Report details Lance Armstrong's 'special relationship'

In an effort to rationalize his rampant cheating, Lance Armstrong has been telling a compelling story.

He has said he did it to stay competitive because so many cyclists were doing the same.

It was a "level playing field," he said.

But a report released Sunday challenges that description and shows how the playing field wasn't level at all. Compiled by the Cycling Independent Reform Commission, the report says Armstrong had a "special relationship" with the people in charge of international cycling, unlike other riders.

And it says that Armstrong was using that relationship at times to his great advantage.

The International Cycling Union, cycling's governing body, "exempted Lance Armstrong from rules, failed to target test him despite the suspicions, and publicly supported him against allegations of doping, even as late as 2012," the report states.

It also says the presidents of cycling's governing body "actually initiated a special relationship with Lance Armstrong and failed to establish a more distant relationship, which would have been more prudent given his status as an athlete and because of the suspicions of doping that persisted," the report says. "Special consideration was allowed for Lance Armstrong and, to return the favor, Lance Armstrong was used in (the governing body's) battles against various third parties on different fronts."

The Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) was formed last year by the International Cycling Union, also known as the UCI. The three-person commission, led by Swiss politician Dick Marty, was tasked with investigating the causes and pattern of the sport's doping scandal, including the UCI's role in it.

CIRC investigators interviewed Armstrong and others to help produce a report of more than 220 pages.

Among the findings was that Armstrong's attorney, Mark Levinstein, helped write parts of a UCI-commissioned report that helped Armstrong dodge doping allegations in 2006.

In 2005, the French newspaper L'Equipe had reported that Armstrong's urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France tested positive for EPO, a hormone that helps endurance.

To investigate those claims, the UCI hired a Dutch lawyer, Emile Vrijman, who produced a report that Vrijman said exonerated Armstrong. Vrijman's report instead cast blame on the World Anti-Doping Agency and the lab that did the tests.

Armstrong then used the Vrijman report to beat back his critics and prop up the myth that he was a clean athlete who overcame cancer to win the Tour de France seven straight times through sheer hard work and will power.

But the CIRC report now shows Armstrong's team helped draft the Vrijman report. It also said Armstrong's agent, Bill Stapleton, was involved with it too, and that he even reassured former UCI President Hein Verbruggen that the report would cast blame on WADA. The "document is going after WADA as I know you (and we) want them to do and as they should," Stapleton told Verbruggen, according to the report.

"UCI, together with the Armstrong team, became directly and heavily involved in the drafting of the Vrijman report, the purpose of which was only partly to expedite the publication of the report," the CIRC report states. "The main goal was to ensure that the report reflected UCI's and Lance Armstrong's personal conclusions. The significant participation of UCI and Armstrong's team was never publicly acknowledged, and was consistently denied by Hein Verbruggen."

U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart issued a statement Sunday that said the CIRC report shows that "for more than a decade, UCI leaders treated riders and teams unequally- allowing some to be above the rules."

"A stunning example of deceit found by the CIRC is that the UCI, under the explicit direction of Hein Verbruggen and (former UCI President) Pat McQuaid, commissioned a supposedly 'independent' investigation of Armstrong's positive samples from the Tour de France." Tygart said in the statement. "According to the CIRC, the UCI then conspired to allow what was sold to the public as an 'independent' report to be re-written by Armstrong's own lawyer and sports agent in order to conceal Armstrong's doping."

In 2012, Armstrong was stripped of all seven of his Tour de France victories and banned for life after USADA compiled a massive file of doping evidence against him. Armstrong denied doping for more than a decade before finally admitting to it in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in January 2013.

He got away with it for so long in part because the UCI didn't want to target him. The sport was basking in the glow of his fame and asking him for favors.

"On numerous occasions Lance Armstrong was asked by UCI to send letters of support or gifts or to meet people suffering from cancer whom they knew," the CIRC report said. "Personal favours were also asked such as requests for Nike watches for the family members of a former UCI President. Lance Armstrong's financial assistance was also requested on several occasions, whether directly… or indirectly to assist in securing sponsors to finance cycling events or UCI itself. UCI also accepted two donations from Lance Armstrong for the fight against doping."

Armstrong's attorney, Elliot Peters, said in a statement that Armstrong "cooperated fully" with CIRC and "answered every question they asked without any restrictions, agreed to meet again if they wanted, and provided all documents requested to which he had access."

"I am grateful to CIRC for seeking the truth and allowing me to assist in that search," Armstrong said in a statement. "I am deeply sorry for many things I have done. However, it is my hope that revealing the truth will lead to a bright, dope-free future for the sport I love, and will allow all young riders emerging from small towns throughout the world in years to come to chase their dreams without having to face the lose-lose choices that so many of my friends, teammates and opponents faced. I hope that all riders who competed and doped can feel free to come forward and help the tonic of truth heal this great sport."

Follow sports writer Brent Schrotenboer on Twitter @Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com

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