was it not just easier to forget about him as he was no longer an athlete? Here we dissect USADA’s (United States Anti-Doping Agency) revisited case against Lance Armstrong to find that he had been making a mockery of the organisation for the better part of two decades.

A series of events sparked USADA’s report of Lance Armstrong. Without any one of the three stages, Armstrong would more than likely never have been exposed.

Stage 1 — Anger

Floyd Landis was an ashamed cyclist and previous team-mate of Lance. He tested positive for using Performance Enhancing Drugs in 2006, the same year in which he won the Tour de France. After being caught, he served a two-year ban from 2007 to 2009 and was stripped of his 06 title. When he returned to cycling, no team would sign him. Enraged by this, he sent a series of emails to the Wall Street Journal. In these emails, he admitted to taking EPO and blood transfusions in 2002 and 2003, but exposed other teammates too, claiming that Lance

Armstrong and other members of the US postal service team were also part of this doping regime. This was not the first accusation made against Armstrong, but it was a key factor in reopening a case against Armstrong.

Stage 2 — Evidence

The accusations made by Landis sparked a federal investigation. He and others teammates went on record saying that Lance Armstrong was a cheater and that had been using Performance Enhancing Drugs for the past decade. The list of charges against Armstrong included: defrauding of the government, drug trafficking, money laundering and conspiracy involving Armstrong and other top cyclists (Austen, 2012). The evidence was mounting and people were beginning to get a feeling that it was time up for Lance Armstrong.

Dramatically, somehow the Armstrong case was dropped during the Super Bowl weekend of 2012. No reason was provided for dropping the case. It made absolutely no sense. But what did make sense was dropping it during Super Bowl weekend. The Fed knew that the news of dropping the case would fade into the background of a week filled with excitement and partying, and that it did. Strategic aye!

Stage 3 — Pursuit

Although the federal investigation was dropped, Travis Tygart, the current CEO of USADA, took the case into his own hands. He can be credited for playing a major role in taking Lance down. In an extract from the Armstrong documentary ‘Stop at Nothing’, Tygart states his reasons for pursuing the case even after it had been discarded by the government. He says:

“This was not just Lance Armstrong getting away with doping for a few years, this was something by far bigger and greater than just that. They took it to an entirely different level and no other team won 7, ‘Tour de Frances’. And all the glory and all the profits and all the sponsorship that went along with that. He was the boss, the evidence is clear. He was one of the ringleaders of this conspiracy that pulled of this grand heist, using 10’s of millions of taxpayer dollars that defrauded millions of sports fans and his fellow competitors.” (Tygart, 2014)

Tygart had and still has a clear ambition to catch cheaters in sport. At the time, he successfully took down the largest organised doping operation in sports history.

Strategic Information Systems

Information Systems were more essential in devising USADA’s report. Picking off where the federal investigation left off, USADA used only information that was gathered in the past, no new evidence was needed. By compiling the blood samples, emails, financial records and testimonies of 26 people, 15 of which were cyclists, USADA could say beyond any doubt that the US postal service team was guilty of defrauding the government, forming the basis for the 1000 page document (USADA, 2012). This would certainly have been a much more difficult task, if this wealth of information systems were not available.

The Final Mistake

USADA had offered Lance, a final lifeline, the chance to come clean for a reduced sentence before the report was published, but he refused. Ultimately, a few months later on the Oprah Winfrey Show, he did indeed confess (as you should know from our previous Oprah blog!). Despite USADA having 1000 pages of evidence stacked against him, Lance did not confess. It was a bad decision not to come forward earlier, but it showed that Armstrong lived his Strategy of Deceit through to the very end.

My opinion

I certainly get the impression that Lance was too big to fail. Not many were keen on chasing down an American hero who had survived cancer. Travis Tygart was instrumental in taking down Lance Armstrong and is now seen as a strong figure at the head of USADA. Tygart has gone on to become an world renowned figure for anti-doping in sports, having played an key role in the doping scandal case against Russia.

Although I don’t think doping in sports will be stopped until more accurate testing systems are put in place, I do believe that USADA’s decision to go after Armstrong was a strategic power play. The organisation initially looked weak by not catching him throughout his career, but the sporting world is a better place for him being caught. No athlete or team is too big to fail. A brilliant strategic move from the US Anti-Doping Agency that has been rewarded by knowing that athletes should think again about taking drugs in sport.

- Patrick Nulty 27/02/20

Bibliography

Austen, I. (2012, February 3). Inquiry on Lance Armstrong Ends With No Charges. Retrieved from New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/sports/cycling/federal-prosecutors-drop-lance-armstrong-investigation.html

Tygart, T. (2014). Stop at Nothing: The Lance Armstrong Story. (Netflix, Interviewer)

USADA. (2012, October 10). Statement From USADA CEO Travis T. Tygart Regarding The U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling Team Doping Conspiracy. Retrieved from USADA: http://cyclinginvestigation.usada.org/